Bright Spark (34 page)

“He
uses certain language, you know, rude words. Anyway, he’s knows he’s got to be
polite in company….”

“I
understand. Really. Don’t worry.”

The
policeman crunched on a biscuit with a smirk of child-like delight. She took
stock of him again in his rumpled suit, tie decorated with cartoon animals,
worn wedding ring and scuffed loafers with one lace undone. He was harmless;
doubtless a capable policeman when he meant to be, but not in a serious frame
of mind right now. Whatever had brought him here seemed to him like going
through the motions.  

“Won’t
you take a seat?” she urged, motioning him to a kitchen chair.

She
should separate the policeman from Jeremy but Tony needed peace and moving the
conversation into the garden might have seemed suspicious and exposed her
private affairs to the neighbours.

“Thanks,”
he said, settling on the edge of a chair, unzipping the document case, ready
for business. Vulnerable again to a solid blow to the base of the skull, if
only she had the right position, the right implement and the nerve. She’d need
something weighty but broad at the point of impact to reduce the chance of
cracking the skull.

“Look,
I’m ever so sorry to bother you again, Marjorie. It’s just. Well. You know all
about routine. I need to complete a few more pieces of paperwork.”

“But
it said in the paper that the main suspect had killed himself. I thought it was
all over.”

“Well,
that’s all true, but you know what it’s like in this day and age. Bureaucrats
must have their paperwork.”

The
policeman lined up a number of neat bundles of documents as well as several
plastic bags and what appeared to be two laminate sheets enclosing a rectangle
of black ink.

“So
before we submit our report and put it all to bed, we just need to finish all
the tasks we were assigned on day one. I know it doesn’t seem very sensible,
but I promise I won’t take up too much of your time.”

“That
doesn’t seem like a good use of taxpayer’s money, officer.” She didn’t have to
reach very far to find a clichéd grumble befitting her age and station.

“Maybe
not. But think of it this way. If we’d always been this thorough, some serial
psychos would have been caught earlier and some embarrassing law-suits might
have been avoided. Consistency has a lot going for it.”

“Very
well. We’re all here. How can we help?”

“Well,
I need fingerprint and DNA samples, purely for elimination purposes. It’s a
very simple process, basically…”

“But
we’ve already had them taken. More than a week ago. A nice young lady in a
white van came round to my daughter’s house. Ever so polite.”

“Really?”
Marjorie stirred in her seat; she’d seen irritation but not surprise in the
policeman’s fleeting frown. Perhaps he wasn’t the actor he thought he was.

“Then
I must apologise, Marjorie. It seems we’ve slipped up. The samples weren’t to
be found in yesterday’s audit and we really do need a complete set from the
immediate neighbours. I promise I’ll be quick.”

A
month ago, she’d have refused. She paid her taxes and knew her rights and her
cooperation mustn’t be taken for granted by public bodies who clearly didn’t
value her help otherwise they wouldn’t be losing evidence. But right now, she
must cooperate, must be seen to be cooperative. Besides, it wasn’t as if the
sampling process could hurt them. She’d been careful.

“Very
well,” she sighed. “Do your worst. But it is a bit of an ordeal for my boys.
Please promise me you won’t lose these samples or whatever they are again.”

“Cross
my heart.”

Marjorie
allowed Slowey to rub the outsize cotton bud inside her cheek, an amazingly
innocuous way of sampling something as intimate and fundamental as DNA. Then
she once more allowed her fingers to be daubed with ink and rolled gently one
by one in the rectangular boxes on Slowey’s form. Throughout, she made sure
that Jeremy was watching closely.

“You
may have to allow Jeremy to do this by himself,” she explained to Slowey as he
began filling out another set of forms. “He doesn’t welcome physical contact.
I’m putting that mildly.”

“Unnatural
unwarranted intimacy,” Jeremy declared. “Not conducive.”

“That
shouldn’t be a problem. He’s a bright lad.”

“Deoxyribonucleic
acid. Sectioning my genome. Evidentially. Big Brother watches us all.”

“That’s
right, Jeremy,” said Slowey, speaking slowly and without a hint of mockery.

