The Shy Traffickers (Professor Dobie Book 4) Read online

  “That’s my boy. She carries the stuff, we nick her. Simple as that. We do the nicking, they sort the mess out after it’s hit the fan. That’s as it should be.”

  “Right,” Crumb said. “Sir,” Crumb added. “Only thing is, maybe he won’t show. Could be he’s still sniffing the air, so to speak. He may not go in tonight, anyway. Or at all.”

  “Reckon he will,” Dim Smith said comfortably. “Reckon he has to.”

  “But you were saying—”

  “Never mind what I was saying, Crumb boy, look now, just because you’re working with the stiffies doesn’t mean you put your cards down on the table and let them play the hand. That’d be silly, now wouldn’t it? … You want to get anywhere in the Branch, you should take that little piece of advice to heart, you really should.”

  “I suppose,” Crumb said, sulking, “that means you know something that I don’t.”

  “I know something that they don’t, there’s the point. Got the word in from Interpol yesterday. That’s why I came scurrying down with the old Batmobile to see how things were going. Not,” Dim Smith said, leaning back in his chair and surveying the scenery round about him with a proprietorial air, “that it isn’t nice to be back in dear old Wales. Glorious weather, innit? Marvellous to be able to sit back and fill one’s lungs—”

  “Interpol? Woddid they say?”

  “For one who has been long in city pent … That’s the thing about Shakespeare, see? Always got the word for it, Shakespeare has. Hamlet. You know? … And Julius Caesar. The precious life-blood of a something or other. That’s Shakespeare for you.”

  “Yes, but woddid, woddid …”

  “Always find time for a little culture if I were you. Just a snippet or two of poetry, right? – to help you get through the day. Keats. Shelley. Wandsworth. All that lot. That’s another piece of advice it’d be well worth your heeding. Life is real, life is earnest, but the grave is not the goal.”

  “No?”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “What is, then?”

  “I dunno. Forgot that part. For the time being we’d do best to concentrate our whole attention on our friend Rodders. That being after all what we’re paid for.”

  “But that’s what I was saying. Woddid, woddid—”

  “To cut a long story short, old duck, and not to go into all the boring detail, it seems this Coyle character needs the dosh.”

  “The dosh?” Crumb was clearly disappointed at this intelligence. “Don’t we all?”

  “He needs it bad. Seems he tried this game before, in Marseilles, only it didn’t work out and so he owes some very nasty Moroccans rather a lot of money. The al Halimi lot, no less. It’s like, pay up or else, you follow? So he’s right up to his neck in the mulligatawney. Never mind the paddle, he hasn’t even got a fucking canoe.”

  “He’s got maybe fifty kilos of—”

  “Right, but he has to flog it, doesn’t he, and quick. He’s being pressed for payment in no uncertain terms.”

  “Then maybe,” Crumb said, “he was telling the truth when he said someone was trying to kill him. That doctor lady seemed to think—”

  “Lively lad, that one,” Dim Smith said, smacking his lips approvingly. “A bit of a survivor, I’d say. Maybe he reckons that if he can pay off the fuzzy-wuzzies and make a connection with the Stainers he’ll have enough protection to save his guts from being pulled out of his belly and used as sock suspenders but I wouldn’t put any serious money on it myself. You know these North Africans. An eye for an eye and all that jazz, like it says in the Holy Koran. They really believe all that stuff.”

  “I thought it was in the Bible.”

  “Well, that’s why George Stainer believes it too.”

  “So Coyle’s got to do a deal right away.”

  “That’s it, duckie,” Dim Smith said. “Or as soon as may be. And in my humble opinion, tonight’s the night.”

  Jackson plodded his way upstairs to the stake-out room and sat down once more, fanning himself feebly. Despite the half-drawn curtains, it was plaguily hot in there. The videocam, he noticed, had been set up on its tripod and tucked neatly away behind the left-hand curtain, ready for operation, and Wallace was sitting beside it in an attitude of conscious alertness, sweating like a coal-miner. “So what’s new, Wallace?”

  “Nothing, sir. Except that bird downstairs has changed her clothes three times already.”

