Four Below (7 page)

‘I would agree.’ Coulthart paused for dramatic effect. ‘Unless of course it wasn’t just this
one
junkie you wanted to get rid of.’

Fairfield sat down on the padded bench by the observation window. ‘You mean someone with a grudge against junkies?’

‘That’s entirely possible.’

‘So there could be more out there.’

‘Oh, that’s a distinct possibility. As you said, lacing the man’s heroin with anthrax because you wanted to kill him would mean going to extremes of difficulty. Anthrax is
lethal and doesn’t just lie around for you to use. The lab will try and identify the exact strain, which may help identify the source.’

‘So we’re going to see more cases.’

‘Unless he travelled here recently from elsewhere, carrying his own supply, the city could be awash with the infected drug. The injection sites on his arm suggest he’s used
contaminated heroin several times. You must find the source of it or we will find ourselves chatting over the cadavers of many more of these unfortunate creatures.’

‘Just how infectious is anthrax? I mean, can you pass it on? Can you catch it just from handling the heroin?’

‘Person-to-person infection is normally rare. Sharing needles would certainly be efficacious. Infection can be effected both by inhalation and gestation. So extreme caution is advised when
handling any heroin. But the surest way to contract it is, of course, cutaneous.’

‘Which means …?’

Coulthart zoomed the camera into a close-up of the blackened lesions on the dead junkie’s arm. ‘Injecting the stuff, Inspector.’

Chapter Six

McLusky scooted into the bathroom. Now that it was definitely winter, he’d have to buy another heater. The Montpelier flat he rented above Rossi’s, the Italian
greengrocer’s, had once had open fireplaces in every room. They had later been replaced by gas fires, and these in turn had been removed and replaced with nothing. The two-bar electric heater
he had bought when he moved in couldn’t hope to heat even one room, let alone the whole flat.

In the meantime he lit the ancient stove in the kitchen, turned the oven to gas mark eight, put the kettle on the hob and scooted around until he was showered and dressed. He had managed to
acquire a few more sticks of furniture, which meant the sitting room could now accommodate three people sitting down, which didn’t happen often, and he could breakfast at the kitchen table
should the fancy take him. That didn’t happen often, either.

This morning ritual of rushing around was made more difficult by the fact that he was required to wear a suit to Albany Road and keep it spotless until he could accompany DSI Denkhaus to a lunch
at the Isis.

The Isis was arguably the finest, certainly the most expensive, restaurant in town, where they were to be dined, wined and bored rigid by a few prominent businessmen – definitely all men,
Denkhaus had confirmed – who liked to deliver their opinions to the police force in person and in a more congenial atmosphere than even headquarters could provide. All were sponsors of
charities close to the Chief Constable’s heart.

McLusky had fought hard to try to wriggle out of it. ‘Why would they want to meet me? Surely there are more suitable officers around …’

‘For once I agree wholeheartedly, DI McLusky. I can assure you that you were not my first choice, or anyone’s first choice, to go to this lunch. Neither was I, for that matter. They
didn’t really want to talk to anyone below Assistant Chief Constable, but the ACC just can’t be …’ Denkhaus breathed deeply, swallowed down his indignation. ‘So I got
lumbered with it. They are interested in our fight against drugs because businesses worry about the level of drug-related crime in the city. And our hosts want to meet someone who was part of the
team that put Ray Fenton behind bars.’

‘I only played the most marginal role in that investigation.’

‘I’m aware of it. But in the absence of DCI Gaunt, you’ll have to do.’

‘Claire French distinguished herself in that operation, as I recall.’

‘I can’t turn up with a DC in tow. Besides, French is quite … Well, anyway, there we are, stuck with it. What we need to get across is that we are doing all we can, that
prevention is better than cure and that progress is being made.’

When H-hour arrived McLusky was glad that he had kept his tie in his jacket pocket and brought a spare shirt, since the one he had put on that morning had acquired a mysterious stain, as he had
known it would.

