Apologies for the long delay – this, like Hertfordshire, escaped me and insisted on itself and then proved quite lengthy. However, please enjoy. Bonus prize for those who spot the significance of two song choices. Not giving anything away: enjoy! Jessie xx
Playing Dirty
"When is the delivery due?" Rob asked carefully measuring his emotions at the UCOS team's suggestion for the ambush of an eighties arms dealer. Giles Barratt had been a tycoon in his day, then his right-hand man had been sent down and he had ostensibly disappeared from the scene. The trouble was that said right-hand man had 'got a touch of the religious heebie-jeebies' (as Steve had opted to phrase it) just before he 'copped for it in the nick' (Gerry's words) and decided to sell Barratt out as a) still in business albeit outside of the UK and b) responsible for the death and subsequent mutilation of an undercover policewoman sent in to bring him down in 1978. Nick had uncovered that Barratt's company in Budapest was making deliveries to a warehouse in London. The owner of the warehouse was due to meet Barratt coming in with the next consignment.
Sandra narrowed her eyes at the deliberate wording of her fiancé's question. The scan was the following afternoon. The explaining was the following evening. The bet was still on. And play was getting dirty.
"Tonight," Nick told him succinctly. He suspected that the DAC would allow the team to continue with their course of action, however unlikely it might seem. Rob Strickland had struck him as a decent sort of bloke for a DAC; at least he didn't beat about the bush in sanctioning things like some did – um-ing and er-ing until they'd figured out how it would make them look good. If Strickers (Gerry had provided him with this nick-name) thought something could work to bring in the crooks, he'd back it. And it did look like the best way.
"And you're sure that Barratt's going to be on the boat?"
"No," Nick hesitated. "Look, if Barratt's the kind of guy who can have a policewoman sliced, diced and sent to her parents; he's not a guy we want to underestimate. From what I've learnt, it's him that doesn't meet people, doesn't let people see his face. He'll have done the research on this guy at the warehouse; he'll know exactly what he's expecting to meet on the quayside. And if he's caught even a sniff that we know; he'll not be there."
"Then I'm not sure what you're suggesting," Rob studied the new guy. He was detailed, didn't hold back, and was very neat. Other than that, he was as far removed from Brian Lane as possible. Londoner, slim, well-dressed. In fact, UCOS was starting to look very well-dressed. Gerry practically always wore a suit (though he always had); Steve was always clean and smart; Nick always seemed to be immaculately attired and cared for too. In fact, it made him feel quite scruffy in their presence. How long had he had this suit? A couple of years at least… Damn it he wasn't paying attention.
"Thereby avoiding the warehouse, the boats and any connection with the actual transaction," Nick summarised.
"We've already pulled Torres, won't he have clocked that?"
Rob could tell that whatever the plan was, Gerry was already worried about it. The way that he was deliberately avoiding Sandra's eye told him that he, Rob, was probably going to object to it too.
"Torres is the owner of a very shady nightclub. He gets nicked, or someone close to him gets nicked, every other week!" Steve tried to simmer Gerry's concern down. "He doesn't know Barratt. He won't have a clue why we're there!"
"And even if he does, he knows we'll bring him in if he so much as blinks in the wrong direction," Sandra too seemed determined to ignore Gerry's agitation. Rob knew for certain now that he wasn't going to like this.
"But Sandra…!" Gerry protested. All ability to reason with her was lost; he knew that. The second that bloody Nick had suggested the plan she'd agreed. Her mind made up before she had a chance to think through the flaming consequences. As usual.
She shot him down with a look. If they were going to row again, she'd rather it wasn't in front of the others. She knew he was just being protective of her. He'd have overlooked the point that she'd have considered every angle of disaster that could possibly arise. As usual.
"Run it by me again, in simple terms," Rob attempted to quell the thunder in his fiancée's eye, daring to have it turned on himself if only to give Gerry's worry air enough to breath. "Barratt comes in at the docks, no police presence at all?"
"Just the usual bobbies," Nick agreed. "Let him do his business then Smiths will take him out for drinks at Torres' club."
"What if they don't go there? What if Barratt doesn't want to?"
"Hang on a minute, Gerry," Rob held up a hand to still the Cockney.
"Torres is going to be nervy when he sees us, he's like that. But he doesn't need to know who we're looking for. If Barratt reckons to be looking for undercover cops, he'll find them. If we can borrow a couple of bodies to prop up the bar, that's where he'll find them."
