‘I appreciate that. But don’t put your own head in the noose in the process,’ I added. No matter how much they spend on advertising to tell us different, anyone who has any contact with real live police officers know that The Job is still a white, patriarchal, rigidly hierarchical organization. That makes life especially hard for women who refuse to be shunted into the ghetto of community liaison and get stuck in at the sharp end of crime fighting.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll find out who’s on the team and see who I know. Meanwhile, is there anything specific I can help you with?’
‘I need a general backgrounder on crack. How much there is of it around, where it’s turning up, who they think is pushing the stuff, how it’s being distributed. Anything there is, including gossip. Off the record, of course. Any chance?’ I asked.
‘Give me a few hours. Can you meet me around seven?’
I pulled a face. ‘Only if you can get to the airport,’ I said. ‘I have a plane to meet.’
‘No problem.’
‘Oh yes it is. Richard’s son’s going to be on it. And the one thing he mustn’t find out is that his dad’s in the nick on drugs charges.’
‘Ah,’ Della said. It was a short, clipped exclamation.
‘I take it that response means you don’t want to share the child-minding?’
‘Correct. Count me out. Look, I’ll dig up all I can and meet you at Domestic Arrivals in Terminal I, at the coffee counter, just as you come in. Around quarter to seven, OK?’
I didn’t want to wait that long, but Della wasn’t the sort to hang around either. If quarter to seven was when she wanted to meet, then quarter to seven was the soonest she could see me with the information I needed. ‘I’ll see you then. Oh, one other thing. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the drugs, but there was a Polaroid picture of a young kid in handcuffs, you know, bondage-style, in the car. Probably just dropped by one of the villains. But maybe you could ask around and see if there’s anybody that Vice have in the frame for paedophilia who’s also got form for drugs.’
‘Can do.’
‘And Della?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what they say. A friend in need…’
‘Is a pain in the ass,’ I finished. ‘See you.’ I put the phone down. At last I felt things were starting to move.
The conversation with Della had reminded me of the part of the problem I’d deliberately been ignoring. Davy. Not that he was in himself a problem. It’s just that I wasn’t very good at keeping eight-year-old boys happy when I was eight myself, and I haven’t improved with age. According to Richard, Davy was the only good thing to come out of his three-year marriage, and his ex-wife Angie seemed more determined with each passing year to reduce his contact with the only child he was likely to have if he stayed with me. So it was imperative that Davy didn’t go back from his half-term holiday with lurid tales of Daddy in the nick.
Which sounded simple if you said it very fast. Unless we could spring Richard in the next day or two, however, it was going to be extremely complicated. Richard and I had agreed an initial lie, which should hold the fort for a day or two. After that, it was going to get complicated. While Davy might just believe his dad had had to dash abroad on an urgent, chance-in-a-lifetime job, it wasn’t going to be easy to explain why Richard couldn’t get home again. There may be parts of the world where the transport isn’t too reliable on account of wars and famine, but unfortunately most of them don’t run to major rock venues. Either way, whether it took hours or days, I was going to need some assistant minders, if only to baby-sit while I rambled the city centre streets looking for fast cars with trade plates. And there aren’t very many people I’d trust to do that.
I picked up the phone again and tapped in Alexis Lee’s office number. ‘Chronicle crime desk,’ a young man’s voice informed me.
‘Alexis, please.’
‘Sh’not’ere,’ came the snippy reply.
‘I need to speak to her in a hurry. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can get hold of her?’ I asked, clinging to my manners by my fingernails. My Granny Brannigan always said politeness cost nothing. But then, she never had to face the humiliation of dealing with lads who still think a yuppie is something to aspire to.
‘’Zit’bout’story?’ he demanded. ‘You c’n tell me if it is.’
‘Not as such,’ I said through clenched teeth. I could hear my Oxford accent becoming more Gown than Town by the second. ‘Not yet, anyway. Look, I know you’re a very busy person, and I don’t want to waste any of your precious time, but it’s awfully important that I speak to Alexis. Do you know where she is?’
There’s a whole generation of young lads who are either so badly educated or so thick skinned they don’t even notice when they’re being patronized. The guy on the phone could have featured in a sociology lecture as an exemplar of the type. ‘Sh’s a’ lunch,’ he gabbled.
‘And do we know where?’
‘Gone f’r a curry.’
That was all I needed to know. There might be three dozen curry restaurants strung out along the mile-long stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, but everybody has their favourite. Alexis’s current choice was only too familiar. ‘Thanks, sonny,’ I said. ‘I’ll remember you in my letter to Santa.’
I was out of my seat before I’d put the phone back. I crossed my office in five strides and walked into the main office. ‘Shelley, I’m off to the Golden Ganges. And before you ask how I can eat at a time like this, don’t. Just don’t.’
Chapter 7
If the gods had struck me blind the moment I entered the Golden Ganges, I’d still have had no problem finding Alexis. That unmistakable Liverpudlian voice, a monument to Scotch and nicotine, almost drowned out the twanging sitar that was feebly trickling out of the restaurant’s speakers, even though she was seated a long way from the door. The volume told me she wasn’t working, just routinely showing off to her companion. When she’s doing the business with one of her contacts, the sound level drops so low that even MI5 would have a job picking it up. I walked towards the table.
Alexis spotted me two steps into the room, though there was no pause in the flow of her narrative to indicate it. As I approached, she held up one finger to stop me in my tracks a few feet away, interrupting her story to say, ‘Just a sec, Kate, crucial point in the anecdote.’ She turned back to her companion and said, ‘Thomas Wynn Ellis, a good Welsh name, you’d think you’d cracked it, yeah? I mean, she’s not crazy about the Welsh, but at least you’ve got a fair chance that he’s going to speak English, yeah? So she fills in all the forms to be taken on as a patient, then makes an appointment to see him about her back problem. She walks into the surgery, and what does she find? Straight from Karachi, Dr Thomas Wynn Ellis, product of the Christian orphanage, colour of a bottle of HP sauce! She was sick as a parrot!’
Alexis’s companion giggled. I couldn’t find a laugh, not just because I’d heard her ridicule the casual racism of her colleagues before. I sat down at the table. Luckily they’d progressed to the coffee. I don’t think I could have sat at the same table as a curry, never mind eaten one. I didn’t recognize the young woman sharing the table, but Alexis didn’t leave me in the dark too long. ‘Kate, this is Polly Patrick, she’s about to take up a post at the university, doing research into psychological profiling of serial offenders. Polly, this is my best mate, Kate Brannigan, PI.’
Polly looked interested. I winced. I knew what was coming. ‘You’re a private investigator?’ Polly asked.