Trick of the Mind Read Online Free Page A

forbearing to ask, given the chief inspector’s distracted tone.
    Carmichael rang off and Bethancourt tossed his phone back into the passenger seat thoughtfully. Carmichael often permitted Bethancourt to look in on Gibbons’s investigations, this having
been mandated by the chief commissioner of Scotland Yard, who happened to be an old school fellow of Bethancourt’s father. But Bethancourt had always done his best to keep a low profile and certainly Carmichael had never sought out his thoughts before. Perhaps, thought Bethancourt, the chief inspector believed this shooting had to do with Gibbons’s private life rather than his professional one, although Bethancourt had difficulty believing this could be true.
    But it gave him something else to think about on the long drive north. Heretofore, his only thought had been to pray for his friend’s life; he had given no thought at all as to why or how he had been shot. He mulled this over now as he lit yet another cigarette and let the car gather speed.
    Hollings had at last managed to roust Constable Jacob Clarkson out of his no doubt well-deserved bed. Constable Clarkson was the local man in Lambeth who had been on duty that evening, and who, on hearing that a fellow officer had been shot, professed himself only too happy to return to the station to speak to Chief Inspector Carmichael about it. Clarkson was the salt of the earth, an experienced man who knew his patch like the back of his hand. He was also, however, one of those people who is not much good when awakened in the middle of the night, and although he did not actually fall asleep on the ride to the station, Hollings still thought it prudent to stop and procure the man a coffee before they arrived and had to face the chief inspector. Hollings had worked with Carmichael several times in the past and had generally found him to be an even-tempered man, but he could clearly see that was not the case tonight. Not that Hollings could blame him, but on the other hand, he didn’t see why Constable Clarkson should suffer for it.
    Carmichael had made it to the station well ahead of them, Clarkson living quite distant, out in Orpington, and was waiting impatiently. Hollings was very glad he had stopped for the coffee.
    “There were reports of gunshots,” Clarkson told them. “I reported it, but nearly everyone who had heard it thought it came
from a different direction. I did look, sir. I’m mortal sorry I didn’t find your man.”
    “But you didn’t hear the shots yourself?” asked Carmichael.
    “No, sir. Best I could figure, I was inside a shop at the time, sorting out a bit of trouble between the owner and one of his customers.”
    Carmichael waved this away. “We have your report, Constable,” he said. “What I want is a blow-by-blow description. Here—show me where this shop is.”
    He slapped an open London A to Z onto the desk and Clarkson obligingly bent over it, yawning prodigiously. Carmichael scowled and Hollings, who was tolerably familiar with the area from a recent murder investigation, leaned in to point out where Gibbons had been found. Clarkson, it evolved, had been some distance away when the shots had been fired. He had already left the shop when he received word of the gunshots and the information that backup was en route to him from the station.
    “It’s that kind of neighborhood,” he said with a shrug.
    “But you didn’t wait for your backup to arrive, did you?” said Carmichael.
    “Well, no.” Clarkson slurped at his coffee and blinked before realizing the chief inspector was waiting for more. “It didn’t seem too likely that the gunman would still be about by the time I got there,” he explained. “I mean, they hardly ever are. If you shoot someone, you don’t wait about for the police, do you?”
    Carmichael admitted this was so.
    Clarkson traced his route on the map for them, and described the residents he had interviewed. They had all heard the shots, but none of them