involved, and she’s gone with him, or she’s not involved but she’s gone with him.”
“Or she’s gone somewhere else. On her own.”
“Maybe,” said Annie. “But unlikely, don’t you think? The timing is just too coincidental.”
“Circumstantial is what it all is,” said Winsome. “But you’ve got a point. The thing is, I can’t believe Tracy’s mixed up in anything bad. Not the DCI’s daughter.”
“I agree she always seemed like a decent kid, but people change, Winsome, fall in with the wrong company, develop a chip on their shoulder, start to resent their lives or the way they perceive they’re being treated. Rebellion. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and not only when you’re a teenager. Twenty-four isn’t all that old. If she really fancies this Jaff bloke…Christ…”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just remembering my own bad boy phase.”
“Bad boy?”
“Yes. Don’t you know what bad boys are, Winsome?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever really had much experience of them.”
“A bad boy is unreliable, and sometimes he doesn’t show up at all, or if he does, he’s late and moody; he acts mean to you, and he leaves early. He always seems to have another iron in the fire, somewhere else to be. But always while you’re waiting for him you can’t really concentrate on anything else, and you have at least one eye on the door in case he’s the next one to walk in the room, even though you think he might be seeing someone else, and when you’re with him your heart starts to beat a little faster and your breath catches in your chest. You might be angry, but it won’t last, and you’re happy for a while when he gives all his attention to you, and then it starts all over again.”
“Sounds awful,” said Winsome.
“But it’s exquisite agony,” Annie said. “Sometimes he doesn’t turn up for days on end, and your heart aches for him. He goes to bed with your best friend, and still you forgive him, still you want him.”
“You had a bad-boy phase?”
“Of course. Paul Burroughs. But I was only sixteen. I got over it early.” Annie didn’t want to talk about the later bad boy who turned out to be a psychopath. She certainly didn’t have a great track record when it came to choosing the men in her life. Winsome knew about the psycho anyway, and would be far too diplomatic to say anything. It was much easier to talk about Paul Burroughs.
“Was he unfaithful?”
“Of course he was. Bad boys are always unfaithful. That’s the first rule.”
“What else did he do that was so bad?”
Annie smiled fondly as she remembered. “Paul? Oh, nothing serious, really, not at first. Just minor stuff, fun stuff, run-of-the-mill. But he was a daredevil. He couldn’t care less.”
“Like what?”
“Well, one night, after midnight, for example, we broke into the local marina and borrowed a speedboat.” Annie couldn’t help but laugh at Winsome’s expression of horror. “If the harbor police hadn’t caught us, we’d have ended up in France, or more likely we’d have crashed on the rocks or something and drowned. He knew how to get it started-he could start anything with a motor-but he hadn’t a clue how to handle the wheel.”
“What did the police do?”
“Obviously not very much, or I wouldn’t be here with you today.” Annie shrugged. “A slap on the wrist, that was all, really. Or it would have been except…”
“What?”
“Well, Paul had a lot of problems with his family. His dad had gone off with another woman, and his mother was a bit of a zombie. She drank a lot and took tons of Valium. He was so mixed up and angry, you just wanted to hold him and make it all go away.”
“Did you?”
“No. Me? I’m not the type. Besides, you can’t cuddle bad boys. The problem was that he picked a fight with the biggest harbor cop when we got back on land, and he ended up in a cell for the night. That was only the beginning. After that, I didn’t see him anymore, but I heard later that he had a lot of problems with the law-stealing cars, joyriding, then muggings, assault, burglaries, stuff like that.”
“And now?”
“No idea. Prison, perhaps.”
“So he was a bad boy in the making?”
“Yeah. But bad boys aren’t always criminals. It’s more a state of mind. It never happened to you?”
“Sugar, the bad boys where I grew up were really baaad. Not just some sissy skinny-ass white boy stealing a motorboat. They carried machetes and AK47s.”
Annie laughed. “Anyway, who knows? Maybe it all goes along with this change in Tracy’s appearance, the piercings, the name. Like I said, rebellion can happen anytime, take many forms. All I know is that I’d like to find her and get things sorted, and I’d like to do it before she’s got the combined police forces of the whole bloody country on her trail. Either she’s thumbing her nose at us all, or she’s scared, but she maybe needs help, whether she knows it yet or not.”
“And Alan?”
Annie shook her head. “He won’t be back until next Monday, though I’ve got his mobile number for emergencies only. I could call him, wherever he is, as long it’s not some remote far-flung desert outpost. And that reminds me. I should drop by his cottage after work today. It’s been a while. Those poor plants of his will be fair gagging for a drink of water by now.”
“But you aren’t going to ring him?”
“I’m not sure it’s that kind of emergency yet. It’s my gut feeling that if I can get Tracy out of all this before he gets back and finds out about it, the better all around.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Walk softly and carry a big stick. Keep under the radar. Even though we’re only doing our jobs. You’re not tarnished by the firearms business, so you’re still in something of a privileged position.”
“So keep my head down and my eyes and ears open?”
“That’s about it. Once this business gets into top gear, they’ll probably be scrutinizing me as closely as a bug under a microscope. Soon I won’t be able to go to the toilet without filling in a form. First off, if you could find a way to uncover as much as you can about this Jaff, it would be a great help. You might start with Rose Preston in Headingley. She doesn’t know a lot, but I’m convinced she knows more than she was telling me.”
“I take it you’ve got their addresses?”
Annie gave her them. “As for Jaff, I’m afraid I don’t have anything except the address right now. And I don’t think there’s much point in going there again. His first name’s Jaffar, by the way. And the name next to his bell says ‘J. McCready.’ We’ll need to know a lot more than that.”
“I can always use my natural charm.”
Annie smiled. “Yeah, there’s that.” Annie wagged her finger at Winsome. “But absolutely no drop-kicking.”
“It wasn’t a dropkick!”
“I DON’T understand,” said Tracy, holding up the gun by its long barrel. “I thought Erin had taken your gun.”
“Put that away.” Jaff took the gun from her and put it back in the hold-all. “She did,” he said, sitting down at the breakfast table and placing the sheet of paper facedown beside him. “This is a different one. Another one. I got it from Vic. Those eggs will be like rubber if you don’t get a move on. I like my eggs runny.”
As if she were in a trance, Tracy served up the bacon and eggs and poured two mugs of coffee. “But why do you need another gun?” she asked.
“Ta. Dunno. Protection. I just feel safer that way.”
Tracy regarded him through narrowed eyes. She had felt scared at first, seeing him standing there in the doorway, knowing how unpredictable he was becoming, but somehow now he seemed just like a little boy, naked from the waist up, tucking into his bacon and eggs-because clearly no matter what Tracy felt, it wasn’t going to stop him from eating his breakfast, or from doing exactly what he wanted. Tracy wasn’t hungry. Her stomach was too full of butterflies, so she just munched on a slice of dry toast and sipped black coffee. She had expected an
