Deacon took a carving knife out of the table drawer and balanced it in the palm of his hand. 'I wasn't joking when I said I'd rip your head off,' he murmured. 'Are you going to tell me who he is before Terry and I start wiping you off the floor?'
The WPC put her arms around a weeping Amanda and looked accusingly at the sergeant. 'Be fair, Sarge, you swallowed that scumbag's story hook, line, and sinker. He said he watched her making love on her carpet and you believed him, but he was bound to say that or something similar. For your average pervert, a woman semiclothed or naked in her own house is justification for anything. 'It wasn't my fault, Guv, it was the woman's fault. She didn't pull her curtains. She knew I was out there and she wanted to excite me.' It sucks, for Christ's sake.' She sounded very angry. 'I'm sick to death of men trying to excuse themselves by smearing women. In any case, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether Amanda was having sex or not that night. It's still no reason for inadequate little men to jerk off afterwards over their photographs.'
Wearily, Harrison held up his hands. 'I agree. All right? I agree.' He closed his eyes. 'I was merely trying to establish some facts, and I am sorry if Amanda took offense at anything I said.' When a man was wedged between a rock and a hard place, the only way out was to exploit a weakness.
Deacon read what Barry had on Peter Fenton, finishing with Anne Cattrell's piece, then propped his chin on his hands and stared in frustration at the cover of
'Maybe there isn't one,' said Barry. 'You're only guessing that's what Billy read before he left the warehouse, because you want to establish a pattern, but I keep asking myself why Mrs. Powell told you Billy's story if she had anything to fear from what you might find out.' He placed Billy's mug shot beside the photograph of the young James Streeter. 'Superficially, there's a pattern here, but it takes a computer to show you there isn't.' He smiled apologetically. 'Perhaps it's a case of truth being stranger than fiction, Mike.'
Terry, dreamily engaged in smoking the joint that the other two had rejected in favor of another bottle of wine, spoke through the blue haze that surrounded him. 'That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. You're talking through your arse, mate.'
'What's your theory?'
'Well, look at it this way. What happens to the average wife whose husband dumps her in the shit and vanishes with all the loot? She don't bloody come up smelling of roses, that's for sure.'
'This one does,' said Deacon thoughtfully. 'Reeks of the damn things, as a matter of fact.'
'There you are, then,' said Terry owlishly, not too clear what Deacon was talking about.
'So what?'
'Means she's scored, doesn't it? Means she ain't no pushover.' He sought to express himself. 'Means she don't reckon men too high. Ah, shit!' he said, looking at their bewildered faces. 'Don't you understand nothing?'
'We might if you spoke in words of more than two syllables,' said Deacon dryly. 'Man has not spent centuries developing sophisticated language to have it reduced to grunts, glottal stops, and endless double negatives that convey absolutely nothing. Work out what you want to say and try again.'
'Jesus, you're a poncy git sometimes,' said Terry scathingly, but he made an effort to collect his thoughts. 'Okay, try this. Even when he were drunk, Billy had reasons for what he did. They may not have been
The two men nodded.
'Right, next point. Amanda's done pretty well for herself, never mind her husband's a criminal and dropped her in it. That makes her a clever, bloody bitch. Do you understand that?'
Two more nods.
'So put those two together, and what do you get? You get Billy going to Amanda's house for a reason, and Amanda using her brains afterwards.'
Deacon ground his teeth. 'Is that it?'
Terry sucked the cannabis deep into his lungs. 'My money's on Amanda. If she's cleverer than you and Billy put together, she's going to win, isn't she?'
'Win what?'
'How the hell should I know? You're the one who's playing the game with her, not me. I'm just along for the ride.'
*17*
When the doorbell rang unexpectedly the three men showed varying degrees of alarm. None of them doubted it was the police. Terry bolted for the lavatory and belatedly flushed his guilt into the sewers; Deacon flung open the kitchen window and sought frantically for an air freshener; but Barry, showing more composure than either of them, turned the gas up under the dirty frying pan, crushed garlic into the sizzling fat, and started chopping onions. 'I've been expecting them,' he said in resignation. 'I'll not forgive myself if they arrest you, too, Mike. None of this is your fault.'
Harrison grew tetchy when it seemed clear that Deacon intended to keep him indefinitely on the front step of the ruts. 'If you carry on like this,' he warned him, 'I'll be back in half an hour with an arrest warrant for the whole damn lot of you. Come on, let me in. I need to talk to Barry again, and you're just making me suspicious with these delaying tactics. What the hell's going on up there? Is Barry shafting that little boyfriend of yours?'
Deacon let him pass. 'Maybe it's time you retired,' he said dispassionately. 'Even I wouldn't stoop so low as to make a remark like that, and I'm a journalist.'
Harrison surveyed him with weary amusement. 'You're an amateur, Mr. Deacon. A raw recruit could get past you.' The smell in the flat was revolting, a mixture of burnt fat, garlic, onions, and, overall, the exotic reek of Jazz aftershave, which Terry had sprinkled liberally over Deacon's sofa. The kitchen door was shut and Terry and Barry were sitting, none too relaxed, watching the television in the corner.
