‘I don’t see any blood,’ said Sam.
‘No. Neither do I …’ muttered Gene, almost to himself. ‘So – he either fired at Pat Walsh and missed. Or else he fired at somebody else entirely.’
Sam imagined the bullet passing straight through Gould’s shadowy form. The image made his stomach tighten.
What weapon will stop Gould? What have I got that can hurt the Devil in the Dark?
Instinctively, he reached the gold-plated fob watch nestling in his pocket. As his fingers felt across the dented surface of the casing, he willed himself to sense some sort of magic power surging out of it, something that intimated that this simple little pocket watch was in reality a talisman, a weapon, salvation.
But he felt nothing. Nothing at all.
Monday morning. The overhead strip lights of CID were burning and flickering, bathing A-Division in their unhealthy, cheesy glow. Typewriters clacked, telephones rang, great mounds of paperwork leaned precariously on desks thick with fag ash, unwashed coffee cups and crumpled betting slips.
Sam strode into the department, and was confronted by the sight of DC Ray Carling lolling about at his desk. Ray was already on his fourth or fifth fag of the morning. He had draped his corduroy jacket on the back of his chair to fully show off his sweat-stained, eggshell-blue nylon shirt in all its unironed glory. His brown kipper tie hung loosely from his collar, and his top buttons were undone enough to reveal a flash of wiry chest hair.
‘Morning, Boss,’ Ray intoned without looking up. The remains of an egg butty were still visible, clinging to the bristles of his moustache.
‘Ray – seriously – is that any way to turn up for work?’
Ray stared blankly, then glanced down at himself uncomprehendingly.
‘I’m a bloke,’ he said. ‘How the hell else do blokes turn up for work?’
‘Some of them wash, Ray, and change their clothes, and at the very least do their bloody tie up. You look borderline homeless.’
‘I had a wash Saturday,’ Ray rebuked him, lifting his stubbly chin in a display of dignity. ‘And this shirt’s clean on from last week.’ He sniffed his armpit, then looked past Sam and called out: ‘Hey, Chris! I don’t whiff, do I?’
DS Chris Skelton emerged from behind a filing cabinet, dressed in a diamond-pattern tank top and beige slacks. But instead of answering Ray, he came swaggering slowly across the room, his face impassive, his hands held strangely at his sides. Fixing Sam with a dead-eyed stare, he gruffly intoned the single syllable: ‘Draw.’
Sam stared blankly back at him: ‘… What?!’
In the same gravelly voice, Chris grunted: ‘I said draw.’
‘He went to see that flick the other night,’ Ray put in, picking at crusty bits on his shirt. ‘The cowboy one with Yul Brynner where his face falls off at the end.’
‘Westworld?’
But the moment he spoke, Chris suddenly drew an imaginary revolver and pow-pow-powed it straight at Sam. Despite Sam’s total lack of reaction, a grin spread across Chris’s face. He blew the gun smoke from his finger tip and said: ‘Oh, Boss, you got more holes in you now than a ruddy sieve. I am Yul Brynner!’
‘I see the movie’s fired your imagination, Chris,’ Sam replied. ‘And yes, I admit it’s a bit of a sci-fi classic. But can we leave the gunslinger routine for the pub?’
‘The saloon,’ Chris corrected him. And then, turning to Ray, he added: ‘And in answer to your question – no, you don’t whiff. Not at all. If you do, the fags and farts cover it.’
Sam held up his hands in a gesture of surrender: ‘Hey, fellas, I’m not up to intellectual debate of this calibre so early on a Monday morning. Ray – forget I said anything.’
‘I already ’ave, Boss,’ muttered Ray.
‘Anybody got any news on the siege at the church?’ Sam asked.
‘Last I heard, it were still dragging on,’ said Chris, heading over to his desk. ‘There’s coppers all round the place, but nowt’s happening.’
‘If there are any developments at all – anything – I want to be informed at once. Understood, cowboy?’
‘Yee hah, Boss,’ winked Chris, giving a jaunty Yankee Doodle salute.
‘Understood, Ray?’ Sam added.
‘Nope,’ Ray muttered. ‘I don’t even understand how to get dressed of a morning.’
‘Oh, stop sulking,’ Sam said, striding past him. And mischievously he added: ‘Sometimes, Ray, you’re worse than a bird.’
‘Shoot him for that, Ray!’ Chris urged, and he fell back into his gunslinger stance.
Getting clear of all this idiocy, Sam headed over to Annie who was sitting off by herself, hunting through masses of old police files and making scribbled notes. She barely acknowledged him as he approached.
‘I promised the Guv I would have words with you,’ Sam said gently, half smiling. ‘You overstepped the mark yesterday: you honked his horn. And he was not well pleased. In fact, he was livid, and the only way I could stop him coming after you like a rabid Rottweiler was to promise him I would officially reprimand you for your behaviour. So. There you go. Consider yourself officially reprimanded.’
He grinned at her, but Annie didn’t look up. Her face was serious and intense as she pored over her files, ran her finger down a page of typescript, paused, then made a note. Sam’s smile faded.
The more she looks into those files, the more she starts to see of her forgotten life. It’s coming back to her – slowly, and in fragments, but it’s there.
‘Listen, Annie,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I know you went to see Carroll, that you spoke to him. I haven’t said anything to the Guv about it – in his current state of mind, I think he’d hit the roof. I understand that you feel compelled to find out more about PC Cartwright, but you’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to try to –’
‘I think he was murdered,’ Annie cut in suddenly, without looking up.
‘Who? PC Cartwright?’
She nodded, keeping her head down as she thumbed her way through yet another file.
‘PC Anthony Cartwright died while off duty,’ she said. ‘DCI Carroll compiled the official report on what happened. The report says that DI Patrick Walsh and DS Ken Darby were witnesses to what happened. Together, they testified that they had gone drinking with Tony Cartwright, and that he had admitted to owing hundreds of pounds to a loan shark to pay off gambling debts. Heavy pressure was being put on him to pay back his loan plus yet more hundreds in interest, but he simply didn’t have it. According to Walsh and Darby, Tony Cartwright got drunker and more despairing, until at last he staggered off, distraught. They hung about for a bit and then went after him. They saw him throw himself into the canal, but it happened too quickly to stop him. It took two weeks to start dredging the canal.’
‘Two weeks? Why so long?’
‘There were no qualified divers available, apparently. Eventually the body was found and hauled out. Walsh and Darby testified to what happened, and DCI Carroll signed off on it. Case closed. But look here, Sam … The coroner’s report for Anthony Cartwright. It says that the body was identified by Walsh and Darby, not by Cartwright’s wife. She never saw the body. Carroll wouldn’t let