want to be there when they bring this prisoner in. He's just the sort of bloke who might fall downstairs."
"A problem with his balance?"
Brandon shook his head grimly.
"Not his balance. Other people sometimes get a bit unbalanced, love. We've already had one maverick on the prowl tonight. I'm not taking any more chances. I'll see you when I see you."
Fifteen minutes later, Brandon walked into the murder squad room.
Kevin Matthews was slumped over a desk at the far end of the room, his head cradled in his arms. As Brandon approached, he heard the soft snore of Kevin's breathing. He wondered when any of the squad had last had a straight night's sleep. It was when officers got tired and edgy at the lack of results that the serious mistakes happened.
Brandon desperately wanted to avoid his name in lights ten years down the road as the man who masterminded a sensational miscarriage of justice, and he'd go to any lengths to avoid it. There was only one problem with that, he wryly acknowledged to himself as he sat down opposite Kevin. In order to keep his finger on the pulse of the investigation, he had to work the same kind of ridiculous hours that led to the very mis judgements he wanted to avoid. Catch 22. He'd read that, a few years back now, when Maggie had decided to go to evening classes and take the A Levels she'd never got round to at school.
She'd said it was a wonderful book, funny, savage, sharply satirical.
He'd found it almost too painful. It reminded him too strongly of the Job. Especially on nights like tonight when previously sane men turned desperado.
The phone rang. Kevin stirred, but didn't wake. Pulling a sympathetic face, Brandon reached over and lifted it. "CID. Brandon speaking."
There was a momentary, confused silence. Then a strained voice said, "Sir? Sergeant Merrick here. Sir, we've copped for another body."
Getting Gareth to Carlton Park was less easy than I'd anticipated.
I'd done my reconnaissance carefully, I thought, and I'd counted on being able to drive down the access road used by the gardeners. What I hadn't taken into account was the long Christmas break. The road was blocked off by two metal posts slotted into the asphalt and locked in place with heavy padlocks. I could probably have squeezed through on the verge, since the jeep would have had no problem flattening the small shrubs that lined the road. But I would inevitably have left tyre tracks and probably tiny traces of paint. I had no intention of allowing Gareth to deprive me of my liberty, so that option was closed to me.
I parked the jeep round the back of the storage shed where the park staff kept their equipment. At least there I was out of sight both from the road and the park. There weren't many people around at two o'clock on Boxing Day morning, but success is all about taking pains.
I got out of the jeep and scouted around. The shed was out; it had a burglar alarm. But the gods were smiling on me now. Around the side of the shed, there was a low wooden trolley, the kind that porters used to wheel along station platforms in the days when there were railway porters who didn't think shifting luggage was beneath them.
The gardeners probably used it to transport plants round the park. I pushed it back to the jeep and tipped Gareth's naked body on to it. I tucked a couple of black plastic bin liners round the body and sprayed the axles with a quick blast of lubricating oil to cure a nasty squeak, then stealthily I set off towards the shrubbery.
Again, I was lucky. I saw no one. I steered the trolley round to the rear of the bandstand towards the shrubs that covered the steep slope behind. At the edge of the path, I pushed the trolley on to the grass verge and into the edge of the shrubs. Then, wary of leaving footprints on the soft ground, I clambered on to the trolley and rolled Gareth's body off the end and into the bushes. I stepped back and jumped down, pulling the trolley after me. The bushes looked a little battered, but there was no sign of Gareth. With luck, he'd remain undiscovered until the postman delivered my Christmas message to the BEST.
Ten minutes later, the trolley was back in place and I was nosing out of the park's rear entrance on to