Something Wicked by Tom Williams

Author:Tom Williams [Williams, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Big Red
Published: 2021-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

-7-

Galbraith had declined an invitation to return to Pole’s flat for a nightcap, but even so he was yawning when he arrived at his office the next morning. Green, who had taken advantage of his inspector’s absence to get home at a reasonable hour, was looking nauseatingly fresh. Galbraith vaguely remembered the days when he had arrived at work looking as keen as his sergeant but they seemed a very long time ago. Nowadays he was barely capable of coherent thought until after his first cup of coffee, and since the station had gone plastic-free that meant finding a mug to take to the dispenser, and until he had that coffee locating his mug was beyond him. He vaguely recalled that there was some philosophical term for the situation but he settled for calling it “bloody irritating”.

“Have you seen my mug, David?”

“Isn’t it in the kitchen?”

“It should be, but I think some bastard’s nicked it.”

“There’s no respect, is there, sir? Bloody criminal behaviour.”

Sometimes, Galbraith thought, his sergeant went too far.

“So you’re a bloody detective. Go and detect.”

For a moment he wondered if Green was going to object – he would, after all, have every right to, but the sergeant took one look at his boss’s face and vanished away, returning five minutes later with the mug which – blessed relief – appeared full of coffee. Galbraith took a healthy swig and felt his temper improving almost immediately the magic liquid scorched its way down his throat.

As the caffeine hit his system he remembered talking with Pole about Penrith’s sheets. “Have we had anything back about DNA?”

“Not yet. We are making progress on the taxis though.”

“Tell me good news and tomorrow’s donuts are on me.”

Green smiled. “Mine are the ones with chocolate on.”

“Tell me the good news first.”

“We think we have a hit.”

Galbraith raised his eyebrows in an unspoken request for more information and Green talked him through their progress with possible visitors.

Once they had increased the area where they thought the visitor might have been dropped off they had almost a hundred possible passengers to check. Fortunately, more than half were on Uber, so they could easily trace them and check that they were legitimately visiting other flats in the area. Where people had paid their fares by card, they were easily traced too and a surprising number had accounts, making them easy to eliminate. The last twenty had to be done the hard way: police went house to house asking if people had had a visitor arrive by taxi that afternoon and those who had were asked for details to match each visitor with one of the cab passengers.

“We’ve got it down to eight unknowns. Five of those are women and two are men in their fifties. The last one is a man in his twenties who hailed a cab just down the road from here, as it happens. He asked for the King’s Road and said he’d tell the cabbie where to stop. The driver remembered that because these days most people give an address.

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