Deacon regarded him with misgivings. He was accustomed to being the Rottweiler in the petting zoo: when suspects were being threatened, mostly what they were being threatened with was him. Now he had that uneasy feeling that you get with the first shift of the ground at the start of an earthquake. It could just be an act, but he suspected Dave Salmon meant every word of it.
âNo, sir,' said Rafiq Dhazi urgently. This conversation had produced a dew of sweat on his upper lip that even running for his life had not. âI know nothing about explosives. My cousin knows nothing about explosives. Perhaps we are not good men, but we are not that bad!'
âYour friend Daoud is that bad,' said Salmon. âI know he is.'
âThen you know him better than I do,' insisted Dhazi. âI never met him before. He was to carry supplies from Pakistan and we were to hold them for Mr Loomis. Only it went wrong.'
âDamn right it went wrong,' snorted Salmon. âYou and your cousin are going to prison for conspiracy to commit terrorist offences. You'll be middle-aged men when you come out.
If
you come out. The men inside have families too. Families who use buses and trains and banks and offices, and are as likely as anyone else to be beside him when some nut yells a slogan and blows himself to buggery. You'll
get
fifteen years. You'll
serve
life.'
âBut â truly â I don't understand â¦' The boy was close to tears.
Deacon said gruffly, âWhere's Daoud now?'
âW-what?'
âDaoud. Where is he now? If we can get hold of him, maybe he can clear you. Maybe all we're talking about is a drugs bust after all.'
âI â he â I â¦' Dhazi swallowed. âI think he would kill me.'
âYes,' agreed Salmon frankly, âI think he probably would. If he got the chance. But he isn't here and we are. Not to put too fine a point on it, right now we're your problem. Give us Daoud, and either we'll put him away or he'll decorate a couple of shop fronts with his own intestines. Either way, you're in a better place than you are right now.'
âBut I know
nothing
!' wailed Dhazi.
âYou must know something. You put this guy up at your house for two days. You must have talked about something besides the
khatee channe
. Then he disappeared. Where did he go?'
âHe asked about trains to Birmingham.'
âOK. What did you tell him?'
Rafiq Dhazi gave a tremulous shrug. âI told him I ride a bicycle. How would I know?'
Â
âSo he went to Birmingham. To blow up something there, or to fetch something he needed to cause an explosion here?'
Deacon was doing sums. They'd remained in the house on Romney Road when the Dhazi cousins were taken into custody. The Scene of Crime Officer was working methodically around them, otherwise it was quiet. A good place to think. âJoe Loomis was stabbed four days ago.
Daoud had been here for two days but he left the following morning, probably for Birmingham. Maybe he's just lying low till the heat dies down, and then he's going to come back and do what he originally came here for.'
âNot delivering drugs,' said Salmon.
âNo, not delivering drugs,' agreed Deacon. âHe was using a way into the country that he was already familiar with, and the drugs were his cover story. But his bag was sent to Bangkok. That brought Joe Loomis down on the Dhazi boys, and the courier went round to explain. And when they met they both realised they knew one another. It didn't matter too much to Joe but it did to Daoud â because he knew your mates at Counter Terrorism were aware he'd graduated from Best Afghan White to things that go bang. So Daoud arranged to meet Joe somewhere quiet, on the pretext that he had the bag now and was cutting out the middlemen, and slid a knife between his ribs. As soon as the rush hour started the next morning he headed for Birmingham.'
âIt fits,' nodded Salmon. âExcept that Loomis brought the knife.'
âI imagine they both brought knives,' said Deacon. âLoomis pulled his when he realised he was in danger, and Daoud took it off him because it was quicker than pulling his own. You know the guy â would he be capable of that?'
âOh yes,' said Salmon with conviction.
âIf he'd been planning to blow up the Bull Ring we'd have heard the bang by now,' continued Deacon. âSo he's just staying out of the way until our investigation goes
quiet. Hell, he knows as well as we do what kind of a man Joe Loomis was â there'll be no shortage of suspects but the trail will go cold a lot quicker than if his only enemy was his mistress's husband. A couple of weeks, he thinks, and he can probably stroll back into Dimmock and no one'll give him a second glance.'
âAnd then he goes shopping,' murmured Dave Salmon.
âSo we have time,' said Dave Salmon. âAn attack may be planned but it isn't imminent. Putting the town on a full-scale alert right now would do more harm than good.'
âWe have a little time,' amended Deacon, âif we're reading this right.'
âWell, we're the guys on the ground. We're more likely to get it right than Division. Should we let them know what we've found, and what we think?'
Deacon made the call. He was asked a lot of questions he couldn't answer: questions beginning with
How certain are
you?
and
What's your evidence?
