I CAN SMELL HIM, HE’S RIPE.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR YARROW picked up the telephone from his desk as Suzanne thought the weight of it seemed almost too much for him, too much weight for his scarified hook of a hand. He seemed little more than a skeleton cloaked in grey skin, weariness emanated from him in waves, his hands shook lightly, the fingers of both hands, especially his right hand, were heavily stained with nicotine and even as he spoke into the phone he seemed so drained she thought him ready to collapse, the strain so evident in every movement, every breath he took.
‘Put me through to Ansell’s Bakery on Meadowlane.’ He fumbled a Players out from the packet on his desk and, holding the phone between his neck and shoulder to free up his right hand, struck a match to light the cigarette, drawing in deeply and exhaling a thick blue cloud of smoke. ‘I’ll hold,’ he said.
He smiled across at Suzanne Fillmore, who sat rather nervously in front of his desk, her hands clasped into her lap, squeezing her fingers together in tension.
‘You were absolutely right to bring this to me, Suzanne,’ he told her after she, hesitantly at first, but with growing confidence, told him of her apparent sighting in the upstairs window and of her suspicions. He had gone over a point or two, especially keen to hear exactly what the mother had said about her son’s claim to have already been printed.
Yarrow then called in Shuggie McDermott, the head of the fingerprint squad, and together they ran through the list of all those fingerprinted at the Town Hall mobile van, running their fingers down the long list of names, each then checked again the list that the other had scanned, just to be certain.
‘No, he’s not here,’ Shuggie announced firmly.
‘Could his card have been lost, misplaced somewhere?’ Yarrow asked, as he had to. Shuggie raised an eyebrow in mock indignation, as if offended that his procedures had been questioned, but he also knew that the question had to be asked. ‘Theoretically, aye, it is possible, in practice, I doubt it. The name of every man is taken before he is printed, and every card is then logged as soon as the print is taken, so even if the card is subsequently misplaced, there is still the record of the name in the log.’ Shuggie thought for a moment. ‘I can smell this one, Chris, I can smell him, he’s ripe.’
‘According to Suzanne here, you’ve done a good job, by the way, Suzanne, he works at Ansell’s Bakery, we can print him there.’ Suzanne felt a sudden warm breathless glow of satisfaction.
‘Steady, steady, we can’t just go in there and print him without cause, the lawyers would have a field day on that one, could jeopardise a case,’ responded Shuggie.
The two policemen tossed a few ideas back and forth as to how they could legally obtain the prints of the man of interest, before deciding to obtain the bakery management’s approval to print the entire male workforce at the bakery, as if it were a routine procedure.
‘Ah yes, good morning,’ Yarrow said as he was put through to the bakery, ‘Detective Inspector Yarrow here, from Garside police, can you please give me the name of your manager there, and then put me through to him? Malcolm Whiting, thank you.’ Yarrow made a note on his pad. ‘Mr. Whiting? Good morning… this is Detective Inspector…’