His hand found the mouse and Vine killed the video.
Silence.
He licked his lips. Looked away. ‘The bastard made Karen’s son watch. The kid’s barely fourteen months.’
‘Then why the hell are you in here watching internet videos? You should be out there making Jack Wallace talk!’
‘How many times? We can’t touch Wallace without evidence.’
‘He was on the phone again. He was gloating — again! Two minutes ago.’ Steel placed her fists on the desk, looming over it like a silverback. ‘Wallace was talking about what he was going to do tonight. Dinner and a movie, same as every sodding alibi he’s had for the last two attacks. Some poor woman is about to be raped!’
‘We can’t prove anything. We — don’t — have — any — evidence!’
‘Give me five minutes in a room with the bastard and I’ll get you some.’
Now Vine was on his feet too, sidekicks backing away. ‘Oh yes, because that’s not a cliché, is it? And you don’t need to be in the room with him to find evidence, do you? No, you just have to make some up and plant it, same as you did last time!’
‘Don’t you dare!’
‘And how did that work out for you?’
The only noise in the room came from the central heating.
Finally Steel bared her teeth. ‘FINE!’ Shoving herself back from the desk.
She stormed out, slamming the door behind her, leaving Tufty abandoned in the room with Vine and his minions.
They were all looking at him.
Tufty pointed at the door. ‘I probably should—’
‘Aaaaargh!’ Vine screwed his face tight, clenching his fists, arms trembling. ‘Why does that woman have to be so bloody difficult?’
She was sitting in her MX-5, in the driver’s seat, throttling the steering wheel and making the kind of faces a gargoyle would be terrified of.
Tufty sidled up to the car and clambered in the passenger side. ‘So... Come on then: Flare and Futtrit. Drinks, nibbles, and a good old moan about—’
‘No.’ She kept her glare focused straight ahead at the windscreen. ‘Get out.’
‘I know Vine can be a patronising, fart-faced, hamster-molesting pain in the backside, but—’
‘Get — out — of — my — god — damn — car!’
He sighed. Shook his head. ‘Wallace isn’t just screwing with you when he phones up with these alibis, he’s screwing with every single one of us.’
‘You don’t want this, Tufty, you really don’t.’
‘Your crimes are my crimes, remember? If I’m going to get blamed anyway, I might as well commit the bloody things.’ He fastened his seatbelt. ‘Now: where are we going?’
Other than right down the plughole...
Chapter Ten
in which Everything Goes Horribly Wrong
and we say goodbye to NE Division
I
Steel parked right in front of Wallace’s house, sitting there with the engine running as she stared out through the windscreen. Face like a scowl nailed to a breeze-block.
Tufty shifted in his seat, blood whooshing in his ears.
Maybe there was still time to talk her out of it?
Sunlight danced and swirled across the MX-5’s bonnet, filtered through the leaves of the tree she’d parked under.
He cleared his throat. ‘Wow, it’s hot isn’t it? Could really do with a pint right now. Couldn’t you? Nice cold pint...?’
Nothing.
One more go. He reached out and put a hand on her arm. ‘You sure we want to do this?’
She undid her seatbelt, climbed out and slammed the car door shut.
Tufty slumped a little. ‘That’s a “yes”, then.’
Ah well, who wanted a career anyway?
He clambered out into the leaf-dappled sunlight.
A man was mowing his lawn a couple of doors down, humming a Flymo back and forth across his little green rectangle. A woman was on her hands and knees opposite, planting rose bushes. A little girl screeched from one pavement to the other, dragging a droopy kite behind her.
Steel marched across the road and up the path to Wallace’s front door.
Tufty caught up with her just as she leaned on the doorbell. ‘Only I notice we haven’t actually got a plan...’
‘We rouse him, we rattle him, and we... something else beginning with “R” and ending with my boot up his arse.’
‘Reprimand? Remonstrate?’
She gave up on the bell and hammered on the door instead. ‘JACK WALLACE!’
No reply.
‘OK.’ Tufty shuffled his feet. ‘Maybe he’s not in?’
She banged on the door again. ‘COME OUT HERE YOU WEE SHITE!’
‘We could go away and come back later? Maybe Monday or Tuesday? Tuesday’s good for me.’
Steel turned on him. ‘You don’t get it, do you? He — was — setting — up — an — alibi — for — tonight. And while he’s off eating pizza and seeing a film, there’ll be a woman out there getting raped!’
She banged on the door with both palms. ‘WALLACE!’
Still nothing.
‘He’s not in.’
Steel turned and marched back towards the car. ‘Fine. We’ll wait!’
Even with the roof off, it was still baking hot in the car. Tufty took off his tie and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then took off his jacket as well.
Steel snuck a glance at him. ‘You can stop right there. Seeing you in your pants this morning was quite enough for one lifetime.’
She could talk, sitting there with both straps of her dungarees unbuttoned and dangling.
‘Sarge?’
‘What.’
‘This Jack Wallace thing, what we’re doing here, don’t you think it’s a bit—’
‘If one more word comes out of your mouth I’m going to write it in indelible marker on a coconut and shove it so far up your backside you’ll be tasting Malibu for a month.’
Ah...
He rolled up his shirt sleeves. ‘Change of subject?’
‘Please.’
‘OK. Vicarious love-life thrills it is.’ Tufty smiled and sighed. ‘I really like PC Mackintosh. I mean really like, like her.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, I’m sharing a car with a teenaged girl!’
‘She’s pretty, she’s funny, she’s into physics... Who doesn’t love a woman who’s into physics?’
Steel stared at him. ‘You’re an idiot, you know that don’t you?’
The boy idiot tapped on the dashboard, as if it would make what he was saying any less boring. ‘See, what I think is that they’ve got the question wrong. Gravity isn’t a force like electromagnetism, or the strong and weak nuclear ones, it’s an emergent property of squished space-time. So why should it have the same strength?’
‘Honestly, if you don’t shut up talking about physics I’m going to remove your scrotum with a fork and make you—’ Her phone launched into Cagney & Lacey. ‘Oh thank the Hairy God for that.’ She pulled it out.
‘BARRETT’ sat in the middle of the screen.
‘Davey?’
‘Sarge, are you remembering we’re meant to be in the Flare and Futtrit? They’ve got a big buffet all laid out for us and everything.’
‘Aye, Davey, we’re kinda in the middle of something right now. Be with you soon as we can.’ Hmm... And just in case: ‘You keep Owen and Veronica away from the kitty — that pair could drink their way through two hundred and fifty quid in five minutes flat.’