‘I want you to do — your — job!’ Helen grabbed her toddler and marched back inside, slamming the door in their faces.
Steel stood there, fuming at it.
‘Wonderful.’ Tufty let go. Stepped back. ‘That went really well.’
‘Just because she’s too chicken doesn’t mean everyone else is.’
‘You’ve been spitting wasps since Jack Wallace phoned and it’s genuinely not helping. We need more softly, softly, and less shouty ranty.’
‘Arrrgh!’ She stormed off, arms in the air, bellowing it out: ‘SOMEONE IN THIS GOAT-BUGGERING TOWER BLOCK IS GOING TO TALK TO US!’
‘I said no. Now leave me alone.’ The old man thumped back inside and slammed the door.
‘I didn’t see anything, how many times do I have to tell you people that?’ Little Miss Hairy shoved the door closed again.
A watery eye stared out at Tufty through the gap, the security chain stretched tight. ‘Go away. I have nothing to say to you.’ The door clunked shut.
Tufty knocked again. ‘It’s the police. Can you open the door please?’
A woman’s voice came from the other side of the painted wood. ‘Go away, I’m not in.’
Roberta slumped against the wall beside the door. ‘Why do we bother?’ Ungrateful bunch of turdholes. You try to save them from a violent scumbag and do they help? Do they buggery.
‘I know you’re in, because I can hear you talking to me.’
‘I’m not talking to you! I’m not talking to anyone. Now go away!’
She checked her watch. Ten past seven. ‘We’re achieving sod-all here. I’m calling it.’ Then turned and scuffed towards the stairs. It wasn’t even a nice tower block. Graffiti. Peeling paint. That faint, peppery-mouldy smell.
Tufty slouched up beside her as she pushed through into the stairwell. ‘Maybe the labs will find something?’
‘Honestly, why do we bother? No one here gives a stuff about Agnes Galloway but us. They’re a bunch of selfish—’
Cagney & Lacey blared out. Again. Roberta stopped. Grimaced. ‘You know what? That theme tune was fun for the first couple of days, but it’s beginning to seriously get on my tits.’ She hauled the phone out and answered it. Barked out the word with all the welcoming warmth of a shallow grave: ‘What?’
Big Gary tutted. ‘You get worse, you know that? Your mobile phone man is in again, wanting his Nokia back.’
‘I don’t care. Tell him to go shag a bollard!’
She hung up and rammed the phone back into her pocket. Stared upwards, through the gap between the flights of stairs, all the way up to the ceiling fifteen storeys above. Hauled in a deep breath. ‘NO’ ONE OF YOU BUNCH OF BASTARDS GIVES A TOSS ABOUT AN OLD LADY GETTING BATTERED HALF TO DEATH!’ Another breath. ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!’
Tufty raised an eyebrow. ‘Feel better?’
She stomped down the final flight of stairs, through the entrance hall, and out into the sunshine. Turned and stuck two fingers up at the tower block and its rancid occupants. ‘Sodding, badger-ferreting, FUNKBISCUITS!’
A couple of old farts on the other side of the road stopped and stared at her, their cairn terrier yapping and twirling at the end of its leash.
She gave them the Vs as well. ‘Oh, bugger off!’ Then stormed away to the car.
The in-house forensics lab was awash with blue plastic evidence crates. They were stacked up everywhere — on the floor, on the filing cabinets, on the work benches, on the superglue/fingerprint cabinet, on the two upright fridges that stood by the door... The only bit that was crate-free was the central work table with its light boxes and magnifying glasses.
CSI Miami, it wasn’t.
Tufty stood by the door, hands at his sides, shoulders hunched. Sniffing the chemical-scented air as if hunting for something that had gone off.
Roberta leaned back against one of the fridges — setting bottles inside it clinking. ‘What if I said pretty please?’
‘Urgh.’ The lab technician picked a bloody knife off the light table, holding it between two purple-nitrile-gloved fingers, and popped it back into its tube. ‘You know I can’t do that.’
Roberta gave her a smile, piling on the charm. ‘Come on, Gloria, there’s a little old lady in intensive care because of this scumbag.’
A slow, sad sigh, then Gloria pointed at a stack of evidence crates. ‘Husband came home and battered his wife to death with the iron.’ Another box. ‘Bus driver got pissed at lunchtime and flattened a motorcyclist.’ Another. ‘Bunch of teenagers gang-raped a grandmother.’ Another. ‘Brother and sister decided their parents were squandering their inheritance and took an axe to—’
‘I get it. I really, really do. But no one’s talking, Gloria. This scumbag’s going to get away with it. Right now you’re my only hope.’
Gloria’s shoulders sank. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Roberta beamed. ‘I could kiss you. And cop a feel of those magnificent breasts as well.’
‘Don’t you dare! Last time was bad enough.’ A blush darkened her cheeks as she rummaged out an evidence crate from the stack by the storeroom door. Thumped it down on top of the work table. A hand-printed label was stuck to the lid: ‘GALLOWAY MRS ~ 12-6 CAIRNHILL COURT, CORNHILL’. Gloria opened it and peered inside. ‘And I’m not promising anything. If there’s nothing there, there’s nothing there.’
‘Fair enough. But the offer of a grope still stands.’
Tufty eased the lab door closed and hurried down the corridor after Steel. Caught up to her just before the stairs. ‘Doesn’t really matter what she finds if we don’t have anything to compare it with.’
‘Blah, blah, blah.’
Through into the stairwell, their voices echoing back from the walls. ‘The whole floor could be covered in bloody footprints, but if we don’t have Innes’s shoes to match them against it’s worthless.’
She blew a raspberry at him, thumping down the stairs. ‘Are you being a party-piddler on purpose? Optimism, Tufty. Optimism.’
‘Just being realistic. If we’re going to pin this on Phil Innes we need a warrant first.’
‘Do we?’ She stopped and stared at him, eyebrows up, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. ‘Wow. Twenty years in the job and I never knew! You must be some sort of idiot savant.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Well don’t.’ She started down the stairs again. ‘Our luck’s going to change, Tufty, I can feel it. No more dog days for us. Success: here we come.’
Yeah, right.
III
Tufty checked his phone. Twenty to nine and the only silly sods still silly enough to be hanging around the CID office were him and Steel. Everyone else went home ages ago. Lucky spods.
He was stuck here.
Waiting.
Bum was getting sore from all the sitting as well. He shoogled in his seat. Fiddled with his keyboard. Checked his phone again. Still 20:40.
Steel didn’t look up from the notepad she was scribbling in. ‘If you’re needing the toilet, just go.’
He stopped fidgeting. ‘We going to be much longer?’
‘If you’ve finished writing up the door-to-doors: go home.’
‘Yeah.’ He stayed where he was. ‘Finished those about half an hour ago.’
She narrowed her eyes and frowned at him. ‘You’re keeping an eye on me, aren’t you?’
‘Me? No.’ Doing his best innocent face and voice.