The wind picked up, swirled in the eaves and sent a high wail down the chimney, banked around and came rushing through the sitting room like a long cold ghost train. Daniel put out his cigarette, went upstairs-footsteps overhead, a long scraping noise, a thump-and came back with a scarred, jagged-edged piece of wood, maybe part of an old headboard. Abby held it for him while he hammered it into place over the broken window, the hammer blows echoing harshly through the house and outwards into the night.
Frank got there fast, the next morning; I got the feeling he’d been waiting by the phone with his car keys in his hand since dawn, ready to leap into action the second we made the call. He brought Doherty with him, to sit in the kitchen and make sure no one eavesdropped while Frank took our statements, one by one, in the sitting room. Doherty looked fascinated; he couldn’t stop gawping, at the high ceilings, the patches of half-stripped wallpaper, the four of them in their spotless old-fashioned clothes, me. He shouldn’t even have been there. This was Sam’s line of investigation, plus Sam would have been out to the house like a shot if he’d had any idea that I’d been in a fight. Frank hadn’t told him. I was very glad I wasn’t going to be in the incident room when this one came out.
The others did beautifully. Their polished façade had gone up as soon as we heard tires on the drive, but it was a subtly different version from the one they used in college: less chilly, more engaging, a perfect balance between shocked victims and courteous hosts. Abby poured the tea and set out a carefully arranged plate of biscuits, Daniel brought an extra chair into the kitchen for Doherty; Rafe made self-deprecating jokes about his black eye. I was starting to get a taste of what the interviews must have been like, after Lexie died, and why they had driven Frank quite so far up the wall.
He started with me. “So,” he said, when the sitting-room door shut behind us and the voices in the kitchen faded to a pleasant, muffled blur. “You got to see some action at last.”
“And about time,” I said. I was pulling up straight chairs to the card table, but Frank shook his head and dropped onto the sofa, waved me to an armchair.
“Nah, let’s keep this cozy. You in one piece?”
“The nasty man’s face ruined my manicure, but I’ll survive.” I fished in the pocket of my combats and pulled out a crumpled handful of notebook pages. “I wrote it up last night, in bed. Before anything could go fuzzy.”
Frank sipped his tea and read, taking his time. “Good,” he said finally, pocketing the pages. “That’s nice and clear, or as clear as we’re going to get with that kind of chaos.” He put down his tea, found his own notebook and clicked his pen ready. “Could you ID the guy?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see his face. Too dark.”
“It might’ve been an idea to bring a torch.”
“There wasn’t time. If I’d messed about looking for torches, he’d have been well gone. You don’t need an ID, anyway. Just look for the guy with two black eyes.”
“Ah,” Frank said thoughtfully, nodding, “the fight. Of course. We’ll get back to that in a minute. Just in case our boy claims he got his bruises falling downstairs, though, it would be useful to have some kind of corroborating description.”
“I can only go on the feel of him,” I said. “Assuming this was one of Sam’s boys, Bannon’s definitely out: he’s way too chunky. This guy was wiry. Not very tall, but strong. I don’t think it was McArdle, either; my hand came down straight on this guy’s face at one stage, and I didn’t feel any facial hair, just stubble. McArdle’s beardy.”
“That he is,” Frank said, making a leisurely note. “That he is. So your vote goes to Naylor?”
“He’d fit. Right height, right build, right hair.”
“That’ll have to do. We take what we can get.” He examined the page of his notebook thoughtfully, tapping his pen against his teeth. “Speaking of which,” he said. “When you three went galloping off to fight for the cause, what did Danny Boy bring along?”
I was ready for this one. “Screwdriver,” I said. “I didn’t see him pick it up, but I left the room before he did. He had the tool kit out on the table.”
“Because he and Rafe were cleaning Uncle Simon’s gun. What kind of gun, by the way?”
“A Webley, early World War One issue. It’s pretty beaten-up and rusty and all, but it’s still a beauty. You’d love it.”
“No doubt I would,” Frank said amiably, making a little note. “With any luck I’ll get a look at it, sometime. So Daniel’s grabbing for a weapon in a big hurry, and there’s a gun in front of him, but instead he goes for a screwdriver?”
“An unloaded, broken-open gun with the grips off. And I don’t get the sense he knows his way around guns. Even if he didn’t bother with the grips, it would’ve taken him a minute to sort it out.” The sound of someone loading a revolver is unmistakable but small, and I had been across the room from Rafe when he did it; what with the music, there was a decent chance the mike hadn’t picked it up.
