Dead in the Water - Tickler Peter - Страница 4

She kept giggling. Mullen couldn’t keep up. One moment she had been bullying him into submission and the next she was throwing herself at him like a teenage groupie at a rock star. Women were so hard to understand.

Dutifully he laughed at her jokes and reassured her that he couldn’t possibly understand why Paul should prefer an overweight bitch like Becca Baines to her. That was a lie, of course. He could definitely see why a man would find Baines very attractive. But in the circumstances a lie seemed preferable.

Mullen let her blether on while he downed his pint as quickly as he decently could. Then he made his excuses.

“I really have got to go,” he said. “Work calls.”

“Yeah, right.”

Mullen felt he had to explain. “I help out at a drop-in on Friday evenings.”

“Not snooping on people then?”

He ignored the jibe. “The Meeting Place, down in Cowley. We provide food, friendship and—”

Janice cut in. “All right, off you go then. Mustn’t stop you doing your good works.”

He stood up and for a moment or three he hovered, just like the waitress at the cafe.

“Bugger off, then!” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

He nodded, turned and headed towards the exit; a naughty schoolboy sent out of the classroom. As he pulled the door open, he half turned. She was watching him. But her face remained impassive as a mask.

Chapter 2

When Mullen arrived at the Meeting Place at 5.30 p.m. on the dot, he immediately sensed that something was different. There were more than the usual number of clients for this time of day and the conversations were muted and secretive. The World Cup had kicked off only the night before and yet no-one seemed to be talking about it. Mullen wasn’t much interested in any case. The patriot inside him wanted England to surprise everyone and win the thing — preferably beating Germany in the process — but the realist told him that this was only marginally more likely than the moon turning out to be made of cheese. He made his way through the throng and greeted his fellow volunteers. Kay and Alex were already hard at work making sandwiches, and the manager Kevin Branston, broad of beam and heavily bearded, homed in on him, clapping him unnecessarily hard on the upper arm.

“Good to see you, Doug. Can you mingle tonight?”

Doug had been asked to mingle every session since Branston had discovered he had a military background. “We need someone who can handle himself in a difficult situation,” he had explained on that occasion, ignoring the fact that Mullen had just told him his expertise had been in communications, not hand-to-hand combat. Mullen’s army career had lasted barely two years, but Branston was now convinced that his usefulness lay primarily in dealing with any nastiness that might suddenly erupt. This became more understandable to Mullen when he looked around at the rest of the volunteers: all of them, with the exception of the stick-thin student Mel, were well past pensionable age.

“See the Brazil game last night?” Mullen asked, keen to make use of the time he had wasted in front of the TV.

Branston ignored the question. “Folks are a bit on edge,” he said. “Chris was fished out of the river a couple of days ago.”

“Chris?” For the briefest moment, Mullen wondered what on earth Branston was talking about. And then all the bells in his head started ringing in unison.

“Shoulder-length blonde hair tied in a ponytail, camouflage clothes, bare feet and sandals?”

“Of course.”

“Two mornings ago. Some jogger fished him out of the water.”

Mullen looked hard at Branston. Did he know it was he who had pulled Chris out of the river? Was Branston giving him a prod to see how he would react? He wouldn’t have put it past him. But Branston’s mind had apparently moved on to other things. His eyes were traversing the room, looking for someone or checking for trouble. “Anyway, keep on your toes, Mullen.” He patted him on the shoulder and then he was off. Mullen watched him wend his way through the scrum of people queuing for their food. He didn’t warm to Branston. Apart from his patronising manner, there was something shifty about him — a man you couldn’t quite pin down or trust. Or was that Mullen’s own paranoia kicking in? He shook himself. It was time to concentrate on the clients.

Suddenly another hand — or rather a finger — jabbed Mullen in the shoulder blade. He spun around, hands raised, ready to attack or defend. Old habits die hard.

“Steady up, matey.” It was DI Dorkin. “Assaulting an officer can get you in a lot of trouble.”

Mullen dropped his hands. “And so can creeping up on people without warning.”

“You’re a regular here are you?”

“I volunteer every Friday.”

“Bit of a coincidence.” Dorkin scratched at his neck, and then pulled at the collar of his tieless white shirt. He was, Mullen reckoned, the sort of man who would never look comfortable in a suit even though he wouldn’t dream of coming to work without one.

“Is that it?” Mullen asked.

“No,” came the reply. “I think we need a little chat.”

* * *

The ‘little chat’ took place in Branston’s office, which Dorkin had established as his centre of operations for the evening. Branston had been banished and a seriously young uniformed PC stood in the corner of the room trying to look more important than he was. Mullen sat down on a plastic green chair with a comfort value of zero and waited. Dorkin undid the buttons of his jacket and dumped himself into Branston’s office chair. He adjusted its height — up, down and then up again — until he was satisfied. He jiggled from side to side, as if settling himself in for the long haul. Then he unleashed a grin.

“So, Mr Mullen. What have you got to say for yourself?”

Mullen shrugged. As questions went, it didn’t exactly demand a reply.

“You see,” Dorkin continued, “there’s something I don’t quite get, Mr Mullen. You come across a dead body in the river. You fish him out. Like a good upright citizen you dial 999. But then, when questioned, you fail to mention the fact that you know him.”

During the time Dorkin had been settling himself into Branston’s chair, Mullen had been thinking hard about this question. He knew that if Dorkin was an even half-competent detective, he was bound to ask something along these lines. But despite this opportunity to prepare an answer, Mullen doubted that it was going to cut much ice with the laughing policeman here.

“I didn’t exactly know him. I’ve only been coming here for six weeks, on Fridays. Chris was just one of a hundred people thronging the place.” He hoped it didn’t sound quite as feeble as he feared.

“But you’ve spoken to him here, right?”

Mullen paused. Was this a fishing expedition? Was Dorkin just casting a line and hoping for a bite?

“Branston definitely thinks you have.” The detective sat very still, watching Mullen as if they were playing ‘Who blinks first?’

Mullen shrugged. He knew he had to say something. “I’ve probably spoken to half the people here. In the sense of passing the time of day, apologising that I don’t have a spare cigarette, or telling them to tone things down. That doesn’t mean I’d recognise them all if I found them floating face-down in the river.”

Dorkin’s eyes narrowed. “I’d have thought that as a private eye you’d be good at remembering faces.”

“I’ve not been doing it long, have I? Still wearing my L plates.” Mullen smiled, trying to laugh off the question, but Dorkin was having none of it.

“Don’t get smart with me, Muggins. I could make life very difficult for you.”

A warning light flashed somewhere in Mullen’s brain. He had once knocked out a squaddie who had teased him about his name. He clenched his hands over his stomach and reined in the impulse to do the same with Dorkin. “Okay, the fact is I didn’t recognise Chris. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t.”