‘That leaves only one man,’ noted Leeming.
‘Yes,’ said Colbeck, ‘Constable Toby Marner.’
‘I hope he’s a little more helpful than those two.’
‘Nobody likes to be accused of a crime, Victor, even if it’s an unintentional one. Their intemperate reaction was forgivable.’
‘I’d have forgiven them with a punch on the nose.’
‘Save your strength for the real villain — Jerry Oxley. The one thing we can guarantee is that he’ll put up a fight.’
They went to the address they’d been given and knocked on the door of a shabby house in one of the rougher districts of the town. The woman who answered the door was Toby Marner’s landlady. She told them that they might find him at the Waterloo, a nearby public house. Colbeck asked her some questions about her lodger and was told that he’d been a good tenant.
When they located the seedy pub, they had no difficulty in picking out the man they were after. Sitting alone in a corner, the tall, rangy Marner was wearing his uniform and hat but he was not the image of sobriety expected of a law enforcement officer. His eyes were glazed, his cheeks red and he was quaffing a pint of beer as if his life depended on it. The detectives joined him and introduced themselves. It took Marner a few moments to understand what they were saying.