The Impossible Dead

13

‘Very nice girls,’ Tony Kaye said.

‘Very,’ Joe Naysmith agreed.

They were back in the interview room, the three of them seated around the table with beakers of tea.

‘Hairdressers.’

‘Though Billie’s a senior stylist and Bekkah’s not quite got there yet.’

‘Lucky it was quiet in the salon. We were able to grab twenty minutes in the privacy of the tanning booth. Don’t worry, though – it wasn’t switched on.’

‘Bekkah looked like she’d spent some time in there,’ Naysmith added.

‘Good figure on her, too – if that’s not being sexist.’

Fox could see his two colleagues had enjoyed themselves.

‘She’d like to give modelling a try,’ Naysmith informed him.

‘Cut to the chase,’ Fox muttered.

‘Well…’ Naysmith began, but Kaye took over the story.

‘Night out. Started with the whole team from the salon. Few casualties along the way. Chinese meal, then pubs and a club. It’s past midnight and they reckon on walking home. Bekkah’s caught short and nips down a side street. Car pulls up. It’s Paul Carter. Identifies himself and says he’s taking them in. Public indecency or some such. Billie asks if he can’t just drop them home instead. He says maybe he can but it’d mean spending a bit of time on the car’s back seat. Makes a grab for her crotch. She pushes him away, so then he asks Bekkah if she wants to spend the night in the cells. Same bargain. They tell him where he can go and he heads back to his car and calls it in. Patrol car turns up and they’re put in a cell to sober up. Which is when Carter suddenly reappears and repeats the offer – any and all charges dropped if they’ll “scratch his back”. No dice.’

‘Billie told him her boyfriend was a bouncer,’ Naysmith got the chance to say.

‘As if that would cut any ice with Carter.’

Fox rubbed his chin. ‘Carter’s uncle ran a security company,’ he commented.

‘So?’

Fox shrugged. ‘Just wondering.’

‘We can always visit the girls again and ask.’ Kaye glanced at Naysmith, who didn’t look entirely opposed to the idea. ‘Anyway, that’s about it. In the morning they were released without charge – no sign of Carter.’

‘But they didn’t make a complaint?’

‘Not until they read about Teresa Collins.’ Kaye paused. ‘How is she, by the way? Any news?’

‘I’ve not checked. Been some developments here…’ He filled them in. Naysmith seemed the more interested of the two, asking questions and getting Fox to repeat bits, the better to understand them. Kaye looked glum throughout.

‘What?’ Fox eventually asked him.

‘I hate to side with Pitkethly, but she’s got a point – what has any of this to do with us?’

‘Paul Carter comes riding back into town and a day later his uncle has topped himself? You don’t think there’s anything to that?’

‘Whether there is or there isn’t, we’re here to investigate three officers, none of whom happens to be Paul Carter. We report our findings and then we get to go home.’

‘So the gun,’ Joe Naysmith was saying to himself, ‘was meant to be destroyed but obviously wasn’t. They must keep records of these things

…’

Kaye stretched out his arms in mock-supplication. ‘This is not our case,’ he said, laying equal stress on each of the words. ‘It just isn’t.’

‘It might connect to our case,’ Fox told him. ‘Little bit of digging, you never know…’

‘Did Alan Carter work on the disposal team?’ Naysmith asked.

‘I’m sure CID are looking into that,’ Kaye said. ‘Because that’s the sort of thing CID do. We, on the other hand, are the Complaints.’

The door opened. Fox was about to remonstrate, but saw that it was Superintendent Pitkethly.

‘I need a word,’ she said, pointing in Fox’s direction. Then, to Kaye and Naysmith: ‘Either of you two see or speak to Alan Carter before he died?’

‘Nor after he died,’ Kaye said with a shake of his head. She gave him a hard look.

‘Then it’s just you,’ she told Fox. ‘My office… unless you’d rather do it here?’

