Love, Lies and Bleeding

By Ralph Robb

Justine Manley is forced to resign from the Ontario Provincial Police. Due to her skills, she is soon recruited by the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service as a “deniable” operative. Her assignment: find the man accused of abducting Somalian woman Fozia Yahye. Justine’s mission takes her to London where she encounters several dangerous characters but also a bit of help. She enlists the aid of debt collectors Pinkie and Roy to help her solve Fozia’s disappearance while stopping a group of human traffickers known as “The Falcon.” As Justine encounters friendship, deception, and violence, she follows clues that lead her to armed robbers, psychopaths, mercenaries, and double-crossers. Soon, Justine comes to realize she is not the only one looking for the notorious Falcon. She battles against a group of professional killers who seem to be one step ahead of her and hell-bent on eradicating anyone connected with the Falcon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483491653

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Copyright © 2019 Ralph Robb.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9166-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9165-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911542

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

www.retroscripts.ca rev. date: 04/25/2019

DEDICATION

For Joan Deitch, a very, very special person

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1

I T WAS A dark morning, and a gas fire hissed at the cold damp air in Patrick Pinkowski’s small living room. Seated on the rickety wooden chair she had retrieved from the kitchen, Winsome Bailey clamped a child between her knees as her oiled fingers twisted and folded the recently combed hair. Love had made small discomforts easy to bear, and even though her fingers ached she was happy to plait Darina’s hair. It was the ache in her heart that really troubled her: she had not slept well on hearing that, after all this time, Sonia had rung Patrick the previous evening.

Winsome had never thought it would happen, she had never thought she could fall in love with a white man, but Patrick, or Pinkie as her cousin Roy called him, was different. Tall with cropped fair hair and deep blue eyes set above high Slavic cheekbones, Patrick Pinkowski was a curious, handsome mix of Irish melancholy and Polish intractability, or was it Irish intractability and Polish melancholy? She was never sure. He had lived in his modest terraced home in Terrapin Road, two doors away from her, for almost seven years and Winsome had been attracted to him for almost as long. She respected the resolve he had shown in the three years since Sonia had left him, while secretly hoping that he might fall in love with another black woman. When the divorce papers landed on his mat, she admired how he had coped with bringing up his mixed-race child. And, even after he had not responded to the signals she had sent him, Winsome had loved the way he was strong enough not to take what she wanted to give him – until the moment she learnt of that telephone call. It was then that she saw it was not really strength, nor resolution, but that Patrick had not cut the emotional ties which had bound him to his former wife. Yet, even in her pain, Winsome felt it was only her hope – and not her love for him – that had diminished.

As soon as he heard the message on his answering machine, Patrick Pinkowski knew something was wrong; he could hear it in Sonia’s voice. All she said was that she would call back soon. There was no contact number, no mention of love, nor the hint of reconciliation he had always hoped for. But it was the absence of any enquiry about the health of their daughter Darina that signalled she was in some sort of trouble. The message simply said: ‘It’s me. Patrick, we have to meet soon. I’ll call you back, maybe tomorrow. Try and be in. Bye.’

Winsome had felt herself shrink back when Patrick told her that Sonia had tried to make contact. Something inside her had withered. ‘She’s bad news, Patrick, bad news,’ she said, trying her best to sound like a concerned friend. ‘Sonia isn’t your wife anymore. She’s not your responsibility.’

Patrick Pinkowski looked away from her. Ashamed of his weakness, he said quietly, ‘But she’ll always be the mother of my child.’

