Death in Dark Waters by Patricia Hall

said. “You just come under the general heading of associates. There’s folk in this town want that dump closed down. And if you’re the excuse that’s just fine by me.”
    â€œIn other words you’re just fishing, man,” Dizzy said with disgust.
    â€œOh, no, it’s you idle bastards go fishing. We go tiger hunting. And if you know who the tiger is in this particular jungle you could do yourself a lot of good by filling us in. Guarantee your ticket back to Manchester or London or whichever swamp you surfaced from, I’d say, instead of a spell at Her Majesty’s. Know what I mean?”
    â€œUp yours,” Dizzy B muttered as he took the back seat offered in DC Sharif’s unmarked car. DC Val Ridley glanced round at him from the driving seat.
    â€œTo what do we owe this pleasure?” she asked Sharif as she started the engine.
    â€œWhat do you think? Do they ever go anywhere without their stash?”
    â€œThat could be construed as a racist remark,” Dizzy B said.
    â€œCould it?” Sharif asked with a smile that could have been construed as a sneer in the DJ’s direction. “I thought I was talking about musicians. Colour don’t come into it, bro!”
    At the police station the DJ found himself being processed behind two men he recognised.
    â€œThey’re not leaving anyone out then?” he said to one of the two doormen from the Carib.
    â€œGot us out of bed, man.”

    â€œAnd they’ve brought Darryl in, an’all,” his companion said.
    â€œLet’s have less chat and more attention to what’s going on here,” the custody sergeant said, waving the two doormen towards the cells. “Name?”
    â€œDavid Sanderson,” Dizzy B said abruptly as he listened contemptuously to Mohammed Sharif’s summary of his arrest and emptied his pockets with all the familiarity of one who had not only stood in front of a custody desk but behind it as well. “Can we get this over with? I’ve got things to do, places to go.”
    â€œCID want to talk to him about other matters, sarge,” Sharif said quickly as the sergeant glanced quizzically at the tiny amount of cannabis the DC handed him in a plastic evidence bag. “When Val Ridley’s ready”
    â€œMy guest, Mr. Sanderson,” the sergeant said, gesturing towards the cells where the Carib’s doormen had already been incarcerated. As Sharif personally slammed the heavy door behind his prisoner, the two men’s eyes met in mutual dislike through the peep-hole before Sharif closed that too.
    â€œPaki bastard,” Dizzy B Sanderson shouted loudly enough for Sharif to hear before flinging himself angrily onto the bunk on the other side of the cell. “Let’s see the race relations industry sort that out, shall we?”
    Four hours later Dizzy B was sipping a vodka and cranberry juice in Bar Med, the stylish new café bar which had just opened in premises near the university that had once been a bank. Kevin Mower leaned back on his tubular steel chair and grinned sympathetically.
    â€œYou and Omar didn’t hit it off then?”
    â€œBastard thinks we’re all just down from the trees,” Sanderson grumbled. “Less than an eighth I had. There was no way they could make out I was dealing. I accepted a caution, but they kept me there two hours trying to get me to grass up my supplier. Did I buy it in Bradfield? Did I buy it at the club? He’s in London, for God’s sake. What’s it to them?”

    â€œThey seem to be going over the top about the Carib,” Mower said, pulling a face over his orange juice cocktail. “There’s no sense in it when it’s the kids up at Wuthering who are really running out of control. It’s awash with the hard stuff up there.”
    â€œLook at this,” the DJ said, flinging a copy of the Bradfield Gazette across the table in Mower’s direction.