Page 68 of Copper Script
“I read about that.”
“The man he accused is notorious for having his hand out.Everyone in Soho knows he was bang to rights, but Horwood wouldn’t hear it, so the Home Office deliberated behind closed doors, threw the charge out, and got rid of Josling instead.And that was just for a sergeant; any sort of accusation against a divisional inspector will need full chapter and verse to stand a chance.”
“So what do you have?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Aaron said.“Sweet Fanny Adams, if you’ll excuse the phrase.Plenty of suspicions, nothing concrete.”
“Hang on.You’re not basing all this on my reading?”Joel asked.
“I’ve seen your work.I believe it.”
Joel’s lips parted silently.“Oh.”
“I don’t understand it but I believe it.Which is alarming, but here we are.But the truth is, when you spoke about number seven, I knew it would be Colthorne, even before I checked.I don’t like him and I don’t trust him, and there’s any amount of little things that have been adding up.”
“Like what?”
“You recall that business with Dapper Melkin, when I was in the papers?”
“You Valentino, you.”Joel was trying for a normal voice, but he looked very pale.“Yes?”
“The defence brief accused me of being in cahoots with the Sabinis.You said yourself, there’s talk they have an in with King’s Cross nick.I think that’s DDI Colthorne.I think he’s been quietly giving them a helping hand for a while, which may explain why they’re returning the favour now.”
“Running his errands.Bothering me.”
“Exactly.I suspect he was setting me up to take the fall there, or at least to look suspicious or unreliable.There’s been a lot of odd things, like him accusing me of being a publicity seeker—I wonder if he arranged that flurry of pieces in the press—or bringing up all sides of my family in the worst manner.Italian blood, Society connections and a union firebrand father: he and his lapdog DI Davis remind my colleagues of it all the time.At this stage—God, I’ve been at King’s Cross for two years, and I truly don’t know if any of them would stand up for me.And I can’t prove any of that is his fault, as I can’t prove anything at all, but Rahim said the man who asked about me was a Sabini man, and I sent that telegram to you from work.”
“From the police station?”
“I can’t think of any way Darby Sabini could have known what I was doing that evening, unless someone in King’s Cross nick was watching me.And I can’t think why Darby would care, unless someone important had asked him to find out.”
“Find out about DS Fowler’s boy friend,” Joel said hollowly.
“I’m afraid so.I think, if Colthorne suspects he’s got that on me—”
“Oh God.Could he?Is that my fault, my record?”
“Not if he’s talked to Paul,” Aaron said.“As he must have done if he dictated that letter.I, er, had something of an affair at school.”
“Ooh, did you now,” Joel said, a pale shadow of his usual teasing.“Well, shit.So what’s the plan?Darby Sabini puts the frighteners on me, extorts more than I can pay, then lets me know I can get out from under if I grass you up?”
“You spill your guts to Darby, he takes it to Colthorne, Colthorne dismisses me for gross misconduct.I won’t stand a chance,” Aaron said flatly.“I involved you in an ongoing investigation and you’ve got an indecency conviction.I could try to fight it but the insinuations and the press reports would destroy me, even if I was cleared.”
“Yes, but hang on,” Joel said.“How would that make you look like the Sabini nark in King’s Cross?”
“I don’t think that’s his aim any more.I think that was the original plan, but I have since stumbled on something that made it urgent for him to discredit me immediately and comprehensively, even if he has to put himself in debt to Darby Sabini.”
Joel’s eyes were huge.“What thing?”
“You said yourself.The murder he committed.Possibly murders.”
Joel grasped for words for a couple of seconds, then downed the rest of his whisky in an emphatic manner.Aaron shoved the bottle over; Joel shoved it a half-inch back.“If I drink until I feel happy, you’ll be sending me home in a wheelbarrow.Are you sure about this?”
“No,” Aaron said.“I can’t be because it’s all shadows and suspicions.What I know for certain is, in the last couple of weeks my DI—you read his hand too, he’s the obedient bully—has been piling work on me.I’ve been strongly discouraged from pursuing the murder case in which I suspect Colthorne’s involved.You’ve been harassed both by the Sabinis and by my cousin Paul, and Paul is an idiot and a snob.He wouldn’t write a letter at Darby Sabini’s dictation, but he would gladly take help from a gentleman and not question why it was offered.I think Colthorne is the puppet-master behind it all, and I think it’s because he knows or fears I’m on to him.”
“How?And how would he know about me?”Joel demanded.“We’ve only met a handful of times, it’s not as though we’ve been kissing in public!”
“I was wondering that too.But Sergeant Hollis knows about your conviction, and the business with Paul.If Colthorne asked him questions, he’d have no reason not to answer.And my DC on the murder case spoke to him in a way which I suspect made him realise he could be in trouble.That was unfortunate.”
