Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone Read Online Free

a brightly patterned orange and
     green tie. He had slightly oversized black-framed glasses. Everything about him, from
     his strictly parted hair to his pointy green leather shoes, seemed to signal a degree of
     irony.
    ‘Mal,’ said the commissioner,
     ‘have you got a moment?’
    Karlsson held up the file he was
     carrying.
    ‘Is it that body in
     Deptford?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Are you sure it’s a
     murder?’
    ‘No, I’m not.’
    ‘Then why are
you
handling
     it?’
    ‘Nobody can make any sense of
     it,’ said Karlsson. ‘We’re trying to decide what to do.’
    The commissioner gave a nervous laugh and
     turned to the other man. ‘He’s not always like this,’ he said.
    The commissioner was expecting some sort of
     joshing retort from Karlsson but he didn’t get one and there was an awkward
     silence.
    ‘This is Jacob Newton,’ said the
     commissioner. ‘And this is DCI Karlsson, the man I was telling you about.
     He’s the one who got the Faraday boy back.’
    The two men shook hands.
    ‘Call me Jake,’ said the
     man.
    ‘Jake’s going
     to be around for a few days, looking at procedures, structures, that sort of
     thing.’
    Karlsson was puzzled. ‘Are you from
     the Met?’
    The man smiled, as if Karlsson had said
     something unintentionally amusing.
    ‘No, no,’ said the commissioner.
     ‘Jake’s from McGill Hutton. You know, the management consultancy.’
    ‘I don’t,’ said
     Karlsson.
    ‘It’s always useful to have a
     fresh pair of eyes. We can all learn lessons, especially in these days of budget
     reorientation.’
    ‘You mean
     “cuts”?’
    ‘We’re all in this together,
     Mal.’
    There was another silence that lasted just a
     little too long.
    ‘They’re waiting for me,’
     said Karlsson.
    ‘Mind if I come along?’ said
     Newton.
    Karlsson looked quizzically at the
     commissioner.
    ‘He’s got a free hand,’
     said Crawford. ‘Go anywhere, see anything.’ He clapped Karlsson on the back.
     ‘It’s not as if we’ve got anything to hide, is it? You can show Jake
     what a lean team you run.’
    Karlsson looked at Newton. ‘All
     right,’ he said. ‘Join the tour.’
    Yvette Long and Chris Munster were sitting
     at a desk drinking coffee. Karlsson introduced Newton, who told them to pretend he
     wasn’t there. They immediately looked ill at ease and self-conscious.
    ‘Anyone else coming?’ Karlsson
     asked, and Yvette shook her head.
    ‘Autopsy’s this
     afternoon,’ said Karlsson. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if it was a heart
     attack?’
    ‘You thought he might have been
     strangled,’ said Yvette.
    ‘I can hope,
     can’t I?’ said Karlsson.
    ‘It’s the dog I feel sorry
     for,’ said Munster. ‘These guys, they live in shit, they can’t hold
     down a job, but they’ve always got a bloody dog.’
    ‘From the fact that I haven’t
     heard anything,’ said Karlsson, ‘I’m assuming that the deceased has
     not been identified as one of the other residents.’
    ‘All accounted for,’ said
     Munster. He picked up his notebook. ‘Lisa Bolianis. Aged about forty, I think.
     Apparent drink problem. I talked to her. Not very coherent. She said she’d seen
     Michelle Doyce once or twice. Never with anyone else.’ He pulled a face. ‘I
     don’t get the impression that these housemates are meeting much around the
     barbecue. Michael Reilly – our dog owner. Got out of prison in November. Three and half
     years for possession and distribution of a class-A substance. He said he’d nodded
     to her in the hall. She didn’t care much for his dog. He didn’t see her with
     anyone either.’ He looked down at his notebook. ‘She collected things.
     She’d come back with bagfuls of stuff she’d bought or found or
     whatever.’
    ‘We saw that in the flat.’
    ‘Anyone else?’
    Munster looked back at his notebook.
     ‘Metesky. Tony Metesky. I could hardly get him to talk at all. Wouldn’t look
     at me. He’s clearly got some kind of mental