Crack Down. Val McDermid

all the help I can get on this one.’

      ‘Goes without saying, Kate. Look, it’s not going to be easy for me to get access to the case information or any forensic evidence, but I’ll do what I can,’ she promised.

      ‘I appreciate that. But don’t put your own head in the noose in the process,’ I added. No matter how much they spend on advertising to tell us different, anyone who has any contact with real live police officers know that The Job is still a white, patriarchal, rigidly hierarchical organization. That makes life especially hard for women who refuse to be shunted into the ghetto of community liaison and get stuck in at the sharp end of crime fighting.

      ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll find out who’s on the team and see who I know. Meanwhile, is there anything specific I can help you with?’

      ‘I need a general backgrounder on crack. How much there is of it around, where it’s turning up, who they think is pushing the stuff, how it’s being distributed. Anything there is, including gossip. Off the record, of course. Any chance?’ I asked.

      ‘Give me a few hours. Can you meet me around seven?’

      I pulled a face. ‘Only if you can get to the airport,’ I said. ‘I have a plane to meet.’

      ‘No problem.’

      ‘Oh yes it is. Richard’s son’s going to be on it. And the one thing he mustn’t find out is that his dad’s in the nick on drugs charges.’

      ‘Ah,’ Della said. It was a short, clipped exclamation.

      ‘I take it that response means you don’t want to share the child-minding?’

      ‘Correct. Count me out. Look, I’ll dig up all I can and meet you at Domestic Arrivals in Terminal I, at the coffee counter, just as you come in. Around quarter to seven, OK?’