Fox told her he preferred her office. She turned away, and he got up to follow.

She was already seated behind her desk when he arrived. She told him to close the door, and when he made to sit down, she ordered him to stay on his feet. She had a pen in her hand, which she studied as she spoke.

‘You may just have been the last person who saw Alan Carter alive, Inspector. That means CID would like to ask a few questions.’

‘Hardly feasible when I’m running an inquiry into three of them.’

‘Which is why I’m asking instead.’ She paused. ‘Always supposing you’ve given me a clean bill of health?’ He didn’t answer, causing her to look up at him. She narrowed her eyes and returned her attention to the pen.

‘Why did you visit him?’

‘He made the original complaint about Paul Carter.’

‘That hardly connects him to Scholes, Haldane and Michaelson. Oh, and by the way, Haldane’s feeling a lot worse since your little home visit, so thanks for that.’ Again, Fox chose not to comment. ‘So what did you talk about with Alan Carter? How did he seem?’

‘I liked him. He wasn’t evasive, was a welcoming host.’

‘Troubled in any way?’

‘I wouldn’t have said so.’ Fox paused. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

‘Someone in Forensics seems to have been watching CSI. She was the one who traced the revolver…’

‘And?’

‘And she’s got a few concerns about the prints.’

‘The prints on the gun?’

‘Don’t get too excited – just a couple of anomalies.’

Fox thought back to the scene: Ray Scholes already there; stuff strewn on the floor; the revolver half-hidden below a magazine… He remembered Alan Carter moving around the room, making tea, handing him a mug…

‘Carter was right-handed,’ he stated.

‘What?’

‘Why was the gun lying to the left of him? His head was slumped against the table and the gun was to the left, not the right.’

She stared at him.

‘Not one of the anomalies?’ he guessed.

‘No,’ Pitkethly conceded, writing a note to herself.

‘What then?’

‘Alan Carter’s prints are on the gun – no one else’s. There’s a good thumbprint slap-bang in the middle of the grip.’

Fox made show of holding a revolver. His thumb was high up on the grip. He tried bringing it lower down, but it felt awkward.

‘And a partial fingerprint halfway along the barrel,’ Pitkethly added, tossing the pen on to the desk and folding her arms.

‘No prints anywhere else?’

‘You’re sure he didn’t seem worried about anything?’

Fox shook his head. ‘But then he probably didn’t know at that point that his nephew had been released from custody.’

‘Let’s not get carried away, Malcolm.’ The use of his first name came as a jolt to him. She needed him. She needed him on her side.

‘You have to bring Paul Carter in,’ he said quietly.

‘I can’t do that.’

No, not to his own police station, not to be interviewed by his own friends.

‘I can ask the questions,’ Fox offered.

She shook her head. ‘You’re the Complaints. This is… this is something else.’ When he looked at her, she met his eyes. ‘There’s no proof Alan Carter didn’t pull the trigger,’ she said quietly.

‘But all the same…’

‘Anomalies,’ she repeated. ‘Carter ran a security company. He might have made enemies.’

‘On top of which, he was doing some research into an old case.’

‘Oh?’

‘He was surrounded by the paperwork when he died – didn’t Scholes tell you?’

‘He said the place was a bit of a tip…’

‘Tidy enough when I visited. But afterwards, looked like someone had been through it. Scholes and Michaelson were first on the scene. Michaelson gave Teddy Fraser a lift home, leaving Scholes alone in the cottage…’

Pitkethly closed her eyes, rubbing at her eyebrows with thumb and forefinger. Fox sat down across the desk from her.

‘Honeymoon’s over,’ he told her. ‘You’ve got some big decisions to make. First one should probably be to phone HQ. If you know anyone there, talk to them first.’

She nodded, opening her eyes again. Then she took a couple of deep breaths and picked up the receiver.

‘That’ll be all, Inspector,’ she said, her voice firm. But there was a momentary smile of thanks as he got up to leave.