"Crime pattern analysis, Charlie," Superintendent Gilbert Wood said. "I need figures, not excuses."
"Remind me," I replied. "I've lost the list."
"Percentage increase or decrease in burglary. Percentage increase or decrease in street crime. Percentage increase or decrease in car crime. By this afternoon. I need them for tomorrow."
"Right. It shall be done. Do you want to show that we are a thin blue line manfully struggling against overwhelming odds, or that we are really on top of the job?"
Gilbert looked exasperated. "The truth would be nice, for once. Do you think we could have an accurate picture of what's happening? The idea is to give the public, the newspapers and politicians some inkling of the way trends are heading. It helps formulate government policy, believe it or not. And, as a matter of fact, I'd be quite interested myself."
"The truth is the hardest option,"
"I know, but just bloody do it."
"And it will be meaningless. An informed guess by someone with my experience would give a much clearer picture of the situation."
"Oh no it wouldn't. And when you've done that, get your hair cut. You look like an unemployed violinist."
"Do you know how many mobile phones were stolen in 1982, Gilbert? I'll tell you: none. Not a single one. Or how many cars were stolen in Yorkshire in 1950? You could count them on your fingers. That's at least a ten thousand percent increase. If you don't weight the figures to compensate for other factors, like nobody had a mobile phone a few years ago, the numbers are meaningless. And do you know how much a haircut costs these days? I don't have someone to cut mine, in the kitchen with a tea towel round my neck."
"I'll mention your concerns to the Chief Constable. This afternoon, please?"
"Your wish is my command, mein Fulirer. I'm sticking round the office if I can, in case the result comes through."
"It will. They gave it what — four hours? — yesterday. They'll give it another couple this morning to make it look respectable and qualify for lunch, and then they'll announce their verdict. It's cut and dried, Charlie, believe me."
"God, I hope so. The longer it takes the less promising it looks. How's young Freddie?"
"On the mend, thanks. They took his appendix out and he sounded cheerful when his mum rang him."
Gilbert's daughter's son had been stricken with appendicitis while on a school trip. "Where is he?"
"In the General. Apparently they'd just set off when he started complaining of stomach pains. One of the teachers recognised the symptoms, thought it might be appendicitis, and they took him straight to Casualty."
"Lucky for young Freddie. OK, I'll get those figures."
I skipped down the stairs, singing a happy tune — "I don't want to set the world on fi-yah," and burst into the CID office. Big Dave "Sparky" Sparkington was sitting on the corner of a desk with his jacket hooked over his shoulder, like he was ready to be off somewhere, and Pete Goodfellow was tapping away at a keyboard. Everybody else was out making the streets of Heckley safe for children and little old ladies.
"I just want to start… aflame in your heart."
"Blimey, you sound cheerful."
"But I'm always cheerful. Peter, are those figures available?"
"Won't take a second to run them off."
"Good. Deliver them personally to Mr Wood at about ten to five, please. Loosen your tie, roll up your sleeves and splash water on your brow. Make it look as if you've spent all day wrestling with them. You might even crawl in on your hands and knees… No, on second thoughts, forget the crawling."
"Will do."
I turned to Dave. "Where are you going, Sunshine?"
"Sylvan Fields. A burglary last night and it looks as if the phantom knickers thief has struck again."
"Happy going on your own?"
"Yeah, no problem. In spite of its reputation, most of the people who live there are quite decent."
"Blimey, I never thought I'd hear you say that."
"I know. I must be mellowing with age. All the rest are toe-rags, though. Will you ring me if the verdict comes through?"
"You bet."
Off he went and I settled down in my little enclave to attack the pile of paperwork that had accrued. I'd spent an awful lot of the last six weeks in court, at a murder trial, and now the jury was out. Most of the time I'd been hanging around in the corridor, in case I was needed, with a couple of days in the witness box. Timothy Fletcher had murdered seven people, seven that we knew about, but had died whilst resisting arrest. He fell off Scammonden Bridge on to the M62, at rush hour, under a six-teen-wheeler loaded with Yorkie bars, but nobody was mourning him. The trial had been to decide how involved his girlfriend was in the murders. Was she an innocent dupe, as she claimed, or was she a fully paid-up partner? We went into court convinced that she had been instrumental in luring at least three victims into Fletcher's car, but our chief witness was still trau-matised by the attack and we had decided not to expose her to cross-examination. Meanwhile, the prisoner and her legal advisers had had six months to prepare a case and they'd done a good job. Now we weren't so cocky.
