Blood Substitute by Margaret Duffy

worked. Morley was de-briefed, went home to Bath, played in a rugger match the next day and was due to drive up to his parent’s place in Cumbria the following morning. He did not; he disappeared.’
    â€˜What was his brief?’ Patrick asked.
    â€˜I’ll have to fill you in with the background before I do that,’ Reece replied. ‘Can I get you some coffee first?’
    Patrick smiled. ‘Did I see a machine in the main office on our way through?’
    â€˜Yes, you did.’
    â€˜Then allow Ingrid and me to get you some.’
    Reece said nothing, but I detected a little surprise.
    There were four of them, busily engaged with computers, phones or files, but there was a slight pause in the proceedings when we walked in. One individual with red hair stopped what he was doing altogether, throwing down his pen, and subjected Patrick to an unfriendly stare, as he had at our first appearance.
    â€˜Is this a getting-to-know-the-lower-decks exercise then … sir?’ he asked, pointedly ignoring me.
    â€˜No,’ Patrick said as we circumnavigated a rucksack and a pile of outdoor clothing on the floor on our way to the coffee machine. ‘Right now it’s using four hands to fetch three coffees. Would anyone else like some?’
    â€˜No thanks,’ said the man, answering for all.
    â€˜There’s no need to call me sir; most SOCA people are given the rank of constable to enable them to arrest people. Patrick will do fine. This is my wife and working colleague, Ingrid. Was Cliff Morley a good chum of yours?’
    â€˜He was,’ the other man answered stonily. ‘A
very
good chum.’
    â€˜I shall value anything you might be able to tell me about him and what he was working on.’
    â€˜We don’t need outside help. We’re perfectly capable of finding the bastards ourselves.’
    â€˜You might need someone to out-Herod Herod,’ was all Patrick said, seemingly absently-mindedly, organizing polystyrene cups.
    â€˜Sergeant Cunningham’s taken Morley’s death very badly,’ Reece said on our return, having seen, but not heard, the exchange through the glass screen between the offices. ‘I sincerely hope he wasn’t offensive.’
    â€˜Not at all,’ Patrick replied. ‘I could tell he was upset when we first arrived. Is he closely involved on the same case as Morley?’
    â€˜No, he’s not working on that at all.’
    â€˜Nor now, on the investigation into his death?’
    â€˜No. I thought it best if he stayed right out of it.’
    â€˜I suggest you rope him in in some capacity. Let’s get all that grief and burning resentment properly channelled, shall we?’ Patrick opened his briefcase. ‘Now, please give us as much relevant information as you can.’
    He did not think of himself as a mere constable, obviously.
    â€˜This appears to be one of those cases where a bunch of urban thickoes with truckloads of form headed by a brainier version jump into a black BMW with tinted glass windows and head for a city in the provinces either because of disagreements or because home is too hot to stay in,’ Reece began urbanely. ‘These people are unknown to us and although the Met
think
the boss-man could be the brother-in-law of someone calling himself Ernie O’Malley, who runs his dirty little empire from a council flat in Walthamsden when he hasn’t given the Met the slip, there’s no proof. They seem to keep their heads down and play it respectable when they’re not actually breaking the law. I’ll be perfectly honest with you and admit that we haven’t yet made any progress in establishing who they are. It’s almost as though several neighbours from somewhere in the Smoke got bored, decided to rob a building society branch, realized that the life was for them and took it from there. It’s that incomprehensible. But they mean business. One of them, or