Page 28 of Murder in Shades of Fire and Ash

produced his warrant card.

“Mr Unwin, I’m DS Rees, one of the team investigating your brother’s death. What’s going on, please? Why is my colleague bleeding?”

Unwin’s brother was bright red with anger or frustration, or both. “Whatshouldbe going on is you arresting Patsy here.”

“PC Hargreaves is a police officer as well as a visitor to your home.” Charlie looked at the floor, where shards of a heavy juice glass were scattered on the floor. “If you threw that glass, it’s assault, at the very least. Now, what’s going on?”

“She’s not telling the truth,” Unwin’s brother said. “She killed him.”

“I asked what happened here,” Charlie said. “Patsy? Did he throw that glass at you?”

Patsy shook her head. “At the wall. The bits bounced. It looks worse than it is. Only a graze, honestly.” And wasn’t that typical Patsy? Always the truth, even after she’d been injured and accused of murder. The amount of blood looked like more than a graze.

“Take her to the car and check those cuts. First aid kit under the passenger seat.” Charlie said to Eddy. Then to Alex Unwin: “If PC Hargreaves has more than a superficial cut, I will be arresting you.”

When the two of them had left, Charlie turned to Unwin’s brother. “Suppose we sit down, and you tell me all about it,” he said as calmly as he could, though his worry about Patsy made calmness an effort. He stepped over to the table, avoiding the broken glass, and pulled out two chairs. “Start with your name and address.”

Unwin’s brother sat down with a bad grace, slumping in the chair, but poking his head forward aggressively. “Alex Unwin. Flat 12, Hayday Mansions, Cambridge. I’m a PhD student.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said.See, wasn’t that easy?“You are accusing Patsy of murdering your brother Josh?”

Alex nodded repeatedly, his face still red.

“What evidence do you have for that allegation?” Charlie asked.

“She was jealous as fuck. She wanted to keep him to herself, and it wasn’t happening. Josh wasn’t ready to settle down.”

“Is that what Josh told you?”

There was a moment of silence. “He didn’t have to. He was still seeing lots of other people.”

“So, hedidn’ttell you that he was unhappy with Patsy? You guessed it from his behaviour? You see, Patsy says that she knew Josh slept with other people; that it was an accepted part of their relationship.”

Alex slapped his hand down onto the table. “No one believes that! That’s not how relationships work.” He shook his head. “For God’s sake, tell me you don’t believe that crap.”

Charlie didn’t know what to believe. He had seen Unwin put himself in danger to protect Patsy. They had seemed happy when they were together, and there was no doubting Patsy’s devastation at his loss. But plenty of people had told him about Unwin propositioning his colleagues, enough to suggest there was truth in the stories. At the same time, he had never caught Patsy in a lie, so if she said the relationship was genuinely open and ethical, he was inclined to believe her. He put the question of belief to one side.

“Apart than the nature of their relationship, do you have any other evidence that Patsy meant any harm to your brother?” Charlie asked.

“You’re on her side. I might have known. The police always stick together.” Alex gave a hollow laugh. “I’m wasting my time here.”

That will be a no, then.

“Regardless of what you think of the police, Mr Unwin, I should remind you that assault is a serious offence. I don’t know whether PC Hargreaves will wish to press charges so I would advise you to keep away from her and be careful about what you say about her in public.”

“Don’t you want me to make a statement?” Alex’s expression implied that he wasn’t inclined to be sensible.

“Not at this point, Mr Unwin. If you think of anything else I might need to know, please get in touch.” He gave Alex a card. But he still didn’t know what to think.

Thankfully,Patsy had been telling the truth about the extent of her injury. When Charlie got out to the car, she was sitting on the passenger seat with the door open. Eddy was crouched in front of her, very carefully cleaning dried blood from her face with an antiseptic wipe.

“It really isn’t much,” Patsy said.

Eddy growled – no other word for it -- and Charlie wanted to do the same.

“That’s not the point,” Charlie said. “You could have been badly injured.”

“But Iwasn’t,”Patsy protested.

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