Denkhaus, wearing his uniform, was in energetic, upbeat mode. A large silver-grey BMW with police driver had made an appearance, a sweetener sent by the ACC perhaps. McLusky felt no better about
being driven, though by the time the car glided to a stop outside the Isis, he had to admit it had been quite the smoothest journey through Bristol traffic he had experienced without the aid of
sirens. For many, lunch at the Isis, especially if paid for by others, would have been a memorable occasion, but no one at Albany Road had envied him the invitation. McLusky himself was fond of
good food, though he rarely got it. When he did, he preferred to eat it in relaxed surroundings and in the company of his choice.

The restaurant’s designers had achieved an understated opulence that bordered on the minimal and yet managed to instantly suggest privilege. Part of it, he decided, came from the strange
sensation that the room swallowed sound. Every table was taken, conversation was animated, yet the place seemed quiet and gave the impression that all was simply a setting for your own entrance.
The other noticeable thing about the place was the age of its clientele; with a few glamorous exceptions, the diners were on the whole male and over fifty. Perhaps it took that long to earn enough
money to eat here, McLusky thought as they were led to the table by an immaculately groomed creature. With dismay he realized that what he had envisaged as a long dining table full of local
businessmen chatting over their food, where he would be required to merely nod and pretend to agree with Denkhaus, turned out to be just three men who now rose to greet them.

In his sixties, the oldest and largest of the three, Paul Defrees appeared to be the mover of the enterprise. ‘Ah, Superintendent, I’m so glad you could find the time …’
He had a sonorous voice, very little hair and preternaturally white teeth. McLusky had heard the name more than once in the past but until now couldn’t put a face to it. Defrees ran the
largest private security firm in the West Country, among other things providing staff for commercial premises, night patrols for wealthy property owners and security for festivals. A lot of his
initial money, however, had come from running gangs of wheel clampers, operating mainly on private land. He introduced his two companions. Frank Walden, a disappointed-looking man in his fifties
with a hint of dampness in his handshake, was a property developer who had run projects all over the south-west of England and in the south of Wales. The youngest of the three, James Cullip, had
tightly curled dark hair and quick, intelligent eyes. His business interest went far beyond Bristol and included holdings in Europe, mainly France.

McLusky had decided to stick to non-alcoholic drinks, which also relieved him of any stress he might otherwise have felt over the intimidating wine list. The lunch menu was difficult enough,
since his French was non-existent, but he settled on confit of duck liver to be followed by roast quail. Once the starters arrived, he began to relax. The three men seemed genuinely interested in
the policing of the city. Cullip, who owned two bars in Bristol, one in Millennium Square, was particularly worried about the level of street crime and complained about it in a low, scratched
voice. ‘I like Bristol a lot. I’m from London, you see, but I chose to move here. I believe the quality of life is much better than in the capital. Bristol is going places. But when you
have interests in the catering business, then street crime affects it directly. My customers need to be able to walk safely at night and my staff need to get home very late. Two of my bar staff
were mugged last month. One of them decided not to work evenings any more. ‘

Defrees agreed. ‘Bristol must clean up its act. It’s not enough to tart up the centre. If there is to be sustained investment, then crime must fall. A reputation for drug crime is
always bad for a city. Businesses are highly mobile now; there is no reason why many of them couldn’t move north or south.’

McLusky soon found that Denkhaus had come extremely well prepared, and that his own role was more or less to agree with him and to provide some colour. The superintendent had the statistics of
crime reduction – always reduction – at his fingertips. But time and again the talk returned to drugs.

Mandatory life sentences for drug-dealers was Cullip’s solution; compulsory rehabilitation for addicts was Walden’s. McLusky was tempted to throw
forced deportation
into the
ring but stopped himself in time.

‘What I can’t understand,’ Defrees said as he speared some venison and chased it through the
jus
on his plate, ‘is why they can’t stop the drugs trade at its
source. Why is it so difficult to eradicate the poppy fields?’

‘And how would you do that?’ McLusky asked.

‘Surely a good dose of weedkiller should do it. We’ve got helicopters, haven’t we?’

McLusky wanted to say what a brilliant idea that was and how naturally nobody had ever thought of it before, but instead he said: ‘A few thousand hectares of opium poppy are enough for the
entire heroin consumption of western Europe. You could grow it in Belgium and we’d be hard pressed to find it.’

