Requiem for a Dealer (11 page)

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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Requiem for a Dealer
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Hurt pooled in his eyes. Brodie quite enjoyed a good argument but Daniel hated them, most of all hated arguing with her. He could have stopped it. He could just have walked away, and though her first instinct would have been to triumph, in a matter of minutes that would have turned to regret. When she'd thought about it long enough she would apologise.
Of course, it's harder to walk out when it's your living room you're arguing in.
‘You're right,' he said softly. ‘I'm a mug for a hard-luck story. And yes, I look for the best in people. Sometimes I'm wrong. I may be wrong this time. But if I am, all that happens is that my friends get to laugh at me again. If I'm right, I get the chance to help a scared girl that no one else is prepared to. So laugh all you like, Brodie, I'm used to it. I'd rather make a fool of myself by being too trusting than by seeing malice everywhere.'
‘Your problem is,' snapped Brodie, ‘you think the world's some kind of a mirror. If you're nice to people they'll be nice back.'
‘And what do you see when you look in the mirror,' he shot back, ‘that justifies how you treat people?'
With a second longer to think he'd never have said it. If they hadn't been arguing, if she hadn't been goading him, he'd have done what he always did: picked his words carefully and said nothing until he was sure it conveyed exactly what he wanted it to. He lost a lot of debates that way: people thinking they'd won and heading for the pub when he was actually still rehearsing his response. Instead for once he'd done what she did all the time: come back with a smart retort because he was clever enough to
think of it and too stupid to keep it to himself.
He saw the shock ricochet through her face like a slap. Her lips parted and her eyes rounded with a mixture of pain and astonishment as if he'd raised his hand to her. Shame flushed darkly under his skin, and he couldn't think of a thing to say that wouldn't make it worse.
Brodie went on staring at him for perhaps ten seconds, disbelief warring in her face with the knowledge of what he thought of her. Then, without another word, she turned on her heel and left, her shoes beating a quick tattoo on the iron stairs.
‘Where will you go?'
‘Home. Well – Bella's house in The Ginnell.' A thread of steel ran through the girl's voice. For a statement of just seven words it defined neatly the nadir to which her life had sunk. She had no home, no one to return to, just a little house in a dreary town that wasn't currently needed by its owner, where she hadn't been safe before and had no reason to believe she'd be safe now. The steel thread was because she was intelligent enough to know this, and to know that she had no alternative, and to know that her only option was to face her situation with courage.
At least, that was what Daniel thought. Brodie might have thought something different.
‘You can't.'
‘I have to. I can't afford a hotel.'
‘Couldn't Mary put you up for a few days?'
‘I didn't ask.'
He frowned. ‘Why ever not?'
Alison didn't want to tell him. Two things she'd learned to dread in people's faces: sympathy, and the weariness that followed when the sympathy was exhausted. ‘Because I asked her before I asked Bella and she said no. She wanted to, she was really sorry, but she didn't see how she could fit me in. She's knocked together a little one-room flat out of what was a hay loft over the stables. It doesn't cost her anything and she says it'll do until she's got the business back on track, but it would be pretty gruesome sharing it with someone.'
Daniel considered. ‘I know a bed-and-breakfast. It's not very smart, but you get clean sheets and as much as you can eat, and a great view of the beach.'
She appreciated him trying. ‘Daniel, I can't even afford a B&B.'
‘You can afford mine.'
She regarded him levelly, not speaking until she knew she could control what she said. ‘Why are you doing this?'
‘Because I can,' he said.
‘You don't owe me anything.'
‘I knocked you down.'
‘I ran into you! It was my mistake. Except …' She smiled, a tear trembling on the lip of it. ‘It wasn't a mistake at all. It was the best thing I've done in three months.'
Daniel did his odd little lopsided shrug that was a remnant of a broken collarbone. ‘Ally, I'm not offering you very much. I can't sort things out for you. I can't make the police believe you. I can't make them believe
me
most of the time. All I can give you is somewhere to stay while you deal with it. I think you'll be safer staying with me than on your own.'
‘I think so too,' she said softly.
 
‘You get your own room,' he said proudly, showing her. ‘Twelve months ago you'd have got my room and I'd have got the sofa, but I had to rebuild after a fire and I got a couple more rooms out of what used to be the boathouse. A guest room and a study.'
