Shooting in the Dark

question?’
    JD walked over to the front door and looked into the street. It was then that he noticed the slip of paper in the letterbox. The PC guarding the door had a moustache that wanted to emulate Emiliano Zapata’s, but was severely hampered by police regulations. He gave JD a cop stare for a full minute, weighing up the possibilities of JD doing a runner. JD moved his weight from one foot to the other and then back again several times. He nodded at the PC, even attempted a smile, but the cop was having none of it.
    When he looked away, surveying the rest of his domain, JD concentrated on getting on to his blind side, using his body to block the cop’s view of the letterbox. Slowly, he eased the slip of paper out and put it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Might be nothing, of course. But then again, as Sam would say, you never know when the breaks are coming.
    There were two scenes of crime in this house. One was official and high profile and surrounded itself with science and team-work. And the other was unofficial and surreptitious and good at keeping its eyes open and looking for the main chance.
     
    ‘Don’t leave town.’ That’s what Detective Superintendent Rossiter told them when they’d finished giving their statements. ‘Don’t leave town.’ He said it without a hint of irony, three flat syllables delivered in that standard officious manner that seems to affect all CID officers.
    ‘Where does he think we’re gonna go?’ Janet asked when they were on the street. ‘I’ve got a baby here, a husband back home. All my friends are here. I’m not likely to go on a runner to Brazil, wherever it is criminals are supposed to go.’
    JD’s laugh was whipped away by the wind. ‘We’re under house arrest,’ he said. ‘I expect we’re the main suspects.’ He reached his finger towards Echo’s hand in the pram, and she grasped it for a moment. ‘But I can’t stay in York. Saturday I’m out of here.’
    Janet stopped and looked at him. ‘Where are you going? They’ll arrest you if you do that.’
    ‘Can’t be helped,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a choice about it. Leeds are at home to West Ham.’
    Janet gave him her natural born killer look. ‘Jesus, JD, what’s that? A joke? That woman in there might’ve been killed. She’s stuck in the hospital, Sam’s got himself arrested, the police’ve been using both of us like doormats, and you’re telling football jokes.’
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got this pathologically persisting adolescence. It’s a joke I was going to put in the new novel. I wanted to hear what it sounds like.’
    ‘A book.’ There was real anger sparking away inside her. Her eyes were like black gems, the flash of them capable of cutting deep. ‘I just don’t find it funny in the circumstances. You can go past Go, collect your two hundred pounds on the way, but don’t come with no more funnies.’ Nothing was more calculated to undermine JD’s confidence than a woman’s wrath. His failures with the female sex were legendary and they were all recalled instantly, en bloc. Dozens of them descended on him, their voices trilling, their rounded bodies vibrating with confused anger. Then the vision died in a wheeze. ‘I found this in the letterbox,’ he said, handing her the slip of paper. Janet took it from him. ‘What letterbox?’
    ‘Back at the house, Angeles Falco’s letterbox. I stole it.’ Janet read aloud: ‘To the Householder. On Tuesday evening my bicycle was stolen while I was delivering newspapers in this street. If it turns up, or anyone can help with evidence, please contact me at the following address.’ The note was signed Christine Moxey, and an address was given on Bishopthorpe Road. ‘That’s last night, when Sam saw someone in her garden.’
    ‘Yes, and the guy made his getaway on a bike.’
     
    Janet went to the hospital to enquire about Angeles, and to see if she could help Sam not get himself arrested. JD drove to the address on Bishopthorpe Road and found himself at the door of a badly neglected house with fraying curtains and waist-high nettles in the front garden. The roof gutters thought they were window boxes and sported a screen of wispy plants. A long time ago a window in one of the bedrooms had been broken and covered with a sheet of plywood. The plywood had now buckled with exposure to the weather and some accidental chemical exchange had coloured it various shades of blue.
    A thin-faced young man in a