Brandon was short and thickset, with a round, fat pink-and-white face, a mass of chalk-white hair and cold, inquisitive eyes. He was an ambitious cop without being a clever one. He got results because he used Mifflin’s brains and took the credit. He had been Captain of Police for ten years. He owned a Cadillac, a seven-bedroom house; his wife had a mink coat, and his son and daughter went to the University. He didn’t live in that style on his pay. There were the usual rumours that he could be bought, but no one had ever attempted to prove it as far as I knew. He had been known to fake evidence and encouraged his cops to be brutal and ruthless. A man with a lot of power; a dangerous man.
‘So you two have horned in on this, have you?’ he said in his hard, rasping voice. I’ve never known such a pair of jackals.’
Neither of us said anything. Talk out of turn to Brandon and you’re liable to find yourself behind bars.
He glanced at the cop who was as rigid as a wooden effigy.
‘Out!’
The cop went out on tiptoe and closed the door as if it were made of egg-shells.
Mifflin gave me a slow, heavy wink from behind Brandon’s head.
Brandon sat down, stretched out his short, fat legs, pushed his hard pork-pie hat to the back of his head and fumbled for the inevitable cigar.
‘Let’s have it all over again,’ he said. ‘There’re one or two points I want to check. Go ahead, Malloy. Tell it the way you told it to MacGraw. I’ll stop you when I’ve had enough.’
‘Kerman and I were spending the evening in my cabin,’ I said briskly. ‘At ten minutes past ten the telephone bell rang, and a man who identified himself as Lee Dedrick asked me to come over here right away. He explained that some man had ‘phoned him and warned him that an attempt was to be made tonight to kidnap him.’