Wield said, 'Lee, I think maybe it's time you stopped dealing with Belchamber.'
'Yeah? Why's that then? You trying to save my soul again, Mac?'
He spoke with a knowing cockiness that grated. Wield said, 'Not your soul. Your body maybe. If he got wind that you're passing stuff on to me…'
'No chance! All I do is listen. Not breaking into safes and such. Anyway, I can take care of Belchy. He's soft as pigshit.'
'Maybe. But there's people he's mixed up with who aren't, and they're twice as nasty.'
'You reckon? Well, I meet lots of nasty people, Sergeant Mac. No need to worry about me.'
'But I do worry, Lee.'
'Really?'
'Really.'
'Yeah, well, you'll be the first.' He spoke with an attempt at throw-away bravado.
'I shouldn't think so,' said Wield. 'Your mam must have worried.'
'Mebbe. And my dad too. He'd probably have worried if he'd known.'
He's still hanging on to the idea that it was ignorance rather than indifference which made his father dump his pregnant mother, thought Wield. He said gently, 'I'm sure he would have, Lee.'
'Yeah. I wish I'd got a picture of him or something. Mam didn't have anything. Not that he were owt much to look at, she said. In fact most folk reckoned, he were a right ugly bugger. But she said looks aren't everything, he were right sexy and she knew he were the one for her first time she saw him. They were just kids, younger than me, I think, so he'd just be in his thirties now. Wherever he is.'
Oh Christ, thought Wield aghast, suddenly recalling the young man's interest in his possible hetero experience. Edwin had warned him that Lee might be seeing him as a father substitute, but for once those sharp old eyes hadn't looked deep enough.
It's not a substitute the poor little sod's after; he's looking to cast me as his actual sodding father!
Lee had brought his wandering gaze to bear full on Wield's ravaged features. His expression was defiant but not despairing. Hope is a persistent virus. Vaccinate yourself against it all you like, it still clings on. Wield said, 'Look, Lee’
Then the door burst open and several uniformed policemen rushed into the cafe.
One stayed by the door, two went behind the counter and grabbed hold of Turk with rather more force than his unresisting demeanour merited, two more vanished into the rear of the premises while another addressed the half-dozen customers.
'Stay in your seats, gents. We'll need your names and addresses, just as witnesses, you understand, then you can go.'
Lee was now glaring accusingly at Wield, who said, 'It's nowt to do with me, lad.' Obviously unconvinced, the boy began to rise when a hand clapped on his shoulder and a voice said ponderously, as if the words were being prised out of mud, 'Keep sat down.'
Oh shit, thought Wield, recognizing the voice before he took in the face. It belonged to PC Hector, the albatross round Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary's neck, the mote in its eye, the pile on its rectum. He was, Dalziel opined, the most reliable officer in the Force – he always got it wrong. If he survived long enough he might outdistance the Fat Man himself as a source of amazing anecdote.
Now his gaze, which had focused with grave suspicion on Wield's black leathers, moved up to take in the sergeant's features. There was a moment of mental perturbation, then recognition came up like thunder out of China 'cross the Bay, and he said in stentorian tones, 'Hello. It's you,. Sarge! What you doing here? Undercover, is it?'
Behind him, Wield saw Turk register the words, saw his gaze flicker to Lee.
He rose and put his face close to Hector's and said in a low voice, ‘I'm having a cup of coffee, which is just as well, 'cos if I were on a job, you'd have just blown it.'
Hector looked so crestfallen it was almost possible to feel sorry for him then, and said in the kind of whisper which echoes round the gods, 'Sorry, Sarge, I never thought.'
‘There'll be a first time, maybe.' Then turning to the officer who'd. addressed the cafe clientele, none of whom showed the slightest interest in what was happening, he said, 'Johnstone, what's going off?'
Truck broke down on the motorway coming from Hull. Two of our lot stopped to give assistance and heard noises. Turned out it was full of illegals. The driver tried to make a call but got stopped before he got through. This was the number he was ringing.'
‘I see. Got a search warrant?'
'One's on its way, but we thought we'd best make sure of getting Sonny Jim here.'
'Yeah. Well, I'd get yon pair out of the back till it arrives, so that if you do find anything, it will be admissible.'
'Yeah, right, Sarge.'
Wield turned back to Lee, who was on his feet and looking anxious to be elsewhere. It came-back to him now that on their first encounter the youth had made some crack about Turk's sandwiches containing the remains of illegals that hadn't made it.
'You know anything about Turk being in the people-smuggling business?' he asked.
'I'd heard a buzz, that was all.'
'And you didn't think it was worth mentioning?'
'No. It's not like real crime, is it? Just a lot of poor sods wanting in. Christ, think what it must be like where they come from if they think it's going to be better here!'
This was matter for an interesting discussion on comparative sociology which would have to wait till some other time.
He led Lee to the door and said to the guardian constable, 'This one can go. I've got his details.'
The man stood aside and Lee headed through the door like a canary out of a cage.
‘I'll be in touch,' Wield called after him.
‘Scuse us, Sarge,' said a voice behind him.
He turned, then stepped aside to let Turk and his pair of close escorts pass.
His gaze and that of the cafe proprietor met. All he saw there was the same blank indifference with which the man dispensed his unspeakable coffee.
No harm done, Wield reassured himself as he watched the police car pull away. So now Turk knew that he was a cop. Presumably he already knew that Lee was a rent boy. God knows what he might speculate about their relationship, but so what? Anyway, he was going to have other more serious matters on his mind.
But still Wield felt uneasiness working like dyspepsia in his gut.
He stayed a little longer to make sure that everything was by the book then left. Part of his mind had never stopped working at the new info Lee had given him and now he gave it his full attention. There was something there that meant something to him. That stuff about crown and majesty…
Unlike most minds in search of something only dimly remembered, Wield's didn't work by turning to something completely different in the hope of stumbling across the desired item by chance, as it were. His relied more on the computer principle. You fed the information into a program, pressed search, and waited for results.
The answer came two minutes later as he sat with idling engine waiting for the traffic lights to change.
He was in the right-hand lane. As the lights showed red and amber, he accelerated left across the bows of a stately old Morris containing three old ladies in fur hats on their way to lunch with the bishop, who with a synchronicity worthy of the Beverley Sisters gave him the finger and screamed, 'Asshole!'
It was forty minutes later that Wield pulled into the police station car park.
Proximity to the seat of law being no guarantee of security, he squatted to wrap a length of chain around the rear wheel and pillion, and as he did so he noticed a big black Lexus in one of the public bays.
Its number plate read JUS 10. There was a man in the driver's seat talking into a phone, difficult to identify through the tinted glass. But as Wield snapped his lock shut, the man got out and headed into the building and there was no mistaking that Roman head, those sculpted locks. It was Marcus Belchamber.
Straightening up, Wield once again felt that acid uneasiness in his gut.
Belchamber had disappeared by the time he reached the front desk. Des Bowman, the duty sergeant, looked
