Blood on the Tongue

‘He has an Isuzu Trooper. I’ve seen it parked outside when he’s been doing the windows.’

‘Doing what?’

‘He’s a window cleaner,’ said Murfin. ‘But anyway, he isn’t in custody any more – he’s been sent home. He’s had his twenty-four hours.’

Tailby pulled a face. Too often it had been known for the police to have a suspect in their custody, only to release him before the crucial evidence turned up to justify a charge. ‘We’d better be absolutely sure there’s no link,’ he said. ‘Someone check that out.’

Cooper realized he was the one the DCI was looking at. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

DI Hitchens interrupted. ‘We’re currently tracking down some CCTV footage. In view of the location of the assault, we’re hoping either the suspects or the victims might have been caught by one of the town centre cameras.’

‘That’s good,’ said Tailby. ‘Now let’s have some attention on identifying the Snowman. It’s going to be a long haul. Without an ID, we’re in difficulties. We need to get assistance from the public, of course. But since he’s probably not from this area, that’s going to take some time. That means there are plenty of jobs to do. Mr Kessen thinks everything is under control, so let’s not disappoint him.’

Diane Fry looked distracted. Ben Cooper leaned over towards her as the meeting broke up.

‘Whoever killed the Snowman, it sounds as though we’re looking for amateurs anyway,’ he said. ‘They weren’t thinking things through properly. There’s no logic to what they did. No system, no planning. That’s good, isn’t it? It means they’ll be worrying now about what traces they left behind.’

Fry shrugged. ‘That’s not quite true. The timing of it looks planned. Somebody thought that through, all right.’

‘Unless they were just lucky.’

‘There’s not much we can do about luck, Ben.’

‘Yes, there is,’ said Cooper.

‘What?’

‘We can get lucky ourselves.’

‘Yeah, right.’

But Ben Cooper believed in luck. He believed that, if you worked hard enough and long enough at something, then eventually luck would start to operate in your favour.

What Cooper failed to realize was that he had already been given the most important piece of luck he would get that week.

After the enquiry teams had been hastily assembled, Cooper walked back from the incident room with Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin. The only sound between them was Murfin humming to himself. Cooper listened, trying to identify the tune. It sounded like an old Eagles song, ‘New Kid in Town’.

‘Well, a new broom sweeps clean,’ said Murfin as he reached his desk and began to hunt through his drawers. ‘So my old mum used to say, like.’

Cooper saw that Fry couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She was pale and held herself rigidly, as if she were freezing cold. And it was cold in the incident room, too. You could have broken up the air with an ice axe.

‘Always the optimist, aren’t you, Ben?’ she said. ‘You talked about getting lucky. Well, take a look around you. We’re at rock bottom for resources and we have an unidentified body on top of all our other enquiries. We have a new DCI, the Chief Super is cracking up, and Gavin here is our number one asset. Even the weather is against us. Does it look as though we’re likely to get lucky?’

‘Well, you never know.’

‘Do you think we could persuade Mr Tailby to stay on?’ said Murfin.

‘I don’t think it would take much to persuade him,’ said Cooper. ‘He’s not really all that keen on the HQ job.’

‘He’s even less keen on the new DCI.’

‘Mr Kessen will settle down, Gavin.’

‘It could take time, I reckon. I don’t know, Ben – they call some of us old coppers dinosaurs. But it’s like a proper Jurassic Park on the top corridor sometimes.’

‘So why did you bring up Eddie Kemp? Trying to score some points with the new DCI? Kemp has nothing to do with it, has he? What have you got against him?’

‘Maybe he didn’t clean my windows properly,’ said Murfin. ‘Well, I don’t know. Kemp and his mates might have been cruising for victims. Got the taste for it with the other two, then picked some poor bugger up at the roadside out of town.’

‘I talked to Kemp’s wife,’ said Cooper. ‘According to her, he didn’t come home at all that night. He went to the pub at eight o’clock and she knew nothing until she got a call next morning to tell her he was in custody. She also says the Isuzu was gone all night. According to her story, somebody brought it back early next morning and put the keys through the door.’

‘One of Kemp’s associates, presumably, since he was in custody at the time,’ said Fry.

‘Presumably. But we ought to check.’

‘Does Mrs Kemp know her husband’s friends?’

‘Knows them, but doesn’t want to, I’d say.’

‘No names supplied?’

‘No. She’s not happy, but she’s not giving evidence against her husband. The two victims might be more help when we can get full statements from them, but I doubt it. They’re part of the Devonshire Estate gang – they think talking to the police is like committing suicide. So all we have against Eddie Kemp is the identification of the old couple who looked out of the window and say they recognized him as part of the group. You know how reliable witness identifications are in those circumstances. Eddie himself says if he hit anybody, he was acting in self-defence.’

‘I don’t suppose he’s identified the other three?’

‘Are you kidding? Somebody is going to have to enquire into his associates.’

‘God knows who,’ said Fry. ‘And God knows when.’

‘I bet it’ll be me,’ said Cooper. ‘I seem to have got Kemp’s car on my list.’

‘Hey,’ said Murfin, ‘did you realize that the new DCI’s name is Oliver?’ He held up the rubber lobster of the same name.

‘Are you telling us it’s a coincidence, Gavin?’

Diane Fry had been tapping her fingers on her desk. Now she seemed to make a decision, shake her head and was suddenly her proper self.

‘You’d better go and take a look at his car, then, Ben,’ she said. ‘And take Gavin with you.’

‘I’m on missing persons,’ said Murfin.

‘Let the allocator know where you’re up to, then you’ll have to leave it for an hour or two. Ben can’t go to see Kemp on his own. He’s doing enough solos as it is.’

Murfin left, grumbling all the way. With a spasm of concern, Cooper watched Fry as she stared out of the window for a while, the muscles at the side of her mouth tight with tension. She fiddled at a strand of her fair hair in an uncharacteristically uncertain gesture. Her hand was pale and slender, with tendons that he could have traced with his finger.

‘A new broom sweeps clean?’ she said. ‘I’ll stick a broom up his arse.’

Cooper nodded. He didn’t think she was talking about Gavin Murfin.