Defrees looked unhappily at him, but Denkhaus came to his rescue. ‘And heroin is politically complicated. Most of ours comes from Afghanistan. It’s grown by very poor people who
couldn’t make a living from the acreage they are farming if they grew, let’s say, wheat or millet. And many are being coerced into doing it anyway, so even if you paid them to grow
something else, it wouldn’t work.’

‘As long as people want to get off their faces on heroin, there’ll be poppy fields,’ McLusky said. ‘Anyway, heroin isn’t really our main problem any more. Crack
is.’

While a minor squabble broke out over this assertion, McLusky surreptitiously reached for his mobile and activated his get-out strategy. From inside his jacket pocket he sent a pre-prepared text
to Austin, the signal to call him. Two minutes later his mobile chimed.

‘I thought I asked you to keep that turned off?’ Denkhaus hissed.

‘Sorry, sir, it’s the station, could be urgent.’ He answered it. On the other end was Austin, saying: ‘A man walks into a bar …’ Keeping a straight face
while listening to one of Austin’s invariably bad jokes, he gave a few grunts, then said: ‘Send someone else … Oh, I see.’ He terminated the call. ‘I’m sorry,
sir,’ he said to Denkhaus, who looked at him suspiciously and struggled to hide his annoyance. ‘Something’s come up and no one else can deal.’ He rose. ‘Thank you,
gentlemen, for an excellent lunch. I’m sorry about the disappearing act.’

In the taxi back to Albany Road, McLusky mused on how far removed the Isis had felt from the streets where crime and drugs had made their home. His hosts’ ideas about how
to solve the problems of the city were correspondingly unrealistic. There was no magic bullet, which was what Defrees and his friends were hoping for.

He found Austin in the station canteen, sitting in front of the ruins of a ham and pineapple pizza. ‘Thanks for the rescue.’

‘How bad was it?’ Austin wanted to know.

‘Remind me not to seek promotion beyond DCI. At least I could run away. Denkhaus is stuck there. He looked murderous when my phone went.’

‘But the food must have been something special.’

McLusky shook his head. ‘The confit of duck was okay, but I thought the roast quail was quite average.’

Upstairs he walked into the CID room to make coffee. With the kind of shock a person feels when discovering that their car has been stolen from the drive, he came to a sudden halt in front of
the yawning gap where the kettle and tea things had sat.

He looked around to see where they had been moved to. ‘Claire, where’s the kettle?’

DC Claire French looked up reluctantly from her keyboard, where she’d been busy chasing biscuit crumbs between the keys with a moistened fingertip. ‘Gone, sir.’

‘Gone where? To a better place?’

‘Hadn’t you heard?’

‘No. Did I miss the funeral?’

‘It’s not that. We’re no longer allowed kettles.’

‘What?’ McLusky’s voice carried quiet menace.

‘Health and safety, sir. You should have had a memo.’

‘I didn’t want a memo, I wanted coffee. What’s wrong with kettles all of a sudden?’

French shrugged. ‘Water and electricity? Steam? We might give ourselves an electric shock. Or something.’

‘Really.’

‘Yes. They’re quite happy for us to tackle violent criminals jacked up on crack with nothing but a tin of pepper spray, but health and safety draw the line at tea-making. Far too
hazardous.’

‘
Marvellous
.’

‘We’re supposed to use the drinks machines.’

‘I see. They’re not by any chance owned by health and safety, are they?’

McLusky had always assumed that instant coffee was the worst the planet had to offer, but that was before he had tried the drinks machine offering. In his office he sipped machine coffee and
brooded over his list of emails and messages. There was naturally nothing from the mortuary on the BMW driver, but there should have been at least something from the vehicle search, even if only to
say they’d found nothing. Sometimes police work was like wading through treacle: you had to adjust your stride accordingly or you constantly felt the drag. He picked up the phone to call
about the examination of the car when a knock on the door stayed his hand. It was Austin.

‘Don’t think you’re leaving any of those in here,’ he told the DS, who was heavily burdened with files and folders.

‘All mine, I’m sorry to say.’ Much intelligence and information had long migrated to the computer, only no one trusted computers, so half of it existed on paper as well. Making
sure that both were up to date was double the work. ‘We had a call about the BMW. Preliminary forensics says minute traces of class A, on the seats and in the boot. Also some
herbal.’