Stuart Pawson - Deadly Friends

"She said you went up into the bathroom and tried the shower, where Buxton says it happened."

My elbows were on the chair arms, my fingertips pressed against their opposites in front of my face. I drummed them together in a rhythm that Dave Brubeck never mastered. "What are you trying to say, Maggie?" I whispered. "What are you implying?"

"I don't know, Charlie."

"If you're suggesting that I went round there in the hope of having sex with Mrs. Saunders, I want you to leave, now. Make a formal complaint, if you want, but leave."

"I tried to tell her that you'd have a good reason for what you did, Charlie. I said you were a person who cared, like nobody else I know, but you frightened her. I told her that if she wanted to make a complaint about you, that I couldn't handle it. There was a procedure … It'd have to be someone higher up the ladder. But I assured her she was wrong, she'd misunderstood. I offered to have a quiet word with you, and she agreed."

"So that's what this is: a quiet word?"

"It looks as if I've made a balls of it."

I shook my head. "No, you haven't. I'm grateful for you coming, and I'm sorry if I upset Mrs. Saunders that was the last thing I wanted.

But I've a job to do. If she's like this after I visit her, how will she be on the stand, with Buxton's brief implying that she's every kind of slag under the sun?"

"Do you think it will come to that? Go to court?"

I looked across at her. "Trust me, Maggie," I said. "Trust me."

"OK," she replied. "That's good enough for me."

I walked her to her car. Her husband, Tony, was sitting in the driver's seat. She'd brought backup. "Hello, Tone," I said.

"Hi, Charlie. All sorted out?"

"I think so."

I waved them away and slinked back inside, shivering with cold. I closed the door and leaned against it. Not you, Maggie, I thought.

Don't you desert me, too.

I told Nigel to have the first team assembled in my office for when I returned from seeing Mr. Wood. I declined a coffee with the super on the grounds that I was busy and might have something for him later, and as soon as he was updated on the Heckley crime wave actually, it's more of a strong tide I dashed back downstairs.

Sparky was extolling the merits of his Ford Escort to Nigel, who's been dreaming about something sleek and sporty for as long as I've known him. Maggie was sitting apart from them, sipping coffee and looking at a back number of the Police Review.

"It's an old man's car," I declared, taking my jacket off and hanging it behind the door.

"Just what I said," Nigel agreed.

"Some old men are very discriminating," Sparky argued.

"Never mind that," I said. "Pin back your ears and listen. This morning I propose to arrest Darryl Buxton and interview him on tape and video. I think we can break his story about having it away in the shower."

"Yes!" Maggie exclaimed, thumping the magazine on the table and knocking over her polystyrene coffee cup. A river of khaki liquid shot across my desk and vanished under a pile of papers.

We all jumped up and started pulling tissues and hankies from the recesses of our clothing. Nigel dashed out and came back with a roll of paper to welling No damage was done and when everything was dry we resumed our seats.

"Sorry, Boss," Maggie said. "Put it down to excitement."

"I suppose it's better than drinking the stuff," I replied. "Now listen. This is what's happening. Dave and myself will arrest Buxton and take him to City HQ. We will interview him there."

Maggie opened her mouth to object, her eyes wide with disappointment, or indignation. I turned to her. "It's not how you think," I told her. "I know you've been in on this case from the beginning, and that you were present at the initial interview, but I believe it will be more productive if Dave and myself conduct this one." She didn't look convinced. "Darryl Buxton is a misogynist," I explained. "He hates women because, deep down, he's scared of them. When it's one-to-one, and he's had a few drinks, it all comes to the surface and he can bully them, but in other circumstances he's lost. You would intimidate him, Maggie, in a situation where he couldn't fight back, so I'd prefer it to be an all-male affair."

Sparky turned to her. "You are a very intimidating lady, Maggie," he confirmed. "I've often remarked on how intimidating you are. Isn't that so, Nigel?"

"Often, David," Nigel agreed, adding: "Nice intimidating, though."

"That's enough," I told them. "I want to play it all-the-lads-together, Maggie. Get him talking, trying to impress us.

Appeal to his machismo. Dave and me are the best two to pull it off."

She gave me a nod of understanding and I left it at that.

"So what's changed?" Nigel asked. "What do we know today that we didn't know last week?"

I drummed my fingers on the desk. "Don't ask," I said. "If it works, Dave will tell you all about what a superb piece of detective work it was. If it doesn't, it will be consigned to the U-bend of CID history, and Buggerlugs here will be sworn to silence under threat of me telling you all about the time he went to interview a window dresser who turned out to be…"

"All right! All right!" Dave interrupted. "I get the message."

"In that case," I said, 'let's go. If you need us, we'll be at City HQ." I pulled the package from Wetherton lab out of my bottom drawer and unhooked my jacket.

As we drove into Heckley High Street Sparky said: "You'd better tell me all about it."

"Right," I replied, wondering how to begin. We were in my car. I filtered into the right hand lane at the traffic lights and said: "Did you do the homework I set, last night?"

"No," he answered. "The wife said: "Tell that pervert Priest to get his vicarious kicks through someone else," or something like that."

"Oh. You weren't supposed to tell her it was my idea."

"Sorry. You didn't make that clear."

"So now I'm in your Shirley's bad books?"

"No, not any more."

"How's that?"

"Well, thinking about it must have put her in the mood. This morning she said: "Tell Charlie thanks."

"Great. Anytime."

"So what's it all about?"

I stopped at a pelican crossing as an elderly couple hobbled across, the odds against them dying that day reduced to single figures until they were safely on the pavement at the other side. I moved off again and began to tell him about my own adventures in the shower.

We were parked in the back street behind Homes 4U by the time I finished my story. Buxton's Mondeo was in its usual spot. Sparky grinned and nodded his approval. "Sounds good to me," he confirmed.

"In that case," I said, 'let's get on with it."

We walked through the alley into the front street and entered the shop.

A girl of about sixteen was behind the counter, reading something on her lap and chewing gum at the same time. One of the brighter ones.

She looked up at us and smiled without interrupting the chewing motion.

Her hair was straight and black, reaching down to her shoulders; her lipstick was white and her eyelashes wouldn't have looked out of place on a pole, poking from a chimney. I'd seen her before she did Puff the Magic Dragon at the Isle of Wight.

We both showed her our IDs. "We're police, love," I said, quietly. "Is Mr. Buxton upstairs?"

"Er, D-Darryl?" she stuttered. "Y-yes, he's in. Sh-shall I ring him, tell him you're here?"

I put my hand over the phone. "No, not yet. How long have you worked here?"

"J-just since Wednesday. Three days."

"How long have you known Darryl?"

"The same. W-we were in a pub, me and some mates. He started chatting to us, and said he was looking for a secretary. I was unemployed…"

She shrugged her shoulders to finish off the story.