Val McDermid - Crack Down

I managed to get my lungs working again. ‘Not for a couple of days, I don’t think. I spoke to him on the phone last night, after you’d gone to sleep. He said he misses you too and he’ll get back as soon as he can get a plane. I’m sorry, I know I’m not a lot of fun.’ I hugged him. Surprisingly, he didn’t pull a face and draw away. He hugged back. ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I’m having great fun. I just wish he was here too.’

You and me both, pal, I thought but didn’t say.

I broke my personal land speed record getting out the door that morning. Dressed in under five minutes, second cup of coffee down the neck in less than a minute, breakfast one of the Pop Tarts I’d bought for Davy. It tasted like sugar-coated polystyrene, but at least it raised the blood sugar level. By the time I parked on the single yellow line round the corner from the office, I was almost functioning.

I hustled Davy up the stairs and into my office, checking the clock as I walked through the door. Seventeen minutes till deadline. Shelley was already at her desk, earphones in, fingers flying over the keyboard. I strode past her with a little wave, shooing Davy into my office. I switched on my PC, showed him the games directory and made him promise not to interfere with any of the other files on the machine. He dumped his backpack by the desk and was absorbed in Lemmings 2 before I’d had time to walk back out. I closed my office door behind me and perched on Shelley’s desk, nailing what I hoped was a pathetic and appealing smile on my face.

‘No, Kate.’ She hadn’t even looked up from her screen. ‘I am not a child-minder and this is an office, not a crèche.’

‘I know it’s not a crèche. A crèche is what happens when two BMWs collide in Sloane Street.’

‘Not funny,’ she retorted, not pausing long enough to let her sense of humour kick in.

‘Please, Shelley. He’ll be no trouble. Just for this morning. Just till I can get back from court. I promise I’ll sort something else out for tomorrow.’

‘There’s no such thing as an eight-year-old boy who’s no trouble. I’m a mother, don’t forget. I’ve told the same lies you’re telling now.’

‘Shelley, please? I have a meeting with the Drugs Squad in ten minutes. Richard’s freedom depends on it. I don’t think they’re going to be mega-impressed if I turn up with Davy in tow.’ I was practically begging. I’d done so much of it lately it was beginning to become second nature. Another bad habit to lay at Richard’s door. What’s worse is that it doesn’t work.

I got up from the desk and went into Bill’s office, where I helped myself to his portable TV, a gift from a grateful client who had Mortensen and Brannigan to thank for the ending of his little software piracy problem. I marched through the outer office, wrestled with the door handle and staggered into my office, where I put it down on one of my cupboards. ‘There’s the TV, in case you get fed up with the computer,’ I said to Davy. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think he even looked up.

I stalked back into the office and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. ‘Look at that. You’re telling me that’s more than you can cope with? God, Shelley, am I disappointed in you.’

When all else fails, go for the ego. The only trouble is, sometimes the ego bites back. Shelley smiled like Jaws and said sweetly, ‘Just this once, Kate. And by the way, Andrew Broderick’s been on again. He says if he doesn’t get his car back soon he’s going to have to come to some arrangement about reducing our fee.’

There’s nothing like keeping the customer satisfied. I checked the fax machine on the way out, but nothing had arrived from Julia. I hoped that didn’t mean it was going to be one of those days. Not when the next item on the agenda was a close encounter with the Drugs Squad.

Q: What’s the difference between a schneid watch and a policeman? A: Schneid watches keep good time. By the time DCI Geoff Turnbull deigned to fit me into his busy schedule, I’d worn a furrow in the floor tiles of the front office. I was getting more wound up than an eight-day clock.

When he finally appeared, it took all my self-control not to bite his head off. Instead, I smiled sweetly and meekly followed him through the pass door into the real world of the city centre nick. We stopped outside a door that said DRUGS SQUAD — PRIVATE. I thought at first that was a joke, till I saw Turnbull pull out a key to unlock the door. He noticed me noticing and said, ‘You can’t be too careful, the stuff we have in here. These days, we’ve got more civilian support staff than we have coppers, and some of them have got more loyalty to their bank balances than they have to The Job.’

How to win friends and influence people, I thought as I smiled what I hoped would pass for agreement and approval. I followed him into an overcrowded office, crammed with desks, VDUs, bulging files, and not an officer in sight. The walls were lavishly adorned with colour photographs of villains. By the look of the pics, most of them were snatched, like mine. If anything, mine were sharper. Maybe Turnbull would be so impressed with my work that he’d offer me a job as a police photographer.

Turnbull’s personal office was partitioned off in one corner. He’d managed to bag the only window, not much of a deal since it looked out on a brick wall all of five feet away. He squeezed his rugby player’s frame behind the loaded desk and gave me the hard stare with small sharp blue eyes. He couldn’t have looked less like my idea of a Drugs Squad officer. I’d expected an emaciated hippy lookalike with a distressed leather jacket and a pair of jeans. Either that or a flash bastard dripping with personal jewellery who could pass for a major dealer. But Turnbull looked like the only drug you’d suspect him of using was anabolic steroids. He lived up to his name: short curly hair with a forelock like a Charolais, the no-neck and shoulders to match, with the gut of a man whose stomach muscles have given up the unequal struggle with Boddingtons Bitter. I put him in his late thirties, well along the road to the coronary unit.

He rubbed a beefy hand over his jaw, massaging plump flesh. ‘So, you’re Miss Kate Brannigan,’ he said consideringly. He managed to make the ‘Miss’ sound like an obscenity. ‘Not much of you, is there?’

I shrugged. ‘Enough to do the job. I don’t get many complaints.’

He leered automatically. ‘I bet you don’t.’

I raised my eyebrows and gave him the bored look. ‘DCI Prentice told me you were the person to talk to. I’ve got some information for you on one of your cases. Richard Barclay?’

‘Oh aye,’ he said, his Yorkshire accent deliberately exaggerated. ‘The boyfriend.’ He picked up his phone and dialled an internal number. ‘Tommo? Any time you like.’ He replaced the receiver and shook his head. ‘I suppose you expect me to believe your fella’s been fitted up? Well, you’re in for a disappointment. It wasn’t Drugs Squad officers that picked him up, it was Traffic, and even if they wanted to plant drugs on him, they wouldn’t have access to anything like those amounts. So you’re barking up the wrong tree there.’

‘I don’t think he’s been fitted up,’ I said patiently. ‘But the drugs in the car were nothing to do with Richard, and the sooner you realize that, the lower the compo’s going to be for the wrongful arrest.’

Turnbull guffawed. ‘Was that a threat creeping out of the woodwork? By heck, Miss Brannigan, you like living dangerously.’

Before I could reply, a doorbell sounded. Turnbull leaned back and pressed a button on the wall behind him. I heard the door of the main room open behind me. I resisted the temptation to turn around and see who owned the heavy feet crossing the floor towards me.