I read a policy document about Positive Crime Recording rules but most of it went straight over my head. As I understand it, when somebody comes into the station and says: "I don't want to make a complaint, but…" we've got to record it as a complaint. Normally the desk sergeant would nod gravely, make sympathetic noises, promise to have a word in the appropriate ear, and completely forget the whole thing as soon as the non-complainant walked out through the door. Or, if he deemed it serious enough, he might "have that word in somebody's ear. Either way everybody was happy. Now he has to initiate a trail of paperwork longer than Haley's comet. When the villains learn about it they'll have a field day. If every one of them came into the nick and said they didn't want to make a complaint, the whole legal system would grind to a halt. It nearly has already.
I wasn't in the mood for paperwork so I went for a wander. The typists were too busy to chat and the briefing room was deserted. "Where is everybody?" I asked as I drifted into Control.
"Hello Charlie, waiting for the verdict?" the controller replied, turning to face me.
"Mmm. This is the worst bit."
"She'll go down, sure as Christmas. They're all at the hospital. Been a bit of trouble there. Not sure what it's all about, yet."
I looked at him. "At the hospital?"
"That's right. They're not admitted, although one or two of them are contenders for the malingerers ward. We answered a call and they asked for backup. Bit of a riot outside, by the sound of it."
"Is Gareth aware of what's happening?" Gareth Adey is my uniformed counterpart.
"Yeah. He's at headquarters, in a meeting. Said to let him know if it grew serious."
"Is that our serious or his serious?" Gareth has a reputation for magnifying things.
"Ah! Good question. Let's see what I can find out."
He swivelled his chair round to face the console again and started speaking into his mouthpiece. At the second attempt the PS answered.
"What's the position, Paul?"
"Confused. Apparently there's some sort of infection loose in the hospital. They stopped all admissions yesterday afternoon, and this morning they're refusing to release anyone, including the staff. The doors are locked and the only contact is by telephone or the intercom on the door. There's people arriving all the time to pick up patients but the hospital won't discharge them, so they're growing restless, and visitors are arriving all the time too, which doesn't help."
"Any ideas what sort of infection?"
"No."
I said: "Tell him I'll try to contact the hospital manager."
"Mr Priest's with me. He says he'll try to contact the hospital manager. We'll get back to you, out."
But the hospital manager wasn't answering his phone and nobody else was, either. I replaced the handset after ten fruitless minutes, saying: "No doubt all will be revealed in the fullness of time," because that's the nature of infections. They flourish or they wither, but either way, they pull the strings.
I walked across the road to the sandwich shop, bought a cheese and pickle and a curd tart and sauntered back to the office. The phone rang six times. Three were to ask if I'd heard anything; one was a reporter wanting a quote — I gave him You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows — and two were business. Rosie Barraclough didn't ring. I hadn't given her my number but she could have worked it out if she'd been really keen. There again, if she'd been that keen I'd probably have run a mile. I found a tabloid and a magazine in the outer office, made myself a coffee and lunched with my feet on the desk. The magazine was Dave Sparkington's copy of Naked Female Mud Wrestling USA. He takes it for the crossword.
The phone rang for the seventh time. "Priest."
"Hi Charlie. It's that time of year again." It was an inspector from another division who organised the force's contribution to the annual Heckley Gala. Part of the show is an art exhibition, open to all but with a special class for cops. We have a surprising number of respectable watercolourists helping keep law and order on the streets. And one mad abstractionist.
"Oh God," I said. "I haven't anything prepared."
"It's not for three weeks," he told me "Plenty of time for you to make a few daubs on some hardboard."
