Last Writes by Catherine Aird

Author:Catherine Aird [Catherine Aird]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749016227
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2014-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

BENCHMARK

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan.

‘It’s true, sir,’ insisted Detective Constable Crosby.

‘Tell me again what they said,’ commanded Sloan.

‘That they were thinking,’ said the detective constable.

‘That all?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘No, I’m not, sir,’ said Detective Constable Crosby earnestly.

‘Then, Crosby, you might as well file the report under T for “Tall Order”.’

‘But that’s what they said,’ persisted the young constable.

‘That they were still thinking.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Both of them. Larky Nolson and Melvin Boness said exactly the same thing to me one after the other.’

Sloan said scornfully, ‘Just that they were still thinking and it was no use interviewing either of them about last night’s job at Bellamy’s warehouse just yet?’

‘That’s right, sir, because they said they weren’t going to say anything yet even if we tried to get them to all day.’

‘I’m the one who decides when they’re interviewed and for how long,’ said Sloan, mindful of a whole raft of new requirements in connection with taking suspects into custody. ‘And I’m certainly not going to try to all day. I’ve got better things to do.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Besides,’ he added with some asperity, ‘as you ought to know very well by now, Crosby, there are various procedures specifically designed to prevent the police trying to get anyone who is detained saying anything they don’t want to. And I don’t only mean torture,’ he added, since this did seem to have been on the agenda of some less enlightened regimes.

‘Yes, sir, I know that and so do they.’

‘I’ll bet they do.’ Some criminals were better versed in police procedure than some policemen and Sloan for one knew that only too well. ‘So where do we go from here? And, Crosby, I must remind you again that I haven’t got all day.’

‘I think, sir, what they mean is that they’re not going to be saying anything at all to us about the raid on Bellamy’s warehouse and what’s happened to what they took – I mean,’ the constable hastily amended this in the interests of political correctness, ‘to what is said to have been taken from there – until they’ve finished thinking.’

‘Finished!’ snorted Sloan. ‘They’ve never even started thinking. Not that pair.’

‘No, sir.’

‘If they had they wouldn’t be in the police station in the first instance.’

‘No, sir – I mean, yes, sir.’

‘And I should also point out to you that if either of them could think any further then they wouldn’t have been caught in such potentially compromising circumstances as they were at two o’clock in the morning.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Mind you, Crosby, on mature reflection, perhaps we should remember that stupid criminals are easier to catch than clever ones.’ A clever villain was one of the reasons why Detective Inspector Sloan had other things to do that day; investigating transactional fraud not being for amateurs.

‘Yes, sir, that’s very true.’

‘Anyway, why on earth should they ever think that we hadn’t noticed the aforementioned circumstances at the break-in at Bellamy’s last night? And the bolt-croppers they had with them and left behind them, come to that. What do they think we are? Blind?’

‘No, sir.

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