What Breaks A Detective.

Chapter 5

Smart waved the knife smugly at the Lieutenant from his position crouching on the floor.

"Don't" Newham groaned.

"Don't what?" Smart asked brightly.

"Say anything along the lines of 'I told you so'."

"Alright" Smart sighed, turning the blade over in his hands. "But you know I was going to."

"Shut up."

Smart shut the chest carefully, standing up and beginning to pace the room, knife in hand.

"Why didn't you check?" he asked Newham.

"Check for what?"

"This knife. Why didn't you check if this knife was still in the chest?" Smart pressed, slipping into his I-am-a-detective-doing-detective-stuff mode.

"Because I thought it was at the bottom of a godamn river!" Newham sighed, sounding frustrated, and a little upset.

"But what made you think that?" Smart asked him, leaning on the back of the sofa and looking firmly at the Lieutenant.

Newham screwed up his face.

"What does that mean?" he said, shaking his head. "You're talking rubbish."

Smart cocked his head to one side, sucking the inside of his cheek, rephrasing his question. This discovery had granted him a whole lot more patience.

"I mean" he said calmly, sitting back down and waving the blunt end of the knife at the Lieutenant. "This is Alianna Winter we're talking about. She obviously wanted us to believe that this was the knife she used to stab herself with. So what did she say that made you think that?"

"She...told me off" Newham said slowly, apparently stunned by Smart's sudden turn of patience. "She said I shouldn't have taken it. Just after she found out I had it."

"There we go" Smart smiled. "She was drawing your attention to it. To bring it back into the story."

"What does this mean?" Newham asked, shaking his head again.

"It means" Smart told him, spinning the knife over in his fingers. "It means that, in the same few days, there's a sneaky knife deception been played and some very convincing fake blood been stolen, with Alianna Winter at the scene of both."

"You really think she's alive, don't you?" Newham said, still through a rather lazy smirk.

"I really do" Smart replied seriously, twirling the knife.

"What can I tell you?" the Lieutenant asked, getting up to refill the water jug, which he had drained the contents of a few minutes previously.

"Could Allie have got her hands on a false knife?"

Newham thought. He rubbed his hands through his hair gently.

"The old Praed Street theatre" he said. "The whole place was littered with costumes and props."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Smart asked vibrantly, leaping up and heading for the door. Newham stopped him, gripping his coat sleeve.

"We?" he repeated dubiously.

"We" Smart affirmed brightly, a lead in his head and a spring in his step. "Come along."

With that, he twisted Newham's arm, seized his wrist, and led him firmly out the door.

"It's half past eleven!" the Lieutenant blustered, trying to writhe free.

"All the better for breaking in" Smart replied, matter of factly.