Free Cold in Hand by John Harvey Page B

Gregan's bedroom."
    Gregan's face at that moment, Resnick thought, watching, was a picture of despairing realisation.
    "I should like," Gregan said, his voice just a little shaky, "a few words with my solicitor in private."

    There was to be no denial, no passing off, no sleight of hand. No, that's not my bag, never seen it in my life, someone must have planted it there; no, I was just minding it for a friend, no idea what was inside. Gregan, as his solicitor had confirmed, was looking at a mandatory sentence of five years. Five years, minimum.
    He knew enough about prison to realise it was the last place he wanted to go.
    "If my client can furnish you with information that is helpful in your investigation into this unfortunate recent shooting, how willing would you be to disregard the contents of the bag?"
    "Disregard?"
    "Yes."
    "As in pretend it was never there?"
    The solicitor turned his head aside and coughed, once and then again; he hoped he wasn't coming down with a cold. "What my client is looking for is a marked degree of leniency."
    "I'll bet he is," Pike said.
    "I shall have to take this to my superior," said Michaelson.
    "So be it," the solicitor said, and readjusted his glasses on his nose.
    "Tell him we need to check his alibi," Resnick said, after speaking to Michaelson. "Then we'll listen to what he has to say. But Frank, no promises, okay?"

    Karen Evans scarcely looked up when Michaelson and Pike came into the shop. Time enough to register that one of them was unusually tall and that they were both police officers of one kind or another; the amount of shoplifting that went on, there

were officers in and out all the time, sometimes seeming to take it seriously, sometimes not doing a whole lot more than joking around with one or other of the security staff, while pretending not to be noticing which women were taking exactly what garments into the changing rooms—fuel, she thought, for their own little fantasies when they got home. Ryan had talked her into playing that game a time or two: You're in the changing room, stripped down to your bra and panties, and the door swings open just enough ... Panties, she hated that word.
    She was just finishing rearranging the sweaters on the shelf when the manager came over and said the two policemen wanted to speak with her. As long as it didn't take too long, they could use the office.
    Michaelson would have been lying if he'd said he hadn't hoped it would be her. Small—petite, was that the word?—but not like those models they were forever getting exercised about, so sticklike, they looked as though they'd break the moment they were touched. This one looked tougher than that, her brown hair cut short with reddish streaks, a pale top that fitted nicely and then a short little skirt, brown with large white dots, over a pair of dark tights going down to ankle-length red boots.
    "Your tongue," Pike said.
    "What?"
    "It's mopping the floor."
    The office was small, the three of them close together, Michaelson bending forward uncomfortably, as if his head might graze the ceiling. He could smell the girl's perfume—how old was she? eighteen? nineteen?—and something else that he hoped wasn't his own sweat but probably was.
    Karen looked at them expectantly. "This is about last week," she said, "when those four guys steamed the shop?"
    "Ryan Gregan," Pike said.
    Karen blinked.
    "You know him?"
    "Yes." She nodded and blinked again.
    "He's your boyfriend?"
    "Yes, I suppose." She glanced up at Michaelson. "Has something happened? To Ryan?"
    Michaelson shook his head. "He's okay."
    "Really? I thought, maybe, there'd been an accident."
    "Nothing like that," Michaelson said, and saw her body relax. "Can you remember where you were on Valentine's Day?" he asked.
    "Of course. Can't you?"
    Michaelson blushed. On Valentine's Day evening, sitting across from his girlfriend of eighteen months in Hart's poncey restaurant—an arm and a leg that had cost him—he'd asked if she didn't