Detective Miller is back… but this is one case he won’t want to open!

 

He was a stone-cold mechanic out of Miami with a job to do. Just a regular killing. Just some punk who was going to get what was coming to him. It would be a snip.

‘The train now standing at platform two is the 08.37 to York calling at Poulton-le-Fylde, Preston, Blackburn, Accrington . . . ’

He downed two fingers of Beam and checked the Glock strapped beneath his left arm. The weight of it felt good. Like an old friend.

‘Burnley Manchester Road, Hebden Bridge . . . ’

He slapped a five on a ten for the bartender and slid off the barstool. It was time for work.

‘Travellers are reminded that there is no buffet service available on this train. We apologise again—’

‘Oi, Andy!’

‘Oh, sorry, Keith. I was—’

‘Yeah, miles away, course you were. Where the heck have you been? I said half-eight under the clock. It’s nearly twenty to!’ Slack stared and shook his head. ‘Bloody hell, what have you come as?’

Andy Bagnall self-consciously pulled his shirt down over his beer gut and adjusted his ponytail.

‘We’re supposed to be inconspicuous, you dozy twonk.’

‘I am inconspicuous.’

‘In a Hawaiian shirt? You look like you’ve puked up on it.’

‘This is from Florida. My auntie got it for me when she went to Disneyworld last Christmas.’

Slack wasn’t listening. He was staring across the busy station concourse towards the public toilets. Bagnall watched him, and then, for want of anything better to do, he stared as well.

Keith Slack thought this was definitely his best plan ever. Businessmen carried all sorts of valuables in their brief- cases. Laptop computers, mobile phones, wallets, iFags. Businessmen had to pee. Businessmen had to pee with two hands. Nobody kept one hand on their briefcase and tried to wrestle out their old feller with the other, and no businessman wanted wee on the bottom of their briefcase, so they put it down a reasonable distance away from the urinal. Slack knew all this because he’d done the research.

Create a diversion. Away with the briefcase. Piece of piss.

‘So, you know what you’re doing, Andy?’

‘When?’

‘In the toilets, mate.’ Slack tried to stay calm. ‘In the bloody bogs.’

‘Oh, yeah. I’m creating a diversion.’

Slack saw a worrying glint in Bagnall’s eye and the flaw in his otherwise perfect plan became glaringly obvious.

‘Now, when I say “diversion” I don’t mean throw a bleedin’ fit or anything. When you see somebody put their bag down, just talk to them. Ask them to help you find a contact lens or summat.’

‘I don’t wear contact lenses, Keith.’

Slack sighed and rubbed his tired eyes.

‘I could ask them to help me find my sunglasses.’

‘It was just an example, Andy. Oh, and make sure it’s a decent briefcase or summat like that. I’m not doing this for some poxy Adidas bag full of rancid football socks, OK? OK, Andy?’

‘Yeah, got it. No socks.’

‘Right, off you go. Just hang about and wash your hands or whatever. I’ll be in in a bit.’

Bagnall ran his fingers through his bleached blond hair and strode off across the concourse, the heels of his cowboy boots clack-clacking on the polished stone. He stopped at the entrance to the toilets and after a moment turned back to look at Slack.

Slack held out his hands and mouthed at him. ‘What?’

Bagnall mouthed back. ‘Can you lend me twenty p?’

Slack knew he was the brains of the outfit, but didn’t that at least imply the other bloke was the muscle? Andy Bagnall was thick as mince and that was all there was to it. They’d do a few more stations after this and then Slack would tell Bagnall he was branching out on his own. OK, so they’d been mates at school, but playing footie and dicking around with Bunsen burners was one thing; when it came to basic thieving, Bagnall was a liability. If he hadn’t actually got his head stuck in some stupid thriller or was pretending he was American, he’d be staring off into space with a gormless expression like someone had sprinkled Mogadon on his cornflakes. Well, sod him, because Keith Slack was moving up. Bagnall could go back to cut-and-shutting Ford Sierras.

