Bradfield sat on the floral-covered sofa and Jane in the wing chair her father always used. He got out a pack of cigarettes, put one in his mouth, flicked open his silver Zippo lighter and was about to strike the flint wheel when he hesitated, gesturing to ask if it was all right to light up.
‘Please do, I’ll fetch an ashtray.’
She placed it on the arm of the sofa and he flicked his ash into it.
‘There’s something about you that’s different: your teeth look really nice and shiny white.’ He paused as he looked at her. She felt annoyed, closed her lips and wondered what he was inferring.
‘It’s make-up, you’re wearing make-up, right?’
Jane nodded and then shrugged and swung her hair away from her face.
‘Chief bridesmaid, so I had to look my best.’
‘Right, right, I understand,’ he said.
Jane could contain herself no longer. ‘Can I ask why you are here, sir? Is it something to do with DS Gibbs?’
‘Sadly it is, yes.’
‘Is he OK?’ Jane asked, worried that something bad had happened to him.
‘Yeah, he’s fine physically – I’ve just left him after we had a few beers. I wasn’t going to speak with you until morning, but I thought it would be best to do it in private, away from all the prying eyes and ears at the station.’
As he dragged on his cigarette Jane couldn’t think what was so important and curled her legs beneath her on the big chair.
Bradfield leaned forward.
‘We grilled Terry O’Duncie yesterday and he started to open up a bit, then refused to say anything more until he’d spoken to a solicitor. We’d denied him any contact or a phone call on the grounds we thought he might tip off Dwayne Clark, who it seems has done a runner. He spent the night in the cells but the idiot late-shift duty sergeant forgot to mark up the sheet and tell the night shift he wasn’t allowed any calls.’
‘Sergeant Harris was late shift,’ Jane said, trying hard not to sound pleased that Harris had messed up.
He nodded and told Jane that the ‘cock-up’ by Harris allowed O’Duncie to phone a bent solicitor called Cato Stonex who represented a lot of big drug dealers and got paid large sums of money to help them make up false defences. It transpired that O’Duncie told Stonex that he had been assaulted by DS Gibbs and also alleged that some of his money had been stolen.
‘It’s only his word against yours and DS Gibbs’s though?’
‘Not quite, Cato Stonex got a doctor in to see O’Duncie, and he diagnosed a recently broken nose. Stonex then went straight round the squat and took statements from a number of people who said that his ruddy nose was fine until we visited him and they heard us threatening him. Worse still is the young girl who was in bed with him says she saw Spence punch O’Duncie for no reason.’
‘That can’t be true – I was taking her downstairs,’ Jane said guardedly.
‘Exactly and that’s very important. Spence did nothing more than accidentally trip O’Duncie up as he tried to escape, which caused him to stumble and break his nose on the edge of the bedroom door.’
Bradfield stubbed out the cigarette and looked towards the kitchen area. ‘I wouldn’t mind that whisky now, straight with ice, please.’
Jane got up and went to the cabinet, still unsure exactly why Bradfield had come to see her. She removed a cut-glass tumbler and poured a good measure of whisky before adding two ice cubes from the fridge.
‘Spence and me wanted to interview O’Duncie again today,’ Bradfield said as she handed him his whisky and curled up again in the chair. ‘But his prick of a lawyer Stonex alleged his client had been seriously assaulted and some of his seized money stolen. The rubber heelers are now investigating and wouldn’t let us interview O’Duncie until they spoke with him.’
‘Sorry, who are the rubber heelers?’
‘A10 department, set up by the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark. So-called because you can’t hear them coming. They’re a group of specially selected officers from uniform and detective branches brought together to investigate and stamp out corruption in the CID. They wanted to know how much money was in O’Duncie’s wardrobe and who counted it, so obviously I had to tell them you did and they wanted to see your paperwork and property-store invoice for the amount.’
Jane looked worried. ‘There wasn’t any missing, was there?’ she asked nervously.
‘That’s the problem: they couldn’t find your list in the investigation files, or a property-store invoice, so I need to know where they are and how much money was there.’
Jane turned pale. ‘I put the list in the bottom drawer of the desk I was using.’
He took a deep breath and sighed. ‘OK, that’s fine, but where’s the bloody property-store receipt?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘Sergeant Harris might have it as he put the money in the property-store safe… ’
‘I bloody well know it’s in the safe because A10 checked and counted it today. They obviously think someone may have nicked some of it after we returned to the station, that’s why they want your list, to check it against the money in the safe.’
