Dark Side by Margaret Duffy Page A

grid in the gutter.
    Some moments later the door was wrenched open, wrenched seemingly on account of having been stuck in the frame, setting the old-fashioned letter box clattering.
    â€˜I’m not bloody deaf!’ a man yelled. ‘I was in the shower!’
    â€˜And I’m on double yellow lines! I can’t wait any longer!’ the other bawled back.
    â€˜Then why not just leave it and go?’
    â€˜Money! That’s why. Money!’
    â€˜I’ll give it to you when I see you tomorrow.’
    â€˜That’s not good enough. You haven’t paid me for the last lot yet either.’
    â€˜I haven’t got that much money in the house.’
    â€˜You’re a bloody liar! No cash from your little drugs business lying around? No takings from—?’
    â€˜Shut
up
!’
    â€˜I’m warning you that if you—’
    â€˜You’ll what, you stupid little git? I’ll see you tomorrow. Go on, get out!’
    The door slammed. And then there was another bang, as if whoever it was had had to shoulder-charge it to make it close properly.
    We continued busying ourselves with grid examining as the man got in the car and drove off, tyres squealing.
    â€˜Did you get his picture?’ Patrick asked.
    I told him I had – several, in fact – having achieved this by crouching down, concealing myself behind his legs and using my mobile phone camera. Then I said, ‘The shopping must still be on the doorstep.’
    Patrick crossed the pavement to stand behind – no, mostly inside – the overgrown front hedge. Then, a quarter of a minute later the door was hauled open again and there was a short pause – only one item of shopping hitting the ground, possibly the toilet rolls, to a chorus of muttered expletives – before it thundered shut again.
    â€˜Cooper,’ Patrick reported. ‘I got a good view of him. Let’s go before someone reports us to the police for snooping around.’
    Back in the Range Rover, parked several streets away, we discovered by accessing police files that my photographs were definitely of Paul Mallory. One was particularly clear as he had glanced fleetingly in our direction on the alert for traffic wardens.
    â€˜You know, that was quite fantastic,’ Patrick exclaimed. ‘When I first joined D12 I can remember people sitting in phony utility vans in the vicinity of addresses for
days
without so much as glimpsing their targets.’
    â€˜And with all the kit, too,’ I recollected. ‘Little red and white barriers to put around lifted manhole covers. Flashing warning lights. Even bunches of wires disappearing underground but nothing to do with the real thing to pretend to work on.’
    â€˜A lot of money is always thrown at national security.’
    â€˜The pair were well in character, weren’t they?’
    â€˜Scum’s the word,’ Patrick commented.
    â€˜What does Cooper look like now? Presumably he wasn’t wearing his shades.’
    â€˜No. Overweight – although to be fair he had an overlarge dressing gown on – five feet seven-ish, dark hair, small dark eyes and a pointy nose, giving him the manner of a nervous ferret.’
    I thought this hardly surprising given that Mallory had just advertised to everyone within earshot that he was dealing in drugs and getting money from some other unspecified source – illegal almost certainly. Cooper was obviously using him as an errand boy. The man must be very sure of himself.
    â€˜What do you think he hopes to gain as far as James is concerned?’ I queried.
    â€˜Perhaps he’s just enjoying winding him up by sticking up two fingers, demonstrating that he’s around. I just hope Carrick doesn’t put a foot wrong.’
    Patrick was too impatient to wait for Carrick to investigate the identity of Cooper’s new mobster associate and, that same afternoon, accessed various secure Metropolitan Police