She was looking round the odd building as if she'd never seen its like. ‘Daniel – what is it?'
‘It's a netting-shed. The same as the other two' – he pointed through the window – ‘except this was converted for living in and the others are just used for storage. They date back to when Dimmock had a fishing industry, with boats launching off the beach and cheery fisherfolk hanging their nets out to dry of an evening.'
‘Cheery fisherfolk?' Ally echoed faintly.
‘Oh yes. It was stipulated on their licence. That, and singing jolly sea-shanties as they hauled the boats out at the end of the day.'
‘All this was a bit before your time, wasn't it?' she guessed.
‘Well, yes,' admitted Daniel. ‘But I have it on good authority. I saw a Disney film once.'
She sat on his spare bed and kicked her shoes off. ‘I'm glad the cheery fisherfolk have gone. Those sea-shanties must wear thin after a time.'
‘Ah. Then you don't want me waking you up in the morning with three brisk choruses of “Fiddler's Green?”'
She pursed her lips. ‘Let's say I'll let you know if I do.'
Brodie hadn't given a thought to Johnny Windham in three days when the phone rang and it was him. ‘Just to let you know, I'm putting together a lorry-load of horses in Germany. If you're ready to go with the Exmoor pony I have a space for you.'
‘That's very good of you, Mr Windham.' She made polite noises while her brain worked overtime. ‘But don't you need to do some paperwork first?'
‘Brussels requires an Animal Transport Certificate for any horse travelling further than fifty kilometres. But we get them by the bushel. If you're ready, it'll save you a bit of money.'
‘That's very good of you,' said Brodie, and if she'd had a pony to transport she'd have meant it. ‘I'm sorry to mess you around. My firm lead's gone a bit soggy. Perhaps you should count us out of the equation until I give you a call.'
He sounded a little disappointed. ‘Yes, sure. I was just calling on spec. Get back to me when you've some news. Anywhere in Germany, France, the Low Countries – we're always putting a load together, we'll fit you in no trouble.'
‘You specialise in Europe, then,' said Brodie, still only making conversation for long enough to be polite.
‘Based where we are it makes sense. There are guys in Wales and the Midlands who pick up most of the Irish trade, and Yorkshire on up is a whole other territory. I haven't been north of Birmingham in years.'
‘Very sensible I'm sure,' said Brodie, with the heartfelt little shudder of the born-and-bred Londoner; and with that and the promise to speak again they parted.
 
Deacon took her to his favourite French restaurant for supper. Friday evening was the nearest thing they had to a standing arrangement: neither of them broke it without good cause.
Although sometimes it would have been better if Deacon had admitted honestly that his head was too full of work to go on a date with anyone. Instead he talked to her as if she were Charlie Voss, there to act as a sounding board for his ideas. He talked about the brick wall he'd hit when he tried to find out who was manufacturing Scram and who was distributing it. About the people who should have known something but were saying
nothing, even when he turned the pressure up. Even when he offered to show them his new monkey wrench.
‘I don't think they know any more about it than I do,' he grunted, frustrated and disconsolate. ‘Which means this isn't the usual suspects. Maybe it's organised from the German end and Dimmock's just the final link in the chain.'
Brodie gave up trying to talk about something that interested her. ‘They must have some reason to be here. It would be safer to buy the common chemicals in Germany than to smuggle a restricted drug through British Customs.'
Deacon was nodding pensively. ‘The catalyst is the most important but actually the smallest part of the cocktail. If this thing takes off as they hope, they're going to need big quantities of the other stuff. Big enough to attract attention. They're doing it here because this is where they have contacts.' He looked up. ‘This is where they live.'
‘Dimmock?'
‘Here or hereabouts.'
‘Then why does no one know about them? Not just you – the competition.'
‘It's a new operation,' he guessed. ‘Not just a new drug – the whole set-up. These aren't drug-dealers playing with chemicals, they're chemists playing at drugs. Or if not chemists, people who have access to chemicals – the German tranquillizer and what they need to turn it into tablets. That's where they started – with the chemicals, and the idea. We don't know about them because they have no track record. They're two or three respectable professional people with access to chemicals, the knowledge of what to do with them and a lockup somewhere with a Bunsen burner and a sink. That's all they need. How the hell am I ever going to find them?'
