Crack Down (14 page)

I bit back the frustrated sigh. “It's an emergency, Beth.”

“What have you done this time?” Underneath the warm humor in her voice, there was no mistaking the concern.

“It's not me. It's my partner's son. The friends who are looking after him think he might have been given drugs.”

“Then it's not me you want, Kate, it's the casualty department at MRI. You should know that.”

“Beth, I can't. Look, I can't explain now, not because I'm not prepared to, but because there isn't time. Please, Beth, I
need
this favor. I'm on my way back to my house now, and as soon as I get
there, I'll tell you why I can't take him to hospital unless it's a matter of life and death,” I pleaded.

“If it's drugs, it could well be that,” Beth warned.

“I know, I know. But please, you're the only doctor I know well enough to trust with this.”

There was a moment's silence. “I shouldn't do this,” she said with a sigh. “It's against all my better judgment.”

“You'll go?”

“I'll go. Where is he?”

“He's at my house. You remember it?”

“I remember,” Beth said. “I'll be there in about ten minutes. Oh, and Kate?”

“Yeah?”

“You owe Crumpsall Ladies Hockey Club a round of drinks for every five minutes I'm late for the game.” The phone went dead before I could tell Beth it would be worth every penny.

I rang Chris straight back and told her Beth was on her way. The relief in her voice told me exactly how much fear she'd been hiding when she'd spoken to me before. “Thank God!” she exclaimed. “He's just been sick. We're really scared, Kate.”

“It's not your fault, Chris. This would have happened whether Richard had been there or not, believe me. Look, phone me if there's any change, OK? I'll be back as soon as I can.”

I might have broken all records driving to Sheffield. But I shattered them driving back.

 

I barreled through my front door like the Incredible Hulk on speed. There wasn't a sound from anywhere, and it took me less than ten seconds to discover they weren't in the house. I ran through the conservatory and yanked open the patio doors leading to Richard's living room. Still no one. By now, I was convinced they'd had to rush him to hospital. All the way home, I'd been plagued by a vision of Davy lying in the subdued lighting of intensive care, more tubes than Central London coursing in and out of his little body.

I crossed the room in half a dozen strides and hauled the door open, cannoning into Chris, who stepped backwards into Beth, who continued the domino effect with Alexis. “Ssh,” Beth said
before I could say a word. I backed into the living room and the other three trooped behind me. Alexis shut the door.

“How is he? What's happening?” I demanded.

“Calm down,” Beth instructed. “Three deep breaths.” I did what she told me. I even sat down. “Davy's going to be fine. I've just given him a mild sedative and tranquilizer which have calmed him down and sent him to sleep. He'll probably be more or less zonked out till morning. He might feel a bit groggy tomorrow, but basically he'll be OK.”

“What was the matter? What happened?” I asked.

“He presented like someone who has absorbed a significant amount of an hallucinogenic drug,” Beth said. “Nothing life threatening, thank God.”

“But how? Where did he get it from? He only went out to play with a couple of other kids from the estate! Who'd feed drugs like that to kids?”

“I said ‘absorbed' advisedly,” Beth said. She ran a hand through her spiky blonde hair and frowned. “You know those temporary tattoos that kids use? They wet the transfers and the pictures slide off on to their skin?”

I nodded impatiently. “Yeah, yeah, Davy loves them. Some nights he gets in the bath looking like the Illustrated Man.”

“Did he have any transfers on his body this morning when he went out?”

“Not that I noticed,” I said. “Did either of you notice last night?”

Chris and Alexis both shook their heads.

“He must have thirty or forty on his arms or chest now,” Beth said. “And that's the source of the problem, I reckon. I've heard of a couple of cases like this, though I've not actually seen one before.”

“But I don't understand. It can't be something in the transfers, surely. He often has them covering the whole of his arms and his chest. He's crazy about them, like I said. He'll put on as many as Richard will buy for him.”

