Free Crack Down by Val McDermid

weary.
    â€œKate! Thanks for getting back to me,” she said.
    â€œSorry? I didn’t know you’d been trying to get hold of me,” I replied, shuffling the papers on my desk in case I’d missed a message.
    â€œI spoke to your machine an hour or so ago. When I heard what had happened to Richard,” Della said. “I just wanted you to know that I don’t believe a word of it.”
    I felt a lump in my throat, so I swallowed hard and concentrated very hard on the jar of pencils by my phone. “Me neither,” I said. “Del, I know it’s not your manor, but I need all the help I can get on this one.”
    â€œGoes without saying, Kate. Look, it’s not going to be easy for me to get access to the case information or any forensic evidence, but I’ll do what I can,” she promised.
    â€œI appreciate that. But don’t put your own head in the noose in the process,” I added. No matter how much they spend on advertising to tell us different, anyone who has any contact with real live police officers know that The Job is still a white, patriarchal, rigidly
hierarchical organization. That makes life especially hard for women who refuse to be shunted into the ghetto of community liaison and get stuck in at the sharp end of crime fighting.
    â€œDon’t worry about me. I’ll find out who’s on the team and see who I know. Meanwhile, is there anything specific I can help you with?”
    â€œI need a general backgrounder on crack. How much there is of it around, where it’s turning up, who they think is pushing the stuff, how it’s being distributed. Anything there is, including gossip. Off the record, of course. Any chance?” I asked.
    â€œGive me a few hours. Can you meet me around seven?”
    I pulled a face. “Only if you can get to the airport,” I said. “I have a plane to meet.”
    â€œNo problem.”
    â€œOh yes it is. Richard’s son’s going to be on it. And the one thing he mustn’t find out is that his dad’s in the nick on drugs charges.”
    â€œAh,” Della said. It was a short, clipped exclamation.
    â€œI take it that response means you don’t want to share the childminding?”
    â€œCorrect. Count me out. Look, I’ll dig up all I can and meet you at Domestic Arrivals in Terminal I, at the coffee counter, just as you come in. Around quarter to seven, OK?”
    I didn’t want to wait that long, but Della wasn’t the sort to hang around either. If quarter to seven was when she wanted to meet, then quarter to seven was the soonest she could see me with the information I needed. “I’ll see you then. Oh, one other thing. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with the drugs, but there was a Polaroid picture of a young kid in handcuffs, you know, bondagestyle, in the car. Probably just dropped by one of the villains. But maybe you could ask around and see if there’s anybody that Vice have in the frame for pedophilia who’s also got form for drugs.”
    â€œCan do.”
    â€œAnd Della?”
    â€œMmm?”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œYou know what they say. A friend in need …”

    â€œIs a pain in the ass,” I finished. “See you.” I put the phone down. At last I felt things were starting to move.
    The conversation with Della had reminded me of the part of the problem I’d deliberately been ignoring. Davy. Not that he was in himself a problem. It’s just that I wasn’t very good at keeping eight-year-old boys happy when I was eight myself, and I haven’t improved with age. According to Richard, Davy was the only good thing to come out of his three-year marriage, and his ex-wife Angie seemed more determined with each passing year to reduce his contact with the only child he was likely to have if he stayed with me. So it was imperative that Davy didn’t go back from his half-term holiday with