‘I’ve. . .’ A cough. ‘I kinda let Ton have the keys to a couple places we’re selling with vacant possession. You know, ones that haven’t shifted for over a year? He does a bit of business there.’

‘Until he ended up staked out and tortured to death in the Abernethy house.’

Cocker squeezed his knees together. ‘Nothing to do with me, I totally swear, I mean totally. I gave Ton the keys, he gave me a shed-load of weed. That’s it.’ He licked his lips and looked up at PC Sim. ‘Er. . . All for personal consumption, yeah? I wasn’t selling it or nothing.’

Logan tossed his notepad onto the desk, then followed it with a biro. ‘Addresses.’

He made a little whimpering noise.

Bit his lip.

Then picked up the pen and scribbled down half a dozen of them. ‘You got to promise not to tell Mr Willox, yeah? I mean, you know, it’s my job and he might . . . with the keys and everything? ’

Logan pointed at the notebook. ‘Sign it at the bottom. And date it.’

Cocker did. ‘And it don’t have to go any further, right? The other cop swore it’d be OK – you don’t have to drag me into it. She promised.’

Logan took his notebook back. ‘Other cop? ’

‘You know, yesterday? The woman with the curly hair and the boobs? She totally promised.’

He sat forward. ‘When yesterday? ’

‘Afternoon. . . About half three, maybe four? I gave her the addresses, and that was it.’

The leads she was chasing down. The ones she said were dead-ends when she came through to volunteer for soup-kitchen duty.

Cocker cleared his throat. ‘So, I can go now, right? Got to show a couple round a house. . .’

Chapter 46

46

‘A right sodding disaster.’ On the other end of the phone, Steel sounded as if she was chewing on a mouthful of wasps.

Logan leaned against the roof of his rusty Fiat, notebook open in front of him. ‘You’re the one gave the job to Ding-Dong.’

‘Two injured officers. Armed standoff. Hostages. Bloody press everywhere. . .’

‘What did I tell you? ’

‘Hostages! How can he screw up raiding a wee cannabis farm? Now it’s all Waco comes to Blackburn.’

‘Should’ve let me do it then, shouldn’t you? Now pay attention – I need you to get armed response units round to six houses. Have you got a pen? ’

‘Leith managed to raid his without anyone getting shot. . .’ She paused. ‘This isn’t more cannabis farms, is it? Because we got in enough trouble last time.’

Good question. ‘No idea. Anthony Chung got keys to a bunch of properties from a friend who works for an estate agent’s. Most of them are out in the sticks. That’s why we could never find out where he and Agnes were staying – they just moved from house to house.’