James Nally - Dance With the Dead - A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

‘I know nearly every senior cop in London, Donal. If I get bagged, I just have to make a phone call.’

‘It’s not you I’m worried about. You could barely walk you were so hammered.’

‘I probably still am. Now, do you want a lift or not?’

‘Can we try out those airbags?’

‘They’re for when you crash, you bollocks. They pop out on impact.’

‘Oh, right,’ I smiled, gratified by his low aggravation threshold these days, ‘they should have put some on the front as well.’

‘What?’ he growled.

‘You know, so next time you’re driving around, pissed out of your mind, you don’t pulverise some poor fucker.’

We set off in silence along Drayton Park, turning right onto Gillespie Road. Everything I saw reinforced the absurdity of a vice hotspot nestling in this white, middle-class quarter of London.

Even on a Saturday morning, city types thrusted towards Arsenal tube station, all dreaming of that property upgrade to nearby Islington – two miles up the hill, two hundred grand up the housing ladder.

Along Gillespie Road, slim ‘yummy mummies’ yanked precocious blonde toddlers out of vast 50 grand jeeps.

Even ropey old Blackstock Road, with its tumbledown newsagents, plastic-appointed greasy spoons and sketchy boozers seemed a world away from crack houses, pimps ’n’ hoes .

We turned right into Brownswood Road and a scatter of Rover Metro Panda cars. Through twitching blue crime-scene tape, a sprightly forensic tent glared fiercely white, sucking all the pale sunshine out of the sky.

‘Oh dear,’ said Fintan, ‘The guts gazebo. It must be bad.’

Beyond the marquee of misery and more fluttering tape, tired parents dragged their nosy kids away, incapable of even beginning to explain what had probably gone on here.

‘All part of their London education,’ quipped Fintan.

‘I couldn’t imagine bringing up kids in a big city,’ I said, ‘So much madness to explain. Mam and Da never had to warn us about paedophiles or nutcases.’

‘No, they sent us to be educated by them instead.’

‘How is Da?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I keep having these weird dreams about him. I don’t know. I’m starting to wonder if something’s wrong.’

‘You need to lay off the sauce for a while, Donal. He sounds his usual self to me. Come on,’ he said, opening the driver’s door, ‘it’s bad manners to keep a lady waiting.’

We walked towards the crime scene ghouls gathered at the tape. The streets around us groaned with elegant three-storey Victorian homes peering out over tree-lined pavements. You’d expect to score nothing more toxic here than a slice of Victoria Sponge.

‘I can understand why there’s a red-light district in King’s Cross,’ I said, ‘It’s busy and it’s a dump. But this looks like a nice, local neighbourhood. The roads don’t go anywhere! They’re all cul-de-sacs. How does a vice trade flourish here?’

‘The council put up metal gates at the end of these roads a few years back. They figured that forcing punters to perform a series of tricky three-point turns would put them off. But the punters still come here because the girls never left.’

‘Because crack is easy to source locally.’

‘I’m told it’s a “one hit and you’re hooked” kind of drug. A pimp finds a vulnerable girl, gives it to her for nothing for a few weeks. Then, when she’s addicted, tells her he’s been keeping score and she owes him two grand. They take her out to “work”, beat the shit out of her if she resists or tries to escape. Most of the girls don’t bother. They can’t run away from the crack.’

‘Where do they, you know, do the business?’

‘They get the punters to drive them round the back of Texas Home Base up Green Lanes, get this, because it doesn’t have CCTV. They don’t give a shit about their own safety, just getting the next hit. If they emerge unscathed with their £15, they get the punter to drop them off at one of the local crack houses. A 500-milligram rock, funnily enough, costs £15 and lasts between 30 and 50 minutes. An hour later they’re rattling and desperate to avoid the comedown. And the shits. Until you score again, you’ve no control over your bowels. It’s a grim scene.’

‘A grim scene about which you seem remarkably knowledgeable …’

He snorted glumly.

‘Last year I got a tip that the wife of some hotshot city broker was hooked and working out of one of those DSS hostels opposite Finsbury Park. The source is a good one so I checked it out. I didn’t find her but I came across lawyers, plumbers, bankers, cops, all sorts, popping in and out of these crack houses. Some of the wealthier guys would spend four or five thousand on two-day benders, smoking their rocks and doing all sorts of sick shit to the girls. Take crack and you lose all control. Honestly, it makes Scarface look like The Muppet Show . If they really want to educate kids about drugs, they should take them to a crack house. No water, heating, toilets, food, furniture. Just blood-stained sofas and sheets nailed over the windows.

‘Anyway, you better get inside that tent before the circus leaves town.’

I weighed up the crime-scene tape and elected to take the manly route over the top. After all, this was my crime scene now.

I lofted my left leg towards the tape just as a WPC approached.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ she demanded.

Her scent made something cartwheel inside my chest, knocking me off my stride, quite literally. I realised now that the tape was higher than I’d thought and struggled to get my left foot over the top.

‘DC Lynch,’ I warbled, my standing right foot now buckling under the strain, so that my upper body jerked about violently, like some sort of sick Ian Curtis tribute. ‘From the Cold Case Unit,’ I somehow managed to add between lurches as my prodding left foot failed to locate terra firma crime side of the tape.

‘That looks a little awkward,’ she said, her worried eyes moving down to the piano wire-taut tape just as it flicked up into my crotch, ‘and a little uncomfortable.’

‘It’s fine,’ I gasped, yanking the tape down with my right hand and springing off my right foot onto my left.

One leg over.

‘Perfectly fine,’ I panted, leaning forward now to swing my right leg over the tape behind me. But no matter how far forward I lurched, my right foot refused to clear this damned tape which, at the very second she looked down at it again, sprang back up into my balls.

‘Really, it’s no trouble,’ she giggled, mercifully lowering my polythene nemesis.

Desperate to get my right leg finally over, I swung too fast. I felt my left leg buckle and my arms flap like a penguin in an oil slick. Too late. As I slumped helplessly onto my back, I saw only sky and a pretty face etched with alarm.

‘Smooth,’ cackled Fintan with undisguised glee, my humiliation complete.

‘Who’s in charge?’ I babbled, springing up instantly, as if the whole thing had been a pre-planned manoeuvre.

‘DS Spence,’ she managed to squeak through suppressed laughter.

She clamped her hand over her mouth and nodded towards a wiry little man strutting about in a tight mac.

‘The one with the short legs,’ she wheezed, about to burst.

‘Does he bite?’

‘Sometimes,’ she chirped through her muffling hand, ‘but I’m sure you’ll get over it.’

Laughter exploded from so deep within her that she had to bend over to cope.

‘Sorry,’ she said finally, hauling herself back upright and sleeving her wet eyes.

Her expression had changed but the tears kept coming.

‘It’s just been such a horrible morning. I really needed that. Sorry if … no offence.’