Loose Head (2 page)

The hand on my elbow became a clamp, and I moved along. Nothing to see here.

Paul sat motionless behind a laptop computer atop an ornate and respectable Victorian desk. He was a pious-looking man, tall, gaunt and smooth-cheeked, who took great pains to hide his reptilian nature behind a facade of genteel opulence: elegant dark-grey suit, tasteful tie, high-tech German spectacles. A stockbroker, perhaps – or an undertaker.

Paul regarded me without expression for what he considered an appropriately unsettling length of time. “You’re due,” he said at length.

I feigned craven fear. “Mr. Paul, you’ve got to believe me. I’ve been trying – I really have.”

“You owe me £9,950. Do you have it?”

“Not yet, Mr. Paul, but I’m only a week late. I’ll have it for you on Friday, without fail.”

“But you don’t have it tonight.” He sighed and looked aggrieved. “Obviously you fail to appreciate the seriousness of your commitment. Dean.“ He gestured to the leg-breaker at my elbow. “Impress it upon him. Don’t leave any marks.”

Instantly the grip on my elbow became an unbearable pressure as my hand was forced up between my shoulder-blades. In seconds, ligaments would tear. I made an executive decision. With my free hand, I took possession of Dean’s manly bundle and gave it a friendly squeeze. “I wouldn’t,” I said conversationally. “Just let go of my arm, and you might have children yet, if anything female will have you.” Dean let go, staring on confusion at his boss. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go.

The door opened behind me, and I heard heavy breathing from multiple sources. Paul had pressed a button. “Don’t even think about it,” I told Paul. “I’m DI Dexter Reed from Hendon SCD. I know about the loan sharking, I know about the rent-boys, I know about your offshore accounts, and I know you made £3 million last year and declared £200,000 to Inland Revenue. I’m afraid you can kiss that knighthood goodbye, mate. We’re rolling up your operation like one of your delicious tandoori wraps.”

In the tense silence that enveloped the room, Paul suddenly looked up. “We? Where’s your backup, DI Reed?” he asked gently. “They should be here by now.”

I shook my head pityingly, and began the caution. “You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that...” Then something hard and heavy dented the back of my skull, and I knew no more.

And now I stood on the deck of Paul’s boat, the
Compound Interest
, wearing an iron ankle bracelet. Would Artemis Paul kill me to protect his ill-gotten gains? Does a hobby-horse have a hickory dong?

For a moment, Mick Ryan glanced up, and I managed to arch one quizzical eyebrow before he looked away. I had one last shot, and licking my parched lips, I took it. “If he’s crazy enough to kill a copper, you’ll be next. Toss
him
overboard, instead.”

“Heave away, boys,” Paul growled, and with a sickening swoop of despair, I saw the engine block leave the deck.

Then Ryan lost his grip, and it came crashing down again. The Irishman bent over, groaning as if he’d ruptured something, and when he straightened up again, there was something in his hand. A piston-rod. Two soggy thuds, and the two nameless hooligans hit the deck.

Paul, face contorted in rage, plunged a hand inside his overcoat and came out with a blade. With the swiftness of thought it was flickering toward Ryan’s throat. The Irishman jerked his head back; the blade sliced his cheek. Then his makeshift cosh caught Paul on the ear, and he went down like the sack of shite he was.

It had started to rain. I let out a long, shuddering breath and tasted its sweetness. Fresh water, not salt. “Thank you, Mick. I truly thought that was the end of a most promising career.”

“For that matter, so did I. But think nothin’ of it.”

He picked up Paul’s knife and cut the ropes binding my arms. “What changed your mind?” I asked, desperately rubbing my wrists to restore the flow of blood, suddenly shivering uncontrollably in what had swiftly become a deathly-chill deluge.

He had bent to unfasten the chain from around my legs, and gazed thoughtfully out over the sea, toward France, the rain and the blood trickling unnoticed down his face. “D’you remember that match at Spitalfields, in ‘98? It was just before you retired from the Hastewicke first XV. I thought you were well past it then, that you were the weak link in the pack. We were pushing for the winning try, and one of our props – Seamus Gallagher, biggish lad, about twenty stone – picked up the ball and found some space. I thought he’d score for sure, but you caught him from behind and put him down – hell of a tackle, by the way. There was a ruck, and we had an overlap, but you just wouldn’t let the ball come out until your support was there. The boots were flashin’, and when you got up, your jersey was bloody tatters, man. And somehow the ball came back to your side, the scrum-half booted it away, and that was the match.”