"That ain't gonna be where he's looking," Gerry grumbled.
"Where's he going to be looking?" damn it, why hadn't he been paying attention?
"At me," Sandra said strongly. "Well, hopefully," she added.
"The guv's a dead ringer for the singer that's meant to be on that night," thankfully Nick had taken the narrative back up. He shrugged as he came to what he seemed to think was the simplest idea ever; "Barratt's eye will be on the stage. He'll ask for an invitation to meet her after the show. Simples."
"How is that 'simples'?!" Gerry battered his colleague's plan yet again. "It's bloody ridiculous!"
Rob was exceptionally confused. "You're going to replace the singer?"
"Yes," Sandra replied quietly. She knew he hadn't been paying attention; his eyes had wandered to the corner of the whiteboard and not moved for several minutes. There had been times in the past where he would have covered himself a lot better than asking them to repeat the plan. In fact, she was sure there were times when he'd just given the all-clear and scuttled off to a hastily invented meeting simply because his thought process had gotten diverted by his own musings. Now, whether it was because it was a practically new UCOS or because he was allowed to openly care about her staying out late, he was about to try and put the dampeners on the whole thing. As if it wasn't bad enough having Gerry trying to keep her on a rein. She knew she got blinkered when there was something exciting going on; but it seemed like the most unexpected way of catching a guy who knew every trick in their book. Well, maybe not the UCOS book… great, now she wasn't keeping up. Listening carefully she clocked that the boys had finished conveying the plan and that Rob was now alongside Gerry objecting to it.
"I'm sorry, Sandra but I don't like this," Rob said plainly. "You're going to have this guy, who's going to be looking for an undercover operation, alone in a dressing room in a dodgy club."
"That's about the size of it," she clipped. She was strangely caught between firing up and backing down. She wanted this collar; but the rational part of her mind was held-up in a commons-style debate, the type that would go on and on and on.
"Look, it is conceivable that Barratt will be expecting some sort of presence at the docks. And he will be suspicious if he thinks we haven't heard that he's coming back into the country," Rob began cautiously. He was familiar with the management game of agreement before dismissal. He was also exceptionally familiar with the stubborn might of UCOS. And the indisputable fact that their madcap plans nearly always paid off. The final factor on the carousel rotating in his midst was that his pregnant fiancée was prepared to go undercover and be alone with possibly the most dangerous man he'd ever heard of. "So I agree that we organise a discrete welcome committee. Not just 'the usual bobbies' as you suggest but an unmarked van too. Barratt is overdue his comeuppance. And we don't want to be premature in our eff-"
"You're not going to agree to this?!" Gerry interrupted the younger man's speech, his temper boiling.
"Gerry!" Sandra battered. "Anyone would think it was you who was going to have to sing!"
"Wait…what…? But you're… you can't sing," Rob finished lamely.
And there it was. The dead eye. Fixed upon him as if it could melt him.
She hadn't missed his lexical trickery; and the point he was trying to make wasn't entirely lost on her. It just didn't make any difference. While she could: she would.
The tension in the basement offices was at breaking point. Sandra glaring at Rob, Rob fiercely refusing to break under her stare, Gerry caught between the satisfaction that her superior was in agreement with him and the very real need to laugh at the slightly pathetic last word of the argument, Nick fervently believing that their plan was foolproof and Steve looking between all of them with the frown of a teacher who has to break up a fight in the playground but isn't too sure who the culprits actually are.
"Look," Steve braved the silence. "We have to get Barratt. There's no argument there, right? If we raise his alarm, he's gonna have our Sandra sliced diced and sent to your door. That's the worry here, right? Now I'm willing to bet that Sandra ain't too keen on that occurrence either, so –"
"Alright," Rob settled on the unavoidable conclusion that if he said no, they'd probably do it anyway. "I'll get you the warrants. One for the warehouse, one for the club and we'll meet there at eight."
"You're coming with us?" Gerry couldn't have sounded more surprised if the DAC had just volunteered to dance naked in the rain. Barratt was a big catch as he was connected with a current case, but still the guv's boss wouldn't normally come out for the arrest. He was a suit; suit's waited at the station where it was warm and dry: they didn't come out in the cold spring nights.
Sandra also looked at her boss in shock. She had a feeling he would insist on coming to meet the armed and dangerous criminals. She'd leave the explaining why up to him; word play wouldn't break her, but he was treading water very close to letting himself down.
