wrist, like wire. Then round the other arm.
He was handcuffed.
30
The lines on Joe Florida's face gave the lie to his dark hair. They were deeply etched around his eyes and mouth and no one would mistake them for laugh-lines. He was probably past fifty. And the striplight overhead lent that hair an unlikely reddish sheen. Seated opposite Curtis McGarvie and Keith Halliwell in an interview room at Shepherd's Bush Police Station, he was well aware of his rights. The clock was ticking. They could hold him without charge for twenty-four hours and it might be extended to thirty-six by an officer of superintendent rank or above for a 'serious arrestable offence', but he was entitled to eight uninterrupted hours of rest in the twenty-four. He'd already been in custody more than eight. There had been delays. His solicitor had not been in any hurry to get there. The police themselves were slow, hampered by being a hundred miles away from their incident room.
Curtis McGarvie had thought seriously about transporting the man to Bath, but that would have added hours, and the solicitor would have raised all kinds of objections. So they were doing it here.
McGarvie wasn't discouraged. He'd watched Florida's body language. The man was uneasy each time the questioning returned to the murder of Stephanie Diamond.
'Once more, what were you doing in Bath on Tuesday, February the twenty-third?'
'Get real, will you?'
'Answer the question.'
'It's a stupid question.'
'So where were you?'
'February was months back, for Chrissake.'
'Have you visited Bath this year?'
'For the tape,' Halliwell said, 'the witness is shaking his head.'
McGarvie tried another ploy. 'And if I said we have someone who saw you that morning?'
Joe Florida twitched.
The solicitor was quick to say, 'If you do have a witness, kindly inform us. If the question is hypothetical - as I strongly suspect it may be - I'm advising Mr Florida to ignore it'
McGarvie gave a shrug. 'It would save us all a good deal of time if Mr Florida stated where he was that morning.'
'He doesn't remember. I doubt if any of us could remember what we were doing on a precise date seven or eight months ago.'
'He does,' McGarvie said. 'It's obvious from his demeanour.'
And Florida twitched again.
She ordered Diamond to stand. Not easy when you're cuffed. Then she frisked him - expertly. She unlocked the sunroom door and prodded the small of his back. Inside, she pressed on the handcuffs and forced him to his knees.
'Face down again.'
He had no option.
The cuffs weren't the old-fashioned sort. They were steel wire loops that cut into the flesh, and they hurt. They hurt still more when she grabbed his right foot and bent the leg back and fastened it to the wrists.
'I'm going for the other one,' she said, and he realised she wasn't speaking to him. At the edge of his vision he could just make out a movement. A shoe, a trainer. He couldn't see who the wearer was.
A male voice said, 'Don't try anything.'
Some chance.
The woman was already gone. She knew about Stormy, too. The camera hadn't been for show.
He lay humiliated, in pain and confusion. It was bad enough being a loser, but to lose so pathetically was dire. The speed of the attack, its cold efficiency, had caught him off-guard. True, he wasn't in the prime of youth, but he'd always believed he'd give some account of himself in hand-to-hand combat. Joke. He'd raised one hand and been thrown and disabled by a woman half his size.
He still didn't understand why. The attack was overreaction considering all he'd done was stroll around the outside of the house.
He'd tried a door handle, and that had been ill-advised. If you act like a house-breaker, you lay yourself open to attack.
Even so.
It wasn't long before he heard the door open and her voice ordering someone to get down beside him. Apparently Stormy hadn't put up much of a fight either.
Stormy started to say, 'u don't have to—' Whereupon he was dumped beside Diamond.
'She surprised me,' he told Diamond.
The big man was in too much discomfort to answer.
He heard her tell her colleague, 'I can handle this now.' To Diamond, she said, 'I'm going to release your leg.
