I don’t know how much use I’ll be. I don’t remember a lot.”
“Ah, don’t worry about that,” Martin said. Flashy Suit got out a notebook and a pen. “Just give us what you’ve got. You never know what might point us in the right direction. Will I top that up for you, before we get started?”
He was pointing at the water glass on my bedside table. “Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
Martin extracted my water jug from the jumble on the trolley table and filled my glass. “Now,” he said, putting the jug back on the table. He hitched up his trouser legs more comfortably and leaned his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped, ready for conversation. “Tell us: is there any reason why anyone would want to do this to you?”
Luckily I knew there was some pressing reason why I shouldn’t mention my Gouger theory to the cops, even though I couldn’t remember what that was. “No,” I said. “No reason at all.”
“No enemies?”
“No.” Martin was looking at me steadily, out of small pleasant blue eyes. I looked back, grateful for the meds, which would have stopped me getting twitchy even if I had tried.
“Any hassle with the neighbors? Arguments over parking spaces, someone who thinks you play your stereo too loud?”
“Not that I can think of. I don’t really see the neighbors.”
“That’s the best kind. See this fella here?” To Flashy Suit: “Tell him about your man and the lawn mower.”
“Jesus,” said Flashy Suit, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “My old neighbor, yeah? I’d always cut the grass on a Saturday—at noon, like; not even early. Only your man next door, he liked to sleep in. He gave me some grief about it, I told him to buy earplugs. So he recorded me cutting the grass and played it up against the bedroom wall, all night long.”
“Jesus,” I said, since he clearly expected something from me. “What’d you do?”
“Flashed the badge, had a chat with him about antisocial behavior.” They both chuckled. “That settled him. The point is, but, not everyone’s got a badge to flash. That’s when things can turn nasty.”
“I guess I’ve been lucky,” I said. “Plus the stuff, the”—I was looking for insulation—“the walls in our place are pretty good.”
“Hang on to those neighbors of yours,” Martin advised me. “Worth thousands, neighbors with no hassle. Do you owe anyone money?”
It took me a second to catch up. “What? . . . Not like that. I mean, me and my friends, if we’re on a, a night out, maybe someone subs someone twenty quid? But I’ve never owed anyone money money.”
“Wise man,” said Martin, with a wry half smile. “D’you know something, you’d be amazed how rare that is. I’d say at least half of the burglary cases we get—half?”
“More,” Flashy Suit said.
“Probably more. The fella owed someone money. And even if that had nothing to do with what happened, we have to convince him to tell us about it—people don’t realize, we’re not out to fuck over the victim here; if you like the odd bit of coke and you got behind with your dealer, that’s not our problem, we’re only interested in closing our case. And once the fella does tell us, we have to track down the lender and eliminate him. And that’s all wasting time we could be using to catch the actual guys. I’m always delighted when we don’t have to go through all that rigmarole. Nothing like that here, no?”
“No. Honestly.”
Flashy Suit wrote that down. “How’s the love life?” Martin asked.
“Good. I’ve got a girlfriend, we’ve been together three years—” Somehow I knew this wasn’t news to them, even before Martin said, “We’ve talked to Melissa. Lovely girl. Any hassles there?”
Melissa hadn’t mentioned anything about detectives. “No,” I said. “God, no. We’re very happy.”
“A jealous ex on either side? Anyone’s heart get broken when the two of you got together?”
“No. Her last ex, they split up because he was, he”—I wanted emigrated—“he went to Australia, I think it was? It wasn’t a bad breakup or anything. And Melissa and I didn’t even meet till months after. And I don’t really see any of my exes, but we didn’t have bad breakups either.” I was finding all this kind of unsettling. I had always considered the world to be basically a safe place, as long as I didn’t decide to do anything actively dumb like getting hooked on heroin or moving to Baghdad. These guys were talking like I had been happily