"Yes, this could be a very significant moment," he met Sandra's disbelieving gaze and smiled. He wouldn't lose this bet: he could keep a secret. But there was no way he'd let her get into any more trouble than he could help. Briefly toying with the idea of letting the cat out of the bag so as to put a halt on the damnable plan; he held himself back: the thought of Sandra having to cook the meal when they told everyone was a little too tempting.
"Once in a lifetime," she returned charmingly. She just stopped herself short of falling into a trap by turning away to the board and pretending to be sizing up their opponent.
"That's overstating it slightly, isn't it?" Nick queried looking between the two senior officers.
"A few months ago," she said quietly. "We might have thought it unlikely to have this chance."
"I'd better get back upstairs," Rob announced quickly. Damn, she was good.
~o~
"This is getting daft," Mia shook her head as she listened to the hurried explanation of why they were going out and would be very late back.
"What was I meant to say?" Rob protested as Sandra carried on laughing while Mia fixed him with a scarily accurate impression of his fiancée's disapproving eye. He recognised the look so strongly that he had a new-found respect for the stones that Gerry and Brian had to still disobey her on occasions after receiving it; and Jack's almost immunity to it. He wasn't sure he liked it from his daughter.
"Just let her do her job!" Mia said plainly. "For goodness sake, she's pregnant, not glass!"
"Thank you," Sandra managed to say, she hadn't been able to stop laughing from the moment that Mia had began to show signs of exasperation at her father's actions. "Right, are we going to get over to mine to find a dress then?"
~o~
Sidling through the tables, he couldn't help his eyes following her waist. The figure-hugging scarlet dress, seductive as it was, was really unnecessary when it was put on her. He would still fancy her if she was wearing a space-suit.
"Rob, can you help me with this bloody zip?" Sandra stood in front of the full-length mirror in the dressing room, both hands at the side of her waist trying to wiggle the zipper in the appropriate direction without twisting to look at it while she did it because that stopped it's motion.
He sighed and bent down to her side where the slit in the dress' design came to her thigh and allowed her to draw up straight whilst he pulled the dress closed.
"Is that too tight?" he asked, concern billowing through his mind. He still wasn't happy about this.
"No, it's just five years old!" she laughed. "I bought it to wear to the commissioner's ball then managed to get out of going."
"You sure it's not tight because you're three months pregnant with our child?" he muttered as she twisted away to see another angle of herself in the glass.
"Mind if we join you?" Sandra drawled as planned, her fingers, tipped with bright red acrylic nails, gripping at the spare chair on the table. She could feel the lightest touch on her back as Barratt's eyes met hers. Cold steely grey orbs framed by black as night eyebrows.
Without a flicker, Barratt nodded. Sandra and Rob both noted without surprise that he did not look to his companions, Torres the club owner and the dark-haired warehouse owner, for confirmation before adding to their company.
Rob's fingers replaced Sandra's on the chair and drew it out far enough for her to take the seat. He then withdrew to within half a pace of her.
"Is your friend not sitting?" Barratt asked coolly. His voice betrayed the lifetime of dealing with criminals darker even than himself. Sandra thought she also detected the tiredness that she needed to hear too.
"He has a nervous disposition," she returned like an iceberg; a woman who had everything to say but never said it.
In the van outside, Gerry couldn't help his fear be tempered with a little pride. She didn't play by halves.
Drinks were ordered and the band began to play. More than once, Torres made to leave the table but was prevented by the raising of one of Barratt's eyebrows. The little Spanish guy amused him, so nervous. He was the perfect patsy if the company of the club was anything to go by. Rob observed quietly from his standing position, careful not to let his eye stray too far for too long. There was at least one drugs deal going down three tables over; and something that looked like a diamond had caught the light momentarily over by the fire escape. The staff circling the tables were conscious not to make eye-contact with each other and seemed to deliberately avoid Torres who looked as though he had had ants in his pants for most of his adult life.
"So, you got a name?" Barratt asked.
"Dora," she replied succinctly. She quelled the thought that had just engaged her brain; in a few months time that question would mean something quite different to her; but not tonight. And she'd be damned if the name Dora would reappear as an answer then.
