Bad Boy (15 page)

“But you aren’t going to ring him?”

“I’m not sure it’s that kind of emergency yet. It’s my gut feeling that if I can get Tracy out of all this before he gets back and finds out about it, the better all around.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Walk softly and carry a big stick. Keep under the radar. Even though we’re only doing our jobs. You’re not tarnished by the firearms business, so you’re still in something of a privileged position.”

“So keep my head down and my eyes and ears open?”

“That’s about it. Once this business gets into top gear, they’ll probably be scrutinizing me as closely as a bug under a microscope. Soon I won’t be able to go to the toilet without filling in a form. First off, if you could find a way to uncover as much as you can about this Jaff, it would be a great help. You might start with Rose Preston in Headingley. She doesn’t know a lot, but I’m convinced she knows more than she was telling me.”

“I take it you’ve got their addresses?”

Annie gave her them. “As for Jaff, I’m afraid I don’t have anything
except
the address right now. And I don’t think there’s much point in going there again. His first name’s Jaffar, by the way. And the name next to his bell says ‘J. McCready.’ We’ll need to know a lot more than that.”

“I can always use my natural charm.”

Annie smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.” Annie wagged her finger at Winsome. “But absolutely no drop-kicking.”

“It wasn’t a dropkick!”

“
I DON’T
understand,” said Tracy, holding up the gun by its long barrel. “I thought Erin had taken your gun.”

“Put that away.” Jaff took the gun from her and put it back in the hold-all. “She did,” he said, sitting down at the breakfast table and placing the sheet of paper facedown beside him. “This is a different one. Another one. I got it from Vic. Those eggs will be like rubber if you don’t get a move on. I like my eggs runny.”

As if she were in a trance, Tracy served up the bacon and eggs and poured two mugs of coffee. “But why do you need another gun?” she asked.

“Ta. Dunno. Protection. I just feel safer that way.”

Tracy regarded him through narrowed eyes. She had felt scared at first, seeing him standing there in the doorway, knowing how unpredictable he was becoming, but somehow now he seemed just like a little boy, naked from the waist up, tucking into his bacon and eggs—because clearly no matter what Tracy felt, it wasn’t going to stop him from eating his breakfast, or from doing exactly what he wanted. Tracy wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was too full of butterflies, so she just munched on a slice of dry toast and sipped black coffee. She had expected an explosion of rage when he caught her going through his hold-all, maybe even Jaff hitting her or something, but nothing had happened except this. Definitely an anticlimax.

“Have you ever used it?” she asked.

“Of course. Not this one, but one like it. You have to get the feel of it.”

“To shoot someone?”

“Don’t be silly. Just out in a field, like, tin cans. Target practice.”

“I don’t like guns.”

“You don’t have to. Nobody in their right mind does, but sometimes they’re useful.”

“For what?”

“I told you. Protection.”

“From whom?”

“It’s better you don’t know.”

“The person that stuff belongs to?” Tracy gestured toward the hold-all. “The heroin or coke or whatever it is? Did you steal it?”

“It’s coke,” said Jaff. He paused with a forkful of bacon and egg halfway to his mouth, the yolk dripping, wiggled his eyebrows and looked her in the eye. “Wanna try some?”

Tracy couldn’t help but laugh. “Not right now, thank you very much. I’m serious, Jaff.” She had tried coke a few times, first at university to stay awake during her exams, then later at clubs and bars. She liked it well enough, and it usually made her randy, but it soon wore off and left her feeling shitty for hours. She certainly didn’t want to feel randy again right now, and she was feeling shitty enough already.

“Look, I told you before,” Jaff went on. “You’ve no idea what’s going on. You’ve—”

“Do you think I’m stupid, Jaff? Is that what you really think? The only reason I don’t know what’s going on is that you won’t tell me. I’ve asked you. But you won’t. If we’re going to keep on being in this together I need to know more. You’d be surprised. Perhaps I can help. Just how deep are you into all this?”

“All what?”

