Troy got back to the Yard tired and bored. Cheltenham had been a complete waste of time. An accidental death of some interest to a provincial coroner, but none at all to Scotland Yard. It had been a rough night – a room in a pub full of drunken squaddies on embarkation leave. Let us piss away this night for in the morn we piss away lives in blood and sand in North Africa. He planned to make a quick verbal report to Onions, a mad dash through the paperwork piling up on his desk, and then have an early night.
‘Did Enoch Nailer get hold of you?’ Stan asked as Troy was trying to slip out of the door.
‘Nailer? What would he want with me?’
‘It was something to do with Stilton’s death.’
‘He’s got my report. I typed it up before I logged off, the night Walter was killed.’
‘Well, he was looking for you this morning. I thought he’d rung Cheltenham and left a message for you.’
Onions roared for Madge, his secretary. A sour-faced woman in her mid-thirties stuck her head round the door.
‘D’ye still have a note of what Chief Inspector Nailer was wanting?’
Thirty seconds later she put a memo sheet on his desk and left without a word to either of them.
‘Ah ... I remember now. He’s holding some bloke for the murder of poor old Walter. Bloke says you can vouch for him.’
Troy was baffled.
‘What bloke?’
‘An American, name of Cormack.’
‘Stan, Cormack found the body. He was the one dialled 999. He was sitting with Walter when I got there.’
‘Mebbe,’ a typical Onions word. ‘But for the last thirty-six hours he’s been sitting in a cell downstairs. Turns out he had a gun on him. You didn’t search him, did you?’
‘No,’ said Troy. ‘No, I didn’t. I had the publican call the Branch straight away – and they sent Nailer. I just sat with Cormack until Nailer got there. Cormack didn’t kill Walter. He was in shock. He was in tears.’
‘And that’s his alibi? It seems he’s telling Enoch that you knew he was working with Walter all along. Not that Enoch’s ready to believe him – he isn’t.’
‘I saw them together a couple of weeks ago – you sent me to a body in Hoxton Lane. Walter unceremoniously turfed me off the case. The American was with him.’
‘That’s all? Did you talk to him?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘OK, I’ll tell Enoch. Mind – it doesn’t prove much, does it?’