"Rob," she held a hand to his face and looked down into his eyes. She could see the flash of concern and felt its heat; but she needed to make him understand. "Tomorrow afternoon, we're going to see our baby. We're going to hear its heartbeat and everything is going to be very very real. You know that night, in my bathroom; you told me you knew I was scared? Well tomorrow, I'm going to be. Because tomorrow it's all going to be real. Tomorrow I'm going to realise why I'm leaving UCOS; why I'm marrying you and why you're so scared right now. Let me have tonight. One last night where I am Sandra Pullman, cop. Not Sandra Pullman, wife and mother. Let me have tonight so that when I'm feeling like everything I was is gone, I can look back and say that it was real."
Torres met Rob's eye with a startling speed, quickly returning to his drink as soon as the DAC blinked with a message that he would personally take the club apart and charge Torres as responsible for each and every deal currently underway.
"Pan-Dora?" the warehouse owner asked. "Hey, Giles, it's the singer! Well this is a pleasure!"
Sandra allowed herself a small smile before drifting her eye away towards the stage as though she didn't think it was as much a pleasure as he did.
"Indeed," Barratt silenced his acquaintance as Sandra anticipated, his attention now fully on her. "Now why would a singer want to sit at my table?"
"There weren't any other seats," Sandra replied sparsely. She could practically hear Gerry laughing in the surveillance van outside. He'd calmed slightly at Rob's insistence on playing her bodyguard and boyfriend, although he had vied for the position himself. She'd insisted that she wanted him out of the way; Torres already knew his face and the unpredictable continental was one factor she wanted to be able to minimise.
Barratt let out a bark of cold laughter. He drained his glass and dropped it onto the tray of a passing waitress. She paused long enough to receive a nod from Torres to bring another round and then vanished into the crowd.
"Excuse me," Sandra rose from the table without waiting for their permission and moving effortlessly towards the stage in answer to the wave of the man in a tux at the side of it.
"So now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to the stage, Miss Pan-Dora Michelle!"
Muted applause faded into the instrumental introduction. Rob would forgive himself for not recognising the song as it was slowed and rearranged for the setting. He was perfectly aware that Barratt was no longer aware of his presence, hell he was barely aware of it himself as the blonde woman on stage open her mouth and a seductively clean yet soulful voice began to sing.
"Hell is gone and heaven is here, there's nothing left for you to fear, shake your ass, come over here, and scream," Sandra closed her eyes during the elongation of the last word. Taking a breath she opened her eyes and searched the audience. "I'm a burning effigy of everything I…. used to be. You're m..y rock of empath..y, my dear," her eyes found Rob's and lingered for a second as she waited for the music to lift with the next line and joined it. "So come on…. And let me… entertain… you. Let me… entertain you."
The set was due to last twenty minutes. There would be a twenty minute break. Then a second twenty minute set. Add to that the encore, the backstage encounter that they expected and the ensuing debrief of the team, the 'late' that he had told Mia they would be was more likely to be early morning. He'd given Mia Gerry's phone number in case of any problems at home. He didn't like leaving his girls alone in the flat. His daughter was by now quite competent but he was painfully aware of how young she still was herself.
Gerry checked his phone out of the corner of his eye. He wasn't going to deny the hellish lure that the voice coming through the wire was having on him right now. They didn't have any cameras in the club but he'd caught a glimpse of her devilish red dress when he'd passed through the back rooms of the building under the guise of helping the band to set up. He didn't need a fraction of the imagination that he had to conjure the enticing images in his mind as the song changed. Tom Jones had sung the original 'Thunderball', but in the tones of a female vocalist it was a song not only of power but of magnetic attraction.
"We haven't had a chance to discuss – " clear as day through the other receiving wire under Rob's shirt, Gerry and Steve sat forward in the van at the words uttered by the warehouse owner and cut off by the raising of Barratt's right hand.
"She's got 'im," Steve said happily. "Any word from Nick?"
"Yeah, everything as planned, they're just waiting for the crones to clear," Gerry recited from Nick's text.
"Just up to the guv now," Steve leant back in his seat. "Is that really her singing?"
Gerry laughed. "She's borrowed a CD off Nick's other half," he told the Scot.
"He is keeping her quiet; you got anything out of him about her?" Steve queried as the music changed again.
"Nah," Gerry grumbled. "He's alright though, in'e?"
Rob had an itch behind his knee. He had the dreadful feeling that scratching it would bring Barratt's attention back to the fact that he was still standing there. The bastard's attention was well and truly on Sandra who was working the stage as if she'd been doing it all her life. Her eyes flicked towards his with some frequency, ostensibly to appear as if she was subconsciously drawn to Barratt, really because she was trying to reassure her fiancée that she was alright.
