Closer Than Blood: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

“Thank you, John. Can I do anything to help?”

“Yeah, you can bugger off and leave me to do my job. You know I don’t like people coming to the flat, especially people who are so well known. Next time, just call, yeah?”

“Sure.” I stood and shook his hand. “Thanks again.”

“Yeah.”

I left, moving quickly so that I wouldn’t be spotted near Coop’s flat. He had a point. Every visit to his home was a risk but what I was asking needed to be done face to face.

I walked up to Western Road, enveloping myself in the comfortable anonymity of the early morning rush. The streets thronged with buses and taxis as I walked by just-opening shops and down through Churchill Square and then North Street towards the nick.

The day promised to be hot, the sun already warm enough that I slung my jacket over one arm. Seagulls wheeled overhead, crying like lost souls in search of absolution.

In the light of day, the events of the night before seemed unreal, like something out of a John Woo movie instead of something that had actually happened in sleepy Woodingdean. Brighton and its surrounds had stabbings and drug deals galore, but armed men charging around taking pot-shots at people? Not so much.

I felt the familiar excited tingle begin to build as I tried to work out who these men might be. I’ve always loved a puzzle, loved piecing together the small pieces of intel that passed through DIU, sticking them together with hunches and guesswork until you had enough of the picture to work it out. It was what I was made for, and I picked up the pace as I headed towards work, keen to get in and start poking the ants’ nest that was the Brighton underworld to see what might spill out.

Chapter 11 (#ulink_8d4b58ca-960e-581d-bbff-4344a8882413)

The office was a hive of activity, officers and analysts in casual clothes chatting over tatty brown desk-dividers as they worked.

DIU was at the back of the police station on the first floor. One set of windows overlooked the roof of the courthouse and the sea beyond, the other a car park where police vehicles sat waiting, sunlight glinting off reflective markings and silver bodywork.

The buzz of conversation dipped slightly as I walked in, people looking at me expectantly. Perhaps, I thought wryly, wondering if I was about to go off the rails again and drag them all down with me.

I reached my desk and turned, remaining standing as I caught eye after eye until the noise reduced to a muted buzz.

“Listen in!” I called, and the sudden silence was deafening. “You’ve all no doubt heard about what happened yesterday, or at least a version of it, so let me be blunt. My brother, Jake, is out there somewhere with a bag full of stolen cocaine and some nasty bastards looking for him. They put three of our colleagues and two paramedics in hospital last night, and the Chief Super wants us to find him before they do. I want every single one of you to keep your ears to the ground. Speak to your sources, check your intel, go and walk the streets and talk to every single beggar and shoplifter you can find if you have to. Jake is arrestable for possession of cocaine, so if you see him then by all means, nick him. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull a still image off the marina CCTV from yesterday?” I paused and saw Phil Blunt nod. “Good. Make sure you all get a copy. He looks like me only not quite as handsome.” This got a few chuckles.

“Does it need to be an armed stop if we locate him?” Jane asked from her seat next to Phil.

“No,” I replied. “Unless you see anyone in close proximity who might be following him. Or if you get solid intel or sight on the people looking for him. No approaches to any suspects are to be made until they’ve been risk assessed and signed off. Follow if you can, but the moment you get clocked you turn and run. Clear?” Everyone nodded. “Good. OK people, let’s get out there and find my arsehole of a brother before he gets himself killed.”

The chatter of conversation returned as people went to their tasks. I waved my team into the Inspector’s office. He tended to go straight to the morning meeting when he got in, giving us a good couple of hours to use his office as we pleased.

My usual team consisted of Phil Blunt, Jane Finchley, the ever-excitable Tom Shepherd and the Barry’s, Barry Mason and Barry Everett. If we had a big job on, like we had the day before, I ‘borrowed’ other officers from the unit, but this was my core team, my direct reports.

“Morning all. What have we got?”

“Simmonds has been released from custody,” Phil replied, leafing through a file he’d brought in with him. He was, I noticed, wearing knee length shorts that not only clashed with his check shirt, but were also a big no-no as far as the command team were concerned. You could look as scruffy as you liked in our particular corner of the job, but show your knees? That was asking for trouble. “We were holding him on money laundering, but we’ve had to bail him until we can prove the money is hooky.”