"A few daubs!" I exclaimed. "A few daubs! You're talking about fine examples of abstract expressionism."
"That's what I said. Can I put you down for two, as usual?"
"I suppose so."
"Do they have titles?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Untitled 1 and Untitled 2."
"You're a toff, Chas."
"I know. Have you rung Woodturner Willie yet?"
"No, he's next on my list."
"Ask him to make me two frames for them, please."
"Okie-dokie. How big?"
"Um, oh, about four by three."
"Inches, feet or metres?"
"Feet, numbskull."
"Will do."
I carefully replaced the phone. The pictures might sell for fifty pounds each, which will go to charity. The frames will cost me twenty, the board a tenner and the paint at least that. There's something about business that I haven't grasped, yet.
Eighth time. "Priest."
The voice that answered was one that I'd grown sick of over the last six months, but today it was sweet as music. It was the CPS barrister, from the court. "Not guilty on the first five, Charlie, guilty on the next two and the kidnapping. Twenty years tariff for each. Crack open the champagne."
I didn't leap up with joy, fisting the air like some second-rate sportsman who's done what he's paid to do. I thanked him, told him well done, and slowly replaced the receiver. I was glad nobody was there with me. I buried my hands in my hair and gave an involuntary shudder of satisfaction and relief. Justice had been done and it was over. Over for me and the team, that is. It would never be over for the relatives of the victims, but now perhaps they could start thinking about the future.
I was glad I hadn't been in court, waiting, as those first five Not Guilties were announced, watching the face of the accused. Her spirits would rise imperceptibly with each one, and those of the prosecution team would sink a similar amount. "Was she going to get away with it?" everybody would have been asking as the charges were dismissed, and then came those golden words: "Guilty… Guilty… Guilty," and she would have crumbled. And I wouldn't have liked to see that either, because my feelings towards her might have softened, just a degree, which would have been a betrayal of seven women and a young boy.
I brushed the hair out of my eyes, pulled my shoulders back and took three deep breaths. Gilbert's phone was engaged when I tried to pass on the verdicts, so I went up to see him. A sergeant crossed me on the stairs and shook my hand when I told him the news. "Well done, Charlie, well done."
Gilbert's arm was stretched out, his hand holding the phone as I went in and he looked up at me, fumbling with the handset, having difficulty replacing it. His expression was as bleak as a January dawn, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.
"Three life sentences," I announced. "Twenty years tariff."
"Good," he said, half-heartedly, his thoughts a million miles away. "That's good. Well done."
"What is it, Gilbert?" I asked, sitting in the chair opposite him. "You look as if you've seen a ghost."
"Do I? I'm sorry. It's young Freddie, Charlie. He's in the General, you know."
"What's happened to him?"
"Well, nothing, but they won't let his mother in to see him. There's an infection loose and they've quarantined the whole place."
"I've heard about it. They're always having infections in hospitals, Gilbert — it's all those sick people. And the cuts. He'll be all right, mark my words."
But he wasn't listening. "I rang the medical director," he said.
"I couldn't get through when I tried."
"I rang his wife and she gave me his mobile number."
"Don't tell me — he's a lodge member."
"It has its uses. This is in confidence, Charlie. It mustn't go outside these walls, you understand?"
I shrugged my shoulders. If galloping salmonella was rampaging through the corridors and wards of Heckley General I was hardly likely to go shouting it from the rooftops, but it was unfortunate for young Freddie.
"There's a virus loose in the place," he told me.
"What sort of virus?"
"It's Ebola, Charlie. They've got Ebola virus in Heckley General."
There was no need for me or anybody else to shout it from the rooftops, because even as we spoke the news was being disseminated by more efficient means. The nurse who started the scare rang her parents, who recognised the dreaded word Ebola in the midst of her hysterical rantings, and from then on it spread like a bloodstain through the community. At five o'clock it was on the local news, at six the nation heard about it and by twenty past the more daring camera crews started arriving.
