Free Imperfect Killing by Luke Delaney Page A

round pretty well,’ Mendham assured him. Can put my hands on most things pretty quickly. But I’m sure two of the Met’s finest didn’t come down here just for a chat.’
    ‘No,’ Sean confessed with a wry smile.
    ‘So why don’t you tell me what it is I can do for you?’
    ‘Firearms,’ Sean told him. ‘More specifically blank-firing firearms – blank-firing revolvers.’
    ‘Firearms it is then,’ Mendham replied and headed off. ‘Feel free to follow on,’ he encouraged them. Sean and Benton glanced at each other before doing as they’d been told, following Mendham to a partitioned-off area of the basement where they discovered hundreds of firearms of all kinds: rifles, pistols, revolvers, submachine guns, historical weapons and even several small cannons. ‘Here they are,’ Mendham told them proudly. ‘Firearms.’
    ‘Christ,’ Benton declared. ‘You could arm every bloody criminal in London with this little lot.’
    ‘Wouldn’t do them any good,’ Mendham explained. ‘None of them work.’
    ‘Not yet,’ Sean told him. ‘Why aren’t they locked away?’
    ‘Because they don’t have to be,’ Mendham shrugged. ‘They’re not real. We have a booking in and out system, but that’s just so people are accountable if any go missing. Some of our actors like to keep them as souvenirs of their successful shows.’
    ‘Don’t you need some sort of licence for these?’ Benton asked.
    ‘Not at all,’ Mendham told him, ‘but we do have a theatrical exemption licence that means we can take them into public areas – so long as they’re being used for filming.’
    ‘But you keep a close check on them,’ Sean asked, ‘to make sure none of them are missing.’
    ‘I do,’ Mendham assured him.
    ‘And when was the last time you checked?’ Sean continued.
    ‘I checked the register yesterday. Everything that had been booked out has been booked back in.’
    ‘I appreciate the register may be in order,’ Sean agreed, ‘but when was the last time you
physically
checked all the weapons are here?’
    ‘I … I,’ Mendham stuttered, ‘I’m not sure. Maybe a few weeks ago I did a stock check.’
    ‘But nothing since then?’ Sean squeezed him.
    ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘There’s no real need for me to check more often than that. The booking in and out system enables me to track everything … eventually.’
    ‘So long as everybody actually books them out,’ Sean pointed out.
    ‘Why wouldn’t they?’ Mendham asked naively.
    Sean let it go for now, casting his hand over the handgun section. ‘These,’ he asked, ‘the modern handguns, particularly the revolvers – there aren’t too many here. Perhaps you can tell me if any are missing?’
    Mendham puffed out his cheeks and began to examine the collection of revolvers, his eyes darting from one to the next. Only seconds later he straightened and smiled with relief. ‘No,’ he declared. ‘As I suspected they’re all there.’
    ‘You sure?’ Sean checked.
    ‘Absolutely,’ Mendham assured him. ‘I know these weapons well and they’re all here. Many are quite new additions.’
    Sean’s eyes squinted with concentration as he massaged his temples and began to examine the revolvers for himself – discounting most on the grounds of being the wrong potential calibre, too small or too big. Others he dismissed because they were chrome or even gold plated, until he reduced his own collection to a handful of weapons that resembled the revolver he’d seen on the grainy CCTV footage of the shooting.
    ‘You alright?’ Benton asked as they watched Sean scanning the tables. Sean held his hand up to let them know he wanted silence. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his jacket pocket and slipped them over his hands, lowering one to pick up a .38 Smith and Wesson with an old-style four-inch barrel. He lifted it to his face, inhaling deeply. It smelled of little other than metal and oil, and he placed it back on the table, swapping it for a