Everyone Lies (11 page)

Was she just being stubborn? She could certainly use the manpower; but she smiled and said, ‘We’re doing okay, thanks.’

She braced herself: if he took offence, she could chalk up another powerful enemy on a growing list. But the superintendent didn’t seem to take it at all amiss. He peered at her with a quizzical smile on his face.

‘Triumph and disaster,’ he said at last. ‘Imposters, both. And I should think whichever it is at the end of this, you’d rather meet either one on your own terms.’ He regarded her seriously. ‘I respect that. Here.’ He handed her his card, then held out his hand again and it swallowed hers. He stopped mid-shake and looked into her face, his dark eyes locked with hers. ‘Anything you need, Kate. Anything at all.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, hearing the wariness in her own voice.

‘You can call me Tanno. Will you take a bit of advice from an old soldier, Kate?’

He still had her hand and she was half convinced he wouldn’t give it up until she agreed to hear him. ‘Always glad to learn from others’ experience, sir.’

‘
Tanno
,’ he said. ‘C’mon, Kate, you can call me Tanno, can’t you?’

‘Yes, Tanno,’ she said.

He nodded, satisfied, but still didn’t release her hand. ‘It’s true what they say about life on the high crags of management,’ he said. ‘It’s lonely and bloody cold. Policing at this level, nine-tenths of the game is about being able to manage the politics.’

She raised her chin, ready to nod, but not sure where he was taking this.

‘I’ve got a nose for these things,’ he said. ‘The highups on the job are taking flak from all the press interest, getting a bit twitchy, which – don’t get me wrong – is not a bad thing
per se
. But you might be on the point of kicking up a real shit-storm with those dainty size sevens of yours.’

He released her hand and took a step back. ‘Kick up a shit-storm, you’re bound to get some on your shoes. So – mind you don’t tread it into the carpet.’

Kate thought she caught a sharp glimmer in his eyes, then it softened to something like concern, and she wondered again if she should accept his offer. But half a decade of senior-level disapproval had made for uneasy professional relationships, and a habit of isolation and distrust in Kate Simms. So she let him go and hoped she wouldn’t regret it.

10

The corridor is full of people in no particular hurry. Marta pushes through to her locker. She has a change of clothes in a Next bag, but she’s running very late, so she stashes her rucksack, padlocks the door and shoulders her handbag, then she’s off at a run, dodging and squeezing through the press of bodies. She feels a guilty thrill that she has sat with these good, honest people all morning with a brick of heroin hidden in her bag.

A minute later, she’s out on wide, windswept Oxford Road. A friend sees her and waves. Marta points to her watch, shrugs, mimes ‘call me’, then heads for the city centre at a trot. Sol is waiting in his bronze Lexus near the corner of Whitworth and Princess Street.

She slides in beside him and he turns to tell her she’s late. The surprise on his face almost makes her laugh.

‘When did you start dressing like a student?’

She’s wearing denim jeans, trainers, a grey funnelneck jacket done up to the neck and a coral pink scarf knotted at the throat.

‘Is disguise,’ she says. ‘You don’t like?’

He grins. ‘You kill me, Marta, I swear.’

Sol turns the wheel one-handed, accelerating effortlessly into the traffic and, in minutes, they are on Cheetham Hill Road. He’s taking Marta to drop off an urgent delivery of goods; Frank didn’t want him to go, but Sol said he needed to see for himself how bad things were.

The Lexus is warm and quiet and smells of new leather. She settles in and lets Sol’s lecture wash over her. He’s telling her that of all consumer goods, drugs are damn near recession-proof.

‘Recreational, mood-altering, mind-altering; uppers, downers, rev-up, wind-down or knock-you-out-cold – narcotics buck the trend,’ he says. ‘But it’s not worth a candle if you can’t get the goods out to your customer base.’

To hear Sol speak, you would think trading in drugs is like any other regular business. He talks about sourcing issues, cash flow and distribution problems. He calculates profit margins and balances them against customer satisfaction, just like a regular businessman – except Sol carries a gun and his competitors have more to worry about than aggressive price-cutting.

‘Sol.’ She has seen a queue of stationary traffic ahead.

He sees it too and pulls in to the kerb because, for once, Sol does not want to draw attention to himself. He turns off the engine and stares in horrified silence through the windscreen. Twenty police officers and Police Community Service Officers are working slowly up the street towards them.

