Vixen (Inspector Brant) (14 page)

ANGIE HAD BEEN allowed her call and got hold of Ellen Dunne, the radical lawyer who liked nothing better than to bust the cops’ balls. As Angie sat in the interrogation room, Porter Nash said:

‘Do yourself a favour, spill the beans and we can cut you some slack.’

Angie yawned, said:

‘Fuck off.’

Outside the room, Roberts was listening to Brant’s account and asked:

‘Did you have a warrant, anything remotely like just cause or some frigging legal basis?’

Brant was offended, lit a cig and spat:

‘She’s dirty; at the very least we can have her for poisoning her mate.’

Roberts shook his head, said:

‘Look at her, she seem like she’s worried? She’ll claim the woman was self-administering. Strippers, they take all kinds of shit to clear their complexions, keep their weight down and, besides, she’s got the best defence. Why would she do it? The woman was helping her out: it doesn’t make sense and a judge would more than likely throw it out. Here’s Falls, she’s really fucked up this time.’

Falls was the worse for wear and when she heard Angie was using her as alibi, she felt her whole world collapse. Roberts came at her like a Rottweiler, demanding:

‘Tell me you weren’t with this Angie on the night Jimmy Cross got hot-wired.’

Falls looked to Brant for some signal but he was leaning against the wall, his eyes hard. She said:

‘I’m so sorry, sir.’

He exploded, his hands clenched, roared:

‘Jesus H Christ, how many times have Brant and I saved your ass, gone to bat for you against all the odds, how many bloody times?’

Before she could form a reply, he turned and went into the interview room. Brant lit a cig, blew smoke at the ceiling, said:

‘Me? I don’t give a toss what people do – shag sheep, who cares? And to tell you the truth, a little lezzie action, I can appreciate that, it’s so French. But fucking the enemy, that’s screwing the job, and without that, we’re really screwed, so if I were you, lady, I’d check the wanted ads for security guard placements.’

He pushed off from the wall and with, a rough gesture, ground the cig beneath his boot. Falls, who’d had to enlist his help so many times, felt total despair.

She tried:

‘Maybe the time-frame will help. Maybe she came to me after Jimmy got fried. Can we get the time of death?’

She knew how poor this was but hey, she was sinking and fas,t but had to try. He gave her the stare of total disinterest, the worst thing he could have done. In their time, he’d fixed those granite eyes on her with everything from hate to lust, amusement to disappointment and even on odd moments, pride, but never this. He said:

‘You’d have been drinking so how reliable are you? I’d pegged you for a lot of stuff, Falls, but a dyke, never.’

At that, the doors swung open and a heavy-set woman came striding in. Ellen Dunne, the darling of the Left and the scourge of the Met, looking something like an overweight Glenda Jackson. She had been courted by various parties but a political career would never be the fun that busting cops was. She was waving a newspaper and, fixing her gaze on Brant, said:

‘Seethe headline?’

Brant set his wolf smile, answered:

‘You know me,Ellen, I’m a pig. Would I have the sense to read papers?’

‘Let me read it for you, it’s so “up your street”… listen: “I’d like to say to all international drug dealers, if you’d be so kind as to stand up against that wall for a moment… Then I’d shout: ‘Ready, aim, fire!’.”‘

Brant shrugged and Ellen said:

‘This isn’t a tabloid hack but something written by Chief Constable Terry Grange. Is this your boys in blue? Where’s my client?’

Brant nodded towards the interview room and she pushed past.

Angie was sipping from a Diet Coke, Roberts standing near the window, Porter sitting opposite Angie.

Ellen gave them her gallows smile, said:

‘Might I have a moment to confer with my client?’

They moved to leave and Ellen looked closer at Porter, asked:

‘Hey, aren’t you Porter Nash?’

He stopped, said:

‘So?’

She studied him, then:

‘The fag? We were hoping you’d bring some light into this abyss but… You’re over-compensating. Think that if you’re more of a fascist than the rest of them, they’ll let you be one of the lads? Is that it?’

Porter was stung and snapped:

‘I expected more of you, Ms Dunne.’

