Dead Men's s Boots

Why do you keep talking about criminal physiognomy, Vince? Is that what John said this was about? Recapitulation theory? I can’t see that kite getting very far off the ground.’

‘Me neither.’ Chesney was still stiffly on his dignity: I’d hurt him where his professional ethics pinched the tightest. ‘But the customer’s always right, and John had this thing, you know?’

‘What kind of thing?’

‘A Cesare Lombroso reductionist taxonomic criminal anthropology kind of thing.’

‘Go on.’

He glanced towards the box with longing, bereaved eyes.

‘He was making up a big database,’ he said. ‘Criminals, yeah? Killers, especially. He wanted to measure them every way they could be measured. And I did the tests and passed all the stuff on to him, and that was that. I didn’t have to clap hands and believe in fairies.’

‘Fairies in this case being –?’

‘Oh Christ, you know the song. The idea that there’s a criminal type. That by pooling data from a thousand people who’ve already done bad things you’ll be able to predict the next rapist or serial killer before they cut loose.

It’s not just bullshit, it’s the bullshit that the century before last left out for the binmen.’

I tapped the box. ‘Sounds pretty thin,’ I agreed. ‘The disc in here, that’s all the data you put together for John before he died?’

Chesney nodded, but by now he just wanted rid of me. A nod wasn’t enough.

‘All of it?’ I pursued. ‘All the test results, for all the “items”?’

‘It’s all there.’ He was indignant, seeing his little nest egg about to waltz out through the door and knowing there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

I straightened up. ‘Well, thanks for your help, Vince,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything on the disc that a layman can’t get his head around, would you rather I called you here or someplace else?’

‘Don’t call me at all,’ Chesney said, in something of a sulk now. ‘I don’t owe you anything, man. I didn’t even need to give you the disc. That’s my intellectual property. {tua;I ’

‘True,’ I conceded. ‘But let me put it another way.

If there’s a fine point of interpretation and I want a little steer, should I come to you or to your boss?’

‘Fuck!’ Chesney waved his arms wildly. ‘I wish I’d never got involved with any of this crap. It’s not like the money was any good.’

I cut him a small amount of slack, because it’s generally easier to lead a horse to water than to hold it under for the time it takes to drown it. ‘There could be some more money on the table at some point,’ I said.