Tracy couldn’t help but laugh. “Not right now, thank you very much. I’m serious, Jaff.” She had tried coke a few times, first at university to stay awake during her exams, then later at clubs and bars. She liked it well enough, and it usually made her randy, but it soon wore off and left her feeling shitty for hours. She certainly didn’t want to feel randy again right now, and she was feeling shitty enough already.
“Look, I told you before,” Jaff went on. “You’ve no idea what’s going on. You’ve-”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Jaff? Is that what you really think? The only reason I don’t know what’s going on is that you won’t tell me. I’ve asked you. But you won’t. If we’re going to keep on being in this together I need to know more. You’d be surprised. Perhaps I can help. Just how deep are you into all this?”
“All what?”
“You know what I’m talking about. The drugs. The money. The guns. What are you? Some kind of wannabe gangster? A gun-running coke dealer? Like you just walked out of a Guy Ritchie movie or something? A rock n’rolla? Is that it?”
“I don’t-”
“Because I’m not stupid, Jaff. Maybe all I know is that I’m on the run from the police in my dad’s house with a lad I hardly know, who just happens to have a few kilos of cocaine, several thousand quid and a loaded gun-I assume it is loaded?-in his hold-all. It certainly sounds like a movie to me.”
Jaff smiled at her. It was supposed to be his charming aren’t-I-a-naughty-little-boy-but-you-can’t-help-but-love-me-anyway-can-you? smile, but it didn’t work this time. “I suppose you think I owe you an explanation?”
“Well, yeah. That would do for a start.”
“Look, I didn’t ask you to come with me, did I? It wasn’t my-”
“Don’t give me that load of bollocks, Jaff. You know damn well that if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be sitting here at my dad’s breakfast table, eating bloody bacon and eggs.”
“You’re beginning to sound a bit like a fishwife, you know,” Jaff said. “Why don’t you just shut it, chill out and go with the flow?”
Tracy snorted and gave him as disgusted a look as she could dredge up, then she took a deep breath. There was one thing she had to be grateful for. Jaff had been so concerned about her finding the money, the coke and the gun that the mobile seemed to have completely slipped his mind when he checked the hold-all. “You’re right,” she said. “So how do you suggest I go about doing it? Chilling? And, I mean, what exactly is the flow? What should I do to go with it?”
“Nothing, babe. That’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to do anything.”
“Because I’d just like to know what our plans are, for a start, that’s all.”
“Our plans?”
“Well, not so long ago you were going to make a few phone calls, get things organized, then we were going to hook up with some mate of yours in London who does dodgy passports and disappear over the Channel, right? Or did I get that bit wrong, too?”
“No. That’s still the general idea.”
“Then I hope you weren’t planning on carrying that hold-all with you.”
“Give me a break! I’m going to get rid of all that stuff in London. Except the money, of course.”
“Including the gun?”
“Including the gun. That’s why this takes time to organize, why we’re still here. Do you think I’d be crazy enough to try and carry a gun and four kilos of coke across the border?”
“I don’t know, Jaff. I really don’t know just how crazy you are. Right now I think maybe I don’t know you.”
“Just trust me, that’s all.” Jaff reached out his hand but Tracy didn’t take it.
“You keep on saying that,” she said, “but you don’t give me much reason to trust you, holding things back from me.”
Jaff waved his fork in the air. “It was for your own good.”
“What was? I don’t see how.”
“Let’s not fight, babe,” Jaff said, polishing off the rest of his breakfast. He tapped the sheet of paper beside him with the tip of his fork. “Besides, I was about to say something to you before I was so rudely interrupted.”
Suddenly Tracy felt more nervous than angry. She fingered her necklace. “Oh? What was that?”
“This here piece of paper. I found it in a desk drawer in the front room. It-”
“You shouldn’t go rummaging through people’s drawers. It’s not-”
Jaff slammed his knife and fork down so hard he broke the plate and the cutlery clattered to the floor. “Will you just fucking shut up with your what’s right and what’s not right bullshit!”
Jaff yelled so loudly and his eyes turned so cold and hard that Tracy felt herself on the verge of crying again. She was sure that her lips were quivering, and she struggled to hold back the tears. She wasn’t going to let him see her cry, even if he could sense her fear. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
“Is it clear now?” Jaff went on. “Are we on the same page?”
Tracy nodded, chewing the edge of her thumb.
“Right,” he went on, as calmly as anything. “As I was saying. I found this letter in one of the drawers, and it turns out to be interesting, very interesting indeed.”
“What is it?” Tracy asked in a small voice. “Your name is Banks, right? Francesca Banks?”
“That’s right.”
“And your father is DCI Alan Banks of the North Yorkshire Police?”
“Yes. I mean-”
Jaff let the sheet of paper drop. “Your father’s a fucking cop, and you didn’t see fit to tell me?”
“It didn’t seem important. He’s not here, is he? What does it matter who he is, what he does?”
“What does it matter?” Jaff tapped the side of his head. “You lied to me, babe. Are you certain you’re not stupid? Because that’s not what I’m hearing from where I’m sitting.”
“There’s no need to be insulting. So, he’s a policeman. So what?”
“Not just a policeman. A DCI. That’s detective chief inspector.” He laughed. “I’ve been shagging a DCI’s daughter. I can’t believe it.”
“You don’t have to be so crude about it.”
“Make up your mind, babe. Are you an angel or a whore? On first impressions between the sheets, I’d definitely go for the latter, but you seem to talk a whole lot of rubbish about morals and duty, and me being insulting and crude. So just what exactly are you?”
“How would you notice what I do or don’t do between the sheets, as you so crudely put it? All you’re interested in is your own pleasure. I might as well be an inflatable doll for all you care.”
“You’ve got about as much enthusiasm as an inflatable doll. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Fucking? You take your pleasure where and when you can.”
“Oh, you’re a marvel, Jaff, you are. A philosopher, too.”
Jaff pointed at her. “Shut up, bitch. I’m warning you. I don’t like sarcasm.”
Tracy glared at him. “Anyway. what does it matter if my dad’s a DCI?” she repeated.
“It matters because when a copper’s involved they pull out all the stops, that’s why. They stick together. It matters because it makes everything ten times harder. You’re a copper’s daughter. There’s nothing he won’t do to get you back. Nothing. This is personal for him, and he’s got the whole bloody country’s police force on his side. Get it? We’re seriously outnumbered.”
“What do you mean, get me back? From where? From who? I can just walk out of here anytime I want, can’t I?”
“Get real. Things have changed. As you said, we’re in this together, and nobody’s going off anywhere without the other until it all gets sorted.”
Tracy felt a chill and a tightening in her chest. So it was true: in his eyes, she was a prisoner now, a hostage. Or a burden. “I told you. He’s on holiday. He won’t be back till Monday. How could he come looking for us? He’s got no idea what’s going on.”
“But he soon will have when he gets back. Or he’ll hear about what’s happened from his mates and come back early. He could be on his way now.”