I got to my feet. ‘I suppose it’s a step in the right direction. I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything,’ I said grimly.
Out in the street, the city carried on as usual. I cut across Deansgate and through the Victorian glass-domed elegance of the Barton Arcade into the knots of serious shoppers bustling around the designer clothes shops of St Ann’s Square. Nobody had told the buskers outside the Royal Exchange that this was not a day for celebration and their cheery country rock mocked me all the way across the square and into Cross Street. I’d abandoned the car on a single yellow line round the back of the Nat West bank, and to my astonishment, I didn’t have a ticket. It was the first time all day that I’d got the benefit of an even break. I had to take it as an omen.
Back home, I checked Richard’s answering machine and saved the handful of messages. I returned a couple of the more urgent calls, explaining he’d had to go out of town at a moment’s notice and I wasn’t sure when he’d be back. I also checked his diary, and cancelled a couple of interviews he’d arranged for the early part of the coming week. Luckily, he didn’t have much planned, thanks to Davy’s visit. God only knew how he was going to write this week’s magazine column. Frankly, it was the least of my worries.
• •
Manchester’s rush hour seems to have developed middle-aged spread. When I first moved to the city, it lasted a clearly definable ninety minutes, morning and evening. Now, in the evening it seems to start at four and continue till half past seven. And on Fridays, it’s especially grim. Even on the wide dual carriageway of Princess Parkway, it was a major challenge to get into third. It felt like a relief to be in the airport. That’s how bad it was.
I was ten minutes early for our meeting, but Della was already sitting in the domestic terminal with a coffee. When the automatic doors hissed open to let me in, she glanced up from her Evening Chronicle. Even from that distance I could see the anxiety in her deep-set green eyes. She jumped to her feet and pulled me into a hug as soon as I got close enough. ‘Poor you,’ she said with feeling, steering me gently into a seat. The sympathy was too much. Seeing the tears in my eyes, Della patted me awkwardly on the shoulder and said, ‘Give me a sec, I’ll get you a coffee.’
By the time she returned, I was as hard-boiled as Philip Marlowe again. ‘Like the hair,’ I remarked. Her shining chestnut hair, normally controlled to within an inch of its life in a thick plait, was loose around her shoulders, held back from her face with a wide, sueded silk headband.
‘Thanks.’ She pulled a face. ‘Think it’ll impress a forty-year-old merchant banker?’
‘Business or pleasure?’
‘He thinks pleasure, I suspect business.’ Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice is the operational head of the Regional Crime Squad’s fraud task force. She’s a Cambridge graduate, with all the social graces that implies, which means that when she’s got some bent businessman in her sights he’s more likely to think this charming woman who’s so fascinated by his work is a corporate headhunter rather than a copper. The problem is, as Della once explained with a sigh, the best con men are often the most charming.
‘We never sleep, eh?’ I teased.
‘Not with people we suspect might have their hands in a rather interesting can of worms,’ Della said. ‘Even if he is buying me dinner at the Thirty-Nine Steps.’ I felt a momentary pang of jealousy. Since Richard only ever wants to eat Chinese food, I don’t often get the chance to eat at the best fish restaurant in Manchester. As if reading my thoughts, Della said, ‘But enough of my problems. Any news on Richard?’
‘Not a sausage. I feel so frustrated. I just haven’t got any handles to get a hold of. I don’t suppose you’ve got anything for me?’ I asked morosely.
‘We…ell, yes, and no,’ Della said cautiously, lighting a cigarette with her battered old Zippo.
The ticket-free windscreen had been an omen. ‘Yeah?’ I demanded.
‘The fingerprint SOCO who went over Richard’s car did some work for me a while back when I was looking into forged insurance policies, and we got quite pally. So I bought her a butty at lunch time.’
‘What did she find?’ I asked.
‘It’s what she didn’t find that’s significant. She was being a bit cautious. Understandably, because she’s not had time yet to analyse all the prints thoroughly. But it looks like Richard’s fingerprints were on all the surfaces you’d expect — door handle, gear stick, steering wheel, the cassette in the stereo. But there were none of his prints on the boot, or the carrier bag or the plastic bags that the rocks were in. In fact, there were no prints at all on any of those. Just the kind of smudges you get from latex gloves. And Richard had no gloves on his person, nor were there any in the car.’ Della gave a tentative smile, and I found myself reflecting it.
‘D’you know, that’s the first good news I’ve heard all day?’
Della looked apologetic. ‘I know it’s not much, but it’s a start. If I hear any more on the grapevine, I’ll let you know. Now, as to the other thing. You owe me, Kate — I thought when I left the West Yorkshire fraud squad that I’d never have to drink with another patronizing, sexist Yorkshireman. Today I discovered they actually get worse when they’re in exile on the wrong side of the Pennines. According to DCI Geoff Turnbull of the Drugs Squad, it’s understandable that a nice woman like me should be interested in drugs. After all, even if I didn’t manage to fulfil my womanly role by reproducing myself before my divorce, I must have contemporaries whose kids are in their late teens and therefore at that dangerous age,’ Della growled through clenched teeth.
‘Oh dear,’ I sympathized. ‘And when exactly are they letting him out of intensive care? I know a choir that’s short on sopranos.’
Della managed a twisted smile. ‘Once he’d finished condescending, he did actually come up with some interesting information. Apparently, when crack first started to appear in this country, it was in relatively small amounts and in quite specific areas. The obvious inference was that there were only a handful of people involved in the importing and distribution of it, and while its presence was worrying, its level of penetration wasn’t seriously disturbing. However, during the last few months, small quantities of crack have been turning up all over the country along with some unusual designer drugs. The really worrying thing is that these finds have been coming out of routine operations.’ Della paused expectantly.
I didn’t know what she was expecting. I said, ‘Why is that so worrying?’
‘It’s turned up where they didn’t expect to find it. The operations have been targeted at something else, say Ecstasy or heroin, and they’ve ended up producing a small but significant amount of crack as well. And it’s not localized. It’s dotted all over the shop.’ Della looked serious. I could see why. If small finds were appearing unexpectedly, the chances were that they were only the tip of a very large iceberg.
‘Any particular geographical distribution?’ I asked.
‘Virtually all over the country. But it’s mostly confined to bandit country.’
‘Meaning?’ I asked.
‘The sort of areas that are semi-no-go. Inner-city decayed housing, satellite council estates both in the cities and in bigger towns. The kind of traditional working-class areas where people used to leave school and go into the local industry, only there’s no industry any more so they graduate straight to the dole queue, the drink and drugs habits and the petty crime that goes with them.’ Della stubbed her cigarette out angrily.