Slack ambled towards the toilets. It was time to go and see just how much of a balls-up Bagnall had made of his beau- tiful plan.

 

He’d spotted the mark straight away. It was all going down like the Man said. Time to make his play. He was cool, like always. Look nobody in the eye. Mr Invisible. After the hits went down, it was like he’d never been there. Ice cold and no bad dreams. Waste ’em, then go look for the nearest cold beer or hot woman.

Time to roll the dice.

Bagnall reached for his weapon . . .

*

Bloody Nora, thought Slack, he’s talking to some bloke at the pisser.

Bagnall was indeed calmly urinating while chatting amiably to a tall dark-haired man who, similarly engaged, was standing next to him. Slack saw the abandoned briefcase and strolled towards it, taking in every detail in a matter of seconds.

Nice and chunky, good quality leather.

He began to pick up speed.

Combination locks. He’d have those off with a decent screwdriver.

As he picked up the case, he became aware that Bagnall’s new chum was turning towards him. Slack started to run. As he vaulted the turnstile, the swinging briefcase laid out a middle-aged bloke blithely inserting his 20p on the way in. A hideous scream came from the toilets behind him and rang across the concourse as Slack sprinted away.

Its echo was hot on his heels as he legged it towards the exit and away into Blackpool town centre.

 

Detective Chief Inspector Bob Perks nursed half a shandy in Scruffy Murphy’s and sat wishing he was more interesting. He didn’t want to be a cliché, like all those coppers on the telly, with broken marriages and drink problems, he just fancied . . . livening his lot up a little. He’d given quirks a go, but the truth was, he just wasn’t cut out for them. He wasn’t religious, he didn’t have any strange hobbies (or normal ones, come to that) and with the exception of Michael Bublé (who he adored) he thought most music was rubbish.

He wasn’t like some coppers he could mention. Rats and ballroom dancing, for pity’s sake.

Bob Perks’s life was comfortable and ordered, if a little on the dull side.

An unemployed good-for-nothing from Woodplumpton and an over-imaginative grease monkey from Mereside were about to change things.

When his mobile phone rang, Perks froze. He kept meaning to change the Bublé ringtone (‘Everything’ – his signature song), but could never bring himself to, because Bublé was the business. He shrugged at the pinched faces of the lunchtime regulars as if to say, I’m not an idiot, I’m a high-ranking police officer, so get over it.

‘Sir?’ DS Dominic Baxter was trying to sound efficient, but Perks could hear laughter in the background.

‘Better be good, Dom. I’m having my lunch.’

‘There’s been a robbery at the station, sir.’

‘So? Let Robbery handle it. We’re watching Draper.’

‘That’s just it, sir. It was Draper that got robbed.’

Perks put down his drink. ‘I’m listening, DS Baxter . . . ’

‘Well, Draper was talking to some bloke in the toilets.’

‘Of course he was.’

‘He puts the case down and a second bloke grabs it and legs it out the bogs. This other bloke hurdles over the turnstile, whacks somebody in the face with the briefcase while he’s at it, and . . . ’ Baxter hesitated.

Perks took another sip of beer. At least things were livening up. ‘Sounds like our luck’s in, Dominic. Now we can have a look in the case without blowing the surveillance. Not that we don’t have a pretty good idea what’s in it.’

‘We haven’t got the case, sir. The bloke who nicked it got away.’

There was more laughter in the background. Perks hissed into the phone. ‘What about Draper? Lost him as well?’

‘No, sir, we know exactly where he is. Fact is he had a little accident . . . zipped up in a bit of a hurry. He’s in Victoria hospital.’

‘Let me get this straight, Baxter. Draper is about to meet Wayne Cutler and hand over the briefcase. After a three- month operation, we’re about to tie the Cutlers to George Panaides’s murder and you watch some tuppenny ha’penny tea leaf waltz off with the evidence while Draper’s eyeing up some bloke’s todger?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘Are you trying to be funny, Baxter?’

