“The doc, of course.”
“Is she ok?” My heart felt like someone had just fired a defib straight into my chest.
“Yeah. Yeah. Recovered quick. I watched her go about her day again.”
“And you couldn’t have led with this?”
“I…I just thought you wanted intel on the Hand. Or the Notorious. Or any of the other clubs. I didn’t realise the doc who was here the other night was important.”
“No mate. Not important at all.” I scrubbed my hand over my face, my beard scratching at my own skin. “Ok. Where is she now?”
“Dunno. I haven’t been keeping tabs.”
“Well, I want tabs keeping, Sam. I want your security guys knowing where she is every minute of every shift.”
There was a pause on the line, and I knew a prospect was making a tough call between his club and his job. I just hoped he made the fucking right one.
“Yeah,” he said eventually, his voice quieter. “I’ll have the guys watching her. There’ll be a few places we’ll lose her. You know toilets, locker room that sort of thing,” he added quickly when he heard me inhale, “but we’ll keep eyes on her.”
“Good. Now, can you get me that CCTV footage?”
“Why?”
Fuck this one was a slow cunt.
“Because I want to wank over it.” Silence. Fuck’s sake. “Because I want to see if we can see what Grim was saying to her. Could be important.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I can record it off the screen on my phone.”
“Aye. That’ll do. Anything else you need to tell me?”
“No Reap. Just that.”
“Good.”
I ended the call and lay back against the pillows, pulling the duvet up to my chin to keep the cold air out. The heating wouldn’t click on till later, and even then, I’d probably already switched it off. Fucking energy prices were through the roof again and if it was a choice between weed or heating, I knew what got me to sleep better.
There was at least another couple of hours before I needed to be down at the clubhouse. Yet another war room discussion, only this time it was with last night’s intel. I’d fed back to Indie the moment my meeting with Ash had finished. He’d put comms out straight away to anyone with an Ol’ lady to keep them close while we figured out what to do. But the real planning was down at theDogin a couple of hours.
I closed my eyes. The Hand had moved on Sophie quicker than I’d ever expected. They couldn’t know our connection. Their interest in her could only be to do with her father. Something to blackmail him with. Ash had told me someone was selling secrets to the cops, and our enemies were getting info from them. I just didn’t know how I was going to protect her and the club.
*****
The smell of bacon greeted me as I yanked open the doors to the pub, and my stomach already started to answer.
“Mam’s in the kitchen,” Fury grunted, barely lifting his eyes from the huge white stottie he was just positioning in front of his face.
“Thought we had eyes on every club woman?” I retorted too sharply.
“How fucking long have you been patched in?” The trajectory of the bacon sandwich to his mouth paused. “And you haven’t learned that nothing any of us says will stop Mamma Dot doing whatever Mamma Dot wants to do?”
Fury shrugged, not interested in any answer I could give before ramming as much of the stottie into his mouth as possible.
“She’s got a sarnie waiting for ya,” he said, voice muffled with bacon and the words barely intelligible.
“You took your fucking time,” Indie grumbled as I pushed into the kitchen.
“Leave him be. Your sarnie’s over there, son.”
