Sight Unseen by Graham Hurley

Author:Graham Hurley [Graham Hurley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

Jessie, it turns out, is a keen swimmer. She drives down to the Bridport Leisure Centre three times a week and tackles the seventy lengths that clock up her personal mile. She’s been doing this since Christmas, one reason she’s in such good shape. Gradually, over the months, she’s come to know a handful of the other regulars that churn up and down but recently all of them have had to make space for a new face in the pool. This is someone much younger and – more to the point – very, very good.

‘Good, how?’

‘Style. Stamina. Speed. This boy must have been born a fish. He leaves all of us for dead.’

‘Age?’

‘I’m guessing. Maybe eighteen? Nineteen? He’s definitely started shaving but that’s not the point. This lad isn’t from Bridport at all.’

Malo’s age, I think. Interesting. I want to know more.

‘We think he’s probably down from London.’

‘How do you know?’

‘One of the guys talked to him in the showers. I don’t think it was the easiest conversation but he’s definitely not local.’

‘Some kind of work placement?’

Jessie laughs. Nice idea, she says, and probably not a million miles from the truth.

I tell her I don’t understand. Is he with a local firm?

‘He’s a drug dealer.’ This from Andy.

‘How do you know?’

‘Jess has seen him in the rugby club car park next door to the leisure centre. He drives a nearly new BMW. Badge of office. It’s even the right colour.’

I’m assuming black and it turns out I’m right. Andy nods. How many kids can afford a motor like that?

Jessie picks up the story again. From time to time she’s had brief eye contact with this youth. ‘You know the way it goes. You start by nodding if you meet at the end of a length. Then you might get a grunt of apology if you get in each other’s way. We’re not best buddies. We’ve never even had the beginnings of a chat, but there’s the makings of a connection there.’

‘How come?’

‘I had a problem with the car the other day. It turned out to be the battery but I didn’t know that at the time. I was under the bonnet for a while, poking this and that, and the Beemer was nearby. During that time he had three customers. All boys. All young. It was very slick. The dosh. The handover. Done.’

‘We’re talking a couple of bags?’

‘More. In old brown envelopes.’

‘No CCTV?’

‘One camera but the Beemer is invisible behind a hedge. It’s always busy at the leisure centre, people coming and going, kids in the holidays and at weekends.’

‘Is he black, this boy?’

‘No, white.’

‘And does he have a name?’

‘The guys in the pool call him The Machine. That’s to do with his swimming. I think it’s a compliment.’

‘And they know he’s dealing?’

‘No. I’ve kept what I just said to myself. I still can’t be a hundred per cent certain but without the flat battery I’d never have sussed him. Me? I’m a Pompey girl. You get a nose for stuff like this.

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