Sweet Things Dying - Chapter XXI

In which Cole and the police face new challenges and new opportunities in their investigation...

XXI

He’d had a restless night and at first light was in H Division, Commercial Street, hoping against odds to speak with Inspector Quinn.

Journalists swarmed the entrance to the station, waiting on the latest developments in the murder of Heather Bloom. Industrious cart-men took advantage, plying the crowd with bagels, coffee and tobacco.

Cole wound through it all and into the foyer where, quite literally with hat in hand, he asked if the inspector was in.

“He is, sir,” said the duty officer, “but he is quite busy as you can imagine.”

“I am about to make him much busier,” Cole said and gave a brief explanation.

“I shall tell him, sir.”

Seated on one of the arse-breaking benches in the foyer, Cole wasted two hours watching the chaotic tide of the station – one of the busiest in London – roll in and out. Not a word was said to him and he felt certain Quinn would never appear. That he would be left to wait without response as punishment for daring to come at all. He held to the hope that Quinn, knowing something of Cole’s reliability as an investigator, would not be able to resist giving him at last a minute of his time.

A shadow fell across Cole. He looked up from his hands.

“Mr. Cole,” said Quinn, dressed in his customary funeral black, “I daresay I doubted that you’d keep away for more than a day.”

“Had you kept me waiting any longer it would have been just about another day.”

“I have slept very little, with no plans to do so for the next day or so. Which is a way of saying I’m quite busy, so consider the thirty seconds I am sparing you as a professional courtesy.”