Her murder had led to a cascade of events that had resulted in more death, destruction and misery. Just ask Terry Bennett, or Jamal, or Zarvo, no, Jason as he was known and his once hopeful and now devastated family. Just ask fifty-odd displaced circus performers and workers, jobless and many of them stranded in a foreign country. Then there were the murders that preceded all this. What a bloody mess to sort out. My brain was stuffed full of the facts of the investigation I’d been working through. I’d hoped the run would spur my subconscious into processing it all, picking out the bits that jarred, the bits that gelled. What I needed most was to talk with someone about it all to help order my thoughts, structure the bedlam. Smithy? I‘d considered ringing him, but he was a family man and I was sure being in the force put enough pressures on his domestic life without me adding to them by dragging him away from what little time he had with them. I couldn’t do that to Veronica and the kids. As for the others? I didn’t really feel I knew any of them well enough to impinge on them like that. There was Paul. He was still in town, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to have a good work session without him being his usual chauvinistic self and irritating the crap out of me. My threshold for tolerating his rubbish was a bit low right now. Maggie was always good; maybe Maggie.

It was all a moot point though. There were other priorities for the moment. I checked my watch; I’d have to rattle my dags. Mum would be expecting me at the hospital soon and it didn’t pay to keep her waiting.

My sense of urgency had returned.

42

‘Hi Sam-a-lamb, fancy seeing you here.’ Dad looked wired for sound with a drip going in one arm and ECG stickies poking through the grey mat of hair on his chest. I wasn’t quite sure what state I expected to find him in, but was relieved that he seemed perky and hadn’t lost that twinkle in his eye. He was sharing a room with two empty beds and a striped-pyjama-clad elderly chap who seemed to be trying to watch the very loud television through his eyelids.

‘Hey, Dad.’ I leaned over and gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek. ‘Standards are slipping, I see,’ I said, giving the stubble a scritch with my knuckles. ‘Stick you in a chopper and send you to the big smoke and you think you’re on holiday.’

‘Some holiday, the room service is terrible and as for the food. Don’t they know a man needs a real lunch? Where’s the meat?’

‘I think that brown stuff is meat, Dad.’