‘We didn’t want to blow our cover, sir.’

Perks took a deep breath. He seriously needed that quirk. A decent amphetamine habit, say.

‘This bloke that Draper was trying to pick up, you did work out that he might have been in on the briefcase snatch?’

‘We didn’t actually work that out, no, sir.’

‘Right.’

‘He sort of melted away in the melee.’

‘Melee?’

‘It means a confused fight or a scuffle—’

‘I know what it means, Baxter.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And Cutler never showed?’

‘Oh yeah, he showed.’

‘That’s something. You get pictures?’

‘Well, no. Actually it was him who got whacked in the face with the briefcase.’

Better make that a crack habit, Perks decided. A serious one.

‘He’s on his way to the Vic as well,’ Baxter said. ‘Concussion and a suspected broken collar bone.’

Perks recognised the laughter in the background now. DC Stuart Knight. He’d have the jumped-up little tit for breakfast. He stood and wedged the phone between ear and shoulder as he struggled to put on his coat.

‘Nobody move, I’m coming in. And tell Knight to start ironing his uniform.’

‘We’ve got Draper, sir!’

‘Got him, how exactly?’

‘Well, we know where he is, at least.’

Perks was gobsmacked at the note of triumph in the DS’s voice. ‘And what do you propose to hold him on, Baxter? Indecent exposure?’

‘It’s a thought, sir.’

‘He was in a public toilet, you idiot.’

Perks’s growl rendered the entire saloon bar silent. He couldn’t be arsed with more apologetic shrugging because he had work to do. He had to find the poor bugger who’d stolen that briefcase before Wayne Cutler did.

 

Within half an hour they were back at Slack’s place. Bagnall sat slurping Fanta as Slack set about the briefcase with a rusty screwdriver.

‘I have to say, Andy, that was cracking. You did really well, mate.’

The Man wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t know. The Mechanic shrugged and took another hit of bourbon. He knew he was the best.

‘Oh . . . cheers, Keith. I didn’t actually do anything, really. I was just a bit nervous, you know, so I went for a wazz and this bloke just came up and started talking to me. He was dead friendly.’

Slack smirked at him. ‘Probably your shirt, mate.’

Bagnall smiled. He’d known the shirt was a good idea. Then he got it. ‘I don’t think I like your insinuations there, Keith—’

And the briefcase flew open.

He’d seen dough before. Lots of it. And it always looked great.

It looked like freedom. It looked like—

‘Jesus H. Christ on a bike, Keith!’

There were rings; four massive signet rings. Two gold sovereigns, one that looked like it had a ruby set into it and a huge square one embossed with the letters GP. But it wasn’t so much the rings that caught Andy Bagnall’s attention, as the fact that they were still in place on the waxy, swollen fingers of two neatly severed hands.

 

 

STEP ONE SAMBAS & SAUSAGES

 

ONE

 

If it looked – to the casual observer – as though Detective Sergeant Declan Miller’s mind was not on his job, that was almost certainly because it wasn’t. Miller had a butterfly mind (if you were being generous) or was just easily distracted (if you weren’t, which meant you had the misfortune to be work- ing with him). In an interview room, while a colleague pressed a suspect hard in search of a confession, Miller might well be wondering why one or other of his pet rats (Fred and Ginger) was looking a bit peaky, or weighing up the various merits of assorted crisp flavours before deciding that pork scratchings were the superior snack anyway. On the witness stand in court, as he solemnly swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he could easily be trying to remember the names of the actors in The Magnificent Seven or thinking through the tricky steps at the climax of a Viennese waltz (speed and rotation could still trip him up).

Or trying to decide which was the best fish. Or what it would be like to wrestle a chimp.

Or why those idiots who couldn’t find San José or Amarillo didn’t just buy maps.

Right that minute, waiting for the inappropriately named Goody brothers to emerge in handcuffs from a two-up-two- down he couldn’t imagine generating much excitement on Homes Under the Hammer, Miller was thinking about how much Adolf Hitler had loved Blackpool.

