Thirty-Seven
Miller made himself busy as soon as he got home.
He showered quickly then fed the rats, gave Ginger her medicine and put the two portions of fish and chips he’d brought back with him into the oven to keep warm.
He checked his watch and tried not to get overly annoyed that the visitor he was expecting was already fifteen minutes late.
It was no big surprise.
Timekeeping was not her strong point.
It wasn’t really Miller’s either, but the unique demands of this case meant that, until Justin Cutler was returned safely to his family, it would need to be.
Time was not something they had a lot of, certainly not enough of the stuff to waste on procedure or protocol, meaning things that Miller would normally have taken for granted like standard meal breaks and regulation shift patterns would be out of the window until further notice.
He would need to eat on the hoof and grab a few hours’ sleep as and when.
He already knew that, barring any major developments, he’d be out working the streets the following day before the sun was up.
‘A different kettle of fish,’ Alex said. ‘Kidnapping.’
She was sitting at the small table in the kitchen and Miller sat down opposite her. Having never worked a kidnapping before, he was starting to see exactly what his dead wife meant. ‘You worked one a few years back, didn’t you?’
‘A Tiger Kidnap,’ she said.
‘Someone kidnapped a tiger? I bet that was bloody tricky.’
Alex did not even blink, quite used to that kind of smartarse remark and well aware that Miller knew exactly what she was talking about.
A Tiger Kidnap was one in which a target was carefully stalked before being taken, with the intention of using that person to facilitate another crime.
‘A local businessman was snatched on his way home from the gym, for no other reason than his wife was manager of a building society in town. She was told they’d kill him unless she did her bit to help them rob the branch. ’
‘So how did all that turn out then?’
‘Not great.’ Miller watched the shadow fall across his wife’s face as she recalled the failure of her investigation, and now he remembered the case. ‘The kidnappers walked away with a shedload of cash,’ she said. ‘And the woman’s husband came home with several fingers missing.’
‘Why do they always do that?’ Miller shook his head.
‘What’s this obsession with snipping people’s bits and pieces off?
’ He was remembering the discussion at dance practice a few nights earlier, the look of horror on poor Gloria’s face.
‘I tell you what, you want to make a few bob quickly, start flogging balaclavas and secateurs.’
They sat in silence for a while. Miller checked his watch again.
‘You think he’ll behave himself?’ Alex asked. ‘Chopra?’
Miller knew she was asking if the DI from the Kidnap Unit would do as he’d been told and stay in the background.
In truth, he wasn’t sure. He had no idea how Chopra and his colleagues would be spending these overnight hours.
He could only hope, for Justin Cutler’s sake, that they did whatever it was quietly and without drawing too much attention to themselves.
‘He’s a massive twatwaffle,’ he said, ‘but I think he knows what he’s doing. ’
Alex stared at him for half a minute and it was clear that she had something to say. ‘I know that helping Jacqui Cutler goes against the grain.’ She leaned towards him. ‘I know you think she could have done more when you needed help. When we needed it …’
‘Yes, because she could have.’
‘One day you’ll get your chance to even things up.’
‘I can’t bloody wait.’
‘But none of it is her son’s fault. So, ask yourself how you’d feel if it was Finn sitting where Justin Cutler is and for now don’t think of it as helping that woman. Just think of it as doing your job.’
Hard as it was to swallow, Miller knew that she was right. Annoying, but right all the same. He stood up to turn the oven down a little and flicked the kettle on. When he came back to the table, there were tears in Alex’s eyes.
‘I can imagine what she’s going through,’ she said. ‘Jacqui Cutler. I know it’s not really the same, but at the time, it felt like Finn had been taken.’
Miller said nothing, struggling to breathe suddenly at seeing her upset.
‘They took her … the drugs took her, same as they’d taken her dad. They took her and they’ve never let her go.’
He remembered an old Irish proverb his Auntie Bridget was fond of trotting out – ironically – when she’d had a few.
A man takes a drink. Then the drink takes a drink.
Then the drink takes the man. He knew that the same was true for drugs, and that arguably the process was quicker and even more ruthless.
