Read Online Blood Brothers by Patricia Hall - Free Book Online

driver trying to inch past. He swung into the driving seat and glanced at her briefly.
    ‘I love you when you get mad,’ he said, and raised a faint smile. ‘Come on, I’ll take you to a very nice Italian I know in Charlotte Street, far enough from the nick and all its works for no one to see us. Will that suit?’
    Kate nodded. ‘Are all men as impossible as you?’ she asked, but had to be satisfied with an only marginally shamefaced grin in reply as he weaved the car through the narrow streets of Soho to cross Oxford Street and park eventually outside a bustling restaurant, on a corner which looked as if it was serving food on at least three floors of a tall building.
    ‘This place is supposed to be authentic Neapolitan,’ he said. ‘Their speciality is pizza. Have you ever had pizza?’ Kate shook her head and Barnard laughed. ‘It’s another world up there in the north, isn’t it? No wonder all these Liverpool bands head down south as quickly as they can.’
    Kate pulled a wry face but did not have the heart to argue.
    He quickly locked the car and led her into the restaurant where they were soon seated in a small alcove away from the window and faced with a menu listing eighteen different varieties of the mysterious pizza which Kate studied in wonderment. She watched a waiter carrying plates to a neighbouring table.
    ‘Is that it?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s like a pastry base, a bit like bread, and then they put all these different toppings on top. You just choose what you like best,’ Barnard explained.
    After they had painstakingly ordered their toppings and Barnard had poured her a glass of wine out of a raffia-encased bottle, Kate waited for a moment before picking up her glass, saying nothing.
    ‘So how was your visit to the
Globe
?’ Barnard asked at last.
    Kate shrugged. ‘Interesting, but the picture editor wasn’t interested in me. I was a woman – or a girl, as he would put it. But I did get something out of it. I’m going to work with Carter Price taking some pictures he wants on his own account. Ken has agreed I can help him. It will be good experience.’
    ‘With that fat creep?’ Barnard said. ‘I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him.’
    ‘That’s because you don’t like crime reporters,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway it’s only a temporary arrangement. He’s doing some investigating that he doesn’t want the picture desk to know about until he’s got a bit further with it. It shouldn’t take long.’
    Barnard took a long swig of his wine and lit a cigarette, looking stormy and Kate offered her sweetest smile.
    ‘Come on. I work for Ken, not you. It’ll be OK. So, stop all this avoiding the issue. Tell me what’s going on with you and why you were late.’
    ‘Ah, it’s a long story,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘We’ve had a visit at the nick from the top brass who seem to think we’re doing a lousy job, especially in Soho. So they’ve drafted in an extra detective sergeant who’s supposed to be keeping an eye out for infringements of the rules. The problem is he’s a bit of a thug with a reputation for bending the rules himself. My job this afternoon was to give him a guided tour round my patch. I can’t say many of my contacts greeted him with much enthusiasm. I think his reputation had travelled ahead of him. It’s hardly surprising. He was all over the
Globe
and the rest not long ago.’
    ‘What has he been up to?’ Kate asked.
    ‘He’s a bit free with his fists. If a suspect won’t talk he likes to help him to see it our way with a bit more than a few slaps. He worked for the City of London police, so I’ve not met him personally before, but there was one case where he was lucky not to end up in the dock himself. A suspect died in his cell after a session with Copeland. Somehow they got a verdict of misadventure at the inquest and nothing more was done about it but I’m sure that’s why he’s moved on to the Met. I reckon he was pushed out and the