The Devil You Know

Supercop James was standing just inside the door, steeling himself to tackle me as soon as I came in. He went straight for the jugular, predictably enough. “I’m assuming you came over to apologize,” he snarled. “For your sake, I hope that’s why you’re here.”

I was too tired for games. “No,” I told him, “you’re not assuming that at all. You’re assuming I came here to blackmail you. You’re hoping you can buy me off cheap or scare me into changing my mind.”

His eyes widened by an infinitesimal fraction, and his lips parted to show his clenched teeth. He was wound up very tight indeed—tight enough so that he might even break, without careful handling. But I didn’t know him well enough to tailor my approach to his tender sensibilities, so I gave it to him straight.

“You’re right,” I told him. “This is a shakedown. But contrary to everything you’ve ever been told about blackmailers, if you give me what I want, I’ll go away and leave you alone. And it’s not money, it’s just information. I want you to pull some police records for me. Three, to be precise. Do you think you can do that?”

Dodson gave a short laugh that sounded like it must have hurt coming out.

“Just information? You want me to steal files from the Met? Go against everything my job is about? Can you think of a single good reason why I shouldn’t punch you in the mouth for resisting arrest, and then arrest you?”

I nodded stonily. “Yeah,” I said. “Just the one. Davey Simmons. According to all the newspaper reports I could get my hands on, he asphyxiated after inhaling a cocktail of superglue and antifreeze from a plastic ASDA bag. Not a nice way to go.”

The color drained out of Dodson’s face, leaving it gray and slightly glistening, like wet cement. He sat down in the black leather office chair. I could tell he was staring death in the face. Not his own death—he looked as though he could probably have coped with that a fair bit better—but someone else’s. “Davey Simmons was a human train wreck,” he said without conviction.

“Yeah. I read that, too. Broken home, in and out of trouble, psychiatric problems, couple of convictions. But the police thought it was a bloody odd setup, all the same. Did any of your mates ever talk over the finer points of it with you?”

Dodson shot me a look full of hate. “No,” he said tightly. “They didn’t.”

“You see, there was glue in his hair. And on his right cheek. It was as though the bag had been held over his whole head, rather than just over his mouth and nose—which I believe is the preferred mode of delivery for fans of recreational Bostick. The bruises on his wrists got them thinking, too. Could someone have held him down and shoved a bag over his head, then held it there until he died? That’d be a pretty shitty thing to do to someone, wouldn’t it?”

There was a long silence, tense at first, but becoming slacker as Dodson’s fury surrendered to despair. “It was a joke,” he muttered, almost too low to hear.

“Yeah?” I said unsympathetically. “What’s the punch line?”

Dodson didn’t seem to hear. “Peter and his friends found . . . Simmons . . . in a toilet cubicle. He’d mixed the stuff up in the bag, and he was already inhaling it. They wanted to scare him. For a joke. Maybe teach him a lesson.”

I let the silence lie for a bit longer this time. Then I put the little sheaf of paper I’d got from Nicky down on the desk in front of him. He stared at it dully.

“These three,” I said, pointing. “The ones I’ve gone over in highlighter. They’re the only ones I’m interested in. I want autopsy reports, witness statements, and anything else you can lay your hands on. By tonight.”

He shook his head. “Impossible,” he said. “That amount of material—” Then he started to read the stuff and shook his head again, even more emphatically. “I’m not in Murder anymore. I don’t have access to any of this stuff.”

“I’m sure you can call in some favors from old friends, you being a big man in SOCA these days. And photocopies will be fine. Hell, at a pinch, even a disk will be fine. Just get me the stuff, and then we can walk out of each other’s lives again. For good, this time.”

I took a step toward the door. Dodson came jerkily to his feet. His arm shot out and he blocked me, stepped in close, and stared down at me from his full, imposing height.

“Peter didn’t mean for the boy to die,” he said with a menacing emphasis. “You understand me?”

“I wouldn’t have an opinion about that,” I said evenly, meeting his wide-eyed stare with a narrower one of my own.

“I’ve already punished him. I think his own guilt would have been enough, but I’ve grounded him for the rest of the school term, and I’ve canceled a holiday we had planned in Switzerland. It’s not as though I just let this pass. It’s not as though he doesn’t understand what he’s done.”

“Davey Simmons is dead,” I said in the same level tone. “So fuck you and the squad car you rode in on.”

I thought Dodson was going to hit me, but he just let his arms drop to his sides and looked away.

“Tonight,” he said.

“Yeah.”