Miller’s partner – DS Sara Xiu – wandered across to join him and they stared at the house. It boasted a garden that would have given Monty Don the heebie-jeebies, several boarded-up windows, and a front door which had been some- what forcefully ‘distressed’ by a metal battering ram half an hour earlier.

‘I like what they’ve done to the place,’ Xiu said. She looked to Miller, waiting for a reaction. It was about as close as she was willing to get to a pithy remark; to the use of pith in any context. As someone she could imagine making a similar remark himself, she was sure Miller would appreciate it, but he didn’t appear to. She shrugged, said, ‘Suit yourself.’

Miller turned to her. ‘Here’s something I bet you didn’t know.’

Xiu steeled herself. She was, by now, well used to Miller’s tangential observations or the inexplicable delight he took in passing on information neither she nor anyone else needed to know.

‘Blackpool was a legitimate military target during the Second World War,’ Miller said. ‘It was right up there.’

‘Was it?’

‘Too bloody right it was, Posh . . . ’

Xiu didn’t mind the nickname any more, though she still wasn’t quite sure why Miller persisted in using it.

‘Because when it’s pronounced correctly, Xiu sounds like jus,’ he’d told her, the last time she’d raised the issue. ‘Jus. Which is basically just posh gravy, right?’

‘Yes, I do understand the reasoning—’

‘Hence “Posh”. It’s a daft nickname, that’s all.’

‘I understand that, too. I’m just not sure what nick- names are for.’

‘Well, they’re not for anything,’ Miller had said. ‘But if someone’s got an unusual name, or a name that sounds like something else, it’s only natural to . . . adapt it.’

‘Is it, though?’

‘If you were German, say, and your name was Koch . . . well, the temptation to turn that into an amusing nickname would be irresistible. Actually, I’d say it would be pretty much compulsory.’

‘Because Koch sounds a bit like cock.’

‘Because it sounds exactly like cock.’

‘It actually means cook.’

‘Not the point. I’m simply pointing out that nicknames are a thing, especially with coppers, and that almost everyone has one at some point. Actually, I’m not sure I’ve got one . . . unless I just haven’t heard it.’

‘People call you all sorts of things.’ Xiu had smiled then and turned away. ‘But I’m not sure you want me to tell you what they are.’

Now, for reasons that Xiu was still unable to fathom, Miller was continuing to blather on about the Second World War.

‘They made Wellington bombers here and they used the place to house thousands of troops on leave. Like I said, a legitimate target. But Hitler specifically told the Luftwaffe not to bomb the place, because it turns out he was a bit of a fan. No doodlebugs on Blackpool! Nein! When the Germans won – which, spoiler alert, they didn’t – Adolf was planning to make Blackpool the holiday destination of choice for Nazis in need of a bit of R&R. Maybe there were a lot of Nazis who liked donkey-rides and rollercoasters, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but by all accounts he was all set to stick a massive swastika on top of the Tower.’ He nodded to where the tip of the tower was just visible in the distance. ‘Maybe a revolving one or something. As I said, I don’t know the details.’

‘Right,’ Xiu said. ‘Thanks for sharing.’

They both turned at the commotion near the front door and watched as half a dozen uniformed officers escorted Josh and Jason Goody from their home and attempted – amid a barrage of vituperative effing and jeffing – to get them into the back of a police van.

Miller turned to see an old woman watching from next door’s garden, shaking her head, arms firmly folded. ‘I’m sorry about the language,’ he said.

The old woman shrugged, then waved at the prisoners – who had presumably not been the loveliest of neighbours – before letting the pair know exactly what she thought of them, letting rip with a torrent of shouty filth that made Josh and Jason sound like children’s TV presenters.

‘Glad to be of service,’ Miller said.

Just before being bundled into the van, the younger Goody brother leaned back and launched a healthy gobbet of spittle in the direction of the two detectives responsible for his appre- hension and arrest.

‘Disgusting,’ Xiu said.

