Blood on the Tongue

Fry had to stand back out of the way to allow her past. She wanted to exchange a look, to share a little sympathy. But the woman’s head was down, and she didn’t look up. There were tired lines around her eyes and blue patches under them. Fry recalled that, according to the gossip at divisional headquarters, their old DCI, Stewart Tailby, had once had a personal interest in Juliana Van Doon, but nothing had come of it. Tailby was soon to make the move to an admin job in Ripley. Now Mrs Van Doon looked as though she had seen too many dead bodies.

‘You see, I reckon I know that bloke who was driving the snowplough,’ said Murfin. ‘And I’ve never seen him out in the sunlight.’

The pathologist walked back to her car and began stripping off her suit. Fry picked up Mrs Van Doon’s case and held on to it for a moment as the woman reached out to take it from her. Their eyes met, but neither of them spoke.

‘What do you think, Doc? Should we take a blood sample from him?’ called Murfin. ‘I don’t mean the dead man, I mean the undead one, so to speak. We might get a cross-match.’

Murfin barked with laughter. It was a very realistic bark, like the ‘arf-arf’ of a fat King Charles spaniel. It echoed off the banks of snow on either side and caused little avalanches on to the roadway. Mrs Van Doon took off her overshoes, piled her gear into the back of her car and drove off without another word, spraying a gallon of slush on to Murfin’s fur boots as she accelerated away.

‘Was it something I said?’ asked Murfin.

‘Oh no,’ said Hitchens. ‘You’ve been eating garlic for breakfast again.’

Ben Cooper found the CID room icy cold and deserted. Obviously, the central heating radiators on this floor weren’t working again. He could smell food. Tomato sauce and garlic. So Gavin Murfin hadn’t been gone all that long. At any other time, Cooper would have opened a window to let in some fresh air, but his fingers were already starting to go so numb that he could barely hold a pen.

There were files piled on his desk, with yellow notes stuck all over them. It looked like a crop of daffodils had suddenly bloomed, despite the chilly air. He saw that one of the notes was much bigger than the others and was written in black marker pen of the kind used for exhibit labels. He didn’t know what to do with it, or whether he should even touch it. For all he knew, it might be vital evidence in a forthcoming prosecution. All it said was: ‘We’ve got our heater back, you bastards!’

Cooper rang down to the control room.

‘DC Cooper here. Can you tell me what’s going on?’

‘DC Cooper? We’ve been trying to contact you since seven forty-two.’

‘Well, I’m here now. What’s going on?’

‘You were supposed to be on duty at seven.’

‘Yes, I know. You must have a record of the way I was left stranded with a prisoner on Hollowgate for half an hour waiting for a pick-up that never came? I had to walk up Spital Hill and meet a PC who couldn’t even stay on his feet for thirty seconds. He looked like a reject from the Northern Ballet Company. Since I got here, I’ve been processing the prisoner through custody.’

There was a pause as the operator consulted somebody in the control room. ‘We’re a bit stretched at the moment,’ she said.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘There are several messages from DS Fry,’ said the operator accusingly. ‘Three of them are marked urgent.’

Cooper sighed. ‘So where am I supposed to be, apart from three places at once?’

‘The body of an unidentified white male was found on the A57 Snake Pass, two hundred yards west of the Snake Inn,’ said the operator.

‘Is the road clear?’

‘According to our latest information, it’s passable with care.’

‘OK, I’m on my way.’

‘Er, we do have some later messages,’ said the operator.

‘Yeah?’

‘I could probably just skip to the last one. It says: “Don’t bother.”’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I suppose it means they’ve managed without you, dear.’

Cooper blinked. Suddenly, the control-room operator sounded like his mother. Or at least, like his mother used to before she became ill.

‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, and put the phone down. He looked again at the files on his desk. It seemed he was muggins again, the sucker landed with the work that nobody else wanted, not when there was something more interesting to do. And it was all because he had set off for work early and found Eddie Kemp in that café. Next time, he would know better. Next time, he would pretend he hadn’t recognized the suspect, as ninety per cent of his colleagues would have done when they weren’t officially on duty. That’s exactly what he would do next time. Maybe.

Cooper slouched across the room to see if he could dredge any warmth out of the radiator. As he moved, his left foot squelched.

Frank Baine banged the bell for a third time. There was no response.

‘Well, if you’re sure you’ll be all right,’ he said.

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Alison Morrissey.

She stood in front of the deserted reception desk with her bags. The lobby was like no other hotel she had ever seen. It was dark, and it seemed to be full of ancient potted plants and stuffed fish in glass cases. It was also deserted. Baine had already put his head round all the visible doors to try to find a member of staff.

‘Someone will appear in a second,’ said Morrissey.

‘We’ve got the meeting with the police at nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said Baine. ‘I’ll pick you up here about eight-thirty, shall I? It isn’t far.’

‘That will be great. And thank you, Frank.’

Finally, he left. Morrissey gazed at a trout the size of a small dog. It stared back at her glassily, its mouth hanging open as if it might say something to her in a minute.

‘Can I help you?’

A receptionist.

‘A room,’ said Alison. ‘I have a room reserved. And I’m about ready to die unless I get to it soon.’

After she had showered and rested, she got out the files again. There were files on every member of the crew of Sugar Uncle Victor. Some, of course, were slimmer than others. The thickest was that on her grandfather, Pilot Officer Danny McTeague. But at the top of the pile, the one Alison Morrissey would look at first and read again tonight, was the file marked ‘Zygmunt Lukasz’.

Later in the morning, Ben Cooper discovered who was going to have to interview Eddie Kemp in connection with the double assault.

‘There isn’t anybody else,’ he was told. ‘They’re all out.’

Kemp looked almost pleased to see him. He seemed to feel they had struck up a close friendship waiting at the side of Hollowgate, as if a bond had been forged between them by performing a bit of early-morning street theatre for the customers of the Starlight Café. Cooper wasn’t sure how long the theatre would have lasted, without turning into a tragedy, if it hadn’t been for the appearance of Sonny Patel and his two oldest sons, brandishing brushes and shovels. They had made a great ceremony of sweeping the pavement clear of snow, until the three men leaning against their plate-glass window had shuffled their feet and moved on.

‘The tea’s not bad here,’ said Kemp. ‘But they’re going to have to turn the bleedin’ music off. It’s doing my head in.’

Cooper and the PC accompanying him tried to keep their distance from the table, so they could breathe more easily. With the triple tape deck running and the duty solicitor sitting alongside Kemp, they took him through the events that had led to the injuries to the two young men at Underbank in the early hours of that morning. Kemp made no attempt to deny that he had been involved, but insisted that he had been assaulted first and had acted in self-defence.

‘That old one,’ said Cooper.

‘They’re known villains,’ said Kemp. ‘They’re dealers off the estates.’