Collusion Read Online Free PDF Page A

hmm?’
    Lennon forced a smile and slid his hands from beneath hers. ‘I’m glad you feel that way.’
    A knock at the door broke the moment. Chief Inspector Uprichard leaned in.
    ‘Can I have a minute?’ he asked.
    DCI Dan Hewitt sat to the side of Uprichard’s desk, watching Lennon. Hewitt and Lennon had come through Garnerville together. Hewitt had progressed higher in the ranks, despite being a year younger than Lennon at thirty-six. He was smart, always playing the angles, and well suited to the covert work of C3 Intelligence Branch. While Lennon struggled his way into C2 Serious Crime, Hewitt eased into the shiny new replacement for Special Branch. In the reborn police force, cleaned and polished for the post-ceasefire Northern Ireland, there was no longer any need for the cops to have their very own secret service.
    Except everyone knew that’s exactly what C3 was, and many continued to call them Special Branch, unless they were filling out a form or talking to the press. The officers of C3 still worked in sealed rooms, locked away from their colleagues, protected by a wall of silence and number pads on the doors. Only ten years ago, Special Branch saved countless lives by running informants, mounting surveillance operations, and making life difficult for the paramilitaries. But they played dirty, as did MI5 and the army’s Fourteen Intelligence Company. Every agency ran its own operations, sometimes co-operating, more often not. All of them worked in the cracks between the law and the necessary, and all of them had blood on their hands. Some felt the peace process rendered the likes of Special Branch at best obsolete, at worst a dangerous relic of the quasi-military role the police had played in this place for thirty-odd years. Others felt the force-within-a-force still had a vital job to do while the paramilitaries remained on the streets. Lennon wasn’t sure which side of the argument he came down on. It depended on whom he was most pissed off with at any given time: C3 or their enemies.
    Uprichard rocked his chair back and forth. The creaking gnawed at Lennon’s nerves.
    ‘What?’ he asked.
    Uprichard fidgeted.
    Hewitt scratched his chin.
    ‘What?’ Lennon asked again.
    Uprichard looked at Hewitt. ‘You wanted to see him, not me.’
    Hewitt sighed. ‘How solid is it?’
    Lennon looked from one man to the other. ‘How solid is what?’
    ‘The case against Rankin.’
    Lennon laughed. Hewitt’s frown deepened. The laugh died in Lennon’s throat. ‘You’re serious?’
    Hewitt raised his eyebrows and waited.
    ‘I have a witness who saw him knife Crozier and is willing to testify to it. I’ve got a victim who can identify him when he’s fit. I’ve got a weapon with Crozier’s blood and Rankin’s prints on it. I’ve got the blood on his clothes. Do I need to go on?’
    Hewitt’s face reddened. ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘There’s no way to spin it?’
    Lennon sat forward. ‘Spin it? Nothing short of a time machine is going to keep Dandy Andy Rankin out of Maghaberry. Unless I’ve missed something, I’d have thought putting Rankin away was, you know, good.’
    ‘Not for everyone,’ Hewitt said. ‘Look, do you have to put attempted murder to the PPS? What about GBH? A fight that got out of hand. No intent to kill.’
    Lennon swallowed anger. ‘Go over to the City Hospital and take a look at the hole in Crozier’s throat. Tell me Rankin didn’t try to kill him. He’s lucky he didn’t hit the—’
    ‘It couldn’t have been self-defence? There was a lot of confusion at the scene. Did you identify yourself properly as a police officer?’
    ‘I identified myself. Jesus, he had poor Sylvia Burrows with a knife to her throat.’
    ‘Fuck,’ Hewitt said.
    Lennon sat back. ‘Can someone explain to me how bagging a piece of shit like Rankin could possibly be a bad thing?’
    Uprichard coughed. ‘Well, Jack, you know our colleagues in C3 move in mysterious ways. They often have information