‘Agreed,’ Miller said. ‘But I can’t help admiring the distance and elevation. That gob must have travelled twenty feet.’

They walked towards their car.

‘We should celebrate,’ Miller said.

The obvious charge was assault with a deadly weapon, but Miller thought they could push to do each Goody for attempted murder, considering that the attack appeared to have been well planned and the deadly weapons in question were machetes. It was a good result, though not for the lad who’d undergone four hours of emergency surgery three days before and might well lose the use of his right arm.

‘A couple after work?’

‘I’ve got something on tonight,’ Xiu said.

‘Ah.’ Miller nodded. ‘King’s Arms, is it?’

Xiu unlocked the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Once a week, the pub in question hosted a heavy metal night in a room upstairs. Bands with names like Blood Whores and Goatkillaz would do serious damage to the hearing of a hun- dred or so sweaty metalheads and, while Miller didn’t know if Xiu actually liked the music, she was awfully fond – in a ‘take them home for the night and get even more sweaty’ kind of way – of some of those who did.

Male, female, whatever. Xiu did not seem particularly fussy.

Miller fastened his safety belt. ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed.’

Xiu put her foot down. ‘Says the bloke who dances tangos with old age pensioners.’

‘Fair point,’ Miller said. ‘A fair point, well made.’

 

TWO

 

Reading a room was not always Miller’s strong suit, but it was obvious enough that something was going on; had been ever since he and Xiu had got back to the station. Clusters of staff were gathered in corners, whispering. There were murmured comments and knowing looks.

There was an atmosphere.

Basing his assumption on similar situations in the past, Miller concluded that, whatever had happened or was still happening, chances were it had something to do with him. There had certainly been a comparable frisson when he’d returned to work a few months previously. He was as sur- prised as anyone at the time to find himself working a case again so soon, but bar a few sideways looks (and he was always going to attract those) the awkwardness had largely died down.

Fellow officers still laid a hand on his arm now and then.

An anonymous colleague had left a couple of inspirational (and helpfully laminated) messages on his desk:

 

You will survive and you will find purpose in the chaos.

Moving on doesn’t mean letting go.

 

Miller had binned them immediately.

Now, sitting at his desk, trying and largely failing to lob scrunched-up memos about ‘workforce wellbeing’ and ‘inno- vations in the effective reviewing of CCTV footage’ into a wastepaper basket, Miller racked his brains. Had he upset anyone recently? He decided he’d better narrow it down and think about anyone he might have upset that day.

He’d called DI Tim Sullivan a ‘premier league shit-gibbon’, but that was par for the course. He’d had what some might have perceived as a heated debate with DS Andrea Fuller about whether it would be better to have hands for feet or feet for hands, but they were still friends at the end of it (even though she was entirely wrong). He’d told Tony Clough that his new haircut made him look like a paedophile, because it did.

None of those exchanges could really explain what was going on.

Eventually, curiosity got the better of him and Miller col- lared Xiu as she walked past. ‘Wagwan?’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s what young people say, Grandma. It means “what’s going on?”’

‘So, why didn’t you just say that?’

‘I’m down with the kids, what can I tell you? Well . . . ?’

Xiu shrugged, like there was nothing to get excited about. ‘Some kind of S&O cock-up yesterday afternoon. A major cock-up by the sound of it.’

‘Ah.’

That would explain why so many of the funny looks had been thrown in Miller’s direction. S&O. Serious and Organised. The unit responsible for investigating gangland activity in the town and, crucially, the one for which Miller’s wife Alex had been working when she’d been murdered five months before.

‘Details,’ Miller said. ‘I need details.’

‘I don’t have any.’ Xiu took a step away from Miller’s desk, then turned. ‘Somebody said something about a briefcase. Oh, and toilets . . . ’

 

To call Miller’s knock at the door of DCI Susan Akers cursory would have been generous. He did not wait to be invited in. Or to close the door behind him and sit down.

