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I have no answers for her so I take the coward’s way out. “I need to go. Someone will bring you some lunch.” I shoot out of the door before she can say anything else and bolt the door behind me, but I can hear her sobbing as I march away.
Shit.
My first call is to Sergeant Morris. I catch him leaving his house.
I’m parked across the street when he comes out, his wife or girlfriend or whatever following him to the door in her dressing gown. Their body language suggests they’re arguing, but I can’t hear what’s said from this distance. I’m waiting beside his smart Audi RS6 Avant when he arrives. It’s a fine motor, no change out of a hundred grand there. I know, I just Googled it. There’s no way he runs a car like that on a police sergeant’s salary.
“Morning,” I greet him with a false cheeriness. “I’ve been looking for you.”
He glowers at me. “Fuck off,” is his succinct response.
I do a quick sweep of the quiet street to check there are no over-observant neighbours watching, then I grab him by the lapels and slam him against the driver’s door.
“Now then, that’s no way to greet a business partner,” I growl into his face.
He struggles to get free and even tries to land a punch. I remind him of his manners with a swift uppercut to his chin
“You need to fucking listen, arsehole.”
He narrows his eyes and wisely shuts up. I take that as the cue to continue.
I let go of him and smooth down the crumples on the front of his jacket. “I guess I’m not your only business associate,” I remark, strolling around the beautiful motor to admire its gleaming bodywork. “Nice car.”
“Get your hands off that,” he snarls, still under the illusion he has some sort of power in this relationship. “I don’t want your paw prints on my paintwork.”
I return to him and land my fist in his solar plexus. Stupid bastard is slow on the uptake, he needs encouragement.
I wait until he’s finished doubling over and wheezing. “So where were we. Oh, that was it. I have something to show you.” I produce my phone and thrust it under his nose. He watches, ashen, in morbid fascination as the footage of his visit to the Hope and Anchor plays on my screen. It shows him tearing open Jenna Delaney’s top and groping her breasts, then knocking her to the floor and punching her in the face.
“You doctored that,” he stutters. “It’s a fake.”
I shrug. “Well, we can let your superiors worry about that, can’t we? I thought I’d just send the video to them and see what they make of it.”
“You can’t,” he protests. “I’ll lose my job.”
“Yup. Along with this fancy car and the nice house in a posh neighbourhood. And whatever else you’ve managed to get your grasping paws on through your career as a bent copper. It’s nice work, I understand. Lucrative. It would be a pity to close you down, but there you have it. Still, couldn’t happen to a more deserving bloke, and I don’t suppose you’ll be much missed. There are plenty more like you, after all.”
His eyes narrow, and his lip curls back in a vicious snarl. It might be unsettling if he was just a bit less of a pathetic shit. “What do you want?”
“I already explained, but I felt it perhaps needed clarifying. You’re mine now, Detective Sergeant Steve Morris. And you’re going to do little jobs for me. Make yourself useful.”
“No, I’m fucking not.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? This isn’t your decision. You just do as you’re told, or I let your superiors in on our little secret.” I pause to let him stew on that. “So, is there any part of our arrangement so far that’s not perfectly clear to you?”
“What sort of ‘little jobs’?” he demands to know.
“I’ll explain that as we go along. For now, all you need to grasp is that when I say jump, you ask how high?” I give him a playful tap on the cheek. “Are we clear?”
“Fuck you,” he mutters.
I pull my trusty pocket knife out and flick it open, then I stroll the length of his front wing, digging the tip of the blade into the gleaming paintwork. A curl of metallic blue paint is carved out of the bodywork. Morris lets out a stunned cry, as though he can’t quite comprehend such sacrilege.
“You damaged my car,” he yells. “You stupid bastard, that cost a fortune.”
I grin. Anyone would think I just bit the head off his firstborn. I refold the knife. “Consider it a down payment on what will happen if you cross me again. So, I’ll ask you one more time. Are. We. Clear?”
He glares at me. If looks could kill, I’d be incinerated on the spot. Luckily for me, he’s just a dishonest little weasel with a superiority complex. I’ve no real quarrel with dishonesty, but I despise hypocrisy. Bent coppers are a fact of life, but I don’t have to like them.
