‘What kept you, boss?’
‘What you doing here?’ Bev slipped her jacket off, hung it on the back of a chair. Last bloke she expected to see with Chris Baxter in The Prince was Mac. She assumed he’d be in The Station quaffing with Powell and the rest of the squad.
‘And greetings to you too.’ He raised an empty glass in mock toast. ‘Here’s to it still being a free country, just about. Talking of which, it’s my round. What you having, madam?’
Parked next to Chris, she watched Mac stroll to the bar. ‘Has he been bending your ear?’
‘Nah. I like Mac. He’s a good bloke. Always strikes me as a bit lonely.’
She frowned. She’d never really seen it that way. ‘He’s got quite a following on the comedy circuit, you know. I rag him rotten about his groupie cling-ons.’
Chris snorted. ‘Most comics I know are miserable sods. Tears of a clown? Dead right if you ask me.’
Clown. Sore subject. She smoothed her skirt. ‘Anyway, Chris. Brain-picking time and all that. Brian Tempest’s place, where’d you find the bag?’ And how come it took so long? She could’ve voiced the criticism but reckoned Chris didn’t need anyone else giving him a hard time. The guy was a pro and would have beaten himself up about the lapse. She watched him rake fingers through thick fair hair, then: ‘For the life of me, Bev, I don’t know how it was missed on the first sweep.’
The Stirchley bedsit, he said, gave hovels a bad name. Filthy dirty. Furniture most people wouldn’t give skip room to. Boarded-up windows, tacky lino. Black bin bags in every room, full of rotting rubbish, dirty laundry. Lucy’s bag had been wrapped in a sweatshirt that should’ve come with a health warning, shoved at the bottom of one of the bin liners. ‘I could’ve sworn we’d gone through it, Bev.’
She nodded. ‘Where was it?’
‘I said … at the bot—’
‘No, the bin bag.’
‘With a stack of others lining a wall.’
‘Here y’go, guys.’ Mac had a precarious hold on three glasses.
‘Cheers, mate.’ She relieved him of her Pinot pretty damn fast. Still had a bad taste in her mouth after the confrontation with Marie Foster. ‘So, is it possible your guys didn’t miss the bag because it wasn’t there first time round?’
He was about to take a sip but paused. ‘You thinking someone stashed it later?’
She turned her mouth down. ‘Could be. Say whoever it was believed the place had been given the all clear?’
He drank a few mouthfuls this time. ‘They’d have to be well dense, Bev. Breaking in and that. And I can’t see why they’d do it. I’d agree it wasn’t our finest hour, but we found the stuff eventually. As dirty tricks go, I’d say it bombed.’
She cocked her head. ‘Not if they wanted it found.’
He sank more beer, then licked his top lip. ‘It still isn’t making any sense.’
‘It does if the idea’s to frame Tempest.’ Mac shifted in his seat. ‘And right now the guy reckons he could be hanging in the Tate.’ Tempest had shouted his mouth off, kicking and screaming all the way down to the cells according to Mac. Effing and blinding about corrupt cops, planted evidence. ‘I tell you, he made the gaffer sound like Alan bloody Titchmarsh. Swore he’d never laid an eye, let alone anything lethal, on Lucy Rayne.’
‘Par for the course, isn’t it?’Baxter asked. ‘The guy’s looking at a long stretch.’
‘Precisely,’ Mac said. ‘He’s put his hand up to attempted murder. It’s not like he’s saying he’s innocent as the driven doodah.’
Bev sipped her wine, knew where Mac was coming from. Tempest was under no illusion, knew he’d be doing time, but if he’d not done the crime, drew the line at a bottomless pit. ‘Talking of hands, well fingers … how come the bag was clean, Chris?’ Tempest’s prints seemed conspicuous by their sodding absence.
‘Gloves, I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘Not convinced?’
She couldn’t see Tempest keeping Marigolds under the sink somehow. ‘Struck me as odd.’
‘Come on, Bev, the world and his aunt know about dabs and DNA these days.’
‘Yeah. But not a single trace, Chris?’ Tempest barely had the nous to remember his own name, and he’d certainly not worn gloves when he attacked Cathy Gates. He’d snatched her jewellery and cash, yet let fifty quid go begging in Lucy’s bag. As for Lucy’s bling, it still hadn’t shown up.
‘So you’re saying he’s been set up?’ Chris asked.
‘I think it’s a tad … convenient.’ She looked at Mac but he was staring at his beer, swirling his glass. He’d had the dubious pleasure earlier of listening to Tempest’s running commentary on bent cops and stitch-ups. Even before the interview ended so abruptly, she’d heard Tempest tell Powell to put his sewing kit away. She’d love to know what was going on in Mac’s head.
‘What’s your take, Mac?’ Baxter put the question for her. Thanks, CB.
Mac pursed his lips, placed the glass on the table. ‘When we reached the cell, Tempest broke down sobbing. Begged for a lie detector test. Pleaded on his hands and knees. I know it’s daft but I saw … something in his eyes.’ He shook his head. ‘Nah, Chris, I’m not convinced he killed Lucy Rayne. But I’d lay a bet someone’s keen it looks that way.’
‘Ditto,’ Bev said.
Baxter blew out his cheeks. ‘You’d better be damn sure of your ground, then. I know you’ve had your run-ins with Powell, Bev—’
‘Not Powell. Nah.’ Couldn’t be him. He was no angel but he couldn’t have planted the bloody bag. On the other hand, she reckoned he wasn’t unhappy to reap the reward. A clean clear-up rate on any cop’s record looked good. Why else accept at face value the lack of prints and late appearance of evidence? Carol Pemberton reckoned Tempest had lashed out because he saw Powell had him by the short and curlies. What if all Tempest saw was a load of bollocks?
‘So who?’
Bev drained her glass. ‘Believe me, Chris, I’m working on it.’
‘Best have a top-up, then.’