‘A dozen?’
Think how many scalpels that’d buy. ‘But there’s one proviso – Lucille has to be released.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Corn, all she can give the law is a description of a tall blonde guy with a cellar that could be anywhere in the thirty-two counties. OK, there’s a risk. But there’s always a risk. Steer clear of women’s prisons and she won’t be able to ID you from behind a forty-foot wall and tip them off. Hang on to me and that risk becomes a sure thing: you’ll be spending the rest of your natural in a room not much different from the one you had me in. Decision time, Corn.’
I had him. In his position, I’d’ve run with it. And so would he. What did he have to lose for fuck’s sake?
And the beauty of it was: Greg Swags’d be released. Corn leaving his mark on Anne’d see to that. Winters’d still try to hold Greg of course. No doubt he’d come up with some crap like Corn and Greg were partners. But partners wouldn’t fight it out in a hotel room, leaving one unconscious to identify the other. It’d never stand up. He’d let him go all right.
‘The longer you wait, Corn, the more chance they have of finding that laptop. And only I know where it is.’
‘You are very persuasive, Red.’
‘I just see the angles, Corn.’
‘Tell me, did you manage to fulfil your ambition and become a millionaire?’
‘I’m a success story, Corn. And chew on this: do you think I’d be handing you a deal if I thought it wasn’t straight up? Because if it isn’t, I won’t be at liberty long enough to bring Sean home. And that’s all I care about. No way would I jeopardise that. Done?’
‘Done. But tell me, how have you arranged for Lucille to be apprehended?’
‘Give her a whiff of that spray of yours and you’ll find out. C’mon.’
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
RED DOCK
Here was the prosecutor – Thomas Frederick Dunne, big-timer in the brief profession, big dorsal-fin snout, avoids floating on his back at the beach in case he starts a panic – ‘Detective Sergeant Winters, the morning you were called to investigate the deaths of Amy and Edna Donavan, you initially considered deaths by misadventure I believe.’ Big smirk. ‘Why was that?’
‘Because farm animals sometimes cause fatal accidents!’
Oops. Touchy. Notice the dash with the dot on the bottom of Chilly’s response. That means Chilly’s pissed off. What the smirk was really saying was, ‘Lucille Kells must be very clever if she can fool a hardened cop like you into believing death by misadventure with bodies lying all over the place.’ Tom Fred loves getting his neb in the papers with his courtroom antics – and playing to seven men and five women – three fuckable and two old dears – who made up the jury.
‘It had been raining heavily the morning their bodies were discovered – any physical evidence which might have suggested foul play had been washed away. I spoke to Conor Donavan, asked him about the bolt in the bull’s enclosure; had the wasps’ nest been a problem before then; what would have brought Edna Donavan out into the field in the early hours of the morning? He had no answers. Things happen. He saw nothing more to it than that. Short of anything else to go on at that time, except the jarring coincidence of two people dying the same night, misadventure was a possibility!’
Bit of a mouthful there, Chill. Wanted everyone to know he knew a thing or two when it came to doing his Detective Bloggs bit –– not to mention getting that ‘jarring coincidence’ line in so people wouldn’t think he didn’t see it.
‘The Donavans’ vet was called to examine a foal I believe.’
‘Yes.’
‘And what was his diagnosis?’
‘Your Honour’—that was Brady, Lucille’s man – the only thing big time about him is the grandfather clock covering the damp patch in his hall—‘if the prosecution wishes to enter the professional findings of the vet, why doesn’t he call him?’
‘Your Honour, vets have been known to corroborate evidence given to police officers, in my experience. I have no objection to Mr Brady calling a vet, should he feel the need of one.’
‘Yes, sit down, Mr Brady.’ That was the judge – face like a chimp, avoids walking past pet shops in case they drag him in and stick him in the window.
‘The vet said it was blind in one eye, its lungs hadn’t formed, its coat was slack, its left foreleg was crooked, it couldn’t get to its feet to suckle and eight hours or so had passed since birth, so it hadn’t consumed the antibodies only present in the mare’s milk for the first six hours, which foals need against infection.’
‘What was the cause of the foal’s condition?’
‘It had been born six weeks prematurely.’
‘His prognosis?’
Don’t back it to win the Derby.
‘He suggested putting it out of its misery. Conor Donavan agreed and asked him to carry out a post-mortem.’
‘Is that standard procedure in the death of a foal?’
‘The vet wanted to determine whether the mare had foaled early because of an infection. If so, it would have to be identified and treated before she was later served to prevent it being passed on to the stallion.’
‘And the results of the post-mortem?’
‘Traces of follicle-inducing stimulants were found in the foal’s system.’
‘And what is their relevance?’
‘The mare had been fed them deliberately to bring her into labour.’
‘Why would the Donavans do such a thing?’
‘They didn’t.’
Wonder who did.
Tom Fred knew.
‘Lucille Kells, Detective Sergeant, when she was found unconscious in her holiday home, as part of your house-to-house inquiry’—me and Corn dropped her off—‘what was found
