Riptide

§ 69

‘You mean I can go?’ Cal knew he sounded incredulous.

‘Yep,’ Dixon said. ‘On yer bike. If that means anything to you.’

Cal had been two days in his bloody clothes. He felt he must smell like a slaughterhouse. As Dixon handed him his possessions one by one, he said ‘I can’t walk though the streets like this.’

‘No. You can’t.’

Dixon took his macintosh off the peg on the back of the office door. The ubiquitous bobby’s mac-just like the one Walter Stilton had worn.

‘I’ll want it back, mind.’

‘I’ll send it back in a cab.’

‘Sign here.’

Cal slipped his arms through the coat and glanced down at the form Dixon had put in front of him.

‘It says “all personal effects”.’

‘So?’

‘My gun?’

‘You want your gun back? I’ve been told nothing about that.’

‘Have you been told not to give it to me?’

Dixon thought about this.

‘Not as such.’

‘Then surely it’s part of “all”. Come on Sergeant, you know I’m a serving soldier. You’ve seen my dog-tags, you’ve talked to the embassy. All officers have sidearms.’

‘It’s evidence.’

‘Of what? You just said you’re letting me go. If you had the slightest suspicion that I’d killed Walter you wouldn’t be letting me go, now would you?’

Dixon opened his desk drawer. Took out the gun, its clip and its holster. Scooped up the bullets in one hand and dropped them down on the desktop like a pocketful of marbles.

‘Four left,’ he said. ‘I gather Mr Troy used a couple in his test.’

‘Troy. Troy tested my gun?’

‘Troy got you out of chokey Mr Cormack. And you say I told you that and you’ll get me shot,’ Dixon said.

‘Not funny, Sergeant.’

‘Not meant to be, Captain.’