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  ‘Not this bit. But there was a decent view. So you could see anyone coming from a mile away. Except that he didn’t.’

  ‘No. Shot three times, I understand.’

  Brennan nodded. ‘Pro job. It was a couple of weeks before anyone found him. Postman noticed the smell eventually.’

  ‘Anyone in the frame for it?’

  ‘You must know the answer to that,’ Brennan said. ‘You seem to know quite a lot about all this.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you share everything with the likes of us. Any more than we share everything with the likes of you.’

  ‘In this case, there was nothing to share. I mean, it’s obvious who’s behind it. But we can’t prove any link, and we were never going to get near whoever actually pulled the trigger.’

  ‘And it took a burden off your hands,’ Salter pointed out. ‘Pain in the arse, witness protection.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Brennan’s face was expressionless. ‘Anyway, we’d reached a dead end.’

  ‘This drugs ring,’ Salter said. ‘You know who the key players were?’

  ‘We know who went inside. That doesn’t mean they were the key players. We took it as far as we could with our resources. I imagine you lot would have the bigger picture. What was it you said about not sharing stuff with the likes of us?’

  ‘We just try to make connections. Name Jeff Kerridge mean anything to you?’

  Brennan looked up. ‘Not as much as he means to you. He was the guy you shot?’

  ‘Yeah. He was the guy who’d got our corrupt cop on the payroll. They tried to kill me. Then, like you say, I killed him.’

  ‘You’re saying that it was Kerridge behind the drugs ring?’

  ‘Kerridge didn’t leave any more fingerprints than he could help. Looks that way, though.’

  ‘But if Kerridge is dead, who killed Stephen Kenning?’

  ‘Interesting question, isn’t it?’

  ‘Another interesting question.’ Brennan fingered the file he’d placed on the table at the start of the meeting. ‘What does all this have to do with our two fall guys in North Wales? I’m assuming you didn’t send me out there just to enjoy the scenery?’

  ‘Christ, no. Just wanted an objective view on what they were up to. Don’t trust those Welsh bastards to share any more than they need to.’

  ‘Well, they were very polite, just not very forthcoming. They gave me the basics, but not much more.’ Brennan flipped over the file. ‘Two bodies. One was a small-time crook, known to them. Name of Mo Tallent. The other’s still unidentified. Not on their records. Not yet reported missing.’

  ‘Nice to be loved,’ Salter commented. ‘What do you reckon, then?’

  ‘Looked like a warning to me. Somebody frightening off the competition.’

  ‘But the local plods claim they don’t know who Tallent was likely to be working for?’

  ‘When did you leave the diplomatic corps? Or have you forgotten that I’m still officially a local plod?’

  ‘Ah, but not a Welsh one. Sad thing is, they’re probably telling the truth. I bet they really don’t know.’

  Brennan shrugged. ‘Don’t really believe that, though, do you? They must have an idea who Tallent worked for. The DI over there told me that everyone had clammed up. Probably so. But the local plods will have a decent idea which clams are worth prising open. A better idea than you, at any rate.’ Brennan flicked through the handful of papers in the file – witness statements, scene of crime reports, all the routine bumf, but nothing that was likely to be helpful. ‘So, yes, if you want my honest opinion, I reckon he was holding something back. Probably no great significance in that, though. He most likely just couldn’t see why he should share his speculations with a bunch who think the Welsh are largely bumbling sheep-shaggers. Not that he was Welsh, as it happens.’ Brennan paused, as if a new thought had suddenly struck him. ‘In much the same way, I imagine, as you’re not bothering to share your speculations with a local plod like me. Or, at least, you’re taking your time getting round to it.’

  Salter smiled again, and this time there was a little more evidence of humour in his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’ve got a few ideas. You know much about the prostitution scene in south Manchester? Professionally, I mean.’

  Brennan ignored the jibe. ‘Not really my field,’ he said. ‘No shortage of it, though, from what I understand.’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it. It’s the usual mix – from desperate junkies on street corners to the more upmarket escort stuff. Amounts to the same thing in the end, though. It’s the middle ground I’m interested in.’

  ‘Professionally, you mean?’ Brennan said. ‘You mean the massage parlour type places?’

