Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

She sighed.

I said, “You said you could forgive anything except infidelity and cutting you out. Can you forgive this?”

She sagged back in her chair and put something that was related to a smile on her face. She gestured at me with both hands. “What? What am I supposed to do? Or say? You know as well as I do that if I had found Mick Harragan alive, back when we first met, I would have blown his brains out without a second thought.” She stared at her cup. “And I could never have brought Maria in. It’s like you say, Stone. Sometimes the law doesn’t cover the details.[5]”

I gave a small laugh and stuffed half a croissant in my mouth. “The crazy thing is, I don’t believe in that. It shouldn’t be that way.”

“I know. But it is. Sometimes you have to believe something, even when you don’t believe in it. Because…” she wagged her finger at me across the table. “Morality, Stone, is a human construct. Let’s go.”

I drained my coffee, stood, and we headed for the lobby.

Outside, it was already getting warm. The U.K. was caught in a heat wave that the oil industry had given up pretending had nothing to do with climate change. If the planet wasn’t getting hotter, England sure was.

We made it to New Scotland Yard through heavy, grinding traffic and got there by nine thirty. Harry was waiting for us on the sidewalk. He didn’t look happy. I pulled up beside him and lowered the window. He didn’t smile.

“Get out. I’ll drive. Carmen, you get in the back. I need to talk to this character.”

We played musical chairs for a bit. Dehan climbed in the back and I got in the passenger seat. He got behind the wheel and we took off slow down the Victoria Embankment, following the same route we had followed the day before.

“I am not going to mince words with you, John. And believe me, if it weren’t for the years of friendship we have, and because of what happened to Hattie, you would be on the next flight out of here back to New York. But you are going to hear what I bloody well have to say to you and you are going take it, or you can fuck off back home.”

He turned to look at me. I gave him the dead eye and he carried on.

“We do not have gun law in this country. We do not allow coppers to go around beating up civilians. We like it that way and if we catch a copper trying to take the law into his own hands we come down on him, or her, like a ton of fucking bricks! Whether he is a friend or not. In this country the law is the law, for Brad Johnson, Hattie Stone, you, me and Lord Chiddester. No exceptions! Step over the line once more, John, and I will have you! Is that understood?”

I nodded. “Perfectly, Harry, and I appreciate that you had to lay it on the line like that. And, believe it or not, in ninety percent of the U.S.A., it’s the same.” I spread my hands. “However, I want you to be able to look your bosses in the eye and tell them, with a clear conscience, that it went down the way I said. I had questions for him about his alibi. I felt if we spoke in his apartment rather than in the middle of an exhibition hall, he might be more willing to speak. The door was open, and he was lying on the floor, semi conscious. I called you, cleaned him up a bit, and left when I heard the sirens because I was aware my presence could be an embarrassment to your department.”

He scowled at me a moment, then sighed. “Fair enough. Sorry about chewing you out. But, it can’t happen, you know?”

“Hey, I would have done the same if you’d come over to the Bronx and started beating up some of my hard cases.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the freezer bag with the cotton wool in it. I showed it to him and, without cracking a smile, I said, “I asked him if he would mind providing a sample and he said that was fine. I am willing to testify to that, if necessary.”

He shook his head. “You son of a bitch,” he said, then burst out laughing. “You dirty son of a bitch!”

Dehan spoke up from the back. “I’ve been checking on Google. You have a private clinic in South London that will do same day private DNA profiles. Then it’s just a matter of comparing the profile that was done fifteen years ago, from the skin under Hattie’s fingernails, and the profile we get from this clinic.”

He was quiet for a good two or three minutes. Finally, he said, “This is damn close to vigilante behavior. I don’t like it. I don’t condone it. But I’ll have a bike come over and collect the stuff and deliver it to the clinic. And you promise me, you give me your word, that this is the end of it.”

I nodded. “You have my word, Harry, but you need to know something. Johnson is not your man for Katie Ellison’s killing. You know that as well as I do. And he isn’t your man for the other four either.”

“What’s your point?”

He pulled in to Little College Street and parked opposite a tall, elegant, Georgian house. He killed the engine and turned to face me.

“I have asked my Inspector to pull strings back home and have Johnson extradited. I want him tried in Arizona. U.S. law says it has jurisdiction over any U.S. citizen who commits a crime, anywhere in the world.”

He was frowning and