A couple of weeks ago there had been a TV special about the 1994 outbreak of Ebola in the Central African Republic, so the public was well clued-up. The Ebola River is a tributary of the Congo, and the people who live along its banks hunt monkeys for food and to sell for medical research. Back in the seventies another virus that the monkeys carry suffered a mutation in its DNA that gave it the ability to exist in their close relative — Homo sapiens. This virus has an incubation period of several years and is only passed on by the most intimate contact, but it spread stealthily — an invisible cloud of poison that chose its victims all the way from the mud huts of Africa to the marble mansions of the most privileged people in the world. When they started to die it was given a name — AIDS.
Ebola probably has the same origins, but its MO is different. Ebola can be transmitted through the air, like the common cold, and it kills nine out of ten of its victims in fifteen days. There is no cure.
Residents of Heckley who had caravans or bungalows at the coast suddenly decided that now was a good time for a visit. Others decided that an extended weekend away was long overdue and hastily threw a few belongings in the back of the Mondeo. The queue of vehicles leaving town gridlocked with the rush hour traffic trying to get home, anxious to see if the wife and kids were feeling OK, and Heckley ground to a standstill.
I went home, made myself a salad sandwich and watched it on TV. The usual pundits were there, outside the hospital, spouting their limited knowledge at the camera, scaring everybody sugar-less. First symptom was a headache, we were told, then the whites of the eyes turned scarlet as the capillaries burst, followed by bleeding from all the body's orifices.
"I feel like that everyday," I mumbled, fielding a piece of tomato that fell out of my sandwich and reaching for the remote control.
By eight o'clock it was all over. False alarm. "A patient was admitted who had recently travelled in Africa and showed the early symptoms of Ebola," a hospital spokeswoman told the waiting cameras. "The hospital was quarantined as a precaution, but tests for Ebola have proved negative and the quarantine can now be lifted. This was a routine safeguard and at no time was any member of the public or staff at risk."
Pull the other one. God, what a farce. I went into the garage, cut some hardboard to size and painted it white. In less than three weeks I had to produce a couple of paintings worthy of my not-inconsiderable reputation. Something that "my five-year-old daughter could do," as numerous friends and colleagues would take great delight ih pointing out. Would it be a couple of Picassos, or maybe a pair of Modigliani ladies? They always went down well. When I'd finished I thought about phoning Rosie, but it was too late. I'd ring her tomorrow, make arrangements for Saturday. Mr Ho, the proprietor of the Bamboo Curtain, was a friend of mine. One of his special banquets was an event rather than a meal. I was sure Rosie would enjoy it. Before I went to bed I found the bottle of cheap champagne I'd been saving and put it in the fridge.
We didn't make the front page, which was a disappointment for the troops. A Town in Fear was a better headline than The Face of Evil, so the first six pages of the tabloids were filled with graphic descriptions of Ebola symptoms and primary school diagrams of DNA, showing how red triangles could mutate into blue hexagons with deadly results. The broadsheets used the scare to highlight the multi-million dollar trade in living primates, printing hard-hitting articles from their libraries to pad out the pages and demonstrate their concern.
Our PR people had prepared a couple of statements from me — one for if we lost the trial; one for if we won — so I read that I was pleased with the result and hoped that it would be of some comfort for the families of the victims.
"See!" I announced as I went into Gilbert's office for our morning meeting. "Nothing to worry about. When's he coming home?"
"Tomorrow, all being well," he replied, pushing the file he'd been reading to one side. "But it was a worry, Charlie. Did you see that programme on TV about it? If that gets loose it could be the end of the world."
"Nah," I said. "A comet. That's what'll do it, like it did for the dinosaurs, sixty-five million years ago." I've been swatting up on dinosaurs recently.
I opened the champagne in the office and we drank it from our coffee mugs. It was just a little ceremony to mark the closure of the case: a collective sigh of relief and mutual back-slap, expressed in fizzy pop. We'd had a major piss-up the weekend after the arrest, but the job's not over until someone has the key turned on them.
