Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,76

a half a dozen sawn-off shotguns. Not the kind of thing you argue with. So they went off to get tooled up themselves. By the time they came back, the cops were waiting and the whole vanload got arrested. And not a one of the door crew got lifted." Tony shook his head, as if he still couldn't quite comprehend it.

I was taken aback. I couldn't remember a time when Manchester villains had ever called the police in to sort out an internal matter. Whoever was trying for a takeover bid was so far outside the rules it must be impossible for the resident villains to know what the hell was coming around the next corner. "So what happened?" I asked.

"There was a lot of unhappy people around. I don't have to draw pictures, do I? So they decided they'd go down one of the venues. Out of working hours, so the door crew wouldn't be around. They figured a good wrecking job would sort things out. They'd hardly got the door broken down when the cops arrived with an even bigger team and nailed the fucking lot of them. They couldn't believe it. I mean, you're talking people who've got coppers on their teams. Where do you think they get the extra door muscle on Friday and Saturday nights? But there they were being faced down by a fuck¬ing busload of coppers in riot gear. You can't get that kind of a turnout when it all goes off in the badlands on a hot summer's night!" Tony crushed out his cigarette and pulled another one out of the pack.

"So, whoever is behind all of this has got a bit of pull?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"You could say that."

"Who is it, Tony?" I asked.

A drift of smoke from Richard's joint hid Tony's face for a moment. When it passed, his dark eyes met mine. I could see worry, but also a kind of calculation. I felt as if I was being weighed in the balance. I'd wondered why Tony had agreed to talk to me. It hadn't seemed enough that he was an old mate of Richard's. Now I realized what the hidden agenda was. Like his buddies, Tony had been comfortable with the way things were run in the city. Like a lot of other people, he wasn't comfortable with what was happening now. They'd tried to sort it out themselves in the conventional ways, and that hadn't worked. Now Tony was wondering if he'd found a cleaner way of get¬ting the new team off the patch. "Somebody came to see me a couple of weeks ago," he said obliquely. "A pair of somebodies, to be precise. Very heavy-duty somebodies. They told me that if I wanted Manassas to carry on being a successful club, I should hand my promotions over to them. I told them I didn't negotiate with messengers and that if they wanted my business, the boss man had better get off his butt and talk face to face."

I nodded. I liked his style. It was a gamble, but he was on his own turf, so it wasn't likely to have been too expen¬sive. "And?"

"They went away. Two nights later, I was walking from my car to my front door when three guys jumped me. They put a sack over my head and threw me in the back of a van. They drove me around for a while. Felt like we were going in circles. Then they tipped me out in a ware¬house. And I met the boss."

"Who is it, Tony?" I asked softly. He wasn't talking to me anymore. He was talking to himself.

"Peter Lovell. Detective Inspector Peter Lovell. Of the Vice Squad. He's due to retire next year. So he's setting himself up in business now to make sure he can replace all his bribes with a nice little earner."

There was a long pause. Then eventually I said, "What's he like, this Lovell?"

"You ask the police press office, they'll probably tell

you he's a model copper. He's got commendations, the lot. The top brass don't want to know the truth, do they? Long as their cleanup rate looks okay to the police com¬mittee, everything's hunky-dory. But this Lovell, he's a real bastard. He's on the take with all the serious teams that really run the vice in this city. The faces behind the class-act brothels, the boss porn men, the mucky movie boys, they're all paying Lovell's wages. But he