Blackwater (DI Nick Lowry) by Henry James

thick and fast:
    ‘How big would the boat have to be to mutilate a man beyond recognition?’
    ‘How far could the body have floated?’
    ‘How — ’
    ‘Gentleman! Ladies!’ Lowry halted the questions. ‘One at a time, please.’ He pointed to a female hack at the rear of the room whose hand was raised. ‘Young lady at the back,’ he said.
    ‘Sticking with New Year’s Eve, if you don’t mind,’ she began.
    Sparks’s shoulders tensed noticeably. All eyes were on the stocky woman with oval glasses asking the question.
    ‘Chief Sparks, in a press statement the previous day, had referred to the serviceman’s death as resulting from a squabble with local lads in the high street.’ Lowry heard Sparks’s angry intake of breath; he hadn’t quite said that. ‘Isn’t nine o’clock a bit early for drunken brawling?’
    Before Lowry had a chance to compose a response, Sparks had barged in front of him. ‘I never said there was “brawling”. I said we suspected accidental death in the aftermath of a quarrel – a bit of horseplay.’
    ‘Was it a fight between squaddies and townies, then?’ A local hack had woken up.
    ‘The soldiers involved have no visible injuries that would be consistent with having been in a fight,’ replied Lowry.
    ‘How do you define “horseplay”?’ the woman persisted. ‘And why were things getting heated so early in the evening?’
    ‘Most teenagers are in the pub by midday, ma’am,’ Lowry countered.
    ‘So it was a drunken brawl?’
    And so it went on, back and forth, the press asking difficult questions and Lowry ducking each of them as he would left hooks in the ring.
    *
    Afterwards, Sparks stood in the corridor, fuming. He glowered at Lowry, who had been joined by a tall WPC.
    ‘Who the fuck was she?’ Sparks barked.
    ‘No idea. Not local.’
    ‘I know she’s not fucking local, hence the smart-alec questions – it would’ve just washed over those cretins from the Gazette ; most of them were too hungover to hold a pencil. Just wait until I get hold of the Beard – he’d better hand that kid back, or I’ll . . .’
    Sparks became aware of the blonde WPC hovering next to Lowry. The one who jacked in the Littlewoods catalogue modelling, or whatever it was, for the force. Strange move, if ever there was one. And now she was lingering silently like a spare part while he argued with Lowry: a passive stance to which he took exception. ‘Yes, constable, and you are here because . . . ?’
    ‘WPC Gabriel was there on New Year’s Eve – she came to the park with me this morning,’ Lowry answered. ‘I told you about it.’
    ‘And what do you think happened, WPC Gabriel?’ Sparks demanded, with barely suppressed contempt.
    ‘I think there’s something peculiar about it, sir, same as Inspector Lowry does.’
    ‘ Peculiar? ’ He wanted decisiveness and action, not vague conjecture. ‘What do you mean, girl?’ The girl, and she wasn’t much more than a girl – about twenty-one or twenty-two – became nervous and couldn’t get her words out.
    ‘She means we’re investigating it,’ said Lowry, stepping in.
    ‘What, the pair of you?’ But Sparks didn’t wait for an answer – he had to call Lane. He could see the headlines now: Brawl with Townies Leaves Soldier Dead , or some such sensational stuff. Next they’d have crazed squaddies marauding through the streets on a quest for revenge, beating the hell out of the local riff-raff. ‘Have you seen the other one again – Jones?’
    ‘I’ve been in contact with the garrison, sir,’ said WPC Gabriel, attempting to regain composure. ‘Someone is coming back to us about it this afternoon.’
    Sparks glared at her, then at Lowry. ‘Sort it out, eh, Nicholas?’
    *
    The pair of you . Lowry pondered the chief’s words. It seemed they were a pair, he and WPC Gabriel, for now at least. Sparks had left them loitering together in the corridor, having marched off angrily. The chief in a temper could do nought