Darina had been in her school uniform and waiting with a comb in her hand when Winsome had let herself in. Patrick was noisily splashing water around the bathroom. ‘Morning, Winsome,’ he said brightly after thundering down the stairs. ‘You’re an angel, you know that?’ She did her best to make her sneer look like a smile, not looking up from the row of plaits in the small girl’s hair. He zipped up his old leather jacket and in a different, harder tone, he added, ‘I’ve got to go and to see Roy about some business.’ He hunkered down and kissed his daughter on the forehead. ‘Be a good girl,’ he said, ‘I love you.’ As he straightened up, Winsome felt his eyes search her face, but she gave nothing away. Those last three words of Patrick’s had made her feel strangely resentful. ‘Can you look after Darina when she gets back from school if I’m not home in time?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said sharply, still not looking at him. To the child she said, ‘I’ll do my best, but if I don’t get to the school, you come to my house with Keith. Tell him not to dilly-dally an’ come straight home with you, okay Darina?’

He grimaced on hearing the sourness in Winsome’s voice, thinking it must still be about how he had ignored her warning about Sonia. He hovered momentarily, searching for something to say, but left without speaking another word.

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Once in Harlesden, Pinkie gave two toots on the horn, and minutes later Royston ‘Monster’ Haughton left his second-floor flat and ambled down the concrete steps. But even before he got to the car he could see by Pinkie’s grim jaw line that something had upset his friend. The car rocked as Roy eased his massive bulk inside. He stretched a long leg and pushed the front passenger seat back as far as it would go but decided not to ask what was wrong. Roy had known Patrick Pinkowski long enough to know that he would talk about what was troubling him when he was good and ready. ‘So, Pinkie, my man,’ said Roy, ‘what is the business of the day?’

Pinkowski looked up from the rearview mirror and answered, ‘The only thing on the agenda is the business of Miss Veronica Hunter.’

‘Ah, yeah, man. This so-called big-time gangster in Bermondsey, some people reckon he’s still dangerous,’ Roy said sarcastically. ‘How we gonna deal with him an’ keep things nice an’ clean? I asked you the other day, how are we gonna deal with this guy an’ make sure there’s no repercussions?’

‘Remember last year, that guy who ran the security firm in Camberwell?’

‘Oh yeah,’ groaned Roy, ‘he went on so bad threatenin’ this an’ that until we started pourin’ those cartons of yoghurt over him. If you think we’re doin’ that again, I’m outta here.’

‘Well, I think we should use a similar approach, but without the yoghurt. Let’s be a bit more spontaneous, Roy. I think, though, we’re going to show this man love, not war,’ said Pinkie, holding up and gently shaking a red plastic bag.

Roy did not bother to ask what was in it, he could tell by the angular bulge. Instead, he scratched his beard and muttered a few curses about this ‘Japanese an’ psychology ting’ under his breath. But he had faith in his friend, his tactics and preparation had yet to fail them. Out loud, he said, ‘Nah, man. Seriously, I know you favour this psychological business right now but I prefer war … But if you think it’s the only way,’ he said reluctantly, ‘then love it is.’

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Ronald Stone was listening to a familiar noise in the distance. It was the sound of mechanical distress that often brought a hint of a smile to lips that felt more comfortable drawn back against his teeth and twisted with a snarl. He was seated at his desk, and as the noise grew louder he gazed out from his office window snarling at the world and thinking of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Life: he was fifty-two, afflicted with bouts of gout and the occasional kidney infection, and starting to feel old. Most of his friends had gone, and the populace around him, the ‘newcomers’, did not show him the respect he felt was due from the indigenous people of England.

Liberty: twenty-three of those fifty-two years had been spent in prison – and he was at the point of considering that those four periods of incarceration could have been the happiest days of his life.

The pursuit of happiness: three failed marriages had shown him that the elusive prize probably lay elsewhere; a bar on the Costa del Sol in Spain to be precise.

He was tired of the dirty trade in which he had become immersed, and now all he had to do was shift a few more motors and he would be away. He had received a number of offers from other members of the used motor vehicle retail fraternity to take the remaining stock off his hands. Thieving bastards - but at least they were consistent. But Ron Stone had decided he would stay just a little longer in his small red-bricked office he called ‘The Dungeon’ and suffer the cold misery of a few more long dark winter days; the experience could only add to his pleasure as he basked in the Spanish sun.

