John Harvey - Cutting Edge

His father had come back in from doing something to his bike, the chain slipping, something like that, and Calvin had asked him when they were going to get some decent jam again, out-of-date Oxford marmalade there was never anything wrong with that, what was he going to do with twenty-eight pounds of poisonous artificial sweetener, where was the rest of the paper?

His dad had mumbled something and rinsed his hands under the tap, wiped them on a tea towel and gone back outside to get them all oily again.

Calvin had found the missing front page in the bin under the sink, tea leaves and what hadn’t been eaten of the tinned tomatoes wrapped inside it. Stained with a sort of dark orange, he’d read the headline: NEW HOSPITAL ALERT, the first few lines about somebody being arrested in the grounds, helping the police with their inquiries.

One of Calvin’s friends had helped the police with their inquiries. He’d been off work for six weeks and lost his job, bruises consistent with falling down a flight of steps his parents had been told. Bruises consistent with being called a black bastard and out on his own with a holdall at one in the morning, that was more like it.

Calvin had pushed the paper back down into the bin and headed off to his room. He was fast running out of dope and just a quick hit listening to some music, that would set him up for the day, get out on the streets and score some more.

Skelton and Resnick were in the corridor, trying to ignore the phones that were ringing everywhere, footsteps, the rise and fall of voices. Graham Millington passed between them with a murmured excuse me , a man in a sense of dazed elation: twelve dozen cartons of cigarettes traceable to two different robberies and at that moment the magistrate was issuing a warrant to search a lock-up in Bulwell.

“Forensic have checked every print in the girl’s room,” Skelton was saying. “Nothing that doesn’t come from the girl herself.”

“Still hoping for something from the university, sir. Someone must have seen them together.”

“If they were.”

“Apart, then. Carew admits he was there; the girl’s diary suggests she was. We’ve got two officers sitting there in the bar interviewing people and so far no definite sighting of either of them. Might have been her, might have been him, all of that.”

“Ms. Olds has been wearing out the carpet to my door, Charlie.”

“Mine, too, sir.”

“We need a break on this and soon.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was Lynn Kellogg who remembered something the nurse, Sarah Leonard, had said while being interviewed. The first time he spoke to me, Sarah had said, meaning Carew, I was walking home and he pulled over in his car, asked if I wanted a lift. One of those sports jobs, I can’t tell one from another. Lynn could see the car clearly in her mind’s eye, parked higher up the street and on the opposite side of the road from the house where Carew lived. She had thought nothing of it.

She needed written authorization and with Resnick back in the interview room she went straight to Skelton and got it within minutes, neat and precise and with his blessing. Her heart seemed to be alternately pumping faster and hardly functioning at all when she drew up alongside Carew’s car and got out. There were a couple of medical textbooks on the back seat, a towel and an empty Diet Lilt can on the floor; as far as she could see only maps and some old Mars Bar wrappings at the front. The boot was locked and it took her an age to find a key that would fit. Squash racquet, tennis racquet, a pair of sports shoes, a can of Duckhams Multigrade, a sweatband, a Ruccanor sports bag with a white sports shirt stuffed down through the top. Lynn gingerly removed the shirt and slid the zip back.

Beneath a jock strap and a single white sock with blue and red bands at the top, a slim metal rod, silvered, five to six inches long.

“Tea?”

Ian Carew nodded and reached up for the styrofoam cup that Divine was offering him. Instead of letting go immediately, Divine held on and their fingers briefly overlapped, their eyes locked.

“What’s this?” Resnick slapped the implement against the table hard, not waiting for Divine to return to his seat.

Despite herself, Suzanne Olds jumped in her seat.

Hot tea splashed over Carew’s fingers.

“What-oh, Jesus!”

“Hardly an answer.”

“Where did you find that?”

“You tell us.”

Carew shook his head, did his little trick of pretending to get up, settling back down. Trick or nervous habit, Resnick couldn’t be sure. “I don’t believe this,” Carew said to Suzanne Olds.

Suzanne Olds was the only person in the room who, at that moment, didn’t know what the object lying on the table was.

“It’s a scalpel holder,” Resnick said. “If I’m correct.”

Carew shifted his weight on the chair and folded his arms. He’d been offered the chance to shave after several broken hours trying to sleep in the cell, while somebody through the wall alternated between throwing up and blaspheming. He pushed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, then pushed up on the skin around the eyebrows, he was buggered if they were going to get him to say something he didn’t want to say. Couple of smart-arse policemen, think they’re so bloody clever!

“Carew?”

“It’s a scalpel holder, so what?”

“You recognize it? I mean, this one in particular?”

“No, Inspector, I do not. A bit like the police, see one, you’ve seen the lot.”

“Ian,” said Suzanne Olds, warning tone, warning look.

Oh, please, Divine was thinking, please give me just one chance. “And you’ve no idea where we found it?” Resnick persevered. “This particular one.”

“Well,” Carew leaning forward now, a little adrenalin jolting through him, take the high ground, “the only point of asking me is if one of your minions found it somewhere in the house. Maybe even in my clothes. So, yes, all right. It was in the house.”

Resnick shook his head. “The car.”

For a moment, Carew seemed genuinely bemused. “The car? My car? What on earth was it doing in the car?”

“You tell us,” Divine said, easy on the menace.

“Oh,” Carew said. “Right. The car.”

Resnick and Divine exchanged glances. Suzanne Olds uncrossed her legs, turned the page of her notebook; after holding out all this time, there wasn’t a confession coming?

“I nicked it,” Carew said.

“Say again?”

“The scalpel holder. Saw it lying around. At the hospital. I thought, right, that might come in handy, slipped it in my pocket. I think then, yes, that’s what it was, I was driving up to Cripps for a game of squash. Dumped it in the bottom of my sports bag.”

“When was this?”

Carew shrugged. “Oh, whenever we were in theaters, couple of weeks back now, must have been.”

“It’s been in your possession all that time?”

Again a shrug. “I suppose so, yes.”

“Thieve stuff from the hospital often, do you?” Divine asked.

“No.”

“Just scalpels?”

“Scalpel holders.”

“Easy to get the blades though, is it?”

Carew actually smiled. “Easy enough.”

“You haven’t told us why you bothered to take this implement,” Resnick said, “and then, according to your version, leave it at the bottom of your sports bag for two weeks. That is what you’re claiming?”

“Look, I saw it lying around. No use to anyone else. I thought it might come in handy. Then forgot about it.” He looked over at Suzanne Olds for support. “Nothing sinister about that, surely?”

“Come in handy for what?” Resnick asked.

Carew shook his head and made a sound of mock exasperation. “Oh, come on! I wouldn’t have thought that was too difficult to work out, even for you. What am I?”