Free A Walk With the Dead by Sally Spencer

who’s putting in an appearance?’
    â€˜I doubt it. I’ll probably send DI Beresford.’
    â€˜Pity,’ Hardcastle mused. ‘Colin Beresford’s a nice enough lad, but you look much better on television.’
    â€˜It’s not entertainment were talking about here, Roger – it’s
murder
,’ Paniatowski said.
    â€˜Sorry,’ Hardcastle replied, sounding slightly shamefaced, ‘but when you’ve been in the news business for as long as I have, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.’
    Her next call was to the editor of a local evening paper.
    â€˜I want the story on the front page,’ she told him, ‘and I want it emphasized that while we always appreciate help from the general public, we
really
need it this time.’
    â€˜Understood.’
    â€˜What time does your first edition come out?’
    â€˜Usually around two o’clock in the afternoon.’
    â€˜If you make it midday, I’ll owe you one.’
    â€˜We can’t possibly have it ready by midday,’ the editor protested.
    â€˜The girl was
thirteen
,’ Paniatowski pointed out. ‘Thirteen!’
    â€˜All right, all right, I’ll do my best,’ the editor promised.
    It was as she hung up the phone that she noticed the slight tremble in her hand.
    â€˜You’re just tired,’ she told herself.
    Of course it was just tiredness. It couldn’t be anything else, for while it was true that the murder victim this time was a girl of around the same age as Louisa – and a girl, moreover, who she might have talked to at the wedding reception but hadn’t – this was still a case just like any other.
    Ideally, the subject of an interrogation should be tired and hungry, and the two prison officers who had just come off the night shift, and were now sitting across from George Baxter, fitted the bill perfectly.
    Their names were Higgins and Fellows, and they were in their mid-thirties. They both wore their hair short, though Higgins’ hair was blond and Fellows’ was brown. Fellows looked the more intelligent of the two, but also the more cautious.
    â€˜You were on duty the morning Templar was beaten up in the shower, weren’t you?’ Baxter asked.
    â€˜That’s right,’ Fellows agreed.
    Several seconds’ silence followed the admission, then Baxter said, ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me exactly what happened.’
    â€˜The shower block has ten showers, and the procedure is to take the prisoners there in batches of twenty,’ Higgins said. ‘What’s supposed to happen is that ten of them stand in the corridor, while the other ten take their showers. Then the ten that have showered take their turn at waiting in the corridor, while the other ten get
their
showers.’
    â€˜The thing is, that assumes all ten showers are working properly,’ Fellows added.
    â€˜And sometimes they’re not?’ Baxter asked.
    â€˜At best, there’s never more than five or six of them in working order,’ Fellows said. ‘That means there has to be five prisoners in the showers, and fifteen waiting outside.’
    â€˜And there are only two officers supervising them?’
    â€˜That’s right.’
    â€˜Isn’t that rather a high ratio of prisoners to officers?’ Baxter wondered. ‘What if they decided to attack you?’
    â€˜They wouldn’t dare,’ Higgins said.
    â€˜Why not? What would stop them?’
    â€˜The thought of having their fingers broken,’ Higgins smirked.
    â€˜Shut up, Tony!’ Fellows warned him.
    â€˜So if any prisoner attacked any officer, the governor would have his fingers broken?’ Baxter asked.
    â€˜Yeah, right – like this governor of ours would have the balls to do that!’ Higgins said contemptuously.
    â€˜I told you to shut up,’ Fellows said.
    â€˜So if you’re not talking about the governor,