Crack Down (4 page)

“Kate, it's not cannabis.” Ruth had that tone of voice that the actors on hospital dramas use when they're about to tell someone their nearest and dearest probably isn't going to make it. “If it was cannabis, believe me, I wouldn't have bothered calling you.”

I heard the words, but I couldn't make sense of them. The only drug Richard ever uses is draw. In the two years we've been together, I've never known him drop so much as half a tab of E, in spite of the number of raves and gigs he routinely attends. “It's got to be a plant, then,” I said confidently. “Someone's had it in for him and they've slipped something into his pocket.”

“I don't think so, Kate. We're talking about two kilos of crack.”

Crack. Fiercely addictive, potentially lethal, crack cocaine is the drug everybody in narcotics prevention has the heebie-jeebies about. For a moment, I couldn't take it in. I know two kilos of crack isn't exactly bulky, but you'd have to notice you had it about your person. “He was walking around with two
kilos
of crack on him? That can't be right, Ruth,” I managed.

“Not walking around. Driving. I don't have any details yet, but he was brought in by a couple of lads from traffic. I'm afraid it gets worse, Kate. Apparently the car he was in was stolen.”

I was out of bed, pulling knickers and tights out of the top drawer. “Well, who was he with, then? He can't have known he was in a hot motor!”

My stomach knotted as Ruth replied, “He was on his own. No passengers.”

“This is like a bad dream,” I said. “You know what he's like. Can you see Richard as a major-league car thief and drug dealer? Where are you now, Ruth?” I asked.

“I'm on my way out the door. The sooner I get in to see him, the sooner we can get this business straightened out. You're right. Richard's no villain,” she said reassuringly.

“Too true. Look, Ruth, thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it.” I fastened my bra and moved over to the wardrobe door.

“I'll keep you posted,” she said. “Speak to you soon.”

Sooner than you think, I told myself as I shrugged into a cream polo-neck knitted cotton top. I grabbed my favorite knock-'em-dead suit, a lightweight wool number in a gray and moss green weave. Of course, dressing on the run, my legs tangled in the trousers as I made for the hall and I ended up sprawled on the floor, face smacked up against the skirting board, forced to recognize that it was too long since I'd cleaned the house. Cursing in a fluent monotone, I made it as far as the porch and pulled a pair of flat loafers out of the shoe cupboard. On my way out of the door, I remembered the route I was planning to go down, and hurried back into the living room, where I picked up the slim black leather briefcase I use to impress prospective clients with my businesslike qualities.

As I started the car, I noticed Richard's Beetle wasn't in its usual parking space. What in God's name was going on? If he'd gone out in his own car, what was he doing driving round in the middle of the night in a stolen car with a parcel of heavy drugs? More to the point, did the owners of the drugs know who'd driven off with their merchandise? Because if they did, I didn't give much for Richard's chances of seeing his next birthday.

 

I pulled up in the visitors' car park at Longsight nick a couple of minutes later. There wasn't much competition for parking places that time of night. I knew I'd have at least fifteen minutes to kill, since Ruth had to drive all the way over from her house in Hale. Usually, I don't have much trouble keeping my mind occupied on stake-outs. Maybe that's because I don't have to do it too often, given the line of work Mortensen and Brannigan specialize in. A lot of private eyes have to make the bulk of their income doing mind-and-bum-numbing bread-and-butter surveillance work, but because we work mainly with computer crime and white-collar fraud, we spend a lot more of our backside-breaking hours in other people's offices than we do outside their houses. But tonight, the seventeen minutes I spent staring at the dirty red brick and tall
blank windows of the rambling, mock-Gothic police station felt like hours. I suppose I was worried. I must be getting soft in my old age.

I spotted Ruth's car as soon as she turned into the car park. Her husband's in the rag trade, and he drives a white Bentley Mulsanne Turbo. When she gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, Ruth likes to drive the Bentley. It doesn't half get up the noses of the cops. Her regular clients love it to bits. As the dazzling headlights in my rear-view mirror dimmed to black, I was out of my car and waving to Ruth.

