Crack Down. Val McDermid

so tight I’ll be singing soprano and an eight-year-old too. Go for it, Ruth.’

      I left Ruth to her wheeling and dealing with the CID just after half past four and drove into the city centre. Chinatown was still lively, the late-night trade losing their shirts in the casinos and drunkenly scoffing Chinese meals after the clubs had closed. Less than a mile away, in the gay village round Chorlton Street bus station, the only sign of life was a few rent boys and hookers, hanging around the early-morning street corners in a triumph of hope over experience. I cruised slowly along Canal Street, the blank windows of Manto’s reflecting nothing but my Peugeot. I didn’t even spot anyone sleeping rough till I turned down Minshull Street towards UMIST.

      The street was still. I pulled up in an empty parking meter bay. There were only three other cars in the street, one of them Richard’s Beetle. I’d have to come back in the morning and collect it before some officious traffic warden had it ticketed and clamped. At least its presence supported Richard’s story, if the police were inclined to check it out. I took my pocket Nikon out of my glove box, checked the date stamp was switched on and took a couple of shots of the Beetle as insurance.

      Slowly, I walked round to Sackville Street, checking doorways and litter bins for the trade plates. I didn’t hold out much hope. They were too good a prize for any passing criminal, never mind the guys who had stuck them on the coupé in the first place. As I’d expected, the streets were clear. On the off chance, I walked round into the little square of garden in Sackville Street and searched along the wall and in the bushes, being careful to avoid touching the unpleasant crop of used condoms. No joy. Stumbling with exhaustion, I walked back to my car and drove home. The prospect of having to take care of Davy weighed heavily on me, and I desperately wanted to crack on and make some progress towards clearing Richard. But the sensible part of me knew there was nothing I could do in the middle of the night. And if I didn’t get some sleep soon, I wouldn’t be fit to do what had to be done come daylight.

      I set my alarm for half past eight, switched off the phones and turned down the volume on the answering machine. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same thing with my brain. I tossed and turned, my head full of worries that wouldn’t lie down and leave me in peace. I prayed Ruth’s stratagem would work. While he was still in police custody, Richard was fairly safe. But as soon as he was charged and remanded to prison, the odds would turn against him. No matter how much the police tried to keep the lid on this business, it wouldn’t take long in the leaky sieve of prison before the wrong people learned what he was in for. And if the drugs belonged to one of the Manchester gangs, some warlord somewhere would decide that Richard needed to be punished in ways the law has long since ceased to contemplate.

      We’d both gone into this relationship with damage from past encounters. From the start, we’d been honest about our pain and our fears. As a result, we’d always kept it light, by tacit agreement. Somewhere round about dawn, I acknowledged that I couldn’t live with myself if I let anything happen to him. It’s a real bastard, love.

      I was only dozing when the alarm went off. The first thing I did was check the answering machine. Its friendly red light was flashing, so I hit the replay button. ‘Hello, Kate, it’s Ruth.’ Her voice was friendlier than I deserved. ‘It’s just before six, and I thought you’d be pleased to hear that I’ve manged to persuade the divisional superintendent that he has most chance of obtaining convictions from this situation if he keeps Richard’s arrest under wraps. So he’s agreed, very reluctantly, not to hold a press conference announcing a major drugs haul. He’s not keen, but there we go. Was I put on earth to keep policemen happy? He’s also receptive to the idea of a lie-down, but he wants to hang on till later in the day before he makes a final decision. Anyway, I hope you’re managing some sleep, since working yourself to the point of exhaustion will not serve the interests of my client. Why don’t you give me a call towards the end of the afternoon, by which time we both might have some information? Speak to you soon, darling. It’ll be all right.’ I wished I could share her breezy confidence.

      As the coffee brewed, I called my local friendly mechanic and asked him to collect Richard’s Beetle, promising to leave a set of keys under the kitchen window box. I also phoned in to the office and told Shelley what had happened. Of course, it was Richard who got the sympathy. Never mind that I’d been deprived of my sleep and landed with a task that might have caused even Clint Eastwood a few nervous moments. Oh no, that was my job, Shelley reminded me. ‘You do what you’ve got to do to get that poor boy out of jail,’ she said sternly. ‘It makes me feel ill, just thinking of Richard locked up in a stinking cell with the dregs of humanity.’

      ‘Yes, boss,’ I muttered rebelliously. Shelley always makes me feel like a bloody-minded teenager when she goes into Mother Hen mode. God knows what effect it has on her own two adolescents. ‘Just tell Bill what I’m doing. I’ll be on my mobile if you need me urgently,’ I added.

      I washed two thick slices of toast down with a couple of mugs of scalding coffee. The toast because I needed carbohydrate, the coffee because it was a more attractive option than surgery to get my eyes open. I pulled on jogging pants and a sweat shirt without showering and drove over to the Thai boxing gym in South Manchester where I punish my body on as regular a basis as my career in crime prevention allows. It might not be the Hilton, but it meets my needs. It’s clean, it’s cheap, the equipment is well maintained and it’s mercifully free of muscle-bound macho men who think they’ve got the body and charm of Sylvester Stallone when in reality they don’t even have the punch-drunk brains of Rocky.

      I wasn’t the only person working out on the weights that morning. The air was already heavy with the smell of sweat as half a dozen men and a couple of women struggled to keep time’s winged chariot in the service bay. As I’d hoped, my old buddy Dennis O’Brien, burglar of this parish, was welded to the pec deck, moving more metal than the average Nissan Micra contains. He was barely breaking sweat. The bench next to him was free, so I picked up a set of dumbbells and lay back to do some tricep curls. ‘Hiya, kid,’ Dennis said on his next outgoing breath. ‘What’s the world been doing to you?’

      ‘Don’t ask. How about you?’

      He grinned like a Disney wolf. ‘Still doing the police’s job for them,’ he said. ‘Got a real result last night.’

      ‘Glad somebody did,’ I said, enjoying the sensation of my flabby muscles tightening as I raised and lowered the weights.

      ‘Fourteen grand I took off him,’ Dennis told me. ‘Now that’s what I call a proper victim.’

      He was clearly desperate to tell the tale, so I gave him the tiny spur of encouragement that was all he needed. ‘Sounds like a good ’un. How d’you manage that?’

      ‘I hear this firm from out of town are looking for a parcel of trainers. So I arrange to meet them, and I tell them I can lay my hands on an entire wagonload of Reeboks, don’t I? A couple of nights later, we meet again and I show him a sample pair from this truck I’m supposed to have nicked, right? Only, I haven’t nicked them, have I? I’ve just gone down the wholesaler’s and bought them.’ As he got into his story, Dennis paused in his work-out. He’s physically incapable of telling a tale without his hands.

      ‘So of course, they fall for it. Anyway, we arrange the meet for last night, out on the motorway services at Sandbach. My mate Andy and me, we get there a couple of hours before the meet and suss the place out. When these two bozos arrive, Andy’s stood hiding behind a truck right the far side of the lorry park, and when the bozos park up beside my car, I make sure they see me giving him the signal, and he comes over to us, making out like he’s just come out of the wagon, keys in his hand, the full monte.’ Dennis was giggling between his sentences like a little lad outlining some playground scam.

      I sat up and said, ‘So what happens next?’

      ‘I say to these two dummies, “Let’s see the money, then. You hand over the money, and my mate’ll hand over the keys to the wagon.” And they do no more than hand over their fourteen grand like lambs. I’m counting the money, and when I’ve done, I give Andy the nod and he tosses them the keys. We jump into the motor and shoot straight off. I tell you, the last thing I see is the pair