A possible punter approached: mid-twenties, tatty leather jacket, faded jeans and trainers; he was tall and broad-shouldered. Ron Stone, who prided himself on his ability to size up a punter at a glance, thought of him as a possibility for one of the fuel-injected hatchbacks, or the ten-year-old Audi coupe in the corner – unless he was looking for a little runabout for the wife or girlfriend. He had left a blue Ford parked in the road, Ron Stone had heard it before he’d seen it: the big ends were gone; he’d tell him it wasn’t worth the scrap value. Then things took an unpromising turn. The man was striding towards the office without even pausing to look at any of the cars. Stone picked up his newspaper and swore to himself: the toe-rag was about to try and sell him a clapped-out motor.

The man entered the office and headed for the gas heater at the rear of Stone’s desk. He didn’t like that, it was an invasion of his space, he was straying into Ron’s territory. He put the newspaper to one side. ‘Can I help you, mate?’

Patrick Pinkowski straightened up while rubbing his hands. ‘Bloody cold out there, mate,’ he said, without turning around.

Stone did not like his tone. He said, ‘There’s a hostel for the homeless a mile down the road. It’s a bit dingy, from what I hear, but it’s warm.’ Pinkowski merely looked sideways and smiled before turning his back on the heater to remove the chill from the back of his legs. Ron Stone added, ‘You’re blocking my heat, mate. What can I do for you?’

Pinkowski took one step forward, placed something on the desk and then stepped back. Ron Stone leant back in his swivel chair and gave the business card a cursory glance. Using one of its corners to dislodge a piece of meat from between his two front teeth, Ron Stone sucked at the minuscule remains of a bacon and egg sandwich. He was not a man easily intimidated; he had done his share of blagging and time in high security wings. He still knew people.

He spat a piece of gristle onto the card and tossed it away; whoever the geezer was, he certainly was not the Monster mentioned in the logo. ‘I take it you must be Paddy Polack, then,’ said Stone. ‘What sort of bollocks is that, The Paddy Polack and Monster Debt Collecting Agency? If this is what I think it is you had better fack off before you get your legs blown off. Get my meaning, toe-rag? I already have security and insurance, so go away and I’ll forget I ever saw you.’

Pinkowski pretended to frown disappointedly. ‘Oh dear, we do appear to be at cross purposes, Mr Stone. And obviously you have not heard of my company. That’s a shame, it would’ve saved some explaining. I am not looking to sell you anything but that car out there.’

Stone let out a rasping chuckle. ‘Arsehole,’ he wheezed, ‘I ‘eard you a fackin’ mile away. Big ends gone, ol’ son. So piss off and stop wastin’ both our time.’

‘You mean it’s not worth six hundred notes?’

‘You fackin’ mental or somethin’? It ain’t worth six hundred fackin’ pence.’

‘Well, five weeks ago it was.’

‘I doubt that. It’s an ‘eap of scrap. So fack off and try a scrapyard.’

‘It’s actually the heap of scrap you sold to a Miss Hunter five weeks ago, and I’m only here to collect her money.’

Stone rose from his chair and looked out of his window. ‘Ah, yes. Nice lookin’ bird. You the boyfriend comin’ here to act the hard bastard? A big mistake, that could get bigger.’

‘Merely in her employ,’ replied Pinkowski. ‘Let’s make it seven hundred and fifty, that includes her out-of-pocket expenses and my fee.’

Stone’s fingers stroked the handle of the sheaf knife in the pocket of his sheepskin overcoat. Confident, he said, ‘It was sold as seen. She should’ve bought the warranty.’

Pinkowski shrugged his shoulders. ‘The vehicle clearly was not of merchantable quality, Mr Stone. Miss Hunter told you within ten days of her purchase that something was wrong. She has done her best to appeal to your good nature.’

‘I’ve got no fackin’ good nature,’ Stone growled impatiently. He turned and gripped the knife in his pocket while his other hand made a gold-encrusted fist. ‘A word to the wise, fack with me and you will be very sorry, Paddy Polack, or whatever your name is. Tell Miss Hunter to take this matter to the Small Claims Court, it keeps everything kosher and stops anyone from gettin’ hurt. Understand me?’