Beth sighed. “You're right, it's not the transfers as such. It's what's been done to them. They've been doctored. They've been impregnated with a drug not unlike acid or Ecstasy, probably one
that's been designed to provide a feeling of mild euphoria, general friendliness and energy. But taken in the dose Davy seems to have absorbed, it also produces hallucinations. We dumped him in the bath and washed them all off so he won't absorb any more, and luckily he seems to have had a pleasant trip rather than a terrifying one.”

Beth's words seemed to reverberate long after she'd finished speaking. None of us seemed able to come up with an adequate response. Finally, it was Alexis's journalistic instincts that hit the ground running ahead of my private investigator's. “What do they look like, these transfers?” she asked.

“Some are geometric. Blue and gold stars, about the size of a 10p. Red and pink triangles, too. Others have pictures of clowns, cars, Batman and Superman logos and dinosaurs. The only difference between them and the straight ones is the packaging, so I've been told. Apparently the dodgy ones come in little foil packets, like those individual biscuits you get on aeroplanes. Sorry, I don't know any more than that.”

“I can't believe I've not heard about this on the grapevine,” Alexis said, outraged.

“She's a journo,” I explained to Beth.

“Why haven't there been any warnings about this?” Alexis continued. “It's scandalous.”

“Presumably, the powers that be didn't want to start a panic,” Beth said. “I can understand why, since it seems to be such a rarity.”

“Never mind the story, Alexis. What about Davy? Will he definitely be OK?” Chris demanded.

“He'll be absolutely fine, I promise you. In future, make sure he finds another bunch of friends to play with. Look, I've got to run. My hockey match starts in ten minutes. I'll swing by tomorrow morning, just to be on the safe side, but the best thing you can do is let him sleep it off in peace.”

Beth's departure left us in an awkward silence. Alexis broke it. “It's nobody's fault,” she said. “We're all going to beat ourselves up, we'll all be fighting each other to take the blame, but it's nobody's fault.”

“I know,” I said. I got to my feet. “I just want to take a look at him.” I walked down the hall to the spare room and pushed the door open. Davy was lying on his back, arms above his head, legs in a tangle of kicked-off duvet. There was a smile on his sleeping face. I leaned over and pulled the cover up over him. He stirred slightly, grunting. I didn't know what else to do so, feeling awkward, I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me.

I went back through to the kitchen. Alexis was sitting on her own, rolling a modest joint from Richard's stash. “Don't you think there's been enough drug-taking for one day around here?” I asked. I was teasing, but only just.

Alexis shrugged. “The doctor says too much stress is bad for me. Chris is making a pot of coffee. You got time for a cup before you go back to wherever you were before you were so rudely interrupted?”

I raised my eyebrows. “I wasn't planning on going back.”

“Why? Had you finished what you were doing?”

“Well, no,” I admitted.

“So get back on the road. There's nothing you can do here. Davy's zonko. Beth said he'd sleep till morning. Anybody can baby-sit a sleeping kid. But you're the only one that can get Dick out of jail.”

“Don't call him Dick,” I said automatically. “You know how it depresses me.” I looked at my watch and sighed. I had plenty of time to drive back to Sheffield and still be in time for the six o'clock sale. With luck, it would be over early enough for me to get back to Manchester in time to visit Richard. I got to my feet just as Chris came in with a tray of coffee.

“Aren't you stopping for a brew?” she asked.

I put on my FBI face. “You expect me to drink coffee at a time like this?” I asked sternly. “People, a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.”

Chris giggled. Alexis guffawed. I don't know why it is that people just don't take me seriously.

Literary critics punt the theory that private eyes are society's outsiders. That might have been true in 1940s Los Angeles, but it's a joke in 1990s Britain. These days, if you want to last more than five minutes as a private investigator, you've got to have the instincts of a chameleon. Gumshoes that stand out in a crowd are as much use to the client as a chocolate chip pan. I've had to pass as everything from lawyer to temp, including high-class hooker and journalist, sometimes both on the same day. At least tonight I'd already cased the venue, which gave me a pretty substantial clue as to dress code.

