Dead Pretty by Candy Denman

Author:Candy Denman [Denman, Candy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: THE BOOK FOLKS bestselling British crime fiction publisher
Published: 2020-03-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

It was a pretty standard Sunday morning at the police station according to the whiteboard that covered most of the wall behind the custody desk. Five drunk and disorderlies had been brought in the night before, along with a couple of affrays, almost certainly the result of alcohol overindulgence themselves, and three soliciting, plus there was one shoplifting that was probably a hangover from Saturday afternoon. Callie had been called in to check a couple of them out; one of the D and Ds because he was still reluctant to wake up, and one of the affrays because he was complaining of pain in his groin. Callie checked the board, looking for any reference to Jimmy Allen, but his name wasn’t in any of the spaces, so that meant that he was not being held in the cells, nor was he in the hospital having treatment. He must either have been released or remanded elsewhere.

Callie dealt with the D and D first, as he was the one who could conceivably be a serious problem but, thankfully, he was already beginning to come to in his cell, albeit reluctantly, which wasn’t surprising given the hangover awaiting him. He seemed surprisingly unworried by the fact that he had woken up to find himself in a police cell, but this was explained once he admitted to Callie that it wasn’t the first time he had done so. The fact that he was able to remember previous nights in the cells, if not what had happened to get him there this time, left Callie reassured that this was not a head injury masquerading as inebriation. It was a perennial worry for police and medical staff alike that they would mistake someone who had had a knock on the head for a common-or-garden drunk. It was notoriously hard to be sure which was which until it was too late so Callie was meticulous in her examination of him, checking and rechecking his vital signs until she was absolutely certain this was nothing more sinister than drunkenness, after which she spent even more time making careful notes of all her findings. Just in case.

As she waited for the groin pain to be brought into the treatment room from the cells, Callie nipped to the custody desk where Jayne was busy trying to keep up with the paperwork.

“What happened to Jimmy Allen, then?” she asked innocently.

“Remanded to Whiteleas,” Jayne told her.

“They had enough to charge him?”

“Not on the murders, no, but there was enough other stuff, from Cardiff and that, to hold him; for a while anyway.”

Jayne didn’t look exactly happy with this state of affairs, making out she was busy checking a form and not looking Callie in the eye as she spoke, leaving Callie to suspect that Miller had concocted some holding charges.

“Miller still convinced he’s guilty then, is he?”

“Seems like it.”

“How about you?” Callie didn’t want to let it go.

“Look, the bloke’s no angel, that much is certain.”

“That doesn’t make him a murderer.”

Jayne looked down the corridor.

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