Shooting in the Dark

but he stuck to the point. ‘Did you see who took the bike?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t even that good a bike. Mum bought it second-hand before she... you know, did a bunk. I thought people only stole good bikes.’
    ‘Where did you leave it?’
    ‘There’s an alley behind the houses. I always leave it there when I do that part of the street. Saves me lugging it along, ’cause I’ve got to come back the same way. There’s old Mrs Hamson down at the bottom what gives me a drink and a biscuit, and I sat with her for a few minutes. When I got back it was gone.’
    ‘Can you give me a description of the bike?’
    ‘Yeah, it was a wreck,’ said Clive, which was funny enough to double him up.
    ‘It was a green Raleigh,’ said Christine, ignoring him. ‘Mountain bike...’
    ‘Hybrid,’ said Clive.
    ‘... battered and dirty,’ continued Christine. ‘It had a Mickey Mouse bell, and the chain was rusty, and there was fifteen gears but you could only get five. And Mum had gouged my initials in the saddle, CAM. Christine Anna-belle Moxey. I told the police all this when I reported it.
    They gave me a crime number so I could get insurance if we were insured.’
    ID jotted it down in his notebook. ‘I’ll keep my eyes open for it,’ he said. He handed her his business card, the one with Sam Turner Investigations on it. He scribbled his own address and telephone number on the back. ‘But do me a favour, will you? If the police find it, or if you get it back some other way, will you give me a ring? It might help us catch the guy we’re looking for.’
    ‘You gonna pay me for info?’
    JD gave her a twenty. ‘There could be more,’ he said. ‘If you ever find out who stole it.’
    Christine showed him to the door. In the background Clive was still talking about his hero. ‘Brad never played a private eye. He was a cop in Seven, but he never played a private eye. You know why that is?’
    Christine came with a wide smile and closed the door. JD turned and walked along the street. He might never discover why Brad had not played a private eye. ‘More sleepless nights,’ he said to himself, ‘worrying about that one.’
     

23
     
    Russell Harvey was shivering. Since Isabel had died the temperature had dropped. Before Isabel the world had been a cold place for Russell, but now she was dead it was frozen.
    That was the one thing. The temperature.
    The other thing was his dog, Emperor. Russell didn’t know how long he’d been in the police cell at Fulford; maybe two days? Whatever, it was far too long to leave Emperor unattended. He’d spoken to the policeman about the dog, the policeman who asked him the same questions over and over again - Superintendent Rossiter - but he couldn’t get a satisfactory answer. What it seemed like to Russell was that if he signed a form saying he’d killed Isabel, then Rossiter would see to the dog.
    The other one, Hardwicke, the sergeant, she thought that kind of behaviour was all right. She smiled whenever her boss spoke. It didn’t matter how cruel he was. Confusing, really, the woman. Crossing and uncrossing her legs all the time. Her face was beautiful until she smiled.
    Isabel had been the opposite of that. Isabel’s face was not really beautiful at all. But when she smiled it lit up. When Isabel glowed like a spiritual fire she was more beautiful than anything Russell had seen.
    It was like the text-cards that he got at Sunday school when he was a small boy. They had pictures of Jesus or Mary and the angels, and the figures were all suffused with that same warm glow. Made you feel good. Made you feel beyond yourself, out of the mire of schoolteachers and policemen and the street. What they did, those text-cards, they made you realize that there was a whole different world somewhere else, where possibilities abounded. A place where it was never cold and you didn’t have to worry about where the next meal was coming from. The thought of money or fags wasn’t part of the equation. You were free, you were free of everything that hung you up here.
    The cell was blue, blue walls and ceiling, and there was a smell of paint, as though it had been done recently. Must’ve been, he thought, because there was no graffiti on the walls. They could have had it painted especially for him, but he doubted it. They wouldn’t go to all that trouble.
    The policemen walked like heroes. That was because of the uniform. When people put uniforms on it gives them