The Business Of Dying

15

There were seven numbers which came up more than three times among the phone calls to and from Miriam Fox's mobile, and I decided to concentrate on finding out who they belonged to, as well as all the numbers she'd either called or received calls from during the last three days of her life. It was quite possible that they wouldn't tell me anything; even if they did, it was still going to be extremely difficult to get Knox to authorize any further investigation, particularly now that he'd charged Wells. But I still felt it was worth a try.

I called John Claire from my desk, but his line was busy. I lit and smoked a cigarette down to the butt and called him again, but it was still engaged. He was obviously a hard-working boy. I was going to give it five minutes and try him again but I never got the chance. A knifepoint robbery had occurred at a backstreet newsagent's less than half a mile from the station and I was ordered to attend with Malik to take statements from the proprietor and any witnesses. We were there for about an hour, trying to calm down the proprietor's wife, who'd had a knife held against her throat by a kid of no more than thirteen while his five laughing mates had ransacked the place. The husband, who'd been out at the wholesaler's, was distraught. He harangued us and society in general for turning out kids who thought so little of using violence. We didn't try to argue with him. He was right. I told them we'd do what we could to apprehend the perpetrators and thanked them for their help. We then got a squad car to take the wife to hospital for a check-up and returned to the station to file our report.

At ten past five, I tried John Claire's number again. This time he answered immediately. I explained who I was and why I was phoning.

'Yeah, I was dealing with one of your colleagues, DC…?'

'Hunsdon.'

'That's right. I was trying to get together some information for him. Telephone records.'

'Yeah, I know. How far are you down the line? It's just I need them pretty quickly.'

'I've already sent them,' he said, sounding surprised. 'I emailed them to him this morning.'

'No, we've got the actual numbers; it's the people they belong to we need to know. Who the phones are registered to.'

'Yeah, I know. That's what I sent him. I sent him a list with the numbers on it yesterday. I had to chase down the names of the people and it took a bit of time. I said as soon as I got the information I'd get it across to him. And I did. This morning.'

Clearly, Hunsdon hadn't been checking his mail. I lit a cigarette. 'Maybe the network's down here today or something. Can you send it again?'

'Yeah, no problem.'

'I'll give you two places to send it to, just to make sure it goes through.' I reeled off my work and home addresses, and waited while he wrote them down. 'And can you do it immediately, please?'

'Yeah, of course,' he said, sounding a little nervous. 'No problem, officer.'

I thanked him, and hung up.

The mail hadn't arrived when, ten minutes later, Capper phoned through and asked to see me in Welland 's office for a quick chat. He was sitting behind Welland 's desk looking far too comfortable when I went in.

'I understand you've been told the news,' he said, making only a cursory attempt to contain his pleasure.

'That's right. Congratulations.'

He swung round slowly in Welland 's mock-leather seat. 'Thank you. Now, I want us to work together, Dennis. I know we haven't always seen eye to eye in the past, had our ups and downs, but it's important we all pull in the same direction.'

'I agree,' I said, avoiding calling him sir.

'How did it go this afternoon at the newsagent's? Do we know who did it?'

'I can't say for sure, but I think the one with the knife's Jamie Delly.'

Delly was the fourth and youngest boy in a family of petty criminals, all of whom possessed a nasty streak. He'd first been nicked at the age of eight for trying to set his school on fire; ten years earlier his mum had assaulted me with a frozen leg of New Zealand lamb when I'd tried to arrest her for shoplifting.

'That little toe-rag. Bit out of his league, isn't it?'

'Well, he's growing up now. Time to move on from nicking kids' dinner money and shoplifting.'

'Didn't his mother-'

'Yeah, yeah. Leg of lamb…'

'You're lucky you didn't get the chop.' Capper grinned at his wit, showing an unruly set of stained teeth. I would have grinned too if I hadn't heard the joke at least a hundred times before. 'Can we get him for this?' he asked, becoming serious again.

'I should think so, if the proprietor's missus can pick him out in an ID.'

'Get one organized, will you?' he said in a tone that almost begged him to round off the sentence with a 'there's a good lad'. I nodded, and said that I would, keen not to rise to the bait, although wondering how long I was going to be able to put up with this man as my boss. 'Another thing, Dennis, before you go. I understand you were trying to take over Hunsdon's end of the Fox inquiry, telling him you'd chase up the information on the phone records. Is that right?'

'I thought there might be something in there somewhere that could be of use.'

'And you didn't think DC Hunsdon was capable of finding it?' He eyed me closely.

'I was just interested in seeing what I could find. Hunsdon had to make a couple of phone calls, I offered to make them for him.'

'We've charged someone, Dennis, all right? That's it, end of story. I can't have officers of mine going over old ground. We haven't got time. And if for some reason you're not busy enough, I can always assign you some more cases. Because we've got plenty of them.'

'OK, point taken.'

'Have you chased up these records?'

Instinctively I decided not to tell him. 'No. No, I haven't.'

'Good. Don't bother. Concentrate on the stuff that's assigned to you, OK? And if there's anything I can do to help, let me know. Like I say, I want us to work together.'

I asked him if that was all. He said it was.

'I'll get back to work, then,' I said, but I didn't. I got my coat, told Malik I'd see him in the morning, and headed out of there.