The Kill Call

looked like, but we knew it would be different.
    It’s strange how the mind works. For me, bits of music used to pop into my head all the time, as if every thought and feeling I had was connected to a tune playing somewhere, like a soundtrack of my life. In 1968, you never knew where you stood with pop music. One week it was the Rolling Stones at the top of the charts, the next week it was bloody Des O’Connor.
    Just thinking about threes reminded me of the Three Degrees, even though I never really liked them. They would have been one of Jimmy’s favourite groups, if he’d lived a bit longer. He was mad on the Supremes and the Four Tops, all that Tamla stuff. I thought of him often in the months after it happened, the fact that he never heard the Supremes sing ‘Love Child’, and completely missed ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’. He died too young. We heard that a lot, in those days.
    No, me and Jimmy saw eye to eye on a lot of things, but I never got into Motown myself. Give me the Stones any day of the week. ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ had come out just about then. Now, that was music. With half a chance, I’d like to have turned it up loud in that hole, let it bounce off those bloody concrete walls until my ears ached. It’s a gas, gas, gas .
    But not down there, not while the mad people ran the world. And Les would never have let me do it, anyway. Because Les was number one.
    For hours on end, it seemed my world revolved around the pee pot and the pump. Bloody strange way to save the world, I always thought. The stink of Elsan and Glitto, the bad air you had to breathe until you got back up into the daylight. Why some blokes put up with it, I couldn’t tell you.
    Me, I just reckoned I was doing something for my family, and for my village. But, you know what? I was never too sure what I would have done, if the call had ever come for real.
    And I was never sure – not really sure – whether I was capable of killing a man.

25
     
     
    Friday
    When she arrived at West Street next morning, Fry found Murfin motionless at his desk, staring into space.
    ‘Watch it, Gavin. If you’re not careful, they’ll replace you with one of those cardboard policemen.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘And it might even be an improvement.’
    Fry knew she didn’t need to explain what she meant. A few months ago, life-size cardboard police officers had been placed at businesses across the division in a bid to deter shoplifters. Ten cardboard cut-outs of a beat officer. According to the subsequent press releases, the cut-outs had reduced the number of reported thefts from stores, thieves thinking at first glance that the image was a real officer. It had become part of office lore that it was so easy to be confused.
    Cooper laughed. ‘I think you’re safe, Gavin. You know the Chief Super said cardboard cut-outs can never replace real officers.’
    ‘Well, that’s what he told the press.’
    Fry recalled that the senior management team were in a meeting again this morning. She imagined them talking about optimizing performance outcomes at the point of delivery. There must be something about becoming a senior manager that destroyed your sense of irony. That was the only reason Gavin Murfin got away with what he did.
    She turned to the files on her desk. Still no news of Michael Clay’s whereabouts. He certainly hadn’t returned her calls, but that would have been too much to hope for. It was probably time to step up the efforts to find him. Her elusive witness was starting to look downright suspicious.
    So what else was there? Horse Watch had sent a list of the latest horse thefts in their area. The thefts went back a few weeks, but there weren’t too many of them. Lucky, because all the owners would have to be spoken to.
    Fry surveyed her team. Come to think of it, Murfin had some of the characteristics of a horse, like falling asleep standing up.
    And then there was the envelope full of enhanced photographs from the lab. These should be the shots of the depressed fracture to Patrick Rawson’s head.
    Fry took the photographs out of their envelope and glanced at the first one. Patrick Rawson’s skull, shaved and cleaned under bright laboratory lighting. The flash had cast just the right amount of shadow and perspective on the head injury, outlining the depression in the bone as if it had been a crater on the Moon.
    Apart from one obliterated and smashed end, the bloodied sides of the depression formed a distinct pattern,