Free Death Line by Maureen Carter Page A

round. Curious the big man hadn’t showed.
    Knight had his props ready; he grabbed a stack of newspapers from the desk behind. “How the fuck did this get out?” Bums shuffled, eyes shifted, most of the thirty-strong team
developed a fascination with footwear. Curran raised an uncertain hand. Knight dismissed it with tetchy flap. Right now, he said, the source of the leak was secondary, his main concern was its
consequences. Waving the local rag in their faces, he upped the volume: “Have you any idea how much damage this could do?”
    Not in the same league as the harm Haines inflicted, Bev reckoned. She sensed Mac bristling, noticed Powell purse dubious lips. But it wasn’t the point, not the way Knight was spelling it
out. With each salvo, he slung another paper back across the desk. Bev kept a close eye on his skin tone. The pink tinge had been on the rise and now came close to the colour of the Sun’s
masthead, the paper he brandished briefly before it too hit the deck. “It’s not trial by tabloid.” Knight loosened his tie, snatched at the top button of his shirt.
“They’ve hung drawn and bloody quartered the man.”
    Haines’s bleeding body parts flashed before Bev’s eyes. Shuddering, she perished the thought. It was difficult to work up pity for predatory creeps like Haines when the yuman rights
brigade did such a good job. She’d save her sympathy for the victims.
    While Knight continued reading the riot act, she peered at the papers on the desk. Haines hadn’t just been named, his back story had been resurrected. Reporters had written up as much of
it as they dared, or their editors-stroke-lawyers thought they could get away with. Among a rash of quote marks, stories were scattered with: ‘it’s believeds’, ‘sources
say’, ‘it’s understoods’, and that great catch-all: allegedly. Most damning of all, perhaps, were references to the Bristol court case that never was.
    “His lawyer’s out there – ” Knight jabbed a finger over their heads “– banging on about his client’s rights.” Never? Bev sat back, legs
crossed, knew the words fair and trial would get an airing next. “Tell me this.” Knight folded his arms. “How the hell is Haines going to get a fair hearing now?”
    Close. She sniffed, circled an ankle. Knight left a few seconds’ gap that no one rushed to fill, shook his head, then took his time walking to the water cooler. From the corridor came the
sound of running footsteps. That stopped at the door. Heads swivelled as the wood took a chunk of plaster off the wall. For a sec Bev expected to see Haines’s brief storm in arguing the toss.
They should be so lucky. It was DC Darren New who entered, glancing nervy darts round until he located Knight.
    “You need to see this, guv.” A none too steady hand raised a video. Given Dazza had been tracking down sex workers Bev doubted it’d be family viewing. “Haines is on here.
And I don’t think he’s our killer.”

13
    Roland Haines had not dumped Josh Banks’s body. His alibi for even longer than the time in question was tighter than highly strung piano wire, considerably tauter than
the spotty white buttocks spread across the stained stripy mattress now showing at a cinema near you. Not. Darren had treated Knight to a private viewing prior to the home movie being screened to a
packed house in one of the nick’s video suites. The gaffer had come out with that haunted look, like he’d seen a ghost. Bev’s verdict? It left a nasty taste...
    Back in the office now, she nibbled a sausage roll, shoved the greasy remains across her cluttered desk. “Sorry, mate. Yours if you want it.”
    The cholesterol-fest had been Mac’s shout; he’d nipped across to Gregg’s for a bite to keep them going. Even though breakfast had gone by the board, Bev had lost her appetite.
The recurring vision of Haines’s pasty flesh was only part of the reason.
    “Un-fucking believable, eh?” Sour-faced, she slumped