Thicker Than Water

Like most tin whistles, my Sweetone only has an effective range of about two octaves: but if you’re not too worried about the sensibilities of the people around you, you can make brief forays outside that range by half-holing and by varying how hard you blow. I took it as far as I could, an unmelodic shriek creeping in on the highest notes as I pressed down with all eight fingers and pursed my lips more tightly.

Nothing.

I let the last fractured notes of that shapeless abomination of a tune drop like glass splinters from between my fingers.

Then I lowered the whistle, shook it twice to clear it of saliva and slid it back into my pocket.

‘So tell me about it,’ Coldwood suggested.

I turned to face him, looked him in the eye. ‘About what, Gary?’ I asked, with brittle politeness.

He nodded in the direction of the car. ‘What happened here.’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what happened here,’ I admitted bluntly. ‘But I’ll tell you what didn’t happen. Nobody died. And you must have known that when you hauled me out of bed and dragged me halfway across London to watch the sun come up.

’

Coldwood did the deadpan again - one of his favourite party tricks. ‘This isn’t about what I know, Fix,’ he told me. ‘It’s about what you know. And it’s probably a good idea if you keep your temper. Because sometimes when you lose it you say things you don’t mean.’

‘That’s the human condition,’ I observed. ‘Now what the fuck am I doing here if you don’t have a DOA?’

He came away from the car’s flank, squaring his shoulders.

‘Where were you earlier tonight?’ he asked me, in the guilty-until-proven-dead tone that all cops use when they deliver that line.

‘What?’

‘Where were you earlier tonight?’

Well, the truth wouldn’t serve so a lie would have to do. ‘I was in bed, Gary. I was snogging Morpheus, tongues and tonsils and everything, until you woke me up and brought me here. Why? You got something you want to put me in the frame for?’

‘Was anybody with you, Fix?’

‘A squad of cheerleaders, but I didn’t get any of the names.

’ Coldwood waited me out. ‘No. There was nobody with me.’

‘But Pen was in the house?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You two share your usual drink before bedtime?’

‘No.’

‘No? Then when was the last time anyone—?’

‘It was a lot of drinks. Different kinds, but variations on a theme of thundering oblivion.’

‘So when was the last time—?’

‘Jesus! A bit after one o’clock.