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  Stryker leaned back in his chair, ignoring the blinking cursor on the screen. Early on in his career he had earned the nickname of Jumpin’ Jack Flash, always on the move, but he had slowed down a little as the years passed. His curly hair was slightly receding, and both it and his moustache showed considerable amounts of silver. It ran in the family, he insisted, this tendency towards premature grey. He was a compactly built, highly strung man for whom leisure was just a matter of breathing slightly slower than normal.

  He certainly didn’t feel comfortable behind a desk. But that desk had been one of the things that had eased his relationship with his girlfriend, Kate. She said she would live with him, love him, but not marry him, because she knew how cops’ wives waited during the nights and days, waited for that phone call, or the visit from the superior officer who told them their man was dead. Worse, that the father of their children was dead.

  For some reason, avoiding the final commitment of marriage made a difference to her. It seemed almost a superstitious attitude on her part. He didn’t understand it, but he reluctantly accepted it. And she was very much caught up in her career at the university, which she found very fulfilling. The university was so different now from when he had been a student there himself. Then it had been made up of a few buildings and some big old houses converted to offices for the various departments. Now it was a state institution, with a modern and quite elegant campus, some prize-winning architecture and a landscaping department second to none. Part of him was pleased but most of him regretted the loss of those big old houses where he himself had taken his degree in pre-law. Then his parents had died and he had gone into the police. Getting his law degree was still a dream and he occasionally found time to take the odd course for credit, but it was a sometime and long-time thing. Since he had been living with Kate, he begrudged losing any time with her and it was only when she herself was teaching in the evening that he matched a class with hers. This autumn he had been studying torts while she taught nineteenth-century American literature. It meant two evenings together lost, but there was the nice advantage of being able to go out for a drink together or even a meal after classes finished. Sort of like being an undergraduate again. He smiled to himself. And at our age, he thought.

  So the fact that he was more desk-bound also meant he was better able to regulate his life. He wasn’t sure if it was an advantage or a disappointment. Just because a person was old enough to consider slowing down didn’t mean he had to, did it?

  The phone rang in the squad room and he punched the button to take it, Muller apparently having gone to pick up more files. ‘Major Crime.’

  ‘Is Sergeant Pinsky there?’ asked a young man’s voice.

  ‘Sorry, he’s out on a case. Can I help?’ Stryker leaned forward and punched a couple of keys to move the cursor down to the next line of the form he was filling in.

  ‘No . . . I don’t think so. I really need to speak to Mister Pinsky,’ the young man said. ‘Would you tell him Ricky called?’

  ‘Ricky what?’

  ‘Oh – sorry – Ricky Sanchez. He knows me.’

  ‘OK.’ Stryker scribbled the name down. ‘You sure I can’t help?’

  ‘No . . . it isn’t really about homicide, see.’

  ‘We don’t only work on murder, son,’ Stryker said. ‘Are you quite sure I can’t help?’ The boy sounded stressed.

  ‘No, sir . . . it’s . . . personal.’

  Stryker raised an eyebrow. Sir? That degree of politeness was rare these days. ‘OK. I’ll tell him as soon as he comes in. Has he got your number?’

  There was a strangled laugh. ‘Oh yeah, he’s got my number all right. But I’m at work now . . . I’ll speak to him tonight.’

  ‘OK.’ Stryker hung up thoughtfully. He’d speak to Pinsky about it when he came back in. Something about the boy’s voice worried him, but he couldn’t have said exactly what it was. He shrugged, dismissing it, and went back to the computer. All he had to do was get through this report and ten others like it, and he could go home at a reasonable time for once. No classes tonight – he and Kate had a whole evening to themselves. He hoped.

  Tos Toscarelli was working out in the gymnasium in the basement of the municipal building, but his beeper was placed conscientiously nearby. A big man naturally, he had a constant battle with his weight and the only way forward he could see was to turn fat into muscle. Italian through and through, he had black curly hair and snapping black eyes. He had finally decided that if he was going to be big, he might as well be big and hard. And, too, the department had high standards of fitness – standards he not only wanted to meet, but beat. It was better than going home.

  For all his size, Toscarelli was a downtrodden man. He lived with his mother and sister – the former a mistress of hypochondria, the latter one of those seemingly shy people who hide an iron will behind a velvet demeanour. He was the breadwinner for them and they guarded him zealously. No matter that he was much in love with a woman named Liz Olson, a colleague of Kate Trevorne’s, and she was in love with him. They wanted to marry, but every time Tos brought up the subject of Liz at home, Mama Toscarelli always managed to produce a ‘heart attack’ and his sister a crying jag. They ‘needed’ him, this Liz woman wasn’t Italian, they would be unsafe alone etc. etc.

  It was really beginning to get him down.

  He knew Liz was losing patience. She, too, was a big person, in more ways than height. She was a professor of French and Spanish (‘Why not Italian?’ his mother kept asking) and carried herself proudly – six foot of her blonde, shapely self was a noble spectacle around the campus. When she and Toscarelli got together, it was an inspiring sight. The trouble was, they didn’t get together often enough for either of them.

