Written In Blood

20-1

20

“Dammit!” Mitchell swore and slammed his clenched fist down on the counter.

Melissa could see that he was furious at having been forced to release Zack Wild – she was not prepared to say so, but she could understand the position taken by Wild’s solicitor; there was no evidence, so he had to be released without charge – and wanted to get out of the way before that anger was turned on her. Unfortunately, a quick exit was not possible, there was still the end of day chores to be taken care of, and Oliver Ryder, who was still in his cell, to be dealt with.

She doubted that Mitchell was going to get around to sorting out Oliver’s situation before morning, which meant an officer was going to have to stay at the station overnight to watch him.

“Do you want me to stay and keep an eye on Ollie?” she asked. It was not a job she wanted, it would afford her little opportunity to sleep, but she felt it was better to volunteer than to have the job put on her.

Mitchell thought about that briefly before shaking his head. “No, you head on home, it’s been a long day, I’ll sort Oliver out.”

Melissa was relieved not to be getting the annoying, if easy, job of babysitting Oliver Ryder through the night, but could not help wondering what Mitchell meant by ‘sort Oliver out’. There was something vaguely ominous about the phrase, something that made her think he had a meaning other than that he would be the one to spend the night at the station.

She dawdled over her closing up chores, delaying so she could try and find out what the sergeant was going to do.

Mitchell headed down the passage to his office, where he fell into his chair before reaching for the phone on his desk. As angry as he was with how the situation had turned out, he disliked what he had to do next, tell his superior that he had been forced to release Zack Wild, even more.

Like him, Inspector Stevens had been hoping the arrest of the author meant a speedy resolution to the case, before Sir Virgil Foulds could hear that anything had happened to his beloved great-niece. They could not avoid Sir Virgil finding out that Lucy had been killed, but Mitchell, along with Stevens, had been hoping that by having her murderer in custody before he knew what was happening, they could show they had done everything possible in regard to the case.

He was about to pick up the phone when a thought occurred to him. He turned the idea over in his mind a couple of times, while he looked for anything wrong with it; there wasn’t, as far as he could see, so he took his hand from the phone and got to his feet. The phone call to Stevens could wait.

**