He
must have kids. He was probably a good father. Not an abuser, not a
lager-swilling gorilla. Pole-axing him with the cast-iron skillet hanging from
a kitchen cupboard close to hand posed an unacceptable risk to what might be a
perfectly nice family, a family she would probably approve of. She would wager
that none of them played loud music late at night. Or smoked. Or argued.

“I’m
trying to make a full set. My case file is really untidy with big gaps in it. I
just need your buccal cells and your inky prints to fill it and make it neat.”

Jeremy
shrugged and obliged Slowey as he was talked patiently through the sampling
process. The mouth swabs were quickly bagged and secured. Jeremy needed a
little more encouragement to coat his fingers with ink and had to be shown how
easily it had been washed off his mum’s hands. Yet once he saw his very own
whorls and arches take precise shape on paper, he was fascinated and determined
to complete the set as neatly as possible. Slowey flattered him perfectly,
proclaiming it the neatest sample of fingerprints he’d ever seen, so neat in
fact that he might frame it in the CID office.

Marjorie
had neglected to mention to Slowey that she hadn’t permitted the female Scenes
of Crime Officer to meet either Tony or Jeremy. Once it had been explained to
her that Jeremy was an aggressive child in a man’s body and Tony was virtually
immobile and about to breathe his last, the woman had promptly agreed that
their samples weren’t crucial at that stage in the enquiry. If Slowey noticed
how novel the process was to Jeremy, he didn’t show it.

“Brilliant.
Thank you both,” said Slowey, neatly stacking the samples and slipping them
into his folder. “Marjorie, is your husband available?”

“I’m
afraid he’s very poorly.”

“I’m
sorry to hear that.”

“Anthony
is most unwell. It’s his lungs. He needs to rest; we can’t risk tiring him. He
may not have long.” She let the words hang. “Unless of course it’s strictly
necessary.”

“I’m
so sorry to hear that. Of course I won’t disturb him. Don’t worry about it. As
I said, it’s really just a matter of routine.”

Was
he really deferring to her? Or was he as relieved as he seemed to be? Did his
unblinking glibness suggest he’d been spared an awkward chore when he knew
perfectly well that Anthony was the one person in this house who certainly
didn’t and couldn’t have anything to do with the fire.

“Thank
you for being so understanding.”

“Not
at all. I appreciate your being so cooperative. It’s our fault we lost your
samples, after all.” What did he want now? “There is just one more thing I need
before I go.”

“Oh,
really. More tea, then?”

She
stood and switched on the kettle, placing herself within easy reach of the iron
skillet. Her heart sparked with a jolting current that could only be earthed if
she grabbed the pan and applied it to the policeman’s head. Just one more
thing? Didn’t that always precede the unmasking of the killer in those hoary
old crime dramas on daytime TV? Might she be cornered? She squirmed, fussing
with teabags and opening yet another packet of biscuits to dissipate some of
the nervous energy. She had to accept she was trapped. She was not a killer and
would not lash out, but she would think of something. Other people depended on
her.

“Yes,
why not?”

She
smiled, damning him to hell. He wasn’t planning to leave any time soon. But
then again, he couldn’t be planning to cuff her and drag her away, unless he
was playing a long and patient game with her.  Perhaps he was waiting until the
kettle full of boiling water was out of her reach before he pinned her to the
floor and ratcheted the cuffs onto her bony wrists. What would he say? Would he
gloat? Would he condemn? Would he remain impassive, inured to human weakness?

“Are
you sure? You look tired. I can always come back…”

“No,
no. We want to help in any way we can. It was a terrible, terrible thing to
happen to those kiddies. And there’s the damage to our house too.”

“Well
I certainly appreciate it. Now then, I will need to take a statement from
Jeremy…..

“You
don’t need that. I can give you all the information you…..”

“And
that’s brilliant, but I will need to speak to him by himself, as soon as
possible. It has to go on the record, you see, and he has to be speaking as
independently as possible.”

“But
I won’t allow it,” she declared, strident for an instant then emollient again.
“I mean surely we can’t do it here; after all, Jeremy has certain needs.”

“Of
course, of course. I’m sorry, I should have made myself clearer.” The policeman
smiled, unruffled. “When I said ‘I will need to speak to him’, I meant that I
will set up the special interview process. He’ll be interviewed on video by a
specialist officer in the presence of an appropriate adult independent of the
police. It will take a day or two to set up.”

