Danny walked swiftly down his road, towards the bus stop.
He called Anton on the way. But the reply was just a message: Hi, this is Anton Holt at the Evening Post. Please leave a message after the bleep.
‘It’s Danny. I just heard about Finn on the radio. I expect you’re covering it. I’m going to the Starbucks to see if Wire comes to the pub. Call me if you can.’
Danny slipped his mobile into his pocket. He looked around. It was a nice day. Dry, mild, clear sky. A good day for a kickabout. Sometimes he thought that maybe he should be doing things like that again. Not sitting drinking coffee and watching pub doorways.
Then an idea came to Danny.
Maybe she’d come with him. He wanted to see her on his own without the likes of Ian Mills around. She would be good at just watching. She knew about his football detecting. She had helped him more than once. Maybe he was starting to think of her as a partner.
He found her number and dialled. She picked up after one ring.
‘Hi Danny.’ She sounded enthusiastic. A good sign.
‘Do you fancy helping me solve another crime?’ he asked, in a mock-mysterious voice.
Charlotte said nothing. Not a good sign.
‘Don’t worry. No one will shoot at us this time.’
There was a long silence. He waited. Until he heard Charlotte laugh. ‘OK,’ she said.
And that was it. She agreed to meet him. At Starbucks. In an hour.
The city centre was quiet. Not many shoppers. No one out on their lunch break yet. It was cloudy and cold now. A sudden change in the weather. Danny was glad to be inside where it was warm.
Danny glanced at the door of the pub opposite Starbucks. Then back to Charlotte. She was wearing her hair differently today. Not just hanging down but tied back in two pigtails. Danny wondered why he’d suddenly started noticing her hairstyle.
‘An ex-City player,’ he said. ‘Paul Wire. He was a footballer, then he got involved in lots of dodgy stuff. Anton’s had a tip that Wire’s involved in the footballers being burgled. And, because there was a footballer robbed yesterday, this is a good day to see if he is seeing his fence, or whatever.’
‘Do you think it’s him?’ Charlotte asked.
‘I don’t know. But there are no other leads and Anton said it was a solid tip.’
‘So who gave him the tip?’
‘He wouldn’t tell me. An ex-player. That’s all he said.’
Danny got out the photos of Wire’s possible associates.
‘These are the men he might be seen with,’ Danny said, quieter now. ‘Anton sent me the photos.’
Charlotte studied them, then, after a moment, leaned towards Danny, pausing while the coffee machine was making its racket.
‘How are things at home?’ Charlotte asked.
‘With Emily?’ Danny asked, wondering what she meant.
‘Yeah. Is she still being nice?’
Danny smiled. ‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe she’s grown up?’
‘Maybe,’ Danny answered. ‘She has started wearing these funny scarves. Like she thinks she’s an adult all of a sudden.’
‘I bet she’s got an older boyfriend,’ Charlotte said.
‘You reckon?’
‘I know it. It’s obvious.’
Danny looked at Charlotte and nodded. Then his eyes returned to the door of the pub. And there he was.
Paul Wire.
Lighting a cigarette.
‘Don’t look,’ Danny said to Charlotte, ‘but that’s him.’
Charlotte looked.
Danny rolled his eyes.
‘He’s not very fit, is he?’
‘What do you mean?’ Danny asked.
‘He’s not very good looking. I thought footballers were supposed to be good looking.’
For some reason this remark made Danny feel uneasy. He didn’t know what to say.
Charlotte went on, unaware. ‘And now he’s talking to someone.’
Danny looked. She was right. Wire was talking to a man who had stopped in the street. He was tall, muscular and young, making Wire look smaller and older. They shook hands. Danny looked more closely. The man was familiar.
‘The pictures,’ Danny said to himself. He pointed at Holt’s set of images of known criminals. He scanned the four faces. And there he was. A dark-haired man with a moustache. Francis Graham.
As he studied the picture, Danny heard three or four clicks.
