Crack Down

‘God, you’d better not let him in here if I’m as much of a sight as you seem to think I am. He’ll have nightmares for weeks.’

‘Brannigan, you’re talking about a kid who thought Dracula was a fun movie. I don’t think a couple of bruises and a heavy-duty headscarf are going to freak him out. He knows you were in a car crash. The only thing I’m worried about is what he’s going to tell his mother.’

Epilogue

On the first day of Davy’s summer holidays, the three of us giggled our way along Blackpool prom on the open top deck of a tram. I was wearing a baseball cap that said ‘Kiss me slow’. Tacky, I know, but it covered the uneven hair growth. At least it wasn’t stubble any more. I’d been less than thrilled to discover I had a bald patch where they’d had to shave me when they stitched up the hole that Moustache’s tripod had made in the back of my head. The hair seems to be coming back just fine over the scar, but it’s knackered my attempts at growing my hair. I’m back to short and spiky.

Passe, sure, but I hadn’t had a lot of choice. And I didn’t look too much like a punk now the deep bruising had finally faded.

Davy had insisted on coming back north for part of the summer because he’d had such a good time at half- term. I can only presume he gave his mother a highly edited version of events, since she made no objection. We’d spent most of the day at the Pleasure Beach, only giving up on the white-knuckle rides when Richard dumped his lunch down the drain after a spectacular trip round the Grand National.

Now we were heading for the tower. Richard had decided that physically being on top of the world was the best way to symbolize the fact that as of tomorrow he’d officially be a free man. ‘I can’t wait,’ he said as we queued for the lift.

‘I didn’t think you were into views,’ I said.

‘No, for tomorrow, stupid. I can’t wait to hear the prosecuting solicitor saying they’re dropping all the charges against me.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘Me too.’ It had been an interesting few weeks. In spite of his misgivings about my information, Geoff Turnbull had put full surveillance on Terry Fitz, Jammy James and the chemical kitchen. They’d swooped in the early hours of Friday morning. They’d actually caught Terry Fitz red-handed in a stolen Mazda MX5 halfway down the M40 with trade plates and five kilos of crack in the boot. A dozen bodies had been remanded in custody at Saturday morning’s Magistrates’ Court. According to Ruth, nothing had come up in the interviews that even remotely implicated Richard or me. The police had even managed to establish that James and his team of dealers still had no idea who had driven off in a ‘stolen’ car with a boot full of crack. Best of all, the police seemed to think they wouldn’t need me to testify in court, which I reckoned significantly increased my chances of celebrating my thirtieth birthday. After all, Crazy Eddy wasn’t the only hit man in Greater Manchester.

Speaking of Crazy Eddy, he’d been charged with murdering Cherie and attempting to murder me. According to Della, it looked like he was also going to be charged with a couple of other street shootings in Moss Side just after Easter. He was still doing the Trappist monk routine with all of the coppers who’d done their brains in trying to interview him. He hadn’t even asked for a solicitor. Interestingly, it turned out that Terry Fitz had been in the Paras with Crazy Eddy, which was how Eddy had got involved as spotter for the car stealing racket. The police also suspected that Jammy James’s outfit was responsible for recommending him to the child-porn merchants as a hit man.

There was another connection between the two teams. It turned out that James’s mob were supplying the designer drugs for the kids to the child-porn gang in exchange for videos they could sell on through their own network. Or, in the case of one of Terry Fitz’s cronies, hang on to for their own sick purposes. Which explained the mysterious Polaroid that had slipped down the side of the seat in the Gemini coupe.

The house in Oliver Tambo Close had been a proper little gold mine for the Vice Squad. Not only had they put a stop to the racket, they’d found the porn makers’ mailing list, investigation of which was currently causing marital difficulties from Land’s End to John O’Groats; or rather, from an executive housing estate in Penzance to a croft on the Shetland Isles. Served them right too. The only bleak piece of news was that the two middle-aged bastards who’d made most of the profits from the sleazy trade had legged it at the first sign of trouble. The word is they’re somewhere on the Algarve, playing golf.

And the police had finally released Andrew Broderick’s Leo Gemini turbo super coupe. In his shoes, I’d have been less than thrilled at being deprived of one of my company’s flagship motors for so long, but Andrew was a happy man. More than two months had passed since Richard and I had started doing the groundwork to expose the fiddle that the car dealerships were up to. And not a single one of the cars we’d purchased had been reported sold to his finance company. Which meant Andrew had been absolutely right about the scam, and with every day that passed without the cars being notified, he had more ammo to fight the war for his new distribution system.

Not only that, but the vague hunch I’d had had paid off in spades. With all the aggro there had been the day after the bank holiday, I’d completely forgotten Julia was supposed to be sending me a fax. When I finally got out of hospital, it was sitting in my in-tray, buried in a pile of correspondence that Shelley had been carefully nurturing for me.

What I’d asked Julia for was a company check on both Richmond Credit Finance and the chain of car dealerships that had been the main target of our investigation. It wasn’t difficult to come by the information. The only reason we don’t have it on-line ourselves is that it’s more cost-effective for us to get the info from Josh than to subscribe to the appropriate database. Anyway, when I’d been able to get my eyes to focus properly, I’d compared the two sets of directors. Surprise, surprise. The managing director and principal shareholder of Richmond Credit Finance was the wife of the managing director and principal shareholder of the garages, an interesting coincidence that is currently occupying some of the working hours of Detective Chief Inspector Della Prentice.

So, instead of trying to bully us into cutting our bill, Andrew was keen to make sure we felt Mortensen and Brannigan were properly rewarded for our efforts. I wasn’t about to argue with him.

After the tower, there was nothing for it but fish and chips. I suggested beating the traffic by going back to Harry Ramsden’s in Manchester, and the idea was supported by two votes to one. To take Davy’s mind off his disappointment, we challenged him to a race back to the car. We let him win, of course. He looked much more appealing than the Rolls Royce silver lady sitting on the bonnet of my slightly shop soiled, midnight blue Leo Gemini turbo super coupe GLXi. Some days you eat the bear.

Acknowledgements

I couldn’t have written this book without help from several sources. In particular: Diana Cooper, Paula Tyler and Jai Penna all contributed invaluable legal expertise and background information; Lee D’Courcy was generous with specialist knowledge in several key areas; Alison Scott provided me with medical information; Sergeant Cross at the Court Detention Centre kept me on the straight and narrow; Geoff Hardman of Gordon Ford (Horwich) filled in the gaps in my knowledge of the motor trade; and Brigid Baillie provided constructive criticism and encouragement throughout. It would have been a lot less fun without the Wisdom of Julia, the G & R team and the four-legged friends — Dusty, Malone, Molly, Macky, Mutton and Licorice.

Although the book is identifiably set in Manchester and other Northern cities, and many of the locations will be familiar to those who know the patch, all the places and people involved in criminal activities are entirely