He dismissed them as curtly as a man in a pensionable job should. âI'm
not
certain. My only evidence is that there isn't any real evidence. This is what I think. If you think differently, if you think it makes more sense to risk a mass panic, go public with this. But I'm standing in the house where any explosives that were being cooked up would most probably be, and there's nothing here. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's another house. Maybe there's a whole cell of other young men planning to blow up Dimmock. But this is where the trail led, and there's a scared kid here who's telling me what I think is the truth. I think we're safe until this man Daoud
has been back in town for forty-eight hours.'
Division said they'd call him back. Half an hour later his phone went and it was ACC (Crime) Emily Blake. âThis is my call, Jack. If it's wrong it's my mistake. But we're going to hold off. Bring your team in on it now, but don't tell them the full story. Go with the drugs angle. Tell them Daoud's dangerous, they need to know that, but â correct me if I'm wrong â he's just another dangerous criminal until he's had forty-eight hours in a kitchen. The clock starts when he returns to Dimmock, so we need people watching for him. But if they miss him, the first thing we'll know is when he comes to the house. Is there anything to see from outside?'
Deacon was ahead of her. âNo. No tape, no cars, no uniforms. There's me and Salmon, and Billy Mills doing SOCO. And we took the Dhazi boys out the back way. With luck, nobody's even noticed.'
âGood. You'll need to keep a presence there, and you'll want armed response vehicles close but out of sight. Borrow a couple of garages â but be careful who you borrow them from, we don't want someone warning him off. And then watch, and wait.'
That made sense to Deacon. He told Salmon, âI'm going to pull SOCO out. There's nothing for him to find here, and if there's going to be a fire-fight I don't want civilian staff in the middle. Will you stay? You'll spot Daoud before anyone else.'
Salmon nodded.
âI'll send Charlie Voss to keep you company. What about firearms? I'm guessing you're authorised?' Salmon
nodded again, expressionless. âThen that's probably all we can do right now.'
âTry to give me a bit of warning.'
âI'll have the train and bus stations watched,' said Deacon. âAnd the Guildford Road, in case he's got himself a car by now. We'll invent some road works to slow the traffic and get a good look at everyone coming in.' He frowned. âThe railway station's going to be the weak spot. With a trainload of passengers all arriving at the same time we could miss him.'
âPut up a notice saying you're looking for a runaway child,' advised Salmon. âMake people leave the platform in single file. That shouldn't warn him we're onto him.'
Deacon eyed the younger man with some admiration. âYou're good at this, aren't you?'
âI was good at this,' said Salmon. âI had to be.'
Â
Division helped with extra manpower. By Monday morning they were all in place, and all thinking they were watching for a dangerous drug trafficker. Deacon allowed himself space to breathe. When he dropped in to see Brodie he was surprised to find she too had gone back to work. He took his son on his knee, still handling him like a suspicious package, and regarded Daniel over the top of his head. âSo you're looking after Jonathan.'
Daniel nodded. âDoes that bother you?'
Deacon shook his head. âNo. I just wonder â¦' He let the sentence peter out.
âWhat?'
Deacon blew out his cheeks in exasperation. âWhy we
let her do this to us. Both of us. Why we let her rearrange our lives at a moment's notice because it makes things more interesting for her. Why we don't, just occasionally, tell her to shove it.'
Daniel's smile was a gentle ghost. âYou know why.'
âDo I?' It was a policeman's trick, answering with a question, but it was also how Deacon dealt with the mystifying world of personal relationships. âRemind me.'
âBecause we love her.'
Quite severe torture wouldn't have dragged the words out of Deacon. He marvelled at how easily Daniel could say it. Of course, they'd known each other a while now, and for some of the time you'd have to say they'd been friends because there was no other word that got closer. But Deacon couldn't imagine exposing his feelings like that. Especially if he'd known, as Daniel did, that those feelings weren't reciprocated. He said, âYou're still â¦' And again, failed to finish the remark.
It was the honesty thing. Daniel didn't lie about anything. If he talked about his feelings at all, he told the truth. His smile broadened, became impish. âWhat? Still holding a candle for her? Still waiting my chance? Yes to the first, Jack, and no to the second. You know â you were the first to guess â how much I care for her. But you also know it's never going to happen. Brodie loves me too, as a friend, but she doesn't and she never will want me the way she wants you. And if you joined a circus tomorrow, she'd find someone else and it still wouldn't be me. I'm no threat to you. As far as Brodie's concerned, we occupy separate membranes of existence.'
If there was one thing worse than Voss being clever, it was Daniel using mathematical analogies. It made Deacon want to hit him with a brick. âAnd you're â¦all right with that?'
âNo,' confessed Daniel with a chuckle. âBut it's the best I'm going to do.'
âAnd she knows?'
