Broken Fall: A D.I. Harland novella (12 page)

‘No matter,’ Harland said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Kevin.’

‘Well, Kevin, maybe you can help us.’

They walked downstairs into the main room of the club. The long bar was in darkness but a series of naked bulbs hung from the high ceiling, casting a dim, even light across the whole space. Harland walked out onto the middle of the empty dance floor, turning slowly round to look up at the different cameras on the walls.

‘Kevin?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You said you do the maintenance, right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘These cameras work, do they?’

‘Yeah.’

Harland nodded to himself, glancing round casually, then pointed at the wall near the Gents toilets.

‘What about that one?’ he asked.

‘They
all
work.’

‘Where’s the recording set-up?’

‘Office,’ Kevin replied, with a sullen upward glance. Harland wasn’t sure whether he was expressing exasperation or indicating the floor above.

‘Can you show us?’

‘Suppose so.’ An indifferent shrug. ‘This way.’

The upper floors of the building, where the club’s clientele didn’t go, looked as though they’d been preserved from the time of Brunel, but not preserved well. Perhaps
untouched
since the time of Brunel, Harland thought as he gazed up at the crumbling brickwork of the stairwell, the air stagnant with the smell of damp.

At the top, the ringing echo of his shoes on the rusty iron steps was replaced by the gritty crunch of masonry dust underfoot. Linwood placed one hand on the metal rail that ran along the wall, then quickly brushed his hand off on his trousers.

‘Watch yourself there.’ Kevin glanced down at the fragments of glass on the floor, below an old window. One of the panes had been patched with cardboard and black electrical tape. ‘Mr Jones’ office is down this way.’

He led them along a short, vaulted corridor. At the end, beside the propped-up wreckage of a giant paper butterfly with torn wings, was a featureless door, painted in grey wood primer. Harland noted that the locks were new.

‘In here, is it?’ he asked, not waiting for an answer before moving forward and trying the handle.

The door opened on to a large, shadowy office. Colourful, tie-dyed sheets had been nailed across the pair of tall windows in the far wall, casting a dim hue over the room. A high-backed leather chair sat behind an impressive, glass-topped desk – someone might have had aspirations, or delusions of grandeur when they first set up here, but as Harland glanced around the room, he saw that the reality wasn’t quite as glamorous. The pale leather sofa was stained and scored. The glass coffee table was weighed down by a collection of empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays, while the floor was home to old pizza boxes and spilled bundles of promotional flyers. A shrivelled condom was draped over the lip of a large plastic bin.

Living the dream.

Surveying the office, Harland knew exactly what sort of person Jones would turn out to be.

Opposite the sofa, on a small table flanked by ugly steel shelving units, two monitor screens glowed in the gloom, each one divided into four, with a different security camera view in each quarter.

Harland walked farther into the room, pausing by the screens, noting the old PC tucked away under the table.

‘It’s all recorded here?’ he asked, turning back to Kevin, who was leaning up against the door frame. ‘On the computer?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Can you show my sergeant how to view the old footage?’

Kevin regarded him doubtfully.

‘It’d be a big help,’ Harland continued, doing his best to sound friendly. ‘Save us coming back?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Really appreciate this,’ Linwood said, smiling, as they all gathered round the computer. He sounded genuinely enthusiastic, but those sorts of emotions came more easily to people like him. ‘If you just get me started, I can take a look through and you can get on with whatever it was you were doing.’

Kevin gave a non-committal shrug. If the state of the upper floors was anything to go by, he hadn’t been getting on with much.

It quickly became clear that the missing camera footage wasn’t going to be as useful as they’d hoped. Kevin had lost interest and gone downstairs, leaving them to stare at the screen where events from the evening of the murder were unfolding at fast-forward speed.

‘I thought we’d have a better view of the door to the Gents,’ Linwood sighed. ‘But this is hopeless.’

Harland nodded. The wings of the lower-hanging paper butterflies all but obscured the door, and the only new thing they could see was the adjacent wall where one of the club’s bouncers stood with his arms folded – a single stationary figure watching the milling crowd.