Brodie was surprised. He was often angry, not infrequently worried, but she didn't remember hearing that note of despair in his voice before. ‘You'll find them. It may take a little while, but you'll find them.'
‘But while I'm looking, kids are dying. We know of six people who've overdosed on this stuff. Five of them were teenagers, two of them are now dead. That's a thirty-three per cent mortality
rate. What are we going to be dealing with when the production-line is running at capacity?'
‘OK,' she said, moved to help him, ‘then let's think about what you know about them. The catalyst comes from Germany but production takes place around here somewhere. You're looking for professional people with a knowledge of chemistry and secure premises. It's based on a veterinary drug. Maybe you should be looking for a vet.'
A generation raised on James Herriott stories finds it hard to see the saviour of the animal kingdom in a less flattering light, but it was a valid point. ‘Maybe I should. Or someone else involved with large animals. Like a horse dealer. Or a horse transporter.'
For a long minute Brodie didn't answer. Then she said, ‘You mean, maybe there's something in Alison Barker's allegations after all?'
‘Those damn horses,' Deacon growled into his wine. ‘You're right, aren't you? We keep coming back to the horses.'
‘Mm.' There was nothing modest about Brodie Farrell: the only reason that she didn't fire off a resounding “told you so” was that she too was thinking. ‘Jack – that argument that Stanley Barker and Johnny Windham had in the yard at Peyton Parvo five days before Barker was found in his water-jump. Is it on record anywhere what exactly they were arguing about?'
‘Sure. Windham bringing Barker sick and dead horses.'
‘Yes. But had these horses anything else in common? The same vendor, or the same buyer. Or maybe they all came from Germany?'
Deacon put his glass down and left his meal to go cold. ‘I don't know. But we should be able to find out. Either from Alison Barker or Mary Walbrook.'
‘Let's ask Mary,' said Brodie, just a shade too quickly, leaving Deacon wondering why.
‘I'm not sure I have her number. But I can probably still catch Alison at the hospital.'
‘No, she was discharged this morning.'
‘Then I'll call at the house in The Ginnell. Come with me, if you like.'
‘She isn't there.'
It was like drawing teeth. Deacon hung onto his patience. ‘Then where is she?'
There comes a point in any game where trying to defend the indefensible involves more loss of dignity than conceding defeat. Brodie reached that point now. Her dark eyes crackled at him. ‘Where do you think? Where do all the crackpots end up? She's at Daniel's.'
He didn't understand her annoyance. ‘All right, then we'll drop in on Daniel.'
‘Maybe you should phone first,' she said nastily, ‘Lord knows what we'll walk in on otherwise.'
He'd been ready to leave. Now he let his weight sink back into his chair. ‘Brodie,' he said quietly, ‘what's going on here? You know Daniel's been worried about her. I'm not surprised she's moved in with him, so why are you?'
‘I'm not surprised,' she said shortly. ‘I just think he's letting himself be used. Again.'
Deacon shrugged. ‘Does it matter?'
‘It might. If Alison Barker is lying, she's conducting a hate campaign against a man she blames for everything that's gone wrong with her life. What if Daniel doesn't measure up to her expectations either?'
‘You think she might turn on him?' Deacon wasn't sure what he was hearing. It hadn't occurred to him that Daniel was in any danger of being bitten by his lame dog. Thinking about it now he had to concede there was a chance, if only an outside one; but listening like a detective rather than someone who was involved it sounded more like an intelligent woman rationalising a quite primitive situation – two cats squabbling over a fish head. She sounded jealous.
‘She might. If Mary Walbrook's right about her, Alison is a loose cannon. And Daniel … is Daniel. For a smart man he can be remarkably slow on the uptake sometimes. And this is an area he hasn't had much experience of.'
‘What is?' he asked softly. He felt it important that she say it.
She flicked him an irritated glance. ‘You know what I mean. The whole emotional thing. I'm not sure he's ever had a serious
girlfriend. It's foreign territory to him, and I don't trust him to pick up the warning signs if it starts going wrong.'
‘You think they're involved emotionally?'
‘I don't know.' He didn't think Brodie heard the note of anguish in her own voice. ‘I think they might be.'
‘You think they might or you're afraid they might?'
‘I don't want him to get hurt!'

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