kicked off in an hour. I zapped them all to oblivion.
Nigel was saying: 'You were drunk, weren't you?'
'Yeah, I'd 'ad a few,' Darryl admitted.
'So you thought you'd go round to Samantha's for your leg over eh?'
'No, it weren't like that.'
'Were you in a sexual relationship with her?'
'What if I was?'
'So you said goodnight to your cronies and got one of them to drop you off near her house. Did you tell them that you had it laid on? Did you tell them, Darryl, that your secretary was waiting for you to go round and give her a good seeing-to? Is that your style? Is it?'
'No, you've got me wrong.'
'And what happened when you got there?'
'I told you. She wasn't in, or she was in bed. I realised it was late and started walking 'ome.'
'I think she was in, Darryl. I think she said: 'You're not coming in here in that state. You're not going out enjoying yourself without me on a Friday night and getting pissed and thinking you can come round here for a bit of the other any time you want.' Isn't that more like what happened, Darryl?'
Turner said: 'Sergeant, my client has made it perfectly clear to you that he did not speak to Miss Teague on the night in question.'
'So you lost your rag,' Nigel went on. 'You gave her a good hiding.
You don't like it when someone turns you down, do you, Darryl?'
'I really think that's enough,' Turner said. 'My client is perfectly willing to answer questions but I cannot allow you to harangue him in this way.'
I went through into the kitchen and listened to the rest of it while I washed up. The state of Buxton's flat had strengthened my resolve to be tidier.
The SOCO was watching the football match on a little portable when I walked into his office in City HQ. 'Who's winning?' I asked.
'They are, two-nil,' he replied, switching it off. He ambled over to a lab table under the window and retrieved a plastic bag containing a pair of brown leather gloves. Handing them to me, he said: 'Men's, large size, relatively new. Lining worn and leather stretched near base of right index finger, suggesting they have been worn over a large ring. Sadly, they'd been lying in shallow water for several hours and it rained quite heavily through the night. That would be about the equivalent of a colour fast cotton cycle in a washing machine. I've dried them out very carefully and sprayed them with reagent, but there's no trace of blood. We've taken fibre samples from inside, which don't mean anything at the moment, and scrapings from the outside.'
Nigel hadn't asked Buxton about the gloves because he hadn't known about them. If they were his, we needed forensic evidence to link Samantha to them. If he said they weren't his, we'd then need our brainy friends to link him to the gloves.
'And the dinner jacket and shirt?' I asked.
He shook his head. 'Sorry. I'll keep looking, but what marks I've found are probably ketchup and gravy stains.'
'Fair enough,' I said, disappointed. 'Thanks for staying over. Can I take these?' I held up the gloves.
'We've done all we can,' the SOCO replied. 'I'll send the samples to Weatherton for microscopic examination.'
'Right, cheers.' Their electron microscope can see the fluff in a virus's navel, and make individual blood cells look as big as dustbin lids.
As soon as I walked into Heckley nick the duty sergeant collared me.
'Your prisoner's grumbling,' he said, 'and his solicitor gave us hell before he left.'
'Give me ten minutes,' I replied, 'then we'll let him go.'
I ran upstairs and read the reports about the search of his flat.
They'd found a few porn magazines but nothing you wouldn't find at most all-male establishments. Tearing out and saving the page three girls was peculiar, and the pair of combat knives told us a lot about the man. Tucked in the back of a drawer they'd found an arm band with a swastika on it.
'Gimme the keys,' I said to the custody sergeant when I went back downstairs, 'and lock up your wimminfolk. Let's get him off the premises.'
He was sitting on the bunk with his head in his hands, looking up as I raised the flap in the door.
'God, you look rough,' I told him.
'What do you fuckin' expect?' he snapped back at me.
'Are these your gloves?' I asked when I was inside. I took them from the plastic bag and threw them towards him. He caught one and the other fell to the floor.
'Never seen 'em before,' he said.
'Are you sure?'
'Positive.'
'Try them on for size.'
He opened the neck of the glove he'd caught and started to push his fingers into it.
'Oh no!' he declared, and hurled the glove back at me. 'I'm not trying it on. You're not fuckin' fitting me up like that.'
'Please yourself,' I told him. 'C'mon, you can go.' We signed him out and returned his property. I didn't offer him a lift home.
There wasn't enough daylight left to do anything in the garden, which was all the excuse I needed. I had a shave and shower and settled in my favourite chair, inevitable mug of tea nearby. It grew dark around me. It's a time I usually enjoy, the gathering gloom emphasising the silence, the shadows, the womb-like comfort.
Trouble was, I had too much on my mind. For a start, I was hungry, but didn't feel like cooking. Then there was Darryl. We'd get him, one day, but how many more people would he hurt before we did? And on Monday it was back to the murder hunt. Somebody was out there who put a gun to the head of a highly respected doctor and blew him to kingdom come. But most of all, more than all these, was my little problem with Annabelle and Zorba the Greek.
The meal at the Wool Exchange had been a disaster. Our relationship was a long catalogue of broken dates, late arrivals and hurried meals.
I tried to involve her in the job, but there's a limit to how far you can do that. I could retire in less than two years, but wasn't sure if I could hold on to her that long. I put the light on and found my book of telephone numbers.
Eric Dobson used to be a motorcycle policeman. He retired early and started his own business, Merlin Couriers. I designed his logo and painted his first van. We've kept in touch. I rang the office first but he didn't answer. If he had, I'd probably have hung up. I didn't want a job that would require me at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. He was at home.
'Hello, Charlie,' he said. 'Ringing up for a job?'
'Yes,' I told him.
'Seriously?'
'Seriously.'
'Why? What have you done?'
There is a general expectancy among people who know me that one day I'll 'do something'. 'Nothing,' I told him. 'I'm just sick of it. If I leave, what's the chances of finding a simple and undemanding occupation to tide me over?'
'Not with us five minutes and already you're after my job,' he replied in a mock Jewish accent. 'What are you like on a six-fifty Kawasaki?'
'Cold and scared.'
'It'll have to be the Transit then. Is this a firm enquiry or just speculation, Charlie? You haven't been caught with the Chief Constable's wife, have you?'
'Have you seen her? He'd probably recommend me for a QPM. I might set the wheels in motion, see if they can do without me. I don't mind the job, but it's mucking up my personal life, and at my age Tell me about it. We