Most of the troops knew what cases they were on with, and I had a couple of others to hand out. Prioritising the work is a big part of my contribution, but it sometimes makes me unpopular with the public. Each detective has at least five or six crimes to deal with at any time. If there's a chance of an arrest in one of them it moves to the front of the queue, if there isn't it goes backwards. So victims sit at home, surrounded by what's left of their scattered belongings, waiting for the handsome crime-fighter to come knocking at the door to detect the villain. But he doesn't come, not for three days, because he knows he has a better chance of finding the youths who screwed the filling station in full view of the CCTV cameras.
One of the DCs approached me, more hesitantly than normal. "Um, can I have a quick word, Boss?" he asked.
"Oh, what do you want, my blue-eyed son?" I asked.
"It's the coffee fund. You're a bit behind."
I delved into my jacket pocket and produced a handful of coins. "How much?"
"That's not enough."
"Goon."
"Twelve pounds."
"Twelve quid! Twelve quid! Just for coffee! It's highway robbery."
"You haven't paid anything for three months."
I found a twenty pound note in my wallet and handed it over, saying: "Make sure you enter it in your book. I think you must have forgotten, the last time."
Dave Sparkington hung back as the team dispersed.
"How did you get on with the knicker thief," I asked.
"Great. We got a description."
"Go on."
"Black lace, open crotch. I'm looking into it."
I exhaled, slowly and deliberately, casting my gaze towards the ceiling. Sparky likes to tell you things in his own way.
"About fourteen years old," he added. "Short, with fair hair. Wears a grey football shirt. Not sure what it is but it could be something like Leeds United second team Tuesday morning away strip."
"Good. Any other ideas?"
"We've a couple o' names."
"OK. Keep on with it."
He dangled a telephone report sheet in front of me, saying: "They can wait. This came in about five minutes ago while you were upstairs. It's from the General Hospital. They had an admission yesterday afternoon that might be a poisoning. Non-fatal but it could've been. Victim thinks his ex-wife is trying to kill 'im. Thought I'd go along and talk to him but wondered if you wanted to come."
"The hospital?"
"Mmm."
I shook my head vigorously. "Er, no, Dave. I think you can manage that one yourself."
"OK. See if I care. I've had my flu jab. Apparently the ex-wife was runner-up in the Miss Ferodo brake-linings beauty contest."
"On second thoughts," I said, "if it's an attempted murder maybe I should come along. I'll get my coat."
Pete Goodfellow was bent over his keyboard, his typing sounding like a dripping tap. "You're in charge, Pete," I called to him.
"No problem. Where are you going?"
"To the hospital."
"Right. I've an appointment there myself next week, about this knee. It still isn't right. Did I tell you?"
"Yes, Pete, you told us all about it, several times. Have you tried St. John's wort?"
"No. I've tried glucosamine, and cod liver oil capsules, but they haven't been much good. How does St. John's wort work?"
"I don't know but it cured Dave's irritable bowel syndrome, didn't it, Sunshine?"
"No, it gave me it. C'mon, let's go."
We went in my car, with Dave driving. As we pulled out of the station yard he said: "Who is she?"
"Who's who?"
"The woman."
"What woman?"
"The one that's making you so flippin' cheerful."
"What makes you think it's a woman?"
"You mean… it's a man?"
"Er, no. You were right, it's a woman."
He gave a chuckle and looked across at me. "When you die, Charlie, we won't have you cremated or buried. We'll roll you flat and make you into a window."
"Are you suggesting I'm transparent?"
"Only where women are concerned."
"And you'll go before me. Look at you: overweight, sedentary lifestyle. We thin nervous types live to a ripe old age."
"Don't you start, I've enough with Shirley and Sophie lecturing me. But you're right, I need more exercise."
I was quiet for a few seconds. Shirley is Dave's wife, Sophie his daughter and my goddaughter. She's studying at Cambridge, about to start her final year, and breaking Dave's heart. She's tall and beautiful, and had hardly been home this year. Dave was having to come to terms with the apple of his eye being plucked off the tree by someone he didn't know.
"Have you heard from Sophie?" I ventured.
