‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Would you be willing to let us take a mould of your teeth?’ asked Hitchcns.
‘What the hell for?’
‘To help eliminate you from our enquiries, Simeon. If you didn’t harm Laura Vernon, then you have absolutely nothing to
worry about.’
j
Simeon Holmes wasn’t quite so stupid as he pretended. Fry could see him figuring it out. A question about his sexual techniques, and a request for a mould from his teeth. They hadn’t exactly been subtle with their questions. Because of his casual manner, Holmes might be easy to underestimate. But he had a choice now. He could work out that a mould might prove
o i
his guilt, if he was guilty. But if he was innocent, it might also clear him and get the police off his back. Fry and Hitchens both waited patiently to see which way he would jump.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘No problem.’
Hitchens’s face fell in disappointment. But before he could say anything else, there was a knock on the door and DS Rennie stuck his head into the room. He did a quick double take at the fetid atmosphere and his face screwed up in disgust. Hitchens announced a break in the interview, switched off the tapes, and went out into the corridor to speak to Rennie.
Left alone with Simeon Holmes, Fry was able to study him afresh. The young man met her eyes directly. But a layer of affectation seemed to have dropped away from him in the last few minutes, the final shreds of some assumed role dissipating as DI Hitchens left the room. Fry couldn’t quite figure out what it was. She didn’t think he had been lying during the interview. And yet … How old was Holmes? Seventeen?
‘You must be in the sixth form at the Community School now, Simeon,’ she said.
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Holmes raised his eyebrows, saying nothing, but looking meaningfully at the motionless tape machines.
‘Just asking,’ she said.
He grinned slowly — that annoying, self-satisfied grin he had. But still nothing.
‘Only I was thinking,’ said Fry. ‘that I bet vou’ve got a bit
^ O’ - ‘ ,’ O
more brain than most of your mates.’
‘Dead right.’
‘And I bet you do quite well at school when you turn your mind to it. What are your best subjects? Let me guess
— mechanical engineering? Car maintenance, perhaps?’
Holmes sneered. ‘Chemistry and biology, actually. I take my
j oy’ i ^
A levels next year.’
Intrigued, Fry found herself looking at a new Simeon Holmes, one who even sounded quite different.
‘Not much use for stripping a bike, surely?’ she said.
The guarded look began to fall back across the youth’s face. Fry could almost see the transformation taking place in his features as he reverted to his role with a dismissive snort.
‘Perhaps you were thinking of going on to university,’ she said. Then she held herself quite still, tingling with satisfaction, as she saw the beginnings of a blush seep into Simeon’s neck and across his cheeks. She had found something that embarrassed
O
him. Something that he wouldn’t want to talk about with his
O
biker mates.
‘With good grades in chemistry and biology you could study
— what? Medicine?’
His mouth opened, moving compulsively. Deep in his eyes there was a small spurt of pain and distress, as if Fry had struck close to the most vulnerable part of his anatomy. She hurried to press home her advantage.
‘Is that it? Would you like to be a doctor one day, Simeon?’
But the spell was broken as DI Hitchens opened the door just
in time to hear the last two sentences. His face contorted at the
thought that he might go along to his local surgery and find this
O O O O O J
youth was his new GP. Then he nodded Diane Fry out of the room, leaving Simeon Holmes starting to grin again