The driver's window slid down with an almost imperceptible hum. She didn't stick her head out; she waited for me to draw level. I grinned. Ruth didn't. “You'll have a long wait, Kate,” she said, a warning in her voice.

I ignored the warning. “Ruth, you and I both know you're the best criminal lawyer in the city. But we also both know that being an officer of the court means there is a whole raft of things you can't even think about doing. The kind of shit Richard seems to have got himself in, he needs someone out there ducking and diving, doing whatever it takes to dig up the information that'll get him off the hook with the cops and with the dealers. I'm the one who's going to have to do that, and the most efficient way for that process to get started is for me to sit in on your briefing.”

Give her her due, Ruth heard me out. She even paused for the count of five to create the impression she was giving some thought to my suggestion. Then she slowly shook her head. “No way, Kate. I suspect you know the provisions of PACE as well as I do.”

I smiled ruefully. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act hadn't exactly been my bedtime reading when it became law, but I was reasonably familiar with its provisions. I knew perfectly well that the only person a suspect was entitled to have sitting in on their interview with the police was his or her solicitor. “There is one way round it,” I said.

There's something about the mind of a criminal solicitor. They can't resist discovering any new wrinkle in the law. Dangle that as a carrot and they'll bite your arm off faster than a starving donkey. “Go on,” Ruth said cautiously. I swear her eyes sparkled.

“Trainee solicitors who are just starting criminal work usually learn the ropes by bird-dogging a senior brief like yourself,” I said. “And that includes sitting in on interviews in police stations.”

Ruth smiled sweetly. “Not in the middle of the night. And you're not a trainee solicitor, Kate.”

“True, Ruth, but I did do two years of a law degree. And as you yourself pointed out not five minutes since, I do know my way around PACE. I'm not going to blow it out of ignorance of the procedures.” I couldn't remember the last time I'd had to be this persuasive. Before I knew where I was, I'd be down on my knees begging. This was going to be the most expensive night out Richard Barclay had ever had.

Ruth shook her head decisively. “Kate, if we're going to quote each other, let me remind you of your opening speech. As an officer of the court, there are a whole lot of things I can't even think about doing. I'm afraid this is one of them.” As she spoke, the window rose again.

I stepped back to allow Ruth to open the door and get out of her living room on wheels. She let the door close with a soft, expensive click. She took a deep breath, considering. While I waited for her to say something, I couldn't help admiring her style. Ruth looked nothing like a woman whose sleep had been wrecked by the call that had dragged her out of bed. There was nothing slapdash about her understated make-up and her long blonde hair was pulled back in a neat scalp plait, the distinguished silver streaks at the temples glinting in the street lights. She was in her middle thirties, but the only giveaway was a faint cluster of laughter lines at the corners of her eyes. She wore a black frock coat over a cream silk shirt with a rolled neck, black leggings and black ankle boots with a high heel. The extra height disguised the fact that she had to be at least a size eighteen. We'd been friends ever since she'd been the guest speaker at my university Women In Law group, and I'd never seen her look anything other than immaculate. If I didn't like her so much, I'd hate her.

Now, she put a surprisingly slim hand on my arm. “Kate, you know I sympathize. If that was Peter in there, I'd be moving heaven and earth to get him out. I have no doubt whatsoever that
Richard's first demand will be that I get you on the case. And I'll back that one hundred percent. But give me space to do what I'm best at. As soon as I'm through here, I'll come straight round and brief you, I promise.”

I shook my head. “I hear what you're saying, but that's not enough, I'm sorry. If I'm going to do what
I'm
best at, there are questions I need to ask that won't necessarily have anything to do with what you need to know. Ruth, it's in your client's best interests.”

Ruth put an arm round my shoulder and hugged me. “Nice try, Kate. You really should have stuck to the law, you know. You'd have made a great advocate. But the answer's still no. I'll see you later.”

She let me go and walked across the police car park towards the entrance, the heels of her boots clicking on the tarmac. “You'd better believe it,” I said softly.

