Free A Time For Justice by Nick Oldham Page B

pile in his pigeon hole. Drinking bitter black coffee from a
plastic cup and grimacing with each mouthful, he looked at the
photos. They were not brilliant reproductions but were clear enough
to make an I.D. The prospect of sifting through thousands of
photographs of Corelli and his cronies wasn’t remotely
appealing.
    He was about to fetch Corelli’s file when another fax was
slapped down on his desk. It was the set of dabs lifted from the
Posthouse Hotel room in Lancaster.
    Kovaks scribbled a note marked Urgent and pinned it to the fax. He
hurried down to the Fingerprint Bureau.
    The atmosphere here was quiet and scholarly. Rows of
computers, all logged into Printrak, filled the room. At each desk
sat a fingerprint expert, dressed in shirt, tie, slacks and
spectacles, the uniform of every fingerprint expert the world over,
including the women. No one was smoking, so Kovaks took a final
drag of his Marlboro and stamped it out on the corridor floor
before crossing the threshold.
    As he entered the room he wondered why anyone in their right
mind would want to do this for a living.
    He made his way over to a man peering at a magnified
fingerprint on his computer screen. Blown up, it looked like the
relief map of a mountain.
    ‘ Hi, Damian.’
    The man spun round and squinted myopically at Kovaks. ‘Joe,
for heaven’s sake, don’t do that.’
    ‘ Oh, did I disturb you?’
    ‘ I was lost in a dreamworld of loops and whorls.’
    ‘ Sounds like a computer game.’
    ‘ But much more exciting,’ Damian said. ‘What can I do for you,
Agent Kovaks?’
    ‘ Need a favour. It’s urgent.’
    ‘ Always is with you. I suppose you want me to drop everything
else and do your bidding. ‘
    ‘ Absolutely.’
    He sighed good-naturedly. ‘What the heck.’
    ‘ Thanks, Damian.’ Kovaks gave him the fax.
    Back in the office, Kovaks was surprised to see his partner
from the previous night. Today she smelled quite sweet, but Kovaks
noted the damp patches already beginning to form in her
armpits.
    ‘ Hi, Sue,’ he said amicably.
    ‘ I phoned Chrissy. She said you’d come in early, so here I am
too.’
    Kovaks groaned inwardly. This would mean trouble at home.
Although he’d described his temporary partner to Chrissy, she’d had
a look in her eyes which said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ She was
convinced Kovaks was working with a curvy blonde bombshell who was
a weapons expert, karate black belt and had the sexual appetite of
Pussy Galore. And now she’d heard her on the phone for the first
time, which would only confirm her suspicions - on the phone Sue
Mather sounded like a bimbo.
    ‘ I’m just doing something for Karl,’ he explained. ‘He phoned
me from England.’
    ‘ Can I help?’
    A flash of inspiration.
    ‘ Yeah, you can actually. I need to check Corelli’s file but
I’ve got to go and see the SAC. Do you mind?’ He handed her the
faxes and explained the task. ‘Long-winded, I know. But very
important.’
    ‘ Sure, Joe, anything.’ She blinked clumsily at him in an
attempt to flutter her eyelashes, but thank Christ she didn’t pass
wind.
    He left her to it.
     
     
    Two hours later Kovaks found Sue sitting at his desk drinking
coffee and eating a doughnut. Eight cigarette stubs were in the
ashtray, and another smouldered on the edge of the desk,
threatening the woodwork.
    She looked up, and waved. Kovaks stormed across the
office.
    ‘ I asked you to do a job for me,’ he hissed. ‘Not sit there
filling your fat face.’ The words tumbled out spontaneously and he
regretted them almost immediately.
    Her good humour visibly evaporated. She had the look of a
puppy kicked by its master for no reason other than bad
temper.
    Kovaks took a deep breath. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said
quickly.
    Totally inadequate. ‘I didn’t mean what I said.’
    ‘ Yes, you did,’ she said petulantly. ‘I may be fat but I don’t
need reminding of it.’
    This was ground Kovaks didn’t wish to cover.
    ‘ Forget it,