‘Jesus,’ Sol murmurs. ‘No wonder Bug’s been screaming.’

He grips the steering wheel and eyes the mass of uniforms like he’s just uncovered a nest of rats in a dung heap. ‘How’m I supposed to get product out to my retailers with this lot sniffing around?’
Retailers
– this is what he calls dealers. ‘This is severely fucking up my distribution channels, Marta.’

They are fifty yards down the street from Bug Nelson’s flat. Bug is one of their mixers – he cuts the imported heroin according to the brothers’ instructions, then his team packages it into small bindles for street sales. Sol and Frank don’t allow trading close to the mixer’s house, but the heroin still has to go in and deals have to come out. Marta can see one or two addicts threading their way through the shoppers; Cheetham Hill Road is on their way to where they want to be – to the street corners and alleys half a mile away, where they know they can buy a fix.

The police are stopping people passing by, handing out leaflets, ducking into shops. ‘The
Stars!
girl made them take notice,’ Marta says.

He shakes his head. ‘This isn’t taking notice, Marta. This is going through the motions. D’you really think these arseholes actually give a shit?’

She raises her shoulders. ‘I think, maybe, some.’

He snorts. ‘Yeah, and you hire your body out by the half-hour because you want to bring comfort to lonely men.
Grow up
, girl. This just happens to be what they have to do to pick up their monthly pay packet. Give them a better financial incentive, they’d snatch your hand off.’

She looks at a young PCSO on the other side of the street. The cold has chafed his cheeks apple-red and he smiles at an addict whose skin is so grey it looks like he has been shaped from the dirt in the gutter. ‘You think so?’

‘I know so.’

Ahead, a girl turns the corner onto the main road, sees the mass of uniforms and ducks back the way she came.

Sol groans. ‘This is
killing
our trade.’

‘You should maybe talk to Rob,’ Marta says.

He whips round so fast she flinches. ‘The
fuck
d’you mean by that?’

A jolt of adrenaline shoots through her veins. She pouts a little. ‘I make silly joke.’ Normally, Sol responds well to her pouts. Not this time.

‘That wasn’t a joke. I know a fucking
joke
when I hear one – I got a sense of fucking humour – and Marta? I’m not laughing.’

‘I’m sor—’

He cuts off her apology.

‘What the
fuck
do you know about Rob?’ The tendons in his neck stand out like ropes.

‘He is customer,’ she says in a small voice. ‘I know only what he tells me.’

‘Oh yeah? And what
exactly
has he been telling you?’

The situation is spinning out of control. She didn’t mean that Rob told her something, but if she says that now, it will look like she’s denying the truth. It will look like she’s lying. She faces Sol. ‘I only mean that if you have trouble with police, always Rob is the one you go to.’

He glares at her, one hand on the steering wheel, the other gripping the leather of her seat back. He could snap her neck one-handed.

‘Sol, I am the one who carries your—’ she glances out of the window at the police and lowers her voice ‘—your goods. Just the other day, you hand me valuable—’ again, she darts a look at the police ‘—
package
when Rob is standing right next to me. I need to know I can trust him.’

‘
You need to know
? It’s my product,
my
fucking money – you just need to do what you’re told.’

She could leave it there, but his eyes are dark with suspicion, so she goes on: ‘I think—’ She puts her hand on her chest to stop her heart beating so fast. ‘Maybe, one afternoon, I make delivery and police are waiting.’

Sol laughs. She hides her confusion and relief with annoyance. ‘What’s so funny?’ She backhands his arm. ‘English prison is not funny.’

He laughs harder.

‘What?’ she demands, allowing a little petulance to creep into her voice, knowing that the danger has passed. ‘I’m scared and you laugh at me.’

He plants a kiss on her mouth, but has to break off because he’s still laughing. ‘Let me worry about Rob,’ he says. ‘You just stick to what you’re good at.’

She takes a breath, blows it out between her lips. ‘Men are crazy.’

He takes her hand and kisses the palm, puts her hand to his face and moves in again to kiss her on the mouth, slides his tongue between her teeth and shifts his hand to her thigh, works his thumb into her crotch.

A sharp hammering on the window and they almost leap apart.

It’s the police.

Sol curses softly, winds the window down and cranes his neck to look up at the policeman. ‘Everything all right, officer?’