  ‘I feel like the Other Woman,’ Liz had complained last week. ‘Like you already have two wives and I am something on the side.’

  He knew she had every right to feel that way.

  It was his own cowardice that left the situation unaltered. He stared at himself in the mirror and sneered. He could build up his muscles all he liked, but he had a chicken heart.

  Something would have to be done, and soon, because Liz was not going to wait for ever. She was an independent woman, she said, but since falling in love with Tos she yearned for the safe harbour of marriage. He had made her realize she was lonely, she told him. Well, he was, too. And now, at her suggestion, they were ‘giving each other space’. That meant that she did not want to see him again until he made up his mind.

  He wondered if there was a body-building machine that duplicated the sensation of being between a rock and a hard place. Maybe he could practise on it. He loved his mother and he loved his sister, but . . .

  But.

  Families are funny things. They bind with ties nobody else can see or understand. They weigh you down with responsibilities you never asked for and you wonder how you got into that particular corner. But if he was not careful he would get to be an old Italian bachelor, looking after his spinster sister and his elderly mother, and nobody would be happy. Especially not Liz – and he wanted Liz to be happy. He wanted them to be happy together.

  He added a weight to either end of the bar and continued with his compressions and lifts. Steel on his chest and Mama on his back. And, any minute, a call to get dressed and follow up on some new case, because that was his job. It was for times like these that doughnuts were invented, he thought. Where else to find solace?

  It seemed he spent all his time being pressured from two sides and tripping over dead bodies.

  A hell of a life for a grown man.

  TWO

  ‘Daddy, Ricky wants to talk to you.’ Denise was standing outside the bathroom, calling through the door.

  Pinsky, woken from a comfortable doze, gave his head a shake. ‘Tell him I’m in the bathtub,’ he called back. There was a moment when he could hear Denise mumbling into her cellphone.


  ‘He says it would just take a minute.’

  Pinsky was exhausted and his brain was in a very low gear. ‘Do you know what it’s about, Denise?’

  ‘No. It might be his brother getting a speeding ticket the other day. But it could be something else. He’s kind of upset.’

  Pinsky sighed and dragged himself up out of the bath. The water had cooled anyway. Wrapping a bright-red towel round himself, he opened the bathroom door and reached for Denise’s cellphone. ‘Hey, Ricky,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I got kind of a situation, Mr Pinsky,’ came Ricky’s voice. He did sound a little strained.

  ‘I hear your brother got a ticket for speeding.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah, well, he deserved it. This is something else.’

  ‘OK, shoot.’ Pinsky shivered as his wet body cooled in the draught from the half-open door.

  ‘Well, I think somebody I know is doing something wrong. I don’t know for sure, it’s only something I’ve suspected, and I don’t know what to do about it. If I go off half-cocked, I could destroy a person’s whole career. If I’m right, I get called a sneak. Nobody likes a sneak.’

  ‘I think whistle-blower is a better name.’ Pinsky smiled.

  ‘Yeah, well, whatever. What do I do?’

  ‘Find out more,’ Pinsky said promptly. ‘Get as many facts as you can, then go to the authorities. Would that be us or somebody else?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Probably somebody in administration to start with. Should I talk to the person concerned?’

  Pinsky thought for a minute. ‘That would be the honest thing to do, but it could backfire on you. Could even be dangerous.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he would be dangerous,’ Ricky said. ‘He’s all talk, really.’

  ‘Well, then, talk to him. Ask him what he’s doing. Say you’re worried, but admit that maybe you’re wrong.’

  What in the hell was bothering the boy? He was being so careful in what he said that he seemed more like a pre-law student than a pre-med one. Was it a professor at the university? Something at home? Someone where he worked? An election was due next year – was it something to do with that, something his mother had mentioned in passing that he had picked up on? A question of morality, of ethics, not law? So why call me, Pinsky wondered wearily. Of course, with Ricky’s father no longer around, maybe he just wanted reassurance that he should act. That it was all right to act. Maybe he just wanted support. Or permission. He leaned against the door jamb and wiped a drip from his nose.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me more?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ricky said. ‘I don’t suppose it’s anything, really. It’s kind of weird. But I didn’t know . . . well . . . how to proceed.’

  ‘You could phone the person if you’re worried about talking face to face,’ Pinsky suggested. ‘But either way, be as sure as you can about your facts. If you told me more . . .’

  ‘Not yet,’ Ricky said. ‘Not until I’m sure. I’m not even sure what laws are involved. If any.’

  ‘OK, then,’ Pinsky agreed. ‘Listen, I’m freezing my ass off here in the bathroom

  ‘Oh. OK. Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Ring me tomorrow if you’re still worried.’

  ‘Will do.’ There was a pause. ‘Can I talk to Denise?’

