I pay what you’re asking, I’ll barely break even.”
“Then I’ll take my product somewhere else.” It was worse this time, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. It took every scrap of self-control I had not to stand up, stride towards them and pull back that hood to see the face hidden within.
“Alright, alright. How much can I get for what we originally agreed on?”
“Five kilos, I reckon. That way you’re only down one, we both make a bit and job’s a good’un.”
“Jake?” I stood up suddenly, a roaring sound in my ears. The world seemed to narrow to a single point as I began walking towards them.
Simmonds stared at me in alarm.
“Who the fuck is that?” he demanded, beginning to backpedal.
The man in the hood whipped around and his hood fell back. A face that I knew better than almost any other in the world. Eyes I had seen countless times before, that had watched me grow from a boy to a man before their owner disappeared. He looked shocked at first, then his sharp features dropped into a grin that was equal parts pleasure, guilt and chagrin.
“Gareth. Well fuck me. Simmonds, this is Gareth, my brother. Oh, and if I were you I’d run, because last I heard he was a copper too, and if he’s here it means they’re on to you.”
For a split second no one moved, then all of us burst into action at once.
Jake and I hadn’t seen each other since he’d disappeared so many years before, but that didn’t stop him from grabbing the rucksack and shoving his way past Simmonds, knocking the older man down, then sprinting towards the ramp on the far side of the car park.
“Runner!” I shouted over the radio, trying to recover from shock as my feet began to move after him of their own accord.
As I ran, I realised just how badly I’d screwed up. Instead of catching our target with a bag full of drugs, I’d disrupted the deal before the exchange could be made and now the evidence was being carried away by the brother I’d assumed had died of an overdose years before.
I heard Tom behind me, feet slapping on the concrete as he sprinted for Simmonds, but I was already out of sight and down the ramp before he reached the downed man.
I hit the bottom of the ramp at full speed, not far behind Jake as he ran for the exit barrier. Unit four, the Barry’s as we called them, was just coming through, but Jake must have pegged them for coppers and dived to his right and over the barrier, dropping ten feet to the road outside with barely a break in his stride.
I jumped after him, landing badly and feeling a twinge in my knee that I tried to ignore as he tore across the plaza in front of the Bowlplex and headed for the sea wall.
“Stop!” I yelled, but Jake didn’t even look back, instead picking up the pace. He’d always been a fast runner as a kid, and it seemed that years of drug abuse hadn’t slowed him any.
He reached the steps to the wall ten metres ahead of me, the nagging pain in my knee turning to stabs of molten fire as I pushed on, scattering people left and right. By the time I reached the top of the stairs his lead had doubled, but I knew there was nowhere for him to go so I eased up a little. I could see the Barry’s now, their bald heads bobbing as they climbed the steps on the far side, boxing Jake in.
“There’s nowhere to run, Jake,” I called, catching my breath, pushing past a couple out for a stroll. “Just give it up.”
Jake spun and his grin died as he spotted the Barry’s heading towards him. Looking around hurriedly, he leapt up onto the top of the wall, leaving nothing between him and the hard sea twenty metres below.
“You don’t understand, Gareth.”
“This I understand,” I countered. “What I don’t understand is you stealing from Dad and disappearing. We thought you were dead?”
A flicker of pain crossed my brother’s face at the mention of our dad. I edged closer. “You know he’s dying?”
“Dad?”
“Yeah. Cancer. He’s in a hospice. Days left at best. Come down off the wall and maybe we can go and see him together. He’d like that.”
“Sure he would.” I could hear the pain in his words, or maybe it was guilt. “I live in a different world now Gareth, and no matter how much of a shit I might be, I’m not bringing that to his door.”
I stepped towards the wall, ignoring the ring of worried-looking public that was forming to watch Jake’s antics. One man stepped forward to say something, but I flashed my badge at him and he backed off looking relieved.
“You know,” I said, striving for a conversational tone and not missing by too far, “that sea will be like concrete from this height. You hit that, you’re going to break your legs. Just come down, give me the bag and we can talk.”
“You never used to listen to me,” he said, shaking his head, “but take my advice this time – just for once. I’m fucked. I’m in deep with some very nasty people. You take what’s in this bag and I’m dead. Sorry, but I’ll take the chance of broken legs over a slit throat in a prison cell.”
“Don’t.”
I would have said more but without another word Jake jumped, arms and legs flailing as he plunged towards the water below. Someone in the crowd screamed, and I rushed to the wall in time to see him stretch into a surprisingly graceful dive, hitting the water with a splash so loud I could hear it from high above.
I waited for him to surface, not realising that I was holding my breath until my lungs began to burn, but even after the Barry’s reached me there was no sign. I couldn’t even begin to process how I felt, having found the brother I thought was dead only to lose him again in the space of moments. I was still standing there, staring out at the whitecaps racing towards the shore in the slowly fading sunlight when the lifeboats arrived, followed soon after by the chugging roar of a coastguard helicopter.
It wasn’t until my boss arrived, striding up the steps like fury personified, that I turned from the sea to face the storm of shit that was about to blow my way.
In my experience there are three types of people who make Inspector. Those who are good at the job and settle into it like a comfortable coat, those who hang around for a couple of years before being promoted, and finally those who have risen as far as they will ever go and so wield their modicum of power with an unpleasant intensity that burns anyone who challenges it. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but Toby Pike wasn’t one of them. Tall and thin with straw-coloured hair that stuck out at odd angles and wrapped in a long brown mac over his suit despite the clement weather, he looked like nothing so much as an angry scarecrow.
“What kind of fucked up operation do you think you’re running?” he demanded as we stood by his car, abandoned at the bottom of the steps to the marina wall. “My fucking nephew could run a better follow and he’s three!”
Unfortunately, in this case he was right.
“There were complications,” I admitted, “and yes, I fucked up.”
“Royally.” He scowled first at me, then at the team who hung back, unwilling to get too close in case they ended up sharing the outpouring of wrath. “What have we got, eh? Nothing, that’s what.”
“We’ve got Simmonds in custody.”
“For what?”
“Well, money laundering for a start. He had fifty grand in that backpack, and I’ll bet he can’t explain where it came from.”
“I’ll