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Authors: Margaret Duffy

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BOOK: Dark Side
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Not long afterwards, in a staggeringly short space of time in the circumstances, the two came back into view, Patrick carrying what appeared to be a heavy cardboard box that clinked. I had a quick guess from the apparent weight and came up with a bottle of wine, four to six bottles of bitter plus the relevant glasses.

‘A visiting beer from Dartmoor!' he exclaimed. ‘Jail Ale, no less, and a special offer on a dozen bottles to sons of the soil – some tonight, some tomorrow!'

‘How terribly suitable,' I commented, my own version of this being most tonight, not much tomorrow. ‘But you aren't sons of any kind of soil. What about me?'

They stopped in their tracks, clearly having forgotten all about me.

‘It's so warm we were thinking of going home and sitting in the garden.' Patrick then said, adding with the smile of a man under wifely siege, ‘There's a good bottle of Chablis in the fridge.'

Just the smallest bit offended, I replied, ‘It's for an emergency – like unexpected visitors.'

They looked at one another and Carrick said, ‘I reckon this is an emergency, don't you?'

No point in falling out with both of them.

‘I knew you'd want to ask me about it but it's not official – yet,' Carrick said. ‘This is just me doing a little homework on a couple of local ex-cons.' As he spoke his voice had thickened with anger.

‘Far be it for me to advise moderation,' Patrick said softly.

James gave him a straight look. ‘No.'

‘Or urge you to consider that getting emotionally involved can affect judgement.'

‘No – again, I reckon you'd think it none of your business,' the Scot said, taking a fierce swig of his beer.

‘It's not.'

There was a little silence.

‘But?' Carrick snapped.

‘I suggest that your judgement has been affected insofar as it obviously hasn't occurred to you that it might be, taking into consideration his previous behaviour, exactly what Cooper wants.'

‘
Wants?
' This incredulously.

‘The DCI, still raging over the attack on his one-time girlfriend, now his wife, has admitted under questioning that he targeted those responsible in a private vendetta. One of them, Paul Mallory, now an alcoholic, has recently been found with severe injuries having been savagely beaten.' Patrick looked at James pointedly.

‘Bloody hell! You don't imagine I'd—'

Patrick smoothly interrupted with, ‘That's the beginning of an article in a gutter national newspaper under the headline “cop gets revenge on yob who injured his wife”.' And when the other carried on staring at him, appalled, he added, ‘As you're more than aware he's done something like it before and all the signs are that Mallory's right under his control. And now you say Cooper's big buddies with a serious criminal?' He shrugged. ‘All it would take is a phone call for Mallory to be seriously done over.'

There was a much longer silence this time. Eventually Carrick, gazing into space, breathed out hard through his nose and muttered, ‘Perhaps I shouldn't have come out tonight.'

‘Perhaps you don't need friends.'

The DCI turned to face him. ‘Look, Patrick …' Then he got to his feet and strode away for several yards, his back to us. Patrick merely smiled into his beer tankard, waiting.

With a gesture of despair Carrick came back and reseated himself. ‘This man's like a running sore to me,' he said through his teeth. ‘I've seen him twice lately when I've gone out at around midday. He doesn't bother to hide himself, just stands around seeming to know where I'm going to be. And it's worse than that: Joanna told me the other day that there was a red sports car parked in the lane outside our house with a man sitting in it. She's never actually come face-to-face with Cooper but from her description it was him all right.'

Patrick said, ‘I've already mentioned to Greenway that Cooper and Mallory are back in circulation as we were discussing the subject of career criminals recruiting dodgy private investigators to get corrupt cops to leak information and delete files. You've already had the experience of having Cooper trying to interfere with an investigation and he also took it to a personal level. As you know, Greenway doesn't think that he could have been the target in that London shooting. He did, however, ask me to put the incident on file, leaving the responsibility of looking into this mobster chum of Cooper's who's been involved with interference to evidence elsewhere to your lot. James, you're on SOCA's radar with regard to this matter, which means that if you go in alone there's every chance that things'll go pear-shaped. If you bide your time and out-think Cooper, everything will be a hell of a sight better.'