‘Come on then, Susan. Spill! What have Serious and Disorganised been getting up to in the bogs?’

Akers looked up from her paperwork, her half-smile making it clear that she was pretending not to have heard him.

Miller was well used to it.

‘Nice job with the Goodys this morning,’ she said.

‘Yeah, well.’ Miller sat back, frustrated, but guessing he’d have to be patient. ‘It was hardly the most taxing piece of detective work I’ve ever been involved with. They were brag- ging about it in the pub, Josh Goody left his wallet at the scene and there were two blood-stained machetes poking out from under the settee. A monkey could have put it together.’

‘All the same—’

‘Or even Tim Sullivan.’

Akers said, ‘Declan,’ but the half-smile was still there.

‘Please, Susan.’ Miller could not wait any longer. He leaned forward, his hands pressed together. ‘Tell me the story and I’ll buy you and your missus dinner. You can’t say fairer than that. I pick the restaurant, though . . . ’

He waited, watching his boss weigh up the offer.

S&O might have been Alex’s old unit, but it was extremely unlikely that whatever had happened could have anything to do with her murder. That case was being investigated by a homicide squad based on the floor directly above them, though investigated might be to overstate the effort they appeared to be putting in. Five months on and they were precisely nowhere. There was virtually nothing in the way of evidence, zero credible suspects had been identified and the investigation’s ‘murder book’ would be more accurately described as a pamphlet, its contents typed in a very large font.

‘I’m really not sure that we should be wasting our time with tittle-tattle,’ Akers said.

‘So, don’t waste time and tell me quickly,’ Miller said.

Susan Akers was an honest and loyal officer, not one given to scabrous comment on the activities of colleagues. Unity was important and the maintenance of decorum was part of that.

But good gossip was good gossip.

‘It was a sting operation at the railway station,’ Akers said. ‘They’d been tracking a man named Draper who was a prime suspect in a murder they believe to have been sanctioned and paid for by Wayne Cutler.’

Miller tried not to react, but could not control the sharp breath he sucked in or the muscle that worked in his jaw for a few seconds afterwards. Wayne Cutler’s . . . organisation was one of those being investigated by Miller’s wife at the time of her death. Miller remained convinced that Cutler – like his main rival Ralph Massey – knew more about Alex’s murder than they were letting on.

If Akers noticed, she didn’t say anything.

‘According to their intel, Cutler was set to hand a sizeable amount of cash to Draper in return for a briefcase. Nobody’s letting on what its contents were.’

‘I’m guessing it wasn’t a copy of the Financial Times and a big bag of boiled sweets.’

‘Well, whatever was in it, the briefcase has gone missing and Cutler ended up in hospital.’

‘Please tell me it was nothing trivial.’

‘Well, they’re keeping him in overnight, but I don’t think it’s particularly serious.’

‘Shame,’ Miller said. ‘So, how did this operation go so tits up, then?’

‘By all accounts there was some kind of incident in the Gents.’

‘Yeah, I heard.’ Now Miller was trying not to smirk, but not very hard.

‘The briefcase was pinched by a couple of lads who I very much doubt had any idea what was in it. So there we are: the transaction between Cutler and Draper never actually hap- pened, which is why no arrests were made and why there’s a lot of red faces on the top floor. Actually, this bloke Draper ended up in hospital as well. Tried to chase the lad who pinched his case and got his penis caught in his zip.’ Akers saw that Miller was about to chip in. ‘Yes, I know . . . shame that wasn’t what happened to Wayne Cutler.’

‘Oh, I’ve imagined far worse things,’ Miller said. ‘Lots of them.’

Akers took off her glasses and leaned back. ‘How are you doing, Declan? We haven’t really caught up for a while. You look a bit tired.’

‘Yeah, things are . . . good,’ Miller said, eventually.

They weren’t.

‘I’m moving on.’

He wasn’t.

Whether Akers believed him or not, she seemed content not to dig any further. ‘You’d best go and write up the Goody arrest . . . ’

Miller stood and stretched. He bent to check that the plant on the DCI’s desk had been given enough water.

