Cambridge Blue - Alison Bruce [53]
Goodhew tried to appear apologetic. ‘I assumed that was concentration, sir.’ Marks gave him a poisonous look in return. OK, so he hadn’t mellowed much after all. ‘I could promised to focus on the Colin Willis link and nothing else?’ he suggested hopefully.
Marks leant forward again and splayed his hands out in front of him on the desk. Maybe to stop his fingers from tapping with irritation. Or maybe this time he really was concentrating. ‘All right,’ he sighed, ‘but I still want regular communication, and don’t decide to go running off at obscure tangents without checking with me first.’
TWENTY-ONE
Old habits die hard, or so they say. Goodhew’s favourite quiet spot at Parkside police station had always been the spare desk on the third floor, in the corner nearest his home. In the days when file servers and hubs had looked like extras from sci-fi sets, the original layout of the building had been modified to accommodate an air-conditioned IT room, thus eating into the open-plan office space and leaving an almost useless little cul-de-sac where a redundant desk had been shunted, out of the way.
Rather than pulling up a chair, Goodhew sat on the desk itself. He leant his back against the wall and faced the window.
It was ten to two.
He opened Colin Willis’ file and glanced at the first few documents, hoping to find the one that would suck him easily into this unfamiliar case. He already knew the bare facts: partially decomposed body dragged from the Cam, no missing person report, ligature still around throat, victim’s car abandoned, death suspected to be debt or drugs related. No leads. No further progress.
His gaze wandered back to the window and was drawn towards the Avery, the pub on the far side of Parker’s Piece.
That’s when he admitted that old habits die hard. Mel was standing there, indistinguishable and Lowry-like in the distance, but he knew her. She was with Toby. Even from that distance he could tell that their body language wasn’t good.
Get over it, he told himself, and looked back down to the file, flicking through it until he felt the gloss of photographic paper. With renewed interest, he slid out a clutch of prints. The first showed the water and the puffed-up clothes covering the torso. It looked like a Guy overstuffed and ready for a bonfire on 5th November.
He glanced through the window again. They were closer to him now. Mel was heading back to work, or trying to, but Toby stood in her path. Goodhew saw her speak, she pointed to her watch, then attempted to side-step him. He blocked her. She stopped and spoke again. Toby reacted instantly, the flats of his hands flew up, connecting with her shoulders so she involuntarily took a couple of quick steps back.
Goodhew found himself on his feet, the photographs making a cracking noise as one edge of the pile hit the floor.
Mel pushed past Toby and, although he reached towards her, he made no attempt to grab her. He appeared to be shouting. He stood facing the police station, And Goodhew was ready to move if Toby did, but in the end it was Mel who hurried back alone.
Toby continued to shout something, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She was about to cross the road directly in front of the station when she looked up at Goodhew. He had to be standing three or four feet back from the glass, yet he knew she could see him. Her stare was defiant, like she was demanding that he back off, telling him to interfere at his peril. He didn’t move for the first seconds, fixed to the spot by increasing discomfort. She glanced to her left, checking for traffic.
He stared down at the splay of photographs, now lying at his feet, and fixed his attention on the least pleasant shot of Colin Willis’ unnaturally pale skin stretched across his bloated corpse. The last body Goodhew had