  ‘Sure.’ He handed the phone out through the door to his daughter who was standing in the hall, trying to figure out what was going on from what she could hear of his end of the conversation. Pinsky closed the door and began to rub himself dry. Kids. They got all worked up about the damnedest things. Still, Ricky was a good kid. If he was worried about something there might be good cause. On the other hand . . . he was only nineteen. Things can look big and bad at nineteen. And, if anything, Ricky was overcautions and over-conscientious, verging on the righteous. Pinsky shrugged and reached for his toothbrush. He’d get Ricky’s cellphone number from Denise, talk to the kid tomorrow. Get more information. Ricky needed to come up with more facts, but he just wasn’t in the mood to deal with it tonight.

  Stryker was asleep on the hideous couch that Kate could never convince him needed re-covering or dumping. He loved it. It fitted his contours. It understood him. Kate came in from cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and gazed at him affectionately, but with a touch of exasperation. ‘Well, this bodes well for the rest of the evening,’ she said with a grin.

  He opened one eye. ‘Do you want me to get up and dance?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ she enthused. ‘I’d really like to see that.’

  ‘You and a hundred others. I do not perform for small audiences.’ He stretched and reached for her. ‘Come and join me in my slothful bed.’

  ‘That’s not a bed, it’s a horrible old sofa and I have things to do,’ she said, avoiding his grasp.

  ‘Name one.’

  ‘Checking some essays.’

  ‘Name two.’

  ‘Preparing a lecture.’

  ‘Name—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ she said, pushing his legs aside and slumping down on the far end. ‘What did you do all day that’s made you so tired, anyway? I thought you said you’d had a quiet day.’

  ‘Yep. That’s what did it. Paperwork, meetings, phone calls, lunch, then more paperwork, meetings and phone calls.’ He scratched his nose. ‘One in particular kind of bothered me.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Some kid trying to get hold of Ned Pinsky. I don’t know what it was, exactly. Sounded upset.’

  ‘One of his informants?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ He shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. We get a lot of funny phone calls.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Kate said, looking at a fingernail and rubbing a rough spot. ‘I deal with teenagers, remember?’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Now I really have to get to those essays.’ She started towards her desk in the dining room.

  ‘How about a compromise?’ he called after her.

  She turned and raised an eyebrow. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Come to bed and I promise not to bother you for an hour while you mark the essays. I’ll just read quietly beside you.’

  ‘Oh yes? And then what?’

  ‘Let’s just say you’d better be quick about those essays.’

  THREE

  Some time during the night eleven people died in Grantham, seven of them in hospital. Of the others, two were traffic deaths, already dealt with by uniformed officers. The remaining two were the death of yet another homeless man on French Street and a domestic homicide.

  Concerning the latter, neighbours had heard shouting and what sounded like a gunshot, shortly after which they had heard a car drive away fast. It had taken them a while to talk themselves into calling the police. When patrol officers arrived at the house in question, they found a woman lying dead on the floor in the bedroom. There was no sign of the husband. The house was empty aside from the body.

  The detectives arrived at the house in question soon after coming on duty next morning, went to the open door of what was obviously the master bedroom and peered in. The bed was made, but the cupboard doors were open, revealing some empty hangers among the clothes. Bureau drawers gaped, their contents scrambled and tumbled.

  ‘Guy must have been a fast packer,’ Neilson said, carefully keeping his hands off the woodwork.

  ‘Or he was already packed and that’s what the argument was about,’ Pinsky suggested, looking down at the dead woman on the carpet. Behind them in the hall a Scene of Crime crew waited impatiently, convinced the detectives were going to waltz into the room and destroy vital evidence, which was not true – they all had sufficient experience not to trample on anything that might be useful.

  ‘Has the ME been here yet?’ Stryker asked one of them. He felt guilty about longing for action the previous day – now a woman lay dead. She was young – early
thirties at a guess. As they say, be careful what you hope for because you might get it. He doubted she had ever hoped for death. The thought of it had probably never entered her head. Unlike the bullet.

  ‘The ME’s office is backed up, but they said they were on their way,’ the technician answered, shifting his heavy case from one hand to the other.

  ‘Better get on with it, then,’ Tos said, stepping aside. He glanced again at the woman and looked away quickly. The gaping wound where her left eye had been pretty much indicated there was no sense in asking her anything. There was no sign of a weapon, although if it was still in the room the SOC techs would find it.

  The dead woman was wearing jeans and a crumpled sweatshirt, and her blonde hair was straggly and unwashed. Because of the wound it was difficult to tell whether she had been attractive or not. Her feet were bare and the soles were dirty, as if she were accustomed to going without shoes or slippers. She didn’t match the house, which was well-furnished and well-kept.

  They moved into the next room, obviously used as a study. In the corner was a desk with a computer on it, still turned on, a screen-saver flashing stars. In front of it a chair was overturned – the only sign of anything being out of order. ‘Looks like it might have started in here,’ Stryker said. ‘I wonder which one of them was on-line?’ He went over to the desk and moved the mouse to turn off the screen-saver.