Persons of Interest by Peter Grainger

Author:Peter Grainger [Grainger, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-07-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

‘My God, Smith.’

It was an interesting exclamation, and one open to a number of interpretations, as Smith himself would have happily pointed out in different company. Waters looked round the room, at the pictures that hung on the walls, mostly photographs – Detective Superintendent Allen with friends on a golf course, Detective Superintendent Allen holding a fish, Detective Superintendent Allen wearing a full evening suit accompanied by a short, serious-looking woman in a shiny dress who could only be his wife.

It was Waters’ first official visit to the Superintendent’s room. His presence had been questioned, quietly but not quietly enough, by the said superintendent – Waters had not heard Alison Reeve’s justification for it but he could guess what it had been; it was the fact that he had been present when a serious allegation had been made concerning an officer or officers at Kings Lake Central. Waters was a part of that now whether they liked it or not.

Detective Chief Inspector Cara Freeman and Detective Inspector Alison Reeve were also present now – extra chairs had been sent for – and they both waited for the superintendent to say more. He was obviously going to say more.

‘Even by your standards, this is a sodding mess, isn’t it? What is it they say? Chaos has made its masterpiece?’

‘I think it’s confusion, sir.’

‘Confusion? That’s an understatement if ever I heard one!’

‘No, sir. It’s the quotation – “Confusion now has made his masterpiece”. It’s from ‘Macbeth’, sir.’

Allen glanced round at the assembled officers; there was something a little wild about his eyes.

‘Well, Macbeth was right, wasn’t he? It’s what he would say if he was confronted with all this!’

‘It was actually MacDuff who said it, sir.’

‘I don’t give a f- ... a fig who said it, Smith. We’re not here for a literary criticism seminar, are we? We are one week into a major operation involving God knows how many men – sorry, officers -’ with an apologetic glance towards Freeman and Reeve, ‘at God knows what cost, and now you’ve thrown a spanner into the works. It’s not a spanner – it’s a whole box of them, it’s a whole tool-box, it’s a ...’

Allen seemed to be struggling for the image that would complete his group of three but no-one offered to assist, not even Smith. The superintendent took a breath and composed himself – there were ladies present, after all.

‘Smith, how on earth did you end up questioning a woman who is a material witness in another force’s murder investigation? In case you haven’t realized it yet, the key phrase in that question is “another force’s”.’

Smith said, ‘Thank you, sir. It’s helpful to have it made as clear as that. It all goes back to the phone number thing last weekend.’

‘Good grief. Is it really less than a week since I was called in here to sort that out? It’s starting to feel like an eternity.’

‘Tempus fugit, sir.’

‘Eh? More Shakespeare? I’m not over-fond of all these quotations. They really don’t help in situations like this.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.