‘They can’t have been that alert, then, can they? I went up the alley twenty minutes or so after Cormack. If they didn’t see me, who’s to say who they might have missed twenty minutes earlier?’
‘It’s who they did see that matters.’
‘Has it occurred to you, sir…’ It seemed to Troy the right moment at which to throw in a ‘sir’. ‘Has it occurred to you that for a prostitute to admit to you that she was off the street for any length of time might be seen by her as an admission of prostitution, and that the reason they told you they were there without break was because they did not wish to admit openly to prostitution in front of a policeman? They weren’t there when I went up the alley. Either they were being dozy-which I doubt, since their trade depends on spotting the single men-or else they weren’t there, and if they weren’t there when I got there, who’s to say where they were at 10 or 10.30? Most turns take less than five minutes, they could have had three or four men in rapid succession and still have kept their patch on the street. But Walter’s killer probably needed less than one minute.’
Nailer went from grey to red. Troy had done more than he meant to do; he had begun the logical demolition of the man, and it wasn’t over yet.
‘That isn’t the most important thing. Of course they missed the killer-‘
Crawley was looking hard at Troy, his discomfort self-evident.
‘-But they would also appear to have missed the victim.’
‘What?’ said Crawley.
‘Quite simply, sir, where were they when Chief Inspector Stilton went up the alley?’
It was so obvious, it was little short of calling Nailer stupid. Crawley tacked away from it. If Troy had been in his position, he thought, he would too-he would bat for his man.
‘There is, of course, the matter of the gun.’
And it was the intervention Troy had been all but praying for. For one of them to bring up the gun made it so much easier for him to say what he had to say.
‘Quite, sir, and I must say I’m baffled at the weight of evidence you seem to attach to it.’
‘I don’t follow, sergeant.’
‘Am I right in thinking that you’ve asked for no ballistic tests?’
The merest exchange of looks between Crawley and Nailer. Crawley spoke.
‘We’ve only the gun and the spent bullet that’s lodged in Chief Inspector Stilton. We don’t have the cartridge case to match up.’
This was old-fashioned thinking. This was the way ballistics had been until about nine or ten years ago. They could match cases; they had the greatest difficulty in matching or comparing bullets-even now it was a far from perfect science, but it was doable, and to a policeman of Troy’s generation it was the first thing one would ask to be done.
Nailer chipped in again. ‘Ballistics isn’t everything.’
Troy looked at Onions. He could have sworn the man blushed, ever so slightly, at the way Nailer betrayed their ages in the word-for-word repetition of what he had said himself. ‘I was on Murder for two years myself under Mr Onions’ predecessor. In my day if you caught a bloke with a gun in his hand at the scene of a murder you didn’t need to ask for the man in the white coat, you knew. Walter Stilton was shot just above one ear’ole. I should think you’d’ve noticed that for yourself. And I should think that when you’ve been in the job more than eighteen months, when you’ve done a bit more than spit and cough, when you’re not still wet behind the ears, you’ll know. When a small-bore bullet passes through that amount of bone it’ll bend-of course it’ll bend. A fat lot of use a bent bullet is. Where are you then, with the men in their white coats?’
Troy had always admired punctuality. It was a mark of civilisation-even in one so thinly civilised as the Polish Beast. Madge stuck her head round the door and said, ‘Professor Kolankiewicz is here, Mr Onions.’
‘Kolankiewicz? I didn’t send for him,’ Stan said blankly.
‘I did,’ said Troy.
‘You little shite!’ Nailer exploded. ‘You’ve fitted me up!’
‘Perhaps if you weren’t so keen to fit up the American, I wouldn’t have had to.’
Nailer got out of his chair, his right arm raised as though he’d thump Troy if there weren’t a superintendent and a desk between them. Crawley calmly pushed him back into it.
‘Mr Troy, I’ll thank you to treat my officers with more respect,’ he said without raising his voice. ‘Chief Inspector Nailer has served over twenty years in this force and deserves better.’
He turned his attention to Onions.
‘I deplore such tactics, Stanley. However, now that Professor Kolankiewicz is here we may as well see him.’
‘I agree,’ said Stan. ‘And Freddie, keep yer gob shut.’
Kolankiewicz bundled in, homburg pushed way back on his head, pockets bulging, a copy of the News Chronicle under one arm. He was not a serving police officer. Rank held no terror for him. He pulled up a chair, plonked it down next to Crawley and said ‘Which one you coppers got the gun?’
Troy could have sworn he heard a soft ‘Oh Jesus’ escape Onions’ lips. Crawley simply twitched again and jerked his head towards the box file on Onions’ desk.
‘It’s there. Sealed in cellophane. The suspect’s fingerprints are all over it.’
Kolankiewicz tore off the wrapper like a small boy attacking a Mars bar. He sniffed the barrel.
‘Smith and Wesson. Been fired.’
Nailer sighed at the obvious. Kolankiewicz ignored him and stripped the wrapper off the holster. A small black triangle of tough leather, a stainless steel clip on the flat side. Kolankiewicz sniffed that too.
‘It’s a closed holster,’ he said. ‘Unusual. It would complicate things.’
‘How?’ said Onions.
‘Bloke shoots some other bloke. Unless he stands around like Wild Bill Hickock blowing smoke off the barrel and boasting to every bugger that he’s Deadeye Dick, he puts it back in the holster straight away. In an open holster the barrel would protrude, the gases would be allowed to disperse at what I would term a normal rate. In a holster like this… well, you might as well put a cork up the barrel. Gases are trapped. Makes it difficult to say when the gun was fired. All you can say is that it was fired.’
Onions fixed his gaze on Crawley.
‘Does this help, Dennis?’ he asked without a trace of sarcasm.
Crawley gave a far straighter answer than Troy knew Nailer would attempt. The man might be a colossal prig, but he was honest.
‘It… er… it complicates matters. Cormack has admitted that he fired the gun five or six days ago… of course it would help if he told us at whom… but he’s claiming some sort of diplomatic immunity on that one.’
‘You want my professional opinion?’ Kolankiewicz said. ‘That’s why you got me here, is it not? My opinion is that if you had sent me the gun the night Stilton died we might be in a better position to judge, but as things stand I will say now that I cannot say with any reliability when this gun was fired. It is perfectly possible that this Cormack is telling the truth. But there is yet more.’
He tore the wrapper off the bullets and set one of them upright on the desk. He tugged at the bulge in his coat pocket and pulled out a large wad of cotton wool. A few seconds probing with his fingers and he set a second bullet, distorted and shapeless, next to the first. Every copper in the room looked at it. Nailer could not restrain a grin, the small man’s smirk of petty triumph.
‘As you boys can see, is bent to buggery. However…’
Kolankiewicz picked up the unspent bullet, whipped out his spectacles, and eyed it closely.
‘…It is the same calibre. Point 32, with full metal jacket made for a.35. The spent bullet I have shows a right hand twist, which is what it’d have if it too had come from a Smith and Wesson. There are not many.35 handguns. In fact Smith and Wesson are one of the few firms ever to make them. A small gun, 22 ounces, more powerful than their.32-that’s what I’d call a handbag gun-not as powerful as the Colt.38 or the Browning 9mm, but still some stopping power. I shall have to compare the bullet that killed old Stinker with a test shot. It’s all in the rifling-the twist.’