Vixen (Inspector Brant) (9 page)

‘Yah dirty dog, you sure went for it, me ol’ segotia.’

Segotia?

It’s an Irish word meaning… either mate or eejit.

The hooker coughed some more, then eyed Roberts with something resembling affection, asked:

‘Hon’, you married?’

Brant smiled, answered:

‘My guv’nor was recently widowed. Tragically, we lost her.’

This was true in more senses than one. Mrs Roberts had been cremated and the two of them had gone on an almighty skite. Somewhere along the way the urn was stolen. Wherever she rested she was certainly, if not at
peace, then in pieces. Rumour had it that a well-known drug dealer out of Brixton had her on his mantelpiece and stashed coke in the urn. Roberts ignored the hooker and turned to Brant:

‘How come you look so dapper?’

‘Got to, guv. We’re the establishment, got to make an impression.’

Roberts should have known better than to expect coherence but he persisted:

‘And what? You keep a change of clothes here?’

‘Like the song goes, “wherever I lay my hat”.’

Roberts found his clothes and they were fucked: traces of vomit and ash on them. He looked at Brant, asked:

‘Any chance you’d have something I could wear?’

“Course.’

Brant disappeared and a few seconds later returned with a white tracksuit, its gold logo reading:

‘I’m the business.’

Roberts said:

‘Tell me you’re kidding?’

‘It’s that or the ruined suit, guv.’

Roberts headed for the bathroom, got in the shower, turned it to scalding and steamed for five minutes. What it did was wake up his hangover, which had been in a semiholding phase.

Not any more.

It was up on its hind legs and howling. He checked his reflection in the mirror, bad idea. Red eyes, white stubble and he thought:

How’d I get to be a wino?

Searching around, he found a lady-razor and hacked at the bristles… which hurt like a son of a bitch. There was a pounding on the door and he shouted:

‘Jesus, give me a goddamn minute.’

You hung with Irish people, you ended up swearing like them. Brant, sounding highly amused, said:

‘A minute you don’t get… Porter is down.’

Roberts pulled on the lurid tracksuit and grabbed at a perfume bottle, splashed a sample of the contents on to his face. Big mistake, it burned like the fires of hell and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He checked the name:

Roberts opened the door and Brant handed him a mug of steaming tea, said:

‘Get that in you.’

He gulped it and the heat lit the roof of his mouth.

He asked:

‘Is Porter shot?’

‘No, heart attack. Seemingly there was another bomb and the guy called in. Porter lost it and gave himself the big one.’

Roberts was getting too much information and the Poison fumes were enveloping him. He tried to focus, said:

‘Slow down, Brant, give it to me as it went down.’

Brant lit a cig, wrinkled his nose from the perfume or the smoke, or both, answered:

‘There was a bomb, last night or this morning. I’m hazy
there – the same MO so it’s our boys all right. Then they phoned and Porter got het up, you know how fags get, and wallop, his ticker took him down. He’s at St Thomas’ and the shit has really hit the fan as the Super’s on the warpath. He wants to know where the hell we are.’

Roberts ran the events of the night in his head, then asked:

‘They’re still watching the left luggage place, tell me they haven’t fucked that up?’

‘As far as I know, guv.’

Roberts drank more of the tea. The strangest thing was happening: he was beginning to feel better. How could that be?’

He stared at Brant who had an enigmatic smile and asked:

‘I feel a whole lot better, how could that be?’

Brant shrugged his shoulders and the hooker gave a knowing wink. Roberts smelled the tea – it was different, almost minty. The penny dropped and he snarled:

‘You shithead, you spiked it, didn’t you?’

‘Yo, guv, time to wake up, join the revolution. You couldn’t show up hung-over, could you?’

Roberts slung the tea across the room and the hooker said:

‘Hey, the carpet.’

Roberts grabbed Brant’s shoulder, always a dodgy move as Brant was not one to handle, said:

‘I need help, I’ll ask for it, you got that, Sergeant?’

‘We better get a move on. The Super’11 be at the station.’

As they took their leave, the hooker handed Roberts a plastic bag and he looked the question at her. She raised her eyebrows, said:

‘So I gave your gear a spin in the machine, just dry them and you’re in biz.’

He was strangely touched and for a moment nearly put out his hand, but shaking hands with a hooker is not in God’s scheme of things. He said:

‘Thank you.’

