'So when did you last see him?'
'Day before Christmas Eve, 'bout half past six.'
'At his house?'
'That's right'
'How long were you with him?'
'Not long. Two minutes. We just stood on the doorstep chatting for a while. He gave me a script for two days and a letter to take to this GP in London.'
He was anticipating my questions. I sat back and let Sparky take over.
'What GP in London?' he asked.
'A GP in London. When I told him that I wanted to go there he persuaded me that a script for a week wasn't a good idea.'
'Where were you going in London?'
'Wandsworth.'
Sparky made an encouraging gesture with one hand. 'You're allowed to elaborate,' he said. The new caution has been a big help. Suspects now know that silence, or being obstructionist, might ruin their defence, so they usually give an answer of sorts, but Skinner was almost being helpful.
'Right,' he said. 'I have some good friends in Wandsworth. Jim and Mary. We was in care together, from being about ten. We split up when we were sixteen, but we've always kept in touch. I go see them every Christmas, if I can. I told the doctor and he asked me to find out the name of a GP down there. He rang him and did me a letter of introduction, so I got my scripts no problem.'
'We need Jim and Mary's address, and the doctor's,' Sparky told him.
Skinner recited them from memory and I wrote them down to save time waiting for the tape to be transcribed.
'So where were you at eight o'clock that night,' Sparky went on.
'Easy. In a van on my way down south.'
'Can you prove it?'
'My brother-in-law was driving it. Well, he's not really my brother-in-law. He picked me up at home just after six. We went round to the doc's and then set off. Will that do?'
'No.'
'I don't want to drag him into it, if I can. He's not supposed to take passengers.'
I chipped in with: 'Did you stop anywhere?'
'Yeah. We stopped for a fry-up.'
'Where?'
'Don't know the name of the place. It's on the Peterborough road, just after the long red wall, after you pass the airfield.'
Sparky and I looked blank. There's a whole culture of travellers who never use a map, never remember a road number; they navigate by landmarks, like the early fliers did.
'Near the greenhouses,' he explained.
'Right,' I said. 'And did you save the receipt?'
'No.'
'What a pity.'
'The brother-in-law claimed it. He insisted on separate receipts and kept them both. For his expenses. He'll have it.'
We were supposed to be tying him up and he was doing it to us. 'Two fry-ups in one day,' I said. 'He'll clog his arteries.'
'No, he didn't eat them both,' Skinner told me, earnestly. 'I had one of them. He just told his firm that he had, for the money.' Now he was taking the piss.
Sparky said: 'How did you learn of the doctor's death?'
'Jim and Mary have a phone. The wife she's not really the wife rang me, Christmas Day. Said it'd been on Radio Leeds.'
'What did you think?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'What am I going to do for my scripts?
That's what drugs do to you.'
'Who did you get your drugs off before the methadone?' I asked.
A look of panic flashed across his face. 'I can't tell you that. I'd be a dead man.'
'OK. If you didn't kill the doctor, who did? Were you in with anyone heavy? Had you told your supplier about him? Was he losing a good customer because of the doc?'
'No. I didn't tell a soul, except the wife. And I bought my H casual, like. Nothing regular. Half a gram, when I had the money. That's all. It's all the other stuff they put in it that fucks you up.'
'Are you all right for today?' I asked.
'Yeah, but I haven't got it with me.'
'And tomorrow?'
'I need to fix something for tomorrow.'
'Want our doctor to see you?'
He hesitated. 'I don't know. Maybe now's the time to break with it.'
'OK,' I said. 'We'll leave it at that, for now.'
He was taken to one of the cells. Judging by his trousers, the duty solicitor went for a round of golf and Sparky and I trudged up the stairs to the CID office.
'What do you reckon?' Sparky asked. Someone always asks it. I knew what I reckoned, but I wasn't admitting it, yet.
'Check it all out,' I said. 'Let's see what they turn up at the squat a gun would be nice. Talk to the brother-in- law, get the receipts.
Then let's have a look at Jim and Mary in Wands worth and the doctor down there. Have a word with traffic. Try to arrange for someone local to get a receipt for a breakfast from the cafe-near-the-wall-by-the-silver-stream- under-the-trees-by-the-fly over Could be worse. It could have been in Welsh.'
Maggie was in the office. 'It's on your desk,' she said.
'That was quick.'
'We don't mess about. When are we going to have a word with him?'
'Darryl?'
'Mmm.'
'Not yet,' I told her. 'I want to concentrate on the doctor job, if you don't mind. Makinson will be back on the second, and I've a feeling he's not going to be pleased with what I have to say. Maybe we'll go for Mr. Buxton when the debris has fallen to the ground, eh?'
'What about tomorrow? We could get him then.'
'Tomorrow, Maggie, is a bank holiday. I suggest we all have the day off. What's good enough for Mr. Makinson is good enough for the rest of us.'
'Blimey!' she exclaimed. 'I don't believe what I'm hearing.'
'Well just keep your fingers crossed that our Darryl doesn't strike again.'
'I never thought of that. Do you think he might?'
'I doubt it. Hopefully this was a one-off.' I wondered if I was making a mistake. Maybe we should put the scarers on him as soon as possible. 'Have you an Almanac handy?' I asked. 'There is one avenue we can try.'
Maggie fetched it from where it hung on a piece of string from a nail in the notice board. I thumbed through it after studying the map and dialled a number.
'Pendle Police Headquarters,' a voice sang in my ear.
'Good morning,' I said. 'Could you please put me through to DI Drago at Burnley Padiham Road CID.'
'Putting you through.'
After the usual beeping and clicking a voice said: 'Padiham Road CID.
DI Smith speaking.'
'I said: 'Hello. This is DI Charlie Priest at Heckley CID. Is DI Drago available, please?'