Pinkowski rolled his neck, and feigning distraction, said, ‘Perfectly, but I don’t think you quite understand what I’m saying to you.’

Ron Stone was about to step forward and wipe the disrespectful smirk from the face of the intruder but a sudden reduction in the amount of light coming through the open office door stopped him. A man, black and bearded, at least six-feet-eight and weighing in at three hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle squeezed his way in. Stone immediately knew that the ‘Monster’, as mentioned on the business card, was no sleeping partner. He was dressed in black, from the Trilby hat perched precariously on his large head to the soles of his outsize Doc Martens. A bucket of fried chicken nestled in the crook of one of his thick arms, and a red plastic carrier bag was hanging limply from one of his massive hands. Ron Stone drew his lips tight against his teeth. ‘If you boys are here for serious trouble you’d better make sure to leave me dead, you fackin’ bastards.’

The giant merely smiled as he tore into a portion of chicken and chewed, bones and all.

‘We’re not here for trouble, Mr Stone.’ Pinkowski said in a flat, slightly tired tone. ‘But you have not been honest with me. We both know that you will be ensconced in España a long time before any court will deal with Miss Hunter’s claim.’

Ensconced, en-fackin-sconced, thought Ron Stone, what the fack does that mean? The bastard is taking the piss! The punch he threw with his left was meant as a feint as he thrust the knife towards an unprotected abdomen. But Pinkowski had not attempted to parry the punch, he had moved down and to his right, away from the blade. The flash of bright light and the sound of an explosion in his head were the last things Ron Stone was aware of before the blackness.

He regained consciousness lying on his stomach across his desk and feeling cold. His wrists, now bound with his own tie, were gripped by the smirking man who was sitting in his chair. The giant stood behind him, he too was smirking as he continued to devour his fried chicken. Stone shivered. Defiantly, he snarled, ‘You fackers are as good as dead!’

Pinkowski frowned and said, ‘You’ve hidden your cash very well, Mr Stone. Though we found lots of dirty pictures, you disgusting old man. But let’s get one thing clear, we are here for a very small amount of money and not for trouble.’

‘Then fack off! You’re getting no money from me, not now, not ever. So go on and work me over – but make sure to leave me dead, you fackin bastards!’

Patrick Pinkowski looked back to Roy Haughton and then to Stone. He said, ‘Would violence really solve anything, Ron? Can I call you Ron? I mean, Ron, if we did beat you and did not get the money you owe, what would that produce – only more violence, surely. And I take your threats very seriously. No, Ron, we are not here to make war, we are here to make love. And that’s exactly what Monster is going to do as soon as he has finished eating his chicken.’

It was then Ron Stone realised why he felt so cold. Fearfully, he turned his head and saw the goose-pimpled whiteness of his bare legs: his shoes, trousers and long-legged thermal underwear had been removed while he was unconscious. ‘B-Bastards!’ he yelled.

‘What will you tell your friends, Ron?’ said Pinkowski, ‘Please sort out the men who indulged in a bit of uphill gardening with me?’ He affected a look of horror and then continued, ‘Ron Stone, hard man, blagger and now buggered. Ron, Ron, Ron, make your mind up quickly because once Monster has, let’s say, got himself psyched up, there is nothing I can do to stop him. At the moment he is only thinking of fried chicken, but as soon as he is finished he could become … let’s say … very affectionate. And, I have to tell you, everything about him is in proportion.’

Roy spat a chicken bone into the cardboard bucket and drew a huge leather glove across his mouth before leering down at Stone’s prostrate figure.

A breeze swirled around Stone’s scrotum, and cold sweat ran down the cleavage of his ample buttocks. When he lifted his chin to see the giant stroke a vast inner thigh with a greasy glove a wide-awake-nightmare flooded into his mind. ‘Behind the filing cabinet,’ he grunted, ‘there’s a loose piece of skirting board. The cash box is there, touch anything else and you’re dead!’