“Polite
policeman. No tie. Vulnerable Witness Interview or VWI,” interrupted Jeremy.
“SJ says ‘special’ is a euphemism for wacky and obnoxious.”

“And
if Sharon were here, Jeremy, she’d tell you to mind your manners,” scolded
Marjorie.

“Minding
manners, muzzled, zipped, keeping mum.”

“So,
we’ll give you a ring about the VWI, to give it its right name,” said Slowey.

“Yes,
yes, please do.” She looked for a better or safer answer but found none.

“And
finally, I just need to finish your statement. I know I took some notes from
you in the car but I just need to make it formal.” He had arrayed the statement
paper on the table with what might have been his original notes propped nearby,
legible to him but not to her. His pen hovered at the first line, poised. “Hope
that’s ok, Marjorie.”

“Of
course. I only want to help.”

The
swan waddled up the guano-spattered slipway with the gait of a sumo wrestler,
all of its grace left behind in the water. It busied itself with preening,
sieving and straightening its primary flight feathers, then momentarily
unfolded its man-size wingspan, beating clean air into its down, flexing its
hollow bones and thick muscles. Satisfied with its own magnificence, it cocked
its head and craned its neck as a terrier dragging on a lead yapped and lunged
at it. Standing square and looming large, it seemed to consider seizing the
nuisance in its beak, dragging it into the water and drowning it. Watchfully,
it returned to its endless preening as the irritation was dragged away.

“I
know how he feels,” said Tomkins, wrapping his jaw around a chicken burger, his
elbows propped on the plastic table next to the burger joint’s window with its
view of Brayford Wharf. “Just minding your own business, standing around
looking handsome, and some aggressive little runt always wants to ruffle your
feathers.”

“Thanks
for meeting me,” said Harkness.

“No
problem. You’re buying me lunch. Didn’t recognise you without a cheap suit for
a minute. Them hands look sore.”

“They
are. About Braxton....”

“Who?”

“Kevin
Braxton. You interviewed him about ten days ago.”

“Oh,
yes. I’ve slept since, mind.” Tomkins took a long gulp from his fizzy drink and
wiped the sweat from his brow. Despite the sticky heat, he’d worn a fleece to
cover his uniform shirt. “We asked him about your man. Your dead man as it
turns out. We were disappointed. You just disappeared. No cushy job for us.”

“Couldn’t
be avoided. What did he say?”

“Steady
on. Why all this cloak and dagger stuff? Aren’t you off on the sick?”

“I
am. Still my case though.”

“DI
doesn’t think so. Felt compelled to ask his opinion. We got nervous, to be
honest. What with the body count climbing hour by hour.”

“Fair
enough.”

“Not
that he was interested. Nobody was. And we couldn’t very well bother you.”

“Come
on. What did he say? Put me out of my misery.”

“The
DI said he was grateful we’d kept him informed and that it was a first class
piece of police work. Told us to note down anything relevant and feed it into
the enquiry room.”

“Not
the boss. Braxton.”

“He
said what we needed him to say but no more than that. I’ve known him on and off
for years. Always cocky, very slappable, either goes ‘no comment’ or argues
just to pass the time. But this time, admitted affray, apologised for snotting
the cop and offending the nurses, basically held his hands up. We did have him
bang to rights but that doesn’t usually matter to him. So we charged him. Stuck
the file in. Coming to a court near you soon.”

“Is
that it?”

“Sorry,
almost forgot.” Tomkins swallowed a hunk of his burger. “Got a bit prickly when
we asked him about Firth. On the fifth time of asking, he said Firth had fucked
up a business connection, it was nowt to do with anyone else and that’s all he
was saying. And that’s all we got.”

“What’s
his recent form? Braxton, I mean.”

“Public
order. Low value commercial burglary. Intelligence links him with drugs supply
but he’s only ever been done for possession. So far.”

“Business
connection, eh? Could mean anything.”

“Maybe.
But Braxton being nice and polite is a first. That makes me suspicious. That
and the fact that his solicitor said nothing, even when I was leaning on him
hard. I don’t know. Maybe someone had a word with him.”

“Which
lawyer?”

“Snelling.”

