When he got back to his own office, Jack and Clark were waiting. Clark quietly getting on with his paperwork, oblivious to the time of night or day, Jack sitting on Mary McDiarmuid’s desk yawning and rubbing at his eyes in a desperate effort to stay awake.
‘Well?’ he said.
Troy closed the door, beckoned them into the inner office and closed the door on that too.
‘I’ve given them my report – and I’m back on sick leave.’
‘They’ve shut down the case. After a night like this?’
‘I didn’t say that. It’s me they’ve shut down. For a week. Until I heal.’
Troy held up his bandaged left hand.
‘However, I don’t know what difference it’ll make. Percy Blood was all we had.’
‘And you still don’t think he killed Clover?’
‘I know damn well he didn’t.’
Troy opened his briefcase and swept the contents of his desktop into it.
‘Do you have anything relevant to the case? Either of you?’
‘Papers,’ said Eddie. ‘Lots of papers.’
‘Nothing,’ said Jack. ‘I gave it all to you.’
‘Take it all home with you,’ Troy said to Clark. ‘Don’t leave anything lying round.’
Troy pulled open the middle drawer of his desk and stuck his gun into his briefcase. Jack tossed a polythene bag onto Troy’s desk. It banged down heavily. It was a gun, an army-issue Webley. Just like Troy’s. Just like the one that killed Fitz.
‘Blood’s?’ said Troy.
‘He must have collected them. It was on the hallstand. Next to his hat and gloves. All in a row, ship-shape and Bristol fashion.’
‘Heworegloves?’
‘Doesn’t matter. He didn’t wipe it down first. There are prints all over it. It’s empty and it’s been fired. Absolutely reeks of it.’
‘Good. Because I never got so much as a glimpse of Blood. Eddie?’
‘Dark side of the street, sir. Perfect cover.’
‘I don’t know what happens next. Coyn or Quint or both of them never wanted us to catch Blood. My guess is that at the end of the week, once the press interest in two dead coppers has given place to the latest teenage heart-throb or the biggest tits on the Golden Mile, Coyn will pronounce. He’ll let us go on or he’ll wrap up the case. It would help enormously to know which of them wants it wrapped, but all the same it won’t stop us.’
‘I do find myself asking why they would want it stopped,’ said Jack.
‘I shouldn’t think either of them would relish a Scotland Yard scandal.’
‘That presumes they knew it was Blood when they first told me to drop it. You’re not saying they knew it was Blood, are you?’
‘No. No, I’m not. But I do think that somewhere in the collective mind of our masters the notion was formed that to look too closely into the death of Paddy Fitz would win no favour.’
‘That sounds just a bit shy of conspiracy,’ Jack said.
‘Then it’s as precise as I would want it to be.’
Jack insisted on walking home with him. It was as clear as day – it was day – but Troy did not object. He shoved the gun back under the loose floorboard by the hatstand, popped a Mandrax and fell into bed hoping for dreamless sleep and if not dreamless, then not to dream of Mary.