Chapter 63: A Clear Direction

Back at his desk, Barnaby sorted through the cases he and Troy hoped to lay at Iain Huhes' feet. On the very top, out of proper chronology, lay the reports with as yet unidentified fingerprints. Depending on the results of any fingerprint analysis, these had the most weight; the others would have to wait for a search warrant and the tools they had noticed in Huhes' backseat. Dating from the middle of spring, well before he and Troy were first assigned in between their inevitable rounds of murder, they were perhaps the first true ties between a mystery and a man. As Troy jumped out of the front passenger door at A&E, he had handed over the bagged cigarette package, still clenching Barnaby's handkerchief tightly in his left palm, wincing once in a while. And after walking Huhes into CID and securing him in an interview room—among his final comments to Angel during their phone call earlier earlier that day had been to set one aside—Barnaby passed perhaps their newest piece of evidence along to SOCO. (He may have told himself he hoped Troy would give up the chase if it turned foolish, but he suspected that wouldn't be the course of events. Remembering the inspector's exam he might sit in a few short years?)

Still waiting for any word, Barnaby scratched out the first drafts for a pair of search warrants: one for the rickety house in Upper Warden ("property owned by Huhes, Madge") and another for their young suspect's aged car ("vehicle registered in Upper Warden to Huhes, Iain"). After scribbling his name at the bottom—if the magistrate disagreed, he would happily rewrite them—Barnaby pitched both to the side, leaving the paperwork as he ventured out in search of a scorched mug of coffee. Word of the afternoon's incident had spread around the station, particularly among the handful of officers they worked with most often. He didn't say too much, only that he was sure everything would be fine.

It was half five before he heard from his sergeant, still being bandaged up at the hospital after a bit of a wait in reception. Nothing pleasant, Troy had grumbled through the chatter on his end: some sutures and an unanticipated vaccination as a result of the rusty nail. That's still something, Troy, he thought, again shuffling through the case reports that had awaited him, to keep chasing him down. How much this whole afternoon bothered him, that was what rankled. Worry for Troy was something he was quite unused to.

The duty solicitor was still conferring with Huhes, or at least hadn't stormed out of the room; he'd allow them another few minutes. As Barnaby let the minutes tick past, a constable handed him the forensics report on Huhes' cigarette package and he muttered thank you in return. Nothing conclusive enough for court—no surprise there—but a number of partial prints easily matched to those unidentified at their crime scenes; enough to warrant probable cause.

By the time the clock hit six, Barnaby's patience was waning. He placed a short phone call to Joyce, warning her not to wait for him that evening, gently pushing her questions back. ("Nothing to worry about. I'll talk to you when I'm home." "You're never this late unless you're working on a major case. I thought you weren't too worried about all these burglaries." "Something's come up, that's all. I'll tell you when I see you." "I'll remember that, Tom." "Bye, love.")

"That's long enough," he finally said as he stood, righting the knot in his tie and scooping up the folders from his desk. If Huhes hadn't found a way to convince a bored solicitor who listened to stories like his every day of his innocence, another few minutes wouldn't help. And after a quick reminder to one of the passing constables to let him know when Troy returned from A&E, he opened the door to the interview room.

Huhes didn't look up at the groan of the door's hinges, staring at the scraped and bruised table instead, the sleeves of his windbreaker shoved up to his elbows where the hems hung loose. The duty solicitor in his wrinkled suit spoke quietly to him, a pad of blank white paper and a pen before him. The clanging of the door as the latch caught at last drew his suspect's attention. "About time," the young man muttered, rubbing at one of his eyes. "Thought you'd forgot me."

"Not after this afternoon," Barnaby said, tossing the case and forensics reports onto his side of the small table, taking his seat. "I doubt Sergeant Troy or I are likely to forget you any time soon."

"Well, that's hardly my fault, is it?"

Barnaby dragged his chair closer to the table's edge, ignoring the duty solicitor's cringing at the shrill noise. He laid his hands atop the folders he brought from his desk, just peering at his suspect across the battered table. Huhes' face was still mussed beneath a few patches of dust and he rolled his fingers over the tabletop, drumming at an ever quickening pace. The steel ashtray lay barren and empty; at least he wouldn't reek of cigarette smoke by the end of the day. "I trust you are satisfied with your legal advice?" he finally asked, glancing to the older man sat beside him. Barnaby saw the greying man around CID often enough, always balancing the weight of too many charges, but never quite remembered his name.

