Keith entered the apartment. It was evident that housekeeping was not Gloria’s forte. The place was a mess, with clothes strewn everywhere. The kitchen sink was stacked high with dirty plates and cutlery.
‘I’d better put on some clothes,’ Gloria said.
‘Suit yourself. I’ve seen enough naked women in my time.’
Gloria returned two minutes later, an oversized tee-shirt barely covering her modesty. She still wore no underwear.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘We need to find Ingrid Bentham.’
‘Don’t look at me. The bitch has left me with her share of the rent to pay, and now I need to find another flatmate.’
‘How about him in the next room?’
‘Him! Are you joking? He’s just an idle screw. Apart from his dick, he’s not much use.’
‘Have you known him long?’
‘Three hours. Long enough for you?’
‘It’s hardly the basis for a lasting relationship, is it?’ Keith said.
‘I don’t need lasting relationships, just a man when I need one.’
‘And Ingrid?’
‘She never brought a man here. I asked her why not.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said that she’d had enough of men, and did not need them.’
‘Lesbian?’
‘Not at all. I was lonely one night, made a play for her. She was angry, did not speak to me for several days.’
‘Any medication?’
‘Ingrid? Every day, although I don’t know what it was.’
‘Did you ask?’
‘As long as she paid the rent, and she didn’t screw the men I brought round here, what did I care?’
It was evident to Keith that Gloria, was at best an unreliable witness; at worst, a slut who screwed men as it suited her. Keith imagined that if he asked around the area, he would find out that Gloria was not as well respected as Ingrid, except in the opinions of the local studs.
The plaything for the night could be heard snoring loudly in the other room. ‘It seems as if he will be no use tonight,’ Keith said.
‘Him? Give me five minutes, and he will be,’ Gloria replied.
‘What else can you tell me about Ingrid?’
‘Nothing. We shared a flat, that was all.’
‘Clothes, jewellery. Any that you borrowed?’
‘Nothing.’
‘If you lie to me, and it comes up in a court of law, you could be charged with obstructing the police.’
‘Well…’ There was a pause.
‘Yes.’
‘There was this ring.’
‘And?’
‘I sort of borrowed it.’
‘Stole or borrowed is not my concern. Do you have it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In my bedroom.’
‘I will need it as evidence. I’ll fetch it.’
The sight in Gloria’s bedroom was not pleasant. The man, a strapping tattooed individual, was lying naked on his back. The smell of stale beer was overpowering. Keith found the ring in the drawer, as Gloria had described. He placed it in a plastic bag and wrote on the outside: location, time.
He left soon after, stopping only to make a phone call on his mobile. ‘I have a ring that belonged to Ingrid Bentham. It’s engraved on the inside.’
‘Six in the morning. Great work,’ Sara replied.
***
Sara regretted that she had asked her primary team to meet at six in the morning. Not that the idea was not good, it was. It was that she was not an early morning person. Some, she knew, were at their best in the morning; others, in the afternoon and through to late at night.
It was evident the next morning as to which category her new DC belonged. There Sean O’Riordan was, bright and alert, as she staggered into the office at just after six. At least Sara had to admit that she looked better than Keith Greenstreet; the man looked as though he had slept on a bench in the park, but then, he was nearly thirty years older than her.
‘Foul hour of the morning,’ Keith said.
‘Sleep well?’ Sara asked.
‘What little there was.’ A singularly unexciting reply.
Sean O’Riordan, newly elevated from police constable to detective constable, was anxious and biting at the bit to get started. Sara had to concede that he suited plain clothes. His first day in the office, his suit had been brand new, off the rack, and here on the second day, there was another suit, this time a lighter shade.
Must be costing him plenty, she thought. She reflected on her early days as a detective inspector. She had served her dues, five years in uniform, initially administrative. In the past Keith Greenstreet would have said it was woman’s work, but now political correctness forbade such words, and he had received a reprimand behind closed doors from his DCI on more than one occasion.
Sara was not a person to dwell on the past, and her time at her first police station north of the metropolis of London had not been the most exciting period of her life. There she was, a policewoman, a career that she had always wanted, and what did she have: a dingy bedsit; a man in the room next door who drank, and then snored, and then swore in his sleep. It had not been that many years before, and the memories were fresh. There had been a boyfriend back home in Liverpool, but she wanted a future; he wanted her at home and pregnant. Not that she did not want children, she did, but on her terms, and with Bob Marshall. It had not always been that way. Before Bob Marshall, she had been career-driven, probably a workaholic, but he had brought out maternal feelings in her.
Keith Greenstreet had been a policeman longer than Sara had drawn breath; his days with the police force were rapidly coming to an end. In the office, he would talk about how much he looked forward to the day he could hand in his badge and devote himself to personal pursuits.