  Wallace’s overheated condition was thus readily explained. “How many times have I got to tell you, Edgar—”

  Jackson broke off, dispiritedly. After all you’re only young, he thought, once, or at any rate all the available corpus derelicti would appear to lead to such a conclusion. And when he was pounding the beat as a youthful wally, of course, these modern methods of surveillance … “Got it all on the video film, I hope?”

  “Yessir. You never know,” Wallace said unctuously, “what may not come in useful at some future point in the investigation. Leastwise, that’s what—”

  “Yes, yes, spare me the lecture.” Jackson sank down heavily onto a wooden chair, a hard wooden chair; no relaxation was permissible on surveillance duty. “I’ve already had the London boys round my neck this morning, letting me know what’s what, and I’m just about chokker. So there.”

  He was worried, too, but there was no point in revealing as much to Wallace or, indeed, to anyone else. The Supe had made it abundantly clear to him that, where the Specials were concerned, his was but to do or die and, since there didn’t seem to be much that he could do, his options were, you might say, uncomfortably limited.

  “Who takes over from you, then?”

  “Detective-Sergeant Box does, sir.” Wallace glanced down at his wrist-watch, a recent birthday present from a grateful nark. “Not due for another couple of hours, though.”

  Jackson was relieved to hear it. Wallace was no doubt a likely lad or might, with some considerable effort of the imagination, be deemed to be so, but the way things were shaping it would be highly desirable to have a competent and thoroughly experienced officer at the helm when the joint, as the great Fats Waller might have put it, started jumping. If in fact they had Foxy Boxy instead, well, that just went to show how bad the manpower shortage was these days. “No sign of the Subject, I take it?”

  “The Subject showed himself briefly at the window for a minute or so,” Wallace gabbled informatively, “just over half an hour back. Seemed to be taking an interest in the garridge, or maybe getting himself a breath of fresh air. It’s bloody hot today.”

  “I’d noticed.”

  … All right if you could sit around in a nice cool Hawaiian shirt and pink cotton slacks, like that Smith character. Okay, Special Branch officers weren’t supposed to look like cops and Smith most certainly didn’t; Jackson, a fair-minded fellow, was prepared to concede him that. But then he didn’t act much like a policeman, either. Ethics-wise. Well, you could easy get into bad habits up there in the Smoke, it was more like a war there, from what you heard, with the Judge’s Rules among the first casualties. You got your results and no one asked how. But it had never been like that in dear old Cardiff, not up to now. What it all boils down to, Jackson thought gloomily, is, he’s setting up Kate as a patsy. And she’s one of us. One of our pathologists, anyway, and a good one, too. Not only that, she’s a friend. It isn’t right, even if in a way she’s stepping out of line. It was true that quite a few cops who’d been stepping out of line had come in for the cosh lately, but that was different. It’d been for perjury, manufacturing evidence, that sort of thing. And being cops, they’d known just what they were doing. Kate Coyle didn’t, or not in the same way. And for that very reason deserved some protection from the locals when the big city brass stuck their noses in. Or some kind of warning, at least.

  But Jackson had been given his own personal warning on that score. Not, of course, a direct instruction, but unequivocal, none the less. He wasn’t feeling at all happy about it.

  … In some part because
the whole thing was his damned fault. Again he saw in his mind’s eye the fat sagging body perched on that other hard wooden chair, heard in his mind’s ear (well, why not?) the high, petulant voice with the untraceable accent … It had seemed very much like a promising shout but even at the time Jackson had sensed the possibility of unfortunate repercussions, the kind of complications that always arise with drugs busts, with politicals, with situations where other people have to be informed and invariably carve themselves a piece of the action … There were more and more such situations nowadays, Jackson thought sadly, what with the racial discrimination thing and what with juvenile delinquent becoming a virtual tautology and all these unemployment statistics which he (Detective-Inspector Jackson) wasn’t especially desirous to augment, on account of his having a wife and family to support, but so had a lot of other cops who’d lately got the boot and worse, so it clearly behove? behooved? behoovered? him to be careful, especially while those buggers from the Special were breathing down his neck.

