by Vicky Jones
Rachel looked down at the notepad Mags had leafed through to find her password. From inside it, a small bunch of holiday snaps had slipped out and landed in a heap on Mags’ messy desk. “Wow, where was that one taken?” Rachel asked, picking one photo up.
Mags looked away from her computer screen and pulled her half-moon glasses to the tip of her nose to observe the photograph. “Oh, that one? That was in Brazil. That’s my husband there, next to the palm tree. We’re planning to live out there. We’ve already sized up some beachfront properties.”
“That sounds amazing. What about that one?” Rachel said, pointing to another beach photograph. “Where was that taken?”
“That one was in Tahiti. We went on a cruise. Amazing, it was.”
“Wow, you really have travelled, haven’t you?”
“Certainly have. Right, let’s find these files,” Mags said, looking down her nose through her glasses as she scrolled across the cluttered desktop. She clicked on a folder. “Where are the buggers?” She closed down the wrong folder and tried another.
“Buggers?” Rachel said, raising an eyebrow.
“The cases. I can never remember which folder to open. Oh well, best click on them all while I jog my memory. Never get old, dear,” Mags said with a heavy sigh.
Rachel peeled her jacket cuff back to check her watch and looked over at the superintendent’s closed office door. Through the parted window blinds she could see Jenkins leaning back in his office chair having a heated conversation on the telephone. I’m on a clock here, Mags, she thought.
“Anyway, enough about me. What about you?” Mags asked, clicking on her fifth incorrect folder.
Rachel cast her glance back to her. “What about me?” she said, a little too brusquely.
Mags smiled but continued to stare down her nose at the screen. “You married? Single? Lesbian?”
Rachel let out a laugh. “Straight in there, eh?”
“That’s me. Direct. Haven’t got enough miles left on the clock to fanny about.”
“I noticed. The former, I mean. You’re not that old.”
Mags looked up at Rachel in mock scorn. A slight smile formed at the corner of Rachel’s lips. “Touché,” she said, relaxing her eyes and grinning. “We’ll get on, me and you. I can sense it. So?”
“What?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh, right. I’m…separated actually. But we’re working it out, my husband and I.”
Mags continued scrolling through the desktop. “Did he travel up with you?”
“No. He’s back home. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be kept busy with all of these cases.” That is, if we ever find them, she added internally as Mags clicked on one of the last folder options.
Outside the hotel, Katie stood on the pavement and looked down at Charlotte, who was catching on her tongue the few droplets of rain in the air. “So, you be a good girl for Mummy. I hope I see you again sometime?” She looked at Jenny, then up at the darkening clouds hovering over them. “You know, I could give you a lift to the station? It’s only a few minutes in the car.” She looked down at Jenny’s cumbersome luggage, not helped by the awkward wrapping of the bunch of flowers she’d given her.
“You don’t have a car seat for Charlotte,” Jenny replied in a flat voice. “So… Bye then.”
They stood facing each other, both not knowing how to part. Charlotte looked up at her mother, then at Katie.
“Bye,” Katie replied, her voice barely above a whisper.
Jenny clasped her daughter’s hand tighter and slung her handbag over her shoulder. Katie tugged her panda Trunki behind her while Jenny pulled her wheeled case with her free hand, the flowers poked stems-first into the open front pocket.
Katie watched them walk away. Then, when they were about ten feet away and about to cross the road, she called out, “Who’s Mollie?”
Jenny stopped dead in her tracks, yanking Charlotte, who had carried on walking, backwards. She turned to face her sister. “What?”
“Mollie. When I was in the loo I heard you talking to Charlotte, after she found a photo in your phone case. So? Who is she?”
Jenny strode towards Katie, her expression stony. “Now is definitely not the time, Katie. We have a long journey.” She looked down at Charlotte who was waving to a dog she’d seen across the road. “We’ve got to go.”
“Why can’t you tell me?” She looked down also at Charlotte. “What’s so secret?” Then a thought crossed her mind and her tone softened. “Oh, Jen. Did you lose a child?” she added in a whisper.
“No, I did not,” Jenny snapped. “Look, this is a hard enough time as it is, with Aunt Joan passing away. We’ll discuss it another time. I need to go. Now.”
Katie huffed. “But when, Jenny? We hardly see each other. In the next five years? Ten years? You’re always fobbing me off. I just want a relationship with my sister. Is that so bad?”
“Look, I don’t know when, OK?” Jenny growled. “I’ll call you when we get home.”
Katie watched, half angry, half sad, as Jenny and Charlotte walked across the road and disappeared around the corner, just as the storm clouds above her burst.
Chapter 5
Rachel leaned back on her white leather sofa and ran a hand through her long, dark hair. Curled up in her lap in a deep sleep was her black and white cat, Pickles, full and snoring after devouring the last of his dinner. Outside the streetlights glared through the gap in the green lounge curtains and every now and again a car swooshed past the terraced house she was renting. She reached forward and picked up the glass that was sat on her oak coffee table, took a swig of her orange juice and answered her ringing mobile.
