Blood Substitute by Margaret Duffy Read Free Book Online

because we’ve made life too hot for them here. All the nice little earners: extortion, drugs trafficking and so forth. As you probably already know they nearly always shift out the local boys, mainly by killing those who don’t take the hint and head for the hills. As far as Bristol’s concerned it would appear that the hood in charge might be the brother-in-law of a mobster who runs his empire from somewhere in the Walthamsden area of east London. The real worry is that Morley was working undercover. They rumbled him. Reece wants to know how, who they really are and then would like their heads parboiled on a plate. I know that you worked undercover for MI5 and this is not work I’m familiar with. Any theories as to what can go wrong?’
    â€˜You get very tired, exhausted actually, and then it’s easy to allow your guard to drop,’ Patrick said. ‘Success depends on what kind of person you are: sometimes you’re expected to do things that go against your own moral grain and that can be extremely difficult.’
    â€˜Behave really yobbishly, you mean?’
    Patrick shook his head. ‘We’re beyond talking with your mouth full, or even drinking until you pass out or throw up. No, beat people up or help kill them – with a snarl on your face. Was he right inside the gang?’
    â€˜You’ll need to talk to Reece about that but from what he said probably not,’ Greenway answered, but was not to be sidetracked. ‘This might be naive of me, but
you’ve
done that?’
    Patrick finished his second cup of coffee. ‘I’ve given downright thugs a going over, and I’m not proud of the fact that, following orders – MI5 orders, I mean – I killed one, but to answer your question properly, no.’
    â€˜How, and not give yourself away?’
    â€˜I did say one might be
expected
to do things. You can fake a lot of stuff but I never allow the situation to develop where people, those in charge that is, expect me to do anything that I don’t want to.’
    â€˜That’s a huge risk, surely.
How
?’
    â€˜I tend to make myself indispensible – and what someone recently described as daunting.’
    Greenway was about to say something further but the words froze on his lips as the man to whom he was talking became very daunting indeed. I have never been able to explain it: I am Patrick’s wife but when he is like this he is too big, too close and too damned dangerous. I have wondered if hypnotism is involved for when he somehow cranks the intimidation up a notch, which he did now, he trapped Greenway in a stare, his eyes resembling crazed living pebbles, from which the other man was unable to tear away his gaze. You find yourself thinking of animals paralysed with fear in the headlights of the vehicles just about to kill them. Then Patrick chuckled, breaking the spell.
    â€˜You insisted on knowing,’ he said.
    Chin jutting out, Greenway said, ‘As I said just now, Reece’ll give you all the details. I told him you’d get there around lunchtime.’
    It was just after ten thirty now – Greenway had been somewhat late – and Avon and Somerset Police HQ is at Portishead, which is about as far as you can go in that part of the world without ending up in the Bristol Channel. It is a four-hour drive and we had just completed a five-hour one.
    â€˜Hinton Littlemoor for dinner tonight then,’ Patrick said to me, getting to his feet. ‘Fantastic to have met you again, sir,’ he said with a winsome smile to Greenway, whereupon everyone shook hands again and we left, the SOCA man looking a trifle bemused.
    â€˜Sod that for a game of soldiers,’ Patrick muttered when we were outside in the street, reaching for his mobile. He punched buttons. ‘James, it’s Patrick … Yes, I can hear that you’re in a debriefing. Just a quickie. I take it Paul Reece is an oppo of yours? …