Nowhere to Hide by Alex Walters Read Free Book Online Page B

I’m well past caring.’
    â€˜And it means we have something in common.’
    Brennan gazed thoughtfully at Salter. ‘So I understand. Funny how things work out, isn’t it? From what I hear, you’re quite the hero round here.’
    â€˜In some people’s eyes. Not in everyone’s, I imagine.’
    â€˜Your case was a little more spectacular than mine.’
    â€˜Not through choice,’ Salter said. ‘I just didn’t know what I was taking on. Nearly went completely tits up. The outcome was the same for both of us.’
    â€˜A corrupt copper exposed. I guess so. My case wasn’t so clear-cut. Apparently.’
    â€˜No. Well, things rarely are, are they?’ Salter paused, a smile playing softly across his lips. ‘Unless you’re actually caught with your hands in the till.’
    Brennan nodded, accepting that Salter was just playing games. He’d come across plenty like Salter over the years. Smart-arse graduate types who maybe weren’t quite as smart as they thought, but who enjoyed yanking people around until they were found out. Christ, he’d probably been one of them himself, though it hadn’t felt like it.
    â€˜Is that why I’m here, then?’ Brennan said. ‘Birds of a feather, and all that. Or did you just feel sorry for me?’
    â€˜Not my call. Though of course you’re just what we needed. Like I say, the really experienced investigators are getting thin on the ground here. We’re up to our ears in ex-Revenue types. They’ve been only too keen to stay with us. Well, it’s more fun than chasing up some dodgy builder for accepting too much cash in hand. No, it’s the honest-to-goodness coppers we’re short of.’
    â€˜So now you’ve found an honest-to-goodness copper, what exactly do you want to do with me?’
    Salter pushed himself slowly to his feet and walked over to the window. The meeting room was in the Manchester regional office, an anonymous industrial building in the furthest corner of an equally nondescript industrial estate, somewhere in the far reaches of Trafford Park. The window looked out over the rear of a small-scale distribution company – a couple of lorries lined up for loading, a forklift truck, a couple of piles of poorly stacked pallets. ‘Kevin Sheerin,’ Salter said.
    â€˜Go on.’
    â€˜You knew him?’
    â€˜We all knew him. Not that any of us particularly wanted to. Small time dealer. Occasional grass. No one’s friend; probably a few people’s enemy.’
    â€˜And now no longer with us.’
    â€˜Hit and run. Back streets of Stockport. Sheerin, pissed out of his head, fell into the road and was hit by a car. Driver didn’t stop. Not entirely sure I blame him.’
    â€˜Accident, then?’
    â€˜Christ knows. Like I say, Sheerin had made a few enemies. Grassed up a few of the wrong people. Got away with it as long as he did only because he was so small-time. But he might well have pissed off one person too many. Not worth wasting a lot of resources on, either way.’
    â€˜So you weren’t treating it as murder?’
    â€˜We were treating it as a hit and run. Inquest gave an open verdict. We made the usual efforts to find the driver – CCTV, any witnesses. But no dice yet, as far as I know.’
    â€˜Is Stockport Sheerin’s usual stamping ground?’
    â€˜No. He’s more of an inner-city Manc type. Cheetham Hill. That’s another reason he survived as long as he did – kept on the right side of the people who matter up there.’
    â€˜So he was off piste when he was killed?’
    â€˜Off piste and well pissed. Definitely. We checked out the local pubs. Found a couple of witnesses who remembered him knocking back the pints earlier in the evening. Was with a few others, but nobody knew who they were. Or so they said.’ Brennan leaned back in the hard chair and stretched out