Nowhere to Hide by Alex Walters Page B

of jockeying for position. All the more so as Kerridge’s supposed number two, Pete Boyle, was temporarily out of commission at the time.’
    â€˜Way I heard it,’ Brennan said. ‘Kerridge and Boyle weren’t all that chummy towards the end anyhow?’
    â€˜You heard right. It was a question of who’d screw the other one first. But Boyle saw himself as the heir apparent. Trouble was, he wasn’t the only one.’ Salter laughed. ‘Once Kerridge popped his clogs, various parties stepped into the breach pretty quickly, even before Boyle was back walking the streets. Chief among them, Mrs K.’
    Brennan raised an eyebrow. ‘Kerridge’s wife?’
    â€˜The fragrant Helen. Not a lady to be underestimated.’
    â€˜So you think all this is linked? Kenning and Sheerin and these two poor bastards in Wales. Collateral damage in the war of the Manc succession?’
    â€˜Something like that.’
    â€˜Bit thin, isn’t it? I mean, you could well be right. But these were the kinds of buggers who made enemies every way they turned. Might have been a dozen people wanted to take them out.’
    â€˜Might have been. But Pete Boyle definitely did.’
    â€˜You reckon?’
    â€˜Done a bit of digging,’ Salter said. ‘Called in a few favours from a few scrotes. Informants.’
    â€˜Imagine our lot would have done the same. Not aware they found much.’
    â€˜Maybe not. But they didn’t know the question to ask. They didn’t think to ask about Pete Boyle.’
    â€˜Boyle’s a big player in these parts,’ Brennan pointed out. ‘Especially now that Kerridge has gone. His name would have come up.’
    â€˜No doubt. But there’d be no direct connection between any of these cases and Boyle. Or Kerridge, for that matter. Not even Kenning the grass. I only made the link between Kerridge and that drug ring after the event. We hadn’t got it pegged as one of Kerridge’s outfits – still haven’t, officially. It was only after I’d made the link between Kenning and Boyle that I went back and checked the detail of the case Kenning had been involved in. One or two of the players who went down were second-level associates of Kerridge’s. It doesn’t prove for certain that Kerridge had a finger in that particular pie, but I’d wager money on it.’
    Brennan frowned. ‘I’m not following this. You’re saying that these cases are all linked to Boyle. But that it’s not a direct business link.’
    Salter was smiling broadly now. He had the air of a magician who was in the process of pulling off a particularly neat piece of misdirection. ‘Not quite. Boyle’s got a real business interest in all three cases. But that’s not why they were picked.’ He leaned forward and pulled Brennan’s file towards him, then flicked through the pages until he found the short report on Mo Tallent. ‘Tallent,’ he said. ‘Petty thief and grifter. Spent most of his adult life living in sunny Rhyl, for reasons best known to himself. But born and brought up in less sunny Hulme. Left in his early twenties. Partly because, for one reason or another, he’d seriously fucked off Peter Boyle. And, trust me, Peter Boyle is not someone you want to antagonise.’
    Brennan shook his head. ‘Some kind of personnel vendetta? Boyle waited twenty years to get even?’
    â€˜Not quite. Let’s move on to Stephen Kenning. Bit more straightforward, that one. No one likes a grass. He’d sold Kerridge and Boyle down the river on that drugs deal. Even if there was no risk of them being implicated, they must have taken a financial hit. A decent enough motive for icing Kenning. But it turns out there’s a bit more. Kenning is also a Hulme alumnus. The original school of hard fucking knocks. Turns out that Kenning and Boyle were bosom buddies as teenagers. They’d drifted