Bad Music 17
"This is what you want..."
Khatter flopped down onto her chair and, turning to Minto, she asked, ‘Have you checked out the families?’
‘Just about finished. No fresh surprises. The Armstrongs are pretty much all criminal or criminal adjacent, but wholesaling cocaine isn’t their thing. Angus Kerr has a brother, but he’s straight: family man, works as an engineer. We knew this already. Nothing else has turned up.’ He studied her. She looked tired. ‘Been to speak to the Chief?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve got to go see Kerr senior and deliver a written apology.’
‘Dear Lord.’
‘You haven’t heard the best bit. I have to read it out loud, to Mr. Kerr’s satisfaction. And if I do that, he won’t sue, and I won’t lose my job.’
‘Fuck me, boss. We know that Angus Kerr was stashing his gear at the house. Why else were so many fucking gangsters going there. It was a bidding war.’
‘We think it was a bidding war.’
Minto did not appear convinced. ‘When’re you going?’
‘Tomorrow. Tuesday morning, I get to go and humiliate myself to Dominic Kerr who, even though he has gorgeous blue eyes, is the father of a local recidivist currently in possession of, what is it, eight, nine keys?’
‘Rumour is, he’s sold another kilo.’
‘Eight then. No location?’
Minto shook his head. ‘You said the camera was a risk worth taking.’
Khatter nodded. ‘That was before we got caught.’
‘I’ll make us a cuppa.’
‘I need vodka,’ she said.
‘Thought you didn’t drink.’
‘I’ve just this minute decided I do.’
A few minutes later Minto returned with two mugs of tea. Khatter took hers gratefully. ‘You know, if the East India company hadn’t come to India in search of spices and tea, I’d probably have eight kids, be living on a farm in Bahawalpur.’
Minto almost choked as he gave a little laugh. ‘Where’s that?’
‘Used to be in northern India. It’s in Pakistan now.’ She took a sip, sighed. ‘Mind you, the East India company were right. Tea fixes all ills.’
‘Better than vodka?’
She nodded. ‘My drinking days are over. Tea from now on.’ She looked towards Minto’s screen. ‘Keep digging. It’d be good if I could go there tomorrow with some leverage.’
‘He’s ex-forces,’ Minto said.
‘Army?’
‘Belgian Army. Played in the band, apparently.’
‘What use are musicians in an army?’
‘Armies have marching bands. We had a band on our passing out parade. And when we were doing some event, or getting a Royal Inspection, they’d roll out the drummers and pipes.’
Khatter rolled her eyes. ‘Can’t see Kerr senior as a little drummer boy.’
‘In combat, musicians are usually stretcher-bearers or medics.’ He took a gulp of his tea. ‘I do make a decent brew.’
‘Ten years in the army, I reckon that’s the best skill they taught you.’
‘Brewing tea, or hosing down a treelike a fifty-cal Browning.’
‘Stick to tea. Letting loose with a fifty on Gateshead High Street is frowned upon. Scares the locals and their pit-bulls.’
Minto said, ‘Look, I’ve got a pal who knows some people, so I’ll make a call. Just to check out Kerr senior’s background. Make sure he wasn’t kicked out for upselling combat boots or wholesaling cocaine.’
‘Keep me up posted.’
‘Will do. We going somewhere?’
‘We’re going to speak to Lala.’
Minto gave an unhappy smile. ‘We’re going to the, “definitely not laundering money” barber shop on High Bridge’
‘The one with four customers a week and a quarter million annual turnover. Yes.’
‘We’ve spoken to him so many times, he’s applied for a long-term pass for our car park. He’s not going to give anything away.’
She took a deep breath, let it out slow, sipped her tea. ‘Don’t you know we’re supposed to support our local SMEs, Even if they’re criminal enterprises.’
‘Especially if,’ Minto said.
‘We need to flip the script somehow.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘Hence my decision to clutch one more time at this particular straw.’
‘Daft question,’ Minto said. ‘But can we not just deport him? Or throw him into jail? Apart from the drugs and the violence and not paying taxes, he’s got thirty-odd teenage girls working for him. They get out of care, the council sets them up with a nice little flat somewhere, maybe a part-time job at Aldi, and the next minute, Lala’s crew arrive and apply a little “persuasion,”’ he raised his fingers in ironic inverted commas. ‘The application of a sustained gang-rape and the forced injection of Lala’s current drug of choice, and just like magic the girl’s a crack whore, we’re supposed to call it a lifestyle choice, and Lala takes her earnings.’
‘Earnings. It’s more like rent. “Whore BnB.”’
He almost laughed at this. ‘I see what you did there,’ he said. Exhaustion was bringing out the dark humour in his boss. ‘So why don’t we come down on that bastard like a Mongol-fucking-horde arriving at the gates of Shiraz?’
‘I’d love to. Even the Chief wants it to happen. But the CPS won’t touch him.’ She shook her head. ‘Anytime we attempt to pull the pin from that particular hand grenade they warn us off. Too many negative headlines. And that comes right from the top.’
‘What’s above the Chief?’
‘Downing Street.’
‘Fucking politics,’ Minto said. He looked like he wanted to spit.
‘Nothing new,’ Katter said. She finished her tea.
‘What are we doing, boss?’ Minto said. ‘Seriously? What are we doing? There’s shit happening all over and we can’t fucking touch the people who are shitting it out. Instead we’re sent on a wild goose chase to find ten keys of cocaine just so the Chief can lord it at a press conference.’
She shook her head, couldn’t think what to say, so she fell back on a phrase they used when it all got too much. ‘This is what you want…’ she said, quietly.
‘…this is what you get,’ he finished.
There was a long moment of silence. Finally Minto spoke. ‘Lala’s then. Let’s go and bang our heads against that particular wall. Unless you want to write your apology first.’
‘Write it?’ her laugh was almost a cackle. ‘I didn’t get anywhere near it. It’s was written the Assistant Chief, approved by the Chief, checked by a dozen lawyers, and then scrutinised by a team of blue-haired seventeen year-old sensitivity readers.’
Minto stood; it was his job to fetch the car. He looked at her. ‘That last bit. You’re joking, right?’
‘Who can fucking tell?’ She closed her eyes. ‘Text me when you’re at the front door. I’m going to spend the next eight minutes sleeping.’
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