“You know what I’m talking about. The drugs. The money. The guns. What are you? Some kind of wannabe gangster? A gun-running coke dealer? Like you just walked out of a Guy Ritchie movie or something? A rock n’rolla? Is that it?”

“I don’t—”

“Because I’m not stupid, Jaff. Maybe all I know is that I’m on the run from the police in my dad’s house with a lad I hardly know, who just happens to have a few kilos of cocaine, several thousand quid and a loaded gun—I assume it
is
loaded?—in his hold-all. It certainly
sounds
like a movie to me.”

Jaff smiled at her. It was supposed to be his charming aren’t-I-a-naughty-little-boy-but-you-can’t-help-but-love-me-anyway-can-you? smile, but it didn’t work this time. “I suppose you think I owe you an explanation?”

“Well, yeah. That would do for a start.”

“Look, I didn’t ask you to come with me, did I? It wasn’t my—”

“Don’t give me that load of bollocks, Jaff. You know damn well
that if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be sitting here at my dad’s breakfast table, eating bloody bacon and eggs.”

“You’re beginning to sound a bit like a fishwife, you know,” Jaff said. “Why don’t you just shut it, chill out and go with the flow?”

Tracy snorted and gave him as disgusted a look as she could dredge up, then she took a deep breath. There was one thing she had to be
grateful for. Jaff had been so concerned about her finding the money, the coke and the gun that the mobile seemed to have completely slipped his mind when he checked the hold-all. “You’re right,” she said. “So how do you suggest I go about doing it? Chilling? And, I mean, what exactly
is
the flow? What should I do to go with it?”

“Nothing, babe. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Because I’d just like to know what our plans are, for a start, that’s all.”

“Our
plans?”

“Well, not so long ago you were going to make a few phone calls, get things organized, then we were going to hook up with some mate of yours in London who does dodgy passports and disappear over the Channel, right? Or did I get that bit wrong, too?”

“No. That’s still the general idea.”

“Then I hope you weren’t planning on carrying that hold-all with you.”

“Give me a break! I’m going to get rid of all that stuff in London. Except the money, of course.”

“Including the gun?”

“Including the gun. That’s why this takes time to organize, why we’re still here. Do you think I’d be crazy enough to try and carry a gun and four kilos of coke across the border?”

“I don’t know, Jaff. I really don’t know just how crazy you are. Right now I think maybe I don’t know you.”

“Just trust me, that’s all.” Jaff reached out his hand but Tracy didn’t take it.

“You keep on saying that,” she said, “but you don’t give me much reason to trust you, holding things back from me.”

Jaff waved his fork in the air. “It was for your own good.”

“What was? I don’t see how.”

“Let’s not fight, babe,” Jaff said, polishing off the rest of his breakfast. He tapped the sheet of paper beside him with the tip of his fork. “Besides, I was about to say something to
you
before I was so rudely interrupted.”

Suddenly Tracy felt more nervous than angry. She fingered her necklace. “Oh? What was that?”

“This here piece of paper. I found it in a desk drawer in the front room. It—”

“You shouldn’t go rummaging through people’s drawers. It’s not—”

Jaff slammed his knife and fork down so hard he broke the plate and the cutlery clattered to the floor. “Will you just fucking shut up with your what’s right and what’s not right bullshit!”

Jaff yelled so loudly and his eyes turned so cold and hard that Tracy felt herself on the verge of crying again. She was sure that her lips were quivering, and she struggled to hold back the tears. She wasn’t going to let him see her cry, even if he could sense her fear. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“Is it clear now?” Jaff went on. “Are we on the same page?”

Tracy nodded, chewing the edge of her thumb.

“Right,” he went on, as calmly as anything. “As I was saying. I found this letter in one of the drawers, and it turns out to be interesting, very interesting indeed.”

“What is it?” Tracy asked in a small voice. “Your name is Banks, right? Francesca Banks?”

“That’s right.”

“And your father is DCI Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire Police?”

