Requiem for a Dealer (19 page)

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Authors: Jo Bannister

BOOK: Requiem for a Dealer
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‘We're not unpacking it.' Daniel was fairly sure that wasn't the right word.
‘You can see it from the groom's door.' The driver opened a small door in the side of the lorry and stood back.
There was a lamp on inside. A smell like flowers and sweat – and more pleasant than that probably sounds – spilled out along with the light. Daniel found himself studying an animal the same colour as the hay it was eating, with curious dark eyes and warm breath that hung on the air.
He found himself smiling. ‘Isn't she pretty?' he said – proving, if any proof were needed, that he had Nelson's eye for a horse. He reached up an uncertain hand and the pony bathed it in her breath.
What happened then was hard to explain. It was so quick, so unexpected, that he pretty well missed it. The world stopped for a second, like a skipped heartbeat, then flipped over, and then began settling gently around him like snowfall. For some reason he was sitting on the kerb beside the white van, with his head bowed and slow drops like dark tears falling in his lap. He thought, ‘Blood …' but couldn't organise his brain enough to take the next step and work out what that meant.
It wouldn't have made much difference if he had. He was sitting on the kerb because he couldn't stand, and he still
couldn't have stood if the man had been armed with a Kalashnikov rather than a brass-handled walking stick. His consciousness was fading as slowly but inexorably as a winter sunset.
Before he passed out entirely the driver lifted him to his feet and pushed him through the little door in the side of the van. Daniel's body was as slack as a length of well-chewed string: when the man released him he sprawled in the straw. The driver picked up his feet and pushed them inside. Then he closed the door, got back in his cab and drove off.
People whose experience of the world comes largely through a television screen must think that human consciousness is a little like an electric lightbulb. Turn off the power and you're asleep; and when somebody flicks the switch again, instantly you're awake. Awake, hell – five minutes later you're off shooting Liberty Valance.
In fact it's not like that. Human consciousness is not a power circuit such as an electrician would recognise. There is no switch. The traditional way of taking it off-line is to inflict the kind of blunt trauma that causes brain damage. With a brass-handled walking stick, for instance.
And while brains can be surprisingly resilient and survive, even recover from, damage that would scramble a computer irreparably, they don't just shrug it off and get back to work as if nothing had happened. There's a half-lit wasteland between unconsciousness and being fully aware in which the mind wanders, stumbling and confused, as it tries to work out where the world went.
That wasteland was where Daniel found himself now: with enough self-awareness to know that something bad had happened but insufficient command of his senses to work out what.
The first faculty to firm up was his hearing. He could hear an engine close by – so close it rumbled up at him through the very floor. Not a car engine, too rough and deep, but still more like that than anything else. Also, the floor was too close and shaking too much. It was on the move, and he was lying on it.
Nor was he alone. He could hear someone else moving softly nearby. An unhurried rustling sound, the occasional dull thud, and a slow rhythmic grinding that was almost soporific. Nothing threatening but all of it alien. By degrees his aching brain put it together. The pony: standing in straw, occasionally shifting its weight from one foot to another, chewing away at its hay-net with the methodical application of an animal that likes to spend sixteen hours a day eating.
The image of the pony coalescing pixel by pixel in his mind
somehow kick-started his vision – encouraged his eyes to report in. There was light in here, and colours, even if most of them were shades of brown. Shapes were less distinct, at least until his groping fingers located his glasses lying in the straw beside him and returned them to where they could do some good.
Then the rumbling little world around him gained some dimensions that helped him identify it. It was a horse-box, en route to God knows where. He and the blonde pony were the only passengers.
At that point he remembered the man with the clipboard. ‘Do you want a look at your pony?' ‘Isn't she pretty?' Then … He didn't know what had happened then. He knew something had taken him down – not so much pain, which takes longer to cut in than consciousness takes to fade, more the terrible sick feeling of something dreadfully amiss. Confusion, alarm. The slow falling. He didn't remember how he got in here but he could guess. He'd made the classic mistake of turning his back on someone he should have watched like a hawk, and his reward had been the reward for trusting souls since the year dot: a brisk clip behind the ear with a blunt instrument.