A bitter northerly wind screams down Cheetham Hill Road, bringing with it the smell of rain. It whips up grit and rubbish and flaps the lapels of the policeman’s jacket. This is a man who looks like he has been rained on one too many times.

‘Take it off the streets,’ he says.

‘What, exactly?’ Sol is smiling, but there are chips of flint in his voice, and such sudden violence in his eyes that Marta can almost smell the blood already. She thinks about the brick of drugs in her handbag at her feet and prays. ‘Just saying goodbye to my girlfriend, mate.’

The policeman looks at Marta in her jeans and sensible coat. She smiles her brightest smile, knowing that her skin glows with good health and her eyes are clear and sparkling, and waits for him to realize he’s made a mistake.

‘Sorry, miss,’ he says and she lifts her shoulder, glances away to show she’s embarrassed to have been mistaken for a hooker. She doesn’t speak, because to a policeman canvassing addicts an Eastern European accent will always create suspicion.

‘You lot are out in force today,’ Sol says.

The policeman sniffs, jerks his chin at the young officer who is trying to press a flyer into the grey addict’s hand. ‘That Stuart Cordwell’s got a lot to answer for.’

Sol laughs; Cordwell is the producer of
Stars!
He pats Marta on the knee. ‘Off you go then, sweetheart. Give your mum my love. I’ll pick you up later – just give me a buzz on my mobile.’

She swivels in her seat, turning away from the policeman to look at Sol, her eyes wide. Can he really mean her to walk past twenty cops with 6,000 pounds’ worth of heroin in her handbag?

Sol grins, leans past her to make eye contact with the policeman. ‘D’you mind, officer?’ he says pleasantly.

The policeman steps away from the car to give her room to open the door, and Sol reaches into the well and lifts her handbag onto her lap. He slips his left arm around her and pulls her close as if to peck her on the cheek, but his fingers dig into her shoulder, working her collarbone into the socket until she can almost feel it give.

‘I’m a bit soft on you,’ he whispers, ‘so I let you take a few liberties.’ His lips are so close to her ear that she can feel the heat of his breath. ‘But Frank hears you spouting off about Rob, he’ll cut your fucking
tongue
out, nail it to his bedroom wall.’ He takes the soft lobe of her ear between his teeth and gives it a painful nip before he lets her go.

Her knees are trembling so hard that the fifty-yard walk to Bug’s place seems like a mile. Bug lives on the third floor above a row of shops. Access is at the back of the shops, through a gate into a back yard, and up the fire escape. This is the only way in or out. The door is plated with steel on both sides. It has a spyhole, and a slide hatch, big enough to admit the kind of delivery Marta is paid to make, one briquette at a time. There is no bell or knocker on the door, because Bug does not admit casual callers, and since an incident involving a fake postman with a special delivery, his post is held at the sorting office, three miles away. There is a rumour that the ‘postman’ was returned to sender by special delivery the day after in twelve separate parcels.

She stands at the top of the steps and looks into the small black eye of a camera above the door. After a few seconds, she hears the rasp of metal on metal and waits for the hatch to open. But the entire door opens outwards, forcing her to take a step back. A hand snakes out and seizes her wrist, and she is dragged inside.

She gives a small yelp of protest and Bug slams her against the wall.

‘Shut up!’ He holds her still while he slides four bolts across, one after another with his free hand.

Steve Nelson was called ‘Bug’ as a kid, Sol had told her, because he was small and the bigger kids bullied him and stamped on him so many times, they used to say he looked like a squashed bug. ‘He was my mate. I protected him, when I was around, but I wasn’t always around, and Bug was a daydreamy sort of kid – he just didn’t have the instincts that keep you safe on the street. D’you get me?’

Marta had told him she did, and meant it.

‘Those lads got too cocky. Maybe they didn’t notice him getting bigger, or maybe they didn’t think it was important, because they got bigger an’ all,’ he’d said. ‘Bug was just shy of his thirteenth birthday when five of them started in on him – shoving, punching, kicking – you know, Bug-baiting. Out of nowhere, he starts swinging at them with two copper pipes. Now, he’d filled those pipes with ball-bearings and they were
heavy
. The boys who survived said his eyes bugged out like they were on
stalks
. So now he doesn’t mind being called Bug.’