The Detective's Daughter

55

Monday, 24 January 2011

Martin Cashman put back one rasher of bacon, a concession towards a diet, and shoved his tray, heaped with a full English breakfast, along the rails to the drinks machine. He poured himself a coffee. No milk, no sugar.

He had awarded himself this late afternoon’s breakfast because he had completed the General Register Docket on an aggravated burglary. This, along with the Paul Bramwell Docket, could be put away. Such days were rare. In the past month he had handled two sudden deaths that had been suspected murders but were not. Coincidental, he considered as he crammed his mouth with egg, sliced sausage and a square of bacon, that Stella Darnell had been tied to both ‘nominals’. In his job Cashman had learnt not to read much into coincidence. Stella was like Terry, she didn’t suffer fools: she had defused the first murder to natural causes by explaining away evidence and she had neither wasted his time nor got too emotional about the second.

She wanted little to do with the force; Cashman was used to that. He had attended two funerals where the widows, fuelled by fortifying drink, had lost it at the wake, letting rip how a husband in the police was worse than him being with another woman. One said his death would be more of the same, he was never there anyway and now at least she knew where to find him. Cashman had assumed Stella Darnell would agree; Terry’s wife had bailed out early. He had been taken aback when she asked for a favour and said no.

Terry Darnell would not have refused one of Cashman’s girls a favour. He had looked after his own.

Martin Cashman left half his food uneaten and ran upstairs. In his jacket pocket he still had Stella’s reg plate. He punched in his access code to the police database and typed the number into the search box.

The owner had no previous convictions, not even a traffic offence, and meant nothing to him. He flicked through his card index for Terry’s contact details. He could not bring himself to throw them away. Stella was Terry’s next of kin; there were three numbers: her work, her home and her mobile phone.

The receptionist told him Stella was out for the rest of the day. Cashman tried her mobile but a recorded voice said the number was no longer in use. He called the home number and it went to answer machine. He toyed with trying later to tell Stella in person and hear her pleasure that he had changed his mind, but in the end left a message with the registrant’s name and address. He insisted that if there was anything he could do, Stella must always ask.

When Cashman returned to the canteen, his plate had been cleared away.