‘Maybe it was a genuine mistake,’ Linwood continued. ‘Maybe they just forgot about that one camera.’

Harland glanced across at the list of folders on the second screen, arranged one above the other.

‘I don’t think so,’ he frowned. ‘It would have been simpler to dump
all
the footage, but someone took the trouble to give you everything
except
this view.’

Linwood shrugged, then turned his attention back to the screens.

‘Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting,’ he muttered. ‘And that bouncer would have jumped in if there was any trouble.’

Harland leaned forward.

‘Do we know him?’ he asked. ‘The bouncer, I mean?’

Linwood reached into his pocket and drew out a notebook.

‘Jason Kerr,’ he said after a moment. ‘Don’t worry, we checked all the staff. None of them have any previous.’

Harland continued to stare at the screen.

‘Was he in the Gents at all?’ he asked.

‘Just once, I think … earlier in the evening,’ Linwood said. ‘Didn’t see much of him on the other camera footage.’

Harland nodded to himself.

‘You wouldn’t have, not if he was parked in that corner all night.’

An idea was beginning to form.

‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

Kevin was at the foot of the stairwell as they came down the last flight of steps.

‘You off, then?’ he asked. There was nothing in his expression to indicate whether he was pleased to see them go or not.

‘Yeah, we’ve got to get back to the station,’ Linwood told him. ‘Thanks for your help.’

Kevin gave him a blank look, then walked through to the entrance foyer with them.

‘The manager will be sorry he missed you,’ he said as he opened the door, then stood and watched them leave.

‘Yes,’ Harland murmured to Linwood. ‘I think he might be.’

A fine drizzle touched their faces as they stepped out under the grey skies and walked back to where they’d parked.

‘So what do you want to do?’ Linwood asked as he settled into his seat. ‘Come back later and speak to Jones?’

Harland allowed himself a thin smile.

‘Sometimes you get more from the monkey than you do from the organ grinder,’ he mused.

‘Sir?’ Linwood frowned.

The patter of rain filled the silence, and Harland peered out through the droplets on the window to consider the old brick building.

‘You said there were a few people done for possession there, right?’

‘Yes …’

‘Make a list, and maybe check for anyone else who’s been busted in there recently. I want to know who they were buying their gear
from
. Keep it nice and low-key for the moment, but we need to establish if there were any other dealers operating in there.’

Linwood stared at him blankly, then nodded.

‘So you’re thinking it was a hit by a rival dealer?’ he asked.

Harland glanced at him.

‘What? Oh, I suppose it might be …’

Linwood looked at him, puzzled. ‘But?’

Harland started the car, then left it to idle for a moment as he stared out at the murals.

‘Pope asked about who was watching his back, right?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, so what if we do some digging and we
can’t
find any other dealers working here? What if Durand had an exclusive?’

‘Sorry sir, I don’t follow …’

Harland leaned back into his seat, ordering his thoughts.

‘It’s a popular club, right?’ he explained. ‘Plenty of room for more than one dealer. So if he
did
have the place to himself, who do you think he was paying off? Who was making it happen?’

‘You think he paid that bouncer to keep an eye on him?’

‘Perhaps. But it wasn’t the bouncer who conveniently forgot to give us the footage from that camera. Who backed up the data for you?’

Linwood looked at him. ‘It was the manager. Jones.’

‘There you are.’ Harland nodded. ‘He was involved, or he was turning a blind eye. Either way, I’m sure Jones can shed some light on who might want Durand out of the way.’ He put the car in gear. ‘Find him for me.’

The rain clouds had passed and it was a bright, warm evening as Harland dashed between the tables lining the pavement outside the steakhouse. Ducking in under the shadow of the broad canopy, he could see Mendel through the window – his former sergeant would have arrived on time, of course, solid and dependable as ever.

Once inside, he slowed his pace, getting his breath back as he walked across to where his old friend was sitting, and patting him on the back.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, sliding into his seat.

Even hunched over the table, Mendel was a big man, with broad shoulders and tidy black hair. He sat back in his chair and made some show of consulting his watch, pointedly raising an eyebrow before his serious face split into a broad smile.

