Page 108 of Little Children

‘For what reason?’ Red asked in disbelief.

Adil looked far less surprised.

‘Red, do you have any idea what kind of man Roy is?’ she cried, aware of every passing minute.

He shrugged, still unsure what the conversation was about. ‘He can be a bit rough around the?—’

‘He’s bent, Red. I mean, really bent. Not just a little bribe or an occasional blind eye.’

Red began to shake his head, but she detected an imperceptible nod from Adil.

‘He’s a racist, sexist, disgusting human being. He has photos on his phone from crime scenes. Victims, Red – female rape and murder victims.’

‘No, he would never…’

‘He’s shown them to Bryant. You know what else? He raids the home of a woman named Pippa Jacobs regularly to get sex in return for not shopping her. The first time she refused he planted drugs in her house, and she ended up in prison. She was clean, and he set her up.’

‘I was there when she was busted. It was a good arrest.’

‘What was your intelligence? How did you know to raid her place? Don’t answer because you don’t need to. It was Roy, wasn’t it?’

He was nodding but only half-heartedly. ‘I saw the drugs being?—’

‘Of course you did. He’s pretty clever. But what you didn’t see was the visit earlier in the day where Pippa Jacobs refused to give him sex for silence. She dared to say no to him, and look what happened.’

Kim couldn’t work out if the look of disgust on the man’s face was real or forced… but he was still shaking his head.

‘And did he tell you about his impromptu visit to the morgue yesterday after visiting Justin Holmes? Or that a long blonde hair was coincidentally found on the body of Jasmine Swift after his visit?’ Kim stopped herself from asking if he already knew about it.

‘You’re saying he’s framing a man for murder?’

‘You gotta agree that it’s a little suspicious. He’s as bent as they come, Red, and right now he’s got one of my officers alone somewhere. If anything happens to him, I swear you’ll?—’

‘What do you want me to do? How the hell would I know where?—?’

‘I know,’ Adil said quietly before turning to his boss. ‘He does take photos. He showed me one, and then when he could see how disgusted I was, he warned me to keep my mouth shut. That was at the Sainsbury’s car park. He said he could push me over the edge and no one would question a thing. He’s probably taken him there.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Red said, running his hand through his hair.

‘Stay put,’ Kim said to her team as she grabbed her jacket.

Red was already heading out the door.

She ran after him and prayed to God that they weren’t already too late.

Seventy

‘What the hell, Roy?’ Bryant asked, forcing innocence into his voice. He realised now a part of him had known he was being set up the minute he’d got in the car. Why had he agreed to go anywhere with this man?

‘The game’s up, pal,’ Roy said, positioning himself between Bryant and the only way out. There was one other way, Bryant thought, casting a glance over the edge. He didn’t like his odds of surviving that fall.

‘You almost had me,’ Roy said. ‘Almost believed you had something about you and that we played for the same team. Except you couldn’t hide that fucking core of weakness?—’

‘Decency,’ Bryant corrected.

‘Whatever, it’s fucking pathetic. Acting like you accidentally knocked the phone out of my hand when I wasn’t hurting anyone. The slag was already dead. And you engineered that phone call at Pippa’s, didn’t you? You can’t even take a free blow job to get you through the day.’

Bryant considered trying to lie about his meeting with Pippa and bluff it out until he wasn’t in a precarious situation on the roof of a building with the filthiest copper on the force. But he could feel that the revulsion was finally showing on his face.