Blame The Dead

'Who pays for a defence isn't something we can bring out in court.'

'Sure. That'll be why he does it. Have you got hold of Mockby yet?'

The new expression went on like a slide in a projector: I'm-only-a-sergeant-and-I-only-work-here. 'I just wouldn't know about that, sir. Coming back to your statement,… The question of why you had a gun with you, the Mauser – that could come up.'

'Same answer – for Mockby. I brought a gun because I thought Mockby would etcetera and etcetera and so on. It's licenced, anyway.'

He nodded; he'd seen the licence. He'd still got the gun, if it came to that, him or one of his mates. All neatly labelled and tied up in a polythene bag and the spent cases in other bags and the three bullets being dug patiently out of the woodwork of the hallway outside.

He sighed. 'These Ministry licences are tricky things.'

'I wasn't carrying it in public. This is a private house even if it isn't my home.'

'It didn't walk from London to Kingscutt, did it? Sir? '

Just then Lois came in. Carrying a tray with an elegant enamel-ware coffee-pot, two blue-striped mugs, cream and sugar.

'I thought you might like something by now,' she said brightly. 'You haven't finished yet? How these things do stretch on.'

Keating was torn between annoyance and politeness to his hostess; he half got his backside out of the chair, decided that was polite enough, and flopped back.

Me, I was glad to see the coffee and her both. She was wearing a long housecoat in royal blue with gold trimmings, although there'd been plenty of time to change into anything else by now. Certainly she'd had time to put on exactly the right amount of make-up – very little – for entertaining early-morning gangbusters.

Or maybe I'm being bitchy. Some women retreat into choosing exactly the right clothes and make-up and coffee-pot for an emergency the way others go into hysterics or the brandy bottle. I preferred it this way. Certainly the coffee part.

Lois looked at me with her cheery baby-faced expression, but perhaps a hint of anxiety behind the eyes. 'Is everything all right, Mr Card?'

'Fine. Fine, thanks, Mrs Fenwick.'

That was the password. She smiled and swept out.

Keating shovelled sugar into his coffee in a way that suggested his tummy wasn't built on beer alone. 'I admire an old hand like you, sir,' he murmured. 'Taking your shirt and vest off before you got shot. Saves all that danger of infection from dirty fibres. Brilliant, I call that.'

I murmured back, 'Screw you, Sergeant.'

'No thank you, sir, you're not my type. But her – I might take my shirt off to defend her, if anybody asked me.' He took a sip of coffee, blinked, and slid back into the present time continuum. 'Now sir, are you prepared to sign this statement?'

'Sure.'

He looked momentarily surprised, then pushed it across to me. I signed. 'Will you need me in the magistrates' court this morning?'

'Ah, we're not charg-' Then his expression snapped into midday form. 'We don't need witnesses when we're asking for a remand in custody on this sort of charge – sir. You should know that.'

'Silly of me,' I inhaled coffee fumes and he watched me. 'Tell me one thing, Sergeant – am I going to be charged?'

His face went blank and meaningless as an official form. 'I really couldn't say, sir.'

'You must know this chief pretty well. What d'you guess?'

'It isn't my business to go guessing, sir.' He slipped my report into a thin black plastic-leather briefcase and zipped it shut. 'But you did have a shooter and somebody did get shot.'

'How very true. Are you trying to get Mockby on conspiracy or accessory before?'

'I still couldn't say, sir.'

'How would the chief like a plea of guilty from the two goons and no other people or charges involved at all?'

After a time, he said slowly, 'Do you think you could arrange that, sir?'

'I think it might soft of arrange itself.'

He sat very still, working out the implications of this. Then he got up. 'I'll see what he says. That's all I can do.'

I poured another cup and waited. The phone pinged in the distance and slow footsteps came in behind me. 'No luck, huh?'

He says to mind your own bloody business and he's not making any promises to anybody.'

'Okay. There comes a time when you have to guard your own back.'

'The police guard people – sir. If the lady felt she was in danger she could have asked us.'

'And would you have come?'

'Nobody'll ever know, will they, sir?'

I nodded and stood up and walked with him to the front door. Away to the east there was a dirty yellow smear in the sky, right down on the horizon.

He stood on the steps in the cold nibbling wind and buttoned his coat. 'Are you really going to bugger things up?' he asked politely.

'I really couldn't say.'

'I'd've thought a man in your business would need friends in the police.'

"My business is what I've just been told to mind.'

He just nodded and walked down to his car.

Back inside the house, it was suddenly quiet again. The last bright-eyed young detective constables had finished their measurements and sketched out their plans and gone while we were in the dining-room. The study door was locked and guarded by a chair for when the fingerprint boys came around (it wouldn't do any good; both of them had worn gloves). I leaned against the wall by the downstairs phone and waited for the energy to go ahead and bugger things up, just like the sergeant had said.

Lois came out from the kitchen door behind the stairs. 'Have they all gone, Jamie?'

'All gone.'

She came and put one arm round my neck and leaned her head on my shoulder. 'I wonder what ever they thought -about you being here.'

'Just jealous.'

She looked up and smiled, then went serious again. 'I suppose – will it all come out in court? I'm thinking of David.'

'I don't know. Maybe not. I want to make a phone call that could help.'

She stood back briskly. 'Go ahead. Like me to put on bacon and eggs now?'

'That'd be fine.' She went away and I sat down and started dialling.

It rang only twice and the voice answering was remarkably wide awake for that time of day. 'Yes? Who is it?"

'Hello, Mockers. Card here.'

'Don't you know what time-'

'I'm calling on behalf of Charles. And his friend. They're sorry they can't do it themselves, but they're in the nick. Well, actually Charles is in hospital right now, but he'll be in the nick when he comes out.'

Pause. Then, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'That's the spirit. Just keep that up and you may get away with it. Now, here's what you do: you get a solicitor and you get himfast. They've got the boy in the back room and they're working on him and they can do that for seventy-two hours unless somebody comes up with a habeas corpus writ. Then they'll have to charge him and stop questioning him. Same for Charles, of course, but it's not so urgent.'

Another pause. 'What the hell's all this to do with you?"

'Oh, I just happened to be staying at Kingscutt when your boys dropped in. It was me they fired that shotgun at."

'They did what?'That squawk was genuine, all right. Probably he'd told them not, repeat not, to take a gun and they'd known better.

'Afraid so. But most of it missed. Anyway, the point is they got them cold, on the premises, gun in hand, all the rest of it. So you spend a bit of time and a lot of money and you can get them to plead guilty.'

'What good's that to anybody?'

'You're not too bright at this time in the morning, are you? A guilty plea and there's no real triaclass="underline" no jury, no witnesses, no cross-examination, no awkward questions about who sent them or Mrs Fenwick saying you'd rung up about that log-book – remember? But don't take it from me, ask your solicitor.'