Thicker Than Water

She was carrying a black leather document wallet which looked disturbingly full of something or other: also a micro-tape recorder which she switched on and put down on my bedside table. Gary seemed to be there purely to act as chaperone, which probably didn’t bode well for me at all.

‘What happened to your face?’ Basquiat demanded, after she’d cued in the tape with date, time, people and place. There was a glint in her eye that was far from solicitous: she was interested because she didn’t believe there was an honest way to come by bumps and bruises on such a heroic scale unless you were in police custody at the time.

‘Cut myself shaving,’ I said.

Gary opened his mouth, probably to tell me to do myself a favour and stop pissing about, but Basquiat signalled for him to let it pass. ‘I’d like to come back to the question of your movements on the night when Kenneth Seddon was attacked,’ she said.

‘What I told you last time still stands,’ I said.

‘Meaning that you were at home with your landlady, enjoying a takeaway curry and a few cans of Special Brew.

‘I don’t drink Special Brew,’ I temporised. ‘It was probably Theakston’s Old Peculier. Or maybe some kind of Belgian blond—’

‘You were at home,’ Basquiat repeated, cutting across me. ‘You didn’t go out the whole night until Detective Sergeant Coldwood came to collect you at four a.

Backed into a corner, I gave a straight answer. Too bad it had to be a straight lie. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘To the best of my recollection, I didn’t go out.’

‘Not even to pick up a pack of cigarettes?’

‘I don’t smoke.’

‘Nicotine patches, then.’

‘I don’t smoke because I never got started.’

‘Dry-roasted peanuts. Salt-and-vinegar crisps. A DVD rental.’

‘No, no, and no.’"

"She nodded, satisfied.

I looked over Basquiat’s head at Coldwood, who was studying Van Gogh’s ever-cheerful sunflowers and didn’t meet my eye.

‘Ask her yourself,’ I suggested.

‘In good time. I’m just asking you if you’re happy with your alibi, from a structural point of view. Is it fit for purpose, Castor? Will it take the strain?’

I looked her in the eye. ‘Alibi?’ I repeated, as if it was a word I’d never heard before.