‘Evening, Graham,’ he said.

‘There was a broken-down lorry at the roundabout,’ Harland explained. ‘Traffic was backed up, right along Feeder Road.’

‘Yeah, yeah,
course
it was,’ Mendel grinned. ‘’Cos you’re normally so punctual.’

Harland chuckled to himself, glancing round the room, his eye lingering on an attractive brunette near the doorway. This place had become a regular haunt since he’d transferred out of Portishead and it had a quirky, down-to-earth atmosphere that he found pleasing. A huge porcelain bull’s head gazed out from above the service counter, and the wallpaper was a subtle pattern of butcher’s cow diagrams, endlessly repeating around the walls …

… but the sizzle and smell from the kitchen were making him hungry. He reached for the familiar menu, then glanced up at the Specials board and quickly down at his watch.

‘Damn!’ It was later than he’d thought. The place did an excellent steak meal deal for fifteen pounds if you ordered before seven, but it was already ten minutes past.

‘What’s the matter?’ Mendel looked at him.

‘It’s after seven,’ Harland scowled. ‘I missed the early dinner special.’

The big man shook his head.

‘No you didn’t,’ he rumbled. ‘I already ordered it for you.’

‘Thanks.’ Harland put the menu down and sat back in his chair, relieved. ‘But how did you know what I was going to have?’

Mendel raised an eyebrow again.

‘Because you always do the same thing when we come here,’ he sighed. ‘You look at the menu, then order the special.’

Harland glanced at him, slightly aggrieved.

‘I’m not
that
predictable, am I?’

Mendel stared at his beer glass, his brow furrowed in thought.

‘Yes, you are,’ he said, nodding. ‘But it’s my turn to pay this week, so it’s kind of a win-win situation.’

Harland tried to find fault with this.

‘I could have been late,’ he pointed out.

‘You were.’

‘All right,
later
. Or I might have had to cancel altogether …’

‘Then I’d have had
two
steaks.’ Mendel shrugged. ‘Again, win-win.’

Harland gave in and laughed.

‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. ‘I notice you didn’t order me a beer, though.’

Mendel raised his own glass.

‘You CID boys don’t miss a thing, do you?’ he grinned.

The beer was ice cold when it arrived, and Harland savoured his first sip as he gazed out of the window at a group of office workers arranging themselves round one of the pavement tables. The brunette was among them, but she was smiling and chatting with a man in a suit.

He put his glass down and looked up to find Mendel watching him.

‘So what is it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I know that look,’ the big man said. ‘Something’s bothering you … something you’re working on?’

Harland lowered his eyes. He knew better than to try to bluff his old partner.

‘There was a murder in Stokes Croft,’ he said slowly. ‘It was … well, it wasn’t pretty.’

‘It never is,’ Mendel observed. ‘But you knew there’d be more of that when you transferred to Bristol.’

‘Yeah.’ Harland frowned as he stared at his beer glass. He’d dealt with murders before, seen death up close. Why should this one feel any different? ‘It’s just … there was something really
awful
about this one.’

Mendel gazed at him.

‘Stokes Croft,’ he mused, then nodded in recognition. ‘The drug dealer they found in that nightclub?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about it?’

Harland glanced up at his friend, then stared down at the table, picturing the unnatural expression on Durand’s face – mouth sealed, nostrils squeezed together, eyelashes crusted with a sheen of solvent tears. It wasn’t so much the murder that bothered him. It was the thought that someone could do that to another human being – do it, and pose them, and then watch them struggle.

‘You heard about how he was killed?’ he asked.

‘Ah, yes.’ Mendel gave him a grim nod. ‘I know the one you mean now.’

Harland felt a twinge in his shoulder and raised a hand to rub some of the stiffness away.

‘While I was taking a look at the body …’ He broke off, shaking his head.

Can’t see, can’t hear, can’t breathe … tearing your own skin trying to get free …

Mendel sat quietly, giving him time.

‘I just …
hate
the thought of it,’ Harland continued. ‘What kind of sick mind does something like that?’