Blind Date by Frances Fyfield

policeman, grizzled by booze and life, a caricature of what he actually was. Joe could not imagine he was a great advertisement for the joys of an alcohol-free life. He would sit at the back of an AA meeting like a portent of doom.
    â€œOh, suspicion. A man who was lonely and violent, fitted the bill. Don’t tease, you bastard. You remember, you fucker.
You
found him. You made the fucking connection.”
    Joe nodded, apologetically.
    â€œ
You
, Mr. Fucking photographer. You were the one came in and told us that you’d taken a picture for a woman who was making a claim to criminal injuries. Who looked a lot like poor, dead Emma Davey, whose pretty picture you had seen in the
Evening Standard. You
told us that your little, photogenic victim had told you about meeting this guy through a lonely hearts column. He went berserk on her. Tried to chop off a finger with a ring on it. With his teeth. We showed you all our pretty pictures, didn’t we, Joe? Because we’d used you before as a freelance. Because you knew about injuries and I trusted you.”
    There wasan explosion of coughing. The man was no advertisement for cigarettes either.
    â€œSo, we got his box number from the lonely hearts and set young Elisabeth on him …”
    â€œI always thought you had more than that. And more than me. Hoped you did.”
    The coughing sounded like a wood saw, mixed with the sound of an axe.
    â€œOh yes, I did. You just don’t want the responsibility. I had the man you’d found, a man with a propensity to violence. Not only a horrible little man with a penchant for blondes, but also a friend of the fucking family! Friend of Emma’s, anyway: quite a regular visitor. One of the waifs and strays she seemed to collect. Oh, she did love ‘em. The plainer the better, and God, Jack was certainly plain. He even lived in the fucking area. Go for it, I said. Had to be him. Fucking go for it.”
    â€œStraightaway? Just like that? Get Elisabeth to snare him, answer his next advertisement, make him confess?”
    Jenkins heaved his large, shrivelled frame further up his chair, impatient.
    â€œNo-one mentioned seduction, not as such, flattery, perhaps. It was a police investigation. Nor was she
ordered.
She was an insistent volunteer. The last I would have chosen, not only because the murdered woman was her sister, but because Elisabeth Kennedy was never a very good policewoman. How
was
Devon, by the way? I hope you appreciated the countryside. How is she?”
    Joe claspedhis hands together, to keep them still. “I’d have thought she would be good for police work. Stubborn. That’s how she is now. Sick and stubborn.”
    Jenkins nodded, as if he knew that already.
    â€œOh, she was reckless and brave, and terrified at the same time, never an ideal candidate. You don’t want individualists, starting too old. God alone knows how she got picked for a uniform in the first place. But there she was, and she had this stunning resemblance.”
    â€œNot identical, surely? A stronger face.”
    Jenkins grinned. All his smiles seemed to have a touch of malice. “Lizzie didn’t think they were identical. She thought we selected her because she was good. Didn’t do her any favours to realize, after it was over that she was picked for the way she looked. Namely, enough like her kid sister to fulfill his fantasy, but not as pretty.”
    â€œI can’t remember quite what the kid sister looked like,” Joe said. “Not directly.”
    â€œFucking liar. I showed you all the pictures, after she was dead. You were in love with that image. Emma Davey was beautiful. Not, I gather, as Miss Kennedy is now.”
    Joe was suddenly defensive. Remembered that bold, hurt face on the gurney, caught in the flash.
    â€œOh, I don’t know about that. It would take more than a few scars to mar that face. Neck’s twisted to the left, though.”
    â€œServe her