“Yes. I mean—”

Jaff let the sheet of paper drop. “Your father’s a fucking cop, and you didn’t see fit to tell me?”

“It didn’t seem important. He’s not here, is he? What does it matter who he is, what he does?”

“What does it matter?”
Jaff tapped the side of his head. “You
lied
to me, babe. Are you certain you’re not stupid? Because that’s not what I’m hearing from where I’m sitting.”

“There’s no need to be insulting. So, he’s a policeman. So what?”

“Not just a policeman. A DCI. That’s detective chief inspector.” He laughed. “I’ve been shagging a DCI’s daughter. I can’t believe it.”

“You don’t have to be so crude about it.”

“Make up your mind, babe. Are you an angel or a whore? On first impressions between the sheets, I’d definitely go for the latter, but you seem to talk a whole lot of rubbish about morals and duty, and me being insulting and crude. So just what exactly are you?”

“How would you notice what I do or don’t do between the sheets, as you so crudely put it? All you’re interested in is your own pleasure. I might as well be an inflatable doll for all you care.”

“You’ve got about as much enthusiasm as an inflatable doll. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Fucking? You take your pleasure where and when you can.”

“Oh, you’re a marvel, Jaff, you are. A philosopher, too.”

Jaff pointed at her. “Shut up, bitch. I’m warning you. I don’t like sarcasm.”

Tracy glared at him. “Anyway. what does it matter if my dad’s a DCI?” she repeated.

“It matters because when a copper’s involved they pull out all the stops, that’s why. They stick together. It matters because it makes everything ten times harder. You’re a copper’s daughter. There’s nothing he won’t do to get you back. Nothing. This is personal for him, and he’s got the whole bloody country’s police force on his side. Get it? We’re seriously outnumbered.”

“What do you mean, get me back? From where? From who? I can just walk out of here anytime I want, can’t I?”

“Get real. Things have changed. As you said, we’re in this together, and nobody’s going off anywhere without the other until it all gets sorted.”

Tracy felt a chill and a tightening in her chest. So it was true: in his eyes, she was a prisoner now, a hostage. Or a burden. “I told you. He’s on holiday. He won’t be back till Monday. How could he come looking for us? He’s got no idea what’s going on.”

“But he soon will have when he gets back. Or he’ll hear about what’s happened from his mates and come back early. He could be on his way now.”

“No, he won’t be. He doesn’t care about me that much.”

“Just shut up and let me think.”

“Look,” said Tracy, as calmly as she could manage. “Why don’t I just go? Really. I’ll go back to Leeds right now, as if none of this ever happened. I can get a bus to Eastvale from the village. You can drive on down to London in Vic’s car, get your passport and finances sorted and disappear. It’ll be all over and done with before my dad gets back
from holiday. He needn’t know a thing.” The words sounded hollow and desperate to her even as she spoke them.

“Now it’s you who must think
I’m
stupid,” said Jaff. “Why?”

“Do you think I’m going to let you just walk out of here and tell the cops everything you know?”

“I won’t tell them anything. I don’t even know anything. Remember? You haven’t told me anything.”

“You know about the coke, the money and the gun. That’s enough.”

“But you’ll be even worse off with me as a traveling companion. You can hardly take me with you, can you? I’ll only slow you down. Just let me walk away now, Jaff. Please.”

Then Tracy saw the look on his face and froze.

“Well,” Jaff said. “It seems to me that gives me just two options. Either I don’t let you out of my sight for a second from now on, or…”

And Tracy went cold to the marrow of her bones when she realized exactly what the second option was.

T
HIS IS NAOMI WORTHING
,”
SAID DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT
Gervaise to the Serious Crimes team assembled in the boardroom late that afternoon. “She’s come up from Birmingham to tell us all about the gun we sent down. Many thanks for the quick work, Naomi.”