"No. Not for about six weeks. Last we heard she was going to Cap Ferrat with this boyfriend and his parents, she said. They have a place there, apparently. "
"It was bound to happen, Dave. And if they've a place over there she can't be doing too bad."
"I don't suppose so. She asked how you were, if you'd found a new girlfriend. Can I tell her about Miss X?"
"No. Tell her that I'm not looking, that she's the only woman for me."
"Uh!" he snorted, and his knuckles tightened on the wheel.
Ten minutes later we were running up the steps into the hospital.
"I assume you were fibbing about the Miss Ferodo bit," I gasped between breaths.
"No, scout's honour," he replied, adding: "Mind you, it was 1945."
The doctor in charge of the patient came to meet us at the front desk. He looked about twenty and smelled like a National Trust gift shop. Dave introduced me and we shook hands.
"Is everything back to normal now?" I asked.
"Just about," he replied, grinning, "but it was interesting for a while."
"Have the Press abandoned you now that there's no story?"
"They have. It was like Downing Street on budget day for a while, out in the car park. They've gone now, thank God, but they might be back when they hear about this."
"Really? So where do we begin?"
"He came in by ambulance," he told us. "Rang for it himself. Must have been quite frightening for the poor chap. They were gathered round him, reading his vital signs and wondering what to do next, when the houseman dealing with him asked if he'd had any illnesses lately. He said he hadn't, all innocent, but he'd just come back from a holiday in Kenya. Could it be something he'd picked up there? And that was that. This nurse — a black girl from Nigeria — said: 'Oh my God, it's Ebola!' and everybody took ten paces backwards."
From the expression on his face it was evident that he was enjoying telling us this. I was more interested in the poisoning but I stayed quiet, content to let the doctor have his five minutes and tell us in his own time.
"How is he now?" Dave asked.
"Ask him yourself. Come on, I'll take you to him."
Dave and I looked at each other and back at the doctor. "You mean…" I began. "You mean… the person we've come to see is the Ebola suspect?"
"He's not a suspect any more. The toxicology results were quite conclusive, but it was quite a relief when they came back. Mind you, the ones with red faces might have preferred a full scale outbreak."
He obviously wasn't one of them. "So what was it?" I asked.
"Warfarin. We pumped him full of vitamin K and gave him a blood transfusion and he's now well on the way to recovery."
"What did it do to him?"
"It causes haemorrhaging, internally and externally. He'd summoned an ambulance because he was having breathing difficulties and then started passing blood. Lives alone, apparently. When he was admitted he was haemorrhaging from his nose and eyes and generally feeling out of sorts. What was happening inside we don't know, but we'll keep him in for a day or two, see how he fares."
"Sounds nasty," I said.
"It was."
"Rat poison?"
"That's right."
"But sometimes used medicinally."
"Yes. It's an anti-clotting agent."
"Had he been prescribed it?"
"He says not."
We'd reached the corridor where the victim's private room was situated, and slowed to a halt outside it. "Could the toxicology report differentiate between the two possible sources?" I asked.
"No, not at the level of testing we have available."
"If it was rat poison, what's the fatal dose?"
"Impossible to say. If the recipient has high blood pressure any dose could be dangerous. Prescribed dose is usually between three and nine milligrams. To be sure of killing someone it would have to be massive."
"How big is massive?"
"Don't quote me, Inspector, but I imagine, oh, thirty milligrams could be rather dodgy for most people. That's what? A couple of tablespoonfuls. It's anybody's guess."
"Would he have died without medical intervention?"
"No doubt about it."
"Right. Thanks for your help, Doc. What's he called?"
"Carl Johnson."
Mr Johnson was sitting up in bed, a drip in his arm supplying him with whatever he needed most. He was gaunt and swarthy, with a bony shoulder poking from the one-size-fits-all hospital pyjamas.
"This is Inspector Priest and I'm DS Sparkington," Dave told him, and the patient reached out with his free arm to shake hands. We found two chairs and sat down beside him.
We asked him to tell us what happened and he started to relate all the gory details, but he had difficulty speaking so I decided that the abbreviated version would do. I poured him a beaker of water and said: "Have you been told what you were poisoned with?"
