The City Trap by John Dalton Read Free Book Online

calm.
    ‘But Claudette wasn’t supposed to be out on the game that night. If she was, Vin would’ve been round to protect her.’
    ‘You mean it could’ve been local, someone she knew?’
    ‘Someone I know! If it was, Des, I want that arsehole and I want him nailed.’
    ‘Have you got any other reasons to suspect . . . ?’
    ‘Yeh, she left me a parcel to look after. I opened it the other day; it had over five thousand quid in it!’
    Bertha Turton gave Des a defiant look, her brown eyes once again piercing straight into those that were blue.
    The money, was it really the money that made Des suddenly get keen? He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable that he might so easily be bought, so easily tempted into a dangerous situation. Or was
it Bertha’s sudden smile? Intimate, suggestive, seen clearly and then suddenly gone.
    ‘So are you going to do the job or what?’ Bertha asked.

6
    Des had woken with the hunger back again. A sweat and some half-muffled dream where Miranda, armed with a knife, walked naked among high-rise towers. It put him off his
breakfast. He stumbled out to his car and thought how awful the street looked with litter strewn everywhere. Des didn’t see the sun was up until he hit the expressway heading into town. There
the blue haze of pollution was already building, leaving the sun an ineffectual glow. Des worked hard to throw off the ache he felt.
    ‘Jesus, man, I got a real job now, no need to go down the bleeding Fedora, don’t have to dust off my taxi licence. Get with it, Des, and sod the woman.’
    But a night spent in bed with his unconscious self proved difficult to shrug off. As he got nearer the city centre, the traffic slowed to a crawl and Des began to snarl at the congestion and
confusion of passers-by. ‘Sex. In-your-face sex. But where the bleeding hell is it? Bet bloody Miranda’s getting it all!’
    He finally got out of the jam, drove too fast down a side street and then hid himself away on the top deck of a multi-storey car park.
    ‘Just leave me alone!’
    DI Errol Wilson didn’t want to see Des anywhere near work. Though an old friend from way back when Des did self-defence classes, the fact that he’d become a dick
made him wary of what his colleagues might say. So they met up on the footbridge that spanned the six-lane highway, the no man’s land between Alpha Tower and the city centre. When Des hauled
himself up the corkscrew ramp Errol was supping a Coke and seemingly counting the cars that emerged from the Queensway tunnel.
    ‘So how many is it since you got here?’
    ‘Must be hundreds, man, an that’s barely five minutes.’
    ‘I can think of better places to meet, like one of those trendy new bars. You could fix me up with some trendy new food and a nice ten-year malt.’
    ‘Shit, some of my colleagues frequent those joints, they would wanna know who you were and I’m too close to promotion to admit knowing you.’
    ‘Ah, you’re losing your touch, Errol. The ladder’s going to your head.’
    ‘I’m getting older too, Des. What the fuck, we all change.’
    ‘Well let’s go down Chinatown, eh, check out Wung Li’s and have a snack. Kills you quicker than fags this place.’
    ‘OK, man, I can live with that just the once.’
    Wung Li’s was much like any greasy transport caff, except of course for the Chinese script. Yellow stained walls, circus posters and plastic carnations. But the food was
good and the counter always gleamed. Des slumped into a corner after ordering while DI Wilson settled down with great care. They had the place to themselves, bar two Chinese guys stuffing noodles
at a table by the door.
    ‘You really are getting fussy, aren’t you, Errol?’
    ‘Look, man, I’m earning good money. I’ve lived most of my life in shit and I don’t need or want it any more. You wanna know how much this suit cost?’ Errol ran a
slim brown finger down his navy blue lapel.
    ‘Don’t give me a heart attack.’
    ‘So what gives