âShe knows. It doesn't suit her so she ignores it.'
âAnd you still â¦?'
â
Yes
, Jack,' said Daniel, amused. âI still dot dot dot.'
Deacon shook his heavy head in disbelief. The better he knew Daniel Hood, he thought, the less he understood him. And that troubled him more than he could explain. A man much more in touch with his own emotions might have struggled with the relationships which had developed between these three: for Deacon it was
terra incognita.
If someone had asked him about Daniel, his immediate response would have been: âHe's a geek, and a pain in the backside.' Except he wouldn't have said
backside
. If he'd felt the need to be more honest than that, he might have said: âHe's a geek and a pain in the backside, but â¦' But he would never have gone on to say, as a man of genuine insight might have done: âThere's something about him that touches people's lives. Even if I'm not sure what it is, I know it's touched mine too. You don't have to be a raving queer' â and he
would
have said
queer â
âto feel richer for knowing him. And because of that, to care about him.'
To Deacon, the C-word was almost as treacherous as the L-word. He avoided both like the plague. He cleared his throat. âI'll â um â¦'
Daniel nodded amiably and took the baby. âShe should be in the office.'
Deacon headed out to his car, unloading discomfort with every step.
Â
Brodie had made the office her own again. It wasn't that Daniel had wrought any radical changes during his tenancy. But he kept the stapler in the wrong drawer. He'd hung the calendar on the back of the door instead of beneath the clock. And he always answered the phone with his right hand before switching it to his left in order to take notes, resulting in a tangled cord. Small things, all of them, but how they'd rankled! Putting them right had cheered her immediately.
âBack in the old routine, then?' Deacon said, and Brodie couldn't be sure if that note in his voice was censure or not. Which meant that it was, just not quite enough for her to object.
She grinned happily. âThis is more
me
.'
âMeaning, feeding and changing the baby is more Daniel?'
âDaniel doesn't mind. I think he was glad of a change too.'
âDaniel's doing what he always does: picking up the bits you can't be bothered with.'
That was definitely censure. Brodie frowned. âJonathan is not a bit I can't be bothered with.'
âWell, that's how it looks. Like anyone can look after a baby, but your business needs to be handled with care.'
Brodie breathed heavily at him. âJack, if you've come
here to argue, make an appointment. Right now I've got better things to do. Actually,' she added, the hint of a challenge in her voice, âI'd have thought you had too. Unless you've charged someone with the murder of Joe Loomis and just haven't thought to mention it.'
He dismissed that with a characteristic curl of the lip. âAs a matter of fact,' he growled, slashing a hand at eyebrow level, âI'm up to here. And Joe Loomis is the least of my worries.'
In the days when they printed posters saying
Careless talk costs lives!
this is what they meant. If Brodie had been an enemy spy her bosses would have been fuelling the V2s by now. She could spot a deceit faster than anyone Deacon knew. What he'd said had hardly been a mistake. But her ears had pricked like those of a fox who's heard something tasty in the undergrowth, and his heart was leaden with the knowledge that she'd let it go only after she'd sucked the bones white.
âReally?' she said, watching him. âWe have so many murders in Dimmock these days that the victims have to take a number and wait? I know Joe Loomis was no loss, but that didn't make it all right for someone to stab him. You've got someone walking around this town thinking he got away with murder. And you don't know who, and you don't know why â and still it's the least of your worries? What's going on, Jack?'
He shook his head brusquely and avoided looking at her. âNothing. I'm busy, that's all. A drugs case.'
But Brodie wasn't wearing it. âDrugs don't take precedence over murder, and you know that I know that.
So why would you lie to me? Only one possible reason: there's something going on that's even more serious. And the only thing that's more serious than a murder that's happened is a murder that's about to happen â a murder that, if you throw everything at it, just could be averted.'
Her eyes were brilliant with curiosity. âThat's it, isn't it? They've brought you back to work because somebody's life depends on CID asking the right questions and getting the right answers, and doing it yesterday. You're somebody's last best chance.'
If she hadn't got the details exactly right, she had the essence of the thing and she knew it. Deacon realised with astonishment that she was proud of him. He didn't know what to say. âEr â¦'
âIt's all right,' she said lightly, âI know you can't talk about it. Go on, get back to work, carry on saving the world. Tell me about it when you can.'
What she didn't say, and what Deacon never for a moment realised she was thinking, was that if Battle Alley was fully occupied with a crisis, and it was so sensitive even she had to be kept in the dark, perhaps there was another way she could help. Joe Loomis had come to her when he was dying on his feet. She hadn't been able to save him, but perhaps she could spare him the indignity of hanging around until his death was considered important enough to investigate.
âGo on,' she said again. âThere's stuff I need to do as well.'