Free Flawed by Jo Bannister Page B

some primitive survival instinct made him wriggle. ‘Urn…’
    Deacon wasn't an angler. He got all the excitement heneeded catching criminals. But he didn't need actual experience to know this was what it felt like when a nice big fat one was flapping round on the end of the line. ‘Didn't even shout? Didn't swear a lot, and stamp up and down, and loom in a threatening manner? Didn't lean on the Police
&C
Criminal Evidence Act until it screamed for mercy? Is that what you were going to say, Charlie?’
    Voss tried to make the best of a bad situation. ‘Horses for courses, chief. Everyone finds what works for them. I didn't say your methods
wouldn't
have got the job done.’
    ‘Just that hers are more – elegant?’
    ‘Ladylike,’ said Voss, inspired. He thought he'd somehow stumbled onto safe ground.
    ‘Well hell, Charlie Voss, I wouldn't want anyone accusing
me
of being ladylike.’
    ‘Course not, chief.’
    ‘So she coughed? Your drug-smuggler – she dished the dirt on Terry Walsh?’
    Voss nodded. ‘Names, places, dates. It'll all need checking, of course, and guess whose job that's going to be, but it sounded authentic’
    ‘Who is she? What do you know about her? Is she reliable?’
    Voss found himself caught uncomfortably between conflicting loyalties, reluctant to answer. This wasn't Detective Superintendent Deacon's case, it was Detective Inspector Hyde's, and he didn't want her thinking that everything she said to him was going straight to Deacon. He prevaricated. ‘Of course she isn't reliable – she's a drug-smuggler! But she says she knew Walsh, professionally and personally, for years – and if that's true then she was in aposition to know the rest. If she knows even half of what she says she knows, it's worth working with her. That's what Alix reckons, anyway.’
    ‘Alix?’ echoed Deacon, deadpan.
    Detective Sergeant Voss blushed to the roots of his sandy hair. ‘She told me to call her Alix.’
    When he smiled like that, there was something of the night about Jack Deacon. A hoot of owls, a whisper of vampire wings. Something fundamentally evil. ‘I can see I'm going to have to up my game if I'm not going to lose you to the serious and organised Detective Inspector Hyde.’
    And while Voss was trying to convey the notion that the thought had never occurred to him – without, and this was the hard bit, actually lying – Deacon got up from the bar, shrugged his coat on and, chuckling bleakly, left to go home. Voss picked up the tab without complaint. Partly because it was a small price for ending the conversation, and partly because he always did.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    ‘So how did things go?’
    Brodie got it out first, by a millisecond, so Daniel felt obliged to answer first. ‘Very quiet. I did the phone-arounds – somebody needs to run over to Brighton, a couple of bookshops and antique dealers had items on your list.’ He paused hopefully, in case she said, ‘You'd better go this afternoon, then.’ But she didn't, and really he'd known she wouldn't. She still wasn't resigned to sharing this business with anyone, was clinging onto every aspect of it with a grip like a hawk's.
    Daniel sighed. ‘The only soul I saw all morning was a boy I taught once who dropped in for a chat.’ That was perfectly accurate, but the twinge of his delicate conscience warned him it was not totally honest.
    ‘Not a client, then,’ said Brodie. She had a regrettable habit of pigeon-holing people according to whether or not she could make money out of them.
    Daniel smiled. ‘Not yet.’
    When she returned from the hospital they'd shut up shop and repaired round the corner to The Singing Kettle for lunch. They'd always met up for lunch two or three times a week – sandwiches on a bench on the Promenade in summer,something hot at The Singing Kettle or in the netting-shed when the weather turned cold. It struck both of them as slightly odd to go on doing it now they were working together, but even odder to