Free The Equivoque Principle by Darren Craske Page B

know how much pull I’ll have with him these days.’
    ‘It is an avenue worth exploring, is it not? Our
only
avenue, in fact.’
    ‘I…I suppose it cannot hurt,’ Quaint said. ‘Dray’s father, Sir George, used to own a shipping company working out of Singapore; cargo and trading ships mostly. I never really meshed with the old man’s philosophies, but Oliver was all set to take over the reins, the last I heard. I guess something made him change his mind, eh?’
    ‘Maybe your saintly influence rubbed off on him?’ Destine jibed.
    Quaint laughed. ‘I hardly think that likely. We first met whilst I was travelling through Peru…must have been all of twenty years ago now. I saved his life once, too, as I recall. But then, back in those days I was always saving somebody or other’s life.’
    ‘Perhaps that is why you have never been concerned with saving your own, hmm?’
    Quaint continued: ‘The word is that his father and Robert Peel were old friends from their schooldays at Harrow, and Sir George helped pave the way for Oliver’s success in the police force.’
    ‘This case could get very nasty very quickly, Cornelius,’ said Destine. ‘Let us hope this Commissioner friend of yours has a strong stomach.’

CHAPTER XIII
The Letter
    C OMMISSIONER OLIVER DRAY vomited all over the tiled floor of mortuary in the station’s basement. He collapsed onto his knees, his body twitching in convulsions as a thick trail of sputum trailed from his mouth to the floor. Clutching the side of the mortuary table, he wrenched himself up onto his feet, watching though bleary eyes as Sergeant Berry replaced the sheet over Twinkle’s body.
    ‘Jesus, Horace…you could have warned me!’ Dray said, trying to hide his embarrassment. He wiped spit from his lower lip with his sleeve. ‘She looks like a damn mackerel…sliced open to the gullet. And that…
thing
cut into her,’ he said, gesticulating with a shaky finger at the corpse. ‘What’s the hell’s that supposed to be?’
    ‘It’s a crucifix, sir.’
    ‘I can see it’s a damn crucifix, man, but what on God’s green earth is it doing carved into that woman’s chest?’ Dray yelled. ‘What is this, witchcraft or something? It’s obscene!’
    Berry shrugged. ‘Neither Lily Clapcott nor May Deeley looked as bad as this, especially with such…religious significance. There was so much blood it was difficult to ascertain cause of death.’
    ‘Cause of death?’ blurted Dray. ‘Are you insane, Horace? The woman’s got a bloody big gaping hole in her guts—
that’s
the cause of death!’
    ‘You might think so at first glance, but the victim was actually killed by a single knife wound to the heart. The
crucifix
was cut into her body post-mortem.’
    Dray palmed his eyes. ‘After? Are you sure?’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ confirmed Berry. ‘You can tell when you look at the state of her arteries. The heart stopped pumping the blood, you see—’
    ‘If I wanted a bloody pathology lecture, Horace, I’d go see Dr Finch!’ Dray snapped. ‘And what about this devil you’ve got locked up? This…
abomination
of a man…what’s he had to say for himself?’
    Sergeant Berry looked back blankly. ‘Haven’t you heard, sir? The man’s a mute! It’s pointless to try and communicate with him—he just sits there and stares at the wall with those big gaping eyes of his, like he’s a hunk of beef, or something.’
    ‘Oh, and you think Whitehall will be satisfied with
that
, Horace?
“He can’t actually speak, but take my word for it, Minister; he’s as guilty as sin!”
’ mimicked Dray. ‘They’ll want a bloody confession, man, nothing less.’
    ‘Commissioner, we’ve as much chance of getting a confession out of him as we have of a full day’s work from Jennings.’
    ‘Well, Horace…you’d better start getting creative, hadn’t you. It’s not the first time we’ve had to
assist
a prisoner with his confession, and it won’t be the last!’ Dray rubbed at