Free Vixen (Inspector Brant) by Ken Bruen Page B

well-known drug dealer out of Brixton had her on his mantelpiece and stashed coke in the urn. Roberts ignored the hooker and turned to Brant:
    ‘How come you look so dapper?’
    ‘Got to, guv. We’re the establishment, got to make an impression.’
    Roberts should have known better than to expect coherence but he persisted:
    ‘And what? You keep a change of clothes here?’
    ‘Like the song goes, “wherever I lay my hat”.’
    Roberts found his clothes and they were fucked: traces of vomit and ash on them. He looked at Brant, asked:
    ‘Any chance you’d have something I could wear?’
    “Course.’
    Brant disappeared and a few seconds later returned with a white tracksuit, its gold logo reading:
    ‘I’m the business.’
    Roberts said:
    ‘Tell me you’re kidding?’
    ‘It’s that or the ruined suit, guv.’
    Roberts headed for the bathroom, got in the shower, turned it to scalding and steamed for five minutes. What it did was wake up his hangover, which had been in a semiholding phase.
    Not any more.
    It was up on its hind legs and howling. He checked his reflection in the mirror, bad idea. Red eyes, white stubble and he thought:
    How’d I get to be a wino?
    Searching around, he found a lady-razor and hacked at the bristles… which hurt like a son of a bitch. There was a pounding on the door and he shouted:
    ‘Jesus, give me a goddamn minute.’
    You hung with Irish people, you ended up swearing like them. Brant, sounding highly amused, said:
    ‘A minute you don’t get… Porter is down.’
    Roberts pulled on the lurid tracksuit and grabbed at a perfume bottle, splashed a sample of the contents on to his face. Big mistake, it burned like the fires of hell and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. He checked the name:
POISON
    Roberts opened the door and Brant handed him a mug of steaming tea, said:
    ‘Get that in you.’
    He gulped it and the heat lit the roof of his mouth.
    He asked:
    ‘Is Porter shot?’
    ‘No, heart attack. Seemingly there was another bomb and the guy called in. Porter lost it and gave himself the big one.’
    Roberts was getting too much information and the Poison fumes were enveloping him. He tried to focus, said:
    ‘Slow down, Brant, give it to me as it went down.’
    Brant lit a cig, wrinkled his nose from the perfume or the smoke, or both, answered:
    ‘There was a bomb, last night or this morning. I’m hazythere – the same MO so it’s our boys all right. Then they phoned and Porter got het up, you know how fags get, and wallop, his ticker took him down. He’s at St Thomas’ and the shit has really hit the fan as the Super’s on the warpath. He wants to know where the hell we are.’
    Roberts ran the events of the night in his head, then asked:
    ‘They’re still watching the left luggage place, tell me they haven’t fucked that up?’
    ‘As far as I know, guv.’
    Roberts drank more of the tea. The strangest thing was happening: he was beginning to feel better. How could that be?’
    He stared at Brant who had an enigmatic smile and asked:
    ‘I feel a whole lot better, how could that be?’
    Brant shrugged his shoulders and the hooker gave a knowing wink. Roberts smelled the tea – it was different, almost minty. The penny dropped and he snarled:
    ‘You shithead, you spiked it, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yo, guv, time to wake up, join the revolution. You couldn’t show up hung-over, could you?’
    Roberts slung the tea across the room and the hooker said:
    ‘Hey, the carpet.’
    Roberts grabbed Brant’s shoulder, always a dodgy move as Brant was not one to handle, said:
    ‘I need help, I’ll ask for it, you got that, Sergeant?’
    ‘We better get a move on. The Super’11 be at the station.’
    As they took their leave, the hooker handed Roberts a plastic bag and he looked the question at her. She raised her eyebrows, said:
    ‘So I gave your gear a spin in the machine, just dry them and you’re in biz.’
    He was strangely touched and for a moment nearly