It certainly had been for Alex’s daughter, as it had been for far too many others in the streets she lived on.
The cold, hard fact was that Blackpool had the highest rate of fatalities linked to drug abuse, alcohol and suicide in the country.
The so-called ‘deaths of despair’.
It wasn’t hard to work out why Alex found it so distressing.
‘It doesn’t mean it’s always going to be like that,’ Miller said. ‘I know it’s not easy, I know it’s anything but easy … but she can still get away if she wants to badly enough.’
‘That’s the point, though. She doesn’t want to.’
‘Not yet, maybe.’ Miller found himself thinking about the letter that was still sitting on the mantelpiece; the tainted cheque inside. He knew that Alex was thinking about it too. ‘But she knows I’m here when that time comes.’
As if on cue there was a knock at the door.
‘You know that too, right, love?’ Miller took one last look at Alex before he got up to answer it. ‘Hey, Finn.’
‘Hey, Miller.’ The girl grinned, then sloped in like she was exhausted, her grubby rucksack falling from her shoulder just before she wandered into the kitchen. ‘Something smells good.’
Miller moved past her and leaned down to open the oven. ‘I got us both haddock and chips.’
Finn moaned appreciatively and dropped into the same chair her mother had been sitting in just moments earlier. ‘Curry sauce?’
‘What do you think?’ Miller carried the wrapped portions across, went back to fetch ketchup and extra vinegar, then sat down and watched her tearing into her meal as though it was the first thing she’d eaten all day.
Which it almost certainly was.
‘Come on then,’ she said, her mouth full. ‘A briefing, that’s what you said.’
‘Yeah, because that’s what it is. A briefing on our joint operation which kicks off tomorrow morning at … six a.m.’
Finn nearly spat out her haddock. ‘Are you joking me?’
‘The early bird catches the worm,’ Miller said. ‘And gets paid twenty-five quid an hour for her trouble.’
‘Oh.’ She considered it for a few seconds, then dipped a chip in ketchup. ‘OK, I’m in.’
‘I haven’t told you what’s involved yet.’
‘Doesn’t really matter.’
As they ate, Miller told her what had happened to Justin Cutler and what he had in mind for the morning: a somewhat unconventional tour of the town centre, taking in conversations with as many of the users and small-time drug dealers as Finn could lead them to.
‘Sounds easy enough,’ she said. ‘Mind you, a lot of them won’t be awake that early.’
‘You find them and I’ll wake them up,’ Miller said.
‘Fine, but let me do the talking.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because I know these people and you’re so obviously a copper. It’ll be embarrassing.’
‘We’ll see how it goes,’ Miller said. ‘But I do need you to think carefully about where all these people are and, based on that, to work out our most efficient route, timewise. I don’t want to be walking from the station to the south pier and then have to turn round and traipse all the way back to the Tower just because you forgot about some smackhead who hangs about outside JD Sports. ’
‘Septic Jim,’ she said.
‘Eh?’
‘He’s the smackhead who hangs about outside JD Sports.’
‘That’s impressive knowledge.’
‘It’s what you’re paying me twenty-five quid an hour for,’ Finn said.
‘Lancashire Constabulary’s getting a bargain, you ask me.’
‘Plus a tenner for lunch.’
Miller pushed a curried clump of chips into his mouth. ‘It’s comforting to know I’ll be working with an expert in their field.’
As soon as Finn had finished eating and was making a move to leave, Miller said, ‘You should just stay here tonight. Seeing as we’ve got such an early start.
’ He was encouraged by the fact that she did not immediately begin protesting, or simply bolt for the door as she had done plenty of times before. ‘Makes sense, don’t you think?’
‘To you, maybe.’
‘I won’t have to come and find you in the morning. We won’t lose any time and you won’t lose any money.’ He could see she was thinking about it. ‘Plus, I’ll throw in a bacon-and-egg McMuffin on the way.’
‘Yeah, OK, but it’s just … look, I don’t want to make things awkward for you.’ She was glancing across at her rucksack which still lay on the floor just outside the kitchen door.
‘Awkward, how?’
‘There’s weed in my bag.’
‘I’ll try not to smoke it all at once,’ Miller said.