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did you have in mind?” I asked.
    â€œThe kind of stuff I don’t do. Major armed robbery, mainly. A hit, maybe.”
    I began to wish I had the sense not to ask questions I wasn’t going to like the answers to. “What about drugs?”
    He shrugged. “Not the first thing that would spring to mind. But then, I don’t hang out with scum like that, do I? At a guess, it’d only be worth doing if you were shifting a parcel of drugs a reasonable distance between two major players. Say, from London to Manchester. Otherwise there’d be so many cars running around with trade plates that even the coppers would notice. Also, trade plates are ten a penny on the motorway. Whereas brand new motors with or without trade plates stick out like a sore thumb on the council estates where most of the drugs get shifted. You want to get a pull these days, you just have to park up in Moss Side in anything that isn’t old enough to need an MOT,” he added bitterly.
    â€œWhat would you say if I told you there were a couple of kilos of crack in the boot of this car?”
    Dennis got to his feet. “Nice chatting to you, Kate. Be seeing you. That’s what I’d say.”
    I pulled a face and stood up too. “Thanks, Dennis.”
    Dennis put a warm hand on my wrist and gripped it tightly enough for me not to think about pulling away. “I’ve never been more serious, Kate. Steer clear of them toerags. They’d eat me for
breakfast. They wouldn’t even notice you as they swallowed. Give this one the Spanish Archer.”
    â€œThe Spanish Archer?” This was a new one on me.
    â€œEl Bow.”
    I smiled. “I’ll be careful. I promise.” I thought I’d grown out of promising what I can’t deliver. Obviously I was wrong.

6
    I walked into the office to find my partner Bill looming over Shelley like a scene from The Jungle Book . Bill is big, blond and shaggy, the antithesis of Shelley, petite, black and immaculately groomed right down to the tips of her perfectly plaited hair. He looked up and stopped speaking in mid-sentence, finger pointing at something on Shelley’s screen.
    â€œKate, Kate, Kate,” he boomed, moving across the room to envelop me in the kind of hug that makes me feel like a little girl. Usually I fight my way out, but this morning it was good to feel safe for a moment, even if it was only an illusion. With one hand, Bill patted my back, with the other he rumpled my hair. Eventually, he released me. “Shelley filled me in. I was just going to phone you,” he said, walking over to the coffee machine and busying himself making me a cappuccino. “This business with Richard. What do you want me to do?”
    On paper, Bill might be the senior partner of Mortensen and Brannigan. In practice, when either of us is involved in a major case and needs help from the other, there’s never any question of the gofer role going to me just because I’m the junior. Whoever started the ball rolling stays the boss. And in this instance, since it was my lover who was in the shit, it was my case.
    I took the frothy coffee he handed me and slumped into one of the clients’ chairs. “I don’t know what you can do,” I said. “We’ve got to find out who stole the car, who the drugs belong to and to make out a strong enough case against them for the police to realize they’ve made a cock-up. Otherwise Richard stays in the nick and we sit back and wait for the slaughter of the innocents.”
    Bill sat down opposite me. “Shelley,” he said over his shoulder,
“stick the answering machine on, grab yourself an espresso and come and give us the benefit of your thoughts. We need every brain we’ve got working on this one.”
    Shelley didn’t need telling twice. She sat down, the inevitable notepad on her knee. Bill leaned back and linked his hands behind his head. “Right,” he