than blazes.” He took a sip of water. Thoughtfully, he added, “It could have been coincidence, I suppose, Craig running into Freddie.”
“Could have been, yes,” Kincaid agreed. “And maybe it was just coincidence that Becca Meredith’s behavior altered the next day. But I’d like you to go back to West London Station. Have a word with Becca’s colleagues. See if you can find out what was different about Friday.”
“And what are you going to be doing?” Doug asked, giving him a suspicious glance.
“Something I don’t want you involved with.” Kincaid contemplated his untouched lunch. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. “I’m going to have a talk with Angus Craig.”
Doug’s eyes widened. His fork hovered halfway to his mouth. “The guv’nor is not going to like that.”
That was an understatement, Kincaid thought.
He had pushed the envelope often enough in his career, or flown under the radar, knowing that Childs would give him considerable leeway if he solved a case. But he didn’t remember ever having gone against the express wishes of his commanding officer.
He’d told Chief Superintendent Childs that he didn’t approve of the way Becca Meredith’s allegations against Craig had been handled. He’d said he thought Craig was a viable suspect.
And he had been warned off.
He drank more of his tea, not caring that it had gone stone cold. It served to wet his suddenly dry mouth.
If he had any sense, he would walk away from this case now. Let someone else take it over. Let Freddie Atterton, a man he believed to be innocent, be made a convenient scapegoat. And let the whole dirty business of Angus Craig using his authority to prey on women—women like Gemma and Becca Meredith and God knew how many others—be swept under the rug.
“Well, no, I suspect he’s not going to like it,” he said slowly to Doug. “But I don’t intend to tell him just yet.”
Chapter Sixteen
—David and James Livingston
By the time Doug Cullen made his connection in Twyford and took the train from there into Paddington, it was getting on towards mid-afternoon.
He took the tube to Shepherd’s Bush. From there, it was a good walk to West London Station, but Doug didn’t mind it. The day was still fine, and after seeing the rowers at Leander that morning, Doug had come to the uncomfortable realization that he had a lot of shaping up to do if he was going to be fit enough to get back in a single scull.
Both the train journey and the walk had given him time to think as well, and he’d worked out a strategy. He certainly wasn’t going to attempt to chat up Superintendent Peter Gaskill—in fact, he wanted to avoid Gaskill if at all possible.
Their initial conversation with Sergeant Kelly Patterson had made him think she was not likely to be more forthcoming, so that left the DC, Bryan Bisik.
When he reached the station, he asked the desk sergeant to ring up for Bisik, and a few minutes later the detective constable came down. Bisik looked worried, and a little the worse for wear. His pale face was pasty, the skin beneath his eyes slightly reddened and puffy, and his gelled dark hair bore flakes of dandruff.
“Sergeant Cullen,” he said. “Have there been any—any developments?”
“You could say that,” Cullen replied. “Some of them quite interesting.”
“I’m sorry, but the super’s not in.”
“It’s you I wanted to talk to, actually. Is there somewhere we could have a chat?”
Bisik gave a wary glance towards the desk sergeant. “I don’t know what I could tell you that we didn’t go over the other day.”
Turning so that his back was to the desk sergeant, Doug lowered his voice. “If your super is out, how about I buy you a pint?”
“Well . . .” Bisik glanced at the reception desk again. The sergeant was now on the phone. He lowered his voice. “Okay. Look, there’s a pub down at Brook Green. Just go back towards the tube station and you’ll see it. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Wait for me outside. Pint of Foster’s.”
Doug remembered the pub, a nice-looking establishment. When he reached the place, it was still early enough that the few sidewalk tables were unoccupied. He went in and bought two pints, and by the time he’d carried them outside and picked a table, Bisik appeared, walking fast.
“Thanks, mate,” Bisik said, sitting heavily in one of the metal chairs and raising his glass to Doug. After one long draught, he put the beer down and pulled a packet of Silk Cuts from his jacket pocket. He shook a cigarette out and lit it with a sigh of relief. “God, I was gasping.”
Then he frowned, took another drag, and ground the cigarette out in the metal ashtray. A plume of blue smoke rose straight up in the still air. He shook his head. “But the total pisser is that I can’t smoke now without feeling guilty. Becca was always on at Kelly and me about it. I think we smoked more just to annoy her. But now . . . Every time I light up, I hear her voice. Kelly, too.”
“Where is Sergeant Patterson today?” Doug asked.
“You don’t know?”
Doug shook his head. “Know what?”
“She got seconded to another division. As of yesterday. No warning.”
“You’re having me on.” Doug stared at him, the pint in his hand forgotten.
“I wish I was.” Bisik drank some more beer, shrugged. “I suspect I shouldn’t be talking to you.”
“Did Sergeant Patterson tell you she spoke to us?”
“No. But I saw her, outside the station. Looks like I wasn’t the only one who did.”
Doug ran through the possibilities. Had Gaskill seen them? Or had it been the desk sergeant, reporting to Gaskill? Trying to remember who else might have walked by in those brief seconds, he felt suddenly uncomfortably exposed.
When Bisik saw him glance up and down the street, he said, “Relax. We’re a good ways from the station. That’s why I chose this pub.” He lit another Silk Cut. “And besides, I don’t know anything. I don’t know what Kelly told you. If they want to send me to Siberia, at this point I’m not sure I care.”
“So you don’t know anything about Angus Craig?”
Bisik squinted at him, then pulled a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. The sun’s rays were dropping lower. “Who’s Angus Craig when he’s at home?”
Doug shook his head. “If you don’t know, maybe it’s better you don’t ask. Where is Superintendent Gaskill this afternoon, by the way?” He wondered if even now Gaskill was planning to remove everyone who had been close to Rebecca Meredith.
But that was ridiculous. Paranoid. He was definitely getting paranoid.
“Golfing,” said Bisik. “Not my cup of tea, but he lives for golfing, our super. And I suppose it’s a good day for it, if you like that sort of thing. Me, I’d rather sit in a beer garden.” He took his sunglasses off again, fiddling with the earpiece. “The guv’nor—Becca—would have said it was a perfect day for rowing.”
Doug saw his opening. “Last Friday was fine like this, wasn’t it? But she didn’t go home to Henley to train. Any idea why?”
“Last Friday?” Frowning, Bisik twirled the sunglasses. Doug found himself hoping they were only Portobello Market knockoffs. “No. She left at the usual time.”