And now he'd been kidnapped? He couldn't imagine why. That might have been the concussion but he didn't actually think so. He assumed this development was connected with Brodie's trip to Germany, but even if the man in the cab
was
a drug-runner there was nothing Daniel could tell him. Not with a gun pressed to his temple, not under torture. A spasm of primitive fear wound through his gut like a parasite. Having no useful information wouldn't save him if no one believed him. It hadn't before.
Which made getting out of here a matter of some urgency. With the light on, and his glasses on, and some of his scattered wits returning to the roost he was able to make a reasonable assessment of his situation. The good news was that he wasn't restrained in any way. The less good news was that it was hardly necessary: he was enclosed in a box, travelling at perhaps fifty miles an hour, secured by doors that opened from the outside and constructed with the containment of a ton of agitated horseflesh in mind. He wasn't going to get free by setting his
shoulder – even his good shoulder – against the door and heaving.
Nor was he going to climb out over the back ramp and drop to the road as the van slowed for a bend. He'd seen horse trailers with the top shutters pinned back to aid the circulation of air, with a broad gap between the top of the ramp and the roof. But this wasn't a trailer but a box, and the ramp closed up to the roof. There were ventilators along the eaves on both sides but he wasn't getting out that way either.
He gave the roof a closer look. It occurred to him that might be the weak spot in a horse-box, particularly a rather elderly little one. It was the one part that was never built to withstand the weight or determined assault of a horse. He thought it might be timber, in which case there was the possibility of a rotten spot; but it was metal, folded down and secured with rivets.
So if he couldn't get out he'd have to get someone to let him out. He sat down in the straw again, keeping a cautious distance from the pony, to think about it. It was night: even had he the means to write messages on scraps of paper he could poke through the ventilators it would be morning, and him and the van long gone, before anyone found one. What else? Smoke-signals? He couldn't risk starting a fire in here – plus, not being a smoker, he hadn't a lighter on him.
He was discouraged but not yet despairing. He did have on him the most potent weapon that a man can carry, the lethal weapon by whose deft use puny humans have turned animals that were stronger and faster than them, with sharp claws and massive jaws or thundering hooves and great spreading horns, into expensive wallpaper – his human brain. He could think. There would be a way out of this. As his mind cleared, he would find it. He sat in the straw and tried to tease out some options.
The box journeyed into the night. He had no sense of the direction they had taken. Daniel's head ached and he wasn't sure how much time was passing. He owned a watch but he didn't have it on.
If someone chanced by the netting-shed they'd realise something was wrong. He'd left his telescope on the gallery and the door unlocked. But what chance was there of that? Brodie
was on her way back from Germany – she might call him when she got home but if it was late she might well wait until morning.
Brodie? Think it was too late to disturb him and tell him about her day? No, he thought with a wry smile, there was every chance that she would either call at his house or try to phone him. And she'd expect him to wait up for her, so if she got no reply she'd want to know why. So sometime tonight he would be missed. It wasn't a lot to look forward to but it was something.
And there was more. Something had already gone wrong with her plan or this pony wouldn't be amiably chomping hay beside him as they rumbled through the darkness into the South Downs. It would be standing in a Customs shed somewhere, surrounded by policemen, while someone stood by with a sieve. What that meant to Daniel was that even now Brodie could be trying to report the cockup to him, anxious to find someone to blame before everyone else involved blamed her.
Knowing he was missing was one thing, finding him another. But then, she didn't have to find him. Deacon would be looking for the pony, using all the facilities at his command, and when he found it he would find Daniel as well. There were things about Jack Deacon that Daniel didn't like, and more things that he didn't understand, but he knew he was a good detective. He would find both of them. Though how quickly, and in what condition, he was unwilling to speculate.
Incredibly in the circumstances, Daniel found himself yawning, his head nodding on his chest. He blamed the concussion, but tension was probably at least equally responsible. Finally he decided there was no reason to fight it. He'd searched his prison and found no way out. Coming back to his predicament fresh might help. Feeling the cold, like a small frightened animal he burrowed into the straw in the corner of the box furthest from the pony's feet and let the tiredness take him.
 
‘It isn't possible,' Brodie stated blankly, too amazed to know how foolish she sounded. ‘We had him in sight the whole way.'
‘Well, obviously you didn't,' barked Deacon, ‘or the damn
pony would still be on the box.'
