22:00 hours

Adkins was in the bathroom. Grant could see the light through the open door at the top of the stairs. Not the landing light, the bathroom light spilling out onto the landing. The front door smashed backwards against the side of the hallway, its frame splintered to oblivion. Shards of wood stood out like porcupine quills around the lock. The house was clean and tidy, in contrast to the drug addicts’ homes that Adkins supplied. It smelled of soap and air freshener. Radio traffic squawked on Grant’s shoulder, the rest of the shift going about its business, unaware of the drama unfolding at number 5 Edgebank Close.

Grant flicked the hall and landing lights on and took the stairs two at a time. Speed was key once you’d forced the breach. Speed and light. He didn’t want to be stumbling through the shadows with his target holding the high ground. He might have been here many times before, but you had to expect the unexpected. The roller skates on the stair bed or the tripwire across the risers. He reached the landing before the front door had stopped quivering.

Adkins stood up from the sink, his face dripping water.

Grant leaned on the bathroom doorframe.

“Cut yourself shaving?”

The water swirling down the plughole was pink. Splatters of red dotted the washbasin. Adkins held a white towel in one hand, the knuckles stained with Sharon Davis’s blood, the towel painted in the stuff. Grant leaned forward, turned the tap off, and put the plug in. He snatched the towel out of Adkins’ hand.

“You missed a bit.”

He indicated the blood splatters on the side of Adkins face. He’d beaten the girl with such ferocity that the blowback had spread way beyond the knuckles that caused the damage. Blood that would tie him to the assault and prove the case if Sharon Davis hadn’t been too frightened to bring a case against the burgling drug dealer. Grant made a snap decision. The blood on the towel and Adkins’ knuckles would be enough.

He whipped his free hand up and grabbed Adkins behind the head. The leather glove snatched a handful of hair and slammed the burglar’s face down into the sink. His nose and lip exploded. One eye swelled shut immediately.

“How do you like it, fuckface?”

Adkins was about to reply but Grant smashed his face into the sink again.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

Adkins’ knees buckled, and he flopped to the fluffy beige carpet that was now speckled with fresh blood. Grant was thinking clearly. He saw the drug dealer kneeling on the floor and the stripped pine bath panel in the background. He’d tried to get a search warrant for this house a dozen times but couldn’t get the paperwork past the magistrate. There had never been enough evidence to prove that Adkins was involved with all the crimes he was involved in. The spoils of those crimes were hidden in this house. The drugs and the money.

Grant back-heeled the bath panel.

“Oops.”

The top of the panel opened slightly, leaving a two-inch gap. The preferred hiding place for drug dealers ever since the toilet cistern had been exposed on too many TV shows. Grant heard footsteps charge through the front door and made another snap decision. He didn’t want Hope getting caught having to lie about Adkins’ injuries. He pressed the transmit button on his shoulder.

“Stop resisting.”

Adkins threw Grant a confused look from the bathroom floor.

Grant kept his finger on the transmit button and spoke into the open mike.

“Put the weapon down. Don’t—”

He turned his face to one side and head-butted the wall. The porcelain tiles cracked and cut his forehead. Releasing the transmit button, he reached down and grabbed Adkins’ right arm, twisting it behind the fallen burglar’s back. The footsteps bounded up the stairs. Grant could hear Hope shouting into his radio.

“Officers need assistance. 5 Edgebank Close.”

He didn’t need to say urgent. Jane Archer knew that an officer-needs-assistance call was always urgent. The radio controller relayed the request over the airwaves, and every copper in Bradford stopped what they were doing and headed towards Ravenscliffe. That’s the way it worked on the frontline. Grant felt a pang of guilt at setting that in motion but was already looking at the bigger picture.

Jamie Hope burst into the bathroom.

Grant held up one hand to calm the probationer’s approach. He got to his feet, dragging Lee Adkins with him. He caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror. Blood trickled down the side of his face from an ugly swelling above the right eye.

Hope’s mouth dropped open.

“Are you all right?”

The most ridiculous question but also the most obvious. Grant decided to cut Hope some slack and not fire a sarcastic reply. He simply blinked his eyes instead of nodding, then jerked his head towards Adkins.

“You should see the other fella.”

Hope regained his composure.

“I can see the other fella. What happened?”

“Resisted arrest.”

Hope showed again why he was a prospect for the future. He moved so that Grant blocked Adkins’ view and lowered his voice.

“Arrest for what?”

Grant pointed at the gap in the bath panel and pulled it open another couple of inches. Careful not to disturb any fingerprints that would prove Adkins had opened the panel before. The rolls of banknotes were barely visible through the gap, but the bags of white powder stood out even in the dim bathroom light.

“Eureka.”

Hope proved he had a sense of humor to match his smarts.

“Wasn’t that to do with water displacement in the bath? Not hidden drugs underneath it?”

Grant wiped the blood from his eye.

“Calculating weight by measuring displaced water. Something like that. I’ll bet there’s enough weight in there to send this little bastard back to Her Majesty’s school of hard knocks.”

Adkins moaned. Hope kept his voice low.

“A bit careless of him, leaving it open like that.”

Grant shrugged.

“Probably got dislodged during the struggle.”

Grant could see where Hope was going with this and headed him off at the pass. He didn’t want the young constable giving Adkins ideas for his defense. He held the bloodstained bus pass up.

“This is what got him arrested. The rest is just good luck.”

Hope nodded that he understood. Another tick for Grant’s tutor report. He put the plastic wallet back in his pocket.

“I’ll bet a pound to a pinch of shit whose blood it is.”

“Sharon Davis.”

“You win. Now let’s cuff this twat and cancel backup. We only need transport and an ambulance. Just make sure it’s not the one that took her. We don’t want to be accused of cross-contaminating blood samples.”

Hope went outside to make the calls. The blood was a moot point since Grant had comforted the bleeding Davis at the crime scene. She wouldn’t make the complaint anyway. It was the drugs that would send him to prison. Grant handcuffed Adkins’s hands behind his back as blue lights began to flash in the street.