Pinkowski nodded and the huge man shifted the heavy metal cabinet with ease. Roy found what he was looking for once he had removed two plastic-wrapped packages from the space in the partition wall. The black metal box in his hand, Pinkowski said, ‘Key?’

‘In my fackin’ strides.’

Seven hundred and fifty pounds were counted out and the remainder of the slightly grubby banknotes were put back into the box. After giving the two packages a cursory inspection, Roy Haughton then put everything back the way he had found it. ‘Thanks,’ Pinkowski said to Stone, ‘I hope you enjoy your time in Spain. But there’s something we have to do before we go, just in case you get some silly idea that we’re the ones who did the robbing.’

Ron Stone snatched a breath as Pinkowski put a hand into the red plastic bag that sat on his desk. He was about to cry out but the sight of a camera stilled his tongue. The big man then stepped behind Stone, put a hand on his back and squeezed the air out of him. Pinkowski let go of the tie around Stone’s wrists and said, ‘Monster, let me see that one-eyed trouser snake!’

Stone felt his legs being forced apart and something ghastly and warm touch the flesh of an inner thigh. He tried to scream but didn’t have the air. A flash of bright light almost blinded him. The spots in front of his eyes were still fading when he heard the whirring of an instant photo being produced. Another flash followed, and then another before Pinkowski said, ‘That’s another dirty picture for your collection, and it’s also just for insurance, against personal injury and the like, Ron.’ He placed one of the photographs on the desk. ‘Get my meaning?’

As the two men walked back along Jamaica Road, Roy Haughton was not a happy man. Recently, Pinkie had taken to reading books on psychology, and in particular one written by a 16th-century samurai on military strategy. He had then argued that violence should not be necessary when they were pitted against a violent character. ‘We shouldn’t fight fire with fire,’ Pinkie had said, but Roy was not convinced.

‘I don’t like playin’, Pinkie,’ Roy said, ‘an’ all that stereotypical shit about everythin’ bein’ in proportion. If I had to do that again I’d think about callin’ a day to this debt-collectin’ lark. Like I said before, either we use violence or we don’t - I prefer violence but we’ll leave that to the guys we have to deal with, but that’s the last time I do that. Understand?’

Pinkowski, again deep in thought about Sonia’s call, said, ‘What’s that, Roy?’

‘I’m talkin’ ’bout stereotypical shit, right. I’m talkin’ preferrin’ violence to me doin’ all that … Are you okay? It ain’t like you to be this quiet. You think this guy might cause us trouble?’

The concern in his friend’s voice roused Pinkowski from his contemplation. He grinned broadly as he thought of Ron Stone and how he would have reacted if he had heard the voice of Roy ‘Monster’ Haughton. A quirk of nature meant that within his giant frame resided a larynx that would have been more suited to an eleven-year-old girl. He said to Monster, ‘Look, Roy, all the stereotypes are in the heads of the bastards we deal with. Ain’t what we just did better than handing out a good hiding? And at least this time there was no pouring yoghurt over a big hairy belly. The only thing damaged about Stone is his pride, he don’t know us and there ain’t goin’ to be no comeback, believe me. By the way, what exactly did you push against his arsehole?’

‘A drumstick,’ Roy squeaked, ‘I really didn’t fancy that tenth piece of chicken.’

‘Beautiful touch, Roy,’ laughed Patrick Pinkowski, ‘just beautiful.’

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2

A FTER THEY HAD reached the west of the city and gone their separate ways, Roy Haughton returned to his flat in Harlesden. He lived in a sprawling rundown estate, made up of rows of maisonettes and high-rise blocks that regularly made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Meanwhile, Patrick Pinkowski had headed back to Balham and collected his ladder, two buckets and the other paraphernalia he required for cleaning windows. It was a job he had done intermittently since the day he left school at the age of fifteen. The money was handy; it provided a much more regular income than debt-collecting and the hours were flexible enough to make looking after his six-year-old daughter a little easier.