I pulled the crumpled flyer out of my pocket and gave it the once-over. Whoever had put it together wasn't going to win any awards for grammar or graphic design. The one-day sale promised bargains of a lifetime—video recorders for £69.99, camcorders for £99.99, microwaves for £49.99, plus hundreds of other exclusive, unique, etc. Already, and for free, we'd been presented with more exclamation marks than any reasonable person could use in a decade. With all this in mind, I dressed for the occasion. Tight faded Levis, a black Tina Turner
Simply the Best
sweatshirt (because black always makes me look like I have a major vitamin deficiency), and Richard's three-sizes-too-big Washington Red Sox jacket. I finished the ensemble with a pair of white stilettos with a two-inch heel, bought, I hasten to add, solely for professional purposes. I gathered my auburn hair into a top knot and held it in place with a gold lurex elasticated band. Never mind a million dollars, I looked about threepence halfpenny. I'd fit in like a flea in a cattery.

I was back in Sheffield for half past five. I dumped the car in a
city-center car park and found a cab to take me out to the council estate. I tipped the cabbie a fiver, which persuaded him to come back for me later. At quarter to six, I joined the queue snaking along the pavement outside the community center. There were getting on for a hundred punters, and none of them looked like they'd be allowed to carry a donor card, never mind a gold card. I reckoned the youngest were under two, slumped slack-mouthed and sleeping in their pushchairs. The oldest were never going to see seventy again. The rest included harassed-looking women, middle-aged at twenty-five, to lads who looked fifteen till you clocked the eyes. I'd calculated well. Nobody gave me a second glance.

At ten to six, the doors opened and we streamed in. The hall was brightly lit, empty except for a raised dais in front of the Fire Exit sign. On the dais was a high counter, piled higher still with cardboard boxes claiming to be filled with microwaves, camcorders, videos and TVs. Other boxes had garish pictures of pan sets, dinner services, game consoles, canteens of cutlery, radio alarms, toasters, battery chargers and socket sets. It looked like a cut-price Aladdin's cave. Behind the stack of boxes I could see a burly man with a perm like a 1970s footballer. If his suit had been any sharper he'd have been arrested for possession of an offensive weapon. He fiddled with a mike, clipping it on to a tie so loud I expected a shriek of feedback. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he cajoled, “don't hang back. Come right down to the front where I can see you, and I mean that especially for you lovely ladies. I want to feast my eyes on your charms, because I have to tell you that even though I'm supposed to stand up here being scrupulously fair with you ladies and gentlemen, I'm only human. And I'd have to be more than human to resist some of the lovely ladies I can see in here tonight.” Unbelievable. Even more unbelievable, they obeyed. Like lemmings.

Sticking with the flow of the crowd, I moved forward, edging out towards the side of the hall. I looked around, searching for Terence. I spotted him after a few moments, one of several men flanking the dais. Their ages varied from late teens to early forties. I wouldn't have trusted one of them to hold the dog while I went
for a pee. I reached the far wall and stopped about ten feet away from the platform. I took a good look round. The punters were eager, many of them patting the pockets that held their money, reassuring themselves it was still there. It wouldn't be for much longer, I suspected, and not because of pickpockets, either.

Now, most of the men by the platform, including Terence, were fanning out among the crowd, keeping one eye on the auctioneer as he “entertained” the audience with a steady stream of patter consisting of
risqué
remarks, old jokes and jocular encouragement to the crowd to move forward and prepare to enjoy themselves. I tuned back in. “I want you to promise me one thing tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to promise me that you'll be good to yourselves. You're going to be offered the bargains of a lifetime here tonight, and I don't want to see you holding back because you don't think you deserve them. I am here tonight to treat you, and I want you to promise me you won't be afraid to treat yourselves. Is that a promise? Will you do that for me?”

“Yeah,” they roared back. I couldn't believe it. The guy looked like they'd minted the word “spiv” just for him, yet the punters lapped it up like free beer.