Beast of Burden (16 page)

“You put yourself out.”

“No, you made a mistake, Derek. You admit that, and that you owe us, and we can—”

“I don't owe you anything.”

“Alright, and I'm not asking you to do anything for us, am I?”

“Right.”

“I'm
telling
you to do something for us.”

The lass from behind the counter came over with two breakfasts, the full whack. We didn't say anything to each other as she put the plates down in front of us. Adams looked down at his food, the blood gone from his cratered face. As soon as the waitress left, he picked at a fried egg and his gut made this long, loud gurgling noise.

“Better get something in you,” I said. “Sounds like you're digesting yourself.”

“You can't bully me, Iain.”

“Bully? Nah, I'm not trying to bully you, Derek old son. Don't get us wrong on this: you can keep your fuckin' dinner money. But you do need to help us out.”

“I did my job,” he said again. Starting to sound like a broken record here as he muttered: “Paddy Reece had every right to make an official complaint in the event of his assault, and I had to treat any such complaint as a priority.”

“What if it'd been Kennedy?”

Adams poked harder at his fried egg. Broke the seal on the yolk and the runny yellow mixed into the bean juice. Between that and his face, I was starting to lose my appetite.

“I would've done exactly the same thing,” he said.

“Like fuck. You and the rest of 'em in there, you're so far up that Scouse bastard's arse you can read his collar size. Paddy Reece came in with a complaint against that twat, you'd have gone to him straight, would've warned him at the very fuckin' least. But because it's
me
, I get the shitty end of the stick.”

“DI Kennedy's not known for assaulting people in custody.”

“Not here, but c'mon, he's only been here five fuckin' minutes.”

“And maybe it was about time someone called you on your methods.”

“My
methods
?” I had trouble thinking straight. Here was me, I'd gone out of my way to be courteous to the fucker, even bought him the breakfast he was prodding, sat him down and talked to him like a man, and he had the balls to call us on this? This whiteboard copper, facts on fucking index cards before he felt a collar, suddenly thought he had the right to grass us up.

Which meant he had an inflated sense of self-worth, and I had the fucking pin.

I grabbed him by the tie. He couldn't do anything about it but fold his face.

“Iain, for fuck's—”

I pulled tighter, pushed the knot into his Adam's apple. “You know better than that. Call us on my fuckin' methods like you're some kind of fuckin' supercop, you daft twat. Got to expect I'm going to get wound up by that.”

Pushed him back in his chair, which scraped loud against the floor. He grabbed hold of the table before he went arse over tit, pulled at his tie with his other hand. He was starting to draw stares from the rest of the arseholes in here, so I gave as good as I got until they shrank back to their tea and toast.

“If you think that grassing us up is a way to get on in this job, Derek, you're going to get your tie mangled.” I pushed my plate out of the way; wasn't hungry at all now. “And if you continue to act the arse, I'll smack you like one.”

“Don't talk to me like I'm one of your grasses,” he said, his voice scratchy.

“But you are, Derek. Because if it wasn't for you, that body that came in this morning would be mine, not Kennedy's. As it fuckin' turns out, I wanted that case and it's rightly mine, so what you're going to do is let
me
know what Kennedy knows.”

“You can't investigate—”

“Not that it's any of your fuckin' business, but someone has to. You reckon Kennedy's going to do a decent job of it, the way he was talking? This Tiernan thing isn't something that concerns him. His first dead end and he'll chuck it in, and you know why?”

“Because nobody gives a shit about Mo Tiernan,” said Adams.

“Because Detective Inspector Colin Kennedy is bent as all fuck.”

Adams shook his head, his bottom lip putting a move on his top. “I don't think so.”

“You reckon he's clean, and I know why.”

“Because he is.”

“Because you can't see anything but the inside of his arse. You ever wondered why he transferred over from Liverpool? Why he never fuckin' talks about it?”

“If DI Kennedy doesn't want to make the Tiernan case a priority, then that's his problem. If and when he jacks it in, and if you don't think the investigation was handled correctly at that time, I'm sure you can put a formal complaint in to the DCI.”

