Free Broken Lines by Jo Bannister Page A

Billy Dunne’s revelation. Something of the sort had to have happened: if the gun had still been lying by the road on Tuesday his own search would have found it.
    â€˜Wherever Roly’s hidden it,’ said Donovan, ‘it won’t be at home and it probably won’t be in The Jubilee. Can you think of anywhere else?’
    Shapiro squinted at him. ‘You don’t think, Sergeant, that in choosing a safe hiding place for a gun used in an armed robbery, Roly would have it in mind to avoid places known to the local Detective Superintendent?’
    Chastened, Donovan nodded. ‘So—?’
    Shapiro thought. ‘The likelihood is that Roly’s the only one who knows exactly where that gun is now. He won’t tell us, and there’s no point putting a tail on him because he has no need to go anywhere near it for the foreseeable future. What does that leave?’
    â€˜Guile?’ suggested Donovan hopefully. When it came to sneaky, no member of Castlemere’s criminal fraternity could hold a candle to its senior detective.
    â€˜Trick him? I suppose it’s possible. But Roly Dickens is no fool, he’ll know we’re anxious to get hold of that gun – I don’t know what we could do that would make him hand it over.’
    Neither did Donovan, but there had to be something. The alternative was that Mikey was going to get away with this. ‘Can we get him worried that we might have found it – worried enough to go and check?’
    â€˜And follow him there? You’ll need a good story. Roly’s sharper than he looks: it’s no coincidence that he has half The Jubilee under his thumb. Getting him to take your bait may be the easy part. The hard part will be stopping him yanking you into the water and drowning you.’
    Donovan was frowning. ‘You’re not telling me we can’t deal with Roly Dickens?’
    â€˜Of course not. I’m telling you not to underestimate him. He’s a clever, dangerous man and he’s fighting for something that matters to him.’
    â€˜This is pretty important to me, too,’ gritted Donovan.
    â€˜I know that. That’s why I’m telling you to be careful. He’ll make a fool of you if he can; and if he can’t he might get serious. I don’t want you getting hurt over this.’
    Donovan touched a finger to his face. ‘Bit late for that, chief.’
    Shapiro knew he was wasting his time. Threatening Donovan only made him obdurate. He thought it wouldn’t matter; he didn’t think he’d get close enough to make Roly angry. ‘All right, see what you can do. But don’t get so far out on a limb that you don’t hear the sound of sawing.’
    The problem would be convincing Roly that he should be worried. Clearly he would have put the gun where he believed it would be safe: somehow Donovan had to persuade him that the police were closing in on it but there was still time for him to make it safe if he acted at once.
    Donovan had an extensive stable of informants, but none of them would be much use to him in this. A man would have to be pretty close to Roly Dickens to know where he’d hidden Mikey’s gun, and anyone that close wasn’t going to talk to a policeman. Not if he was attached to both kneecaps he wasn’t.
    He was still fretting about it, and no nearer an answer, when he met Jade after work. They went for a meal, then on to an exhibition at the Town Hall. Two hundred years of the Castlemere Canal in photographs, paintings and artifacts. Jade had seen it advertised and thought Donovan would be interested. But he trailed round behind her like a bored child.
    â€˜Well, that went down like a lead balloon,’ she growled as they left. ‘If there’s something you’d rather be doing tonight, don’t let me detain you.’
    With a guilty start he realized he was squandering his chance with her, and that it mattered to him not