Knight & Culverhouse Box Set - Books 7-9

Chapter 31

31

The rest of the team had noticed Jack Culverhouse’s demeanour as he came back from his meeting with the Chief Constable, and they all knew it would be best to give him a wide berth for the rest of the day. He wasn’t a man who hid his thoughts or feelings particularly well — not when it came to work, anyway — and the team knew the tell-tale signs that meant you were likely to get your head bitten off if you tried to talk to him.

Steve Wing, though, didn’t have much choice. The call he’d just taken on his phone could potentially have an impact on the investigation into Freddie Galloway’s death, and keeping it from Culverhouse would only make him angrier when he eventually discovered what it was. Steve told the rest of the team what he’d discovered, and they all agreed that it could be very significant.

Holding his breath, he paused and knocked on the door of Culverhouse’s office.

‘What?’ came the barked response from the other side of the door. Steve took this as an invitation to enter.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he said, ‘but I’ve just taken a call which might have a bearing on Operation Mandible.’

‘Go on.’

‘Benjamin Newell, the s**t safecracker on the Trenton-Lowe job. He got married at the weekend.’

‘That’s lovely, Steve. Send him a card from me.’

‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you,’ Steve replied. ‘Looks like it might be one of the shortest marriages in history. He decked one of his new wife’s work colleagues at the evening do.’

Culverhouse looked up at Steve for the first time since the DS had walked into the office. ‘Oh, did he now? The nice, newly reformed, born again Christian Benjamin Newell, you mean?’

Steve raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s the one. His new wife’s gone off to stay with her parents. No arrests made, but word got back to us via an officer’s sister, who was at the do.’

‘Well, that sounds to me like the hallmark of a man who reacts very badly when provoked or when he holds a grudge against someone, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I’d say it’s worth having a word with him, yeah.’

‘Who went out to speak to him after Galloway was found dead?’ Culverhouse asked.

The other officers looked at each other, before soon realising that no-one was speaking up.

‘Are you taking the piss?’ the DCI said, his voice rising. ‘This bloke’s done time because of Galloway’s job that went wrong, and no-one thought to go and speak to him about the fact Galloway’s just been killed?’

Frank Vine spoke up quietly from the back of the room. ‘It wasn’t given as an action in any briefings, guv.’

Culverhouse fired his trademark icy glare at Frank. ‘Do you need me to give you an action to wipe your arse? No. I didn’t think I needed to state the bleedin’ obvious to you.’ He looked around the room, before mumbling, ‘Want a job doing, do it your bloody self,’ and grabbing his coat. ‘Knight,’ he said, raising his voice again. ‘Get your arse over here. You’re coming with me.’