“And how do I know how well the investigation was handled if you don't help us?” I sat back in my chair, looked at Adams. I kept my voice low and friendly. “Okay. Tell you what, Derek, I fully appreciate I've put you in an uncomfortable position here. I'll just take my suspension, watch Fern and Phil, let the bent coppers breed through our nick. But just so's you know — so there's no fuckin' misunderstandings about this further on down the line — this thing here? It's not about putting one over on Kennedy. It's about finding out if what I hear about him is true.”

“And what's that?” said Adams, a new smile pushing his mouth wide. “That he's bent? You heard that from your grasses?”

He was laughing at me on the inside. Just like the rest of the twats I came into contact with. I wanted to ram his face into that free breakfast, going cold in front of him. And the truth was, I didn't know that Kennedy was bent. He just
felt
bent to me, and it was a good enough justification to get Adams to grass him up. But something had happened to the skinny fuckwit. Someone out there had promised him back-up if I ever put the strong arm on him. I could guess who.

“Fine, right.” I pushed away from the table. “You watch him, Derek. If anything crops up that brings this conversation back to fuckin' mind, you've got my mobile number. Don't let him drag you down with him.”

Then I pushed my way past the tables to the front door.

I didn't look back, knew that Adams would be chuckling to himself about this. Probably tell Kennedy about it, and I suddenly felt utterly fucking stupid. It didn't matter what he told Kennedy, mind. They'd have a laugh about it. But at the end of the day, I'd be the one laughing at the pair of them.

Because there was no fucking way I was going to drop this investigation, not when I had a chance to one-up that cunt Kennedy.

DONKIN

I wasn't in the mood to play kiss-chase with Innes, so I went straight back round the poof's club. And as soon as I got through the doors, that was it. The poof was out and almost running at us.

“He's not here,” he said.

“I know he's not here. I can see he's not here. He's never fuckin' here, is he?”

The poof stopped in his tracks. Behind him, I saw the door to the IC Investigations office standing open. The big jailbird — Frank Collier — was in there, looking at some papers. The poof moved to one side, blocked my view. “So what are you doing here? I thought we discussed this.”

“I need to know where he is,” I said.

“If he's not here, then I don't know.”

“Maybe your big friendly giant in there knows something.”

“The fuck is the matter with you?” he said. “Seriously, I mean, are you fuckin' retarded in some way?”

“You don't need to talk to us like that,” I said, frowning at him. “Hurts my fuckin' feelings. I just need to talk to Innes. It's important, otherwise I wouldn't have come back, would I?”

“Well, he's not—”

“Then I need his mobile number.”

“No.”

“Oi, look, I'm trying to be fuckin' nice about this, aren't I?” I took a few steps up at him, gave him my brightest smile. “I haven't got handy with you, haven't asked your jittery mate in there any more fuckin' questions, so I reckon that's got to count for something, doesn't it? So how's about this? You go and get us Innes' mobile number, right? And I won't bother coming round anymore.”

The poof didn't say anything for a long time. He was staring at us like he was waiting for us to carry on, give him some more reasons to help the police with their inquiries. Then, when he realised I didn't have nowt to give, he said, “No.”

“What exactly is your fuckin' problem here, Nancy?”

“If he doesn't want to talk to you, he's not going to talk to you on the fuckin' phone, is he?”

“It's in his best interests to talk to us,” I said, the smile gone. “Seriously, no fucking about anymore, I need to talk to him.”

“Then how about I take
your
number and get him to give you a call as soon as I see him?”

Or how's about I take your fucking head and put it through that wall over there, you cock-biting cunt? How's about I beat shit out of your with that fire extinguisher, eh? And the first time you lay hands on us, I'll have you in cuffs …

I rolled some spit around the inside of my mouth. “I understand that you don't trust us, Mr Gray—”

He got in so close I thought he was about to kiss us. “Too fuckin' right I don't trust you.”

“And you'll forgive us if I don't exactly trust
you
to pass on the message.”

“Not a problem,” he said. “You can go sniffing for him by yourself.”

“Or I bet your man Frank can help us out.” I pointed through to the office. Frank looked up at the sound of my voice, caught us pointing, and his mouth got tight as a cat's arse. “Y'alright there, Frank? Coming in there in a minute, have a little word with you.”

