Abacus

pushed them onto her wrists to gain control of the situation, before leading her away. A paralysed Randall trailed slowly behind, a wrecked man. As he reached the garden, he could not get the thought of the human whip out of his mind as he knelt down, moved his tie to the side and vomited in a planter box. Reaching for the garden hose, he rinsed out his mouth and spat the residue from his mouth into the garden bed. He remained there, crouched down, for a few minutes while the others waited in the car for him.
    The drive back to the station with the offender in the back was a very quiet one. Randall knew he owed Jesse an explanation. He wanted desperately to tell him what had happened, but would have to wait for a quiet moment to do so. The reality was that Randall was a victim of circumstance, it could have happened to anyone but it didn’t make it any more palatable.
    Now that the detectives were on a roll, they couldn’t stop. There was more work to be done, and Peter Hoskings was the next to be rounded up.
    Back at the station, Randall looked into the bathroom mirror as he splashed water on his face in an attempt to wash away the terrible thoughts. It didn’t help. With the refusal of Cheung to be interviewed and her subsequent charging out of the way, the job was only half done. Hoskings needed to be interviewed and Randall needed to focus. After wiping his face with a towel, he looked into the mirror and slapped his face. The shock of the slap reprogrammed him. He had now moved on. All was forgotten and he was now ready to continue.
    * * *
    The construction site was a hive of activity. As they approached on foot, they caught sight of the top of Hosking’s head as he dug a trench on the left hand side of the property.
    Stopping at the chain wire safety fence, Jesse called out, “Peter, we need to speak.”
    Hoskings looked up from the ditch, and upon seeing the police, curse d. With shovel in hand, he walked over slowly as the other tradesmen looked on. From their interest, they all knew the jacks had arrived. Reaching the fence, he put the shovel down and held onto the fence by poking his fingers through. The sight of him behind chain wire fence looked fitting. “How can I help you, guys?” he asked, wiping the sweat from his brow.
    “We’re here to take you in,” Jesse said directly.
    “What for? I haven’t done anything,” he protested.
    “We know about the unit , Peter. Now this can be easy, or you can make it hard for yourself, your choice,” Randall said firmly.
    Hoskings looked over his shoulder towards the site supervisor. “I’ve got to go for a while, Brad. Shouldn’t be too long, okay?” The site supervisor nodded. The detectives watched as Hoskings walked over to the house, collected his things and walked dejectedly around the fence. He would have known he wouldn’t be returning.
    * * *
    Hoskings looked quickly up at the two detectives sitting opposite, then fixed his stare back down to his fidgeting hands. The entire room now stunk of his sweat.
    “Well , the ball is firmly in your court,” Randall said, looking down at his hands. Hoskings took a deep breath and sighed, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Randall glanced across at Jesse before once again looking at the prisoner. “She says you did it, you know. She says you were really jealous of her ex, so you shot him. Then you asked her to help you get rid of the body.” Randall stopped to gauge a reaction, as Hoskings remained silent. Randall could see that he was weighing up his options. “She says she knows nothing about guns, definitely doesn’t know how to shoot one, or load one, for that matter. She says that you love guns, have them at home and love shooting them.”
    Randall glanced over at Jesse, it was time for a change. “From our point of view,” Jesse said slowly and deliberately, “it doesn’t look good for you. Have your say now, because she is hanging you out to dry.” Jesse paused. “Do you really want to do twenty-five years for this crazy sheila? If you do, she must be the fuck of the century,” he said, quickly glancing at Randall with a hint of a smirk. There was another drawn-out silence.
    “Al l right,” Hoskings said, looking up at Randall. “I’ll tell you what happened, but I didn’t kill him. I helped clean up her mess, but it wasn’t me that killed him. It was that mad bitch.”
    “It is very important that you are truthful in what you say, Peter,” Randall said calmly.