I met him at the desk and took him to the canteen. "Two bacon sandwiches, please, one with all the fat cut off and cooked till it frizzles, in a toasted bun; the other as it comes. And two teas: one weak, no milk and three sugars; the other as it comes."
I joined him at the table. "What's it all about, Gavin?" I asked. I refused to join the Gav conspiracy.
"I had a client die of a heroin OD at the weekend. There's aspects of the case that I think the police ought to know."
"Go on."
"He was a pleasant lad, only seventeen. Brighter than most of our customers; very bright, in fact. He was in trouble for stealing to pay for his habit. An older man, about thirty, had made friends with him and took him to parties and discos. He introduced him to Ecstacy, said he could pay for it later. Jason got hooked on it. We think it must have been laced with something else; you don't get hooked on E like he was. Then they started chasing the dragon; it still seemed like good fun. Next he was having to inject, but by now he owed several hundred pounds to the pusher. He was caught robbing an old lady who had just collected her pension. In his right mind he wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything like that. That's when we got him. I tried to persuade him to grass on the pusher, but he wouldn't. Then during one of our talks, he let a name slip. Parker, that's all. He begged me to keep it to myself, and I had to, to maintain my credibility. I was working on ways of letting you know, but on Sunday he died. Massive overdose of uncut heroin. Somebody's poisoning our kids, Charlie. The streets are flooded with the stuff."
The sandwiches arrived; they were both As They Come. Gavin was visibly distressed, but he wolfed his sandwich down; he seemed hungrier than I was. I thought about what he had told me.
"Parker, just Parker?"
"Afraid so. Doesn't narrow it down much, does it?"
"That's okay, it's a starting point." Providing it's not just his pen name. I wrestled with my sandwich and sipped my tea.
"A couple of weeks ago we caught three youths trying to rob the owner of a Chinese restaurant," I told him. "They were all first-offenders and they all had syringe marks on their arms. They're doing cold turkey on remand now. Last week we caught three schoolgirls stealing handbags. When their rooms were searched no drugs were found, but they had all the paraphernalia associated with the scene: posters, weird records, that sort of stuff. Plus their parents and teachers were alarmed at the deterioration in the girls' behaviour recently. You're right, we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg."
The other reason for talking in the canteen was to escape the constant interruptions of the telephone. It didn't work. "It's for you, Mr.
Priest," the manageress called out. I went behind the counter to take it.
"Is that Inspector Priest?" asked the voice, flatly. Male, northern accent, unemotional.
"Yes, who's that, please?"
"Never mind. I've some information for you, and for you only. Meet me at the Coiners Arms, tonight, seven o' clock." And he was gone. Today was turning into Let's Tell Charlie Day.
"I'll have to go, Gavin. Thanks for the information, I'll let you know if we make anything of it."
"I just hope you can catch whoever's pushing this stuff," he answered.
"Do you think they'll let me have another bacon sandwich?"
I granted him the Freedom of the Canteen and went up to the office.
Mike Freer is an old boozing pal from the days before I found out that a crutch made out of liquid is about as useful as a blancmange stepladder. He's also an inspector on the city Drug Squad. His office told me he wasn't in, but they'd get him to ring me as soon as possible, night or day.
DS Willis obtained a confession from the husband, and statements from acquaintances and the neighbours. Our man had been thumping his wife for years, usually when he came home from the pub heavily under the influence. Last night one of his drinking companions had let it slip that the wife was having an affair with a work mate He'd drowned his sorrows, then taken his vengeance. On the wife, of course. That type has a strong opinion of where blame lies.
"Did you have to twang his wires?" I asked.
"No," Tony answered, "I just hung my jacket on the weights."
"What about his solicitor?"
"No, just my jacket."
I'd obtained copies of the depositions for the three youths we'd called the Mountain Bike Gang. These are the statements that are presented to court. I read the names out loud, then asked: "Which of them would you say was the best-looking?"
"Lee Ziolkowski," Sparky replied. "He's the fair-haired one, a bonny lad. I've always wanted fair hair." He looked wistful. "Or dark hair. Any sort of friggin' hair, actually."
I set to work on Lee's depositions with white paper and scissors and gum. Then, after a visit to the photocopier, I placed the results of my handiwork in the typewriter and let my imagination plummet.
Sometimes I can be so mean I frighten myself.
The Coiners is one of the oldest pubs in the area. There's never been much mining for minerals in the southern Pennines; all the lead and stuff was to the north. But there's supposed to be plenty of gold waiting to be found. The pub gets its name from a neat little scam that was carried out in these hills at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The Industrial Revolution was giving local businessmen more money than they knew what to do with, but, true to form, they were ever on the lookout for opportunities to increase that wealth. Legally or illegally.
A gang living in the hills developed an ingenious technique for putting a gold sovereign in a mould and then bleeding off a couple of drops of the precious stuff. A fifteen percent profit, overnight, minus commission, had half of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire beating a path to their cave. It all came to an end when they were hanged on York Knavesmire, as a prelude to the day's racing, but legend has it that there is still a million pounds worth of gold hidden somewhere in them thar hills.
None of this was on my mind as I drove towards the Coiners after leaving the office. My main concern was whether they served food, closely followed by wondering what my mystery caller had for me.
Hallelujah! There was a big sign outside that read "Home of Peggy Watt's Famous Yorkshire Puddings'. Wild Bill Hickok sat with his back to the door and paid for it with his life, so I sat in a corner where I could view the entire room. There was nobody else in, apart from the landlord, who seemed to resent my intrusion. I drank four orange juices with lemonade as slowly as I could, and ate one of Peggy Watt's puddings as rapidly as I was able. Two other men, apparently regulars, came in and had a serious discourse on tupping while sipping halves.
The Yorkshire pudding had the consistency of a marathon runner's insole. Peggy would have been better employed helping ill their Jimmy with his steam engine; or perhaps he had to invent the steam engine to stir the bloody stuff.
It was dark when I left. Maybe Sparky and Nigel Newley were having better luck. I'd left them watching over my house it could all have been a ploy to get me out of the way. I was manoeuvring in the car park just as another vehicle came in, carrying a young couple. We got in each other's way for a few seconds, then the driver wound down his window and shouted to me: "Watch how you go, mate, there's some rozzers parked down the lane and you've a back light out."
I waved a thank you and parked up again. The offside rear light was deader than last night's promises. I tapped the lens a few times in an attempt to resuscitate it, then tried to open the boot lid to have a closer look. The key jammed in the lock at first, but with some extra persuasion I managed to force it open. Once I'd figured how it was done I flicked out the offending bulb holder. Surprise, surprise, there was no bulb there; it must have fallen out into the light fitting.