Huhes shrugged, his fingers drumming faster still. "Suppose I am."

"I sent your cigarette package off with a fingerprints officer, to compare any on there with the evidence we had left at our crime scenes." He nodded his head toward the ceiling.

"I'm sure you have."

"Funny thing they found." Loosening his hands, Barnaby opened the first folder in his stack to the latest forensic report, the ink lightly smeared after being handled so freshly. "Two or three partial prints that don't match—"

"Thank you for your honesty," the solicitor interrupted.

"And several other partials that do."

Stretching out his arms, Huhes pushed his chair up, balancing on the back two legs for a couple seconds before the front two clattered onto the worn linoleum again. "So?"

Huhes' solicitor scrawled a first note onto his pad of paper. "That's not enough evidence for the daftest barrister, Inspector."

"Detective Chief Inspector, and yes, I know," Barnaby said loudly, flipping to the second page of his new report. "But they show conclusive partial matches across many. And you, Mr. Huhes, ran away. I've told my sergeant more than once: that's almost a confession."

Huhes snorted, tucking his hands into the crook of his elbows, popping one foot onto his knee. "And how is he, your sergeant?"

"Sergeant Troy is still at the hospital, having a row of stitches finished after a tetanus jab."

And now, the younger man laughed, tinny against the small room's barren walls. "Sorry if don't feel bad for him."

Leaning toward his client, the duty solicitor said, "You're not helping yourself—"

"Maybe he shouldn't have gone running after me."

"Well, if you've done nothing wrong, why run away?" Barnaby asked.

"Don't like your sort—"

"I find most of my suspects don't."

"After I got cautioned couple years back, dunno why you'd think different."

Barnaby's chest tightened, his teeth about to grind together. "I do have the authority—and enough cause—to arrest you. After which you will be fingerprinted to conclusively tie you to certain crime scenes and we will serve a warrant to search both your grandmother's house and the car registered to you at her address." Huhes glanced off to one of the corners of the interview room. He looked bored, Barnaby decided. "Do you think our forensics officers won't be able to match marks from any one of those crime scenes to the crowbar and hammer we already observed through the back window of your vehicle?"

"I'm not the only one who drives it. Why should I care?"

"Your grandmother says it hasn't moved since you were last there, a month ago," Barnaby said. Now, he wanted Troy's notebook and its precise notes, just to verify his own memories.

"Don't give a shit what she says."

That's hardly the voice of a loving grandson, Barnaby thought, closing his folder. Not that she sounded too happy talking about him. "Do you like your grandmother, Mr. Huhes?" he asked quietly.

Huhes' attention came back to him—confused. "She's all right."

Is that it? he wondered. Earlier in the day, he had seen no love lost between the two of them, but he had seen stranger. It wouldn't be the first time he had seen family love strained in an investigation. "How long have you lived with your grandmother?"

The duty solicitor raised his hand. "I don't think that's an appropriate line—"

"I'll be the judge of that. How long?"

Huhes' fingers were drumming again even faster than before, and Barnaby heard the click of his shoe as it fell back against the worn floor. "Halfway through secondary."

"And why not with your parents?" Barnaby added softly. Huhes licked his lips and at last sat straight in his chair, breathing hard. Well, that is a change. "Does it have something to do with the young man she mentioned, Geoff?"

"Sod off, won't you?" Huhes snapped over the quickening thrum-thrum-thrum of his fingers.

Anxiety or withdrawal? Barnaby wondered, the same question he had nearly asked himself earlier in the week, watching Troy. "Her house has seen better days."

"Detective Inspector—"

"Not much a surprise if your granddad drank his paycheck your whole life."

The duty solicitor caught Huhes' arm. "Don't say anything else."

"And what would you do to help her?" Barnaby continued. Huhes' chest was rising and falling faster, his eyes narrowed. Anxiety, he decided.

"I didn't do anything you said," he said after another deep breath. "And if I had—I'd do it for my own pocket money, not charity."

Barnaby sighed, dragging his chair even closer to the table's edge. "Iain, you're only digging your grave deeper if you don't tell me the truth."

"I don' know what you want. I didn't—"

A few sharp knocks on the door behind them interrupted Huhes, and a second later the ancient hinges groaned as it opened. Barnaby twisted around to a uniformed constable in the doorway. "Sir? Someone to see you."

Someone indeed. "Ah, thank you." To Huhes and his solicitor, he added, "We'll finish this a little later."

