Reunited
DS Craig pulled his car into the small carpark behind the station just as the animal services van arrived. Albert had seen it coming down the road toward them from the opposite direction and hoped it would prove to have Rex inside.
It did, the dog bouncing on all four paws as the handler tried to keep him calm.
‘Hey, human!’ barked Rex, wagging his tail excitedly.
‘What happened to his coat?’ asked Albert, closing the distance between them so he could fuss his dog. ‘He looks kind of … poofey,’ he searched for the right word.
The handler, a heavyset Asian man in his forties wearing thick-rimmed black glasses seemed only too happy to hand Rex’s lead over. ‘There’s no doubt you’re his owner. The fur is like that because we used the hair dryer to get the water out of his coat. On some dogs it adds a lot of volume,’ he explained.
He turned to close the rear doors of the van or, at least, that’s what Albert thought he was doing, but the man bent down and reached inside instead. When he straightened once more, he had Hans in his arms. ‘I believe this one is yours too.’
The man was pushing Hans in his direction. The smaller dog had a big blue bandage around his front left paw. Albert didn’t know what had happened to him; he hadn’t seen the injury last night. He didn’t ask about it though, he said, ‘Hans is not my dog.’
The animal services man looked surprised, and also confused as to what he should do now.
DS Craig came to the rescue, holding out his arms for the dog. ‘It belongs to the victim of an attack last night. I’ll see he is delivered to the correct person.’
Satisfied that he’d done his duty, the animal services man closed his van and left. No sooner did the car start to pull away, than DS Craig handed Albert the sausage dog. ‘I’m not a dog person, Mr Smith and you clearly are. Would you mind looking after him until we are done?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, he simply thrust Hans into Albert’s arms and walked toward a door in the back of the police station.
Rex and Albert were back together, but now they had an unexpected extra.
‘This is fun,’ said Hans. ‘What are we doing now?’
Frowning, Albert tottered after the detective who was now holding the door open and waiting to go inside. Led to an office that doubled as an interview room, Albert told Rex to lie down but kept Hans on his lap. He’d seen how the dogs were when together yesterday and when the dachshund tried to get to the floor, Albert carefully plopped him onto his feet well away from Rex. However, to Albert’s amazement, the smaller dog crossed the room to curl up touching the large German Shepherd. It made a small snort of laughter escape his mouth just as DS Craig came back into the room with two mugs of tea.
‘Now then, sir,’ DS Craig settled into the chair opposite Albert, ‘I would like a blow by blow account of last night, please, and don’t spare the detail.’
Albert walked the detective through all that had happened but went back to the point where DS Craig entered his story: in the Clanger Café two days ago when he arrested Kate Harris. He told DS Craig about how he came to be involved, about going to Kate’s house, but left out the part about April and the suspicious missing money. When he finished, he asked, ‘You still think Kate Harris did it?’
DS Craig was looking down at the notes he’d taken. The interview was recorded, of course, but he liked to keep pertinent points to hand. He heard Albert’s question but didn’t look up straight away because the appearance of the two men was troubling him. Once he was finished with Mr Smith, he was going to HMP Bedford prison to interview Kate Harris. He liked his post in Biggleswade; he got to be the boss here with only a semi-regular visit from the superintendent from Bedford. All that could change if he had too many bodies cluttering up the morgue. Joel Clement might not have been killed here but the crime was still his to investigate and now he had an unknown man in the morgue; a man who had been involved in a crime immediately before his death. That he carried no identification and the van they used was equally bereft of clues to his identify made him question what he might have uncovered.
DS Craig had thought the case sewn up when he took Kate Harris into custody. Now he wasn’t so sure. Looking up finally, he said, ‘Yes, I do. I think she planned the murder meticulously, setting it up years in advance when she met Joel Clement and saw an opportunity. On Saturday night, she arrived home, whacked her boyfriend over the head and dragged him out to the van where her two accomplices were waiting. Either they killed him, or she did, but his body went the rest of the way to Wales in the van and was dumped at the side of the road. She waited two days and made a big show of trying to find Joel Clement herself before finally reporting him to the police as a missing person. She thought she had got away clean, but I guess her brother found out or worked it out because she sent the two men to silence him.’
Albert let his head drop forward so he was looking at the mismatched carpet tile. There was no point in presenting any further argument.
DS Craig gathered his things together, closed his notebook and put his pen back into his jacket inner pocket. ‘Thank you for your statement regarding the incident last night. If you’ll
