Free Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) by Garry Bushell

I’m off at three. There’s no budget left, no overtime.’
    ‘We’ll be there by one-thirty at the latest.’
     
     
    At 1pm, Harry looked out of the office window into the station yard and saw DCI Green emerge from the passenger side of a dark green Ford saloon; with his beer-drinker’s belly and his piss-taker’s smile on display. He was accompanied by a lean and angular, casually dressed Asian male and a portly middle-aged fellow in a crumpled suit whose demeanour screamed, ‘Look at me, I’m a Copper In Disguise.’
    Harry felt strangely elated.
    Fifteen minutes passed before his phone rang.
    ‘Ipswich CID, DC Dean.’
    ‘Harry, Superintendent here, come down to my office please.’
    ‘Yes, sir, on my way.’
    This was all very odd. The Super’s office door was shut. Harry rapped, heard a muttered ‘Enter,’ and went in. The trio were sitting around the office table with Calder MacKenzie a dominating presence behind his large leather-topped desk.
    ‘What the fuck have you done to your barnet?’ laughed the DCI.
    ‘Hello, boss, yeah, bit tight to the wood. How are you?’
    Bazza Green had no time for small talk. ‘Harry, you’ve been away too long, languishing here with Mr MacKenzie. We’ve got a big one on and no one to fit into it. Harry, we want you back in the unit.’
    This wasn’t just music to Harry’s ears, it was a heavenly chorus of angels screaming hallelujah over a fanfare of trumpets. But he controlled his reactions.
    ‘Sorry, guv, I’m out of it.’
    ‘Harry, goddammit, listen to me. We need you back, I want you back and Mr MacKenzie here is happy for you to come back.’
    The DCI raised a familiar ox-coloured briefcase. It was Harry’s old UC case, the one that had housed his various passports, driving licences and fake identities over the years.
    ‘Harry, we’re saturated with good work,’ he continued. ‘I just haven’t got the quality people to deal with it. This is DI Kumble from Walsall and DI Collier I think you know.’
    ‘No, guv, I don’t think we’ve met. Look, the point is I’ve told the missus I was out and that’s it. It was a big thing to her.’
    ‘DI Kumble runs a UC unit in the West Mids. You were good pals with Darren Blackman, weren’t you.’
    Harry nodded mutely. Blackman was an outstanding detective sergeant in the West Midlands who had looked after Harry when he had done some work for their serious crime squad some years earlier. Unusually, Harry had stayed in touch with him and whenever West Ham had played Villa they would meet up for a beer after the game. Blackman had put Harry up overnight more times than he could remember. He was a Black Country man from Wolverhampton with an accent that made Noddy Holder sound aristocratic. He was also a devout family man and a bloody good copper.
    ‘Darren Blackman has been nicked, Harry,’ the DCI went on.
    Harry’s mouth swung open like a broken stable door.
    ‘What for?’ he asked.
    ‘He was caught in Brum with fifty snide scores and a hundred snide tenners. He is in deep shit. He is involved with a team working out of Preston who DI Kumble believes are printing them.’
    ‘Where do I fit in?’
    Kumble raised his right hand to intervene. ‘Only his wife, my team and a very limited number of people know that we’ve got him,’ he said. He spoke softly in an educated voice that still betrayed traces of his native Dudley. ‘He has agreed to testify against the counterfeiters but we need the printer. Blackman has agreed to help by putting a UC in, but he says he wants you or no one.’
    Absent-mindedly, Harry ran his hand through hair that was no longer there. Darren, bent? It couldn’t be. His family, his poor bloody family, Sue and the kids. And Kumble, who did he work for? The rubber-heelers, obviously.
    ‘Look, boss,’ he said finally. ‘I need to think this one through. I’ve got to talk to the missus for one thing.’ Harry paused, not relishing that conversation one iota. ‘How deep