“Bet your partner at work is shit,” a sarcastic voice sounded through the phone. Michelle Barlow’s Cornish lilt was unmistakeable to Rachel, making her laugh.
“Hello to you too, Shell. How’s it going down there, DC Barlow?”
“Oohh, say that again, it sounds really sexy,” Michelle replied.
“Stop it, you. I’m still your superior,” Rachel chided, then softened her voice. “It’s good to hear from you, mate. I miss you.” She ran a hand over Pickles’ short hair, causing him to purr.
“Miss you too. There’s nothing else down here for you to miss, though. Bore city now you’ve cleaned up the place. So, this new sidekick then? Tell me what she’s like.”
Rachel blew her cheeks out. “Well, you could say I’ve definitely drawn the short straw. Oh, Mags seems lovely enough, and everyone seems to like her. But her work ethic is not as, let’s say, diligent as yours, Shell. I’ve got to get my teeth into an actual case soon, not an out of date case file, or what’s the point me being up here?”
“Oh, sorry to hear that. Genuinely. I know how a good team around you matters. And you were the best around here. Like, not even joking, mate, you’ve got proper legend status around here. Even old hatchet-faced Hargreaves thinks the sun shines out of your arse. I think she was thinking of putting a plaque above your old desk when you left.”
“Piss off. As if,” Rachel said, laughing. “I’m sure the endless dinners with local councillors, bragging about how she’s cleaned up the town, will suffice.”
“So, does this ‘Mags’ bring in Krispy Kremes on a Friday then? I bet she don’t.”
“No, she barely brings her brain in most days. Today she spent about half an hour trying to remember her password to log on. I’ll be at the end of my secondment up here, and her retiring, before we do any actual policing.”
“Well, you can only do your best. Which I’m sure will be more than enough. And if you need an extra pair of eyes and ears, you know I’m always here for you, don’t you?”
“Thanks, Shell. I really appreciate that. And I might take you up on that offer before long. Listen, I’d better go. My mum’s trying to get through. But I’ll ring you soon, OK? You take care.”
“You too,” Michelle replied before hanging up the phone.
Seconds later, Ra
chel’s phone rang again. “Hi Mum. You OK?”
“I’m very well, thank you, darling. How are you doing up there? I hope they aren’t keeping you too busy?” Rachel’s mum said with the same note of concern in her voice that Rachel had come to expect, and accept.
“Well, I do have a certain amount of work to get done in the time they are paying me to be up here, so I need to make a good impression. You know this job isn’t a nine-to-five thing, Mum.” Rachel sighed. She was sick of having the same conversation with her mum day after day, week after week.
“Just as long as you promise me you won’t do those all-nighters again. Not sleeping properly isn’t good for your skin. And don’t let Pickles out the front door yet. He won’t know where he is for a while. Let him out in the back garden first for a few days. Are you eating properly?”
“Mum, of course I am,” Rachel replied, guiltily remembering the Indian takeaway she’d ordered twenty minutes earlier.
“Have you heard from Adam?”
Rachel felt her heart drop. “He’s seen my messages, but nothing yet. It may take some time for him to decide what he wants.”
“He’s hurting too, from what happened. You both need to get together and talk this through. Don’t you think you’ve apologised enough? And you’ve changed your lifestyle now. Eased off a bit.”
“I know, Mum. But he needs to find his own way back to me. I can’t rush him.”
The doorbell rang. “Mum, I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you at the weekend, OK?”
Katie turned over in bed for the fourth time, and punched her pillow. Tom lifted his head and looked over to her through the half-light in their bedroom.
“Can’t sleep?”
“Just feel churned up. After seeing my sister today, and the way she was acting. I’m all over the place.”
Tom lifted his arm and cuddled into the back of Katie. “But it was nice to see your niece, though, wasn’t it? I saw you with her at the funeral. You’re a natural.”
“Not that Jenny sees it that way. I kept asking her if I could see Charlotte again some time. I’d even drive up to Liverpool to see her, but it was still met with hostility.”
“Give it time. She’s probably just worried in case Charlotte gets attached to you and then you can’t visit as often as you’d want.”
Katie paused before answering. “Maybe? But I think she’s keeping something secret.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. But I’m going to try and find out.”
Tom nuzzled his mouth into her ear. “Well, seeing as though both of us are awake, why don’t we try and…make our own babies?” He kissed her neck and moved his body on top of her. Katie lifted her arms over his head and stroked his neck. Despite the glint in his clear green eyes, she could only muster up a sad smile.
“Why hasn’t it happened for us yet?”
“I don’t know,” Tom replied. “You’ve had a lot on your plate recently, with organising things for your aunt, and stress at work. You keep saying everyone there thinks Ofsted are due a visit so people are panicking. We just have to take the pressure off trying to rush it. It will happen, though, I know it. Two people who love each other as much as we do just can’t not have children to share that love.”
