Page 9

9

Sunday lunchtime

Ravensbourne wanted to see what the crime scene investigators came up with as they trawled through the building looking for possible evidence. Charlie was sent to find Eddy, to see if anything useful had come from his interview with Jeff Britton.

At the police station, Eddy was sitting in the break room, with the door propped open to the gloomy — and hopefully cooler — corridor. He had a bag of doughnuts from the supermarket, and for a miracle, hadn’t yet eaten them all. Charlie grabbed the bag and helped himself, even though the heat was making the icing too soft and sticky, coating his fingers and lips as he ate. Which didn’t stop him eating another.

“What did he say?” Charlie asked when he’d sucked all the sugar from his fingers and run a glass of tap water to drink. He wanted coffee, but he couldn’t bear the thought of adding to the heat in the room.

“Britton? The fire investigator?” Eddy sighed. “He never showed up. I walked back into town in case he’d got lost, despite saying he knew where the station is, but there was no sign of the guy. And we never took a number for him, because he was supposed to be following me here.”

“So did he know there was a body?” Charlie asked, though rhetorically. “He didn’t tell me that there was a dead man on the top floor, but if he’d been all the way through the building, he must have seen it.”

Eddy nodded. “Exactly. He must have. Maybe that’s what he didn’t want to tell us. But he’s a fire investigator. It can’t have been the first time he’s seen a body.”

“Well, we’d better find him so we can ask,” Charlie said.

Eddy shrugged. And then the big man started to cry. Just snuffles and fat tears hidden behind his hands, but Eddy was crying. Charlie went to the counter for the roll of kitchen paper. “Thanks,” Eddy mumbled, blowing his nose hard and wiping up the tears. “It’s Patsy. I can’t help thinking about Patsy. She loved that fucker. He didn’t deserve it, but she still loved him, and it’s not bloody right.”

“I think we’re all in shock,” Charlie said. “We all worked with Unwin, and then there’s Patsy, like you say.”

“I wanted him gone,” Eddy said. “Unwin. He wasn’t good enough for her, but not like this. I just wanted him to leave her alone.”

There was real venom in Eddy’s words. Eddy and Patsy bickered constantly, but the affection between them was genuine. If it had been someone Eddy cared about being transported to the morgue, Patsy would have been equally distressed.

“I thought Unwin was OK,” Charlie said.

“That’s because you’re probably the only cop in Clwyd he never tried to get into bed. He probably tried it on with the brass, too. Men and women.”

This was a bit rich coming from Eddy, who had tried it on with Charlie, and more than once.

“I think it’s fair to say that Unwin was sex-positive,” Charlie suggested.

“Fucking sex predator more like. Only it didn’t do him any good in the end, did it? Tried it on with the wrong person.”

“You think Unwin went to the empty shop for a hook-up?”

“That would be a yes,” Eddy said, as if nothing could be more obvious.

It might even have been true. Unwin had been expecting to stay the night with Dylan, only Dylan had had other plans. Except … when had Unwin made the arrangement and how did he and the supposed hook-up get into the empty building?

Eddy’s eyes were brimming again. He swiped his hand across them and sniffed loudly. Apparently unable to speak, he nodded.

“It’s a theory,” Charlie said. “Though whoever it was went to the meeting armed with a hammer and the intention of killing Unwin. Not a spur-of-the-moment thing because Unwin came on too strong. And why meet there? Unwin has a home. He doesn’t live with Patsy.”

“I don’t fucking know. Maybe the hammer was in the shop. As for premeditation, it could be someone Unwin had harassed in the past.”

“We need to talk to Patsy, and we need Unwin’s phone, and we’d better hope there is some evidence on the hammer or in the building …” because if Eddy was right, they would be looking for someone who knew Unwin. Only, Charlie was going to need a lot more persuasion that Eddy was right. Both Patsy and Dylan had obviously loved Unwin, and though Charlie had only met Dylan once, he seemed like a sensible guy. He did know Patsy, and she was nobody’s fool. If it counted, and Charlie thought it did, his own impression of Unwin was of someone loyal, and basically trustworthy. Was Unwin a sexual predator? Charlie supposed he would find out.

Charlie’s phone chirped. He clicked it off, expecting the message to be from Tom. But then Eddy’s phone chirped too and Eddy looked.

“Shit,” he said.

Charlie picked up his own phone. The message was from the press officer at police HQ.

British nationalists claim responsibility for fire in Llanfair.

There was a link. It led to a website festooned with Union flags and nazi symbols, and a headline:

Wales Says No to Migrants!

The false story about the holiday park was recycled together with the assertion that loyal British people had taken matters into their own hands, and the claim that Wales knows how to repel unwanted outsiders which made Charlie snort with laughter.

“These guys have a real grasp of Welsh history,” he said.

Eddy looked at him with a bemused expression. “There was all that graffiti.”

“Let’s see how keen they are to claim responsibility when the word gets out about Unwin’s murder. Especially when they find out he was a cop,” Charlie said.

The back door crashed open, and a moment later the smell of cigarette smoke indicated that Ravensbourne had arrived.

“What the actual fuck is going on in this town, boys? A people carrier full of sweaty nazis has been stopped on the A55 on their way here to protest about refugees moving in to, I quote, a luxury holiday park. The MP wants to know what’s occurring. The Chief Super is spitting nails. The Police and Crime Commissioner has a press conference planned and would like to know what to say.”

Charlie wished he knew. But Ravensbourne hadn’t finished.

“And the Forensic Fire Investigator has just arrived at the scene. The real Forensic Fire Investigator.”