“You saved my life because of rugby?”

“It’s the greatest game in the world. You earned my respect that day. I thought you were past it but I was wrong. Ya had one more game left in ya.”

“But then I met you in Soho Square.”

“Ah. But you never looked at me the way
he
did, did you?” He gestured disdainfully at Paul’s crumpled form. “When he looked at me, there was nothing but... contempt. Disgust. And cold amusement.” He suddenly raised the piston-rod overhead, on the verge of bashing Paul’s brains in.

“Don’t!” I cried.

He thought the better of it, and drew a shuddering breath. Then he continued as if there had been no near-homicidal interruption. “Oh, you ragged me a bit. But when I looked in your eyes, I saw... compassion. Anyway, Paul’d a’ killed me sure, sooner or later. It was only a matter of time and convenience.”

He disappeared below, returned with a fresh bottle of whisky. “Here. You look like you could do with a drink. Then we’ll see if we can drive this boat.”

Chapter 2

It was far too early the next morning when I stood before my boss, Detective Superintendent Peter Wicks, for the ass-kicking I so richly deserved. It had taken the crew at the office until 3 a.m. to take my statement and tidy up all of the loose ends, and it had taken more than half of Artemis Paul’s bottle of Bushmill’s to calm my twanging nerves. Now, a scant four hours later, I surveyed DS Wicks through the rheumy eyes of a sick ferret.

At 5'5", 140 pounds and nearly 70 years of age, DS Wicks looked more like Mr. Burns from
The Simpsons
than Martin Johnson. I knew well, however, that what he lacked in brawn he made up for in brutal intellect and a God-given talent for invective. When things went wrong – and let there be no mistake, the events of last night were very wrong indeed – Peter Wicks’ venomous tongue could make an SAS drill instructor stick his fingers in his ears and run away, singing “La la la la...”.

“Of all the Uruguayan cluster-fucks I’ve ever seen, this one takes the prize! You amateurish bungler! Is the only purpose of your life to serve as a cautionary tale to others? Have I taught you nothing of proper investigative procedure in your 21 years on the force? Is there a single rule of good policework you failed to violate like a silk-stockinged cabin-boy?”

He was in good form today. I adopted an expression of stoic repentance.

“Very few, sir.”

He paused in his restless pacing and glared at me, eyes bulging, yellow teeth bared, like a bull mandrill about to charge. “Do you mock me, DI Reed?”

“By no means, Chief Inspector.”

“By the hairy scrotum of Satan, man, whatever possessed you? Too many blows to the head on the rugby pitch?”

A shadowy figure detached itself from the window, where it had been gazing out over the suburban maze that was Hendon: Detective Chief Inspector George Oakhurst, recently-appointed senior investigating officer for Hendon Specialist Crime Directorate and my immediate supervisor. I hadn’t noticed him before, and kept my face carefully neutral when I saw him now. He had a handsome, pock-marked visage and a cold blue gaze; his once-flat belly now strained unpleasantly against the fine pearl-grey wool of his suit jacket as if someone had shoved an air compressor-hose up his bottom. Too much good living, I thought – and too much bad intent.

DCI Oakhurst and I had a lengthy and unpleasant history; I could think of few members of the Metropolitan Police I would less rather have present as Wicks so eloquently catalogued my deficiencies. Still, I had only myself to blame.

“Sir, it was a miscalculation. It was just a routine check-in – it was at least a week too early for him to try physical intimidation.” I was on shaky ground there. Paul’s volatile temperament was well-known – just ask Martin Wallace. So why
had
I put myself into his hands last night, against departmental policy, on a whim, if I was honest with myself, with no pre-planning, no backup, not a word to anyone? I thought I knew.

It was the same impulse that had impelled me, on dozens of occasions on the rugby pitch, to engage in violent physical confrontations. To redress a wrong done to a helpless teammate at the bottom of a ruck, a gratuitous stamping, a deliberate attempt to injure, an off-the-ball cheap shot. It was my own grandiose sense of fair play. Because in that grimy chalet in Soho Square, Mick Ryan had become my teammate. Artemis Paul had sucker-punched him big-time. And I simply couldn’t stand by and let that happen.

