'Not much. No one else does.'
'No? I see. No friends, eh? Find it hard to get on with people?'
He touched a nerve. For a second he saw the eyes that had glared at him with a killing hatred the night of the attack. Then a blink, and the smiling boy with the crooked nose was back.
'I got friends,' he said. 'Lots of them.'
'Name six,' said Wield.
'What do you mean?' demanded Medwin, puzzled. 'You don't think I'm going to give you lot my mates' names just like that!'
'Why not? They're not crooks, are they?'
'I'm not a crook and I'm here,' said Medwin.
'All right, I'll put it another way. Tell me what you were doing on these three nights and give me the names of any witnesses who'll support you.'
He scribbled three dates on a sheet of paper and pushed it across the table.
Medwin looked at them blankly. The first was February 6th, the night the young man had been thrown from the London train. The second was February 26th when the Rose and Crown had been wrecked and the landlord put into hospital. The third was March 1st, the night that Wield had been attacked.
'Well?' prompted the sergeant.
'You've got to be joking,' said Medwin. 'Takes me all my time to remember last night.'
'Let me jog your memory. Sixth of Feb, City lost four nil in the Smoke, and a young lad was pushed off a train near Peterborough.'
'Now hang about!' exclaimed Medwin. 'No way can you tie me in with that.'
He sounded genuinely indignant.
'You didn't go to the game, then?'
'Of course I did. Never miss. But I weren't on that train or any train. Went down by car with some of my mates.'
'Names. Addresses,' said Wield tossing a pencil over the table, adding as Medwin didn't pick it up, 'Come on, son. They'll be witnessing they couldn't have been on the train either, won't they?'
Reluctantly he admitted the logic and began scrawling on the paper.
When he'd finished Wield looked at the list.
'Crowded car,' he observed. 'Here, this one's got no address.'
'Don't know where he's living now. He moved away south. We bumped into each other at the game and had a few bevvies after and he said he was thinking of coming back up on a visit so I said would he like a lift and he said yeah. He's likely gone south again by now. I might try it myself. I mean, there's nowt to keep anyone up here, is there?'
'You'd be surprised,' said Wield menacingly. 'Right, now try City's home game against the Reds. Nil-nil draw.'
He let the youth work this one out for himself, saw realization dawn, but there was no indignant protestation of innocence this time, just a veiling of the eyes and a shaking of the head.
'Got me there,' he said. 'Don't remember that one.'
'I thought you never missed a match?' said Wield.
'Almost never. But when you see such a lot, you can't recall 'em all, can you?'
Wield nodded friendly agreement and made a note that this was one for the injured landlord to see.
'So what about the other date?' he asked.
'March first?' said the youth shaking his head once more. 'Means nowt.'
'It means you know that the Reds game was on Friday February twenty-sixth for a start,' observed Wield drily. 'Now there wasn't a game this night, you're right. Not a game of football anyway.'
'So what did happen? Give us a clue, won't you?' the youth said, grinning.
He really has no idea, Wield assessed. Queer-bashing probably wasn't worth remembering, a mere training session for the real fights at the weekend. Now was the moment to jump on him, to watch his expression as he realized he'd assaulted a cop, to listen to his lies and to squeeze from him a list of names to support some extempore alibi. One of them would break, kids always did. And a cop's word would be enough for most magistrates to pour shit on him from a great height.
But Wield found himself hesitating. He could sense danger here. A bright lawyer could offer the defence that Medwin had genuinely believed he was being propositioned in the hope that a normally prejudiced jury would accept this as provocation to violence. Suppose he went further and tried to find something in Wield's words or manner which might have justified such a mistake? Suppose he sensed a hesitation and asked Wield direct if he were gay? Philosophically, ever since his life crisis some eighteen months earlier, Wield had been 'out'. In practical terms, and certainly in terms of his professional image this had meant very little so far, but he had derived peace and strength from the certainty that he would never again prevaricate if faced by the question direct.
But to risk inviting this question in open court with some twinkle-toed brief tap-dancing all over him was no part of his bargain. It could bring the Force into ridicule, possibly get the charge dismissed, certainly set the right wing press sniffing around, scenting blood, offering deals, hinting protection. It could mean his career gone.
But perhaps, in fact probably, it would never come to this or anywhere near it. Simple evidence of what he was
