The Business Of Dying

I remembered all right. Two years ago it had been. He'd marched in all smiles, pumping hands left, right and centre. Telling us how he was going to increase recruitment and how he and the government were going to introduce legislation to make it easier for the police to gain convictions and harder for the criminals to avoid the long arm of the law, which, needless to say, had never happened. Come to think of it, he'd used the phrase 'taking the war to the criminals' as well. Maybe that's where Knox had got it from.

'Who could forget?' I said.

'He talked about how he really empathized with us, how he knew how hard the job we had to do was. But he didn't. None of them do. If they did, they'd untie our hands and pay us more. Make it worthwhile upholding the law.' He sighed. 'Sometimes you've got to bend the rules a bit, make a few pe

Still he wouldn't look at me. I felt increasingly uncomfortable sitting there in that shitty little room listening to things I really didn't want to hear. In a way, he sounded as though he was rambling, but I knew he wasn't.

'What are you trying to say, sir?'

'You know what I'm trying to say, De

'I've always tried to play it fair,' I said, repeating the phrase I'd used earlier, but it sounded lame now, and I knew it. 'I don't think I've-'

This time he turned and faced me. 'De

For a moment I just sat there, not sure what to say. What could I say? He had me bang to rights, and the thing was, I'd never seen it coming. Maybe I'd just been far too cocky for my own good. I exhaled slowly and wished I could have a cigarette.

'You know what I like about you, sir? You never mince your words.'

'No point. Not when you're in my position.'

'What have the doctors said about the… the er…?'

'The cancer? You can say the word, you know.'

'Do they think they've got it early?'

'It doesn't look too good, De

I felt an immediate spasm of fear. 'What do you mean, sir?'

He sighed, and there was a short silence before he continued. 'I want you to be careful, De

'What are you trying to say, sir?'

He turned to face me again. 'I'm saying, watch your back.'

'And what's making you say that?' I asked, my voice steady. 'What have you heard that I ought to know about?'

'I had visitors earlier.' There was a pause. I didn't say anything. He sighed. 'Two men from CIB.'

So they were on to me. In a way it had always been coming, ever since they'd issued the e-fit, but I still had difficulty containing my shock. 'What did they say?'

'They asked a lot of questions.'

'What kind of questions?'

'About your background, your attitude… all sorts. They wanted to know whether you had more money than might be expected of a serving copper, whether there'd ever been any suggestion of… corruption.' He emphasized the last word, taking his time pronouncing it.

'What did you tell them?'

'I told them you were a good copper, that I couldn't think of a bad word to say about you except that maybe sometimes you were too eager to get a conviction.'

'Thanks, sir.'

'Whatever it is you've done, De

I sat there for a couple of seconds as the full magnitude of his words sank in. In a strange way, I felt relieved that Welland hadn't linked me with the e-fit. I don't think I could have handled receiving the odium of someone I respected. Not after everything else.

'Don't worry, sir. It's nothing serious. I promise.'

'Sure. I understand.'

Again there was a silence, this time broken by me suggesting it was time to leave. 'I need to think about things,' I told him.

'You've got to get yourself back on track,' he told me. 'Be a good boy for a while.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'You're a good copper, De

'Maybe.'

'And it was nice of you to come and see me. I appreciate it. I really do.'

I stood up and patted him gently on the arm. 'It was no more than you deserve. Thanks for saying good things about me.'

He gave a nod of acknowledgement, and I turned to go.

'One thing that was fu

I stopped and turned back. 'What was that, sir?'

'Just that for some reason they seemed really interested in your firearms training.'

I shrugged, not giving a thing away. 'You know how it is. They've got to ask these things. Maybe they want to fit me up for a few murders as well.'

He managed a weak smile. 'You never know with the lot they've got up at CIB.'

I turned away from his gaze, hoping I'd imagined the knowing look.

26

Unravelling. It was all unravelling, so fast that I couldn't keep up with it. With each passing hour, my room for manoeuvre was becoming more limited. The gates to freedom were closing, and unless I made the right decision, and made it quickly, my life was effectively finished and I could look forward to the rest of my days behind bars, segregated from the bulk of the prison population for my own protection. And how long would that be? Thirty years? At least. Triple murder. Maybe even quadruple murder. Thirty years without a single taste of freedom.

Sitting alone that night at a corner table in the Chinaman, the drink doing little to calm my nerves, I tried to consider my options. They clearly had me down as a suspect, I could no longer doubt that. The copper at the roadblock had seen the e-fit and had put two and two together. Doubtless, by now they'd have got hold of a recent photo of me to show their main witness, the girl at the hotel, and presumably she'd picked me out as the killer. The question now was whether this, on its own, was enough evidence to secure a conviction. At the moment they clearly felt there was no point snatching me off the streets and charging me. There could have been several reasons for this, the most obvious being that they wanted me to lead them to whoever it was who had ordered the killing. Another would be that they wanted to gather further evidence against me without my knowing it, then spring their trap. Obviously, given my integral role in the saga, they would know there was no point offering up the carrot of a more lenient sentence for cooperating. I had no incentive whatsoever to tell them anything, however hard they leaned on me, and they'd know that.