“How about I report you for harassment?” said the poof.

“How about I put a finger on you to the NSPCC?”

“Right,” he said. “Here we go.”

“Yeah, why not? I mean, even if you don't measure up to my suspicions of you being a fuckin' arse bandit with a taste for the young 'uns, something I'm learning is that every complaint officially filed has to be investigated thoroughly, doesn't it?”

“I've already had police checks.”

“So did Huntley, mate.” I took a deep, crackling breath in, fixed him with my copper stare. “Only shows the convictions, though, eh? Might not come to anything, they might not lock you up, but you know as well as I do that they're judgemental pricks round here, and I'm guessing that your status as local poof has done you no fuckin' favours, am I right? Mind you, that's preferable to being the bloke investigated on suspicion of kiddie-fiddling. Doesn't matter if you touched 'em or not, either. And when that happens — because you know if there's the slightest fuckin' sniff, they'll be out with the flaming torches, come to burn the monster's house down — you're going to have to ask yourself if it was all worth it. Because I wouldn't be talking this serious unless it was fuckin'
imperative
that I talk to your mate right the fuck now.”

The poof blinked at us, worked his mouth. Yeah, he knew I was serious now, and he was fucking boiling that I was able to keep walking back into his place. He also knew Innes better than most, and I guessed that there was a large fucking part of him that knew he was in the shit. And he was in the shit purely because of Innes.

“So you know,” I said, “I'm not just round here to mess him about.”

“Yeah, right, you're not,” he said quietly. “That's all you ever—”

“I'll admit, right, that's what I was after yesterday. Wanted to get a gander at the freak, give him shit about being a mong an' all that.” I moved my shoulders back. “But I already did all that last night.”

“So?”

“So, Mr Gray, I'm here in a more official capacity.”

He was hesitant when he said, “How?”

“Can't divulge the details,” I said. “Y'know, considering it's an ongoing investigation. But here's the thing: I don't want to
have
to get nasty with you, Mr Gray.”

“Course you don't.”

“I mean, I
could
do you for obstruction, wasting police time, all that bollocks, but it's petty. Besides, I don't want you, I want Innes.”

“And you can't tell me anything about it?”

“Only that it involves Mo Tiernan,” I said. “And a body we found last night.”

The sarcastic smile leaked from the poof's face right then. Some of the colour in his cheeks went along with it. I hadn't expected that reaction. If anything, I was waiting for the usual Innes-is-innocent bollocks that usually followed an implied accusation. Expected him to be raging at us by now, telling us to get out, that he didn't care about any threats, that in fact, it was just fucking texture for his eventual harassment complaint. Which, to be honest, was the last thing I needed, but I couldn't let the poof think he was better than me.

Still, he was stunned, almost looked fucking caught, truth be told. So rather than look a gift horse in the gob, I hitched up my belt and said, “You know anything about it?”

The poof looked straight at my gut for a few seconds, thinking about his answer. “No.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

“He never told you.”

“No.”

“Well, consider yourself told now, then.”

He scratched his top lip, looked like he'd stray up to his nose. “He's dead?”

“I said there was a body. Didn't say who it was.”

“But it's Mo, isn't it?” he said, squinting at us.

“I'm not at liberty—”

“How?”

“Again, I'm not really at liberty to tell you that.” I sniffed.

“And how's Cal involved?”

I looked around the club. It was a nice enough gym, better than it used to be, but I wasn't really all that interested in what I saw. I was just doing something other than answer the poof's question, because he was bricking it about something, and it couldn't do any harm to let him sweat a little longer. In the end, I winked at him. “I don't know that he
is.
But I don't know that he's not, either. I've evidence to tie him to the scene, and I've yet to eliminate him from my enquiries.”

“You're not actually treating him as a suspect, are you?”

“Here, you know how it is. Everyone's a suspect until they're cleared, right?”

“You've
seen
him recently, though.”

I nodded. “And I know what you're going to say — he couldn't have done it, look at the state of him, he can barely get around by himself, how the fuck could he be responsible for killing someone?”