137

Farmer was making progress on the small burned-down block in Clacton where once Donny Maguire had owned a flat. The occupants of the ground-floor apartment beneath Donny’s had now been identified as Michael and Samantha Jackson, and Farmer had a hunch that maybe they’d been rehomed in the tower block erected on the same site. He checked the electoral register on the QT and bingo! There they were. Flat sixteen.

He drove over there, this time being a bit more careful. One hiding was enough for anyone, so he took Pads with him, who was big enough to frighten off any incoming marauders.

‘Thought those bastards told you to let this drop though, sir?’ remarked Pads as Farmer parked the car.

‘They did,’ said Farmer. Truthfully, he wanted to get those arseholes and make them pay, but first he wanted to solve this fucking thing.

‘But you’re not,’ pointed out Pads. He was smiling. ‘They don’t know you, do they, boss? Tell Cory Farmer to drop something and he just digs his teeth in all the harder.’

Farmer looked at his DS. ‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘Could be fucking fatal if you’re not careful.’

Farmer patted his DS’s shoulder. ‘That’s what you’re here for, Pads. Let’s face it, you’d put the shits up Godzilla.’

They got out of the car and crossed the charmless concrete walkway. Kids twirled and shouted on mountain bikes, skidding close to the two cops. The wind gusted, scattering carrier bags and old drinks cartons. Inside, the situation wasn’t much better. Stark fluorescents shed a cold light down on graffiti-covered walls and the lift, when they stepped into it, smelled strongly of piss.

‘Christ, the places you bring me to,’ said Pads, trying not to inhale.

‘Sorry,’ said Farmer. Pads had a family waiting for him at home, this was really beyond the call of duty. It was late. It was cold. And it was just the boss, following another bloody hunch, clinging on to an idea when he really ought to let it go. Ten men like Paddy, Farmer thought, and he could rule the world.

The lift chugged its way unsteadily up to the fourth floor, then juddered to a standstill.

‘Well at least the damned thing’s working,’ said Farmer as they stepped out and started breathing again. They moved along an open walkway strewn with old pots full of dead plants, ducked under lines loaded with washing. Finally they came to the door of flat number sixteen.

Farmer knocked.

Then a man’s voice said: ‘Who is it?’

Farmer glanced at Pads. ‘Police, sir,’ he called out. ‘We want a word with a Mr Michael and a Mrs Samantha Jackson.’

There was the sound of bolts being thrown back, then the door opened and a large bald man with a squashed bulldog nose and a belligerent face somewhere in his forties stood there in a vest and tattered jeans, staring out at them. A blast of light and warm air hit them, and a blare of noise from a game show on the telly.