Fifty-Three
‘I heard you wanted to speak to me,’ Wayne Cutler said.
‘So I do, and I’m super-impressed that you called me so quickly.’ Ralph Massey did not bother to suppress a chuckle. ‘I say that, but I don’t imagine I’m keeping you from very much. A spot of weightlifting, perhaps? A pottery class?’
‘Say your piece before I lose my temper.’
‘There’s really no need to be like that.
I’m having this conversation in good faith, because I’ve been gifted some information that I think you’ll be very glad of.
But if you’re going to be rude, I’ll just go back to what I was doing, which I can assure you is a lot more fun than whatever the hell you were doing. ’
‘Fine. Let’s have it then.’
‘A simple question first. Why are you stockpiling drugs?’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘This won’t go anywhere if you treat me like a fool, Wayne.
I know you’re gathering all your stock together because it’s all that anyone in our business is talking about.
Some of your lower-level customers have already come crying to me because they can’t get what they need. What I want very much to know is why?’
‘Let’s say you’re right.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake—’
‘Why would I tell you?’
‘Because of what I can tell you, if you do. It’s a simple exchange of information, that’s all.’
‘Nothing’s ever simple with you, Massey. You’re twisted.’
‘Oh, do stop trying to butter me up. Now, where were we? Ah yes, I know someone’s making a move against your family. Or has already made it.’
‘How do you know any of this?’
‘Because our mutual friend Detective Sergeant Miller told me. Well, perhaps he was a friend of yours, but I can’t imagine he’s still on your Christmas card list.’
‘What is it you want to know?’
‘We can start with what the nature of this move is and what on earth it has to do with you piling every drug in Blackpool save for Viagra and asthma inhalers into what I can only assume is a very big box.’
‘You go first.’
‘Really?’
‘You go first or I hang up.’
‘How would you like a name?’
‘I’d like that a lot.’
‘Neil Battersby. You need me to spell that?’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s an ex-soldier. No obvious drug connections as far as I can tell, but Miller and his pals are after him for something. Something very serious, by all accounts.’
‘Where did you get his name?’
‘Does that matter?’
‘Course it does. I need to know if your source can be trusted.’
‘A dancer I know who was playing hide the sausage with him, demonstrating that her lack of taste in sexual partners is matched only by her mediocre talent as a dancer. I really can’t remember why I hired her, but hey ho. So, now then … quid pro quo, Clarice.’
‘Quid … what?’
‘It just means something for something. Basically, you scratch my back, I scratch yours.’
‘Well why didn’t you just say that and stop talking like a ponce?’
‘It’s your turn, Wayne. Tell me the reason for gathering all your drugs together and I may well have something even better than his name to give you.’
‘What if I tell you and you don’t tell me?’
‘Oh, well, I have a jolly good laugh at your expense and the next day someone burns my ballroom down. I know that you’re a vindictive man who still has some … influence outside that prison. I may be twisted, Wayne, but I’m not daft. So, whenever you like …’
‘The drugs are the payment, all right? Every bit of gear we can get together and hand over. Tonight. They’re the ransom for my son.’
‘Ransom?’
‘He kidnapped my boy.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not. But he will be, this … Battersby.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt it, and you’d have a chance to make him sorry that much quicker if you knew where he was.’
‘Something else your useless dancer told you?’
‘By all accounts he took her to an out-of-the-way spot for some alfresco hanky-panky and it sounds very much as though it’s where he’ll be getting his hands on all your drugs later on.
I don’t have the co-ordinates or anything like that, but I think I can get you – or someone in your employ – fairly close. ’
Once Massey had told Cutler what Nikki Wallace had told him, there was not a great deal else for the two men to say to each other. Just a few final digs, for old times’ sake.
‘This doesn’t mean we’re mates, Massey, nothing like that.’
‘Perish the thought.’
‘Or that I trust you any further than I could spit you.’
‘Right back atcha, as the young people say.’
‘Yeah, well you’d know all about young people, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh, shut up and go back to your pottery class.’
‘It was actually an anger management class, you perfumed pillock, so that’s how much you know.’