Fatal Quest by Sally Spencer Page B

help?’
    â€˜Simple – you can help by tellin’ me who did it.’
    â€˜What makes yer fink I know?’
    â€˜It’s your
business
to know. An’ even if you don’t actually know
now
, you could soon find out, because the killer is either a member of your gang or somebody closely
connected
with the gang.’
    â€˜Why are yer so certain ’e’s one of
my
“business associates”?’ Smithers asked. ‘Maybe ’e’s one of Toby Burroughs’s blokes. Yer ’ave ’eard of Toby, I take it?’
    â€˜Oh yes, I’ve heard of him,’ Woodend agreed.
    There wasn’t an officer serving in the Met who
hadn’t
heard of Burroughs. Toby had been in the game even longer than Smithers had, and his firm was the only serious rival to Greyhound Ron’s.
    â€˜Yeah, maybe it
was
one of Toby’s boys who bumped off Wally,’ Smithers said, seeming to warm to the idea. ‘It would make sense, wouldn’t it?’
    â€˜It would make no sense at all,’ Woodend replied. ‘The Waterman’s Arms is on your firm’s territory. Burroughs’s “business associates” know better than to try an’ show their faces there.’
    â€˜All right, if one of them didn’t do it, maybe Wally was killed by a civilian – an ordinary punter,’ Smithers suggested.
    â€˜In that case, where’s the second body?’ Woodend wondered.
    â€˜Yer what?’
    â€˜If an ordinary punter had killed one of your lads, he’d have been dead himself before he had time to reach the door. But there was only one body in the pub when the coppers arrived – Booth’s! Which can only mean, when you think about it, that whoever killed Wally must have been much more important to your firm than Wally was himself.’
    â€˜Do yer seriously fink I’d let one of my boys get topped wivout doing somefink about it – even if that somefink didn’t necessarily involve the law?’ Smithers asked.
    â€˜If I knew you better, I might be able to give you an answer to that,’ Woodend said, ‘but since we’ve only just met, I’ve no idea.’
    â€˜Bullshit apart, what is it that yer
really
want?’
    â€˜I thought I’d already made that plain. I
really
want the guilty man.’
    â€˜And yer don’t just want ’im – yer want to collar ’im in a
hurry
.’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Because the sooner I can close this case, the sooner I can get back to the one that really
matters
, Woodend thought.
    â€˜I want him collared in a hurry because I’ve got my guv’nor breathin’ down my neck for a result,’ he said aloud.
    â€˜That guv’nor would be DCI Bentley, would it?’ Smithers asked.
    â€˜You know it would.’
    â€˜If yer like, I could get the word to Bentley that yer need a bit more elbow room,’ Smithers suggested.
    â€˜I
don’t
like,’ Woodend told him firmly.
    Smithers sneered. ‘Oh, you’re that kind of copper, are yer? The by-the-book, holier-than-thou variety.’
    â€˜Not exactly,’ Woodend said. ‘I’ve cut a few corners in my time – but I’ve always been choosy about which corners they were.’
    â€˜So if I was to offer yer some money not to bovver me no more – say, for sake of argument, a couple of grand – yer’d turn it down, would yer?’
    Two thousand pounds was a small fortune to a detective sergeant, Woodend thought. Even high-ranking officers, like Commander Cathcart, didn’t come anywhere near earning that much in a year.
    â€˜If you were to offer me a couple of grand, I’d have to assume you were tryin’ to hide a much bigger secret than the name of Wally Booth’s killer,’ he said.
    Smithers laughed. ‘Yer right,’ he agreed. ‘An’ if I
did
’ave a big secret to hide, I wouldn’t