Free Only the Dead by Ben Sanders Page B

job?’
    ‘Yeah. Well done.’
    ‘I didn’t do it. Who told you I did it?’
    ‘Nobody. I’ve got it on good info that you might know something about it.’
    ‘“Got it on good info.” What’s that meant to mean?’
    ‘Howard thought you might know something.’
    Turner grinned. He propped himself against the doorframe. ‘You won’t get far if you’re just asking for gossip.’ He checked his watch. ‘At half past one in the morning.’
    ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
    ‘The fuck should I know anything?’
    ‘Because you’ve pulled robberies before.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘So you’ve got connections. People keep you in the loop.’
    ‘Connections. How would you know?’
    ‘I read your file and extrapolated.’
    ‘Extrapolated. Whatever.’ He laughed. ‘October eight last year, I was in prison.’
    Devereaux didn’t reply. The cat traced a figure eight around his ankles.
    ‘You said you wanted to talk about Howard or something,’ Turner said.
    ‘Howard’s been brought in because they think he might know something about October eight. And he doesn’t, so now I’ve got to ask you.’
    ‘Is he okay?’
    ‘Yeah, he’s okay.’
    ‘He doesn’t know anything about October eight, though.’
    ‘I know. So I’m asking if you know anything about it.’
    A smirk. ‘Yeah, well, it’s all bad news, man.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘What, you want to hear the rumours?’
    ‘Lay them on me.’
    ‘I heard cops did it, and the reason you’re making fuck-all progress is because the guys who did the job are the ones in the investigation. Shit’s just getting stalled and obscured and stuff. Like, I bet you’ve got all kinds of dead ends and stuff that just goes nowhere.’
    Devereaux said nothing.
    ‘That’s why that shooting that happened has been so hush-hush. The one where those cops got cooled out, you know? Like, people got killed, but we hear almost nothing about it in the news because they’re keeping it super, super tight. And you want to know why?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because cops did it. Because cops robbed that bank. Because cops robbed that fight club thing. Cops thought someone was going to snitch them, and killed those people in that shooting a couple of weeks back.’
    ‘Who told you this?’
    He shrugged. ‘I dunno. It’s just info that people know. You know?’
    A train passed: a laboured seismic rumble. Different regions of the room rattled faintly in loose sequence. A shiver beneath his fingertips as the table trembled.
    Devereaux said, ‘So who should I be talking to?’
    ‘I don’t know. Not me. I’ve already been talked to anyway.’
    ‘By who?’
    ‘I don’t know. Cops. Maybe even the cops that did the job. They thought they were hardcase.’
    ‘What did they do?’
    ‘There were two of them. They just came to the door, like you did, and one of them gave me this big-as grin and flicked his head and was like, “Why don’t you come for a bit of a drive with us, Leroy?” And what choice have you got when a cop says something like that to you?’
    Devereaux didn’t answer.
    ‘So I got in the car with them. In the back. One of them was in the back with me, one was driving, obviously. They took me for a drive just around the block. They’d had me on what they called “rolling recon” or some shit, where they’d just had a dude following me for a few days. They’d got this long-shot photo of me buying half a gram of speed. They showed me that, like it could be some sort of leverage to get me to say whatever. But the guy in the back with me was playing it super-cool. He had one arm stretched out along the back of the seat, holding up the photo in front of my face. And he said something like, “Boy, Leroy, if this ever got out, you’d be going straight back to prison.” You seen much of what prison’s like?’
    Devereaux nodded.
    ‘Yeah. Me, too. And I didn’t like any of it. And I was telling this guy I didn’t know jack shit about what had happened with this bank