I had already said to Patrick that in my opinion a large part of the problem was the DCI's chronic lack of sleep.

Carrick said, ‘So, assuming I'm actually listening to you, where do I go from here with this little shit? Ignore the fact that he's been sitting outside my house while Joanna's there on her own?'

‘From what I know about your good lady,' Patrick drawled, ‘she has a pretty devastating right hook. Once bloodied the nose of one of her DS successors when he made some kind of dirty remark about your relationship, didn't she?'

‘Who told you that?' Carrick demanded to know.

Patrick smiled. ‘Only a little bird perched in a grape vine.'

My money was all on Derek Woods.

‘Seriously,' Patrick continued, ‘I do understand your worries. But, if it
was
him I can't imagine that Joanna's in any danger. Would you like me to watch Cooper and Mallory for you?'

‘How the hell can you? Just now in the pub you said you'd been given a desk job that would last a while.'

‘I'll disobey orders – besides, I can do most of the desk job from home.'

Slowly, Carrick shook his head. ‘No, but thanks all the same.'

‘Do you have any more info about the mobster Cooper's involved with?'

‘I simply haven't had the time to go into it. But, there's a rumour, courtesy of a London snout, that he likes to be known as Raptor.'

FOUR

‘T
he biggest advantage is that Cooper's not previously clapped eyes on us,' Patrick remarked, noting down a few figures on his clipboard.

‘No, but James has if we bump into him,' I pointed out ruthlessly. Despite James's refusal of our offer of help we were doing a little investigating.

My partner handed me a large tape measure and began walking away from me towards a lamppost holding the end of the tape. Having arrived and noted the distance I gave him, he let go of the end and I wound it in again. Eyes on the ground as if following a trail, he then set off towards where a side street joined the main road.

‘He can always tell us to sod off if we do,' he observed mildly when I caught up with him.

We were dressed in blue overalls, part of a collection of ‘come in handy' garments we keep in an old kit bag in the car for when we want to assume any kind of role. It includes dark tracksuits for being invisible at night and jeans and baggy sweatshirts for loafing around as Joe and Mrs Bloggs. Most have been acquired from charity shops. Patrick did ask me to dispose of a black lace Teddy-style bra that transforms my modest bust into something quite amazing – I had worn it as part of a ‘tart rig' – on the grounds that when I wore it his concentration on the job in hand went overboard. It is now safely in a drawer in the bedroom at home, as you never know when you will need to generate some raw lust in your man.

So, as utility company jobsworths, it being Saturday notwithstanding, no one gave us a second glance as we measured this and that, lifted small manhole covers and peered within, shaking our heads and writing a few sentences along the lines of, ‘Rain water in cavity not draining away' and ‘This water meter is filthy. How do they read it?' in case we were challenged. Until this moment, we had stayed in the close vicinity of the house last given as Benny Cooper's address, a thirties semi in East Twerton, just off the Lower Bristol Road in Bath.

‘He's probably moved,' I said as we reached the street corner and turned left.

‘Well, someone's at home. As we saw, there was a red sports car parked in the drive – such a vehicle was mentioned by Carrick last night, if you remember – and I saw the bedroom curtains being drawn back,' Patrick replied. ‘The place is also in a fairly bad state of repair, which might suggest the owner spent a period of time away detained at Her Majesty's pleasure.'

‘And we're walking down here why?'

‘Just to move away from that area for a few minutes to look normal and also, for future reference, to find out if there's a back way.'

There was not and we wandered back the way we had come, Patrick writing down the numbers of the telegraph poles. The registration of the vehicle had also been noted for later checking.

‘No, to hell with this, I'm going to ring the doorbell and tell him we can smell gas,' he announced.