  ‘Massage parlours. Brass-houses. The places one step up from the poor buggers on the streets. Again, it’s what you might call a mixed economy. Some sole proprietors plying their sleazy trade in one or two establishments. Some who’ve done a bit better for themselves. High street chains, if you like. Of course, it’s a very competitive environment.’

  ‘Important to build your market share,’ Brennan agreed. ‘You’ve seen some turf wars, then. Recently, I mean.’

  ‘There’s been a bit of expansion over the last year or two. Mostly immigrant groups – the Chinese have always been big in Manchester and there’ve been some Romanians making a splash recently.’

  ‘Not exactly your territory, all this. I don’t see your lot busting massage parlours.’

  ‘We leave that to you local plods. We’re more interested in what the parlours are being used for. Apart from the obvious, I mean. Drugs. Money laundering. People trafficking. A lot of our targets see brothels as their retail outlets.’

  ‘So you reckon that what happened in Wales was one of your targets putting the squeeze on the competition?’ Brennan said. ‘Would this be about your famous Jeff Kerridge again?’

  ‘Yeah, another little thread in Kerridge’s big commercial web. Again, we don’t know for sure. Kerridge was much too smart to get himself directly mixed up in that kind of world. Everything was a step or two removed. But, one way or another, Kerridge had established his own little network of high street boutiques.’

  ‘Except that Kerridge remains dead,’ Brennan pointed out. ‘So if someone’s putting the squeeze on, it’s not him.’

  ‘That’s the thing about Kerridge’s sad departure,’ Salter said. ‘It really tossed the cat among the pigeons. Lots of jockeying for position. All the more so as Kerridge’s supposed number two, Pete Boyle, was temporarily out of commission at the time.’

  ‘Way I heard it,’ Brennan said. ‘Kerridge and Boyle weren’t all that chummy towards the end anyhow?’

  ‘You heard right. It was a question of who’d screw the other one first. But Boyle saw himself as the heir apparent. Trouble was, he wasn’t the only one.’ Salter laughed. ‘Once Kerridge popped his clogs, various parties stepped into the breach pretty quickly, even before Boyle was back walking the streets. Chief among them, Mrs K.’

  Brennan raised an eyebrow. ‘Kerridge’s wife?’

  ‘The fragrant Helen. Not a lady to be underestimated.’

  ‘So you think all this is linked? Kenning and Sheerin and these two poor bastards in Wales. Collateral damage in the war of the Manc succession?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Bit thin, isn’t it? I mean, you could well be right. But these were the kinds of buggers who made enemies every way they turned. Might have been a dozen people wanted to take them out.’

  ‘Might have been. But Pete Boyle definitely did.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Done a bit of digging,’ Salter said. ‘Called in a few favours from a few scrotes. Informants.’

  ‘Imagine our lot would have done the same. Not aware they found much.’

  ‘Maybe not. But they didn’t know the question to ask. They didn’t think to ask about Pete Boyle.’

  ‘Boyle’s a big player in these parts,’ Brennan pointed out. ‘Especially now that Kerridge
has gone. His name would have come up.’

  ‘No doubt. But there’d be no direct connection between any of these cases and Boyle. Or Kerridge, for that matter. Not even Kenning the grass. I only made the link between Kerridge and that drug ring after the event. We hadn’t got it pegged as one of Kerridge’s outfits – still haven’t, officially. It was only after I’d made the link between Kenning and Boyle that I went back and checked the detail of the case Kenning had been involved in. One or two of the players who went down were second-level associates of Kerridge’s. It doesn’t prove for certain that Kerridge had a finger in that particular pie, but I’d wager money on it.’

  Brennan frowned. ‘I’m not following this. You’re saying that these cases are all linked to Boyle. But that it’s not a direct business link.’

  Salter was smiling broadly now. He had the air of a magician who was in the process of pulling off a particularly neat piece of misdirection. ‘Not quite. Boyle’s got a real business interest in all three cases. But that’s not why they were picked.’ He leaned forward and pulled Brennan’s file towards him, then flicked through the pages until he found the short report on Mo Tallent. ‘Tallent,’ he said. ‘Petty thief and grifter. Spent most of his adult life living in sunny Rhyl, for reasons best known to himself. But born and brought up in less sunny Hulme. Left in his early twenties. Partly because, for one reason or another, he’d seriously fucked off Peter Boyle. And, trust me, Peter Boyle is not someone you want to antagonise.’