Leaving the interview room, his folders tucked underneath his arm, Barnaby pulled the door closed with a bang, not bothered by the noise or any discomfort it might cause Huhes. Not after the fiasco of the day. In their small corner of the squad room, Troy was at his desk again—his jacket slung across his chair back, his tie well loosened—rolling his right shoulder round again and again. "Glad to see you looking somewhat put back together, Troy," he said, taking quicker strides across the large room.

"In a few days, at least," Troy muttered, raising his palm from his tidy workspace, though a new, small bottle of pain tablets—probably—stood beside his collection of pens. Now cleaned and all the blood rinsed away, his left hand was bound with a thin strip of gauze; as Barnaby tossed those case reports on his sergeant's desk, he saw the fragments of dark, dried blood clinging at the frayed edges and a faint trail running through the middle of the white cotton.

"That bad?"

"The doctor said it could have been worse. Nail didn't go too deep after all, just hurt." He hissed, finally clapping his bandaged hand to his upper arm. "Just like the tetanus booster."

Adding the forensics report to the pile, Barnaby shrugged. "I can't report that Mr. Huhes seems to be suffering any ill effects."

Troy scowled. "Still a lucky bastard, is he?"

"It would seem so." Barnaby yanked his chair from beneath his desk, dropping into it heavily. "He's still not saying anything much beyond that he didn't do anything."

"That's no surprise."

"True," Barnaby said quietly, clasping his hands together under his chin. It still vexed him, festering in the back of his brain, his inability to shake that question: whatever Huhes had done, was it for himself or someone else? "I've already had a chance to look at that report," he went on. "Several matching partial fingerprints. Should be enough for a search warrant and to arrest him. A good thought you had, collecting that."

Reaching for it with his good hand, Troy leaned forward, swiftly flipping through the pages. "Who else would have touched it as much?"

"I suppose he's regretting it for more than one reason. He can hardly keep still."

Troy laughed before he let out another breath, his hand still pressed to his upper arm. "It wouldn't have helped him much: they were all broken."

Barnaby heard the young man's fingers pounding against the table once more, his eyes twitching and dancing from side to side. "I think he would have made the best of them."

"That jittery?" Troy muttered, turning to the final page.

"Do you speak from experience?"

"What?"

"You heard what I said."

His sergeant shook his head. "No—"

"Troy."

He closed the folder, wincing again. "Not for a long time, sir."

"Thank you for your partial honesty in that." Even at his desk, a few feet away in their small corner of the bustling squad room, Barnaby heard Troy's harsh sigh. "You're not the best liar."

"I don't know why you—"

"And regardless," he continued, "you have a suspect's interview to catch up on."

"Sir?" Troy glanced up from the report, his face confused.

"I am still treating this as your investigation"—Barnaby's eyes darted to the closed interview room, gritting his teeth ahead of another meeting with the arrogant young man—"and after this afternoon, I think you've earned it."

As he stood, Troy tugged the knot in his tie closer to his throat, though it was still more rumpled than usual. "Not sure how eager I am to see him again, after everything's said and done."

"It's what we're paid for, Troy."

Troy gathered up the stock of reports after he eased his suit coat onto his shoulders again—still wincing as he shoved his right arm into the sleeve—before making their way back to the interview room and Huhes. "I'm guessing he's just as pleasant as he was earlier?" Troy asked as Barnaby reached for the door's handle.

"Quite," he said quietly, wrenching the handle down and pushing the door open.

His arms tucked behind his neck and his head back, Huhes' eyes were closed, almost like he was taking a nap in his dusty clothes. Or still bored, Barnaby thought. His solicitor was flipping through a couple new pages of notes on his large pad of paper, peering up at their footsteps. "About time—" Troy snapped the door closed loudly, but Huhes hardly stirred even as his solicitor jerked at the sound.

"Detective Sergeant Troy, Mr. Huhes again," Barnaby said tightly, "and his solicitor."

Huhes laughed quietly, opening his eyes as leaned forward, balancing his elbows on the edge of the table and perching his chin atop his knuckles. "Good to see you again, sergeant."

Barnaby and Troy took their seats opposite the other two men, Troy already opening his small notebook. "I assume Chief Inspector Barnaby let you know about our report on your cigarette pack?" he asked, finding the page where he had stopped earlier that day.

"Yeah," he muttered, smirking. "You still in one piece?"

