Evil Turn (Nathan Hawk Mystery) by Douglas Watkinson Page B

front of Kinsella, pointed at the sugar. He muttered his thanks and drew up to the table.
    “Mr Kinsella, where have you been living?” asked Laura.
    It seemed an almost surreal question to ask, given the circumstances.
    “You mean where was I brought up? North Wales.”
    “Yes, but where have you been more recently?”
    He smiled. It wasn’t just the facial hair that was discoloured and matted; the teeth were glued together with yesterday’s food, if not the day before’s. The breath, if you were unlucky enough to catch it, was lethal.
    “Living rough,” he said. “Then even rougher, behind bars.”
    “Protective custody,” Fairchild modified.
    “That would explain it,” Laura said. “You have head lice and, of course, the nits that go with it.”
    There was an immediate silence. I was the only one in the room with chalk-face experience of what Laura’s words meant. Con had arrived home from a new school one day with head lice. No matter how much the school nurse tried to persuade us there was no shame attached, it didn’t really work until we realised that everyone in the school, teachers included, had fallen prey.
    “It’s nothing to worry about,” said Laura.
    “I had a bath last week,” he protested.
    “Makes no difference. You will need treatment. All of you.”
    The microwave pinged just as Grogan re-entered the kitchen, fully dressed. He went over to Kinsella, grabbed him and the chair as if they were one, and dragged them to the far radiator. He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, snapped one loop round Kinsella’s left wrist and the other round the inflow pipe which ran up the wall. Common sense would say it was a temporary measure, mild retribution on Grogan’s part, to be reversed when he’d regained his composure.
    “He’s got head lice, Bill,” said Fairchild.
    “What?”
    “Head lice, Sergeant,” said Laura, believing that a medical voice would soften the impact.
    Grogan’s eyes focussed serially on various parts of the room and Fairchild stepped in between the two men. Laura went to the rescue.
    “And if you’d allow me, Mr Kinsella, I’d like a quick look at those lesions around your mouth.”
    Grogan moved away to give her access.
    “Now would you turn your head and part the hair at the back of your neck for me?”
    He did so. The hands were filthy, the nails black and broken. The neck was ground-in grey. We’d missed it at bath time. As for the sores on it, some were scabby and peeling, others were fiery red and suppurating.
    “How long have I got, Doc?” he asked.
    “The two often go together, though it’s some time since I’ve seen it in an adult. It’s a result of scratching, which itself is a result of the lice. Impetigo.”
    “You filthy bastard,” Grogan muttered.
    “Not at all, Sergeant. The cleanest of people can...”
    Realising that any defence of Kinsella along those lines was futile, she broke off.
    “Treatment?” said Fairchild, plaintively.
    “Yes, I’ll deal with it this evening. Porridge, everyone?”
    She and Kinsella were the only ones who ate the porridge with any indifference to the creatures roaming his head, the eggs they had laid and the weeping sores on his face and neck. I looked across at the radiator where he sat, hunched up and spooning from the bowl on his lap. His left hand was still clipped to the down pipe. The punches he’d taken from Grogan were swelling up. The whole effect was positively Dickensian, made all the more so by the yellow smile he gave me.
    And then the front doorbell rang. It was seven fifteen, so God alone knew who it was.
    “I’ll see to it,” said Grogan.
    He felt for his Glock. It wasn’t there. He’d left it upstairs in the rush to get dressed. Fairchild rose. She wasn’t wearing hers either, not under the pink dressing gown. Again they exchanged a glance.
    “Bodes well for when the Heritage IRA get here,” I said, then called out, “Who is it?”
    “Dad, it’s me,” came the