  Brennan shook his head. ‘Some kind of personnel vendetta? Boyle waited twenty years to get even?’

  ‘Not quite. Let’s move on to Stephen Kenning. Bit more straightforward, that one. No one likes a grass. He’d sold Kerridge and Boyle down the river on that drugs deal. Even if there was no risk of them being implicated, they must have taken a financial hit. A decent enough motive for icing Kenning. But it turns out there’s a bit more. Kenning is also a Hulme alumnus. The original school of hard fucking knocks. Turns out that Kenning and Boyle were bosom buddies as teenagers. They’d drifted apart over the years. But I’m told that Boyle still thought of Kenning as a mate, pretty much up the point where he shafted the drugs deal.’

  ‘Did Kenning know he was shafting Boyle?’

  ‘Who knows? But the effect’s the same, either way. From what I know of Pete Boyle, there’s no way he wouldn’t have taken in personally.’

  ‘Okay, so Boyle had a personal link with Tallent and Kenning. What about the third guy, Sheerin?’

  ‘Surprise, surprise. Same again. Another graduate of the University of Hulme. Rough contemporary of Boyle’s. Interesting one, this, though. Couldn’t find much connection at first. No evidence they’d known each other. So I did more digging. Eventually found an older guy who’d been mates with Boyle’s mother. Single parent. Tough as nails, by all accounts. Father had fucked off before Boyle was born, assuming that she ever knew who he was. Anyway, rumour was that Sheerin’s old man had had some sort of fling with Boyle’s mum. Treated her badly. Thought of himself as a hard man, but got short shift when he tried any rough stuff. So ran off with the housekeeping money or some such. Old codger I spoke to wasn’t too clear on the details, but reckoned that Boyle would have reason not to be too enamoured of the old bastard. Or of his son.’

  ‘So you’re saying that all these three, one way or another, had bad blood with Boyle? Sounds a bit tenuous as a motive for murder.’

  ‘Of course. But that wasn’t the motive for the murders. That was just the reason why these three particular poor buggers got chosen.’

  ‘So what is this? Boyle gets out of prison. Sees his hoped-for empire beginning to disintegrate. Barbarians at the gate, all that. So sends out some warning messages. That the idea?’ Brennan looked sceptical.

  ‘Pretty much. These three were well chosen. Whoever employed Tallent would be one of the interlopers into Kerridge’s lucrative sex-trade operations. Sheerin was doing business for one of the gangs who’ve been drifting into Kerridge’s traditional territories in Cheetham Hill. As for Kenning – well, like I say, no one loves a grass. There’ve been a few other incidents as well, less serious than these three. Premises getting torched. The odd beating up. One or two serious Saturday night injuries.’

  Brennan’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘You realise that serious Saturday night injuries aren’t that uncommon in central Manchester? It’s a trend even our lot have managed to spot.’

  ‘Yeah, unlike any of this.’ Salter bent down from the table and lifted a laptop bag on to the table. He unzipped it, fumbled inside for a moment, and then pulled out a plastic wallet stuffed with papers. ‘I’ve been through a stack of those cases. Some I’ve dismissed. A couple of the fires look like genuine accidents or insurance jobs. Some of the beatings are just muggings or domestics of one sort or another. But I’m left with maybe eight or nine incidents, apart from our three biggies, which I could link back to Pete Boyle.’ He pushed the wallet across the table towards Brennan. ‘Have a look.’

  Brennan pulled out the papers and flicked quickly through them, stopping every now and then to read one of the reports more carefully. Eventually, he looked up. ‘Okay. I don’t deny it’s interesting. But Boyle’s a big fish in this pond. You could probably link anything back to him if you tried hard enough.’

  ‘Three murder victims who grew up within half a mile of him? One went to school with him? Another’s dad screwed Boyle’s mum, in more ways than one? Hell of a coincidence.’

  Brennan nodded. ‘Let’s say you’ve convinced me. Or half-convinced me. Where are we going with this?’