“That’s for CID to worry about,” I said bluntly, “we’ve got bigger fish to fry now. Phil, you link in with Major Crimes, see if they got anything from the witnesses to the ambulance attack last night. I know we’re looking for Jake, not the gunmen, but too much intel never hurt anyone. And put some fucking jeans on, your legs are so white you’ll show out from a mile off.”

He nodded with a grin as I turned to the next officer.

“Tom, I want you out on the streets. Take Jake’s picture, and show it to anyone and everyone who might have seen him. Beggars, users, Big Issue sellers, I don’t care. Just find someone who’s seen him.”

“Yes, Sarge,” Tom sighed.

“Problem?” I asked before he could turn away. He hesitated, still young enough in service to be unsure whether or not to speak his mind, then shrugged.

“I was just hoping to get in on the action,” he said, looking at me from underneath his eyebrows as if expecting me to bite. “This all seems a bit …”

“Like proper intelligence work? Tom, it can’t all be Follows and car chases, mate. This is the real bread and butter of what we do, you know that. You want more adrenaline, go join LST,” I replied, more gently than I probably should have done. Tom was a nice lad, maybe too nice, despite his love of getting stuck in, and everyone but him knew he wasn’t really cut out for a career in intelligence. “Just get it done, yeah?”

Tom nodded, face glum, then followed Phil out as I continued speaking.

“Jane, I want you and Barry M to do house-to-house in the area where my car was recovered. See if anyone saw Jake when he dumped it. It’s a long shot, but it might turn something up.”

“Will do,” Jane confirmed, standing. “I’ll get one of the analysts to run a search on ANPR and known privately-owned CCTV in the area too.”

They filed out, leaving me with Barry Everett.

“Where does that leave us?” he asked, rubbing a hand over his bald head to wick away the sweat that was already forming.

“Trying to find out how Simmonds made contact with Jake in the first place. I’d ask Simmonds himself, but he won’t tell us shit.”

Barry nodded, donning his trademark brown leather jacket despite the heat.

We left the office, stopping only to grab our bags and a set of car keys. The bags contained what we referred to as our ‘fighting kit’; baton, spray and cuffs. Regulations stated that we should have them on us at all times while on duty, but I’ve never yet found a way to hide them effectively without tell-tale bulges all over the place. And that can be more dangerous in our little niche part of police work than being unarmed.

“How’s your dad?” Barry asked as we headed down into the bowels of the station.

“Dying,” I said, too harshly, then shook my head and softened my tone. “Sorry, that was rude, but he is. The docs gave him three months to live when he first got diagnosed, but here we are seven weeks later and they give him a week at the outside.”

“You know no one would blame you if you took time off to be with him, right?” Barry’s voice was soft, echoing gently as we passed through the locker room and down the steps into the underground car park.

“He would.” I barked a laugh. “He made me promise to find Jake and keep him safe.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Keeping Jake safe is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling. It’s impossible, and you get covered in shit if you try. Still, it makes a nice change to be pulled in the same direction by Dad’s wishes and the Chief Super. Not sure what I’d do if I’d been ordered off the case instead.”

“Best not to think about it. Who’s driving?”

“I am,” I said and hurried to the driver’s door. Barry was an excellent officer, but a good driver he was not.

As my allocated vehicle was still on its way back from wherever Jake had left it, presumably via a forensics team, I’d taken the keys to one of the pool vehicles, a beaten-up old Vauxhall Corsa that had been ragged to hell and back.

“So where first?” Barry asked as we pulled out of the car park and onto William Street, the engine sounding more like a Land Rover than a Corsa.

“Whitehawk,” I replied, referring to the poverty-stricken council estate on the east edge of the city. “And you’d better keep your fighting kit handy, because this could get messy.”

Chapter 12 (#ulink_09e35a29-27b1-5356-bd88-f4b3dd0ba57b)

The Baker family were a legend in the City’s criminal underworld.

They bred like rabbits, and out of the seven brothers that made up this generation’s crop, at least three were usually in prison at any one time.