Thicker Than Water

Because what you’re short on, Fix - what you do not have even a bastard trace of - is peripheral vision. You only see what you’re going for, and you walk right into every bleeding thing else.’"

"Gary had been talking in his usual voice when he started that little speech, but he was shouting when he got to the end of it. I opened my mouth to shout back, and - to my complete and absolute amazement - he was as good as his word. He clocked me a solid one on the mouth.

It wasn’t hard enough to knock me down, but it made me stagger.

I blinked twice and shook my head. Licking my lips, I tasted blood. ‘Son of a bitch,’ I growled, and I started forward with my fists up. But Gary just stood there, staring me down, and after a moment I let my hands fall again.

‘Are you ready to listen to reason now?’ he asked.

I spat on the floor - a thick red gobbet - then met his gaze. ‘Have you got any?’

Gary breathed out heavily. ‘What I’ve got, Fix, is evidence. Which I’m about to share with you out of the goodness of my heart - unless you piss me off so much that I sign off early and forget you’re stuck in here until the morning.

If you’re interested, sit down and shut up. Otherwise, say something really clever and sarcastic and I’ll be happy to leave you to it.’

After a moment’s painfully weighted silence, I sat down in the other chair, giving him a shrug and a wave.

‘The writing on the windscreen,’ Gary said.

‘Points to me,’ I observed.

‘No. It doesn’t.’

‘What, you know another F.

Castor, Gary?’

‘We put the lab boys on it, Fix. The letters had been washed or smeared away, but the oil traces from Seddon’s fingertip were still there on the glass. He didn’t write “Felix Castor”. He wrote “Father Castor”.’

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words fled away into my hind-brain and my mouth just hung open, waiting for them to come back.

‘So then we looked at your brother’s movements,’ Gary said. ‘He was seen leaving that Saint Bon Appetit place around midnight, although he’d previously told a colleague that he was turning in for the night.

We’ve got his car on CCTV twice, once in Streatham and once at Herne Hill. And - get this, Fix - the priest in the room next to his is woken up at four the next morning by the sound of someone crying. Loud, uncontrollable sobbing, in his own words, coming from Matthew’s room. And he’s prepared to go on record that it was Father Castor he was hearing.