Bad Press Read Free

staggering about now.
    “Looks like he’s had a skinful already,” Hawkins drawled. The constable had twenty-odd years under a belt that strained against his girth. He’d been there, done that, didn’t wear t-shirts. Bald and broken-nosed, when he was out of uniform he looked more baddie than sheriff.
    “Could just drive on, Hawkeye?” Gibbo suggested hopefully. The younger officer could see the admin stretching over and above the call of duty, ie shift end at six.
    Sorely tempted, it was with a resigned reluctance that Hawkins pulled the Vauxhall over a few doors down. On the upside, they’d faced far worse incidents on the patch. It would be two against one, and the bloke was no Incredible Hulk. “Nah. Let’s sort it.”
    Softly-softly didn’t work. The guy must have heard their approach. He spun round, eyes wild, hair all over the place. “Thank God you’re here.”
    “Definitely pissed then,” Gibbo muttered. Hawkins masked a smile, which wasn’t difficult now he had a better idea what they were dealing with. The blond guy looked as if he was about to puke. Sweating, shaking, grey-skinned, he was probably a user, in need of a fix.
    Gibson saw the knife first. Hawkins caught a stifled moan from his partner. Gibbo’s wife had just given birth. The baby hadn’t even been christened. And though officers wore protective clothing as a matter of course these days, anti-stab vests weren’t proof against smackheads.
    Furtively, Gibbons reached for his cosh, Hawkins took a tentative step forward. Calm. Casual. Play it by the book. “Best give that to me, sir. Don’t want any troub...”
    They had it. Hawkins froze. The druggie wasn’t alone, and he had more than one knife. Behind the blond, in a doorway that stank of cat pee and human faeces, lay an old man’s body curled in the foetal position: foetal and fatal. Hawkins mentally crossed himself. The vicious beating probably wasn’t the cause of death. That would almost certainly be the blade embedded up to its glistening hilt in the victim’s scrawny neck.
    Shocked and scared, Matt Snow wasn’t so far out of it that he couldn’t decipher the look on the bigger officer’s face. “You can’t be serious? I didn’t kill him!”
    The cop looked as if he had difficulty swallowing. “Course not, sir.”
    “I don’t even know him,” Matt blurted. But did he? He needed time to think. The reporter had an inkling the victim was Wally Marsden, a paedophile who’d been on the sex offenders’ register for years. He’d never seen the old lag in the flesh, only in a mug shot. But his hack’s nose was twitching: the story could be a goer, big-time. And until Matt stood it up, he didn’t want another reporter getting a sniff.
    “Course not, sir.” The officer reached out a hand. “So why not let me have the...”
    “Get real,” Snow snarled, jabbed the knife at the body. “I found him like this.” He was sure of one thing: if it did turn out to be Marsden, there’d be no shortage of suspects. Right now though, Snow reckoned he was top of the list.
    “Course you did, sir,” Hawkins said.
    Snow flapped an impatient hand. Starsky and Hutch were getting up his nostrils. They clearly had no idea who the victim was, and even less who they were talking to. Shame that. The personal touch might have oiled the professional wheels. Snow came across a lot of cops on the job, but he’d not clocked either of these clowns.
    “Look, Mr er...?”
    The one who looked like a boxer gone to fat gave a thin smile. “I’m PC Hawkins. Steve Hawkins?”
    “What’s with the voice?” Snow snapped. “I’m not a retard.” The reporter watched as they exchanged glances. Christ. They really did think he was a homicidal fruitcake. Sooner this was sorted, sooner he could chase the story, but it was a waste of time talking to plods. “I want to talk to a senior officer.”
    Gibson held up his radio. “I’ll get on to it, sir.”
    Snow gave a satisfied nod. In the