‘They must have left it in the yard in Belgium,' ventured Jill Meadows.
‘Why?' demanded Deacon. ‘The whole point of carrying the pony was to stuff it with drugs. Why in God's name would he take it somewhere for that to be done but then leave it there?'
‘Maybe it all went wrong,' hazarded Brodie. ‘Maybe the sedative was too strong, or a package ruptured. Maybe it died and he had to leave without it.'
Maybe it was that simple, thought Deacon. It wouldn't be the first time he'd seen good work scuppered by bad luck.
‘What does he say?' asked Meadows. ‘Where does Windham say it is?'
‘I haven't asked him,' growled Deacon. ‘I'm not sure I'm going to.'
Brodie's brow gathered in a puzzled frown. ‘Why on earth not?' She might have put it stronger than that, but she'd known this man long enough to know that he didn't make a lot of mistakes, and the ones he did make weren't stupid ones. Whether or not she could see it, he would have a reason.
‘Because if I do he'll know we're onto him. If I question him about the pony, he'll know we've been watching him and he'll know why. I don't think I want to tell him that. If I don't, maybe he'll have another go at bringing home the bacon. Maybe – just maybe – we'll be luckier then. If he realises he's been rumbled but I haven't the evidence to hold him, he'll walk and either set up a new system or get someone else to run the old one. Either way, we'll be back at square one.'
Brodie thought about it. ‘But surely he knows we're wise to him now. Is there anything more to lose?'
‘Possibly. It depends on why he left the pony behind. If he dumped it because he realised we were following it, then yes, we're blown, we might as well turn the heat up and hope he'll bubble. But if he left it behind because it was sick, he might be thinking the reception committee was just the luck of the draw. If they get him back on the road as quickly as possible, he might think that's his shakedown for this month and arrange another shipment as soon as he can.'
Brodie grimaced. ‘He saw me. He
can't
think that was a coincidence.'
‘Why not? You have a reason to be here – to meet the pony. OK, he was surprised, but if he didn't already suspect he'd been set up that wouldn't tell him. He has no reason to connect you and me, after all. If you tell him it's all part of the service, he may well believe you.'
She nodded slowly. It was a toss-of-the coin thing: heads or tails, it might as easily be one as the other. She was glad it wasn't her call. ‘What are you going to do?'
Deacon hadn't decided; but he knew he had to, and he had to do it now. If he was going to let Windham run, every minute's delay made it likelier he'd smell a rat. Which didn't matter if he already knew what was going on; but it was possible that he didn't. However he weighed the odds, Deacon came back to that. Heads or tails, and no way of predicting which.
He called the Customs shed. ‘Let him go. Apologise. Sincerely. Tell him his name came out of the hat, there's a bit of a push on from head office, help him load his horses and get him on his way.' Then he called Voss. ‘Follow him. Let's see what he does next.'
To Brodie it seemed obvious. ‘He's going home. Even if he'd got the pony with him, that's where he'd be going now. He has no reason not to, and every reason to do what he said he'd do. He's not going to risk blowing his cover by getting inventive.'
Knowing she was right did not incline Deacon to be generous. ‘This could have been avoided,' he said bitterly. ‘Three days you were watching that pony. And you still managed to lose it.'
Meadows said nothing. There wasn't much she could say: it was true. He'd trusted his newest DC with an important task and she'd let him down. She doubted he'd trust her with another.
But Brodie wasn't apt to take criticism lying down, even when it was justified. And this wasn't. ‘We did our best, Jack. We stayed as close to it as we could without being seen. I'm sorry it went pear-shaped, but short of dressing up as a pantomime horse and travelling with it we did everything in our power to make this work. I don't think anyone else could have done
better. Including you.'
Meadows was watching her open-mouthed. She'd never heard anyone speak to Deacon like that. She was wondering where to hide if he went ballistic.
Instead he just grunted, ‘But the bottom line is, we're no idea where the damn pony is, or even if it's alive or dead. And I'm the one who has to explain to God why we've nothing to show for a week's work, a left-hand-drive car and a Eurostar ticket to Germany.' He didn't mean God, of course – he meant Superintendent Fuller, who had to approve his expenses.
Brodie had her mouth open to correct him -‘Two Eurostar tickets …' On second thoughts she shut it again.

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