Fic: Death Stalks SW10, part 1/3
Apr. 12th, 2008 07:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mylodonAuthor Archie has said that, because his books are proving elusive on Amazon, I can post a series of extracts from them. This is the first in his 'Hargreaves' series.
It was what Sergeant Hargreaves had always dreaded. He’d been in the CID since he’d left university – on one of the accelerated promotion programmes that the old time bobbies sneered at. Only in Alex’s case they’d soon stopped sneering. The man was an excellent copper; not flash, thorough, intelligent, didn’t think himself above being civil and pleasant to the old salts who’d be walking the beat until their retirement. And ever since that day he’d joined, just a bit wet behind the ears but soon to dry them, he’d dreaded having to interview a suspect he found himself fancying.
Granted, Vince Worsley wasn’t exactly a suspect – he’d witnessed the argument that seemed to have preceded the attack on Owen Arnold (assuming the same man had been involved in both) and had willingly given his official statement.
Alex hadn’t met him then; a WPC had taken statements from all the people who’d been present at the bar – the rainbow flag outside had persuaded the Inspector in charge of the investigation that a female presence might be a sensible idea – and it had been in following up these accounts that Hargreaves had encountered the man. He’d always laughed at the notion of love at first sight and here it came now, sneaking around the corner to whack him one with the erotic equivalent of a sock full of wet sand.
He was following up some of the points in Worsley’s statement, balancing his notebook on his knee and drinking hot coffee from a nice china mug in the man’s flat in one of the better parts of West London. It was typical of the capital – old fashioned ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ houses which had been converted into a collection of flats; Vince had the top floor one and they enjoyed the view of the rooftops from the little dining area where they sat at the table.
“Did you see either of the men at any other part of the evening?” As he asked the routine questions, the constabulary part of his brain working efficiently and as objectively as he could manage, the other part of his mind – that of Alex Hargreaves, homosexual and proud of it – was looking for clues. And none of them about a murder. The flat itself hadn’t seemed to yield any, among the books or pictures he could see, but then the same would have been true of his own flat; he wasn’t a screaming queen. And it wasn’t obligatory for every gay man to have a huge picture of Judy Garland or books about 1940’s musicals, was it?
“Have there been any similar incidents at The Coleridge?” Vince Worsley had been at the gay bar the night of the murder, ‘drinking with friends’ – surely that meant something? Perhaps not; Alex had one or two straight pals who were happy to come along for a drink or a meal at his local rainbow establishment. He wished that he could just ask him outright but he couldn’t – not when he was a potential witness. Not when he might even be a potential suspect.
Worsley lived only three roads away from where Terry Robinson’s body had been found and he’d been present when the man had got into the fight at the bar. They knew each other - Vince’s number was in Terry’s address book - which was one of the reasons that the police were examining his statement.
“Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against Terry Robinson?” Would you like to come back to my place for coffee? Or drinks? Or anything?
It was what Sergeant Hargreaves had always dreaded. He’d been in the CID since he’d left university – on one of the accelerated promotion programmes that the old time bobbies sneered at. Only in Alex’s case they’d soon stopped sneering. The man was an excellent copper; not flash, thorough, intelligent, didn’t think himself above being civil and pleasant to the old salts who’d be walking the beat until their retirement. And ever since that day he’d joined, just a bit wet behind the ears but soon to dry them, he’d dreaded having to interview a suspect he found himself fancying.
Granted, Vince Worsley wasn’t exactly a suspect – he’d witnessed the argument that seemed to have preceded the attack on Owen Arnold (assuming the same man had been involved in both) and had willingly given his official statement.
Alex hadn’t met him then; a WPC had taken statements from all the people who’d been present at the bar – the rainbow flag outside had persuaded the Inspector in charge of the investigation that a female presence might be a sensible idea – and it had been in following up these accounts that Hargreaves had encountered the man. He’d always laughed at the notion of love at first sight and here it came now, sneaking around the corner to whack him one with the erotic equivalent of a sock full of wet sand.
He was following up some of the points in Worsley’s statement, balancing his notebook on his knee and drinking hot coffee from a nice china mug in the man’s flat in one of the better parts of West London. It was typical of the capital – old fashioned ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ houses which had been converted into a collection of flats; Vince had the top floor one and they enjoyed the view of the rooftops from the little dining area where they sat at the table.
“Did you see either of the men at any other part of the evening?” As he asked the routine questions, the constabulary part of his brain working efficiently and as objectively as he could manage, the other part of his mind – that of Alex Hargreaves, homosexual and proud of it – was looking for clues. And none of them about a murder. The flat itself hadn’t seemed to yield any, among the books or pictures he could see, but then the same would have been true of his own flat; he wasn’t a screaming queen. And it wasn’t obligatory for every gay man to have a huge picture of Judy Garland or books about 1940’s musicals, was it?
“Have there been any similar incidents at The Coleridge?” Vince Worsley had been at the gay bar the night of the murder, ‘drinking with friends’ – surely that meant something? Perhaps not; Alex had one or two straight pals who were happy to come along for a drink or a meal at his local rainbow establishment. He wished that he could just ask him outright but he couldn’t – not when he was a potential witness. Not when he might even be a potential suspect.
Worsley lived only three roads away from where Terry Robinson’s body had been found and he’d been present when the man had got into the fight at the bar. They knew each other - Vince’s number was in Terry’s address book - which was one of the reasons that the police were examining his statement.
“Do you know of anyone who had a grudge against Terry Robinson?” Would you like to come back to my place for coffee? Or drinks? Or anything?
