Blood Never Dies Read Online Free PDF Page B

cried. ‘I know nothing.’
    ‘I want to be sure you’re on our side, so that if you find out anything, or hear anything, or remember anything about this man, you’ll tell us.’
    Under Slider’s unwavering stare, Botev opened and shut his mouth, his eyes roving for escape. Then, like a torture victim blurting something, anything, that might get him off, he said, ‘He painted room – painted walls. And cleaned carpet. He ask when he see room, can he do it before move in. I say yes. Why I care? But it crazy, I think. Why he do that?’
    Why indeed? Slider thought.
    Slider’s boss, Detective Superintendent Fred ‘The Syrup’ Porson, was a walking example of reasons not to get promoted. He disliked meetings, hated politics and was practically allergic to golf. He hadn’t got the first notion of schmoozing, avoided senior pressmen, and believed the role of politicians should be to come up with the money and leave the police to do the job their own way. In fact he was an old-fashioned copper who was roundly despised by his well-groomed, corporate-friendly, jargon-squirting superiors, who viewed his bumpy bald head, shaggy eyebrows, elderly wardrobe and non-PC impatience with the cult of victim-hood as a betrayal of everything the last decade had stood for.
    He had kept his job through all this evolution thanks to a couple of high-profile successes for which, with the best will in the world, those above him had not been able to claim all the credit. But they would see to it he never went any further. He didn’t look right. He just wouldn’t fit in. They would never want to have a brainstorming breakfast or a working lunch with him. They probably secretly suspected that he ate with his mouth open.
    Porson got back from headquarters at Hammersmith, where the latest ‘initiative’ had been explained to him, in a less than rosy frame of mind, to receive the news of the Conningham Road case.
    ‘Case?’ he growled at Slider. ‘A case of walking your chickens before they can run, if you ask me.’ Another reason the high-ups didn’t care for Porson was that he used language like a man flailing at wasps – usually effective, but never a pretty sight. ‘I go out for a couple of hours and you mobilize the entire eighth army.’
    ‘The fingerprint evidence shows he was left-handed,’ Slider said sturdily, and explained about the electric razor.
    ‘And the cut was a right-handed one?’
    Slider demonstrated. ‘Even if he’d tried to cut himself on the left side with his left hand, his elbow would have been banging the wall. Very awkward. And why would he? He’d naturally tilt his head over and cut on the right side. But a right-handed murderer . . .’ He demonstrated again.
    Porson was reluctantly mollified. ‘All right. Sounds as though you’ve got
something
to investigate. What else?’
    Slider explained about the lack of ID, the clothes, and the black-sack man.
    ‘What about this Botev? He sounds a bit tasty. Could it have been him?’
    ‘It’s possible he might have been involved. He couldn’t have been black-sack man – he’s got a very distinctive figure, and the girl was sure it wasn’t him. And I don’t think he would have been the murderer. If he had been going to kill Williams, he wouldn’t have wanted it done on his own premises.’
    ‘Safest place,’ Porson countered. ‘Somewhere you can control things. But that bath stuff, nancying about – half-arsed attempt to make it look like suicide – no. That doesn’t sound like a straightforward gang-bashing, punishment hit or whatever. If that’s what you’re suggesting.’
    ‘I’m only suggesting Botev might have some interesting friends and contacts. I just feel there’s something odd about Williams being in that flat in the first place. A shabby, furnished room, where they don’t even clean between lettings? If he didn’t care about such things, why did he clean and paint it himself? If he did care, why go there?’
    ‘Cheap,’ said