he does so. Oh, here we go.
I don’t normally respond well to macho stuff, but I’m being very professional here, and in any case Penry knows every police trick in the book, so I stay calm.
“I don’t drink coffee, but if you’ve got herbal tea, then I’d like that.”
“You’ll need to wash up first. The mugs are in the sink.”
Ah, it’s the washing up now, is it? But I stay professional. “Well, if you sort out the tea things, I’ll wash the mugs.”
That response gets another second or two of posturing, then Penry swings the door open and walks through to the kitchen. I follow.
The house is messy, but not slum-messy, just single-man messy. Or perhaps more accurately, single-man-who’s-not-expecting-to-score messy. He’s not kidding about the mugs either. His kitchen sink is piled with dirty crockery, with a fatty scum on the surface of the water. The lid of his garbage pail is missing, and the bag is full of beer cans, juice cartons, and frozen meal wrappers.
Penry ostentatiously flicks the switch of the kettle from the off to the on position. That’s his share of things done, he’s telling me. He stands behind me, too close, deliberately crowding my space. I don’t want to touch his mugs or his crockery, let alone put my hand in the orangey oil slick of the sink. I compromise by picking the two least repulsive mugs, running the tap into the sink, and doing a quick, crude decontamination job. I present Penry with the mugs, wash my hands in the still running water, then turn it off, just as the orangey slick threatens to spill out over the draining board. There’s an overflow pipe in there somewhere, but it’s not draining anything fast, if at all.
Penry puts coffee granules in his cup and pours hot water on. No milk. No sugar.
“I don’t have any herbal tea, no.” He grins at me, challenging me to respond. “Good. Then I won’t need this.” I take the unused mug and toss it into the garbage pail. “Shall we talk?”
Penry leaves the mug where I threw it. He seems genuinely pleased by this interaction and barefoots his way into the living room, which is untidy but not squalid. There’s a view through to the back of the house, where Penry’s Georgian conservatory juts out into suburban Cardiff like a schooner nosing into Cowes Week. I pause for just long enough to take it in. The conservatory is empty, except for some plastic wrapping and some builders’ debris, swept into a corner but not cleared. A pair of keys hang on a nail driven into the frame next to the door. The piano is there, but dusty from the building work, and I can’t see any music for it.
Penry sits in what is obviously his armchair—unobstructed view of the TV—and I take a seat on a sofa, where I get a slightly angled view of his face.
“I thought you might like to know where our case stands. I also have one or two further questions. And of course, the more you cooperate, the more your cooperation will be taken into account when it comes to sentencing.”
Penry stares at me some more, then sips his coffee. He says nothing. It was a back injury that forced his retirement, and I notice that his chair is one of those ugly orthopedic numbers. There’s a packet of acetaminophen on the table. You always suspect that, when a cop retires with back injury, it’s mostly a question of the job having taken its toll over the years. Too many years of hassle, and retirement the easy option. The acetaminophen suggests otherwise, however.
I quickly summarize where we are in preparing the prosecution case—which is pretty much all systems go, following my meetings with the CPS and the accountants yesterday. I advance a guesstimated time line for the prosecution.
He answers with a question.
“How old are you?”
I pause for long enough to demonstrate that I’m answering because I choose to, not because I’m stuck in one of his stupid games.
“Twenty-six.”
“You look younger. You look like a baby.”
“Good skin
I don’t normally respond well to macho stuff, but I’m being very professional here, and in any case Penry knows every police trick in the book, so I stay calm.
“I don’t drink coffee, but if you’ve got herbal tea, then I’d like that.”
“You’ll need to wash up first. The mugs are in the sink.”
Ah, it’s the washing up now, is it? But I stay professional. “Well, if you sort out the tea things, I’ll wash the mugs.”
That response gets another second or two of posturing, then Penry swings the door open and walks through to the kitchen. I follow.
The house is messy, but not slum-messy, just single-man messy. Or perhaps more accurately, single-man-who’s-not-expecting-to-score messy. He’s not kidding about the mugs either. His kitchen sink is piled with dirty crockery, with a fatty scum on the surface of the water. The lid of his garbage pail is missing, and the bag is full of beer cans, juice cartons, and frozen meal wrappers.
Penry ostentatiously flicks the switch of the kettle from the off to the on position. That’s his share of things done, he’s telling me. He stands behind me, too close, deliberately crowding my space. I don’t want to touch his mugs or his crockery, let alone put my hand in the orangey oil slick of the sink. I compromise by picking the two least repulsive mugs, running the tap into the sink, and doing a quick, crude decontamination job. I present Penry with the mugs, wash my hands in the still running water, then turn it off, just as the orangey slick threatens to spill out over the draining board. There’s an overflow pipe in there somewhere, but it’s not draining anything fast, if at all.
Penry puts coffee granules in his cup and pours hot water on. No milk. No sugar.
“I don’t have any herbal tea, no.” He grins at me, challenging me to respond. “Good. Then I won’t need this.” I take the unused mug and toss it into the garbage pail. “Shall we talk?”
Penry leaves the mug where I threw it. He seems genuinely pleased by this interaction and barefoots his way into the living room, which is untidy but not squalid. There’s a view through to the back of the house, where Penry’s Georgian conservatory juts out into suburban Cardiff like a schooner nosing into Cowes Week. I pause for just long enough to take it in. The conservatory is empty, except for some plastic wrapping and some builders’ debris, swept into a corner but not cleared. A pair of keys hang on a nail driven into the frame next to the door. The piano is there, but dusty from the building work, and I can’t see any music for it.
Penry sits in what is obviously his armchair—unobstructed view of the TV—and I take a seat on a sofa, where I get a slightly angled view of his face.
“I thought you might like to know where our case stands. I also have one or two further questions. And of course, the more you cooperate, the more your cooperation will be taken into account when it comes to sentencing.”
Penry stares at me some more, then sips his coffee. He says nothing. It was a back injury that forced his retirement, and I notice that his chair is one of those ugly orthopedic numbers. There’s a packet of acetaminophen on the table. You always suspect that, when a cop retires with back injury, it’s mostly a question of the job having taken its toll over the years. Too many years of hassle, and retirement the easy option. The acetaminophen suggests otherwise, however.
I quickly summarize where we are in preparing the prosecution case—which is pretty much all systems go, following my meetings with the CPS and the accountants yesterday. I advance a guesstimated time line for the prosecution.
He answers with a question.
“How old are you?”
I pause for long enough to demonstrate that I’m answering because I choose to, not because I’m stuck in one of his stupid games.
“Twenty-six.”
“You look younger. You look like a baby.”
“Good skin
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