Stuart Pawson - Deadly Friends

I went through into the kitchen and listened to the rest of it while I washed up. The state of Buxton's flat had strengthened my resolve to be tidier.

The SOCO was watching the football match on a little portable when I walked into his office in City HQ. "Who's winning?" I asked.

"They are, two-nil," he replied, switching it off. He ambled over to a lab table under the window and retrieved a plastic bag containing a pair of brown leather gloves. Handing them to me, he said: "Men's, large size, relatively new. Lining worn and leather stretched near base of right index finger, suggesting they have been worn over a large ring. Sadly, they'd been lying in shallow water for several hours and it rained quite heavily through the night. That would be about the equivalent of a colour fast cotton cycle in a washing machine. I've dried them out very carefully and sprayed them with reagent, but there's no trace of blood. We've taken fibre samples from inside, which don't mean anything at the moment, and scrapings from the outside."

Nigel hadn't asked Buxton about the gloves because he hadn't known about them. If they were his, we needed forensic evidence to link Samantha to them. If he said they weren't his, we'd then need our brainy friends to link him to the gloves.

"And the dinner jacket and shirt?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Sorry. I'll keep looking, but what marks I've found are probably ketchup and gravy stains."

"Fair enough," I said, disappointed. "Thanks for staying over. Can I take these?" I held up the gloves.

"We've done all we can," the SOCO replied. "I'll send the samples to Weatherton for microscopic examination."

"Right, cheers." Their electron microscope can see the fluff in a virus's navel, and make individual blood cells look as big as dustbin lids.

As soon as I walked into Heckley nick the duty sergeant collared me.

"Your prisoner's grumbling," he said, 'and his solicitor gave us hell before he left."

"Give me ten minutes," I replied, 'then we'll let him go."

I ran upstairs and read the reports about the search of his flat.

They'd found a few porn magazines but nothing you wouldn't find at most all-male establishments. Tearing out and saving the page three girls was peculiar, and the pair of combat knives told us a lot about the man. Tucked in the back of a drawer they'd found an arm band with a swastika on it.

"Gimme the keys," I said to the custody sergeant when I went back downstairs, 'and lock up your wimminfolk. Let's get him off the premises."

He was sitting on the bunk with his head in his hands, looking up as I raised the flap in the door.

"God, you look rough," I told him.

"What do you fuckin' expect?" he snapped back at me.

"Are these your gloves?" I asked when I was inside. I took them from the plastic bag and threw them towards him. He caught one and the other fell to the floor.

"Never seen 'em before," he said.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

"Try them on for size."

He opened the neck of the glove he'd caught and started to push his fingers into it.

"Oh no!" he declared, and hurled the glove back at me. "I'm not trying it on. You're not fuckin' fitting me up like that."

"Please yourself," I told him. "C'mon, you can go." We signed him out and returned his property. I didn't offer him a lift home.

There wasn't enough daylight left to do anything in the garden, which was all the excuse I needed. I had a shave and shower and settled in my favourite chair, inevitable mug of tea nearby. It grew dark around me. It's a time I usually enjoy, the gathering gloom emphasising the silence, the shadows, the womb-like comfort.

Trouble was, I had too much on my mind. For a start, I was hungry, but didn't feel like cooking. Then there was Darryl. We'd get him, one day, but how many more people would he hurt before we did? And on Monday it was back to the murder hunt. Somebody was out there who put a gun to the head of a highly respected doctor and blew him to kingdom come. But most of all, more than all these, was my little problem with Annabelle and Zorba the Greek.

The meal at the Wool Exchange had been a disaster. Our relationship was a long catalogue of broken dates, late arrivals and hurried meals.

I tried to involve her in the job, but there's a limit to how far you can do that. I could retire in less than two years, but wasn't sure if I could hold on to her that long. I put the light on and found my book of telephone numbers.

Eric Dobson used to be a motorcycle policeman. He retired early and started his own business, Merlin Couriers. I designed his logo and painted his first van. We've kept in touch. I rang the office first but he didn't answer. If he had, I'd probably have hung up. I didn't want a job that would require me at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. He was at home.

"Hello, Charlie," he said. "Ringing up for a job?"

"Yes," I told him.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Why? What have you done?"

There is a general expectancy among people who know me that one day I'll 'do something'. "Nothing," I told him. "I'm just sick of it. If I leave, what's the chances of finding a simple and undemanding occupation to tide me over?"

"Not with us five minutes and already you're after my job," he replied in a mock Jewish accent. "What are you like on a six-fifty Kawasaki?"

"Cold and scared."

"It'll have to be the Transit then. Is this a firm enquiry or just speculation, Charlie? You haven't been caught with the Chief Constable's wife, have you?"

"Have you seen her? He'd probably recommend me for a QPM. I might set the wheels in motion, see if they can do without me. I don't mind the job, but it's mucking up my personal life, and at my age Tell me about it. We could always fit you in, Charlie. Fact is, if you wanted to invest some money, we could expand a little. What I need is a depot on the outskirts of London. I could treble my business overnight if there was someone down there I could trust. You'd be just the man. How about that, then? Five minutes ago you were staring at unemployment, and now you're a partner in a thriving courier business.

Can't be bad."

"Sounds interesting, Eric. I'll think about it and have a word with pay section on Monday."

We chatted a while and some of his enthusiasm transferred to me. The weather forecast had said that tomorrow was going to be fine and clear.

I found another number and booked myself into a guest house in Keswick for the night. Three hours later I was eating rabbit pie in a Lake District pub, my down jacket over the back of the chair and hiking boots on my feet.

Sunday morning I had the compulsory full English and walked over Helvellyn and Striding Edge. There was a thin covering of snow on the hilltops and the air froze the cilia in your nostrils as you breathed it, feeling like shards of broken glass being stuffed up your nose. I screwed my eyes into pinholes against the glare and absorbed the wonder of it all. There's a well-known conundrum about noise. Does a sound exist if there's nobody to hear it? I feel the same about beauty. Is beauty wasted if you've nobody to share it with? I think it is. I ate my bar of mint cake and strode off downhill.

Weekdays, I do murders. I told Mad Maggie about the weekend's adventures with Darryl and told her to keep an eye on things. If forensic couldn't come up with anything and Samantha didn't make a complaint we'd done all we could. I asked Mr. Wood if he could join us and pulled a few chairs around the white board in the main CID office. Sparky re-drew the chart, bigger and with more colours. I was peeved. I'd wanted to do it.

"Right, Dave," I said as the super joined us. "You're on your feet so you might as well do the honours." I rocked my chair back until it was leaning against the top of a radiator. After a few minutes I could feel the heat striking through my shirt.