Free The Enemy Within by James Craig Page A

their mouths shut. He now realized that it had been a mistake to let Martin Palmer set foot in the station. Ah, well, nothing could be done about that now. ‘This is my investigation,’ he said firmly, ‘and my investigation alone. It has been conducted properly and your client’s rights have been fully respected.’
    ‘We’ll see about that,’ Olyphant sniffed. Getting to her feet, she headed for the door. ‘The union will fight this one all the way. And I am sure that the newspapers will be more than interested to hear further details of the security services’ involvement in Mrs Slater’s death.’
    ‘Good for them,’ Holt murmured as she disappeared into the hall. ‘Good for them.’
    Sitting in the snug of the Queen’s Larder pub, on the edge of the smoky bubble that surrounded the lounge bar, Dominic Silver drained his bottle of fake German lager – brewed in Warrington by computers – and slowly got to his feet. ‘Right,’ he said, stretching his arms out wide, ‘fancy another one?’
    Finishing his whisky, Carlyle gestured towards the bar with his empty glass. ‘Hold on, it’s my round.’ Before he could get up from behind the table, Dom gave him a consoling pat on the shoulder.
    ‘Don’t worry, Johnny boy. Leave it to me.’
    Well, thought Carlyle, relaxing back into his seat, if you’re offering, why not?
    ‘Business is good. I can stand it.’
    ‘Yeah, I can well believe it.’ Earlier in the evening, before they had repaired to the pub, Dom’s little back-door, cash ’n’ carry drug-dealing service had cleared more than fifty quid. And this was hardly a one-off. When they had first arrived at RAF Syerston, word quickly got round that Mr Silver was open for business. Within a matter of days, Dom became the most popular man on the base.
    Policemen were just normal people, after all, Carlyle mused. They liked their drugs just like everyone else. It wasn’t like Dom was trying to grow a business out of selling the stuff, rather, it had just kind of . . . happened. Broadly speaking, there were two types of customers. Some, like Carlyle, needed a quarter gram of speed now and again to help them get through the soul-sapping drudgery of picket-line duty. For others, the dope heads, their interest in the contents of Dom’s knapsack was more recreational. Between the different groups, there were more than enough takers to sustain a successful business. What had begun as a little sideline had grown to the point where Dom was probably earning more from the drugs than he was from his monthly police packet.
    The contradictions of a policeman selling illegal drugs were obvious. But Carlyle had quickly put any reservations to one side. Frankly, he didn’t care. As far as he could see, the problem with drugs was not with the drugs themselves but with their criminalization, which generated much pointless work for ordinary coppers like him. Besides, he himself was more than partial to a little bit of whizz now and again. And, above all, he could see that Dom’s entrepreneurial drive was impressive in its own way.
    Dom gazed at a fat TV set hanging from the ceiling, near the bar. The news was on, volume down low, showing pictures from earlier in the day of police and strikers charging each other across a patch of waste ground.
    ‘Is that us?’
    Carlyle looked up, staring for a few moments. The pictures could have come from their picket line or from one of half a dozen other locations. They all looked the same.
    ‘Dunno. Maybe. Hard to say.’
    The news bulletin moved on to a story about a girl who was sexually assaulted and stabbed after a night out in Bath. ‘It’s all good news tonight,’ Dom sighed.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘All you can do is try and ignore this shit as much as possible.’
    ‘That’s a bit of an ask when you’re a bloody copper.’
    ‘When I go into business for myself, full-time,’ Dom mumbled, ‘you’ve got to join me.’
    ‘Eh?’
    Dom pulled a thin spliff out of the