'You want someone else, man?'
'No. I didn't mean that,' said Wield. 'All I meant . . .'
'Relax. If I really thought it was a racist crack, I would just have left you lying on this trolley for a couple of hours. No, you're just unlucky. If you'd got beaten up half an hour earlier, you'd have missed me. I've just come on. You're my first of the night, so at least I've got both eyes open.'
It took another hour to get Wield X-rayed and stitched. By the time it was done he felt rather worse than when he'd arrived, but Marwood assured him there were no fractures and that a day in bed with a good analgesic would see him fit for work.
'It would be easy to swing you a week in bed if you wanted, but you strike me as one of these grit-your-teeth and do-your-duty types.'
'Man who works twenty-four-hour shifts shouldn't mock dedication, Doctor,' said Wield. 'How's Mrs Waterson keeping?'
'Why do you ask?' said Marwood aggressively.
'Last time we talked, she seemed a bit tense.'
'Do you blame her?' demanded Marwood. 'Once you find Waterson and put him out of the way, she'll be all right, believe me.'
It was the verbal echo that did it . . . once you find Waterson . . . want to find Waterson . . .
'Why'd you ring me earlier tonight, Dr Marwood?' asked Wield casually.
'Ring you? What are you talking about?' said the doctor, but without a great deal of force or surprise.
'All incoming CID calls are taped,' lied Wield. 'It'd be easy to run a check.'
Marwood made no further denial. It was almost as if he were glad to drop the need for pretence. 'OK, it's a fair cop,' he said. 'I'm sorry I did it anonymously but that's the way you fellows work, isn't it? You don't care where the tip-off comes from as long as it's good.'
'This one was good,' agreed Wield. 'Trouble is, it didn't work out.'
'You let him get away, you mean? He didn't do this to you, did he? Not that little weed?'
'He looked pretty fit to me.'
'Physically maybe. But he'd not have the bottle to beat you up, not even if he threw one of his fits.'
'Fits?'
'He can get very aggressive at times. You'd think he was going to pull off one of your arms and start beating you over the head with it. But if you yell Boo! he goes running. He's all mouth, that one.'
'How did you know he was going to be in the Sally?' Wield asked.
'Information received,' said Marwood. 'An anonymous tip. Which I don't have on tape.'
He grinned as he spoke. Wield didn't grin back. It would have been painful and also people generally didn't notice.
He said, 'Mrs Waterson, I suppose.'
'Mrs Waterson's nothing to do with this.'
Marwood had stopped grinning.
'And I suppose she'd got nowt to do with it when Waterson threw his fit and you had to say boo to him.'
'Maybe she did, but so what?' Marwood visibly forced himself to relax. 'Look, man, it was no big deal. It was a hospital party. I danced with her a couple of times. I like her, she's a lovely dancer. He'd had a couple of drinks and he followed me to the gents and started in at me like he'd caught us screwing or something. I was really worried for a moment till he said something about niggers which got me so mad I started yelling back, then suddenly he was retreating so fast I don't think I'd have caught him on a bicycle. When I mentioned it to Pam, to Mrs Waterson, she said it happened all the time.'
'With people he got jealous of?'
'Oh no. He was usually too busy playing his own away games to get jealous. But these explosions could happen any place, any time. That's what lost him his job. He flew off the handle over something and yelled at his boss. It had happened before and he'd got away with it. He was good at his work and they made allowances for artistic temperament. But this time he went too far. So he blew up again, told them he'd go into business on his own account and walked out.'
'You must know Mrs Waterson pretty well for her to tell you all this.'
'Pretty well, but not as well as you're thinking, Sergeant. We're not lovers. She needs someone to talk to, someone to trust. And the only reason I'm telling you this is so you'll have no need to go bothering her with questions. She's going through a hard time and it wouldn't take much more pressure to make her crack.'
Wield sighed. Why did people imagine that vulnerability was a defence against police questioning, especially when a woman was dead and both the men involved in her death were roving free?
'You do know it's a violent death we're investigating?' he said.
'I thought it was some kind of accident. Or was it more than that? Is that why you want to talk to the bastard?'
'He's a witness, that's all,' said Wield, who saw no reason to make Marwood privy to all the other complications in the case. 'Now perhaps you'll tell me how you knew Waterson would be in that pub.'
Marwood shrugged and said, 'All right. It
