It was Malik. I picked up as he was starting to leave a message.
‘You sound in a bad way, Sarge,’ he told me in a manner that was far too cheery for my liking.
‘I’ve been asleep. You woke me up.’
He started to apologize but I told him not to worry. ‘I needed to wake up anyway.’ I yawned. ‘Where are you phoning from?’
‘The station.’
‘What are you doing down there? It’s your day off.’
‘Just doing a little bit of overtime.’
‘Very conscientious.’ And sensible too, now that he was on the verge of promotion. It was important to show enthusiasm while you could still manage it. ‘So, what can I do for you on this shitty, wet evening?’
‘We’ve found the murder weapon in the Mark Wells case.’
I was suddenly more interested. ‘Oh yeah? Where was it?’
‘In a park not far from Wells’s flat. It was in some bushes. A kid looking for his football found it.’
‘Prints?’
‘No, but you can’t have everything, can you? It’s definitely the weapon that killed her. A butcher’s knife with a ten-inch blade. It’s got her blood all over it.’
‘How do we know it belongs to him?’
‘He threatened people with a very similar knife on two separate occasions in the weeks before the murder. It’s his knife, Sarge. It’s definitely his.’
‘Shit. And, you know, I still wasn’t convinced.’
‘They’re doing a load of other tests on it as well. Just in case he left any DNA traces.’
‘I’m glad that bastard’s going down. That’ll teach him to hit me.’
‘And that’s not the only thing. Wells’s brief came in today.’
‘He’s recovered from his injuries, has he?’
‘No, it’s a different one now. He sacked the other guy. Anyway, he comes in and says that Wells has been thinking about this business of the shirt and he reckons he did own a shirt like the one we found once, but that he gave it away a long time back.’
‘He gave away his shirt? Who the hell does that?’
‘Yeah, and get this. He reckons he gave it to one of his girls.’
‘Which one?’
‘Well, that’s the thing. He said he gave it to Molly Hagger.’
22
We both agreed that this sort of story wasn’t going to get Mark Wells very far in court, especially as, conveniently, the person he’d supposedly given it to had disappeared into thin air. I wasn’t entirely sure whether this new information cemented the case against him or not. The fact that I’d only just woken up, having not long consumed nearly half a bottle of brandy mixed with beer, didn’t make matters any easier.
‘Have you seen Carla Graham yet?’ he asked.
‘No, not yet.’ I resisted the urge to tell him I’d made an appointment with her. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll bother now. It doesn’t look like there’s much doubt it’s Wells, and there’s no point raking up stuff that’s got nothing to do with the murder.’
‘It’d be interesting to see why she lied.’
‘Yeah. Maybe I’ll ask her if I ever run into her again.’
The conversation moved on to other things, all of them brutal. Malik told me that we had another possible murder inquiry on our hands. An eighty-one-year-old lady had held onto her handbag after a gang of young muggers had decided to relieve her of it, and had fallen on her head during the struggle. She was now in intensive care and the doctors were doubtful she’d pull through. Two people had been glassed the previous night in a pub fight, and one was going to lose his eye. One arrest: a nineteen-year-old who was already on bail for another assault. I recognized the name but couldn’t picture his face. Three more suspects were still at large.
I asked Malik about the Traveller’s Rest case. Had he spoken to his mate about it again? He said he hadn’t, and laughingly told me that the e-fit and my face bore a startling resemblance.
‘Do you think so?’ I asked him.
‘What? Don’t you?’ He said it in a manner that suggested he couldn’t believe I couldn’t see it.
I reluctantly agreed that there were similarities, but assured him I’d had nothing to do with it. ‘But if you don’t see me Monday, it means I’ve fled the country.’
‘Somehow I think I’ll be seeing you Monday, Sarge.’
I told him he didn’t have to call me that any more, not now he was DS.
‘Oh yeah, I suppose I don’t. See you Monday then, Dennis.’
I think I preferred Sarge.
I said my goodbyes and rang off. It was almost six o’clock, and I had nothing to do. I don’t really have many friends, as such. It doesn’t usually bother me. I’m not the sort to get bored. I work fairly long hours and I don’t mind my own company. But tonight I didn’t feel right. I wished there was someone I could talk to about my predicament, though Christ knows what I’d say. That I was a part-time professional killer as well as a copper, that I’d murdered more people in the past week than some self-respecting serial killers manage in the whole of their wicked careers; and how things were now spiralling out of control and my life was in danger. I’m not sure I’d have got much in the way of sympathy. I certainly didn’t deserve any.
I’d bought myself some more of that creamy prawn risotto, so I made that for my supper, and washed it down with a couple of glasses of sparkling mineral water. Then I had a long shower, cleaned my teeth, and put some fresh clothes on.
In the end, I didn’t bother going anywhere. It was raining too hard, although on the weather forecast they said it wouldn’t last. Apparently a cold