Angie was enjoying this and delighted that Dunne was even better than she’d heard, said:

‘He wanted me to cop a plea.’

Ellen was still studying him, asked:

‘Didn’t you have a heart attack or something?’

Porter wanted to lash out, come up with some scathing put-down, but all he had was:

‘Like you care?’

Ellen turned to sit down, said:

‘I don’t.’

Twenty minutes later, Angie was cut loose and Ellen threatened:

‘We’ll sue your asses off.’

The assembled group – Brant, Falls, Roberts, steeped in their respective misery – were silent. Porter had disappeared.

After Angie had gone, Ellen’s arm protectively round her shoulder, Roberts turned to Falls, said:

‘Go home, you’re a complete liability. No doubt you’ll be bounced as soon as the hearing is done
and
you’re suspended without pay, got it?’

As Falls left the building, the desk sergeant whispered:

‘You let guys watch when you’re doing chicks? I could line up some gigs.’

She was too wretched to give him the finger.

Angie had gone to the pub, bought Ellen a large brandy and a vodka for herself.

Ellen cautioned:

‘Watch your step now. Those bastards have been badly humiliated, they’ll do anything to get you. Have you a place to stay?’

Angie, feeling powerful, adrenaline coursing through her, said:

‘I’m going home.’

‘Where’s home?’

‘The Mews, where I lived with Ray and his late brother.’

Ellen knocked back the brandy, took a deep breath, asked:

‘Is that wise? I mean, until they catch Ray.’

Angie was already thinking of the money and how it was time to get out, smiled, said:

‘Ray is a punk, hasn’t the bottle to return to London; he’ll be skulking in some hole till they come and waste his shit.’

They had another few drinks and Angie explained how, if Karen was to receive a few quid, she’d readily cop to have taken the poison herself. Ellen, watching Angie as she went through this, began to feel a chill.

In her thirty years of law, she’d encountered all kinds, some of the supposedly most dangerous people in the country and she’d never felt afraid, but now, as the essence of this woman began to permeate her senses, she felt a growing fear, a downright feeling that here was the real thing. Here was the so-called evil that psychologists claimed didn’t really exist.

Angie, in her elation, had let her true self emerge, her eyes no longer guarded, and what looked out was as old as time and primeval in its malevolence. Ellen had, without realising it, moved a few feet away, a voice in her head urging her to get the hell out of there. Angie, always sensitive to danger, put out her hand, touched Ellen’s wrist, asked:

‘You okay? You don’t look too good.’

‘The brandy. I’m not used to it on an empty stomach.’

She got up, left fast and felt she had indeed supped with the devil. She’d relegate this case to a junior.

The old man was up from his chair and looking at
Len with hot eyes.
‘You want to smack the shit out of me and end this?’ He
said. ‘I wouldn’t even hit you back.’
Len sat at the table and watched his father put his hands
in his back pockets and stand
a minute as if something wild.
You’re not the man I was shit scared of. You can’t even
stand up against a wind anymore.
Daniel Buckman,
The Name of Rivers.

ANGIE WENT TO the lock-up off Clapham Common first, failed to notice the various people following her. Inside, she packed the money into a suitcase and put her Browning automatic into her handbag. She had a passport and reckoned she was ready to roll. A fast visit to the Mews and she’d get ready to split.

She was feeling better than she ever had done, fooled ‘em all and got to stick it in their faces. The only minor flaw was Ray having the other half of the money, but maybe she’d get lucky and find some clue to its whereabouts at the Mews. Ray wasn’t the brightest and wouldn’t have exactly found a brilliant hiding place.

She got to the Mews by cab and enjoyed the cabbie trying to hit on her.

He said:

‘Honey, you look like a woman who’s got it all.’

She laughed and thought how right he was. The Mews was cold and in a mess. The cops had tossed it pretty good. She got some coffee going then added a little scotch, warm her up. She kicked off her shoes and had barely taken a sip when the key went in the door and a ginger-haired guy walked in.

She did a double take and then:

‘Ray?’

He smiled, said:

‘You got me, babe.’

She looked at her handbag, the Browning inside it. Ray caught the look, said:

‘Got a little protection in there?’

