An Eye For An Eye

4

4

Unhappy with the task he had been given, Chris Grey knocked on the door in front of him. This was the fifth of the houses across from Bhaskar’s Convenience Store he had visited, and with each one his resentment grew - this was a job for uniformed officers, not a detective, it simply wasn’t fair that he was being treated this way; his mistake had, after all, been genuinely that, and the sort of thing that could have happened to anyone.

What justice was there in the world when he was punished for another’s lack of attention? How was it his fault that the superintendent and DCI had had coffee spilled on them when they had been the ones distracted; if they had been paying attention they wouldn’t have walked straight into him as he carried a tray bearing three mugs of coffee to the CID offices.

It wasn’t his fault, everyone knew that, but there was no justice to be had for a junior officer like him. The incident had happened almost a fortnight ago, and ever since he had been stuck with every demeaning and dirty job that came along. How long the situation was going to persist he didn’t have a clue, he suspected it was going to be some time however for Superintendent Vaz was a woman, and had suffered more than DCI Collins as a result of having her chest assaulted by scalding coffee.

Grey was ready to give up and move on to the next house, after knocking twice and waiting for more than a minute, when the door swung open. The passage beyond the door was empty, leaving him to wonder if his knock had drawn the attention of a spectre, until a sound from around his knees made him look down. A young boy of about four was holding onto the door, a pride-filled expression on his face, as if opening the door was an achievement only recently learned.

“Hello,” Grey said in a bright voice, pushing aside the irritation he was feeling as he summoned a friendly smile. “Is mummy or daddy home?”

For answer the little boy swung the door shut, slamming it with all the strength his four-year-old arms possessed.

Grey stared at the door, uncertain what to do. He was tempted to knock again, after all, someone had to be home with the child, but after a moment he decided against it - he had already given the boy’s parents plenty of time to respond to his knock. Instead he walked along to the next house, so he could try there.

“Did you knock?”

The question made Grey freeze, his hand raised in prepared to knock on the door in front of him. Slowly, he lowered his hand and turned to look back up the street, where he saw a young woman leaning out the front door of the house he had just knocked on.

“I did,” he said with a nod as he returned to the house. “I’m Detective Constable Grey, do you mind if I speak to you?” He noted the wetness of the young woman’s hair, and the robe she was wearing, and concluded that she had been in either the shower or the bath when he knocked, which explained why she hadn’t answered before.

“What about?” the young woman asked, suspicion and concern warring on her face as she clutched her robe tight to keep it closed.

“There was an incident a while ago, across the road at Bhaskar’s,” Grey told her. “We’re speaking to all your neighbours in the hope that someone saw or heard something that will help us find the person responsible.”

The young woman looked past Grey and across the road to the shop, where the van belonging to the forensics team was parked. “Sure, come in.”

The flash of leg that was revealed as the young woman showed him into the living room and then turned away to head upstairs made Grey change his mind - it was possible that door-to-door enquiries wasn’t such a bad job. When she returned, barely a minute and a half after leaving, dressed in a pair of skimpy shorts and a halter top, Grey was glad about the previously unwanted chore.

“Run upstairs and play in your room, Thomas, mummy needs to talk to the policeman,” she said, guiding her son out of the room and giving him a gentle push towards the stairs.

“Do you mind if I ask your name?” Grey asked once the young woman had joined him on the sofa.

“Ally, Alison Murray. What happened at Bhaskar’s?” she asked.

Grey didn’t answer straight away, he needed a few seconds to consider what or how much he should reveal. “There was a robbery that went wrong,” he told her. “Mr Bhaskar’s wife and mother were killed.” The news drew a gasp. “Can you tell me where you were an hour ago?”

“I was just coming home from mum’s with Thomas.”

“So you weren’t at home at the time of the robbery?”

Alison Murray shook her head. “No, sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Grey dismissed the apology. “Have you see anything or anyone unusual in the area recently?”

A puzzled look crossed Alison’s face as she pushed herself up from the sofa and walked over to the window, so she could look out on the street. “What do you mean, unusual?” she asked over her shoulder, her attention on the shop across from her house; she stared at it as if she could see inside to what was going on there.

“This is a fairly out of the way neighbourhood,” Grey said. “It’s not really on the way from any place to any place, so the chances are that anyone on the street, whether on foot or in a car, is going to be someone you know, if not well then at least by sight. If there’s been any strangers around, you’ve most likely taken note of them, even if you haven’t realised you’re doing so.”

It was like a light-bulb went off behind Alison’s eyes. “There was something. It was as I was coming home, I was just turning the corner down the road when I passed a car I don’t remember seeing before. It was gone in just a few moments, but I remember thinking that it must have been someone visiting because it was new to me.”

“Can you describe the car?” Grey reached into his jacket pocket for his notepad and pen. It was a slim hope, he knew, but he couldn’t help thinking that if he could provide valuable information that led to the arrest of the murderer, he might be restored to the good graces of Detective Chief Inspector Collins and Superintendent Vaz and given duties more befitting his rank and abilities.

“It was blue,” Alison said confidently, though the confidence vanished from her voice almost immediately. “That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.”

Grey frowned in dismay. “Are you sure?”

Alison screwed up her face in concentration. “It was definitely blue, dark blue, and it looked old - not ancient, but it definitely wasn’t new.”

“How about make or model? Did you see anything that would make the car easy to identify?”

A shake of her head answered the question. “No, sorry. I’m not very good with cars. About all I can tell you is that it was blue, and it wasn’t a mini or a Beetle; it wasn’t anything expensive either, it was just an average car.”

Grey made a note of that, though he realised it wasn’t much help. “Did you see anything of the driver?” he asked, mentally crossing his fingers.

“I got a glimpse of straggly black hair and stubble,” Alison said, “but that’s all.”

The genuine look of apology on her face surprised Grey, after all it was hardly her fault she hadn’t paid more attention to the car and its driver, she hadn’t even known that a crime had been committed. “That’s okay,” he reassured her. “What you’ve told me isn’t much, but it’s more than we had before.”