Father and Son by John Barlow Page B

I?” he says,
walking past them and into the tent. “By the way,” he calls out, “I’ve seen the
nose. Taken off with something sharp. But messy. Probably not a knife.”
    Baron nods to himself, looks out across the waste ground, the traffic
on the road no more than a quarter of a mile away.
    “Did they drive right out here?” he asks, still looking ahead. “Or
carry the body from the road?”
    “ We drove.”
    Baron runs a hand across the back of his neck.
    “Yeah, but if we get a wheel stuck, someone tows us out. If they get
stuck with a dead body in the boot, they’ve got to leave the vehicle. In any
case, there were no tyre marks close up. First thing tomorrow we’ll look for
tracks. We’ve all come in on the same line, right?”
    “Yep.”
    “It’s their own vehicle,” Baron says, as if he’s thinking out loud.
“If it was nicked, they’d’ve driven all the way in, like we did. Their own wheels?
Not worth the risk.”
    “Somebody who doesn’t know how to steal a car, then?”
    “Or they’d been told not to. Keep it simple, quick.”
    Steele grins. “They’re not the only ones in a rush. Deb’s half his age,
y’know. I don’t know how he does it! You reckon he’s gonna marry her?”
    “Coultard? How the hell should I know! Any road, how about you? What’s
she called?”
    “Shit. Supposed to be taking her out tonight.”
    “Better cancel that, an’all. The life we chose, eh, compadre?”
    “Fucking hell ,” Steele mutters up to the sky as he walks off,
feeling the various pockets of his jacket for his phone, oblivious to the cold.
    A moment later Dr Michael Coultard emerges from the tent.
    “Male. Deceased, wouldn’t you know,” he says, jabbing a thumb over
his shoulder. “One nose missing. That’s me done.”
    “I’ll keep you informed,” says Baron.
    “Not tonight you won’t,” the pathologist says, looking at his watch
with undisguised satisfaction. “Off-call, as of now.”
    “Have a good one,” Baron says, as Coultard scampers towards his
Volvo.
    “Lucky sod,” Baron says to himself, and wonders what he’s going to
tell the boys this time.

Chapter Seventeen
    “Flash wheels,”
she says, trying just a bit too hard not to be impressed as she lowers herself
into the Porsche’s low, black and white passenger seat.
    “I needed to annoy someone earlier on.”
    “You always carry your girlfriend’s laptop around with you?” she
says, finding the MacBook on the floor by her feet.
    “She’s not my girlfriend, and she left it this morning. I thought
I’d get it out of the flat, y’know, just in case.”
    “In case what?”
    “Dunno. But Baron’s gonna be sniffing round me sooner or later, so
best not complicate things.”
    “You’re going to tell him, then?”
    She’s in a black t-shirt and jeans, never the one for dressing up. He
can smell the Opium on her, just enough, not overpowering.
    Opium had always one of his dad’s main lines, crates of fake eau
de parfum everywhere, especially in December for the Christmas trade. So
when John met Den, he’d bought her the real thing, receipt taped to the box, proof
of purchase. It had been their private joke.
    “Can we have food first? Where do you fancy?”
    “The Flying Pizza. Haven’t been for ages.”
    “You’re joking, right?”
    “Don’t you like pizzas?” she says, feigning surprise. Taking a
confirmed foodie to The Flying Pizza is like taking a lover of Wagner to see Mama
Mia .
    “I dunno. I just had a higher opinion of you, DS Danson. I really
did.”
    “And to think you taught me everything I know. Sad, eh?”
    Two years with John Ray had taught her a lot. How to appreciate food
and wine with unpretentious enthusiasm. And not just food. How to seize life and
wring the very last drops of enjoyment from it. Food, drink, music, travel… being
with John had been like stepping onto a new continent and discovering that the
boundaries of one’s capacity for unfettered joy and indulgence stretched