Window cleaning was also a means of collecting reliable information, and it was how he had become involved in debt-collecting in the first place. An old woman, whose eyesight was so bad that he often felt guilty about charging her for cleaning windows she could barely see out of, had been conned out of most of her life savings by a gang who pretended they had repaired her roof. With Roy’s assistance, three men were hospitalized and their pick-up truck was temporarily put out of action, but no money was retrieved – and the old lady’s roof remained leaky. It was then that Pinkowski had learnt his first valuable lesson about collecting money: if there was going to be a chance of a satisfactory resolution you had to use tactics other than violence.

As he cleaned the windows at the rear of a bookie shop that was managed by a squat and balding man named Enrico, all Pinkowski could think about was the message left by his former wife. Since the day she had divorced him he had called Sonia a crazy bitch. Although she had announced more than once that she had to get out of their ‘poky little hole’ before it overwhelmed her, he had put down her initial utterance to post-natal depression. The day she left, shortly after their daughter’s third birthday, he thought she would be back in a week or two: they had shared too much for her to just up and leave. Or so he had thought. Sonia did return, but only for short visits to see Darina and occasionally to stay the night. In the morning she would often leave without any explanation of her actions. He wanted to ask what she expected of him: he felt he had led a life of enforced loneliness during her periods of absence because of his love for her, a sense of duty to their child, and the residues of the faith he no longer practised. He wanted to prevent her from leaving – but never did. She was on some sort of quest and even though he did not know what, exactly, she was looking for, he felt he did not have the right, nor the power, to stop her. She had her problems; the first time they met, Patrick had thought Sonia was a beautiful but strangely troubled soul. On their first date she had happily confessed, bragged even, that she was posing naked for photographs that were taken by a man who had promised her fame and fortune as a fashion model. Sonia’s vanity made her susceptible to flattery and Pinkowski had seen then how easily a depraved individual named Doug Walker had exploited her. She was hardly the girl he had envisaged taking home to his silver-haired Irish mother, but there and then he had made up his mind to steal Sonia away from Walker’s unctuous grasp.

They married a short time later, while still teenagers, and Sonia had the family she had always craved when Darina was born a year later. Sonia had always been vague about her own family background: her father, whom she alternately described as a professor or a chief of police, lived on a Caribbean island she claimed to be the place of her birth, while her mother, who had travelled from the West Indies, now lived in Wales. She mentioned half-brothers and half-sisters only once, as if ‘half’ was worth nothing at all.

After the divorce, Sonia began to travel abroad with a new friend named Viv. Patrick thought she was a bad influence as Sonia’s visits to the home they once shared became less frequent; she had not visited in the past twelve months. But communication was made – somewhat irregularly – by telephone, and Pinkowski had never given up hope that she would one day find whatever she was looking for, discover it was of less value than what she had left behind, and perhaps return to her child and the man who still thought of himself as her husband. Perhaps.

‘Oi, Pinkie!’ cried Enrico, ‘just how much bird shit do you intend to leave on my bleedin’ windows and expect to be paid for it?’

Bird shit, particularly pigeon shit deposited at high velocity, was the bane of Pinkowski’s window-cleaning life; only spray-on fake snow came close as an impediment to the efficient cleaning of glass. Looking up from the foot of his double-extension aluminum ladder, the smears of excrement were only too apparent. That other bane of his life had obviously distracted him from the job in hand. ‘I want nothing, Enrico,’ he snarled, ‘nothing that you can give me. I’ll come back tomorrow, when I’ve got my mind properly focused.’

‘You can focus your bleedin’ mind right now and forget about tomorrow, or any other bleedin’ day if you want my business.’

Pinkowski, still peering up at the second-storey windows, bit his lip. He began to lower the ladder’s extension and said, ‘Tomorrow, Enrico, I’ll come back tomorrow.’