We returned to our original scene of operations in time to see another car draw up outside the house
.
As is the case in most of the city there were double yellow lines on this section of road, which would explain the driver's subsequent haste, hurrying to the rear of the car, a black hatchback, throwing up the door and grabbing several heavy carrier bags of shopping. He then kicked open the garden gate and tottered up the short path, almost falling after catching his feet in something – the overhanging weeds? – and, having dumped down the bags, rang the bell, following this with a good battering on the door with a fist. Hastening back to the car he collected two full cardboard wine carriers and, having already placed a twin toilet roll pack beneath his chin, returned to the house, the door of which still remained shut.

‘Come on! Come on!' he yelled after more ringing and banging.

We, meanwhile, were exhibiting enormous interest in a drainage grid in the gutter.

Some moments later the door was wrenched open, wrenched seemingly on account of having been stuck in the frame, setting the old-fashioned letter box clattering.

‘I'm not bloody deaf!' a man yelled. ‘I was in the shower!'

‘And I'm on double yellow lines! I can't wait any longer!' the other bawled back.

‘Then why not just leave it and go?'

‘Money! That's why. Money!'

‘I'll give it to you when I see you tomorrow.'

‘That's not good enough. You haven't paid me for the last lot yet either.'

‘I haven't got that much money in the house.'

‘You're a bloody liar! No cash from your little drugs business lying around? No takings from—?'

‘Shut
up
!'

‘I'm warning you that if you—'

‘You'll what, you stupid little git? I'll see you tomorrow. Go on, get out!'

The door slammed. And then there was another bang, as if whoever it was had had to shoulder-charge it to make it close properly.

We continued busying ourselves with grid examining as the man got in the car and drove off, tyres squealing.

‘Did you get his picture?' Patrick asked.

I told him I had – several, in fact – having achieved this by crouching down, concealing myself behind his legs and using my mobile phone camera. Then I said, ‘The shopping must still be on the doorstep.'

Patrick crossed the pavement to stand behind – no, mostly inside – the overgrown front hedge. Then, a quarter of a minute later the door was hauled open again and there was a short pause – only one item of shopping hitting the ground, possibly the toilet rolls, to a chorus of muttered expletives – before it thundered shut again.

‘Cooper,' Patrick reported. ‘I got a good view of him. Let's go before someone reports us to the police for snooping around.'

Back in the Range Rover, parked several streets away, we discovered by accessing police files that my photographs were definitely of Paul Mallory. One was particularly clear as he had glanced fleetingly in our direction on the alert for traffic wardens.

‘You know, that was quite fantastic,' Patrick exclaimed. ‘When I first joined D12 I can remember people sitting in phony utility vans in the vicinity of addresses for
days
without so much as glimpsing their targets.'

‘And with all the kit, too,' I recollected. ‘Little red and white barriers to put around lifted manhole covers. Flashing warning lights. Even bunches of wires disappearing underground but nothing to do with the real thing to pretend to work on.'

‘A lot of money is always thrown at national security.'

‘The pair were well in character, weren't they?'

‘Scum's the word,' Patrick commented.

‘What does Cooper look like now? Presumably he wasn't wearing his shades.'

‘No. Overweight – although to be fair he had an overlarge dressing gown on – five feet seven-ish, dark hair, small dark eyes and a pointy nose, giving him the manner of a nervous ferret.'

I thought this hardly surprising given that Mallory had just advertised to everyone within earshot that he was dealing in drugs and getting money from some other unspecified source – illegal almost certainly. Cooper was obviously using him as an errand boy. The man must be very sure of himself.

‘What do you think he hopes to gain as far as James is concerned?' I queried.

‘Perhaps he's just enjoying winding him up by sticking up two fingers, demonstrating that he's around. I just hope Carrick doesn't put a foot wrong.'

Patrick was too impatient to wait for Carrick to investigate the identity of Cooper's new mobster associate and, that same afternoon, accessed various secure Metropolitan Police websites, looking for anything about a man who liked to be known as Raptor. He also has the added advantage of being able to get into SOCA files, some of which are shared with MI5, his high security rating meaning that information not necessarily readily available to the forces unless requested by a very senior officer is at his fingertips. Other, more sensitive information has to be accessed in person, in London.

BOOK: Dark Side
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