Rules of Honour by Matt Hilton Read Free Book Online Page A

detective, but even I could tell that the photo frame had been slipped beneath the body after Jed was already dead.
    Tyler looked once at Jones, confirming that his partner had caught the significance too, before noticing us looming over them. ‘Do you mind keeping your distance? In fact, I’m not even sure that I want you in the room.’
    Continuing our show of compliance we stepped back, watching as Tyler sealed the photo in an evidence bag, then signed it over to the CSI team. Unless the killer was supremely stupid he would have been wearing gloves when placing the photo, but there was always an off chance that fingerprints could be found on the frame. I doubted it; but the frame was a clue of sorts to me, and more for the photograph’s subject than the physical item.
    On the way over here, Rink had told me a little about Jed Newmark, that he was a widower whose wife, Rose, had died a few years earlier. Rose had been a friend of Yukiko’s but I hadn’t realised until seeing the picture that she too was Japanese. A theory was beginning to rattle around in my head, gaining momentum, but it wasn’t something I wanted to mention to the detectives. Rink’s words came back to me. ‘ Giri . My mom is a firm believer in the old ways.’ I had begun to wonder how far that ‘burden of obligation’ stretched.
    Detective Jones left his partner to approach us. He was smiling faintly as he tucked his thumbs into his belt and shoved back his shoulders. ‘There’s stuff you guys know but aren’t telling us. Want to get down to business and save us the runaround?’
    We shared a look, and I allowed Rink to reply for us. ‘All I know is that someone murdered my dad, and now his best friend, and the SFPD doesn’t seem to have a goddamn clue who’s responsible.’
    Jones shook his head. With his strawberry-blond curls and a splash of freckles across his nose, he looked much younger, and less experienced, than his position as a homicide detective dictated. But his face took on harder edges, and he didn’t look as amiable as before. He looked into Rink’s eyes and didn’t flinch. ‘When your father was killed you were in Florida. We checked. We know that you –’ he gave me a cursory nod ‘– and your friend weren’t involved directly, but we also found out a thing or two that raised a red flag. As much as you’ve covered your asses, and it seems someone with influence has kept you both from being thrown in jail, our colleagues out East aren’t idiots. They know that you’re responsible for a number of violent crimes – fatally violent in some cases – and that you have made some dangerous and brutal enemies in the last couple years. There has been a certain laxness shown towards your actions, primarily because those that you’ve gone up against probably deserved what they got, but when those actions bring trouble to our city the SFPD isn’t the type to turn a blind eye. We don’t endorse vigilantism here.’
    ‘You haven’t just had someone close to you murdered,’ Rink said. ‘Maybe you’d think differently then.’
    Jones ignored the retort.‘The way I was beginning to look at things, this was your entire fault: someone with a beef with you chose to attack you through your family.’ He gestured at the bagged corpse being loaded on to the gurney. ‘Now I’m not so sure. I can’t see any reason why they would then target Mr Newmark. Not unless there’s something I’m missing?’
    Did Jones believe that Jed Newmark was Andrew’s murderer, and that we’d done the old guy in out of revenge? If so, he wasn’t saying, but it would add validity to why it had become necessary for us to consent to forensic examination. I didn’t think that was the case, though: if we were deemed suspects we’d have been arrested at the get-go.
    ‘Whatever you’re missing, we are too,’ Rink said.
    Jones puffed his cheeks out, before exhaling noisily. ‘Forgive me, Mr Rington, but I think you’re feeding me a line