‘ Mmmmmph-mm.’
‘I know you’re there somewhere — 1 can smell you.’
A head appeared above a desk. It had sandy hair, a pink face, and dabs of tomato sauce on its lower lip. DC Gavin Murhn was the current bane of Diane Fry’s life less temperamental than Ben Cooper, but far more prone to dripping curry sauce on the floor of her car. Murhn was overweight, too, and a man in his forties reallv outfit to think about what he was doing to his heart.
‘I was having some breakfast, like,’ he said.
‘Can’t you do it in the canteen, Gavin?’
‘No.’
Fry sighed. ‘Oh, I forgot —’
‘We don’t have a canteen any more. We have to make our own arrangements. It says so on all the noticeboards. Twenty-two years I’ve been stationed here, and now they take the canteen awav.’
‘So where did You get the sausage bap.”
‘The baker’s on West Street,’ said Murhn. ‘You should have said if you wanted one.’
‘Not likelv. Do you realize how much cholesterol there is in that thing? Enough to turn your arteries solid. In another live minutes, you’ll be dead.’
‘Aye, with a bit of luck.’
The smell of fried meat was doing strange things to Frv’s
O O O
stomach. It was clenching and twitching in revulsion, as it food were something alien and disgusting to it.
i;
‘There’s garlic in that sausage, too,’ she said.
‘Yes, it’s their special.’
Detective Inspector Paul Hitchens opened the door and seemed to he ahout to speak to Pry. He paused, came in, and looked around. He sniffed.
‘Tomato sauce? Garlic sausage?’
‘Mmm,’ said Murfin, wiping his mouth with a sheet from a message pad. ‘Breakfast, sir.’
‘Mind you don’t drop any on those files, that’s all, Gavin. Last time you did that, the GPS thought we were sending them real hloodstains, just to make a point that we had sweated hlood over the case.’
Fry looked at Murfin. He was smiling. He was happy. She had noticed that food did that for some people. Also DI Hitchens was looking a little less smartly dressed these days, a little heavier around the waist. It was four or five months since Hitchens had set up home with his girlfriend, the nurse. It was depressingly predictable how soon a man let himself go once he got a whiff of domestic life.
‘I only wanted to tell you Ben Cooper has called in,’ said the DI.
‘Oh, don’t tell me,’ said Fry. ‘He’s joining the sick hrigade.’ She looked at the empty desks in front of her. With leave, courses, abstractions and sickness, the CID office was starting to look like the home stand at Edendale Football Club. ‘What is it with Ben? Foot and mouth? Bubonic plague?’
‘No. To be honest, I don’t remember Ben ever having a day off sick in his life.’
‘He can’t get into work because of the snow, then. Well, it’s his own fault for living in the hack of beyond.’
‘That’s vhv he bought that four-wheel drive jeep thing,’ said Hitchens. ‘It gets him through where other people get stuck, he says.’
v
‘So what’s the problem?’ said Fry impatiently. ‘No problem. He’s made an arrest on the way in.’ ‘What?’
‘He collared one of the double assault suspects. Apparently, Cooper came into town early and called in lor the morning
13
bulletins on the way. He was intending to stop for a coffee and found Kemp in the Starlight Cafe, so he made the arrest. Good work, eh? That’s the way to start the day.’
‘That’s Ben, all right,’ said Murfin. ‘Never off duty, that lad. He can’t even forget the job when he’s having breakfast. Personally, it’d give me indigestion.’
‘It isn’t being conscientious that gives jou indigestion, Gavin,’ said Pry.
‘Watch it. You’ll upset Oliver.’
Oliver was the rubber lobster that sat on Murhn’s desk. At a push of a button, it sang extracts from old pop songs with a vaguely nautical theme. ‘Sailing’, ‘Octopus’s Garden’, ‘Sittin’
O j O 1
on the Dock of the Bay’. One dav, Fry was going to make it into lobster paste and feed it to Murtin in a sandwich.
‘Look at that weather,’ said Kitchens. ‘Just what we need.’ Fry stared out of the window again. I he wind was blowing
little flurries of snow off the neighbouring roofs. They hit the panes with wet splatters, then slid down the glass, smearing the grime on the outside. She couldn’t remember it ever snowing
