Hard Place Read Online Free Page A

Hill.
    As he passed the men’s bog, the solid bulk of Detective Sergeant Tosh Watson emerged, as it often did. Ratso reckoned Tosh must have had the weakest, smallest bladder ever to come off the production line. His face was well-shaven as far as his well-trimmed goatee, while the top of his head was a burr cut with a number-one blade, a dark veneer of growth covering most of it. Watson was not obese, though the way he put away fast food, he deserved to be. But he was overweight, decidedly so for someone aged early thirties. Keeping fit was not his style—he rarely lifted anything heavier than a pint glass or a dart. “If you were paid for pissing against a wall, you’d be a rich man, Tosh, retired probably.”
    Ratso was rewarded with a nod and a forced grin. Tosh had heard it before, lots of times. But he usually reacted with a quip or jibe of his own. Not today. It was a bad sign. Ratso tapped in the code and entered the Cauldron.
    One look at the faces staring at him from around the central bank of desks and he knew Neil Shalford was dead. But of the two or three officers gathered, only his two trusted sergeants knew the truth; the rest would only know that a drinking mate of Ratso’s had probably been murdered. On a need-to-know basis, only Ratso, Tosh Watson and Jock Strang were aware of the plan. After the right balls-up following Health and Safety rules last time, it had been Jock Strang who suggested Neil work off the books.
    Ratso trusted Neil to the nth degree, even though he was sometimes paid by drug gangs for snooping on rivals. But the Irishman’s chameleon quality, fitting in with whoever paid, was his strength. He picked up the gossip, knew where the hard guys hung out and so had eventually agreed to become Ratso’s snout. Better still, he knew Erlis Bardici well enough to despise him. More than once, he had told Ratso that the cocksucker baboon made his flesh creep.
    On a needs must basis, Ratso had taken Jock’s idea to the AC. Ratso had felt sure he’d get the yes. When he had been Detective Chief superintendent, Wensley Hughes’ had been seen off by Zandro and the taste of defeat was still bitter years later. The AC had agreed but his pointed warning had made Ratso’s scrotum shrink as if he’d been doused in freezing water.
    “I feel pretty relaxed about that, sir,” Ratso had deluded himself, desperate for anything that might achieve the big break. But now the AC’s words rang fresh in his ears as he saw the worried look on Strang’s face.
    “Morning, boss. Let’s use your room,” volunteered the Scot, nodding for Tosh to follow.
    In his late forties and ten years older than Ratso, Strang’s gruff voice evoked images of meat pies, the Ibrox terracing, Irn-Bru and whisky chasers. He had the frame of a Gorbals copper—around five foot nine but every inch packed with hard experience from Glasgow’s violent underbelly. His physique shouted I take no shit. Of the three, Ratso was the tallest and fittest and for Jock, losing a few pounds round his midriff would have been an improvement. “It’s no the whisky or the fish suppers, boss,” he would often protest. “It’s ma knees. Cartilage damage playing fitba.” Ratso had bought the explanation. Cricket had played hell with his own joints.
    “A report in ten minutes ago. There’s a body. Small park, top of the Fulham Palace Road. Hammersmith.” The trio were crammed into Ratso’s airless office.
    It was Jock Strang who broke the news. Ratso looked into Jock’s eyes, burning now with anger, his cheeks reddened from late nights and booze. Somewhere along the way, something had happened to leave Jock’s right eye lower than his left. Jock had never volunteered an explanation and nobody seemed inclined to ask. The dour, unhealthy face beneath iron-gray hair cropped short matched his voice.
    “A body? Hammersmith? Happens all the time,” Ratso deliberately exaggerated. He was perched on the edge of his desk and swung a long leg