Riot Act

Finally, he looked up. “We’re having a certain amount of trouble with our relationship with this neighbourhood,” he said at last. “It’s vital we clear this crime up quickly, and are seen to be doing so.”

I nodded.

“But, if we start carrying out thorough house-to-house inquiries we are in danger of being accused by community leaders of not looking beyond the Asian population for a culprit.” He sighed and dredged up a tired smile. “It’s a case of damned if we do, and twice damned if we don’t.”

“I can understand that,” I said slowly, keeping noncommittal.

“Now I’m the one who’s hearing a ‘but’,” MacMillan said, his voice wry.

I glanced up, met the policeman’s flat cool eyes with a micron-thin layer of composure. “I don’t really see what this has to do with me.”

The Superintendent paused again, sitting up and crossing his legs, paying particular attention to the crease in the fine material of his trousers. When he spoke it was as if he was picking each word with care. “I need some eyes and ears on the ground, Charlie,” he said. “I need to know everything about Nasir Gadatra’s activities, legal or not. The sort of thing that people might not want to let slip to us.”

He ran a hand over his face, the first time I’d seen him let his frustration show. “When something like this happens these people tend to close eyes, mouths and ranks. Then they accuse us of doing nothing. We can’t win.”

For a while there was silence. Friday padded through from sloshing the contents of his water bowl over half the kitchen floor. He slyly dried his muzzle by wiping it across my knees while pretending to offer sympathetic support.

I scratched his head distractedly as my brain bounced on ahead. If Sean hadn’t killed Nasir, then who had? I kept coming back to wondering why Roger had been so desperate for his friend to shoot me. What was driving the boy?

I tried to forecast the likely consequences of telling MacMillan about the attempted shooting. What would happen if I filled him in about Roger, and moving on logically from that, about Garton-Jones and his thugs? And what about Langford’s involvement with Mr Ali? Where did they fit in to all this?

Sean was going to be livid if I involved his brother with the police again. Mind you, Attila probably wasn’t going to be overjoyed to have his place dragged through the mud, either, and I needed my job. Perhaps it was better to be safe than sorry . . .

I shook my head slowly. “I’m not sure if I can help you, Superintendent,” I said, managing to look him straight in the eye with amazing sincerity. “Nasir had rather old-fashioned attitudes about the role of women that meant we didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye,” I added truthfully. “We never really hit it off, and he certainly never confided in me.”

MacMillan gave me a long stare that as good as told me he knew damned well I was holding out on him. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him, though, because I’d done it before.

“If that’s how you feel then perhaps I should be asking where you were last night?” he said, and even as I recognised the trace of humour in his voice, I had to struggle to bite back the panic.

“I was at work,” I managed shortly. “The gym just behind the old bus garage.”

“Hmm, maybe I’ll check up on that,” he murmured and I cursed myself again.

Great. Just great. That’s right, Fox, encourage MacMillan and his forensic team to go sniffing round at the gym. They wouldn’t need a microscope to discover bullets embedded all over the damned place, which might even be a match to the same gun that eventually killed Nasir. I couldn’t even be sure that Attila would have picked up all the empty brass shell casings. Oh, smart thinking, Fox.

“After all,” MacMillan continued now, “you were an excellent shot, I understand. Marksman standard, if your military record is anything to go by.”

I felt my chest constrict so that I had to concentrate on breathing evenly. I had always thought that the army kept that kind of information strictly to themselves. “That was a long time ago,” I said.

“Old habits, Charlie. Old habits,” he said, his tone almost light, so I didn’t know if he was serious or not. “I’m sure it’s like riding a bicycle. You might become rusty, but you never forget.”

No, you didn’t, and I hadn’t. I could still remember what it was like to be on the ranges, concentrating on slowing my breathing and my heartbeat, gradually taking up the pressure on the trigger.

I could still remember feeling the kick of the butt in my shoulder, watching the holes explode through the wood and paper targets with nothing more on my mind than achieving a better aim, a closer grouping. Rifle or pistol, I had been as good with either. They’d drilled the ability to kill into me.

They’d done the same thing with Sean, only to a higher degree. A much higher degree. I suspected that I was primary school grade compared to his university graduate.

I looked up and found MacMillan studying me again. “You said Nas was shot in the chest,” I said. “Close range?”

He pursed his lips, but whether he was trying to recall the details, or trying to decide if he was going to let me have the information, I couldn’t tell.

“I won’t know precisely until I get the full post mortem report,” he said at last, “but yes, preliminary indications are that his killer wasn’t very far away when the shot was fired. Why?”

“Because if I’m as good with a weapon as you seem to think I am, and if I’d taken a dislike to the poor lad that was sudden and violent enough for me to want to kill him – oh, and if I’d also somehow managed to get hold of an illegal firearm,” I tossed at him, sarcastic and angry, “I would have aimed for his head. And if for some reason I’d gone for a torso shot first,” I went on when he didn’t respond, “I would have followed it up with one round to the head once he was on the ground, just to be sure. Shooting him once in the chest and leaving him to maybe bleed to death smacks of an amateur.”

I stopped, appalled at myself. What was I trying to do, convince MacMillan that I’d killed Nasir? Oh, for God’s sake . . .

To my surprise, the Superintendent hadn’t jumped up to slap handcuffs on me. Nor was he laughing at my outburst, which was perhaps more worrying.

“You’re assuming, of course,” he said seriously, “that whoever killed the boy wanted him dead. That it wasn’t an accident. If Nasir is as much of a reformed character as he appears to be these days, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a case of, “I didn’t know it was a real gun, honest”. Too many of these kids seem to live in a computer game world these days. It’s cartoon violence to them. Unreal.”

“If that’s the case, and it was accidental – one of his mates – then why leave him to die in a skip?”

He shrugged. “Any number of reasons. Panic is at the top of my list. The problem is, Charlie,” he said, fixing me with that muddy-coloured gaze, “that people don’t trust us not to try and hang murder on them regardless. Forensic science is so sophisticated now, we can reconstruct a crime remarkably accurately from the minute evidence left at the scene. If someone swears the whole thing was an accident, the chances are that we can prove what they say. They shouldn’t be afraid to come forward.”

His voice had become soft, almost gentle. He thinks I know who did it, I realised, and I’m protecting them because I live here. Because I’m part of this community now, whether I like it or not.

I kept my own gaze steady. “I still can’t help you, Superintendent,” I said.

He sighed, mouth thinning slightly as though he’d been expecting better things of me.

“OK, Charlie,” he said wearily, coming to his feet, “but take my advice and don’t go off doing any crusading on your own with this one. This whole estate is like a powder keg at the moment. One spark in the wrong place and they’ll see the explosion in Carlisle.”

Rising, I said grimly, “I know.”

MacMillan moved towards the hallway, saying casually as he went, “I understand you’re not teaching self defence any more.”

“No,” I agreed shortly, flicking the latch on the front door and pulling it open for him. The wood had swelled in the last lot of rain, so it stuck to the frame and rattled the door furniture when I jerked it loose. “I haven’t really got back into it.”

He paused on the threshold to look down at me. “You should,” he said. “Don’t let what happened stop you, Charlie, it wasn’t your fault. You did what was – necessary under the circumstances.”