Rat Runners by Oisin McGann

Manikin looked at Nimmo and then at the gangster. She was pushing her luck and she knew it. But in their business, you couldn’t let yourself be walked all over. “That’s not how we work, Mister Easy. We’re freelance. Nobody’s in charge of us.”
    “I’m sorry, darlin’.” The orange-skinned mob boss leveled his cold blue eyes at her and leaned forward. “My ears are a bit funny these days. Gettin’ old, I suppose. Did you say summink?”
    Manikin met his gaze for a brief moment, before her nerve failed her. “No. No, sir.”
    “Didn’t think so. Go see Tanker. You’ve got three days to dig up everything there is to know about this girl and find that box. If she passes it on or sells it before we can get ’old of it, or if I ’ave to send in the boys to deal with it, so things get loud and messy, I’m not gonna be a happy camper. And we don’t want me losin’ the rag, now do we?”
    Nimmo, Manikin and FX all agreed, they didn’t want him losing the rag.

CHAPTER 7
DEATH BY MISADVENTURE

    FOUR TEENAGERS WANDERING around in the early hours of the morning could attract the wrong kind of attention, so once they’d checked in with Tanker to be briefed, Nimmo, Scope, Manikin and FX decided to stay in the Void for a few hours and grab some shut-eye until sunrise. After a quick look through the information on Veronica Brundle, they stretched out on some cots and slept until after sunrise. Then it was time to go to work.
    Nimmo stayed awake, his mind racing as he struggled to think through all the angles. He’d been hired to search for something he already had in his possession. This was Move-Easy he was dealing with. He should hand the bloody box over as soon as he could lay his hands on it. But he was damned if he would. At least, not until he’d figured out what was going on.
    The decision gave him some peace and his mind stopped whirling, allowing his thoughts to find some order. He grew drowsy, eager now for sleep. His mind drifted back to his interview with the police officer, back in his small flat next to Brundle’s lab.
    The man, Dibble, was a detective constable, but he fumbled through the questions like someone who hadn’t been in the job very long. As Nimmo had suspected, the police weren’t giving a high priority to Brundle’s murder.
    “So, Charles, you were next door when you heard the noise of a falling body,” Dibble muttered.
    “Call me Chuck,” Nimmo said in an overly nervous voice. “Everyone calls me Chuck.”
    “OK, Chuck. You say you heard a fight. Scraping, thumping, that kind of thing?”
    Nimmo nodded. This was the third time they’d been over this, but Nimmo knew that was standard procedure. Ask things a different way each time, see if the story changes. Dibble’s short-fingered hand made notes with a stylus on his web-pad. A pudgy young man, his cheeks were already sinking into jowls, and there were wrinkles around the small black eyes that perched close to each other over a sharp, pointed nose. He used the stylus to scratch an itch under his black hair and looked up at Nimmo again.
    “Yeah, and then I went out to check on ’im—Doctor Brundle, I mean,” Nimmo said. “And ’e was dead. Or at least, I thought ’e was dead. He was really still. And ’is eyes were open. And ’e never leaves ’is door open.”
    As Nimmo kept up the dull-eyed character of Chuck U. Farley, his mind went around the room, ensuring that nothing Dibble could see would make him curious enough to poke about. He had given the place the once-over before the police arrived, but you could never be too careful.
    “Right.” Dibble made another note. His tone remained uninterested. “At any point, did he cry out? Cry for help? Did he say anybody’s name?”
    “Nothin’ I could hear,” Nimmo said. “I ’eard him let out, like, y’know, a grunt. Like he was in pain? But it was all really quick.”
    “Right,” said Dibble, scratching his scalp again.
    Nimmo was beginning to wonder how