“Of
course.” Harkness stood and slipped his sunglasses on. “Thanks Tommo. You’re a
star.”

“I
see. Got what you want so you’re leaving. No soft words. No cuddling. It’s true
what they say about you.”

“Every
word of it.”

       “I’m
running out of excuses to be out of the office,” grumbled Slowey, propping his
bare feet on Harkness’s garden table, allowing the sluggish breeze to cool them
while he pushed his shoes and socks into the shade.

       “Tell
them you’ve got an ailing auntie,” said Harkness, his own sandaled feet propped
on the other side of the table.

       “Ah,
Bunburying.”

       “Come
again?”

       “From
‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.”

       “Ernest
who?”

       “They’ll
give any philistine stripes these days. Oscar Wilde came up with it. It means
leading a double life. Pretending to have a sick auntie you have to keep
visiting at short notice. You know, the kind who hovers at death’s door for
years on end. The kind who can be counted on to have a relapse whenever you
want to get out of the office or shag around behind your lovely, loyal
girlfriend’s back.”

       “Thanks
for the English lesson. You need to learn your place, constable.”

       “You
read the case file I pretty much stole for you, Sergeant?”

       “Every
word. Twice. Also bought lunch for someone. Interesting news. But yours first. What
did you make of Marjorie this time?”

       “Frightened.
Frightening.”

Slowey
rasped the back of a hand against the itching stubble on his chin. He started
when the back of his hand came back plastered with a dozen black flecks that
twitched on his flesh like iron filings in a magnetic field.

       “Black
fly season,” said Harkness.  “Not your stubble falling out. Little buggers get
everywhere.”

       Slowey
drew his hand closer and inspected the bugs. Whenever the summer broiled and
drew close, the approaching pressure front would squeeze them out of the air,
giving black, crawling form to the damnable itch of the heat.

“I
was about to say,” Slowey continued, wiping his hand and his face clean with
one of his endless supply of handkerchiefs, “I went in with an open mind. But
that can’t be true otherwise I wouldn’t have been there at all. And I wouldn’t
have teased her the way I did.”

       “Come
on, get off the fence.”

       “Well,
I took her by surprise. So she made me stand outside while she dived back in to
prime Jeremy. Might be innocent. Might not. Either way, there was some
screeching and a bit of loud whispering and he kept letting me know he wasn’t
allowed to tell me anything. Which made me think he wanted to. Or he didn’t
care either way but needed me to see how well he could follow instructions. I
just don’t know.

       “She
was acting calm. And she’s not a great actress. I had plenty of time to study
her. Eyes bulging like she was being choked. Bit of a shake not quite under
control. She wasn’t like that the first time we met, when it had just happened,
the fire next door I mean, when she had more cause to have the jitters. Every
time I looked away, I expected her to knock my head off with this bloody great
frying pan she keeps hanging near the kettle. Or break my nose with the biscuit
tin.

       “Yet
she was too afraid to be her usual, upright self. Didn’t even mutter when I
trotted out that nonsense about having lost the samples. Wouldn’t let me take
the husband’s but she had good reason not to and I wouldn’t have done it anyway.
Then I suggested she let me talk to Jeremy alone. She shouted me down. Got
polite again quite quickly. But I really jabbed a nerve. 

       “Then
she let me take a statement from her. In fact, she relaxed, came right down
from off the ceiling when the spotlight was fully on her.”

       “Good
statement?” asked Harkness.

       “Yes.
Very. Too good. Not that she had a lot to say. But it was word for word
identical to what she gave me in the car that night. It felt rehearsed. Or
maybe I’m just cynical. But most people’s memories start to crinkle around the
edges hours after witnessing something, never mind days or weeks later. And it
wasn’t just the facts she was good on. I swear she used exactly the same words.

       “Anyway,
I got your samples. DNA in the freezer. Where it’ll stay ‘cause there’s nothing
from the scene to compare it to. Fingerprints have gone to HQ. As for the VWI,
shall I stick the paperwork in?”

       “Yes,
get it jacked up and let’s get Jeremy on tape. And keep hassling HQ for
fingerprint results. What do you think then?”

