Closer Than Blood: An addictive and gripping crime thriller

“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.

Chapter 3 (#u0b0d2862-92c5-5237-b960-fad7aaa8c638)

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 take that bet, his solicitor is a devious little prick.”

“Then there’s this.” I held up my phone and replayed the audio I’d started recording in the car park while pretending to text on my phone. It was tinny, but you could clearly hear the conversation between Simmonds and Jake. I shut it off just at the part where I stood up.

Pike listened to it carefully, then shook his head.

“Still isn’t conclusive, ‘product’ could mean anything. What the hell were you thinking, showing out like that?”

“I wasn’t,” I said. “I know I blew it, but the second man. He was my brother.”

“Your brother is a drug dealer?” He eyed me suspiciously, no doubt wondering why he didn’t already know something that important.

“Actually, I thought he was dead. He disappeared years ago.” Even now the words intensified the ache in my gut. Rotten apple he might be, but he was still my brother and we’d been close as kids.

“Well he probably is now,” Pike said with his usual lack of tact. “But I guess that’s for PSD to sort out. Have they still got you on speed dial?”

PSD, or professional standards, are the British version of Internal Affairs. I’d had more than my fair share of run-ins with them, it was true, but I’d kept my nose clean for a long time now and Pike’s attitude was starting to rankle.

“I doubt it,” I said, trying not to rise to the bait. “Most of the people who were in PSD last time I was in trouble have probably retired by now. Was there anything else, sir? Only we’ve got a prisoner, and I need to debrief the team.”

Pike stared at me for a while, clearly trying to figure out how to push my buttons a little more effectively. He was always like this, snide comments and not-so-subtle digs designed to rouse my infamous temper. It might have worked ten years ago, but I was older now. A little wiser and despite my stalled career, very keen not to lose my job.

“Sir?”

“Fine.” Pike sighed. “Get your team debriefed and the prisoner handed over to uniform, then check in later. By then I’ll no doubt have a better idea of just how badly you fucked up.”

Burying an angry retort, I nodded and waved the team over. I moved far enough away until Pike was out of earshot, then looked at the expectant faces surrounding me.

“Firstly, I want to apologise,” I began, squaring my shoulders. “I screwed it up. For those of you who haven’t pieced it together by now, the man Simmonds was meeting was my brother. I won’t bore you with the reasons, but when I realised it was him it threw me. It was stupid and unprofessional and it blew months of our, your, hard work.”

One of the Barry’s shrugged and looked around at the others.

“We still get paid the same, right? Not like we’re on commission. Besides, Simmonds is in custody and we’ll get him for something. Seems to me like that’s still half a win.”

The others nodded and I felt more than a little relieved. The rest of the force could think whatever they wanted about me, but I needed the trust of my team or I had nothing.

“Thank you. I can promise you it won’t happen again. Now, who wants to take a trip up to custody to book Simmonds in and deal with the property? I don’t want to let that cash out of our sight until it’s locked away in the store. Barry, Jane, well volunteered.”