High-Wired by Andrea Frazer Page A

he felt that if he described the victim to Monty, he’d be presented with a name straight away.
    If he had recognised him, Monty would be sure to, and the small tattoo of a spider’s web on the victim’s neck was a useful identifying feature. He just hoped Monty was on duty.
    He was, and after a brief description of build, approximate height, hair colour, and the additional information of the tattoo, Monty immediately came up with a name. ‘Doug Green! Yeo Close, up on the council estate. Been a bit of a jack-the-lad for years, but never got himself into really hot water. I’ve got him in my card index system.
    ‘Yes, I know it’s all supposed to go on computer, but I do like to keep the old cards up to date. So helpful, if you can’t be bothered to turn on the blasted machine, and then wait for the valve to warm up; then there’s the password to remember. No, I rely on my old cards when I want a name quickly, but I can pull his computer record up for you, Lenny. He’s never been convicted of anything, but he’s managed to wriggle out of quite a few charges over the years.’
    The promise was no sooner made than accomplished, and it wasn’t long before Lenny found himself looking at a mugshot of the man discovered murdered on the beach earlier that day.
    ‘I’ll pass his details on to one of the female officers to see if they’d break the news to his family. I gather he has one?’
    ‘Wife, and three kids all getting to an age where they’ve started to tangle with us, but nothing much at the moment – they’ve restricted their activities to shoplifting sweeties and breaking the windows of unoccupied houses.’
    ‘I think I’ll ask Teri Friend. She’s good with empathising and looking after weeping women. Me, I just freeze and can’t say a word.’
    ‘Me too,’ agreed Monty, who hated strong emotions, and was very happy safely ensconced in his lair of records. He was still in the process of adding some of the earlier ones to the hated computer, while doggedly maintaining his own paper system.
    Lenny left him to his routine record updating and went off in search of Teri Friend. She might feel that breaking bad news was rather beneath her level of experience in the job, but experience gave you tact and taught you the best way to tackle difficult and sensitive jobs like this one.
    From the vestibule, before the door closed properly, he heard Teri’s voice saying, ‘Not another racial minority case? My Asian roots don’t qualify me as an authority on racial matters, you know.’
    ‘That’s not the case, love,’ answered Lenny. ‘Just something a bit sensitive: telling a woman her husband’s been murdered in a very unusual and cruel way.’
    Over her time in the job Teri had got used to older officers like Lenny addressing her as ‘love’, and she had no real objection unless there was a senior officer lurking in the background. She smiled at him and said, ‘Thanks a bleedin’ bunch, Lenny, that makes me the bad news budgie again. Give me the address and the details, and I’ll get it over with before I rebel and insist that you do it for once.’
    ‘Hold on there, love. I’d never be able to be as good as you are at doing this sort of thing, and you know it.’
    ‘Oh, don’t I, and in spades!’

CHAPTER SIX
    Olivia and Hal went back into the hospital about three o’clock. There’d have to be some open and honest talking when Ben came home, to get to the bottom of why this incident had occurred in the first place. She would never erase the memory of a medic shaking her son’s inert body and shouting, ‘Breathe!’
    In the car on the drive over, Olivia had asked her husband why he’d suddenly decided to go into the bedroom. It turned out that Hal had gone into the upstairs bathroom and seen that somebody had taken a crap on the carpet, having completely missed the bowl of the lavatory. He had known that it was either Ben or his friend who had done such a filthy thing, and had marched