No Place to Hide. Jack Slater
was one of Simon Phillips’ DCs.
‘Yes. Why not? I was following up on a legitimate lead. Burton’s our case. He admitted dropping Tommy off there. And, according to Rosie, Tommy’s a potential witness.’
‘OK.’ He nodded slowly. ‘But, don’t push your luck on my account, all right? I don’t want you getting into trouble.’
‘Heard back from one of my CIs,’ Dave said. ‘He knows of an Armenian family that’s not exactly squeaky clean. He doesn’t know them, per se, just of them, but it might be a start. I’m going to see him later.’
‘Nice one, Dave. Anyone else got anything?’ He got no response, so checked his watch. ‘OK. If I hurry, I might just catch one of my blokes. Don’t stay up too late, kids. Long day tomorrow.’ He grabbed his jacket and hurried out.
Traffic was already busy on the Heavitree Road when he stepped outside, but he took the car anyway. Working his way around the one-way system, he reached the city centre in about as long as it would have taken him to walk and turned down onto Fore Street. The high, narrow buildings hemmed the street in on either side, telephone lines criss-crossing between them like a scene from a 1970s San Francisco cop show. The shops on the ground floors were closing up, the bars and restaurants opening. Car roofs gleamed under the street lights. The pedestrians on the narrow pavements were thinning out and getting younger, practical dress giving way to decorative as the evening crowd took over.
Pete found a parking space on the steep hill and pulled in. He walked down past the end of the dark alley that led past a cinema to the scruffy, blue edifice of Mamma Stone’s club. A couple of doors further on was the pool hall he was heading for.
The place was still fairly quiet, most of the guys around the tables. Just three stood at the bar, drinks in front of them. There was no sign of Darren Westley.
Back outside, he leaned on a lamp post just beyond the side street, took out his phone and pretended to play with it. A bus went past, barely fitting between the cars parked down one side and the narrow pavement on the other. A group of girls in short, sparkly dresses stepped past him and turned down towards the cinema and the nightclub beyond.
Pete wondered how on earth they managed to avoid hypothermia with more skin exposed than covered in temperatures that were set to drop near to freezing in the next few hours. Then he saw the distinctive mop of ginger hair weaving through the crowd towards him. He pushed away from the lamp post and put his phone away as he stepped past the girls and headed quickly down the hill.
He met Westley two doors beyond the pool hall. Put out an arm to wrap around the other man’s shoulder and turn him smoothly to one side.
‘Hello, Darren. Fancy meeting you here. Do you want to get a drink somewhere?’
‘That would screw my reputation, wouldn’t it – being seen with you? What do you want?’ Up close, Westley could be seen to be suffering. He looked ill. His always-pale skin was sallow and rough. There were dark rings under his blue eyes and his mop of hair hadn’t been washed in a few days. His jeans looked stained, too, as did the T-shirt Pete could see under his brown denim jacket.
‘Just a quick word. And I was thinking about somewhere you wouldn’t be recognised. Somewhere nice, for example. Like that little place along Cathedral Passage. Plenty of noise, so you won’t be overheard if you say something impolite.’ Pete pulled him around, arm still around his shoulders, and headed back up the hill. ‘Look on the bright side. You look like you could do with a little something. Booze is better than bugger all, right?’
‘Yeah, well . . . That’s down to your lot, innit – the bugger all.’
‘What, the supply’s dried up, has it?’
‘Almost. And the price has nearly doubled.’
‘Supply and demand. The beauty of capitalism. So, it has started up again, then?’ Pete guided them across the road and up past the bus stop.
‘Yeah, just two or three days ago. It was dead for a week or so before that.’
‘So, who’s out there now? Anyone I might know?’
Westley shot him a sour look.
‘I’m not interested in shutting off your supply, Darren. I just need some information, that’s all. And they’re the likeliest source.’
‘You’ll be lucky. Bloody foreigners, ain’t they. Barely speak the bloody language, never mind having a conversation with the likes of you.’
Pete turned him into the end of an alleyway that led through to Cathedral Square. ‘You let me worry about that. All I need to know is where to find them.’
‘I only know one,’ Westley said dubiously. His sullen expression reminded Pete of his son, Tommy. The last few months before he disappeared, he’d often worn an expression just like that. Pete’s gut twisted. If only he’d spent more time with the boy, taken him out, played with him, even just watched him doing his own thing – the swimming, for instance – maybe things would have been different. He wouldn’t be gone. He wouldn’t have got tangled up with Malcolm Burton. He’d be . . . at home. Happy. Safe.
They reached their destination and Pete stopped, held out a hand. ‘Here we go.’ He nodded at the door to the small bar near the far end of the alley.
Darren frowned at him. ‘Seriously?’
Pete shrugged and held the door open, nodding for him to enter. One day, hopefully, he’d get to do the same for Tommy. If he could find him. If he could get him to come home.
When he found him, he corrected himself, as the noise hit them like a train. There was no if about it. There couldn’t be. He was going to bring his son home. Somehow.
The cacophony of raised voices, all trying to be heard over each other, was almost solid, a physical force pushing them back as they as they pressed into the small, crowded room, heading for the bar along the right side.
Pete kept one hand on Westley’s shoulder, letting him lead the way. There was no way they were getting through this lot side by side. At the bar, they squeezed in and he raised an eyebrow and jerked his head at the shelves behind.
Darren leaned in close to be heard. ‘Vodka,’ he shouted. ‘Straight.’
Pete nodded and waited to catch the eye of one of the three young guys in black shirts and trousers behind the bar. Raising one hand to cup Darren’s ear, he shouted into it. ‘Don’t worry. Like I said, I don’t want to arrest the bloke. Just ask him some questions. He’ll be back on the street in a couple of hours, tops.’
He caught the eye of the nearest barman and waved him over. ‘Vodka and a Murphy’s red,’ he called.
Westley was still looking at him sceptically. He leaned close again. ‘I need information and I’m pretty sure you can’t give it me,’ Pete told him. ‘Unless you’ve heard of somebody bumping off the undesirables of the city?’
‘What?’
‘Pimps, pushers, prostitutes. Druggies.’
‘Getting killed? Are you . . . ?’
‘Serious? Yeah. And I’m looking for a lead on who’s doing it. Your guy might know someone who’s supplied them with certain items. That’s what I’m after. A link in the chain.’
The barman put their drinks on the bar and Pete slapped a note down beside them. Nodded for the guy to keep the change, not that he guessed there would be much. Then he turned back to Darren, nodded to the drink and picked up his own.
Darren looked from Pete down to the shot glass and back again. Pete could see the decision being made in his eyes. ‘OK.’ He picked up the glass and downed the contents in one. Slapped it down on the bar. ‘The Firkin Angel. Big bloke. Shaved head, chin like an anvil and a nose like a bloody toucan. Same sort of colouring at the moment, too, especially round the eyes. Don’t fancy meeting the bloke that did it to him. Must