  ‘This is why you’re here. The secondment. It’s why I wanted an experienced investigator. Someone local, with decent inside knowledge. Someone who could pull the right levers, if need be, with the local police.’

  ‘I’m flattered,’ Brennan said. ‘Though I’m not sure you’ve got the right man. If I pull any levers at the moment, it’s likely just to bring a bucket of crap down on my head. I’m not exactly flavour of the month.’

  ‘They’ll forgive you soon enough once you’re not under their feet as a permanent fucking reminder.’ Salter leaned back in his chair and watched Brennan carefully. ‘I think we’ve got full-scale fucking gang warfare going on here. Boyle’s taking out or warning off all his competition, one by one, step by step. It’s diverse enough that it slips under the radar of you local plods – here, North Wales, Derbyshire, wherever the hell it is. But it’s targeted so that no one on the receiving end of it will have much doubt what it means. And as an added bonus he’s settling a few old scores on the way.’

  ‘What about Kenning? The grass. He wasn’t competition.’

  ‘You reckon? Word was that Kenning didn’t turn Queen’s evidence out of the goodness of his heart, but because he’d been promised a nice little nest-egg by someone who wanted to corner the market.’

  ‘I saw the place he was living,’ Brennan countered. ‘Must have been a fucking small nest-egg.’

  ‘It’s a sad world. People don’t always deliver on their promises. One of our dirty little secrets. That the life of a superannuated supergrass isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’ Salter pushed back his chair and stood up, in the manner of one indicating that the meeting was coming to an end. ‘So. You game for it?’

  ‘I’m still not entirely clear what it is,’ Brennan said.

  ‘We’re trying to build a case against Boyle. It’s been a slow process. Not least because we fucked up so spectacularly last time. So this time we want to do it absolutely by the book. I want you to act as evidence officer. Work through what we’ve got. See if it stacks up. Tell us where the gaps are and what we need to do to fill them. I can give you some intelligence resource from my team, though not much. We’ll give you authorisation to work with the local plods, so you can finagle any information you can from them. Though good luck with that.’

  ‘I’m an experienced investigator. But I’ve not worked in your environment before. You must have people around who’ve
got more of a track record in that kind of work.’

  Salter nodded, smiling, as if this was a question that he’d been waiting for. ‘Maybe. But we’re stretched to the fucking limit. I’ve a national team, trying to juggle major operations from here to sodding Portsmouth. Half my lot are so wet behind the ears they’ve barely been weaned, and most of the other half are the kinds of alcoholics and deadbeats who couldn’t swing a return back to proper policing. I’ve got a clutch of officers working undercover that I’m not even supposed to talk about. And I’m not even based up here. I spend half my life stuck in the fucking ivory tower in Westminster filling in forms and writing reports so my superiors can prove to the politicians that we’re not squandering their tax money on liaison trips to the fucking Bahamas, or whatever it is that they think we do when they’re not looking.’ He paused and took a breath. It sounded like a prepared speech, or at least a speech that Salter had delivered before. ‘That’s why I need someone like you, up here, who can get some real nitty-gritty work done.’

  Brennan pulled the wallet of papers back towards him. ‘Okay. I’ll give it a shot.’ He looked up at Salter, with what looked like genuine amusement on his face. ‘After all, given what I’ve come from, it’s not like I’m got much fucking option, is it?’

  4

  The whole thing felt wrong. Too soon. Too risky. Too ill-prepared. Shit, the last time she’d done this they’d spent months preparing her for it. They’d had the legend worked out to the last detail. Every minute of her fictional past. Every last nuance of her character and personality. She’d had an answer worked out to every possible question that might be thrown at her.

  They’d put her through exercise after exercise. Memory tests. Role playing. Even that bloody farce where they’d snatched her from the airport car park and terrorised the life out of her. By the time she’d hit the street, she’d been note-perfect.

  And now, what? Just over three weeks of scrambled briefings, cobbled-together documentation, hurried liaisons with informants who clearly thought they had better things to do that make her life any easier. And here she was, sitting outside the head honcho’s office about to stick her head firmly on the block. The whole thing felt so bloody amateurish.