"Thanks." He took a sip, then: "Warfarin. Rat poison."
"But you're not on warfarin tablets?"
"No. It was her who did it, I'm sure of it."
"Your ex-wife?"
"Estranged. We're only separated."
"Why would she want to poison you?"
"To get her hands on everything, that's why."
"So you think it was an attempt to murder you, not just make you ill?"
"'Course it was an attempt to murder me."
"Any ideas how you took the poison?"
"No. Something I ate, I expect."
"What was your last meal?"
"Curry. Chicken Madras."
"That would disguise the taste of the warfarin. Was it from a takeaway?"
It was. He gave us his house keys and permission to scavenge in his rubbish bins. Dave made a note of his wife's new address and the name of the suspect takeaway.
"My money's on Miss Ferodo," he stated as we drove across town.
"Nah," I said. "Mine's on the takeaway."
"How come?"
"Sabotage. Local fish and chip shop fighting back, and fighting dirty." Some cops deal with multi-billion frauds and drug cartels and barons of industry with their fingers in the pie, in Heckley we have takeaway wars.
Johnson's semi on the Barratt estate had all the hallmarks of a home where the woman has walked out: two days' washing up in the sink; dirty towels over the radiator; windows that cut out the light and a smell of stale food permeating everywhere. Otherwise it was pleasant. The furniture was good quality and the decor was freshly applied. Too many ornaments, as usual, and a big wedding photograph standing on the widescreen TV.
Why did he keep that? I wondered. A young version of Carl Johnson stood proudly next to a bubbly blonde, a grey topper clutched in his hand. I picked up the remote control for the television and flicked round the channels. I couldn't believe what I saw. Were there really, in homes all over the country, people sad enough to be watching that tripe? "Go for a walk!" I wanted to scream at them. "Read a book! Or just look at the sky and wonder at the clouds. Anything but watch this drivel."
"Bad news," Dave announced as he came into the room. "His bin's been emptied. Hey, I like this."
"When it's widescreen," I said, "is the picture just stretched or is there a bit extra stuck on each side?"
"It's stretched. Haven't you seen football on one? The goals look about thirty feet wide."
"No." I pressed the off button and the picture faded. "Let's have a look in the kitchen, then."
The curry tray was in a bucket under the sink, with enough sauce left clinging to the edges for our highly-trained scientists to analyse. We placed it in a plastic bag and labelled it. Beneath the tray we found two empty Foster's cans, so they went into bags, too, along with a mackerel in honey mustard tin and the remnants of a pizza.
Inside the fridge part of his fridge-freezer there was a half-empty tin of Del Monte pineapple rings, my favourites. He hadn't mentioned them but perhaps he'd had a pudding. Something sweet like that goes down well with ice cream after a hot curry. I placed it on the draining board next to the other stuff.
"It's going to cost a fortune to process this lot," I complained. Current charge to put something through the lab was Ј340 minimum, and Gilbert would not be pleased.
Dave bent over our loot, sniffing at everything. "Any ideas what rat poison smells like?" he asked.
"No. We should have asked the doctor. Let's look in his garage — that might be where it's kept."
There was a Citroen C3 in there, plus enough half-empty tins of emulsion in shades of beige to decorate the set of Desert Song. He had a few DIY tools, nothing excessive, and an assortment of chemicals for dealing with garden pests, but no mysterious crystals in an unmarked jam jar. He kept everything in those plastic containers that stack on top of each other. I found an empty one and commandeered it for the samples. We cast appraising eyes over the car and wandered out into the garden.
He'd done a lot of work in it. There was a kerb around the lawn that was painted white, as was the wall dividing him from his neighbour. The borders were neat and weed-free, but well-stocked with plants, many of which were in full bloom. I'm not good at plants, but these looked the sorts that need a lot of attention. Dave knocked on the neighbour's door, but nobody was home.
