Title: The Mermaid of Mermaid Quay (3/6)
Author: Emma
Characters: Andy Davidson, Jack Harkness, OFC
Rating: PG? I don't know, Jack's in this thing. Say R just in case he gets out of hand
Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I l let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?
Spoilers: None. this takes place in my Homecoming AU, eight or so years before Ianto returns to Cardiff
Summary: Inspector Andy Davidson is on the trail of a killer who might not be human...
Author's Note: This Andy is a little older and a lot sadder and wiser. Dedicated to tanarian

Part one is here; Part two is here 
 

             Andy hung up the phone and stared at his notes. Timothy Gardiner, originally from London, plumber, a man of good personal and professional reputation, had walked out of his life suddenly, without giving either clients or friends a single word of warning.

 

            “Could have knocked me down with a feather,” Gardiner’s landlady had said, “when Robbie Duane showed up to pack up the flat, but he had the keys and a note and everything.” When Andy asked about Gardiner’s health she told him that “poor Tim” had caught a cold he couldn’t seem to shake for weeks.

 

            Tracking down Robbie Duane had been easy enough. The dumb git had been in trouble with the law since he had stolen his first bike at the age of twelve, mostly for petty, stupid things. The file was an inch thick and growing.

 

            “You know something, my lad,” Andy muttered, “and you’re going to tell me.”

 

            He grabbed his coat and made his way to the corridor that led to the old car park, trying to make a quiet unnoticed exit. Unfortunately he wasn’t fast enough.

 

            “Davidson!”

 

            Andy muttered a few obscenities under his breath. “’Yes, sir?”

 

            “What the bloody hell have you been doing all day?”

 

            “Speaking to a few people about Mr. Jones, sir.”

 

            “Why the bloody hell are you wasting my time with that?” Keightley bellowed. His eyes were bloodshot and tremors shook his huge frame. “We have more important things to do. This is Torchwood’s problem, not ours!”

 

             Andy wondered idly how long the grand poobahs upstairs could continue to ignore the evidence of Keightley’s alcoholism.

            “Well, sir, I’ll probably be meeting with Captain Harkness today or tomorrow, and you know how he gets. Better to have some answers at hand or he’ll pitch a hissy-fit. We don’t want him complaining to his London friends, do we?” Privately, Andy doubted Jack Harkness had ever spared the London authorities a single thought, but Keightley moved in a world of connections and influence and could not conceive of any other. “This way I can turn it all over to him clean and simple.”

 

            “Very well, Davidson,” proclaimed Keightley with the grandiosity of the very drunk. “Carry on, then.”

 

            Andy did not wait to be told twice. To his great satisfaction, there were no constables waiting in the car park, so he was able to requisition a car and drive himself.

 

            Robbie Duane lived in a grimy bed-sit in the basement of his parents’ home. The place stunk of decomposing Chinese takeaway and old sweat, and the dust hadn’t been shifted in years. Duane was a skinny, unkempt loudmouth, but his eyes were full of terror.

 

            “He said he was tired of living in this nowhere town and he was going back home. He gave me sixty quid to pack up his place and send the lot on. What’s the big deal? A bloke just wants to leave, is that a crime now?”

 

            “It’s like this, Robbie,” Andy said. “I have London cops looking for Tim, and I’ve got people here in Cardiff talking to all the lorry companies…”

 

            “I didn’t hire a company!” Robbie sounded desperate. “I got a mate with a van, he drove it up.”

 

            “All right. Give me the mate’s name and the address he took the stuff to in London and we’re quits.” Andy smiled. “If I can’t find Tim, you’re going to jail, Robbie, and that’s that.”

 

            “You can’t charge me without a body!”

 

            “See, that’s what comes from watching too many American cop shows, Robbie. I don’t have to charge you with murder. All I have to do is charge you with withholding evidence and fling you into a cell at Her Majesty’s pleasure.” He smiled again. "Tough bird, Her Majesty. You could get to be a very, very old man before you see daylight again, Robbie.”

