Thicker Than Water

Gary shook his head in grim wonderment. ‘Are you insane?’ he asked me.

‘Are you?’ I countered equably. ‘Two calls come in from right next door to your crime scene and you come here? Why aren’t you getting a head start on Basquiat the big blonde battering ram, Gary? You’re not letting h c noander steal the case out from under your nose, are you?’

‘I’m fucking homicide, Fix,’ Gary almost yelled. ‘Burglary and random bottlings are as relevant to my working day as minding your own business is to yours. I only came here because I can read the bloody signs by now. I had this vivid sense of you drawing yourself a tall pint of razor blades and getting ready to take the first swig. Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll walk right out of here. Go ahead.’

I considered him in silence. Pen came back into the room carrying a bottle of vinegar and some torn-off lengths of kitchen towel: also a couple more glasses for the booze.

‘Right,’ Coldwood said, tersely. ‘Thought so.’

I wadded up the kitchen towel and applied vinegar to my abraded hands - noticing in the process that the palms were still itching insanely. Edgar and Arthur bated at the intense, pungent smell, but they were usually present when Pen did her witchy conjurations, so they were used to worse. Coldwood, meanwhile, had finally turned to Matt who was still hovering uneasily by the doorway. He gave him a perfunctory handshake.

‘Pleased to meet you, father,’ he said. ‘You’re the oldest, right?’

‘Just Matt,’ said Matt. ‘I’m three years older than Felix, yes.’

‘And where did this evening walk of yours take you, besides the Salisbury Estate?’

Matt thought about this for a long moment. ‘Nowhere else,’ he said at last. ‘I met Felix there. I was already passing - walking - I was in the area. I heard the sound of a fight and intervened.’

‘A fight?’ Coldwood’s expression of exaggerated surprise was straight out of the silent movies. ‘You found Fix involved in a fight? And him so peaceable? No wonder he looks like an elephant wiped its arse with him.’

I dropped the vinegar-soaked kitchen towel onto the table and went for the brandy bottle again, but Pen intercepted me, grabbing hold of my wrists and turning them over so she could view the damage. ‘How do they feel?’ she asked.

‘Painful,’ I said. ‘And mildly pickled.’

‘I’ll make you a sulphur poultice later,’ she promised.

‘Maybe I’ll get lucky and die from gangrene.’

Pretending to be offended, Pen released my wrists and made a gesture that told me I was divorced from her mercy and goodwill. I took the opportunity to pour myself some more liquor. ‘Tell me about the lab data, Gary,’ I said. ‘Have you got any better idea of what happened in that car?’

Coldwood grimaced and didn’t answer. I refreshed his glass and pushed it across the table towards him.

‘Two men,’ I prompted. ‘One of them was Kenny. chemht= The other one wasn’t me.’

‘Two men,’ Coldwood agreed, picking up the glass and taking a solid swig. ‘Two men besides Seddon. All three of them touch the razor at different times - lots of different times, shifting their grip. It looks as though the razor was a major fucking talking point.’

‘Do we know whether it belonged to Kenny or one of these other guys?’

He shook his head. ‘No idea. But if it belonged to one of the killers - I mean, the assailants - then he definitely used it mainly for shaving.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that anyone who knew how to handle a malky wouldn’t have made such a frigging dog’s breakfast of it. To look at the wounds, you’d think Seddon had been done over with a potato peeler. And then switched to a tin-opener for the actual kill. Sorry, father.’

Matt did look a little pale and introspective. He’d sat down at last, on the huge wooden chest in the corner, as far removed from these discussions as he could get. He swallowed audibly. I was going to tell him where the bathroom was, forestalling any further degradation of Pen’s already grimy carpet, but Gary was still talking and I didn’t want to interrupt in case it was hard to get him started again. ‘We’ve got some fibres,’ he said, ‘from the other guys’ clothes. No footprints, though. The car was parked on a slope, with the bias towards the driver’s side. Easy enough to bypass the blood if you go in and out by the passenger door. But with the fingerprints and the other bits and pieces, there’s no margin for error.’

‘So we’ll know these guys when we find them,’ I summarised.

‘Which we is this?’ Gary went and leaned against the fireplace as though putting some distance between himself and me. ‘You don’t work for me any more, Fix. Ruth Basquiat doesn’t see you as part of any we. And she’s I/C on the case now, so you’d better not expect any favours.’

‘Basquiat is—?’ I echoed. This wasn’t good news. ‘When did that happen?’