He looked at Charlotte. She was holding a camera to the window. She’d got it all.
‘I thought while you were admiring the view, I’d get some evidence.’ She smiled.
The two of them stared at the empty pub door for a moment. Wire and Graham had gone in.
‘That’s one of the men that Holt said he might be with.’
Danny handed Charlotte the picture.
‘Francis Graham,’ she said. ‘What is he a criminal for? I mean, what did he do?’
‘He sells on stolen goods,’ Danny said. ‘Anton reckons.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘So what now?’
Danny paused. Then he said, ‘We go in.’
‘Into the pub?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But they’ll spot us a mile off. We’re underage.’
Danny’s mind started working. ‘We say we’re looking for our dad, or something. They’ll let us in for a minute. Then we might get a glimpse of Wire and the other guy.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we might be about to gather evidence to help solve a massive crime. If he’s going to be handing over stolen things, it’ll be now.’
Danny didn’t expect Charlotte to go for this reasoning. It was risky. Why would she want to go into a seedy pub after two dodgy men?
But suddenly Charlotte was on her feet. She’d drained her drink. ‘Come on then,’ she said.
And there was no time to think of any reasons why not to go in. It was now. Or never.
They walked confidently into the pub. That was the only way. They would say that they were looking for their dad, that they were used to trying to find him in pubs. It had to look convincing.
The pub was dark, with low-wattage bulbs barely illuminating the brown carpet and yellow walls. The bar ran back into the pub, rows and rows of drinks in bottles and cans behind the tills. There was a girl behind the bar, cleaning glasses, long blonde hair tied back, heavy make-up. She looked not much older than Charlotte. Danny wondered if she was eighteen at all. As he looked at her, Danny could feel Charlotte’s eyes on him.
Then the barmaid turned round.
‘Is Jim Watts in here?’ Charlotte said loudly. ‘He’s bald. He wears a black leather jacket.’
‘No,’ the girl said, glancing from Charlotte to Danny, smiling at Danny.
‘Can we look?’ Charlotte said in a voice Danny didn’t recognize. She was acting the part well.
The girl shrugged.
Then Danny felt Charlotte grab his hand and they were walking down to the far end of the pub.
It was a long dingy place. And it smelled. Stale. Sour. Bad.
There was no one in the main part of the pub. And when they reached the bottom end, where there were two toilet doors, they realized it was empty.
‘So where did they go?’ Danny asked. Wire and the other man had vanished.
Charlotte shrugged.
‘You check the Gents,’ Charlotte suggested. ‘And I’ll check the Ladies.’
Danny nodded and went into the Gents. They stank too. He looked around. Three urinals. Two toilets in cubicles. Both empty. A wad of hand towels on the floor in a pool of water.
Wire and the other man must have disappeared. Or they had gone behind the bar. Maybe into a back room, through a door Danny hadn’t seen.
He left the toilets and stood outside the Ladies.
As he stood waiting for Charlotte, Danny noticed the girl behind the bar looking at him, smiling. He smiled back, then felt a grab at his hand.
Charlotte.
‘Don’t speak,’ she said, dragging him along. Out of the pub and into the street.
Once they were through the heavy swing door, they were hit by a wall of light. It was bright, so bright it hurt Danny’s eyes. Charlotte carried on dragging him until they were on the other side of the street, standing in an unused doorway.
‘What’s going on?’ Danny asked.
‘They were in there,’ Charlotte said. ‘In the Ladies.’
‘What?’
‘The two men.’ Charlotte was breathless. ‘Wire and whatshisname.’
‘Doing what?’ Danny couldn’t believe it.
‘I went into one cubicle and they were in the next one. One of them was stood on the toilet. Messing with the ceiling tiles. He looked down at me.’
It was then that Danny saw Wire come out of the pub.
‘It’s him,’ Danny said.
Charlotte looked. Danny could see panic in her eyes.
Because Paul Wire and Francis Graham were pointing at them. And moving their way.