Naomi smiled at Gervaise. “Not a problem,” she said. “We got a lucky break.” She was a plump middle-aged woman with graying hair and a benevolent manner, hardly what Annie would have expected in a ballistics expert. She seemed more like Miss Marple than a member of the
CSI
cast. Her audience was small—only Gervaise, Annie, Winsome, Harry Potter and Geraldine Masterson, who was new to Major Crimes and dead keen to make a good impression.

“I’m not going to bore you with all the technical details,” Naomi began, “but basically we’re dealing with a 9-mm Smith and Wesson automatic, or, more correctly, semiautomatic. This particular model dates from the mid-eighties. It has a four-inch barrel, a sixteen round capacity, and it weighs just under two pounds unloaded. Any questions so far?”

“Isn’t Smith and Wesson an American company?” asked Annie.

“Yes. The pistol in question was manufactured in the USA,” replied Naomi. “Which perhaps makes it a little rarer around these parts than a Czech or a Russian model. I mean, you wouldn’t find one for
sale in the local pub. And, of course, a Smith and Wesson would cost you a lot more money.”

“Are they readily available over here?”

“On and off. Though they’re certainly not as common at street level as the Eastern European models I mentioned. Look, if I can perhaps make a guess at where you’re going with this, Detective…?”

“Cabbot. DI Annie Cabbot.”

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t let the fact that this pistol is American in origin influence your search for its owner and user. The odds are that it has been floating around the UK since the nineties, if not before. It’s a very popular, simple and practical piece of equipment, and ammunition for it isn’t hard to come by.”

“Did you say ‘user,’ Naomi?” Gervaise asked.

Naomi turned to her. “Yes. That’s what I was about to get to. The reason I came up here, rather than simply filing a written report. Not that a trip to Eastvale isn’t always a pleasant prospect.”

“Do tell,” said Gervaise.

Naomi helped herself to coffee, added milk and sugar and opened her file folder. “There were two rounds missing from the magazine. Bullets
and
casings. That’s often the case with automatics, as you probably know. They eject the casing after firing. A clever criminal picks up his spent casings and disposes of them, but sometimes people are careless, or in a hurry, and leave them lying around.”

“Any idea when the shots were fired?” Annie asked.

Naomi shook her head. “We can’t ascertain
when
they were fired by examining the pistol,” she said. “Only that they were fired
from that magazine
.”

“But perhaps even from a different gun?”

“It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely. Unfortunately, as I said, we don’t have the spent casings, so we can’t check them against the firing pin to make sure. Unless someone’s trying to pull a very elaborate trick, though, I would say there’s no reason to doubt that the bullets were fired from this pistol.”

“I see. Sorry, please go on.”

“Naturally, we then consulted the National Firearms Forensic Intelligence Database, which is a bit of a mouthful, so I’ll refer to it as the
NFFID in future. There we discovered that a pistol of this description had been used to commit an unsolved murder in November 2004. This information, of course, is not conclusive. It merely refers to a case number and the general model and kind of ammunition consistent with that we found in the magazine, but it piqued our curiosity. The next step involved shooting the gun under controlled circumstances in order to obtain a sample of a used bullet we could then run through IBIS—that’s the Integrated Ballistics Identification System—don’t we just love acronyms? The result is that we found a definite link between this pistol and the 2004 crime. The next step we need to carry out, for absolute certainty, is to get hold of one of the actual bullets retrieved from the victim and do a physical examination, side by side, through a comparison microscope. This is the kind of thing you see on TV crime programs, lands and grooves. Looks very sexy on screen.”

“And where would you get hold of one of these bullets?” Annie asked.

“West Yorkshire. I’m not sure exactly where they are, but they
should
still be locked in an evidence room somewhere.”

“Where did the shooting take place?”

“Woodhouse Moor. Leeds.”

“I’m not sure where they keep their cold case exhibits,” said Gervaise, “but that’ll probably be Weetwood, on Otley Road. On the other hand, you might be better off trying the Homicide and Major Enquiries team first. We may be the largest single county force in the country, but West Yorkshire’s got a much bigger urban population than we have, and they’ve got all the specialists. We’ve got Wildlife Crime officers, and they have a Homicide squad. They’d probably be the ones to handle a case like that.”