  No, Jackson wasn’t happy, not at all, and next time that old bastard Dai Dymond wanted to do his caged-canary act someone else could go along and listen to him sing. Jacko blamed himself, he did. And besides … cops don’t just have feelings, they have intuitions as well. Based on past experiences, maybe, but intuitions for all that, and Jacko was getting some bad vibes on this one. Nothing you could put your finger on, of course, but … preammunitions of disaster for all that. The Judge’s Rules are one thing, Murphy’s Law is another; Dim Smith and that other blue-chinned bastard might choose to ignore the one, but they’d ignore the supra-Papal infallibility of the great Murphy at their peril, since its universal applicability weighs down on policeman and civilian alike. Smith and Wallace, Kate and Kevin Coyle, he himself and even Professor Dobie (though he shuddered at the thought) might before long find themselves all involved in some truly monumental cock-up of Channel Tunnel proportions, some hideous snafu of ramifications so far-reaching as possibly even to implicate – maybe even mildly to inconvenience – the Subject and others of the criminal element, though that, certainly, might well be too much to hope for. Jackson, a dark-suited Cassandra, stared blindly out of the open window and gloomed away like he was waiting for Godot, which in a certain sense perhaps he was. What he definitely wasn’t was optimistic.

  Wallace, too, went on looking out of the window but in an altogether more alert and hopeful attitude, reckoning that before long and if his luck held he’d be getting another glimpse of that blackhaired bird’s lemon-yellow tanga panties. Not too bad an assignment, this one, really. Bit of all right, that scrubber was. Cor.

  5

  Dobie, of course, had little use for such quaintly antediluvian modes of communication as the telephone. His faithful computer stood at all times ready at the end of a chain of hungrily slavering modems, alert to receive such messages as the INTERGIT system might at any time of day or night direct Dobiewards, snapping them up one-handed like Godfrey Evans behind the stumps and supplying his master instantly with an inkjet printout. Provided, of course, that said master had remembered to leave the modem in an operative mode, which said master didn’t always do.

  On this occasion, however, everything was functional, enabling the computer to strut its funky stuff and burst forth with a perforated stub of continuity sheet upon which an e-mail missive had neatly been inscribed. It was, Dobie saw as soon as he had detached it, brief and to the point. It said,

  (10U&l0L&l0O&l2a0L(10U(sp10h12vsb3T(s2Q&l2a0L*p318Y*p375Xhe*p492Xon*p759Xof*p846X&d1Dryn&d@,*p1203Xif*p1290Xit*p1377Xbe*p1464Xed*p1701Xtg*p1968Xat*p2055Xal,*p322Y*p379X*p496Xon*p763Xo*p850Xn,*p1207Xif*p1294Xit*p1381Xbe*p1468Xed*p1705Xtn*p1972Xt*p2059X,*p368Y*p225Xmut*p409Ximpl*p623Xg*p956X&d1Dal&d@>

  … Dobie, being a mathematical genius, was in no way puzzled by this communication. Not even for a moment. He could see at once that no sense whatsoever could possibly be derived from it. Some kind of a glitch in the transmission, maybe, unless the oojahcumspiff was out of whack. Nothing more likely. Though there was, of course, an alternative explanation. He knew in any case who the communication, such as it was, was from; Bill Campbell, who else? – his erstwhile colleague at MIT. Bill was in trouble with the top brass, too, on the delicate issue of the Dobie Paradox, and recent developments Stateside had suggested that the trouble might indeed be very serious. A brashly aggressive fellow, Bill, but he and Dobie had always got on fine; Dobie had in fact had little difficulty in getting on well with Americans generally. He’d enjoyed his spell at MIT.

  Sometimes indeed (like now) he wished he’d stayed there. He might have done if the Star Wars programme hadn’t even in those days loomed in the offing. Dobie hadn’t wanted to be involved with the Star Wars programme because he didn’t see how it could work. Work, that is, in the way intended. So he’d come back to Cardiff, not (as his letter of resignation had said) without regret. Yes, but then if he hadn’t come back, he’d never have got to meet Kate, who had to be accounted one of the few unquestionable Good Things to have come his way lately. While she was around, Dobie considered, the sidereal firmament might go and get stuffed. The Earth was a perfectly satisfactory environment for him and for Kate, too, or appeared to be, especially that part of its superficie known as number twelve, Ludlow Road. The doorbell of which, by the way, appeared to be ringing. Dobie, shaking his head sadly, clumped down the stairs to answer it.

