Read Online The Day of the Jack Russell (Mystery Man) by Colin Bateman - Free Book Online
Authors: Colin Bateman
Tags: Fiction - General
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Then I thought, no, that’s stupid; I helped solve the case, but he had the satisfaction of arresting the killers and putting them away. He wasn’t serious. He was winding me up.
I studied him for a telltale sign: a glint in his eye, the slight widening of his firmly set lips, a subtle rise of an eyebrow; but he was good, as good as a cop should be. But I knew.
‘You nearly had me there. This is the plot of the novel you want to write. You’re funny. Okay. Fine. Got me, got me good.’
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Just a steely look, and: ‘We believe Billy Randall is at the very least an accessory to murder. The problem, my friend, is that we can find nothing to link him to the actual murder scene. Which is more than we can say about you, and your DNA.’
‘That’s impossible,’ I said.
‘So’s your face,’ said Detective Inspector Robinson.
11
He didn’t arrest me.
That’s not how he works.
He puts information or misinformation out there and then watches and listens and sees how you deal with it, what you do once he’s gone, who you talk to, who you phone or e-mail, if you empty your bank account and head for the airport. And he did have my DNA on record. But there was no possibility that he’d found a match in Jimbo and Ronny’s house unless he’d planted it there himself.
Or unless Alison had.
I sat and thought about that for a while. Was she so bitter and twisted over my lack of interest in her baby that she would actually seek to implicate me in a murder? She was, after all, evil to the core, and a practising witch. I drummed my fingers on the counter. One night, while we were still together, we sat in her apartment and watched a DVD. She’d given me carte blanche to choose one and I’d rented Presumed Innocent , the Harrison Ford movie based on Scott Trurow’s book. It is one of those few adaptations that not only does an acclaimed book justice, but actually improves upon it. It’s about a bitter wife murdering her husband’s mistress and then framing him for it. Could I have been the unwitting architect of my own demise? Had Alison scooped up a handful of my DNA and hurled it around Jimbo and Ronny’s house before cold-bloodedly murdering them?
I needed more information. I surfed on to the Belfast Telegraph ’s website. The headline read: Christmas Horror . There were photographs of Jimbo and Ronny, arms around each other, cans of Harp beer in hand, at a party. They looked several years younger than in the pictures of them I’d forwarded to Billy Randall. There was no mention of Billy Randall, and, crucially, no reference to me or the No Alibis van or Alison. It said the murder scene was a bloodbath. They had been beaten with a blunt instrument.
I mixed up a pint of Vitolink. It was important to keep my levels high. I took my antipsychotic pills, and my bipolar pills, and my fibromyalgia pills. My antihistamines. My blood pressure pills. My cholesterol pills. My antidepressants. My hormones. Taken together, they would keep me going until lunchtime, when I would have to take my full list of medications. Alison has never really appreciated the fact that any one of my ailments could kill me at any time. She believes that I am something of a hypochondriac. She is wrong about most things. If my doctor was not prevented from doing so by the Hippocratic oath, he could tell her a thing or two about the condition of my bowels and liver and heart and blood and veins and head. He could tell her that I am just one of those people who has to live with life-threatening illness. He could tell her that he once prescribed me a placebo, which I turned out to be allergic to. Alison had no need to plant my DNA at a murder scene if she wanted revenge; she had no need to do anything . I was a dead man walking, or limping, already. I probably wouldn’t see New Year’s. I once asked my doctor straight out how long I had left, and he said, ‘How long is a piece of string?’
I rest my case.
The
Then I thought, no, that’s stupid; I helped solve the case, but he had the satisfaction of arresting the killers and putting them away. He wasn’t serious. He was winding me up.
I studied him for a telltale sign: a glint in his eye, the slight widening of his firmly set lips, a subtle rise of an eyebrow; but he was good, as good as a cop should be. But I knew.
‘You nearly had me there. This is the plot of the novel you want to write. You’re funny. Okay. Fine. Got me, got me good.’
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Just a steely look, and: ‘We believe Billy Randall is at the very least an accessory to murder. The problem, my friend, is that we can find nothing to link him to the actual murder scene. Which is more than we can say about you, and your DNA.’
‘That’s impossible,’ I said.
‘So’s your face,’ said Detective Inspector Robinson.
11
He didn’t arrest me.
That’s not how he works.
He puts information or misinformation out there and then watches and listens and sees how you deal with it, what you do once he’s gone, who you talk to, who you phone or e-mail, if you empty your bank account and head for the airport. And he did have my DNA on record. But there was no possibility that he’d found a match in Jimbo and Ronny’s house unless he’d planted it there himself.
Or unless Alison had.
I sat and thought about that for a while. Was she so bitter and twisted over my lack of interest in her baby that she would actually seek to implicate me in a murder? She was, after all, evil to the core, and a practising witch. I drummed my fingers on the counter. One night, while we were still together, we sat in her apartment and watched a DVD. She’d given me carte blanche to choose one and I’d rented Presumed Innocent , the Harrison Ford movie based on Scott Trurow’s book. It is one of those few adaptations that not only does an acclaimed book justice, but actually improves upon it. It’s about a bitter wife murdering her husband’s mistress and then framing him for it. Could I have been the unwitting architect of my own demise? Had Alison scooped up a handful of my DNA and hurled it around Jimbo and Ronny’s house before cold-bloodedly murdering them?
I needed more information. I surfed on to the Belfast Telegraph ’s website. The headline read: Christmas Horror . There were photographs of Jimbo and Ronny, arms around each other, cans of Harp beer in hand, at a party. They looked several years younger than in the pictures of them I’d forwarded to Billy Randall. There was no mention of Billy Randall, and, crucially, no reference to me or the No Alibis van or Alison. It said the murder scene was a bloodbath. They had been beaten with a blunt instrument.
I mixed up a pint of Vitolink. It was important to keep my levels high. I took my antipsychotic pills, and my bipolar pills, and my fibromyalgia pills. My antihistamines. My blood pressure pills. My cholesterol pills. My antidepressants. My hormones. Taken together, they would keep me going until lunchtime, when I would have to take my full list of medications. Alison has never really appreciated the fact that any one of my ailments could kill me at any time. She believes that I am something of a hypochondriac. She is wrong about most things. If my doctor was not prevented from doing so by the Hippocratic oath, he could tell her a thing or two about the condition of my bowels and liver and heart and blood and veins and head. He could tell her that I am just one of those people who has to live with life-threatening illness. He could tell her that he once prescribed me a placebo, which I turned out to be allergic to. Alison had no need to plant my DNA at a murder scene if she wanted revenge; she had no need to do anything . I was a dead man walking, or limping, already. I probably wouldn’t see New Year’s. I once asked my doctor straight out how long I had left, and he said, ‘How long is a piece of string?’
I rest my case.
The
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