 

            Duane crumpled into the ratty old sofa that obviously doubled as his bed. “Oh God. Please don’t. Please don’t. My mam would kill me.”

 

            “Then tell me what happened to Tim!”

 

            “We were at his place, watching footie on his telly,” Duane pointed at the small television set in one corner, “and Tim started shaking and his face got all old and creepy, and then he was dead, and I thought, he’s dead, he’s not going to need all this stuff anymore, so I rolled him up in his old rug and drove him down to St. David’s, on the river, the old abandoned church? I wanted to be respectful, see?”

 

            “And then you went back to his place and robbed a dead man.” Andy shook his head. “You’re a bloody mess, aren’t you, Robbie?”

 

            “Please don’t send me to jail! Please!”

 

            “And on top of it all, you’re a gullible little berk.” Andy sighed. “This is what we’re going to do, Robbie. You’re going to sit here and wait for the constables, and you’re going to take them to where you left Tim’s body. And don’t run, Robbie. Don’t make me come looking for you.”

 

            He left Duane sniveling into a pillow. As he stepped out into the cool, rain-laden air, he took a deep breath to clear the stench from his nostrils. Sometimes, even after ten years, the things people did to one another still sickened him.

 

            He called the station and arranged to have some uniforms pick up Robbie and drive him to St. David’s. Andy hated to admit it, but even if they found Tim Gardiner’s body he had nothing more to go on. Two men, dead under similar and rather strange circumstances, with nothing in common except a girl three observers described as a cheap tart. Finding her was next to impossible; it wasn’t as if there was a shortage of those in Cardiff.

 

            He was debating what to do next when his phone rang. It was Lily.

 

            “Andy, you got a call from a William Tynie. He says he thinks he’s found the girl.”

 

            “I don’t know any… hold on, Tad Will. Did he say who she was?”

 

            “He didn’t. He said you should meet him at Mermaid Quay, near Driftwood.”

 

            “Shit. Shit. Driftwood is closed on Sundays. The place is deserted.”

 

            He drove at breakneck speed, siren blaring. It was a light night for crowds at the Quay, and he was able to find parking close to the club. He ran all the way to the pier. The place was empty except for a few people looking for privacy in the shadows on the other side of the gangplank.

 

            Andy approached a group who seemed to be in the middle of a riotous drinking game.

 

            “Excuse me. Did you happen to notice an older gentleman walking around here earlier? Tall, big head of white hair? It’s my Tad, he’s getting a little disoriented and tends to wander off.”

 

            “Yeah, I saw him,” one of the girls said. “You don’t need to worry, though. There was a girl looking after him. He looked all right, maybe just a little dizzy. They went down there. She was saying something about fresh air.”

 

            “Thanks,” Andy said as he started down the steps she had pointed out. At the bottom, a double chain was slung between two posts and a “STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT” sign hung from it.

 

            The steps led to the underside of the pier. Andy turned on his torch. There was a remarkable amount of light being reflected by the water but it didn’t reach into corners or behind the concrete pilings. He swept the beam of light from side to side. On the second pass he saw that the half-submerged bundle he had taken for a pile of seaweed was moving.

 

            Tad Will lay face down on the rocks, his legs trailing uselessly in the water. Blood made a halo around his head and neck. As Andy got closer, he realized that what he had taken to be movement was just an illusion created by the waves as they washed back and forth across the body.

 

            Andy turned the body over. Tynie’s pockets were empty, but there was something hard tucked between his shirt and jacket. Andy reached in and pulled out a rather crushed photograph. By the light of the torch he could see it was a postcard of the Driftwood reef. Four girls and two men were floating about in suggestive poses.

 

As he searched the body, he caught a whiff of something in Tynie’s clothes. He leaned down and sniffed. Cheap perfume, strong enough to overcome the smell of salt water.

 

            Andy stood up. He had two phone calls to make. Of the two, he judged one to be much more important than the other. He pulled out his phone and pressed a single key.

 

            A cheerful American voice answered at the first ring. “Hey, Andy.”

 

            “Jack. We need to talk.”