Deadly Virtues by Jo Bannister Read Free Book Online

locked onto a raging bull, at last even Barclay’s manic strength began to wane. The thick limbs, each now dragging a policeman, slowed and submitted to restraint. After another moment the big man allowed himself to be dragged down, tumbling with a kind of monstrous grace into the wreckage of his victim.
    Finally there was time to take stock. No one was shouting anymore. The only sound in the cell was of aching lungs being replenished. Then Wayne Budgen whispered a thunderstruck, “Bloody hell!”
    Murchison’s hands looked as if he’d dipped them in blood. And he didn’t think any of it was his. He dragged in a long breath and tried to think.
    “Okay. Ambulance. Dr. Wellington was here earlier—see if he’s still on the premises. Send Rambles home and put this … animal … in there. Find the straitjacket. I’m going to want SOCO, Forensics, and the Home Office pathologist. And somebody had better call Mr. Fountain.”
    *   *   *
    Johnny Fountain was still wearing his dinner jacket when he arrived to take command of the situation. The first thing he did was to pull off the hated bow tie. The second was to call Sergeant Murchison to his office. “What happened, Donald?”
    If there’d been anyone else present, Donald Murchison would have stayed on his feet. But these two had respected each other for ten years, and he sank into the chair on the other side of Fountain’s desk as if only willpower had kept him upright this long. He vented a sigh of utter despair. “I don’t know what to tell you. A misunderstanding? Somebody misheard? I thought I’d got Cardy in four and Barclay in five. Cardy was certainly in four earlier—I looked in on them.”
    “Them?”
    “Rambles … sorry, Gabriel Ash. You know who I mean—goes everywhere with a white dog on a lead? He’d got himself duffed up earlier, and Hazel Best put him in there so someone would notice if his brain started leaking out of his ear. I had Mary Watson in five—DIC and driving while disqualified. We got her processed and sent her home, which left five free. When Barclay came in, that’s where I allocated him. Only sometime in the previous quarter of an hour someone must have noticed five was free and moved Cardy in there, and never got around to telling me.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t even asked.” He swallowed. “A boy just died in my cells—I’m not going to keep the class back until someone puts their hand up. We’ll find out who did what and why, but we don’t have to do it while the blood’s still wet on the floor. For now, sir, all that matters is that we know who’s responsible. I am. I was the custody officer. It was my job to allocate cells in such a way that a mild-mannered black law student wasn’t put in with a violent racist. Jerome Cardy is dead because I slipped up. And I’m more sorry than I can say.”
    For a long time Chief Superintendent Fountain said nothing. But it wasn’t the silence of censure: Fountain understood as well as anyone how little mistakes can mount up until all at once in the middle of the night there’s a full-fledged disaster. He’d served in pretty well every position in the police service—he was never a dog handler—on his way to where he was now. He knew that sometimes even the best intentions, coupled with years of experience, aren’t enough to avert a tragedy.
    Murchison sucked in a deep breath. “You’ll be calling the IPCC.” He knew that when the Independent Police Complaints Commission took over, his career would be effectively over.
    “I suppose so,” Fountain said slowly.
    Murchison blinked. There really wasn’t a choice and Fountain had to know that. “Sir?”
    “The bloke with the dog. Ash?” Murchison nodded. “ Why was he in the cells again?”
    “Hazel Best thought he was concussed. She wanted to take him to the hospital, but he wouldn’t go because they wouldn’t let his dog in. He’s a bit…” A tap of the forefinger to his temple.