 

Time to exploit the irregular verb theory of life. In this case, the appropriate one seemed to be: I am creative, you exaggerate, he/she is a pathological liar. I gave Ruth ten minutes to get through the formalities. Then I walked across to the door and pressed the intercom buzzer. “Hello?” the intercom crackled.

Giving my best impression of a panic-stricken, very junior gofer, I said, “I'm with Hunter Butterworth. I was supposed to meet Ms. Hunter here; I'm her trainee, you see, only, my car wouldn't start, and I got here late, and I saw her car outside already. Can you let me through? Only, I'm supposed to be learning how to conduct interviews by observing her, and when she rang me she said Mr. Barclay's case sounded like one I could learn a lot from,” I gabbled without pause.

“Miss Hunter never said anything about expecting a trainee,” the distorted voice said.

“She's probably given up on me. I was supposed to meet her twenty minutes ago. Please, can you let me through? I'll be in enough trouble just for being so late. If she thinks I haven't showed up at all, my life won't be worth living. I've already had the ‘clients rely on us for their liberty, Ms. Robinson' lecture once this week!”

I'd struck the right chord. The door buzzed and I pushed it open. I stepped inside and pushed open the barred gate. The custody sergeant grinned at me from behind his desk. “I'm glad I'm not in your shoes,” he said. “She can be a real tartar, your boss. I had a teacher like her once. Miss Gibson. Mind you, she got me through O-level French, which was no mean feat.”

He asked my name, and I claimed to be Kate Robinson. He made a note on the custody record, then led me down a well-lit corridor. I took care not to trip over the cracked vinyl floor tiles whose edges were starting to curl. It was hard to tell what color they'd started out; I couldn't believe someone had actually
chosen
battleship gray mottled with khaki and bile green. Halfway along the corridor, he paused outside a door marked “Interview 2” and knocked, opening the door before he got a reply. “Your trainee's here, Miss Hunter,” he announced, stepping back to usher me in.

Like a true professional, Ruth didn't bat an eyelid. “Thank you,” she said grimly. Typically, it was Richard who nearly gave the show away. His whole face lit up in that familiar smile that still sends my hormones into chaos.

He got as far as, “What are you—” before Ruth interrupted.

“I hope you don't mind, Mr. Barclay, but my colleague is a trainee who is supposed to be learning the tricks of the trade,” she said loudly. “I'd like her to sit in on our consultation, unless you have any objections?”

“N-no,” Richard stammered, looking bewildered.

I stepped into the room and the sergeant closed the door firmly behind me.

Simultaneously, Richard said, “I don't understand,” and Ruth growled softly, “I should walk out of here right now and leave you to it.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't not. It's too important. But look on the bright side; if I can blag my way into the secure interview room of a police station, aren't you glad you've got me on the team?” I added an apologetic smile.

Before Ruth could find an answer for that particular bit of cheek, Richard said plaintively, “But I don't understand what you're doing here, Brannigan.”

“I'm here because you need help, Richard. I know you spend most of your time on another planet, but here on earth, it's considered to be a pretty serious offense to drive around in a stolen car with enough crack to get half Manchester out of their heads,” I told him.

“Look, I know it sounds like I'm in deep shit. But it's not like that.” He ran a hand through his hair and frowned. “I keep trying to tell everybody. It wasn't a stolen car. It was
our
car. The one we bought in Bolton on Tuesday.”

Before I could pick the bones out of that, Ruth interrupted. “Let's just hold everything right there. Kate, you are here on sufferance. I, on the other hand, am here because Richard asked me to be. I've got a job to do and I intend to do it, in spite of your interference. So let me ask my questions, and then if there's anything we haven't covered, you can have your turn.”

It wasn't a suggestion, it was an instruction. I knew what I'd done was bang out of order. I'd taken a big risk on the strength of my friendship with Ruth, and I didn't want to risk damaging those bonds any further. Besides, I like watching people who are really good at what they do. “That's absolutely fine with me,” I said.