‘I told your friend about this bronze bust we found. Lucius Verrus, it is. And do you know, he has something very similar. We had quite a long chat. Next time he comes over, I’m going to show him round Chatsworth House. I just hope he realized I was joking when I said I was the Duke of Devonshire’s nephew.’
‘Do we have to put up with this?’ Dearden said to his solicitor. ‘I’ve had enough.’
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Murfin turned over a page. ‘And you’ve been to Japan, too!’ he said. ‘I bet your address book is interesting.’
The two pouches at the sides of Dearden’s mouth were quivering a little. The angry hamster could be about to make an appearance.
‘Do you have any more sensible questions, Sergeant?’ asked the solicitor.
‘Yes. I’d like to invite your client to tell us who his associates are in the stolen antiques business.’
‘You know we aren’t going to answer questions like that.’
‘And where are the antiques kept prior to shipping? They don’t seem to be at your house, Mr Dearden. Where are they?’
‘That’s a no comment,’ said the solicitor. ‘Really ‘
‘And why did you fall out with Neil Granger, Mr Dearden? Did he want a bigger cut? It’s usually money that’s the problem, isn’t it?’
Dearden began to shake his head vigorously, until the solicitor put a hand on his arm to steady him. Fry remembered the project Dearden was working on at the software company. Technology designed to prevent human error. But Alex Dearden wasn’t a computer; he was as human as anyone else. And sooner or later, he would make an error.
It had been a bad day for Chief Superintendent Colin Jepson, commander of Derbyshire Constabulary E Division. Edendale had attracted all kinds of people this weekend, and his officers were stretched to the limit dealing with all the crime and disorder that followed crowds of people around like horseflies.
DI Hitchens and the CID team were almost the only people Jepson could find in the station at West Street. They were still laboriously following up on calls from the public about missing persons who might possibly have turned up in a shallow grave in Withens churchyard, no matter how far from their homes it was, or how recently they had gone missing. Officers were explaining patiently to distraught mothers that it was impossible for somebody who had been missing for only twenty-four hours to have been reduced to a skeleton in that time, no matter how badly they’d been eating recently.
‘And then,’ said Chief Superintendent Jepson wearily. ‘And then, after everything else that’s happened to me today, I come back to my own police station, expecting to finally get a bit of
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peace and quiet in a civilized environment. And I find the reception area full of black and white minstrels.’
He looked around the room full of officers. Some were smirking, as usual. Others looked blank, having never heard of the Black and White Minstrels because they were born in the age of political correctness.
‘Who was responsible for that little idea, I wonder?’ said Jepson. ‘What genius turned the front desk into an audition room for The Al Jolson Story?’
‘They’re morris dancers, Chief/ said DI Kitchens. The town’s full of them.’
‘I don’t need telling/ said the Chief Superintendent, ‘that the town is full of them. The reason I don’t need telling is that my car was stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour on the corner of Clappergate, while eighteen thousand of them paraded past me waving their bells and handkerchiefs. I know there were eighteen thousand, because I counted them. I had plenty of time.’
Jepson glared from one officer to another, daring somebody to contradict him.
‘What I do need telling, though, is why someone took a fancy to bringing a few of them back to the station. Surely the whole point of morris dancers having bells on their trousers is so that we can hear them coming and avoid them?’
‘The ones sitting in reception are waiting for their friends/ said Kitchens.
‘Oh, of course. We’ve invited some in to give them a guided tour of the station. How silly of me not to have thought of that. Does this mean I’m going to find them jingling around in the comms room and combing their beards in the gents? I know we’re trying to increase our representation of ethnic minorities in E Division. But I have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I absolutely draw the line at recruiting morris dancers. Those blacked-up faces aren’t going to fool the Commission for Racial Equality, you know.’
‘Actually, they’re waiting for the ones we have in the cells/ said Kitchens.
‘Ah. And they’re occupying our custody suite for what purpose exactly, Inspector?’
‘Identification and interview, following arrest on suspicion of affray.’
‘Affray? You do realize that when they beat each other with
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sticks, they’re doing it for fun. It turns some people on, or so I’m told.’
‘Yes, Chief.’
‘Anyway, don’t we have football supporters for that sort of thing? If we need to get the performance results up for violent crime, couldn’t we have pulled in a few more Stoke City fans? They might not be pretty, but at least they don’t jingle.’
At the lack of response, the Chief Superintendent started to go a bit red in the face, and his voice rose in volume.
‘And tell the rat to take his mask off. I won’t have giant rats sitting around in my police station.’
‘He says he gets out of character if he takes his head off,’ said Kitchens.
Jepson stared at Kitchens. The DI stared back unflinchingly, but it was impossible to tell whether he was serious, or whether he was taking the mickey.
‘If he gets an identity crisis, we’ll arrange for him to see a counsellor,’ said Jepson.
