Thicker Than Water

He shrugged. ‘As soon as we hauled you in for questioning. You heard me backing off on that. Basquiat thinks the conflict of interest is deep enough to be fundamental, and she was prepared to bring the DCI in. She’s not seeing you as the chief suspect, but she wants to be free to go wherever this takes her. She told me not to get in her way.’

‘And you took that?’ I was incredulous.

‘Yeah. I did.’ Coldwood’s tone was harsh. ‘Because she’s right. Look at it from her point of view - which the DCI is bound to share if he’s got half a brain. If you are involved somehow, then she knows you’ll try to play me. And if it’s anyone else then the big question at trial will be why we didn’t go after you properly out of the gate. We’ll look about as bent as a nine-bob note, and razor-boy will walk on a technicality. Either way I’m a defence lawyer’s wet dream. So there you go. I’m still dancing but Ruth is leading. And that - before you ask - is the other reason I came here cn Idretonight: because I thought you ought to know. The weather’s going to get colder.’

I mulled that unpalatable fact over for a moment or two: brandy didn’t sweeten it.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Thanks for the warning. Listen, Gary, you’re already digging into Kenny’s past, presumably. Any leads there? You know what happened to his wife and kid, right?’

‘Common-law wife,’ Coldwood corrected me. ‘She’s MIA. Walked out on him a year or so back, according to the neighbours. The son belonged to her, not to him, and he’s dead. We’re still getting the details.’

‘Would that include calling up the autopsy report?’ I asked.

Coldwood shrugged and raised his eyes to Heaven.

‘Could I get a copy of that?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Fix!’

‘All right, all right. No harm in asking. What do you make of the other wounds on Kenny’s arms? The older ones?’

‘Botched suicide attempt? Wouldn’t be too surprising, would it? When you think about what he’s been through . . .’

‘I think he might have been self-harming,’ I said.

Coldwood stared at me.

‘Why do you think that?’ he asked.

‘Because I - sorry, because whoever broke into the flat found a hurt-kit in the bedroom. Not the boy’s bedroom. Kenny’s.’

‘We already went over that room.’

I blew out my cheeks. ‘Yeah, but I bet you did it politely. It isn’t a crime scene, and Kenny isn’t a suspect. I almost missed it myself.’

‘You keep defaulting back to that first-person stuff, Fix,’ Gary pointed out testily. ‘Work on it. So are you saying that Seddon—?’

Matt stood up abruptly. ‘I am finding all this talk . . . unnerving,’ he confessed. ‘I think I might leave now. I’m teaching at a seminary in Cheam and I have a very full day tomorrow. If you don’t mind—’

‘I do mind,’ I said firmly. ‘Come on, Matt, we haven’t seen each other in, what, must be a year and a half. And I bet you hear a lot worse in the confessional.’

‘Well, I was leaving anyway,’ Gary said, putting his empty glass down. ‘I’ve got to be on my feet again in four hours. Mind how you go, Fix. And keep your fingers crossed that the floating-pronoun burglar didn’t leave too many prints behind him in Seddon’s gaff. Even my C2s can’t be relied on to miss everything that’s under their noses. I’ll tell them to take another stroll around that cl an mbedroom.’

He thanked Pen for the booze and hospitality and let himself out. And then there were three.

‘So how are you doing, Matt?’ Pen asked my brother. ‘I didn’t know you were teaching now.’

‘For six years,’ Matt said, killing that line of conversation stone-dead. Pen was only trying to be nice because the last time Matt had come visiting she’d hit him in the nose with a tea-tray. It hadn’t been in the course of a theological debate, either, although that wouldn’t have been much of a surprise: Pen takes her spirituality pretty seriously.

But I hadn’t insisted on Matty staying behind so that we could discuss the good of his soul. It was something else that was bugging me, and I needed an answer now.

‘We’ll see you in the morning, Pen,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘We’ve got some things we need to go over in private.’

‘Take the bottle,’ Pen suggested. I lifted it, started to say thanks and noticed it was empty. She was just making a point, in her own inimitable way. ‘I’ll get another in the morning,’ I promised.

‘Just pay me some rent,’ she riposted, stroking Arthur the raven’s glossy back.

I led the way up the stairs. Matt lingered by the front door for a moment, as if contemplating making a break for it. ‘I’m serious, Matt,’ I said. ‘We’re having this conversation sooner or later, and I did you the courtesy of not having it in front of a copper. So let’s make it sooner, eh?’

Without protest - in fact, without reacting at all - Matt followed me up to my attic room. That put two clear storeys between us and Pen: enough so that she wouldn’t be disturbed by raised voices or colourful language.