       “Marjorie
knows something and doesn’t want to say. She’s frightened. Could be she saw
something or someone and has been scared into silence. Could be she’s been
naughty herself. I just don’t know. Jeremy knows something too and hasn’t been
allowed to talk. What’s your news?”

       “What
did you make of the landlord at the Friars’ Vaults?”

       “Interesting
tangent you’re taking. Ok. He was friendly. Honest when it suits him. Which is
probably at least half of the time.  May be some low-level dealing going on
under his nose. He doesn’t want to know or doesn’t care. I don’t think he lied
to me about anything, at least not anything important.”

       “Are
you convinced the burglary there had anything to do with the fire?”

       Slowey
pursed his lips. “Not one hundred percent. But maybe we’ve taken the wrong
tack. I mean, I just don’t see it being worthwhile for Firth to break in
there.”

       “And
Murphy couldn’t have done.”

       “Exactly.
So who else was in there and why wouldn’t they want us to see them, or what
they’d been up to, a few hours after three deaths?”

        “Didn’t
I read that both Braxtons, father and son, were there at the time? But we half
knew that, with Keith Braxton making all that noise at the scene.”

       “You’re
right. Both pub and initial crime scene have at least Keith Braxton in common.”

       “What
about that DNA sample you gouged out of someone’s face when you took that
beating in the pub car park? A beating, incidentally, at the hands of two
reasonably fit white guys, one younger and leaner than the other.”

       “Good
point. We need that pronto, don’t we? It’s just gone to the top of my ‘to do’
list. Anyway, what did Tommo say?”

       “Kevin
Braxton appears to believe that Firth somehow ‘fucked up a business
connection’. I’m quoting.”

       “Dumb
bastard should have kept his mouth completely shut. Don’t suppose he could
resist telling the cops he had ‘a business connection;’ big step up for him.”

       “Still
think this was a solo effort by Firth?”

       “What
makes you think I ever did?”

       Harkness
flexed his hands impassively, their flesh scarlet but no longer iridescent,
their facets and joints outlined in silver and red where dry skin stretched and
split.

       “Still
sore?” asked Slowey.

       “Less
so by the day. Funny thing, pain. We’re all thinking beings. I know where it
hurts and why. But if you let it in, it takes over. If the pain’s big enough,
it gets in anyway. You either want to explode or fizzle out and die.”

       “Aren’t
you a little ray of sunshine?”

       “I
suppose the point I’m making a fist of getting to is…..well, with certain pain,
not just the physical variety, you can start to understand how……”

       “Death
can start to look appealing?”

       “Exactly.
And not just your own. Back to the office for you, I suppose?”

       “Well
with both you and Brennan piling on the jobs, I’ll be there past the kids’
bedtime and probably yours. Unless you’re finishing off Sharon’s statement
tonight?”

       “Don’t
look at me like that. Nothing in my job description says I have to set a good
example to my underlings.”

       “Phone
this guy.” Slowey proffered one of his business cards with the name Brian
Hoskins and a mobile number scrawled on the back. “An inmate wants to give a
statement. About Murphy. I haven’t got time to do it. You’ll find it
interesting and Brian won’t know and probably wouldn’t care that you’re off
duty.”

       “You’re
allocating work to your superior officer?”

       “You’ve
passed an exam and glad-handed an interview panel. That makes you my boss, not
my superior.”

As
the diesel rattle of Slowey’s pool car receded, Harkness studied the
black-flies that had settled on his hands, letting them plot out a contour map
of sensation for him. His own flesh deceived him. The rich and complex tangle
of nerves underlying the fingers, palms and knuckles had been singed or numbed
by swollen blood vessels and healing dermis. Across his fingertips, the minute
bugs jabbed at him as if they were wearing crampons. In the flaking recesses of
his palms, only his eyes told him the bugs were there at all.

He
seized the cordless phone from the garden table, allowing it to lie in his palm
where he could barely feel it, hoping the numbness would infect the call he was
about to make. A glance at his watch reassured him that Hayley couldn’t
possibly be back from her meeting in London any time soon. He began to dial,
caught himself, deleted the digits and swapped the cordless for his mobile. He
couldn’t believe he’d nearly dialled Sharon’s number into the home phone and
onto the phone bill that would drop through the door into Hayley’s hands. Did
he want to get caught?