The officer nodded up at him. ‘I understand, sir, but please could you watch your language? There’s no call for it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said James. ‘I’m sorry. But I got home last night and my kitchen was flooded because my wife didn’t know what she was doing, because this idiot had come round and upset her so much.’
‘I understand, sir,’ nodded the woman.
‘I’m upset too,’ said James. ‘My wife’s very fragile. She just doesn’t need it. We don’t need it, and I want something done. I don’t want this man coming round again. I want him to leave us alone.’
‘Absolutely, sir,’ she said, and James felt the tension starting to leave his body. The officer was very calming, and now that he was calmer, he looked at her properly for the first time. She was young and attractive, with big, intelligent eyes that made him instinctively trust that she would do the right thing.
‘You take a seat, sir, and I’ll see how I can help you with this, OK?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to fill in a form or something?’
‘No, sir,’ she said. ‘You have a seat.’
There was a form to fill in, but Emily Aguda didn’t give it to James Buck.
She still might. Procedurally speaking, it was the right thing to do and so she wasn’t ruling it out. But she didn’t want to do anything that couldn’t be reversed.
She got up from her desk at the window, met eyes with Sergeant Caxton, who would relieve her for five minutes, and left the office behind the window.
She didn’t go far. After going through the double doors into the corridor that led to the cells and the cafeteria, Aguda leaned against the wall and thought about everything she knew about Anna Buck and James Buck and the Edie Evans case.
There wasn’t a lot, but she figured every detail was important in the decision she had to make.
For a start, Anna Buck was crazy. Mentally fragile was as kind as you could be about it, so Aguda reasoned from that that James Buck was kind and loved his wife. And a man who loved his wife, even though she was crazy, couldn’t be all bad, could he? Couldn’t be a killer of children, surely? Sure, she had gone to see Marvel about her suspicions over James Buck, but now that she had met him – albeit briefly – she thought those suspicions were probably wrong. After all, if Anna Buck’s idea of a baby was that hideous thing with a battery-run heart, then her concerns over her husband’s childcare skills were probably similarly skewed. James Buck could be Father of the Year for all Aguda knew.
But if he were a dangerous man, Aguda couldn’t see how it would help the Edie Evans case or Anna Buck’s lost son if the first official police contact with James Buck was in the form of a complaint. That would complicate everything – especially as Aguda had a feeling that it was a complaint that would be upheld. She had no doubt that Marvel had been round to James Buck’s flat and had bothered the hell out of his wife. No doubt whatsoever. However good the reason, that was pretty outrageous behaviour, and Aguda seriously doubted that Buck’s complaint would be the first one that had ever been made against DCI Marvel. The man was too abrasive, too rude, too much of a prick to have escaped previous brushes with the disciplinary system.
Thanks to her role as a glorified force mascot, Aguda recognized that her opinion on all these scores was less scientific deduction and more feminine intuition. It wasn’t something she was about to write up in a report, but it felt like common sense.
And that was her favourite of all the senses …
So she beckoned James Buck off the bench and led him up to the second floor, past the drinks machine, through the Jenga and to the desk in the far corner, and introduced him to a surprised-looking DCI John Marvel.
Then she left.
As her mother used to say, Let nature run its course.
Marvel and James Buck both looked a little embarrassed.
Aguda had merely introduced one to the other and walked away, but she might as well have made them shake hands and told them to play nice.
In awkward silence, they watched her leave.
Then Buck said, ‘If you’re Marvel, I came here to complain about you.’
‘Yeah?’ said Marvel. He was angry with Aguda for bringing the man right to him, when his instinct was always to keep trouble as far away from himself as was humanly possible. Maybe she hadn’t understood that this man had wanted to make a complaint about him, not to him. Idiot.
But James Buck was here now, looking sullen, and Marvel would have to make the best of a bad job. He gestured to the empty chair at the next desk. ‘Have a seat,’ he said, ‘and complain away.’
Buck sat down angrily. ‘You came round my house and upset my wife.’
‘I’m investigating a murder,’ said Marvel. ‘I’m allowed to do stuff like that.’
‘Yeah?’ said James. ‘At nine o’clock on a Friday night? Don’t tell me that’s official!’
Marvel shrugged. ‘Justice never sleeps.’
‘Maybe, but Justice flooded my bloody kitchen.’
Marvel frowned. ‘I didn’t flood your kitchen.’
‘I get home and my wife’s soaking wet in bed and the flat’s ankle deep in bloody water!’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Marvel. He decided not to tell James Buck about the several glass of water he’d fetched for his wife. Or about how he’d left her still gulping greedily from the kitchen tap. ‘All I know is that I went round there to ask for her help on a very serious matter—’
‘What matter?’
‘The kidnap and possible murder of a child.’
‘What would she know about that? Just because we lost our son doesn’t make us bloody CSI Bickley.’
Marvel shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn’t want to look like a fool, but he also didn’t want this bozo taking his complaint any further. ‘Mr Buck,’ he said, ‘are you aware that your wife claims to have some psychic power?’
‘Yeah.’ To Marvel’s relief, Buck looked as uncomfortable as he himself felt about it, now that he was sober.