She beamed; men showing gratitude was not a common event and said:

‘My cellphone number is in there. You get frisky, you give me a call, ask for Shirl.’

They were at the door now and Brant said:

‘That’s it?’

‘What?’

‘You say thanks!’

Roberts, as per usual, was lost in the myriad turns of Brant’s mind. Near shouted:

‘What, you want me to send her flowers?’

Brant, who almost never showed his impatience with his boss, threw his hands up, said:

‘You think they live on goodwill, on fucking food stamps? She needs paying.’

Roberts was flustered, fumbled for the right words, then:

‘But didn’t you do that? I mean, I thought you were their guest, the party was for you, as a return for some shady favour you did.’

Brant was hailing a taxi and said:

‘Of all people, you know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. How’s it gonna be when you call her? She’ll think, Oh, here’s that cheapskate again.’

They got in the cab and Brant said to the driver:

‘Waterloo station and before Friday.’

The driver, not long out of Bosnia, knew cops by smell and didn’t argue. He also didn’t turn on the meter. An ikon of the Black Madonna and worry beads hung from his mirror with a large sign thanking customers for not smoking. Brant lit up and Roberts had to know, asked:

‘How much should I have given?’

‘How good a time did you have?’

‘I dunno.’

‘You should have given large, like you obviously did last night. Double up when you see her.’

Roberts waved away the cig smoke and said with indignation, a difficult move to pull off when you’re wearing a tracksuit that P-Daddy would shun:

‘I won’t be calling her. Jesus, are you crazy?’

Brant smiled, said:

“Course you will, you just don’t know it yet.’

WATERLOO STATION WAS chaotic. Most of the end platforms were sealed off; the bomb damage, though minor, looked dramatic. Superintendent Brown, surrounded by cops, was giving it large.

His face turned purple as Roberts and Brant approached. Roberts’ tracksuit seemed to glow against the dark police uniforms.

Brown shouted:

‘What the hell are you wearing?’

Brant said:

‘We had a lead, sir, and the Chief Inspector felt a disguise was called for.’

The Super glared, snapped:

‘Did I ask you, Sergeant?’

Roberts, going with the flow, said:

‘We thought we had them but it turned out to be a drug thing.’

Brown, not believing a word, said:

‘And… the disguise? You couldn’t bear to part with it… is that it?’

‘No time, sir. As soon as we heard about the explosion, we rushed over.’

Brant enjoying the nonsense, asked:

‘How is Porter Nash?’

It seemed to take Brown a physical act of will to dredge up who that was, then:

‘How the bloody hell would I know? Nobody tells me anything.’

PC McDonald, on the outs for a long time, tried to gain some brownies, said:

‘WPC Falls is with him.’

The Super rounded on him.

‘That’s supposed to be some sort of reassurance, is it? A nigger visiting a pooftah. Christ, the Force is gone down the shitter.’

The Tabloid’s
chief crime guy was called Dunphy. He’d recently shone in a serial cop-killing saga. He was home sick with a strep throat. His sidekick, named Malone, was filling in. When Roberts and Brant had arrived, he’d switched on his DAT-recorder. He knew those guys were always gold, he couldn’t believe his luck. Moving back slowly, he slipped away, got out his cellphone. Thought:
Dunphy, you prick, you are history.
This story would make his career, he could already envisage the headline:

Un-fucking-believable.

Roberts strode over to the left luggage office. The Super asked:

‘Where are you going?’

‘Checking on the ransom.’

The assembled cops looked at each other. Brown allowed himself a low chuckle, asked:

‘You think we didn’t already consider that. McDonald says the bag is still there.’

Brant creased his eyes, asked:

‘Did he open it?’

A groan spread through the cops and a chorus of:

‘What’s… ?’

Brant, enunciating each word as if he were chewing on them, asked:

‘The bag… did he open it?’

A mad scramble to the luggage office.

Bill, the attendant, still suffering from Friday’s hangover and the after-effects of the bomb blast, shouted:

‘Hey, take it easy.’

As Bill was trampled by cops, Brown tore open the bag. They could see it was empty. He pointed at Bill, ordered:

‘Arrest him!’

Bill’s arrest was a sensation. Reporters, TV crews besieged the police station. Roberts tried to reason with Brown, said:

‘It’s not him.’

