Jones shook his head. ‘He lost it with me because I touched him . . . The same was true of the Pakistani. He may be less able to control his anger when he has a migraine, but I don’t think it’s the reason he kicks off. He didn’t have a migraine outside the bank when Walter poked him, but he still reacted angrily.’
‘And walked away without doing anything stupid, Brian,’ Beale pointed out. ‘Maybe the migraine isn’t the initial trigger, but it sure as hell contributes to the violence of his responses. He needs to carry a warning sign . . . steer clear when my head hurts.’
‘He’s in a bad way at the moment,’ said the superintendent thoughtfully. ‘The doctor’s pumped him full of an anti-emetic and gone off to change her tyre. I think he’s expecting her to wash her hands of him.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘It depends whether she thinks he was trying to kill her. She’s covering his arse at the moment by claiming it was her fault – probably because she knows she provoked him – but she may change her mind by the morning. She’s mighty pissed off . . . and
Beale used a finger to stir the beer in his glass, hoping to energize some fizz. ‘I had a mate who tried to kill himself in a BMW,’ he said idly. ‘He drove into a brick wall at forty miles an hour, and walked away without a scratch. Claimed afterwards that he forgot about air bags and didn’t know that BMWs were built like tanks.’
‘You think Acland was trying to kill himself?’
‘He’s a mess . . . bit like my friend . . . Can’t handle what’s happened to him. According to Dr Campbell, he’s been trying to end it for months through slow starvation while kidding himself it’s a lifestyle choice. Maybe he opted for the more direct approach
tonight and decided to take Dr Jackson with him.’
Jones didn’t say anything.
‘You don’t buy that?’
‘Some of it,’ the superintendent said. ‘He’s certainly a mess and it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up dead somewhere, but I wouldn’t expect it to be through suicide. One day he’ll take on someone who’s angrier and more messed up than he is.’ He paused. ‘You could describe that as a death wish, I suppose.’
‘So he was taking the doctor on? He wanted her to punch him?’
‘Not exactly. I think he wanted to
Nick Beale was doubtful. ‘What was he planning to do if the doctor lost control?’
Jones shrugged. ‘Pull on the handbrake . . . Hold the wheel steady . . . Prove his nerve was stronger than hers. They can’t have been going more than twenty, not from the damage I saw, and he’s been trained to drive a Scimitar at high speed across rough terrain.’
‘Then by rights we should notify traffic and tell them a criminal offence has been committed. Whatever his reasons, Acland interfered with the safe operation of a moving vehicle. He’s damn lucky the doctor did what she did before they ploughed into those kids at the bus stop.’
‘All in good time,’ said Brian Jones, pressing his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. ‘At the moment he’s under my jurisdiction and I want it to stay that way.’
*
For Derek Hardy the superintendent’s ‘jurisdiction’ was becoming uncomfortable. Having run rural pubs for twenty years before he and his wife were offered the management of the Crown, he was more used to the village bobby showing up in his shirtsleeves for a game of darts than a detective superintendent turning his bar into a new base for operations. Another two policemen had arrived, and Derek and Jackson watched the four men swap information on the CCTV monitor in the kitchen.
‘What’s going on?’ Jackson asked curiously, using a wodge of paper towel to turn the tap in the sink to avoid smearing the chrome.
‘You probably know better than I do,’ Derek said irritably. ‘Everything was fine till you showed up with sonny boy. What’s he done?’
‘Nothing to concern that lot.’
‘Why don’t you want Mel going near him?’
Jackson washed her oily hands and wrists at his sink. ‘He has a problem with women being nice to him.’ She pulled a wry face at his alarmed expression. ‘You don’t need to go into the room, Derek. Just check from the door that he’s breathing. A couple of times should do it. Once the retching stops, he’ll go to sleep.’
‘You’re making me nervous.’
‘No reason to be. He gave me his word he’ll stay in his room and not bother anyone.’ She used the paper towel again to turn off the tap, then wiped the sink with it to remove the last traces of oil. ‘I’m more worried that he’ll do something to himself, particularly if he knows that lot are still around.’ She nodded at the monitor.
‘Is he the reason they’re here?’
‘I don’t see how. They didn’t know we were coming,’ she reminded him. ‘What were you talking about when I first walked in?’
‘The old boy who was clobbered the other day. He’s one of our regulars.’
‘Walter Tutting?’ Jackson ran off another length of paper towelling. ‘They’ve already interviewed Charles about that assault and he was able to prove he was three miles away when it happened.’ She dried between her fingers as she watched Ahmed Khan pass a piece of paper to Brian Jones. ‘It has to be something you told them.’
‘Pat Streckle did most of the talking. He and Walter knew the cab driver who was killed.’
‘Harry Peel?’
