he killed Latham. Balance of mind, manslaughter, three years top whack, free in one.”
“I thought you weren’t happy about it.”
“I’m happy,” I protested. “The evidence is good. Why does everybody want me to be out of line?”
Her face lit up in a smile. “Because that’s where you belong,” she said.
We sipped our coffee in silence for a few moments, her left hand absentmindedly straightening the papers near the corner of my desk until they were exactly parallel to the edges. “Do you think of Georgina Dewhurst very often?” she asked.
I wasn’t expecting it, and it took me a few moments to reply. Georgina was a little girl, murdered by her stepfather. “Yes,” I admitted. “Probably more often than is healthy.”
“I was a WPC on that case,” Annette told me.
“I know. You were with the Child Protection Unit.”
“Good grief!” she exclaimed. “I’m amazed you noticed.”
I grinned, saying: “As SIO, it was part of my remit to keep a fatherly eye on all the young WPCs.”
Her smile was warm and comfortable, the best I’d ever seen her give. “That’s when I decided I wanted to be a detective,” she said. “Not just be a detective, I wanted…well…oh, never mind.”
“Wanted what?”
Her smile was still there, fighting to be seen through the blush that crept over her face like a desert sunset. “Oh, nothing,” she said.
I didn’t insist on an answer. People with red hair and freckles blush easily, but it was strange that she never did when answering questions about our clients that some people would find embarrassing. Then, she was totally professional. It was only when…Ah, well, it was something for me to ponder over.
“Tonight,” I began, “after we’ve given Iqbal a send-off. We could go for a Chinese again, if you’ve nothing on. Or a curry. I’m just as well-known in the Last Viceroy as I am in the Bamboo Curtain. You missed a good steak on Saturday, by the way.”
She nodded and said: “Right. See you in the pub.”
I did paperwork and made phone calls until after half-past six, then walked over the road to the Bailiwick. The lab had done a micro-analysis of various samples taken from the Silkstone bedroom and their report was in the post. Expecting me to wait for it was like asking a child to wait until Easter for his Christmas presents. I asked for a condensed version over the phone.
They’d found skin flakes from all three involved, but not too many from Tony Silkstone. The sheet and duvet cover were probably clean on that day, which had made things easier. The footprint scans were relatively straightforward, too, as the whole house had been thoroughly vacuumed. All three of the protagonists had climbed up and down the stairs a couple of times, and last one down was Silkstone himself. No signs of a struggle, no tracks left by trailing heels. All good stuff, which led us nowhere. Mrs Silkstone liked a tidy house and clean sheets for when her lover called, and that was about it. The jammy sod, I thought. Pity about the dagger in the heart.
Jeff and Iqbal were sitting in a corner, behind half-empty glasses, the barman was reading the Mirror and the cat was asleep on the jukebox. All-day opening has closed more pubs than any temperance society ever did.
“Ah, Inspector Charlie!” Iqbal exclaimed as I entered. “What can I purchase for you?”
“Oh, a pint of lager would go down nicely, please,” I replied, and Iqbal went over to the bar.
“Where is everybody?” I whispered to Jeff.
“Dunno. Playing hard to get, by the look of it.”
“Annette said she’d be here.”
“I saw her leave, in her car.”
“Oh.” I tried not to sound disappointed.
Iqbal returned with my drink. He placed it carefully in front of me, saying: “Jeffrey was just explaining how the legal system in your country, and therefore in mine also, dates back to the twelfth century, and that there are still several anomalies in the statutes book that have no relevance to the modern world.”
“So they say, Iqbal,” I replied, adding: “Cheers,” and taking a long sip of Holland’s major contribution to international goodwill. It was an old chestnut that poor Jeff had dug up to keep the conversation flowing.
“For instance,” he continued, “Jeffrey tells me that it is still permissible, due to an oversight or perhaps lack of time in Parliament, for the driver of a vehicle who is taken short to urinate against the front offside wheel of the aforementioned vehicle. Is that really so?”
“Not quite,” I told him. “It’s the front nearside wheel.”
“Offside,” Jeff asserted.
“Nearside,” I argued.
“Offside.”
“Uh-uh. Nearside.”
“It’s the offside. I looked it up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Oh heck. No wonder I got some funny looks in the High Street this morning.” One or two of the others arrived, so Iqbal’s send-off wasn’t a complete disaster. I was just starting my third pint, which is about double my normal intake, these days, when Annette arrived. She was wearing a blue pinstripe suit with a shortish skirt and high heels. I smiled at her and moved along to make some room, but didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure I could control what might come out if I tried to talk. Someone fetched her an orange juice.
At half past eight people started to make excuses and drift away. We all shook hands with Iqbal, telling him what a delight his stay with us had been, wishing him well for the future. I pointedly asked Annette if she’d like a Chinese, and she said: “What a good idea.”
I opened the invitation to the others but they all politely declined. Dave had eaten, he said; some had meals waiting for them, and Jeff had defrosted a vegetarian lasagne for himself and Iqbal. “Just us, then,” I told Annette, and our ears were burning like stubble fires as we walked away from them all.
“Your reputation is now in tatters, you know,” I said as I fastened my seatbelt in her Fiat.
“That’s what reputations are for,” she replied, clunking the car into first gear.
We went through the menu and had fun. I introduced Annette to wontons and Mr Ho introduced both of us to various other delicacies he kept bringing from the kitchen. “Umm, delicious, what is it?” Annette would giggle, and he would reply in Chinese.
“What’s that in English?” she’d demand.
“You no rike if I tell you in Engrish,” he’d laugh.
I grabbed the bill when it came. “This was my idea, and I earn more than you,” I told her, not allowing her the chance to object.
“Oh, er, right, thanks,” she said.
“My pleasure. Any chance of a lift home?”
She wouldn’t come in for coffee. We were sitting outside my house with the car’s headlights still on and the engine running. Switching off, stopping the engine, would have been a statement of intent. It didn’t come.
“At the risk of being politically incorrect,” I began, “you look stunning, Annette.”
“Oh, I can take political incorrectness like that,” she replied with a smile.
“Good. I’ve enjoyed tonight.”
“Mmm, me too.”
After a silence I said: “Are you going away this weekend?”
The smile slipped away and she fiddled with a button on the front of her jacket. “Yes,” she replied, very softly.
One of the neighbours came walking down the pavement with his little dog on a lead, returning from its evening crap at the other end of the street. I have very considerate neighbours. “Is he a good bloke?” I asked.
Annette turned to face me. “How do you know it’s a bloke?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t, but it usually is.”
“Normally. You mean normally.”
“Usually, normally. They’re just words.”
“I’m the station dyke, Charlie,” she replied. “Surely you know that.”
“You’re a great police officer and I’m very fond of you. That’s all I know.”
