Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(19)

‘ Oh, bullshit,’ Kash snorted. ‘I’m SAS–combat trained, sweetheart.’

‘Then this should be over quickly.’

‘I’m not involved in this.’ Snale backed off towards the truck, her head down.

‘I need you as a witness!’ I called.

‘So, what? I pin you against the dirt, and I’m the boss.’ Kash’s eyes wandered over my body, measuring, underestimating, the way everybody did. ‘And you’ll fully accept that. It’s my investigation to run from start to finish.’

‘It’s got to be the face.’

‘Right,’ Kash said. ‘I put your face in the dirt and your arse is mine.’

‘You put my face in that dirt and I will trawl this town for Islamic terrorists until the cows come home.’ I put my hand on my heart. ‘I will speak operational jargon so pompous and ridiculously over-official that not even you will be able to understand me.’

He didn’t even ask me what I wanted him to do if I won. The possibility never entered his mind. He rushed towards me, huge hands out, ready to break me.





Chapter 28


KASH FAKED LEFT, swept to my right and gathered me up in a chokehold, his hairy arm wrenching me backwards. I let him take me, pushed off the ground and rolled over him, shocking him with how fast I had him on his back.

We both twisted, righted, kicking red sand. His glasses had been knocked off. He ignored them. My heart swelled with a sick kind of joy. I liked to fight. I’d been fighting since I was a kid. Trying to claw some corner of existence for myself in houses where I was the cuckoo invading the nest.

Kash was eyeing me, trying to decide his next move. I didn’t give him time to go on the offensive again. I rushed at him, caught his arm and tried to twist it as we danced in the dirt. He grabbed the back of my neck and shoved me downwards, using my own momentum as I’d used his. I was pinned on my back, the wind knocked out of me. Most people panic when they can’t breathe in a fight. But I knew the air would slowly return. I kicked out and he overbalanced, fell on me. I shoved his jaw upwards.

Snale was watching us from the truck. I locked eyes with her, my neck and shoulders and arms on fire as the incredible weight of Kash’s body came down upon me. She grimaced as Kash leaned on me. It was clear who she was rooting for.

I kicked again, got him in the hip. I twisted and scrambled out from beneath him, got him in my own chokehold, a knee in his spine. He stood and I went with him, absurdly hanging off him like a monkey trying to wrestle a bear. He tried to shake me off, gripping at my arms, but I locked my legs around his waist. And then he did what I hoped he’d do.

Kash sank to his knees and fell backwards, trying to crush me against the ground. I slid sideways before I could hit the dirt, let go of his neck and scooped up his arm. I wrenched it high against his back. He yowled, shocked by the sudden pain, and I shoved the back of his head down so that his cheek hit the red earth beneath us.

‘Yes.’ I stumbled off him, wiping sweat from my eyes. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes!’

The giddy exhilaration of my win lifted the weight of the Last Chance case, of my brother’s case, right off my shoulders in an instant. For a second I felt free. When I fought, I felt strong. I felt that I could take care of myself. I was a warrior.

Kash was dusting sand out of his ear when I came back to myself. Back to the shitty hole in the desert, the middle of nowhere, far from where I needed to be. My smile faltered, as with painful clarity a little voice in my head reminded me that though he was clearly an idiot, a stubborn and ignorant being, this man was supposed to be my partner. We were supposed to be working on this thing together.

I offered my hand to Kash, but he didn’t take it. He gave me a hateful look and walked off towards the car.





Chapter 29


WHITT TURNED THE page of the psychologist’s report before him, the clatter and crash of the prison visitors’ centre pushed back in his mind until it was only a dull hum in his ears.

Beyond the plexiglas, a door opened at the end of the small corridor. Samuel Blue was shuffled to the chair before the detective. Whitt put the psychologist’s report in his briefcase and pulled out his notebook and pen.

‘How you going, Edward?’ Sam gave a tired smile. The two had met in the courtroom briefly the day before, exchanged a phone call.

‘Oh, you know. How are you? That’s the more important question.’

‘I really need that money you were talking about on the phone.’ Sam leaned forwards so that his mouth was centimetres from the speaker holes in the glass. ‘I’m hot property in here, and the only thing that’s going to keep the other cons off my back is protection money. I’ve used up the cash Harry gave me.’

‘Are you still receiving threats?’ Whitt asked.

‘ Daily. Staff and inmates now.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam sniffed. ‘I know the drill – Harry told me. Protection money in prison is a lifetime deal. You pay once, you have to keep paying. But I need to at least keep drip-feeding these guys some cash or I’m not going to survive to see the rest of the hearings.’

‘I’ll move some money into your account this afternoon.’ Whitt made a note.

‘I don’t know how to fight.’ Sam seemed distracted, rubbing his palms together hard. ‘I’m a fucking graphic design expert. I haven’t been in a scrap since I was a kid. Harry’s the fighter.’