"And when you fired?"
"There."
Tony and Sparky stood looking at me, each waiting for the other to speak. I looked from one to the other. "C'mon," I demanded, 'what are you telling me?"
"Have you seen his gun, boss?" asked Sparky.
"Yeah, it fell near the bed."
I walked over and looked down at it. "Great," I mumbled. "That's just what we need."
It was an ancient, single-barrelled job. He didn't have another shot left.
Chief Inspector Colin Brabiner was appointed investigating officer, and Sam Evans, the police surgeon, was asked to come and have a word with me. The Federation representative offered to appoint a solicitor to be at my side throughout, telling me what to say and what not to, and everybody I met gave what they believed to be support. Superintendent Wood made me coffee, the real stuff, and loaned me his office while I wrote my reports. Then he went with the 10 and Sparky to view the scene of the incident.
Sam Evans looks like a well-fed, but pale, Mahatma Gandhi. Premature baldness and a grey moustache make him look much older than he is. I'd first met him about ten years earlier, when I'd hurt my back falling down a fire escape. I did him a favour and we became good friends. He came over as soon as he heard the news.
"I'm supposed to make you an appointment to see Dr. Foulkes, at the General," he said. "How do you feel about it?"
Foulkes was head of the psychiatry department. We used him for stress counselling. "Unhappy, Sam. Can't you deal with it? I have mixed feelings about this psychotherapy stuff. No doubt some people need it, but I don't think I'm one of them. Leave well alone, I say."
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"Exactly." I put my ball-pen down. I'd become aware that I was clicking the cap on and off all the time we were talking.
"How do you feel about what happened this morning, Charlie?"
I had to think about this one. The truth was, I hadn't had time to feel much about it at all. After a while I said: "Sad. I'm sad that a young man has had a wasted life and has died. The fact that I was the person who… who shot him seems… irrelevant. He was somebody's son, though. Maybe it just hasn't hit me, yet, but at the moment it's not bothering me. It's just more hassle stopping me getting on with the job."
Sam nodded. "I see," he said. "And, of course, you were in danger yourself."
I shrugged my shoulders. "That's what we get underpaid for."
"Don't you think about the danger to yourself?"
"No. There shouldn't have been any."
There shouldn't have been any. The words jangled in my brain. An innocent question, from someone who was trying to be helpful, had signalled a train of thought that I would prefer not to follow. Was this why I was scared of seeing Dr. Foulkes?
I went on: "The danger was there because I made a cock-up. An error of judgement. I was being clever, short-cutting normal procedures. It should never have reached the shooting stage. I brought that on."
I remembered what I'd said to Gilbert about some aggro doing me good.
I'd wanted to go in and prove that I was still as good as anyone.
Bring-'em-back-alive Charlie had wanted to show that he could still do it; but this time he'd brought one back dead. Two, if you included George. The ball-pen slipped out of my fingers and fell to the floor.
I hadn't realised I'd picked the bloody thing up again.
"Are you in trouble, Charlie? Do you think you'll be criticised?"
Sam's tone was soft and concerned.
I took a long time to answer. "I'll be all right. There'll be some searching questions, but we'll pull through. Deep down, I'm happy that I did the right thing; and that's what counts. I'll be able to sleep at nights."
Sam made sympathetic noises, and waited for me to go on. I couldn't think of anything to add, so I told him what had happened in Spain. He looked shocked.
"Right, you've convinced me," he stated. "I'm grounding you, at least for the rest of the week."
"That's no good, I've work to do," I protested.
"Someone else'll do it. And I think you ought to see Foulkes. This is not really my field."
"No, I don't want to see him."
"Then you're grounded. Why don't you clear off to the coast for a few days, do some fishing or something? You need a rest and a complete change. There's life outside the police force, you know."
"Okay, it's a deal," I reluctantly agreed.
"Good. Come and see me next Monday and we'll take it from there.
Meanwhile, if you do need something to help you sleep for a night or two, you know where I am."
"Cheers, Sam. How's Yvonne?"
"She's fine, thanks. A lot better. Sold a painting last week for sixty quid. Says she ought to be paying you commission. Why don't you call in to see her? While you're off work."
"I might do that."
Chief Inspector Brabiner didn't give me such an easy ride. I still had the Walther in my pocket when we met. I ejected the cartridge clip and placed it, with the gun, on the desk in front of him. He didn't look pleased. His main line of enquiry was why was I armed with a pea shooter and the others with pistols. We should have gone in brandishing Heckler and Koch rapid-fire assault weapons. This would probably have resulted in a siege, with lad do holed up in the loft, but, hopefully, he would have survived. It didn't matter that the street would have had to be evacuated, and all the neighbours found alternative accommodation. Thousands of hours of police time would have been consumed, while he hurled down roofing slates for the benefit of the newsreel cameras. A life would have been saved, and that was above valuation, even if it was a life dedicated to thieving, drug peddling, corruption of the young and the destruction of society. And he was right.
I felt depressed, and wished I'd accepted his offer to have a solicitor present. After nearly two hours he asked me if I had any questions.
"Only the obvious one," I said. "What's the outcome likely to be?"
He gathered his papers together. "I'm happy with what I've seen and heard. It's a miracle you didn't have your head blown off. With any sort of luck, the inquest will come out in our favour. I'd say it was cut and dried. There's always the possibility, though, that some trendy lefty politician will jump on the bandwagon and try to make capital out of it."
I smiled at the irony. "I'll get called a trendy lefty," I said.
That's why we'd gone in how we did, instead of armed to the teeth like Captain Blackbeard's pirates.
"I know, but they'll still stab you in the back if it will help the cause." He clicked his briefcase shut and smiled for the first time.
"You'll be all right. Our masters won't fall over themselves to give you a commendation, but plenty will think you deserve one."
I shook my head: "I don't need a commendation, just get them off my back." But he'd made me feel happier.
I went home and made a corned beef and pickle sandwich, which I didn't finish, and a pot of tea, which I did. I tried watching some TV, without any enthusiasm, and dipped into a couple of books. They didn't grip me, either. In the smallest bedroom, the one I'd slept in as a child, were boxes of possesions that I'd brought back with me when I returned to live here again. I sat down in the middle of the untidiness and started opening boxes. Eventually I found the one containing a comprehensive collection of Ordnance Survey maps, relics of my days as a budding mountaineer. I thumbed through them, extracting the most interesting ones. My old rucksack still held my waterproof clothing, and the boots were sound if you ignored the mildew. I stuffed the treasure into the sack and took it downstairs.
The rucksack might have earned a place in a Museum of Scouting, but nobody would be seen dead carrying one like it these days, so I binned it. The boots were expensive leather ones and cleaned up beautifully.