The Super, flush with pride, relief and a mad belief that the nightmare was over, allowed himself a supercilious smile, answered:

‘Oh, it’s him all right. When you’ve been in this game as long as me, laddie, you just
know.’

Brant, behind Roberts, was more than happy to have Brown expose himself as a horse’s ass. It might even result in them getting shot of the bastard. Not even the Masonic Lodge would save him. But Brant didn’t want Roberts to go down with the fuck, tried to pull him away. Roberts, his hangover resurfacing, was livid, said:

‘Sir, with all due respect, this is balls. We’re going to appear extremely foolish.’

Before, Brown would have slapped down his Chief Inspector for the tone of impertinence. But drunk with success, he turned to the other officers, his hands, palms outwards in the mode of
‘Lord, grant me patience’
, said:

‘Did you hear that, men? Our Chief Inspector believes we’re going to look foolish. I ask you, man to man, can a policeman dressed in a white pimp tracksuit truly appreciate the term “foolish” ?’

It got the required jeers, guffaws, derision. Though the officers liked Roberts and were afraid of Brant, they went with the Higher Authority. Brown was elated; he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt camaraderie with the troops. He said:

‘Drinks on me, lads.’

Big hurrahs and cheers of ‘For he’s a jolly good super’.

Roberts was left with Brant.

He wanted to shout after Brown:

‘You ignorant prick.’

Brant, his body relaxed, got his cigs out, fired up, said:

‘Let’s have a look at the other employee.’

‘What?’

‘The other guy in the left luggage office, I see he didn’t show up for work. What do you say we pay him a visit?’

Roberts gave a large grin.

‘Mignonette,’ repeated the waiter, thinking visibly.
Which would be worse, thought Bobby; telling
Eddie Fucking Fish, known gangster associate, that
he couldn’t have the fucking mignonette with his
oysters – or approaching a rampaging prick of a
three-star chef in the middle of the rush hour and
telling him to start hunting up some shallots and red
wine vinegar?
Anthony Bourdain,
Bobby Gold.

IT TOOK A time for Roberts and Brant to get the address for Jimmy Cross. They put his name in the computer and Brant said:

‘Bingo.’

Jimmy’s previous was burglary, petty theft and a little light mugging. He’d done time with his brother, Ray. Roberts made a note of where Ray lived, turned to Brant and summarised:

‘Jimmy hasn’t been too long in the luggage biz and only recently moved to the bedsit in Kennington. Seems he’s not the brightest tool in the box.’

Brant continued to read the files, added:

‘Now, Ray, he’s a whole different deal. We’re talking career criminal and he seems to be a wide boy. Jimmy follows the lead set by Ray.’

Roberts got some tea, handed a cup to Brant who asked:

‘What, no Club Milks?’

‘Don’t you have a hangover?’

Brant drank the tea noisily, lit a cig, said:

‘Hangover? Naw, I take precautions. Jeez, I could murder a Club Milk. What you do is get a wedge of that chocolate, pop it in your mouth, slurp in the tea, sugared of course, then add the layer of nicotine.’

Roberts wanted to know how to prevent a hangover. Who doesn’t? But he was so taken with Brant’s description of how to enjoy a Club Milk, he let it slide. He could only hope Brant was kidding. Yet, in their years together, he’d seen him pour scotch on curry, add milk to Baileys and once, memorably, coat chips with brown and red sauce together.

Go figure.

He shuddered, put it from his mind and asked:

‘You think we should tool up?’

Brant, never usually averse to weapons, shook his head.

‘Not Jimmy. Let’s see him then we can decide if we need hardware for the brother.’

They went to get a vehicle from the car-pool.

When they saw it, Roberts sighed, asked:

‘Why is it always a bloody Volvo?’

Brant, getting behind the wheel, answered:

‘Could be worse, McDonald could be driving us.’

The said PC McDonald had been watching them, eavesdropping on their talk, heard them agree to visit Jimmy.
When they’d gone, he booted up the computer, downloaded the file and decided he’d go after Ray.

THE FIRST SHOT took McDonald high in the shoulder. The second, a head shot, knocked him down. Ray Cross thought he’d killed him, hesitated, then stepped over the copper and ran for all he was worth. He couldn’t believe they were on to him so fast. The past 24 hours had been among the most shocking of his erratic life: having the money, successfully planting bombs, he should have been over the moon. Instead he was on the dark side of it.