"We have all the time…in… the world…" Sandra waited for the song to finish on a whisper before nodding to the band behind her that it was time for their break. She stepped back from the microphone and let the portly man in a tuxedo that he'd once worn to a posh do announce the interval while she descended the three steps down from the stage and slipped through the door to the dressing rooms. Five minutes later, after a quick freshen-up, she sifted her way back through to Barratt's table. "I seem to have mislaid my drink," she purred, laying her hand on the top of the glass she had left behind and downing the half a glass that had warmed in the time she'd been gone.
"Let me get you another," Barratt replied, with a rough glance at Torres who immediately summoned a waitress. "I see your eclectic taste has not changed, dear Dora. Oh, did you not explain your previous association with the seller to your current squeeze? Don't worry old chap, she's like that. Plays her cards close to her chest. Why is that my dear?"
"So that the bastards at least look before they cheat," Sandra responded without skipping a beat. She could practically hear the pounding of Rob's heart from where he stood behind her. The strap of her shoe was digging into her ankle, annoying the crap out of her but steadying her concentration away from it and other peripheral distractions and onto the task at hand. It was a trick she'd learnt many years ago; just one of the many things she'd learnt from Jack.
"Such a way with words," Barratt laughed his cold laugh again. "Sorry, Donald," he addressed the warehouse owner. "I may also have neglected to mention past acquaintance with our Dora to you. You realise, I assume, that I am meeting your ex-husband tomorrow?"
"At ten," she nodded as the waitress returned and placed a glass of red wine in front of her. She turned to face him with arched eye-brow and assumptive dismissal: "Carnegie's?"
This time Barratt's top lip curled as though genuinely amused. "Where else?"
"It's not changed," she sniffed lightly as if she'd frequented the place they referred to on a regular basis for the last thirty years. In reality Carnegie's dive had been on her Soho beat and little thought of since. "Listen," she shifted in her seat completely and forced herself to make contact with the leaden grey irises set in the man's face. Mentally swallowing down every fluid ounce of distaste for the action, she rested the heel of her hand beside his on the tabletop and allowed her fingers to gently brush his. "I've got to disappear now, but why don't you come backstage after this set?"
"Why would I want to do that?" his voice took a gravely edge just like she wanted it to.
"You just might find a better offer than at Carnegie's," she hoped she sounded as sexy as the words implied. In reality, she was acutely aware of how far past her bedtime it was. And how much of a telling off she was due from the father of her child as she took a large sip of red wine and stood with the glass in her hand.
"You doing any requests tonight, DD?" Barratt relaxed in his chair, picking up his whiskey. "For old time's sake?"
"Cry me a river," she sneered as she moved away from the table, answering his question and putting him down in one song title.
"I think we have a nibble," Steve grinned. He picked up the flask by his feet. "Coffee?"
"Cry me a river isn't on the CD," Gerry frowned.
"So?" Steve shrugged as he poured two coffees anyway. "Neither is I'd Rather Go Blind but that's what she's singing right now."
"Is there something terribly interesting on the back of my ear, cock?" Barratt stretched his neck slightly to assure Rob that he was indeed talking to him. "You should be looking at her, not me."
The bristling of every nerve in his body was enough to incite riots more ferocious than any he'd been threatened by in the appropriately named squad, but Rob remained silent and reticent as was required. He was about to start wondering if Sandra's character was actually Medusa and had turned him to stone as she winked directly at their table and licked her lips while the band behind her played the opening bars to Cry me a River.
"Right, all clear," Nick opened the back doors of the surveillance van. He'd been surreptitiously walking his partner's golden retriever around the perimeter area. Whilst keeping a tight hold on Dolly's lead, he stood back and let the DCI of the S&O Unit organise the meet and greet with the solitary security guard. He hovered for a moment, unsure of where he was meant to be (the DCI had been exceptionally non-plussed at any member of the UCOS team being physically required at the occasion) when his phone rang, saving him the trouble. "Hiya love," he answered, quickly praying that he hadn't misread the caller id. "Yeah, she's fine. Doing a good job, aren't you Dolly? Erm, no I'm not sure, maybe another hour or so. I'll kip down in the spare room- ah, bless ya, ok, well see you in the morning, goodnight, love you, bye."