‘I will take you up on that promise of dinner, you know.’

‘Why wouldn’t you?’ Miller trudged to the door and opened it. ‘Oh, and just to avoid any embarrassment on the night, it’s a fifteen pounds a head maximum and that does include wine.’

 

THREE

 

Wayne Cutler had a splitting headache. The truth was, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t had one, what with some of the halfwits he had working for him, Justin – his eldest – acting up and his wife Jacqui crying and moaning all the time. To be fair, there’d been a lot more crying and moaning since Adrian – his younger son (and his favourite, what was the point in pretending otherwise?) – had been shot and killed a few months before.

He closed his eyes. Muttered, ‘Rest in peace, son.’

Problem was, he hadn’t been able to deal with all that the way he might usually have done. He hadn’t been able to react . . . appropriately. If that slimy sod Ralph Massey or anyone else had been responsible for what had happened to Adrian, Wayne would have known exactly what to do and someone would have suffered, big time. As it turned out, it hadn’t been business at all and his silly bugger of a son had been killed just because he was playing hide the sausage with someone else’s wife.

So, Wayne just had to suck it up.

Grieve, like any normal father.

Now, on top of all that grief – as in proper ‘waking up in the night and weeping’ grief, plus bog-standard ‘people are bloody useless, pain in the arse’ grief – he had an actual headache to contend with. A right royal, blinding, buggering headache.

He reached up and gingerly fingered the lump behind his ear. He couldn’t actually remember anything between walking into Blackpool North station that morning and waking up in hospital (quite normal with concussion, according to one of the nurses), but one of the coppers he was ‘friendly’ with had popped by to visit and filled him in on exactly what had happened in those toilets and at the turnstile immediately afterwards.

It was downright embarrassing.

Wayne Cutler had been swung at with a crowbar and been hit twice with a baseball bat and he’d not come off as badly as he had after being smacked in the head with a sodding briefcase. There certainly hadn’t been any need for chuffing hospital. Once he was out, he would do everything in his power to make sure this was kept as quiet as possible.

He had an image to maintain, after all.

At least his collarbone wasn’t broken. It was flipping sore, though, and they’d put his arm in a sling just to keep him com- fortable. He closed his eyes again, dog-tired, feeling heartily sorry for himself and trying his best to zone out the sound of the old man whimpering in the next bed. If he’d been able to move without feeling sick, Wayne would have been over there to give the old git something to whimper about.

He settled for shouting.

‘Keep it down, would you, pal?’

Jacqui would be in a bit later, which he supposed was something to look forward to. Not that he particularly needed her fussing and jabbering at him when all he really wanted was to go home, but she had promised to bring in his favourite pillow from home and a couple of Creme Eggs.

‘Time like this, you need a bit of pampering, love . . . ’

He shifted himself a little higher in the bed and it felt like there was a small person clog-dancing inside his head. He thought for a second or two that he might chuck up his lumps, but thankfully the feeling passed.

A few minutes later, just when Cutler had begun drifting towards sleep and things seemed a bit better, the nurse pulled back the curtain to announce that he had a visitor and things suddenly got very much worse.

Dennis Draper (or whatever his real name was) stepped into the cubicle brandishing a brown paper bag. He sniffed and whipped out a bunch of grapes, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

‘Grapes,’ he said.

‘Over there.’ Cutler nodded towards the cupboard by his bed- side. He watched as Draper walked across and reached down to open the cupboard itself. ‘No. Just leave them on the top.’

Draper did as he was told, moved back to the other side of Cutler’s bed and pulled up a chair. He was extremely tall with long dark hair that hung in greasy curtains on either side of his face. Cutler decided that anything that masked the man’s wholly unappealing features even a bit was to be applauded. The man had a gob like a depressed greyhound.

‘I thought you were being treated in here as well,’ Cutler said.

Draper had his coat on. ‘I was, and I’m all sorted, but I thought I’d pop in to see how you were before I left.’

