De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

A tinny bell sounded as Wayne and Barry stepped over the threshold of Sherman the German’s Hobbies and Collectables.

Barry spoke through the side of his mouth to Wayne. ‘You’d think our guy would have chosen one of the bigger chain stores for his purchase, somewhere he’d be more anonymous.’

‘Nah. You have to be registered and show ID to buy spray paint in the bigger outlets these days. It hampers the graffiti artists.’

They lapsed into silence as they took in their surroundings. Shelves bulging with untidy contents seemed to undulate up from the floor. A carefully placed electric fan made the model aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling rock languidly. On the walls, ocean liners and battleships sailed side by side on glassy seas. Whichever way you looked the effect was one of rippling movement. Wayne loosened his collar and closed his eyes for a moment, battling against a rising tide of motion sickness.

Barry seemed to have no such problem. He pointed to a display of sci-fi figures. ‘Hey, look! An original Star Wars Admiral Akbar!’ In two strides he was bending over the display and steaming up the glass of the cabinet with his breath.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Wayne looked to the heavens and wiped his sweaty palms over the thighs of his polyester bellbottoms. He turned when a man with unkempt shoulder-length hair and a beard clacked through a back entrance of glass beads.

The man pushed a pair of thick-rimmed glasses up the greasy bridge of his nose. His face fell when he realised who they were.

‘You must be the cops. Sherman said you might be coming round.’ His voice had the same watery grey tone as his T-shirt.

Wayne put out his hand, ‘Mr Thompson? I’m DS Wayne Pickering and this is DS Barry Snow.’ He tilted his head in Barry’s direction. Still absorbed in the Star Wars figures, Barry waved a greeting without looking up.

‘I spoke with Mr Sherman on the phone last night. Apparently you sold a large quantity of spray-on bronze fabric paint last Friday.’

Thompson responded with a nod and a grunt, giving Wayne the impression that if it hadn’t been for the conscientious Tom Sherman, they would never have got this lead in the first place.

Thompson hefted a cardboard box onto a space he’d cleared on the counter top and began sorting through boxes of model aeroplanes. Another blasé witness who watched too many TV cop shows, Wayne thought. If you had to talk to the cops at all, you had to be cool and impassive, and if possible carry on with your business while you were being questioned.

Wayne said, ‘Can you describe the man you sold the paint to?’

‘Tallish.’

‘Fat, thin?’

‘Kinda medium to tall build.’

‘Old, young?’

‘Middling, twenty to forty.’

‘Eyes?’

‘Sunglasses.’

‘Hair colour?’

‘Dunno. He was wearing a baseball cap.’

‘What colour hat? Did it have a logo?’

Thompson gave a shrug.

Jeez, this was like speaking to a pile of bricks. Wayne took a deep breath. Thompson turned around and began arranging the boxes on the shelf behind the counter. Wayne raised his voice, trying to penetrate the man’s back.

‘Can you describe what he was wearing?’

Thompson shrugged and looked back over his shoulder. ‘Jeans, I guess.’

Barry ambled over from the display cabinet to join them at the counter. He pointed to one of the aeroplane kits in Sherman’s hand. ‘I made that very Lancaster when I was a kid. You could hardly see it for glue, the props wouldn’t even turn.’

Thompson turned from the shelves and said to Wayne, ‘A yellow Eagles windcheater.’ Then to Barry he said, ‘It’s a difficult model for a young kid. You should have got your dad to help.’

‘Didn’t have one.’ Barry never ceased to surprise Wayne. Only the other day he was complaining about his miserly arsehole of a father.

‘That’s too bad,’ Thompson said.

‘Maybe I’ll have another go at it.’ Barry took out his wallet and handed over a twenty.

Thompson gave him the box and some change. ‘There’s glue in the box. Come back when you’re done and I’ll fix you up with some paint,’ he said.

Barry beamed back; it was the kind of smile a twelve-year-old would use to wangle money from his unsuspecting grandmother.

When they began to discuss the differences between the old Airfix models and the newer equivalent, Wayne wandered off to inspect a model train set.

On a structure that looked like four joined ping-pong tables, a complicated system of rails carved their way through alpine scenery and bucolic European farmland. This is more like it, Wayne thought. Three red buttons he assumed were there to be pressed, controlled the model railway. He tried to work out which one would send the old steam loco across the bridge spanning the thick painted river. Lured by the middle button, his hand reached for it, only to be beaten to it by a cane held in the hand of an old man of eighty, if he was a day.

He watched as the model train nipped around the track like a zip fastener and he grew dizzy: so much for trying to keep his interests on terra firma. He nodded to the old man and swayed his way back to the counter just as Thompson was handing Barry a can of bronze spray paint.

‘Take this, too. It’s from the same batch I sold to the guy. And this is the kind of wooden dowel I sell.’ Thompson gave Barry a dowel and an affable grin; the change in the man was amazing. Wayne could only look at his younger partner and marvel.

‘Hey, you didn’t see what kind of car the bloke drove off in did you?’ Barry asked.

‘Yeah, I did. A new-looking blue Commodore. He parked it right outside the shop. Sorry but I didn’t get a look at the plate,’ Thompson said.

Barry handed him his card, said it was okay, that he was being a big help anyway. ‘If you think of anything else you can reach me on this number.’

Thompson called out as they were heading for the door.

‘Hey, I don’t know if it helps, but he bought a dozen each of gold and silver paint, too.’

***

The killer was going to strike again. Wayne broke the news to Monty from the car. There was no need for him to hold the phone out for Barry to hear the explosive reaction. When Monty had calmed down, he gave him the details of the Thompson interview and received, in turn, a list of further instructions. Wayne pocketed his phone and wiped his brow with a mustard-yellow handkerchief. ‘It’s going to be a long day,’ he said, ‘we’ll need inner strength to get through this.’

Soon they were pushing their way through the lunchtime crowd of their favourite watering hole. The pub in James Street was a popular soaking spot for a heavy cop clientele. Barry went to get their drinks and was still getting them by the time Wayne had completed two more phone calls. Given Barry’s propensity to stop and banter with every person at every table in passing, Wayne wondered just how cold the beer would be when it finally arrived.

Rule of thumb: a dead body will cool to the surrounding temperature at approximately one degree per hour. It stands to reason, therefore, that a cold beer will warm to its environment at the same rate. To kill time, Wayne reached for his pen and notebook and began scratching calculations.

‘Have you organised the artist for the composite sketch?’ Barry asked, interrupting Wayne’s train of thought. He sat down at the table and pushed a glass of beer towards his partner. Some of it slopped over the side and a pattern of foaming threads trickled onto the plastic table.

‘Yeah.’ Wayne slicked his fingers through the drips and made a point of rubbing them on his sleeve. ‘No wedges?’

‘They’re coming.’

Wayne took a gulp of beer and gazed around the room, checking out the patrons with the mug shots he’d lined up in his mind. This habit used to annoy the hell out of his wife, though her complaints about him never being off duty were usually accompanied by an understanding smile. The woman had put up with a lot.