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Inspector Raymond Voigt sat in his second-floor office and, closing a file, swivelled in his chair to look out at the Toronto skyline. It was approaching dusk, and long shadows lay in the street below. His eyes drifted to the green domes of the Ukranian church, Saint Paul’s, as he crossed his ankles and pushed his fingers through coarse greying hair while waiting for the phone to ring.

Over the years he had been taken to many lunches, mostly by John Sinclair, but had offered little in the way of useful information in return. The exercise, as far as Voigt was concerned, was one which would not hinder his career prospects. He figured it was for the best to at least be seen to be getting along with members of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service. As time went by, Ray Voigt had convinced himself the customary titbits he provided, the stuff that did not make it into official reports about events and colleagues, was sufficient.

His meeting with members of CSIS a few days before was preying on his mind. It proved to be the day when he was finally presented with the bill for all those lunches. There was no small talk, no pleasantries; instead there were groundless charges of police incompetence during the Palladium Club operation, most of them emanating from John Sinclair. He was a thin man of medium height with receding black hair that was slicked tight against his scalp. In fact, thought Voigt, everything about Sinclair now seemed tight: the flesh against his cheekbones and the thin lips that were barely more than a line. The tight-assed son-of-a-bitch was a man under pressure. The CSIS was taking the lead in ‘Operation Falcon’ now that American Intelligence chiefs had finally conceded that their own services were too stretched and distracted by a war on terrorism to prioritise an investigation into an international crime ring which ‘only’ trafficked women for the sex trade. Assurances had been given that they would hand over what data they had – and that they were happy for the CSIS to make whatever use they could out of it, provided they were kept informed of every development. But no one in the CSIS believed that those on the ‘less civilised’ side of the border would not attempt some sort of intervention once the hard work was done and matters came to a conclusion. Sinclair had said he thought the Americans were only feigning disinterest and that the CSIS were now to be the ‘game dogs’ whose role was to find what was hiding in the undergrowth while the hunters waited patiently for their quarry to be flushed out. Whispers were circulating that what lay behind the intrigue surrounding the Palladium Club affair could prove more devastating for the American military and intelligence services than anything that had occurred in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, if it ever came to light. So it was decided that the CSIS would conduct two investigations: one of which senior American personnel would know about, and another using a ‘deniable’ operative who might just uncover what had initially got the CIA so interested in Falcon.

The phone rang and roused Voigt from his memories with a jolt. He turned in his chair, and when he heard the voice on the other end of the line he spoke softly in case his voice carried through the thin partition walls. ‘Hi, John … It’s difficult to talk right now … Yeah, … I think I have her for you … No question about it, she’s a damn fine operator, but something of a maverick … Vice and Undercover specialist … Perfect now she’s a PI, but better still, she was involved Operation Palladium through Lana Barkov … Yeah, she carried the can, so if anything goes wrong she’ll be put down as an emotional woman trying to right the wrongs she suffered … No, no chance of any comebacks … Yeah, she does feel pretty sore about it … Sure, Justine Manley is just right for what you need.’

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She had been sitting in a car that smelt of stale tobacco for almost three hours. Torrential rain prevented Justine Manley winding down a window and getting some fresh air. The car belonged to Hetty, her flatmate, and it was her boyfriend Marlon who was responsible for the foul odour. As Friday night turned into Saturday morning she took turns to curse him and his dirty habits, and men in general, as was her habit after each of her relationships broke down.

Once she had driven into a parking space, which was in a side street directly opposite the house her target was visiting, Justine felt a moment of professional satisfaction; whichever way he headed after leaving, she could follow without any cumbersome manoeuvre. As time slowly ticked by, that small sense of achievement evaporated into the well of discontent she now felt residing inside her. Hetty suggested her moods were down to broodiness, or because she had ended her relationship with Troy. What, Hetty had asked, was wrong with him, he had been one gorgeous specimen. Justine did not respond and Hetty pressed her about the possibility of a delayed reaction to the events that had been brought into the public domain by the vindictive commentaries of the columnist Christine Monteau. The bad publicity had forced the Ontario Provincial Police to