betting-slip or put the cash in the till, which meant the money wasn’t going through any official books. More significantly, if Neil was a serious gambler, there was no way the police wouldn’t have found traces of it on his financial history. There was another possibility, namely that Neil had paid off an instalment of a loan. Harlan knew from past experience that many bookies also ran a profitable sideline in illegal loan sharking.
As Neil waited for a number 77 to take him back into town, Harlan phoned Jim. “I need some information,” he told his ex-partner. “Ace Racing on the Penistone Road. Who owns it? What’s their story?”
“Never heard of it. I’ll make a few calls. Then I’ll get back to you. I assume this has got something to do with Ethan Reed.”
“Uh-huh.” Harlan hung up. He wanted to get a clearer picture before saying anything more. He was in his car, tailing the 77 when his phone rang. He put it on loud-speaker.
“Ace Racing’s owned by a guy called Gary Dawson,” said Jim. “Nasty piece of work, by all accounts. Got his fingers in a lot of pies — dog fighting, fencing stolen goods, loan sharking.”
“Has he got a record?”
“GBH, demanding money with menaces, handling stolen property — all the typical crap you’d expect from a character like him. So are you going to tell me what this is about? Dawson’s a scumbag, but he’s not exactly the type to be involved in something like this.”
Harlan hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell Jim. He was pretty certain that the first thing Garrett would do once the information filtered back to him would be to haul Neil in and sweat him for a day or two. Harlan suspected this wouldn’t achieve anything besides putting Neil’s guard up. Under immense scrutiny, Neil had managed to lie successfully to Susan and the police. Whether that lie concerned gambling or illegal loans or both was beside the point. The point was that beneath his timid exterior there lurked a steely resolve that few, if any, others had detected. Harlan wondered what else was concealed in the shadows around and inside Neil. What hopes? What desires? What other secrets? And he figured that the best chance he had to find out was to keep tailing him.
“I tell you something, you tell me something. That was the deal,” said Jim.
“Trust me, Jim, I will tell you. I just need more time to work out what I’m on to here.”
Jim released a nasal sigh. “You’ve got two days, then I want to hear everything you’ve got.”
Harlan knew there wasn’t much chance of finding out the truth behind Neil’s lie in two day. Not unless he got lucky. “I need at least a week.”
“Four days. If I don’t hear from you after that, I’m going to do some digging myself. See if I can’t find out who owes Dawson what.”
Harlan smiled thinly. Jim might be getting a bit past it, but he was still a shrewd operator. From his tone, it was obvious he suspected Harlan’s interest in Dawson had something to do with Neil Price. And, adding two and two, it didn’t require a huge intuitive leap to guess what that something entailed. “Okay. Four days.”
Chapter 13
Time suddenly seemed to be on fast forward. With the speed of a thought that was gone before it was barely formed, one, two, then three days flashed by. Neil’s routine, by now so familiar to Harlan, never once varied — work, sleep, off-licence, Susan’s house, pick up Kane, hand out leaflets, work, sleep…The relentless tediousness of it numbed Harlan’s brain, blotting away all thoughts except those that flowed from the question: why had Neil lied? The question whirled round and round in his head, even though he knew he wouldn’t find the answer there.
On the fourth night, Harlan parked at the hospital, and as had become his habit, after watching Neil head into A amp;E, went for coffee and doughnuts. As he queued, he thought with mixed feelings about phoning Jim. On the one hand, he would’ve liked more time to follow Neil. But on the other, he was acutely aware that Susan deserved to know about Neil’s lying, regardless of what lurked behind it — be it shame, fear or something more sinister. Harlan paid, turned to leave and found himself staring into Neil’s eyes. Both men blinked in surprise. Neil’s watery blue pupils darted about as if looking for an escape. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a swallow in his voice.
Keeping his expression carefully deadpan, Harlan raised his box of doughnuts in answer. He stepped around Neil and headed for the exit. “Fuck, shit,” he muttered under his breath, feeling Neil’s eyes follow him until he was out of sight. The last thing he wanted was for Neil to realise he’d been tailing him. Not only because it would put him on his guard, but because if there was something sinister behind his lie it might panic him into doing something rash. He tried to phone Jim. No answer. “I need to talk to you,” he told the answering service. “Call me as soon as you can.” He waited five minutes, fretfully sipping coffee, then tried again. Still no answer. For fuck’s sake, he thought. Jim was never without his mobile phone, so why the hell wasn’t he answering? “Price made me. We have to get him off the streets as quickly as possible,” he said, then hung up.
Ten more minutes passed. Harlan stared at his phone as if willing it to ring, but it remained infuriatingly silent. Thrusting it into his pocket, he made his way back to his car. He approached it warily, scanning the car-park for Neil. He was nowhere to be seen. He got into the car and started it up. As much as he was reluctant to leave Neil unwatched, he couldn’t risk spending the night there. He pulled out of the parking-space, jamming his foot on the break as Neil appeared from behind a van. Neil’s eyes weren’t dancing now. They were fixed on Harlan. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he approached the driver’s side window. “Are you following me?” He still sounded nervous, but there was a kind of forced courage behind his voice.
Harlan motioned with his chin at the front passenger door. “Get in.”
Hesitantly, Neil made his way to the door and ducked inside. Harlan accelerated towards the car-park’s exit. “Hey, what you doing?” said Neil. “I’m working. I only nipped out for a sandwich. I’ll get in trouble if I’m not back on the wards soon.”
Harlan made no reply. As he pulled into the last remnants of the rush-hour traffic, he watched Neil out of the sides of his eyes, studying every movement of his features.
“Where are we going?” persisted Neil. More stony silence. “Hey, I asked you-” he started to say, but his nerves got the better of him, and the words stuck in his throat. He sat stiffly with his thin hands clasped in his lap. His tongue flicked at his lips. His eyes flicked at Harlan. That dancing look came into them again as the car turned onto the Penistone Road. One of his hands moved towards his coat pocket.
“Don’t,” said Harlan, his voice hard with warning.
“I just need to phone my manager, let him know I’m okay.”
Harlan shook his head, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“What for?”
“Just fucking do it.”
Neil reluctantly handed over his phone. It started to ring. ‘Susie’ flashed up on the screen. “Who is it?” asked Neil. His eyes widened when Harlan told him. “Let me talk to her. Please, it must be something important. She never usually rings me at work.”
Harlan put the phone in his pocket, watching closely for Neil’s reaction. A slight flush rose into Neil’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again without doing so.
“Go on, say what you were going to say,” said Harlan, wanting to see if he could draw some kind of angry response from Neil.
Blinking, Neil dropped his gaze to his lap. They drove on in silence, passing a number 77 bus. Neither of them exchanged a word until they pulled over outside ‘Ace Racing’. Then Harlan turned to Neil and gave him the hard stare he’d perfected as a cop, the one which said, I know everything so you might as well spill it. Neil’s eyes flickered crazily all over the pace, but he held his silence. “How much do you owe?” Harlan’s voice was even and low, but there was a weight behind it that was calculated to knock Neil off balance.
“I…I…” stammered Neil, then he sucked his lip into his mouth and pinched it between his teeth, staring at his clasped hands.
Like a father disappointed in a child, Harlan sighed and shook his head. “Listen up, Neil, at the moment I’m the only one who knows about this. If you want to have any chance of keeping it that way, you’d better tell me what I want to know right now.” No matter what Neil told him, he had no intention of keeping it between them. Using a lie to uncover the truth always left a sour taste in his mouth, but he’d long ago come to accept that the
