wanted an experienced investigator. Someone local, with decent inside knowledge. Someone who could pull the right levers, if need be, with the local police.â
âIâm flattered,â Brennan said. âThough Iâm not sure youâve got the right man. If I pull any levers at the moment, itâs likely just to bring a bucket of crap down on my head. Iâm not exactly flavour of the month.â
âTheyâll forgive you soon enough once youâre not under their feet as a permanent fucking reminder.â Salter leaned back in his chair and watched Brennan carefully. âI think weâve got full-scale fucking gang warfare going on here. Boyleâs taking out or warning off all his competition, one by one, step by step. Itâs diverse enough that it slips under the radar of you local plods â here, North Wales, Derbyshire, wherever the hell it is. But itâs targeted so that no one on the receiving end of it will have much doubt what it means. And as an added bonus heâs settling a few old scores on the way.â
âWhat about Kenning? The grass. He wasnât competition.â
âYou reckon? Word was that Kenning didnât turn Queenâs evidence out of the goodness of his heart, but because heâd been promised a nice little nest-egg by someone who wanted to corner the market.â
âI saw the place he was living,â Brennan countered. âMust have been a fucking small nest-egg.â
âItâs a sad world. People donât always deliver on their promises. One of our dirty little secrets. That the life of a superannuated supergrass isnât all itâs cracked up to be.â Salter pushed back his chair and stood up, in the manner of one indicating that the meeting was coming to an end. âSo. You game for it?â
âIâm still not entirely clear what
it
is,â Brennan said.
âWeâre trying to build a case against Boyle. Itâs been a slow process. Not least because we fucked up so spectacularly last time. So this time we want to do it absolutely by the book. I want you to act as evidence officer. Work through what weâve got. See if it stacks up. Tell us where the gaps are and what we need to do to fill them. I can give you some intelligence resource from my team, though not much. Weâll give you authorisation to work with the local plods, so you can finagle any information you can from them. Though good luck with that.â
âIâm an experienced investigator. But Iâve not worked in your environment before. You must have people around whoâve got more of a track record in that kind of work.â
Salter nodded, smiling, as if this was a question that heâd been waiting for. âMaybe. But weâre stretched to the fucking limit. Iâve a national team, trying to juggle major operations from here to sodding Portsmouth. Half my lot are so wet behind the ears theyâve barely been weaned, and most of the other half are the kinds of alcoholics and deadbeats who couldnât swing a return back to proper policing. Iâve got a clutch of officers working undercover that Iâm not even supposed to talk about. And Iâm not even based up here. I spend half my life stuck in the fucking ivory tower in Westminster filling in forms and writing reports so my superiors can prove to the politicians that weâre not squandering their tax money on liaison trips to the fucking Bahamas, or whatever it is that they think we do when theyâre not looking.â He paused and took a breath. It sounded like a prepared speech, or at least a speech that Salter had delivered before. âThatâs why I need someone like you, up here, who can get some real nitty-gritty work done.â
Brennan pulled the wallet of papers back towards him. âOkay. Iâll give it a shot.â He looked up at Salter, with what looked like genuine amusement on his face.
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