Chapter 23

Jain was getting angry.

"Tell me again, what are you burning?"

"I told you," Gerald replied, looking down at the detective now, rather than Jain's preferred position of looking up from a seat as before.

"Garden waste. I'm a gardener. Sometimes we burn stuff."

"Where's the shelf from the wall?"

Gerald paused again, his eyes squinting involuntarily, clearly formulating his response, "It's broken. I put something heavy on it and it broke, so I threw it in the bin."

Jain had to be very careful now. By law, if he suspected the gardener of anything criminal, he needed to caution him before asking anymore questions. However, he had nothing to point to a crime that was not merely circumstantial. Everything the gardener was saying could be true. But, on the flip side, there could be a lot more going on. Instead of speaking to Gerald again, he pulled his police radio out of his pocket.

"four-one-eight to control, over."