"Just a sec," Dave said, back in the kitchen as I started to place the samples in the box. He opened a drawer, decided it was the wrong one and tried another. This time he took a teaspoon from it and reached for the tin of pineapple.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
He dipped the spoon into the juice and transferred it to his mouth. A second later he was spitting furiously into the sink. I turned the cold tap on and told him to wash his mouth out. When he'd finished coughing and retching I said: "Don't you like pineapple?"
"That's it," he declared, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and nodding towards the tin. "That's where t'poison is."
"Well done," I told him. "I reckon you just saved Gilbert's budget a couple of grand. And if you start bleeding from all your bodily orifices we'll know it isn't Ebola."
He took me back to the station and then went off to the Home Office lab at Wetherton with all the goodies we'd collected. I caught up with the morning's happenings and lunched on a chunky KitKat and a mug of tea. Carl Johnson's wife, who rejoiced in the name of Davina, was in when I rang her number, so I arranged to see her in thirty minutes and went to the bathroom to comb my hair — maybe Sparky hadn't been lying about the Miss Ferodo thing.
Funny thing was I still wasn't sure after I met her. She lived in a first-floor flat in a converted Victorian terrace on the edge of the town centre, only five minutes from the nick. She was about five-two in height with dazzling blonde hair that would have mended a fuse in an emergency. She had her hair lacquer delivered by tanker, like central heating oil, and I could have imagined her lining up with other hopefuls in the Skegness Pier Ballroom, a few years earlier. I could have but I tried not to.
"Mrs Johnson?" I asked, offering my warrant card for inspection as she opened the door. She nodded up at me and stepped to one side to let me through.
Rented accommodation, fully furnished. Cheap furniture that a succession of tenants hadn't given a toss about. Dingy curtains; cigarette burns on everything; electricity meter just inside the door, spinning like a windmill. I'd have killed to leave a place like that.
"Are you sure he's alright?" she asked, after gesturing for me to sit down. I'd told her that Carl was in hospital when I telephoned, but didn't say he'd been at the centre of the Ebola panic.
"According to the doctor he'll be fine, but it was touch and go until they discovered what was wrong with him."
"And what is wrong with him?"
"He'd eaten something that disagreed with him."
"What? Like food poisoning?"
"Something like that. Can I ask how long you've been separated?"
"Just coming up to six weeks, but what's that got to do with it?"
"Mr Johnson thinks you may have tampered with his food."
She stared at me for a beat, then jumped to her feet and paced the room. "That's typical!" she declared. "Bloody typical. Everything that goes wrong it's me. He's paranoid, Inspector, bloody paranoid, believe me." She started to say something else, stumbled over the words, then said: "Poison, was it? Poison? Any ideas what?"
I shook my head.
"No? Well I'll tell you how he got it. He did it to himself, that's what. He's pathetic, feels sorry for himself since he lost his job." She walked over to the window, looked out then turned back to face me. "I'm sorry, I never asked if you wanted a coffee."
"No, I'm fine. When did you last see him?"
"The week after I left him. I'd given him this address, trying to be civilised about it, but he came round every night, promising me the world. It took a week for him to get the message that I wanted shot of him for good."
"Was he on any sort of medication?"
"Medication?"
"Mmm."
"Not from the doctor, but he spent a fortune in health shops. He was into every latest fad there was."
"Any ideas what he was taking?"
"No, I'm sorry."
"What did he do when he worked?"
"He was a sorter at the Post Office."
"And why did he lose his job?"
"The cuts, due to mechanical sorting, or something, but he had a record of bad time-keeping, so they were probably glad to let him go."
"And do you do anything?"
"Yes. I work at Yakuma Electronics, attaching things called FETs to printed circuit boards. It takes me forty-five seconds to do one, and my target is five hundred in a shift."
"Good grief. Aren't you working today?"
"Six this morning until two. I just came in as you rang."
"I'm sorry if I've upset your routine — you're probably starving. I might want to see you again — will you be working the same hours next week?"
"No. Two till ten next week."
"I've done a few of those myself, Mrs Johnson, so you have my sympathy."
"It pays the rent. I haven't had a penny out of him."