“Thanks,” said Naomi. “I’ve dealt with them before. That’ll be my next stop.”

“So what can you tell us pending a physical comparison?”

Naomi sipped her milky coffee. “Not much more, I’m afraid. You’ll have to get the rest of the details from the investigating team. All I know is that on the fifth of November, 2004, a suspected drug dealer called Marlon Kincaid was shot to death near a bonfire site on Woodhouse Moor.”

“Any witnesses?” Annie asked.

“Not according to what little information I’ve got. As I say, though, the NFFID and IBIS files are skimpy on details. I’m sure the detectives involved will be able to tell you a lot more.”

“Bonfire Night, though,” said Annie. “Fireworks might be useful to cover up the noise of gunshots.”

“Indeed,” said Naomi. “Oh, there is one more thing. It may be important. We examined the pistol for fingerprints, of course, and we found only Patrick Doyle’s, the ones you sent us, on the grip and barrel, which is consistent with his checking to see if it was loaded. We did, however, find two clear sets of prints on the magazine itself, only one of them belonging to Patrick Doyle. People often forget that. They have to load it by hand, you see, and they hardly ever think of wearing gloves. The magazine remains protected inside the handle, and the prints are preserved. There are also several partials on the cartridges, and they also appear to match the mystery prints on the magazine.”

“Anything there?”

“We ran them through IDENT1, of course, but I’m afraid they’re not on file.”

“So no name and address?” said Gervaise. “No easy arrest?”

Naomi smiled. “Is there ever? No. I’m afraid you’ll have to sweat this one through. When you do come up with a suspect, of course…well, the prints are there for comparison. Even then, I’m afraid, all it means is that the person handled the magazine and the cartridges, not that he or she committed the murder.”

Gervaise looked at Annie. “I suppose we’d better start with Erin Doyle,” she said. “Can you get in touch with Vic Manson and deal with it, Annie?”

“Of course.”

Gervaise checked the time. “It’s getting a bit late now, but if you and Winsome could head down to Leeds first thing tomorrow and see what you can find out from the case files and the investigating officers, we might start getting somewhere.”

IT WAS
almost seven o’clock by the time Annie got out of the station and into her car. The little purple Astra had finally given up the ghost earlier that summer, but she was quite pleased with the Megane she had bought as a replacement. Especially with the price.

Since the meeting, she had tracked down a sulky and passive Erin Doyle at her bed-and-breakfast by the castle and brought her back to the station, accompanied by the Family Liaison officer Patricia Yu, where her fingerprints had been taken. After all the paperwork and running back and forth, Annie felt like nothing more than a large glass of wine and a nice long bath when she got home. So numb was her mind that she had driven almost a mile in the wrong direction—toward her own cottage in Harkside—before remembering that she was supposed to go to Banks’s cottage to water his plants and pick up the pile of post from the floor.

For a moment Annie wavered, weighing the wine and the bath against a lengthy detour. Surely she could postpone the visit until tomorrow? The plants would survive, and the post was mostly bills and special offers on magazine subscriptions and cases of wine. But she felt guilty enough of her neglect already. He would be back soon, and if it seemed that she hadn’t discharged her duties she would feel even worse, no matter how forgiving he might be. She drove as far as the next roundabout and turned back the way she had come.

As she passed the police station she thought of Chambers, who had been strutting around all afternoon with Dumb and Dumber in tow, giving everyone the evil eye. Annie was down for her official interview the following morning, and she wasn’t looking forward to that at all. She knew how it would go. Chambers would get Dumb or Dumber, or both of them, to conduct the interview, because they were supposedly unbiased, while he would sit there ogling her as she squirmed, loving every minute of it, thinking he was setting the world to rights. She would have to remember to wear trousers or a long skirt and a loose top that came all the way up to her chin, maybe even her polo-neck jumper—the loose one, not the tight one.

