" Ignoring the absence of ashtrays in the ACC's office, Cross lit a cigarette and puffed a happy cloud of smoke into the air.
Brandon struggled, but he couldn't find the words. For once, he was speechless.
Cross looked around vaguely for somewhere to flick his ash, and settled for the floor, rubbing it into the carpet with the toe of his shoe.
"So when do you want me to start back on the job?" he asked.
Brandon leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"If it was up to me, you'd never work in this town again," he said pleasantly.
Cross choked on a mouthful of smoke. Brandon looked back down and savoured the moment.
Chapter 22
"By heck, you like your joke, John," Cross spluttered.
"I've never been more serious in my life," Brandon said coldly.
"I called you here this morning to warn you off. What you did to Steven McConnell yesterday afternoon was assault. The file stays open. Superintendent. If you come anywhere near this investigation again, I'll have no hesitation in charging you. In fact, I'll enjoy it. I will not have this force brought into disrepute by any officer, serving or under suspension. "
As Brandon's words sank in, Cross paled, then turned puce with anger and humiliation. Brandon stood up.
"Now get out of my office and my station."
Cross got to his feet like a man con cussed
"You'll regret this, Brandon," he stuttered furiously.
"Don't make me, Torn. For your own sake, don't make me."
Thinking on her feet, Carol led the journalists round to the small lounge outside the lawyers' cafeteria.
"OK, OK," she said, trying to damp down their baying with exaggerated hand movements.
"Look, if you'll just give me two minutes, I'll come right back and answer your questions, OK?"
They looked uncertain, one or two at the back showing a tendency to drift back towards the courts.
"Look, people," she said, gently massaging her jaw,
"I'm in agony. I've got raging toothache, and if I don't ring my dentist before ten, I've got no chance of him fitting me in today. Please? Give me a break? Then I'm all yours, promise!"
Carol forced a pained smile and slipped through to the cafeteria.
There was a phone on the far wall, which she picked up. She made great play of taking out her diary and looking up a page, while dialling the familiar number of the court. "Court one, please." She waited for the connection, then said to the clerk. This is Inspector Jordan here. Can I speak to the GPS solicitor? "
Moments later, she was talking to the Crown Prosecution Service lawyer.
"Eddie? Carol Jordan. I've got about thirty hacks here waiting for Steven McConnell to come up. They're dying to jump to all the wrong conclusions, and I think you might prefer to get it now while I've got them tied up at an imprompti conference. Can you swing it with the clerk?" She while the solicitor muttered with the court clerk.
"Can do, Carol," he said. Thanks. "
Keeping up the pretence, Carol put the phone do\ scribbled something in her diary. Then she took breath and headed back towards the pack.
Damien Connolly, the ultimate PC Plod. I couldn't have found a better person to teach the police a lesson if I'd searched for a year. But he was already there, on my list, one of my own personal Top Ten. He was harder to stalk than the others, because his shift pattern was often in conflict with the hours I work. But, as my grandmother always used to say, nothing worth having comes easy.
I trapped him in the usual way.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, but my car's broken down and I don't know where the nearest call box is. Can I use your phone to ring the AAf It's almost laughably easy to get across the threshold of their homes. Three men dead, and still they fail to take the most elementary precautions. I almost felt sorry for Damien, since of all of them, he is the only one who had not betrayed me. But I needed to make an example of him, to show the police how pathetically useless they are. It was galling to find myself in agreement with the so-called 'gay community', but they were one hundred per cent correct when they said that while supposedly gay men were being killed, the police would do nothing. Killing one of their own would be the one thing that would make them sit up and notice. At last, they'd be forced to give me the recognition