And took the .38 out of his jacket, levelled it, said:

‘Killing Jimmy, was that necessary?’

He shot her in the stomach and heard a voice say:

‘Drop the gun, shithead.’

Two cops came out of the bedroom. One looked ill, as if he’d recently been in hospital, the other looked like a hard fuck. They both had guns pointing at him. Ray tried to bring his round and the hard ass shot him in the head.

Porter Nash said:

‘Jeez, Brant, did you have to do that?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I did.’

Angie was moaning and Porter Nash got on the phone. Brant checked Ray was dead and then moved to Angie, said:

‘I’ll bet that hurts.’

She tried to spit but the pain was too great. She managed:

‘You executed him. I’ll tell my brief.’

Brant opened the suitcase, said:

‘Tell her about the extortion money, too. She’ll be interested in that.’

The ambulance took her away, handcuffed to the gurney. Porter Nash went along and she managed to call him various obscenities. He felt tired and his chest was paining him.

Brant was in the pub, downing doubles. The shot he’d fired was still amazing him. He’d meant to hit the fuck in the knee, to enable them to find out where the rest of the money was at. As he drained his drink, he relived the moment and said:

‘Like they say, there ain’t no coming back from a head wound.’

The barman, eyeing Brant’s glass, asked:

‘Another shot?’

Brant laughed out loud, said:

‘Nope, just needed the one.’

WHEN THE EXCITEMENT died down and the various cops had moved away, Falls moved from her vigil. Shit, she was cold, had been standing under the trees opposite the Mews for hours. Had trailed Angie from the lock-up, watched her enter the house, then had been confused by a red-haired guy who followed shortly after… unsure as to what to do, she’d waited until she’d heard the shots, then she’d rushed over. Through a window she’d seen Brant and Porter, on top of the situation, if two bodies classed as ‘being on top’. Then she’d waited for hours as the ambulance came and a shitpile of blue.

Her mind asking:

‘What are you waiting for?’

She didn’t know.

When it had all settled down, she finally moved and
broke in through a back window. She could see the blood on the floor and the mess from the many feet that had trampled around.

A bottle of scotch was left on the table, half full. She tilted it and drank deep. There was very little to see and she decided to head home but then, a picture on the far wall caught her eye. She inspected it and recognised it as a vixen. Was it her jittery state or did the animal have some resemblance to Angie? Whatever, she took it, let it be a scold to how she’d fucked up.

Hailed a cab and got home in the hour before dawn, the cabbie saying:

‘Late to be out, ma’am.’

Ma’am! Jesus, how old was that?

Inside, she had a shower and changed into her old cotton pyjamas, the ones with the false scent of homeliness. Got another big drink going and decided to try and hang the picture but hell, it weighed a ton. She turned it over and the back was literally packed solid: how distracted had she been that she hadn’t noticed already? Got a knife and began to hack at the filling until packets of money began to tumble out. The more she hacked, the more money flowed. She began to laugh, thinking Roberts had suspended her without pay… she flung wedges of money in the air, shouting:

‘Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.’

A WEEK LATER, PC McDonald was home, lying on the sofa, sunk in deep depression, thinking: If I could only get away, I could maybe get some perspective. The post came and among the bills was a padded envelope. He opened it without interest and to his disbelief, saw thick piles of money. A single sheet of paper contained the typed sentence:

‘You’re a fox.’

He got the telephone directory, began to look up travel agencies.

IN HOLLOWAY PRISON, Beth, a prisoner recently blinded by bad home-made hooch, was trying to roll a cigarette. A voice said:

‘Let me get that for you?’

She did.

Then the cig was put between her lips and the voice asked:

‘So, you got any more perfect crimes?’

Ken Bruen

hails from Galway in the west of Ireland, where he currently lives with his wife and daughter. His past includes twenty-five years as an English teacher in Africa, Japan, south-east Asia and South America, a PhD in metaphysics and some of the most acclaimed novels of our time. ‘Vixen’ is his fifteenth book and follows on from the ‘White’ Trilogy
(A White Arrest, Taming The Alien
and
The McDead)
and the subsequent
Blitz.