Free Lost Souls by Neil White Page B

all right. There was still enough sedative in him to keep him quiet until the next morning. Just one more night and then it would all be better.
    He leaned over the boy, watched his face for a moment. His hand reached down and moved the boy’s hair to one side, as if to keep it out of his eyes. He smiled, almost paternal, and then leaned forward to kiss himon the forehead. His lips touched softly, just a light brush.
    He would be back, to make things right.
    ‘I always knew there was money in property,’ said Pete.
    Laura looked up, and through the windscreen she saw what he meant.
    They were approaching a pair of high steel gates sitting between brick pillars, the central point of long brick walls that surrounded a house she could see at the top of a sweeping gravel drive.
    The house stood out as a blemish in a quiet green valley, Laura thought. It was too new for the setting, the ivy planted around the base of the walls not up to the ground-floor windows, so that the brickwork still gleamed. Maybe in a hundred years or so, when the roof had dipped in a few places and the walls had weathered darker, it would look desirable, but Laura thought that it seemed more lottery-win than country-set.
    Pete had to bark stern words at the intercom to get the gate to open, but within a couple of minutes his tyres crunched on the gravel and they had parked in front of the large oak double doors at the front of the house. Jimmy King stood on the front doorstep. He was wearing a shirt open at the neck, but the rest of his attire was smart, with crisp pleats in his pinstriped trousers and a deep gleam to his shoes.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ he barked.
    ‘Good afternoon, Mr King,’ said Laura, stepping ahead of Pete, guessing that her diplomatic skills would be better than his. ‘We are currently holding your son, Luke,at Blackley police station, and we just need to have a look around.’
    ‘Do you have a warrant?’
    ‘Do I need one?’ It was a clichéd question, but it usually worked.
    Jimmy King paused for a moment, and then stepped forward to block Laura’s way. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, before turning around and walking back into the house.
    Laura and Pete exchanged looks, and before she could stop him, Pete was bounding up the steps to the front doors, large and imposing, a stone above the entrance engraved with a motto:
Strength in Unity.
Pete jammed his foot in just as the door was about to close.
    Pete grinned. ‘No, we don’t.’ When Jimmy King stepped back, surprised, Pete continued, ‘Your son is under arrest and we have the authority of an inspector to be here, so we can do it with or without your co-operation.’
    ‘Which inspector?’
    Pete shook his head. ‘That doesn’t concern you. So it’s arrest or search. Which do you fancy?’
    ‘I’ve met bully-boys like you before,’ said Jimmy, his face impassive, his voice cold. ‘You need to remember that it’s only a job, that you’ll want to go home at night and forget about it.’ His look hardened. ‘
I
don’t forget anything.’
    Pete glared at him. ‘And I’ve met plenty like you before,’ he said, and pushed past him and into the house.
    Laura shook her head. She admired Pete’s style, but she wondered how many complaints he could fend off and stay in the job.
    When they went in, Laura saw how unlike a countryhouse it was. There were no panelled walls or dark corners, no oak beams across the ceilings. Instead, the light almost bounced its way around the house as it streamed through large windows and off the gold stripes on the wallpaper. The stairs went up out of the hall and fanned out to both sides of the house. Laura thought she saw a chaise longue at the top, below a large window that streamed light down into the hall. The rooms on either side of her were carpeted in pristine cream, and flowers adorned every spare piece of surface. It made Laura realise how much she had to do in her own home, with so many boxes still unpacked and none