Midnight by Stephen Leather

Author:Stephen Leather [LEATHER, STEPHEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2011-01-19T16:00:00+00:00

43

Alistair Sutton was an old-school detective, a big man in a worn suit, with bleary eyes and the pained expression that came from having been lied to more times than he’d ever be able to recall. He smiled without warmth as he shook Nightingale’s hand and asked for a vodka and tonic before Nightingale had even offered him a drink. The chief inspector had agreed to meet Nightingale in the Cape of Good Hope pub, next to the Albany Street police station, close to Regent’s Park. It was a modern brick-built public house, surrounded by council flats and close to the Royal College of Physicians. It was, thought Nightingale, the perfect community for twenty-first-century Britain. The unemployed and workshy could get drunk, have a punch-up, get medical treatment and be taken to the cells without ever leaving the street.

Sutton had kept him waiting for more than an hour. ‘Murder case,’ he said by way of apology. ‘Five Asians hacked a black teenager to death in an alley.’

‘Racial?’ asked Nightingale, waving a ten-pound note at a barmaid who was busy texting on her iPhone.

‘Drugs,’ said the detective. ‘Turf war. We’ll get them, we always do; but for every one we put away there’re half a dozen waiting to take their place.’ He scowled. ‘The way of the world. This country’s going to Hell in a hand-basket.’

Nightingale managed to attract the barmaid’s eye and ordered the drinks. ‘Do you want to sit?’ he asked the detective.

‘With my feet, damned right I do,’ said Sutton. He ambled over to a bench seat in the corner by a fruit machine and stretched out his legs.

Nightingale paid for the drinks and carried them over to the table. He sat down opposite Sutton. ‘We never met, did we?’ asked Nightingale. ‘In the Job?’

‘No, but I heard of you, obviously,’ said Sutton. ‘Truth be told, that’s the only reason I agreed to see you. I’m not one for sharing intel with private eyes. These days they take away your pension any chance they can. But what you did to that paedo – you did what a lot of us wish we could do.’

Nightingale sipped his beer. ‘Yeah, well, it cost me my job,’ he said.

‘The Job’s not what it was,’ said Sutton. ‘Now it’s all about ticking the right boxes and meeting targets. It’s bugger all to do with putting away villains. Not that there are many real villains around any more. Most of the crime is done by drug-fuelled sociopaths.’ He shrugged. ‘You’ve caught me on a bad day,’ he said.

Nightingale raised his glass in salute. ‘How many years have you put in?’

‘Twenty-seven,’ said Sutton. ‘I can go with a full pension in three and I probably will. I’ve already put out a few feelers and I can probably go into the British Transport Police at the same rank, get my pension and a bloody good salary on top.’

‘I thought you were fed up with the Job?’

‘I am, but I do that for five years, maybe ten, and I’ll be set for life.

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