‘Well, you’ve done that, and how I am is knackered, so now you can just pop away again.’

‘Righto,’ Draper said.

Cutler closed his eyes for a few seconds, but when he opened them again Draper hadn’t moved. ‘Why are you still here?’

‘Why d’you think?’

‘I haven’t got the foggiest.’

‘I’m waiting for you to pay me what I’m owed.’

Cutler stared at the man’s unsettling display of teeth. He definitely preferred the depressed greyhound to the smiling one. ‘I don’t think I follow you.’

‘Come on, Mr Cutler. The money for the job. Ten thou- sand pounds which, seeing as you were brought straight here from the railway station, I’m guessing you still have on you.’ Draper glanced across at the bedside cupboard. ‘Or some- where nearby, anyway.’

‘If you’re talking about any previous arrangement we might have had,’ Cutler said, ‘I’m really not sure it applies any more.’

Draper inched his chair forward. ‘But I did him, Mr Cutler. You know I did him.’

Cutler reached to plump his pillow, at least as much as the half-arsed excuse for a pillow could be plumped. ‘Do I, though, Dennis? I know George Panaides is dead, but how do I know that’s down to you? He might have been hit by a bus.’

‘But I blew the back of his bleedin’ head off, Mr Cutler. It was in the Gazette.’

‘We had a deal, Dennis. I was there with the money in good faith and now look where I am.’ He gently lifted his sling. ‘See? I’m not going to be playing table tennis any time soon, am I?’

‘I didn’t know you played table tennis.’

‘It’s just an expression.’ Cutler groaned and laid his arm back across his chest.

‘Yeah, well I’m sorry about your injury and that.’ Draper looked depressed again. ‘But it weren’t really my fault—’

Cutler leaned forward fast, then took a few deep breaths until he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up again. ‘Not your fault? I wouldn’t sodding well be in hospital at all if you could keep your chopper in your pants.’

Draper winced, his hand absently moving to cradle his crotch.

Cutler smiled. ‘How is it down there, by the way?’ ‘Stitches come out next week.’

Cutler winced. ‘Look, it’s all very unfortunate, Dennis, but without the agreed proof, I don’t cough up. Get the briefcase back and then we’ll talk. Fair enough?’

The look on Draper’s face told him that he didn’t think it was very fair at all.

‘It’s your own fault, Dennis. You’ve got to put your . . . ten- dencies on hold when you’re working.’

‘My tendencies aren’t any of your business.’

‘Under normal circumstances, definitely not. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t give a monkey’s what you get up to or where or with who, but bearing in mind our current situation, I reckon you’ve made them my business. Wouldn’t you say?’

Draper had clearly heard enough. He stood up, threw back the curtain and strode away, grumbling. Striding was evi- dently not wholly straightforward given his delicate condition genital-wise, but he did the best he could.

Cutler shouted after him. ‘I wasn’t sure you were the right man for this in the first place, but a mate recommended you. When he said you were a whizz at a hand job, I thought he was on about how good you were with a hacksaw!’

The old man in the next bed began whimpering again.

‘And you can pipe down an’ all . . . ’

*

Draper slammed the car door, put both hands on the wheel and took a deep breath. The Cutlers were on the slide, every- body said so. When he’d got this briefcase business sorted out, he’d be back for them. For the top man, at least. He put the car in gear and rolled away towards the car park barrier and out on to the main road. A tosspot in a Cavalier cut him up, but Draper decided to leave it.

He had some serious thinking to do.

He thought about the bloke who’d been standing next to him at the urinal a few hours before. The one in the Hawaiian shirt. He’d clearly been in on it. Draper gently adjusted his trousers and smiled, because he thought he knew where to start looking for him. Back in those toilets, he’d obviously had an eyeful of the bloke’s tackle, but he’d also got a good look at his hands.

Draper knew all about hands and he knew that what he’d seen under that lad’s chewed fingernails had been motor oil.