Free Rat Poison by Margaret Duffy Page B

don’t know why. We had words over the weekend.’ As I felt it affected the case with which we were all involved I related what had happened.
    â€˜She’s done nothing of the kind!’ the DCI said, referring to the complaint. ‘Or, at least, hadn’t done at the end of last week. And nobody’s been harassing the woman. You know, all she’s succeeded in doing is making me suspicious that she was involved in some kind of scam her husband was in, mobsters or whatever.’
    â€˜Patrick’s livid with me for not warning him about her apparent attraction to his father.’
    â€˜Och, why would you normally bother him with it? It’s exactly the kind of thing that men dismiss as women’s gossip.’
    Coming from a man, I reckoned this to be a noble remark.
    â€˜But Mrs Trelonic could do damage if she put a rumour about,’ he added. ‘This is nothing to do with me really but you might have to warn your in-laws.’
    When we moved to Somerset I really thought everything would settle down into an interesting but fairly quiet routine.
    Billy Jessop was still very ill, although improving. His elder brother was due to be discharged the following day, freeing him from his police ‘minders’ and into the care of a remand centre.
    â€˜I don’t know how you have the brass neck to come here,’ he shouted at me when he saw me.
    â€˜You’re disturbing the peace again,’ I admonished, not in a mood to take any nonsense from him. ‘And I would like to remind you that but for me you might be on a murder, rather than attempted murder, charge right now.’
    We drew up chairs around where he was sitting, his shoulder bandaged, arm in a sling, in a patients’ lounge. A television in one corner was being gloomily watched by three elderly men, the programme some kind of shopping channel.
    â€˜You’re not being interviewed under caution as the docs don’t think you’re well enough,’ Carrick began by saying in conversational tones. ‘We’re just here for a chat.’
    Jessop grunted.
    â€˜You don’t normally carry firearms,’ the DCI continued. ‘How did that come about?’
    â€˜I found it,’ Jessop replied, picking up a newspaper and pretending to read it.
    â€˜Was that before or after it was used in the shoot-out in Bath?’
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    â€˜You deny you were wounded during the night when rival gangs clashed in the city centre?’
    â€˜Billy and I were just coming back from a bar and we got caught up in it. We’re victims.’
    Carrick snatched the paper away from him. ‘I have a reliable witness who saw you and your brother, has identified the pair of you from mugshots and is prepared to swear on oath that he saw you firing weapons. At least one of these was removed by other people when you were injured. Who were the others, Derek?’
    â€˜Sod off.’
    â€˜Who was the person who recruited you? We know someone went round pubs hiring men like you.’
    â€˜Like me?’ Jessop said angrily. ‘You mean thick, I suppose.’
    â€˜No, expendable,’ I said before Carrick could reply. ‘You know, cannon fodder, people they regard as nobodies hired for no money to make the crime bosses look big – what law enforcement agencies refer to as disposable associates. But it all went wrong, didn’t it? And two of those involved were literally gutted. That wasn’t quite the plan, was it?’
    â€˜Gutted?’ Jessop repeated.
    â€˜Yes, they were shot and then knifed around, mutilated.’
    â€˜I don’t know anything about that.’
    â€˜We don’t actually know yet whose side they were on. Eastern European sort of men; Romanians probably. They might have had quite thick accents or not spoken much English at all. Ring any bells with you?’
    He shook his head.