She turned onto the main Helmthorpe road and left the town behind. She would drive home over the moors, she decided. She loved the purity of the bleak landscape in the soft evening light, the un
fenced roads where sheep wandered, the broad sky and magnificent vistas. The heather would be in bloom, too, which was always a bonus, and sometimes you could just make out the pale moon in the milky-blue evening sky. When she got home, she would have the wine and bath.

Cheered by the prospect of an evening drive over the moors, and by her decision not to take the line of least resistance and go straight home, Annie turned left in Helmthorpe, by the school, and drove up the hill to Gratly. A hundred yards or so past the little stone bridge over the beck she turned right into Banks’s drive, a narrow dirt track with a few patches of gravel here and there. It led under a canopy of lime trees and came to a halt in front of the cottage. Beyond were the woods, and to Annie’s right, behind the low drystone wall, Gratly Beck ran over its terraced waterfalls, then on through the village and down into the center of Helmthorpe, on the valley bottom. It was a beautiful spot, and she had often envied Banks it.

Annie parked outside the small cottage. When she turned off the engine and got out of the car, she could hear birds singing in the woods and down the valley, over the beck. She could also hear music. It was some sort of modern rock—distorted guitar, thrashing drums and pounding bass. What was odd was that it seemed to be coming from the cottage. Just next to the garage she spotted a car she didn’t recognize. A Ford Focus, maybe a little the worse for wear and certainly in need of a good wash. There was a dent in the rear wing and rust around the wheel arches. She knew that Banks had been talking about trying to sell the Porsche all summer, but as far as she knew he hadn’t been able to get the right price. The Ford certainly hadn’t been there the last time she had called to water the plants.

Banks had complained to her that when you’re trying to sell a Porsche, people either assume that you’re loaded already, or that you really need the money. Consequently they think they can get away with a quick deal at a low price. He wasn’t loaded, but neither did he need the money. He just wanted to sell the car. Annie suspected it might be because it still reminded him too much of his brother, whom it had belonged to, even though Roy Banks had been dead for some time now. Banks had never really got used to it. But even if he had
sold it, he wouldn’t have bought a banged-up Ford Focus. He’d have probably gone for a Volvo, or even an Audi, she thought. He wasn’t exactly a
Top Gear
kind of bloke—he had driven an old Cortina until it practically fell apart, for crying out loud—but he wouldn’t be seen dead driving a car like this. She had a quick peek into the garage and, indeed, the Porsche was still there.

Which raised a question: Whom did the Focus belong to? Annie made a note of the number, then she dug in her bag for Banks’s front door key and put it in the lock. When it was open, she stood on the threshold and shouted, “Hello! Hello! Is anybody there?” There was no pile of letters on the floor, so she knew that someone must have been in since she was last there.

Nothing happened at first, then the music got quieter and the door to the entertainment room to her left opened. Out walked Tracy, carefully shutting the door behind her.

“Tracy,” said Annie. “I didn’t know you had a Ford Focus.”

“I don’t,” said Tracy. “I just borrowed it from a friend.”

“I see.”

Tracy did look different, but not that much, Annie thought. It was the haircut, mostly, a little punkish. She wore little or no makeup, perhaps a trace of pink lipstick, and was dressed in a simple outfit of blue jeans and a light blue sleeveless V-neck top, leaving an inch or two of bare midriff. The piercings weren’t extreme, just a ring at the edge of one eyebrow and a stud under her lower lip, like thousands of other young women. She did look older than Annie remembered, though, and there was a certain sophistication about her she hadn’t noticed before. Tracy also seemed nervous.

“Is something wrong?” Annie asked.

“No. What could possibly be wrong? What do you want? Nothing’s happened to Dad, has it?”

“No,” said Annie, shutting the door behind her. “Nothing like that. I said I’d water his plants and pick up the post while he was away, that’s all. How about a cup of tea or coffee or something?”

“Cup of tea?”

Annie gestured toward the kitchen. “Yes. You know, the little bag you put in a pot and add water to. In there.”