Under Orders

refrigerator.’

I wondered whether it was worse than thinking of him in the cold ground.

‘I’ll have a word with the policeman in the case,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he can give me a better idea of when you can have a funeral.’

‘Thank you. Please phone me as soon as you find who killed him.’

I assured him that I would. And I’d shout it from the roof-tops, too.

I arrived to pick up Marina from Lincoln’s Inn Fields at half past five.

I’d spent the afternoon doing chores around the flat and getting my hair cut around the corner. Such was my desperation to move my investigation forward that I had a crazy idea of collecting hair off the floor of all the barbers in London to test for a DNA match with Marina’s attacker. Then I had remembered that Marina had said I would need the follicles too so cut hair was no good. Back to square one.

I had called Chief Inspector Carlisle at the Cheltenham police station but he was unavailable so I left him a message asking him to call me on my mobile, and he did so as I waited outside the Research Institute for Marina to appear.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but we can’t release Walker’s body for a while longer in case we need to do more tests.’

‘What tests?’ I asked him. ‘Surely you’ve done all you need in nearly two weeks?’

‘It’s not actually up to us. It’s the coroner who makes the decision when to release a body.’

‘But I bet he’s swayed by the police.’

‘The problem is that in murder cases there have to be extra tests done by independent pathologists in case there’s a court case and the defence require further examination of the body. In the past, bodies have sometimes had to be exhumed for defence tests.’ He made it sound like a conspiracy.

‘But you might not have a court case for months or even years.’

‘The coroner has to make a judgement call and two weeks is definitely on the short side.’

‘But surely there’s no doubt as to the cause of Huw Walker’s death?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Carlisle. ‘I’ve known defence lawyers insisting that the victim died of natural causes just before he was shot, stabbed or strangled by the defendant. If it was up to me, I’d sentence some lawyers to the same term as their clients. Conniving bastards.’

I was somewhat amused by his opinion of the English legal profession but I supposed, in his job, all trials came down to conflicts of us versus them, with truth and justice as secondary considerations.

‘So can you guess when Huw’s father can have his son’s body for burial?’ I asked. ‘He wants to make plans for the funeral.’

‘Maybe a week or two more,’ said Carlisle. ‘The inquest into Burton’s death will open next Tuesday in Reading. After what you told me on Monday, the inquest will be adjourned but, nevertheless, the coroner in the Walker case may then make an order which will allow his burial to proceed, though he won’t allow a cremation.’

‘I think Mr Walker is planning for a burial,’ I said. ‘He wants to put Huw in his local chapel graveyard next to his mother and brother.’

‘That’s good.’

‘So you did take some notice of what I told you on Monday?’

‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You said the Burton inquest will be adjourned.’

‘Well, I did have a word with Inspector Johnson. He took a little convincing but at least he’s considering it.’

‘What?’

‘That Burton may have been murdered.’

‘That’s great,’ I said.

‘Don’t get too excited. He’s only considering it because, as one of the first on the scene, you’re bound to be called as a witness at the full inquest and he knows you’ll raise it. So Johnson is considering it so that he won’t be surprised by the coroner’s questions. He is still pretty convinced that Burton killed himself.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And are you?’

‘I don’t get paid to think about other coppers’ cases. But, if I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d bet on your instinct over his.’

It was quite a compliment and I thanked him for it.

‘I haven’t yet been asked to appear at the inquest,’ I said.

‘Tuesday will only be the preliminaries. The Reading coroner will open and adjourn until a later date when the investigations are complete. You’ll be summoned then.’

‘Could you speak with the Cheltenham coroner’s office about Huw Walker’s body?’ I asked ‘I’ll enquire,’ he said, ‘but I won’t apply pressure.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Any news on the bullet I gave you?’

‘Same gun,’ he said. ‘Forensics came back with the confirmation this afternoon. No real surprise.’

‘No,’ I agreed, but I was relieved nevertheless.

*

Marina and I spent a quiet evening at home in front of the television eating ready-made and microwaved shepherd’s pie off trays on our laps.

‘You know those street corners I was going to ring my bell on?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, tomorrow’s Pump may have a certain ding-dong about it.’

‘Are you saying that I should be extra-careful tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And always.’

‘Rosie hardly leaves my side.’

I wished that Rosie were a seventeen-stone body-builder rather than a five-foot two size six.

‘I think I’ll go and get The Pump now,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow’s papers are always on sale at Victoria Station about eleven at night. They’re the first edition that normally goes off to Wales and the west of England.’

‘You be careful, too,’ said Marina.

I was. I avoided dark corners and kept a keen eye on my back. I made it safely to the news-stand outside the station and then back to Ebury Street without incident.

There was no need to search this paper. You would have had to be blind to miss it. They must have been short of news.

Under a ‘Pump Exclusive’ banner on the front page was the headline ‘MURDER OR SUICIDE?’ with the sub- headline ‘HALLEY ORCHESTRATES THE INVESTIGATION’. The article beneath described in detail everything I had revealed to Paddy. They ‘quoted’ Professor Aubrey Winterton as saying that the bullet definitely came from the same gun that had been used to kill Bill Burton. They even managed to state that Sid Halley was confident that an arrest was imminent. I put that down to Paddy’s tendency for exaggeration.

‘That’s what I call shouting from a street corner,’ said Marina. ‘Is it true?’

‘Not about the arrest. And some of the rest is guesswork.’

No one could be in any doubt that I had blatantly ignored the message that Marina had received the evening she was beaten up. Even I had not expected my game to work so well that it would make the front page. I thought a paragraph in Chris Beecher’s column or an inch or two on the racing page would have been all I could have hoped for. This much coverage made me very nervous but it was too late now; The Pump printed more than half a million copies a day.

I double-checked the locks, removed my arm and went to bed. Neither Marina nor I felt in the mood for nookie.

In the morning we took extra care going to the car. I had reiterated to the staff downstairs at the front desk that no one, repeat no one, was to be allowed up to my flat without their calling me first. Absolutely, they had