‘Yes, sir.’
But Jarvis continued to look sceptical. Cooper couldn’t blame him. He didn’t rate his own chances too highly, either of getting it approved or of persuading a SOCO that it was high priority. Somebody was bound to list the request under ‘shit jobs’.
‘I don’t know much about DNA,’ said Jarvis finally, ‘but it has to be taken from cells in the body, doesn’t it?’
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‘Any cells with a nucleus,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s right.’
‘Well, cack …’ Then Jarvis paused, as if amazed that he was having to explain it, even to Cooper. ‘Cack is waste stuff, undigested food. It’s from whatever rubbish you’ve been eating. If you tested that crap, you’d likely get the DNA profile of a Big Mac and large fries with chicken nuggets. Not that there aren’t plenty of those walking around the streets of Edendale on two legs, but what good would it do you?’
‘We’d be hoping for some cells that might have sloughed off the gut lining as the material was passing through the intestine,’ said Cooper patiently.
‘You reckon?’
‘But we’d have to get to it pretty quickly. I’m not a hundred per cent sure, but I think the DNA in excreta will degrade within a couple of weeks. In this case, it hasn’t been exposed to the sun, which is a good thing. Ultra violet degrades DNA faster than anything.’
‘Bugger all this,’ said Jarvis. ‘What are you doing about the bastard who shot my dog?’
Cooper looked across at the woods. ‘We’re visiting Alder Hall this afternoon to see what’s going on over there.’
‘Bloody hell, action. Well, I’ve got more spare timber - I’ll start setting up the gibbet, shall I?’
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20
Vivien Gill wasn’t alone this time. The first hint Cooper had of company was the number of cars parked in the street near her house, not to mention the cluster of motorbikes. He had to leave his Toyota almost at the corner and walk down, wondering if there was a wedding taking place somewhere. Or a funeral, of course.
The door was opened by a big man in his late thirties, with a beer belly and the shoulders of an ex-boxer. Cooper was unavoidably reminded of Billy McGowan. It was that sense of a man who was out of place in his occupation, a man who ought to be doing something more physical than opening the door to visitors. Preferably a job that involved hitting things.
‘Are you the bloke from the police?’ the man asked, with instinctive suspicion.
Cooper produced his warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Cooper, sir. I’m here to see Mrs Gill.’
‘She’s waiting.’
‘Thank you, sir. And you are?’
‘Family.’
The word was barely a grunt, delivered as though he was imparting more information than he normally gave to the police. Cooper’s instincts began to prickle. He felt sure that
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if the man were to give his name, it would be one he recognized from a charge sheet or a magistrates’ court list.
He held the door open, and Cooper squeezed past him into the hall. Maybe death and funerals were too much on his mind at the moment, but this person smelled as though he’d already died. Some time around last Monday, probably. Perhaps they hadn’t been able to schedule his funeral yet, and he was returning to the earth bit by bit as his body sloughed away.
‘Do I know you?’ said Cooper.
‘No.’
‘I think I might have seen you around. Where do you work?’
The man shut the front door and stared at him. He was only an inch or so taller than Cooper, but he carried a few extra stone in weight and most of it was in his belly and shoulders.
‘At the sewage works,’ he said. ‘I’m a shit stirrer.’
Cooper turned as the door of the sitting room opened behind him. A woman he didn’t recognize was studying him. She had hair dyed deep red, and she squinted her eyes against a trickle of smoke from the cigarette in her mouth.
‘Is he the bloke from the police?’ she said to the man.
‘So he reckons.’
Cooper showed his ID again. ‘Detective Constable Cooper.’
‘All right,’ said the woman. ‘She’s in here.’
He could tell from the rumble of noise that the sitting room was full of people. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls, leaving a space in the middle of the carpet, as if in readiness for a performance. For a few moments, Cooper could hardly breathe from the smoke and the heat of so many bodies crammed into a small room.
When he entered the room and was pointed towards a seat in front of a small forest of hostile stares, he realized exactly who was being expected to give a performance.
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Gavin Murfin offered the DI a miniature chocolate bar from a box of Cadbury’s Heroes, rattling it temptingly. Hitchens shook his head abruptly.
‘Sir, DC Murfin has been checking on Melvyn Hudson’s former business partner, Richard Slack,’ said Fry.
‘This is old Abraham’s son,’ said Murfin. ‘And father to Vernon. Richard was the second generation of the family on the Slack side of the business, so to speak.’
