Free A Bleeding of Innocents by Jo Bannister Page A

time. Only then – well, it was Alan’s operation.’ He said no more.
    â€˜When this current mess is sorted out,’ said Liz, ‘someone’ll take over where Inspector Clarke left off. Make sure of Carney then. Alan would appreciate that.’
    It was the middle of the day but they descended through darkness. Liz turned her headlamps on. Then sunlight blinked ahead and they emerged into a magical place, a man-made cavern deep in the bowels of a man-made earth. Brown water glinted, and on the water boats painted like bathtub toys.
    All around black warehouses soared to six storeys, their roofs framing a square of sky. Windows rose in ranks up the face of them, glazed and framed in cheery red brick which was the planners’ compromise between dour authenticity and the sort of environment where people might want to live and work. Some of the windows were curtained, some had blinds. It was still impossible to gaze up at those looming heights without a sense of claustrophobia.
    At ground-floor level, enclosing the pretty cobbled wharfs, the warehouses had been hollowed out to provide parking. The wall was scalloped into a colonnade and vehicles faded from view as they passed through it. Standing in front of the colonnade were the white furniture and gaily striped umbrellas of a pavement café, but none of the seats was occupied.
    Mere Basin was the confluence of four canals. Each arrived under a masonry cliff, the buildings drawing up their skirts in a quartet of low-roofed tunnels. The water was peaty brown, glinting weed green where its surface was ruffled. Tied to the wharf by great shaggy ropes or chugging in and out under the black buildings were long thin boats with black hulls and gaily painted upperworks. Men in oily sweaters tinkered with engines or plied the long swan’s-neck tillers; girls in peaked caps stood on the foredecks coiling rope. It was an extraordinary sight, charming and eccentric and quintessentially English, about as sinister as a conclave of bell-ringers.
    Parking under one of the warehouses, between a primrose BMW and a Volvo estate with an outboard engine in the back, Liz was about to say as much when she saw that they were being watched. A well-built man of about thirty was perched on a bollard, looking not at the activity on the water but into the shadows where she’d driven. She might have dismissed it as the curiosity of a regular spotting a strange car but for the fact that he was wearing a suit. It was Sunday afternoon, everyone else here was in jeans and jumpers, but this well-built young man was perched on a mooring bollard in a well-cut charcoal-grey suit.
    Donovan had seen him too. ‘Terry McMeekin,’ he growled. ‘Carney’s muscle. He’ll follow us inside. He’ll crowd us but he won’t start anything. But when you decide to lift Carney, he’s the one to watch.’
    â€˜It’s a bit early to think of arresting him!’ exclaimed Liz. ‘Can I talk to him before you send for the Black Maria?’
    Donovan sniffed. ‘Just looking ahead.’
    Access to the flats and offices above was via lifts and stairways also parked discreetly out of sight behind the colonnade. The business users were on the lower storeys; a phone controlled the residents’ lift.
    Carney Enterprises had offices on the first floor: a red arrow directed Liz to a staircase. The glass door at the foot of the stairs was locked. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone here.’
    She turned and caught Donovan breathing heavily. ‘The BMW’s here, McMeekin’s here, therefore Carney’s here. Tell you what, I’ll go outside and throw stones at his window.’
    The offer had the desired effect. As he turned back to the basin the man in the suit came to meet him, taking keys from his pocket. ‘Sergeant Donovan? Looking for Mr Carney, are you?’ Liz could not see his face for the shadows but heard the lilt of