Original Skin by David Mark Page B

Made arrangements. Had the two men wheeled down from the ward, cuffed to the sides of the hospital bed. There was an ambulance waiting outside for them. A police escort, too. Pharaoh had been taking no risks.
    And then one of the Vietnamese men spotted Shaun. He was wrestling with two of the constables, trying to get his hands free, desperate to be allowed to speak to Leanne. He was shouting that he loved her. That he would kill anybody who came between them. That he forgave her the fact he was bleeding from his ear and his heart.
    Then Shaun stopped. Fell utterly silent. The sudden cessation of noise was more potent than a shout. Heads turned, including Pharaoh’s. And she saw the way Shaun was staring at the two men in her care.
    The color had drained from his face. The officers holding his arms found the strength had gone out of him, and wrestled him to the floor.
    And both of the drugs farmers let fly with a stream of impassioned invective, a gibberish that meant nothing to anybody in the great open lobby, but which told Trish Pharaoh that her victims knew this man, and knew him well.
    With the victims safely transported to Wakefield, Pharaoh played a hunch and insisted upon Shaun and the woman he was brought in with being kept apart.
    She got their names. Pulled both their records. Acquainted herself with their criminal pasts. Shaun’s rap sheet was petty. He had never done more than a week on remand. Had convictions for drugs possession and public violence. She had been more impressed with Leanne’s. She had done serious time, and was looking at more.
    Pharaoh had found her in a private room, cuffed to a constable, a doctor stitching up the wound on the back of her head and asking that she do her best to stop crying, as it was making it difficult to keep the stitches small.
    “He’s going to leave me, I know it,” said Leanne through the sobs, talking to nobody and barely registering Pharaoh’s presence. “He’s too young for me. He’s got his whole life. He doesn’t need this. I’m dragging him down . . .”
    Pharaoh had asked the constable to slip the cuffs off. Asked the doctor if he was done. And then she had led Leanne Marvell outside and pressed a cigarette to her lips.
    Vulnerable, scared, and doped on a cocktail of painkillers and steroids, Leanne had been perfectly primed for careful questioning. And Pharaoh had obliged. Told her that two Vietnamese drugs farmers had been found tortured and mutilated at Hessle Foreshore, and that they had identified Shaun. Pharaoh had been careful to keep it vague. Had left most of the work to Leanne’s imagination. And she had thanked her lucky stars that McAvoy was not there to tell her off.
    Despite her formidable appearance and the time she had spent inside, Leanne crumbled. Told her what she knew and begged her to help keep Shaun out of prison.
    She had promised to help Pharaoh however she could.
    Now, safely registered as a police informant and fully briefed on what will happen if she lies, Leanne is about to earn her pay.
    McAvoy, who is legally bound to appear at all meetings between Pharaoh and any of her registered snouts, has an affection for Leanne. She is almost schizophrenic in the change that comes over her when in drink, but here, now, she seems a good person, trying to do her best by her man.
    “You can’t ever tell him,” she says, though she has already had assurances on this point. “You have to say you lost the evidence or something. He can’t be the only one to go down for this.”
    Pharaoh puts a hand on her knee. Offers her a cigarette and then lights it for her. “It’s all taken care of, Leanne. We’ll look after you.”
    Over the course of several interviews, it has become clear that Shaun is a relatively minor player in the hierarchy of the gang which has taken over the cannabis supply. His job has been that of a glorified deliveryman, overseeing the movement of crops from one factory to another, and transporting the remaining