I also couldn’t give DS Wicks or DCI Oakhurst the slightest inkling of that fact, or I was finished as a detective. I may have been stupid, but I wasn’t professionally suicidal. “As I say, sir, it was a miscalculation. It was meant to be a routine check-in, to reassure Paul that I was good for the cash. He overreacted.”

“
He
overreacted?” Oakhurst asked, injecting himself into the conversation for the first time. “What about you?”

“Are you suggesting I should’ve taken the beating, sir?”

“You richly deserved one!” Wicks cried. “I daresay you’ve taken worse, and cheerfully, many times on the rugby pitch! I can’t believe you went to see him without backup! You jeopardized the entire investigation! The man’s a lunatic!”

I managed a sickly grin. “I appreciate that now, sir.”

“Wipe that smirk off your face, DI Reed!” Wicks bellowed. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put you on suspension!”

“Because Artemis Paul is going to prison for the rest of his life, sir. And I’d like to do whatever I can to make it two lifetimes.”

Wicks glared at me for a full 30 seconds, parrot’s eyes gleaming with malevolent intelligence. Finally he made an inarticulate sound, half phlegm-hawk, half-whinny. “Get out of my sight.”

“Sir?” I asked hopefully.

“Start with the list of clients from his computer. Get me names, dates, amounts owed, persuasions inflicted, then go see them all. And his rent-boys. I want enough evidence to bury Artemis Paul for not two, but 10 lifetimes. And Reed.” His voice was almost gentle now.

“Yes, Detective Superintendent?”

“If you put one toe out of line from here on out, my boot will be so far up your bunghole, so quickly, you’ll think your tongue has grown laces!” DCI Oakhurst’s eyes fairly glowed in pleasure at the prospect.

II

The delectable Emma Kwan, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Service computer crime lab at Wellington House, was waiting, shapely ankles crossed on my desk, when I returned to my cube. She uncoiled sinuously as I entered and gave me a long, searching look. “All right, Dex?”

“No thanks to me, as DS Wicks has just explained in vivid detail. Thought I was fish bait last night.”

“One of Paul’s little elves just happened to be an old rugby mate?”

“Bit more complex than that, Em. He was my informant. Gave me my intro to Paul. It was a lucky break that Paul decided to include him in the disposal party, though.” I shivered involuntarily, remembering the black void that had so nearly claimed me.

“I’ve always thought of you as so big and indestructible.” There was a curious look in her hazel-green eyes, not unalloyed with sympathy. “Are you sure you’re OK?”

I wasn’t, but I nodded anyway. I wanted Emma Kwan to pull me to her spectacular breasts and stroke my rugby-gnarled ears. Instead, I heaved a businesslike sigh. “Any luck with Paul’s laptop?”

“Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” she scoffed. “You can’t hide anything from my boys. He’s got interesting taste in porn, your Mr. Paul. Ever heard of ‘bugging?’”

“Oh, that is so yesterday. I’m into shaved Chihuahuas, myself. Find a client list?”

“It’s on your desk. I’ll ring you if we turn up anything else of interest.” She turned to go. “And Dex?”

“Yes?”

“Your partner. He’s not pleased with you.”

I sighed again. “I know. He’s sulking. He’ll come around.”

III

It took several hours before Brian could master his emotions sufficiently to join me in our shared cubicle. I’d just set aside Paul’s client list, mind boggling at the sheer numbers involved, when I heard – or felt, rather – his unmistakably ponderous tread.

Brian Abbott makes me look small. And at 6'4" and 240 pounds, I’m not exactly Frodo Baggins. Brian is three inches taller than me and large enough to qualify for his own postal code. He’s the best partner I’ve ever had – tough, dogged, never gives up. Observant, with a near-photographic memory. A brilliant and omnivorously wide-ranging intellect, capable of prodigious leaps of intuitive logic. Speaks four languages fluently. Competent at all sorts of arcane skills, from picking locks to gourmet cooking. Excellent darts player – just leans over the line with his ape-like arm extended, until his hand is about a yard from the board. You hardly ever have to buy a pint when Brian’s around.

The thing about Brian, though – despite his mountainous physical presence, he’s also the most tender-hearted bloke I’ve ever known. He’s not always capable of the emotional detachment that armors the souls of most policemen. Cries at the drop of a hat. And he looked close to tears now as he leaned on the door-frame of our shared cubicle, arms like baulks of timber crossed over his chest.