Turnstone Read Free Page A

women who wanted to trade information for cash, or revenge, or any of the thousand other reasons they’d pick up the phone or pass the word. Now, though, the handling of informants had become as complicated and bureaucratic as everything else in the force. You had to fill out dozens of forms, get witnessed receipts, pull your poor bloody grass through a receiving line of accountants, and line-managers, and God knows who else before he got a chance to squirt a confidence or two your way. That, in Winter’s opinion, was a criminal waste of a prime CID asset. In Portsmouth, with its on going tribal feuds, informants were often the shortest cut to a result. Without informants, detectives like him were dead in the water. Hence his quiet determination to carry on running them the way he knew best. Meetings in pubs. Lots of pressure. And the promise of a quid or two if things worked out.
    By twenty past two, Juanita hadn’t showed. Halfway through the
Daily Telegraph
for the second time, winter was on the point of leaving when a small, squat figure in jeans and a leather jacket emerged from the restaurant. He must have had the longest lunch in history. Winter hadn’t seen him go in and there was no other exit from the conservatory area where the food was served. The pub was beginning to empty now and winter was about to fold his paper and head for the door when he realised who the diner was. The man was standing over his table, staring down at him. Money might have bought him a decent leather jacket but it couldn’t do anything for his tiny, lopsided face, or the two long razor scars that bisected his shorn scalp.
    He pulled out a chair and sat down.
    ‘Long time,’ he said, ‘no see.’
    Winter summoned a smile. Marty Harrison was the closest Portsmouth could offer to a big-time drug baron. According to the latest intelligence, he was wholesaling serious quantities of cocaine. He had supply lines of the stuff established from Liverpool, Manchester and London. He had a house in Puerto Banus, another somewhere in Northern Cyprus and a £340,000 motor yacht moored up at Port Solent. Even the Drugs Squad found it hard to get close to him, but narcotics had very definitely become the hottest ticket in town and nicking Marty Harrison was any detective’s wet dream – just one of the reasons winter was determined to win himself a posting to the squad before age and retirement caught up with him.
    ‘Marty.’ Winter gestured at his empty glass. ‘What can I get you?’
    Harrison ignored the offer. Years ago, he and Winter had had protracted dealings over a seizure of cannabis. Not a lot of money had been involved, and for months Harrison had resisted the idea of even talking to CID, but in the end, in return for certain information about a newcomer moving into heroin and cocaine, Winter had destroyed the file. Like most good deals, both parties had walked away happy – though Harrison had made a point of not talking to him since. Winter had occasionally wondered whether Harrison’s subsequent rise to fame and fortune hadn’t somehow dated from that moment. Other people’s success was like that. It made you feel cast off. And it made you feel envious.
    Now, with a chilling theatricality, Harrison put his hands on the table, bunching them into fists. He had huge hands, navy’s hands, and the skin of each finger between the first and second knuckle was tattooed with a single blue letter. The left hand read NOEL. The right, including the thumb, spelled BLAKE. Noel Blake was a legendary Pompey defender in the ’88 promotion-winning side, a towering centre-back who cut off visiting attackers at the knees. Marty, according to word on the street, did the same.
    Harrison studied winter a moment longer, then smiled.
    ‘Message from Juanita,’ he said simply. ‘Sorry to stand you up.’
    Winter did his best to look concerned.
    ‘Nothing serious, I hope.’
    ‘No, mate.’ Harrison shook his head. ‘Nothing a good dentist