Barnaby cleared his throat. "Mr. Huhes, right now that is beside the point. I want to go over some of what we discussed earlier, just to let Sergeant Troy ask his own questions to bring us all onto the same page."

"Not going to change a damn thing."

"Why did you run away?" Troy asked, looking up at their suspect. Even without seeing the man's face, Barnaby knew he looked disgusted; Mrs. Huhes' comment had evidently not been forgotten. Just keep your mind on the case, Troy, he thought, not on what you think about him.

"Who wouldn't with you two at the door?"

"And once more, how long have you lived there, with your grandmother?" Barnaby added, the first of his own questions directly following from the man's first interview. Perhaps it would steer Troy in the right direction for once.

Huhes sighed, his jaw slipping from his folded hands as he turned away. "This again?"

"I need to know as well," Troy said.

The young man was fidgeting again, his fingers shaking. "Six or seven years," he said slowly, "since I was half through secondary—I already told you."

"And why?" Barnaby asked quietly. It was only when he asked about...was that it? Huhes had snapped when he mentioned that name, Geoff. Was it really that simple? How sad if it was.

The duty solicitor threw his pen down onto his legal pad. "This again—"

"Why?"

The man's eyes were darting around the room, his fingers rapping faster and faster. "The hell does it matter?"

"We need to know," Troy insisted, picking up the forensics report. "We need to know why you're there."

"I didn't do anything."

"Then how do you explain your fingerprints?" Troy pushed those pages across the table, spreading them apart for Huhes to see. "And when you are arrested, we will be able to make a positive match."

"Then do it—"

"Why, Iain?" Barnaby shouted.

Crossing his arms on his chest, Huhes slumped into his chair. His fingers at last stilled, his eyes rose to the ceiling. "My dad caught me," he said quietly, chewing his lip as he turned away.

"How so?" Troy asked, the pen in his hand flying across the half-filled page of his small notebook.

"When I was fourteen."

"How?" Troy asked again.

Looking back at them, Huhes' chin fell against his chest for a moment as found another deep breath. "With Geoff." Out of the corner of his eye, Barnaby saw Troy's hand screech to a halt. Just hold your tongue for once, he thought, even seeing his sergeant push himself a few inches back from the table, though the squeal against the floor was mercifully faint. "Dropped me on her the next day," Huhes continued. "She's never been happy 'bout it."

"And—your mother?" Troy asked, beginning to write again after a quiet cough, though his eyes were definitely fixed on his notebook, not their suspect.

Across from them, the duty solicitor shook his head. "Sergeant, this is well out of order."

"It's a reasonable question, after that—"

"Give us a few minutes," Barnaby said, standing and collecting the reports they had brought with them. "Troy?"

"Right, sir," he said, scrambling to his feet.

Don't be too eager to get away from him.

"Charming," Troy muttered as he closed the heavy door to the interview room.

"That was rather my impression," Barnaby said as they made their way back to their desks. "But forewarned is forearmed."

"Sir?"

"Another part of your education," he added, settling back into his chair and sliding the folders back into the pile with the rest of them. He could reorganize them in a short while. "Sometimes we're in a game of chess, playing four moves ahead. Now we know what we'll hear from him if he has to defend himself in court."

Troy snorted quietly, taking his own seat. "A plea for sympathy after almost a year of crime?"

Barnaby nodded. "Perhaps. It's worked before."

"Might be nice if we got a bit of that instead of him."

"But I think you've done enough for today, Troy. I'll see you on Monday."

"Sir?"

"I can process the paperwork for his arrest."

Pulling one of his last neat piles of photographs and reports to him, Troy flicked through the first few pages. "Have you already filed the paperwork with the magistrate, for the search warrants?"

"Not yet"—he shook his head—"and there's no reason to harass one now."

"If he's in custody—"

"He's hardly a murderer." Barnaby eased his suit coat off his shoulders, knitting his fingers together behind his neck and leaning back in his chair. "And a weekend in a police cell might do him some good."

"Bit optimistic aren't you, sir?" Troy said quietly.

"There's always hope."

"I suppose, but it looks—"

"Monday, Troy," he said again. "9 am as always. We can file the paperwork then."

He heard Troy let out a deep breath. "Right, sir."

"And good work—again."

A/N: I stand by this characterization. If cooks can power through pain and injury, a police officer can, too. Also, I don't know exactly how long fingerprint identification takes, but research says that would have been digital at this point and I've not given them much to do.