Free Requiem for a Dealer by Jo Bannister

The vaseline must have worked or
he’d have needed your help to get it out.’
    The nurse left him at the entrance to the ward. Over her shoulder as she went she said, ‘Daniel’s about somewhere.’
    It was a bit like having mice in the attic. At first it drives you mad and you try everything to put a stop to it. But when the poison and the traps and the swearing fail, left with nothing else you start coming to terms with it. The noise doesn’t annoy you any less but it doesn’t distress you in the same way. Daniel Hood was the mouse in Deacon’s attic. He no longer felt his whole body clench at the sound of Daniel’s name, but the way his life overlapped with Deacon’s in so many varied and unexpected areas was a constant irritation.
    â€˜Never mind,’ he said with restraint.
    Anyone who knew this girl a week ago would have been shocked at the sight of her, her face white and strained, her slender body, that in health looked only fit and toned, so diminished by illness that it barely lifted the sheet off the bed. But when Deacon last saw her she was teetering on the edge of the abyss, and he was surprised how much better she looked today.
    He told her who he was, then he told her what he wanted to know. ‘Where did you get the pills, Miss Barker?’
    She couldn’t have sat up without the support of the pillows and her voice was wafer-thin. But it seemed her mind was clear enough to understand the question, and even to evade it. ‘I didn’t.’
    Deacon breathed heavily at her. ‘We don’t really have to do this, do we? Pretend that you’ve no idea what I’m talking about until I produce the blood-work and we discuss it like intelligent people? I know what you took. I want to know where you got it.’
    Some people you can bully, some you can’t. If he’d thought about it rather longer Deacon would have realised he was unlikely to intimidate a girl who threw half-ton horses at five-foot fences for fun. Even lying half-prone in the bed, Alison Barker managed to glare back at him. ‘Superintendent Deacon, watch my lips. I didn’t take any drugs. I know – I’ve been told – they got into me somehow, but I didn’t take them. I didn’t buy them, I don’t know where they came from and I don’t know how
they got into my system.’
    Deacon sighed. He pulled out the chair recently vacated by Daniel and sat down. ‘Miss Barker, are we back to this “There’s a murderer on the loose business?”
    She was no stranger to scepticism. She’d seen the look that was on Deacon’s face now too often to go on being surprised. On the faces of friends and of professionals – people whose job it was to listen, to understand and to help. Some of them policemen. She bared her teeth in a smile that would have been fierce if it hadn’t been so frail. ‘That’s right. He killed my father and now he’s tried to kill me.’
    â€˜That’s what you said when you ran into Daniel’s car,’ Deacon pointed out, not unreasonably.
    Alison nodded. ‘I was wrong about that.’
    â€˜Perhaps you’re wrong about this.’
    â€˜You mean, perhaps I spent money I don’t have on drugs I don’t want and took them without noticing?’
    One thing was clear: she hadn’t much in the way of brain damage. ‘Then how do you explain it?’ asked Deacon.
    â€˜My food was spiked. It’s the only way.’
    â€˜Who by?’ Deacon hadn’t a lot of time for grammar.
    â€˜Johnny Windham.’
    â€˜The livestock transporter?’
    Alison hadn’t expected him to remember. She’d imagined that once the file was stamped No further action recommended, everyone who’d handled it would forget. She nodded.
    â€˜You’ve seen him recently?’
    Alison shook her head without lifting it off the pillow. ‘He knows better than to