LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 10

      By the time they had finished interviewing Hemmingway it was getting on for four p.m. Jones’ stomach was growling, the breakfast banana and single bite of cheese sandwich not nearly enough to placate it. Thirty minutes more, he decided, then they were waking up Severino regardless. If he was to have any chance of making the restaurant for six-thirty, they needed at least a preliminary statement from him within an hour or so.

      In the meantime, Jones decided he had to try and get something to eat, or, if that failed, more coffee. Heading back to the canteen, he was dismayed to find that not only were there no more sandwiches, all of the fruit was gone too. To add insult to injury, the vending machine selling crisps and chocolate bars had a large handwritten ‘out of order’ sign sticky-taped across the coin slots. Heading back into the briefing room, he saw that the coffee urn was still plugged in, so he settled for another dark black coffee loaded with sugar. His fifty-pence piece remained alone in the honesty jar.

      “Ah, Warren. I hear that we’ve made quite some progress this morning.”

      Jones nearly choked on his coffee. Jesus, the man must be wearing padded socks! He turned around to see a beaming John Grayson standing behind him.

      “It’s looking promising, sir. We’ve got plenty of leads and several suspects. We’ve almost ruled out Tom Spencer and it looks as though another member of the lab may be the culprit. He’s sleeping off a rather heavy night at the moment though. I thought we’d do it by the book and make sure he’s fully fit before interviewing him; besides, it gives us a little extra time to finish searching his house.”

      Grayson nodded, clearly not overly interested in the minutiae of the investigation. “I’ve scheduled a press conference for tomorrow morning, eleven a.m. I want you by my side for it. Ideally, we’ll have charged this chap and everything can get back to normal. In the meantime, I’m about to issue a statement to keep the press happy. Any thoughts about what should be in it? Press liaison thinks we should hint that we’re going to throw them a large bone tomorrow morning, drum up some interest and make sure that we are seen to be moving fast and decisively.”

      Jones’ heart sank; he detested this nonsense. The twenty-four-hour news channels were like a voracious animal, constantly demanding to be fed, day and night. Although very much a product of the modern news era himself, Jones nevertheless longed for the old days when the beast was only fed once a day, in time for the deadlines for the late-night news or the next morning’s newspapers. Back then, Jones and his team would have had the luxury of all of Sunday to firm up their evidence before a late evening press conference to reveal what they knew.

      It also meant there was no way he could attend mass that morning. The local church had two Sunday services, the eleven a.m. service that Susan and Warren usually attended and an earlier nine a.m. service. Neither would be possible tomorrow — another black mark against his name in the mother-in-law’s book. For a brief, insane moment, Jones considered asking for the press conference to be postponed long enough for him to go to church with Bernice, or maybe he could run out now to attend the Saturday evening service that busy Catholics were allowed to attend in lieu of a traditional Sunday service. He mentally shook his head at the foolishness of the notion, a product of too little sleep and too much caffeine.

      Answering Grayson’s question, Jones had to advise caution at this stage. “We shouldn’t count our chickens before they’ve hatched, sir. We’re still waiting to interview Severino. Forensics are still searching his house. We don’t know if anyone else is involved yet. I’d play it safe and simply confirm the identity of the deceased and the time of death, admit that we have a couple of people helping with our enquiries and ask for anyone with information to step forward.

      “Besides, if Severino doesn’t play ball, we may not be ready to charge him before tomorrow’s press conference. Then we’d look a bit silly.”

      Jones could see that Grayson sorely wanted to say more, to make the following morning’s press conference seem more compelling. Perhaps that way the news outlets would send out some of their big-name reporters, rather than the second-raters stuck with the Sunday shift that nobody wanted.

      Tough, thought Jones, he was damned if he was going to let the tail wag the dog.