I could just run.
I could run back to the train, catch it all the way to Adam City.
But actually, there’s no time for that. Because DC Pearce is walking right towards me.
Still the mac. Still the cigar. Still, too, presumably, his Columbo box set back at home, viewing guide covered with top tips for that one last question.
New, this time, though, is the woman by his side. A redhead. Not beret red, like Nicole. A real redhead. Pearce has lent her a mac, although he’s spared her the cigar. Fine. So they’re both the same school. More playing at being detectives. Which means I’ll need to play at being the innocent. Whatever it is I’m supposed to have done now. Adam wouldn’t have called them, would he? About my Jesus antics last night? Would Nicole?
DC Pearce smirks when he sees me. He mutters something to his colleague and points his cigar in my direction. She stares at me and nods to herself. She drops one step behind DC Pearce.
‘Danny boy!’ says DC Pearce. ‘Speak of the devil and he shall appear!’
I’ve missed his sense of humour.
So has he.
I extend my hand to shake his.
‘DC Pearce,’ I say.
‘DS,’ he corrects me.
Oh. A promotion. Surely not for anything involving me, or Helen. He hasn’t solved anything, yet, so far as I know.
‘Visiting our mutual friend, are you?’ DS Pearce booms. ‘Or that lovely wife of his, hey?’ I expect he would slap me on the back, if I would let him close enough. Burn a hole in my back with his cigar.
‘Sarge, should we really be mentioning …?’ says the redhead, in what she probably hopes is a whisper.
I look at DS Pearce and I think I detect a hint of an eye-roll.
‘Allow me to introduce my colleague,’ says Pearce. ‘Danny boy, this is DC Huhne, newly promoted.’ He winks at me. ‘We were all delighted when we heard she was going to shed her uniform.’
I see the woman’s jaw clench, but then a professional smile replaces it. Cold, courteous, functional. She extends her hand.
‘Mr Millard,’ she says.
Interesting. She already knows my surname. DS Pearce notices me notice. He has not been promoted for nothing. He leans forward.
‘We’ve been talking about you,’ he whispers conspiratorially.
‘Why?’ I ask, as if I want to know. Much better just to say ‘Good for you’, and walk off down the road.
Instead of answering, DS Pearce holds his palm out flat and looks at the sky.
‘Raining, Danny boy,’ he says.
‘No it isn’t,’ I say. I know his routine, what’s coming.
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it, Debbie?’ he says to the woman. She doesn’t answer, but pulls her mac tighter round herself. Good dog, well-trained. She’ll be rewarded with a biscuit later. Maybe a congratulatory cigar fed into that other sphincter.
‘Danny boy, why don’t you shelter in our car, until the worst of it’s eased off, hey?’ Pearce asks rhetorically, unlocking the car, and holding open the passenger door.
‘Are you going to handcuff me?’ I ask.
‘Are you going to resist our questions?’ Huhne counters.
I think about the cold hard steel on my wrists. I think about it on Nicole’s wrists. It would be better suited there. Different setting, same idea.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Right. Come on then,’ says Pearce. ‘Maybe Debbie will show you her cuffs, later, if you’re nice to her. Hey, Debbie?’
Debbie inclines her head, in what may be amusement, or agreement, or ‘I’ll sue you for harassment, you lecherous bastard’. As she walks to the rear doors of the car to get in, I notice that the heel of her shoe clacks and grinds along the pavement, a nail exposed. Too much street-walking. A sign of diligence, in a detective. Perhaps that’s what got her promoted, not her attractiveness as a side-kick.
DS Pearce’s shoes squeak. Still. Even so, they are effective to stamp out the light in his half-finished cigar.
I expect us to drive to the police station. Instead, Pearce offers me a doughnut – Krispy Kreme, sugar glaze – and puts on Classic FM.
‘Mozart’s good for the brain,’ he says. ‘Scientifically proven to help you think.’
‘What are you thinking about?’ I ask.
‘Not a lot,’ he says.
What would be a silence is filled first by violins, then by DC Huhne.
‘We’ve had fresh information,’ says Huhne. ‘From an informant.’
‘Who?’ I ask. Then, ‘About what?’
‘How many things are you entangled with the police about, Danny?’ asks Huhne, half-joking, half-inspecting his doughnut. ‘The same old thing: your friend’s dead wife.’
For a moment I think he means Nicole is dead. My stomach does an excited jump. Then I realise he means Helen. My stomach settles again. At least this means Adam hasn’t phoned in about last night. I should never have thought that of him – too treacherous.
‘We’re duty bound to investigate it,’ continues Huhne.
Pearce takes a bite of his doughnut.
‘What my enthusiastic colleague means is that we’re duty bound to be seen to investigate it.’ He cocks his head at Huhne. ‘She’ll learn.’
‘So what are we doing now?’ I ask.
‘Going through the motions,’ says Pearce.
I nod, as though this means something.
‘Nicole?’ I ask.
‘We couldn’t possibly say,’ says Huhne.
Pearce licks at some glaze and smacks his lips.
‘Is getting hit by someone on the dodgems fresh evidence?’ I ask.
‘Certain suspicions have been raised,’ says Huhne. ‘We have to take them seriously.’ She is just showing off now, trying to tell me and/or Pearce that she knows what she’s doing, isn’t just a piece of skirt. Pearce flicks a look at her in the rear-view mirror. Then he turns round to regard her properly. Huhne pulls her skirt over her knees.
‘What the lovely Debbie means is that, because the dear deceased lady’s father still insists on paying most of our salaries through his taxes, we have to show willing,’ adds Pearce.
Oh. The money thing again. Right.
‘So we can say we took you in for questioning, and we didn’t have cause to arrest you,’ Pearce elaborates.
‘Or even caution me.’
‘And everyone’s happy,’ says Pearce, mouth downturned.
‘I wasn’t on the original investigation,’ says Huhne. ‘So humour me.’
I wonder if this is good cop bad cop. Or lazy cop keen cop. If they’ve planned all of this.
‘What were you doing on the night in question?’ asks Huhne.
‘February nineteenth?’ I ask.
‘What other night would I be talking about?’ she asks.
I shrug.
‘Is