He scanned the area to assess where various officers had been deployed. Frowning he realised that he and Dolly were the only ones still by the van. "Guess we'll hold fire here then, eh Dols?"
Gerry stretched his legs out in front of him, slipping several inches in his seat.
"You alright?" Steve laughed as the older man pulled himself back up and coughed.
"What time is it?" Gerry grumbled, reaching for his phone. "Oh, they're in. The S&O guv's a douche apparently. Whatever that means."
Steve held in his amusement as he checked his watch. "That should give the Guv about twenty minutes before the phone call…"
"Excuse me, is this the star's dressing room?" Barratt smarmed as he knocked on the door he had already opened.
"Always the charmer, Giles," Sandra threw away the age-old remark with tired disdain. "Come in, make yourself comfortable."
He smiled an emotionless smirk as he followed the wave of her hand around the sparse and dingy room consisting of a moth-eaten sofa, coffee table infested with wood-worm and topped with a standard lamp, the chair that Sandra sat in and the dressing table that looked like it had come from the Adam's family garage sale. Taking a seat on the sofa his eyes drifted as she wanted them to over her legs which were deliberately crossed to allow the slit in her dress to work its purpose. Rob and the warehouse owner stood by the wall.
"So is this better deal going to be for business or pleasure?" Barratt cut to the point. He was, after all, a business man.
"How much is Hal offering you?" Sandra obliged by matching his pace.
"Why do you want the goods?" Barratt frowned.
"I don't," she paused to contrast the speed of his reply and throwing a disgusted look toward the warehouse man. "Hal does. I just think it would be better if he got them through his usual fence, don't you?"
"Touchy," Barratt grinned, his top lip curling up to reveal his jewelled dentistry. "I take it that relations are frosty? Why shouldn't he shop around?"
"Spare the small talk," Sandra gunned. "How much are we talking?"
"Twenty kay," Barratt replied. "All stock licensed and ready to go, no questions asked."
"Is that what he's paying you, or what you want us to pay?" Sandra glanced overtly at Rob.
"I'd expect a slight improvement, obviously, if I have to let my clients down. And a service charge for the actually story-telling. I'm so sorry, Hal, a better offer came up," at this point he leant forward. The room was that small that this simple action brought him to almost within touching distance of her.
Manoeuvring to face him, now offering a not-so-subtle view of her cleavage rather than her legs, she pretended to think for a moment. "I'd need to know precisely what the likelihood of the stock is, so as to provide the appropriate transportation and security. I do have my own reputation to consider."
"The van you have outside will be fine," Barratt tried to off-foot her. Receiving no reaction he continued; "Genuine Italian handguns. Beautiful they are. A Hungarian friend of mine put me in touch with them. And no, I don't know his name."
"Giles," she brushed his knee with her fingers. "You know everyone."
"Maybe I thought I did," he smiled sadly.
Whatever relationship Giles Barratt had had with the singer Pan-Dora Michelle, Sandra was now slightly wary of being able to play convincingly. Her gut reaction was to respond as if it was Gerry or Brian who had said such a thing to her, where there would be no further expectations than a friend buoying another friend up: but she wasn't sure that that would be enough for Barratt. Just then, the warehouse man's mobile phone began to ring. While he answered the call from the DCI down at his premises, Sandra decided to go with her gut.
"Sometimes, thirty years is too long a time for people to stay the same," she remembered how she'd felt when the truth of her father's death had come out and realised that her words were sincere. Also, they had the exact affect on Barratt that she needed as he nodded.
"Twenty six," he said simply. "And I'll ring Hal in the morning. You were always the better half to know."
"Shit," the warehouse man (whose name everybody had forgotten by this point) hung up. "That was the cops, they're at the warehouse. Say there's some sort of security problem. They need me to go down."
Barratt looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, it's probably nothing, I'll ring you as soon as I know."
"I'll come with you," Barratt stood.
Sandra and Rob looked at each other with the same despair for the idiot of a DCI they'd had to involve; his phone call was meant to have resulted in the owner subtly excusing himself, not nearly blowing the whole game and taking Barratt out of the way. Rob nodded. Sandra joined the men on their feet and announced their arrests. The owner tried to make a bolt for it while Rob tackled Barratt to the floor but met with Gerry and Steve at the door.
"I should have known," Barratt spat at Sandra's feet once he was upright again and cuffed against Rob. "Dia-Dora was never that good a singer."