  The call would be for Kate, of course. It always was. But she wasn’t in and hadn’t been all day, a fact that devoided number twelve, Ludlow Road, of much of its charm. But then its agreeable sequestration had of late been invaded, not of course by bug-eyed Venusian bodysnatchers but by that Kevin fellow. Which was worse. And Kate, in consequence, was today in a high old state of nerves. It was fortunate that Dobie in these difficult circumstances had been able to preserve his customary state of calm placidity. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he shrieked in a high falsetto, tripping adroitly over his own feet as the doorbell sounded again and saving himself with a hurried clutch at the banister rail. An emergency case, no doubt. Some woman about to have a baby on the front doorstep. Oh well, it was that sort of a day.

  However, the young woman standing on the doorstep was clearly in no such parlous a condition. The acrylic red-and-yellow bodysuit with the blue bell-bottoms that she was wearing (Gianni Versace, $2600, Olly being concerned on this occasion to let the guy have it with both barrels) made that sufficiently obvious, even to Dobie. “Ah?” Dobie said. Goggling.

  “Mister Dobie in?”

  “Smee.”

  “Daily Snipe.”

  Dobie recovered some of his poise and most of his normal cordiality. “Nice to meet you, Daly. Please come in.”

  Olly did so.

  “My name ain’t Daly. It’s Olly.”

  “Oh I see. Olly Snipe. I’m afraid I’m not … very good at names …” Dobie waved her towards the palatial comforts of Kate’s consulting room and into a dilapidated armchair. He didn’t entertain unexpected guests very often – well, almost never – but this was almost the only place where he could do it, in case of need. He took a seat behind the desk and beamed at his visitor vaguely. Olly stared back at him, petrified by the stony stare of those cold grey killer’s eyes and aware of a surge of delectable terror coursing through her body from plunging neckline to flared trouser-bottoms. “My name ain’t Snipe, neither. I’m on the Snipe.”

  The icy eyes surveyed her unblinkingly. Indeed, uncomprehendingly, one might have thought. Giving nothing away, that was for sure. A real cool dude. And hey, this guy had to have invented grunge … She shook her head admiringly. Some kind of a hairy old sports coat from the goddam nineteen fifties, gravy-stained cricket flannels secured at the waist with a piece of string, and – wow, a real stroke of genius! … Hush Puppies, man! with one lace left trendily unfastened! Tom Wolfe left standing at the starting post!! This guy was so far out he was scarcely there!!!!

  Kate, who could have told her much the same thing, had left some kind
of surgical implement on the table beside the desk, some sort of a … sharp thing with a shiny blade … Dobie picked it up absent-mindedly and started to cut little doodles of paper out of the notepad in front of him. Olly’s eyes widened perceptibly. Unless she played this right, she was about to end up in this dude’s fucking refrigerator, no doubt about it. Dobie was in fact at that moment pondering upon the significance of her last utterance and regretting his lack of familiarity with contemporary slang. On the Snipe? … Snipe? … Snipe? … It was almost as bad as his latest despatch of e-mail. All the same … he clearly had to say something …

  “It’s painful, perhaps?” he hazarded.

  “What is?”

  “The, er … ailment?”

  Olly laughed bravely. “Hey, I don’t want no operation performed on … It ain’t nothin’ like that. No, I’m here about a contract, see.”

  This whole thing was getting … But some vague memory was stirring now in the mists at the back of Dobie’s brain. “A contract? You don’t mean the Dutch job?”

  “Well, I …”

  “You’re from the Hog?”

  Certainly the Snipe’s Managing Editor might with no great injustice be so described. It was far more likely, though, that some sinister figure of the local underworld bore this uncomplimentary appellation in which case, Olly thought, it might be prudent for her to go along with this suggestion. “Yeah,” she said. “He sends his regards,” she added.

  “He does? Who does?”

  His steel-grey eyes assess me coldly, as though measuring me for a coffin. I’m sitting across the desk from him in a quiet little room in a Cardiff back-street and we’re discussing a topic of mutual interest …

  MURDER …

  Had Olly been less intent on turning the substance of this interview to immediate and singularly inept journalese she would have realised that Dobie was merely goggling at, or into, her neckline with the expression of a mathematician to whom the advantages of living in a three-dimensional universe have been made convincingly manifest. Some very interesting tactile shifts seemed to be taking place down there and Dobie was observing them acutely. “I seem to remember … Van den something, wasn’t it?”