Free Whitstable by Stephen Volk Page A

rim of his belt yet again. “What did you want to ask me?”
    “My, er, character has evidence against the, um, perpetrator…” His confidence had wavered. He speeded up his delivery. “In the story, I mean. Incriminating evidence. This is the crux of the plot. Evidence against a family member, not the vagrant who has already been arrested. And I’m curious. What would be the correct police procedure in a case like this?”
    Wake shrugged, and having arranged his shirt and trousers to his temporary satisfaction, adjusted the knot of his tie. “We’d have to investigate. Long process. Doctors’ reports. Court. It’s complex. You’ll have to give me the exact details and…”
    “Everyone would be interrogated.”
    “Questioned. Yes. Obviously.”
    “And the boy?”
    Another shrug. “Taken into care, straight off, any sniff of evidence. Whoosh. Can’t take the risk. Get him out of there.” The lick of a lighter on a cigarette tip. Secreted back in the jacket pocket. Smoke directed at the ceiling. “Mum and dad can squabble till the cows come home. Right little cheerful movie this is going to be. Not a comedy, I take it.”
    “No.”
    “No. Too right.” With his hands on his hips now, the belly jutted unabashed. “Nobody does well out of these cases, I can tell you. Nobody goes home smiling, put it like that. Families get broken up, pieced together again. Except you can’t piece them together again, can you? Worst of it is, unless you virtually catch the bloke red handed, it’s one person’s word against another, and often as not even the kid won’t speak up against their own parent, even if they half kill them on a daily basis. And the mum sticks up for the feller like he’s a bloody angel. So they get off scot free. Buggered up it is, really buggered up. To be honest, I hate it, more than anything.” More smoke, through teeth this time. Breath of a quietly-seething dragon. “Sooner string them up and have done with it, ask me. Know the bloody liberals say, what if there’s a miscarriage of justice? I say, tell you what. Cut their bloody balls off they won’t do it again. I guarantee that.”
    Which was as much as Cushing needed to hear. He stood up and shook the man’s hand generously in both of his.
    “Thank you so much.”
    “Don’t do it.” The detective flicked ash into a metallic waste paper bin. “You don’t want to be associated with that kind of rubbish.”
    “Perhaps not.” One side of his mouth twitched. “I’ll consider my various options. Definitely. Thank you, Derek.”
    Out in the corridor with the sound of a clattering typewriter nearby and garrulous laughter slightly more distant and out of sight, the old man heard from behind him:
    “Peter, do you mind if we have a quick word? On an unrelated matter?”
    It felt like a cold hand on his shoulder, which was absurd. Two uniformed constables passed him, a man and a woman. They both smiled, as if they recognised him. He touched the rim of his hat.
    Smiling, he turned to see Wake leaning against the jamb of the doorway to the interview room, not smiling at all. The policeman switched off the light, closed the door and walked past him up the corridor in the direction of the sergeant’s desk, then turned into a glass-sided office and sat behind a desk with several bulging manila files on it which he arranged in piles of roughly equal height.
    When Cushing had stepped reluctantly into his office he stood up again, flattened his tie against his shirt front with the palm of his hand, and crossed the room to shut the door after him. The conversation and clacking of the typewriter became substantially quieter. Wake returned to his swivel chair.
    “A man came in this morning and made a complaint about you.”
    “Oh?” He told himself not to betray anything in his expression. Certainly not shock, though that was what he was feeling. Now the reason for Wake’s mood was all too clear. “May I ask who?”
    “I’m not at liberty