Free Turnstone by Graham Hurley

arrived. Her face was the colour of putty.
    ‘It’s Pete,’ she said at once. ‘He’s shot a guy.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Nearly killed him. It’s still touch and go.’
    Harry Wayte had called the bust for four-thirty. The priority address had been in North End and Pete had led the five-man TFU up the stairs after Harry’s boys had done the front door. In the master bedroom he’d found the target tucked up with his girlfriend. The guy had dived for something under his pillow and Pete had yelled at him to freeze but he’d taken no notice. Suspecting a gun, Pete had opened fire.
    ‘And?’
    Cathy looked away.
    ‘It was a sim card,’ she muttered. ‘I guess the guy was going to swallow it.’
    Faraday eased her into a chair. A sim card sat in the back of a mobile phone. It stored the numbers from previous calls and – recovered intact – it could save hours of painstaking investigation.
    Cathy pushed hopelessly at the desk, making the chair revolve.
    ‘So far they’ve found nothing in the house,’ she said quietly. ‘No gear, no money, no paperwork, absolutely nothing.’
    ‘What about the sim card?’
    ‘Just a list of numbers. Nothing to warrant a charge. And it gets worse. There was a baby in the bedroom, too. Little kid of fourteen months in a carrycot on the floor. The
News
are on to it already.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘The girlfriend phoned them. She’s the mother. She’s gone potty, as you can imagine.’
    Faraday looked at the ceiling a moment, wondering how much worse the damage could get. The
News
was the city’s local paper. A circulation of seventy thousand gave it considerable weight and it used every tabloid trick in the book to fatten daily sales still further. Given Cathy’s brief description of the morning’s events, Faraday shuddered to think about the midday placards on the city’s streets. Bevan, as senior uniformed officer on the division, would be well and truly in the firing line.
    ‘There’s more.’ Cathy nodded towards the open door. ‘Do you mind?’
    Faraday shut the door with his foot. It was way too early for the eight a.m. shift and even the cleaners had yet to arrive. He turned back to Cathy.
    ‘Well?’
    ‘I think Pete had been drinking.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘He came in very late last night. I could smell it on him.’
    ‘Anyone else know this?’
    ‘I dunno. Apparently they’ve asked him for a blood sample, but so far the doctor hasn’t turned up. He phoned me from Havant nick. He’s well choked.’
    Faraday nodded. Requests for blood samples were automatic after a shooting, part of the inquiry procedure, though Pete Lamb had a legal right to refuse.
    ‘I know,’ Cathy said, ‘but it doesn’t look great, does it? Not if you’ve got something to hide.’
    Faraday had to agree. Driving under the influence was bad enough. Going in mob-handed with a sliding-stock Heckler and Koch and a headful of last night’s booze was unthinkable.
    ‘They’ll throw the book at him. Any trace of alcohol, and he’s fucked.’
    Cathy stared up at him, shocked. Faraday rarely cursed.
    ‘You think so?’
    I know so. And for the record I have to say it makes sense.’
    Cathy’s eyes widened still further. She made a loose, slightly pathetic gesture with her right hand, bridging the gap between them. Was it OK to talk like this? Could Faraday respect a confidence?
    ‘No problem,’ he said at once, reaching out for her hand and giving it a little squeeze. ‘I’m just telling it the way it is.’
    He paused a moment, wondering what on earth had driven Pete Lamb to the bottle. The TFU guys went through extensive psychological profiling before they got anywhere near the firing range. Any hint of a drink problem, or poor resistance to general stress, and they were chopped from the course. Pete Lamb had always struck him as ideal TFU material: level-headed, self-confident, cool under pressure. So how come he’d ended up in a state like this?
    Cathy was staring blankly at the