“Morning, Rachel,” Supt. Jenkins said as he leaned around her open office door, a smile draped over his long, deeply lined face. “We’ve got a meeting in five with the boss, OK?”
“I’ll be right there,” Rachel replied, shuffling her papers into a folder and putting it in her letter tray. Grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair, she headed out towards Jenkins’ office.
“Come in,” Jenkins called back after Rachel knocked on the glass window of his office door. “Ah, Rachel, yes. Come in,” he said as Rachel peered around his door. Standing next to his desk looking out of the window onto the carpark below was a tall, dark-skinned, middle-aged man. Powerfully built, he was dressed in a similar police uniform to Jenkins. Though, instead of the crown of a superintendent, his epaulettes featured a shiny pair of crossed tipstaves within a wreath.
The man by the window had a calm, collected stance about him. He turned and looked at Rachel, his dark brown face unreadable. “Allow me to introduce Assistant Chief Constable Richard Clifford,” Jenkins said.
ACC Clifford walked around from behind the desk and held out a broad hand to Rachel, who shook it. His grip was tight, authoritative. His dark brown eyes were keen as they bored into her, trying to read her. His thick lips broke into a wide smile revealing perfectly white teeth. “Excellent to finally meet you, DI Morrison,” he said, with a slight Jamaican lilt in his voice. “I’ve heard nothing but great things about you. Please, sit.” He held out a hand to indicate the vacant chair by Jenkins’ desk. After she’d sat down, so did the other two men. “I’ve set aside a budget to fund a small Task Force whose job it will be to conduct an urgent review into this division’s handling of Missing Persons enquiries. The Task Force will be headed by you, DI Morrison. I’ve deemed this action necessary because a recent review of departmental performance highlighted that there were a disproportionate number of outstanding enquiries here compared to other divisions within the Force.” His bushy black eyebrows lifted and lowered. “You got the job because I decided I wanted the best officer I could find to lead the Task Force. I asked Superintendent Jenkins to seek out a suitable candidate for me. He was at a dinner with your old boss, Superintendent Elaine Hargreaves down in London last month, and got to talking about her most highly regarded officers. Your name came up.”
Rachel’s brow creased. “Really?” Hargreaves hated me, she thought. “I’m flattered that she would think so highly of me to mention me.”
“That’s not all she did. She said you were the best detective she had. That she saw great things in the future for you.”
Bloody hell, Rachel thought. She must have been drunk.
“So, after a phone call update from Graham here, I asked him to second you up from Cornwall, with Hargreaves’ permission, that is. She agreed, as long as it was after you’d tied up all the loose ends with the Walker case. Seemed quite reluctant to let you go, but agreed it would be a nice change of scene for you.”
“I’m honoured, sir,” Rachel replied, looking at Jenkins, who let a smile twitch at the corners of his tight mouth.
“Now, the money won’t last forever,” ACC Clifford continued, clasping his hairy-backed hands together in front of him. “But I’m hopeful that in the short amount of time we have allotted to this project, you’ll be able to bring this division’s statistics in line with the others in the Force. The newly elected Mayor for Liverpool and the local council are on board and have made it part of their campaign to make a real drive to boxing off unresolved misper enquiries. Our mission is to spread more confidence in our community, especially as the council tax has recently gone up. We need the public on side. We need to impress.”
ACC Clifford punctuated his last two statements with the finger point of an experienced politician. Supt. Jenkins folded his arms and sat back in his chair. Inwardly Rachel raised an eyebrow. She had wondered how long it would take until the ACC started spurting out managerial speak and doing political point scoring. Not long at all, it seemed.
“Well, I will do my very best, sir. You have my assurances on that.” Rachel looked between Clifford and Jenkins with a smile of confidence on her face.
Clifford relaxed his broad shoulders and swapped nods with Jenkins. “I’m sure you will. I understand that you have been assigned an assistant? Graham, is that right?”
“Yes, I’ve assigned DC Maggie Chapman, one of our most experienced officers. Knows the city like the back of her hand. She can get us in all the back ways, if you know what I mean? My newly appointed DC, Chloe Sharp, will also be on the team, as I’m lining her up as Mags’ replacement. And DC Johnny Bradley is on hand to assist with local knowledge also. He’s my ‘man about town’.”
ACC Clifford squinted an eye and nodded. “Ex
cellent. Well, with a crack team like this, how can we fail?” He spread his hands and grinned.
Rachel forced a smile back.
Chapter 6
Katie took another sip from her wine glass, as the conversation flowed all around her in the busy bar in Kemptown. Waitresses were carrying around large serving platters laden with martinis and bar snacks, and behind the bar mixologists were tossing and spinning silver cocktail mixers to the ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ of the watching crowd. Three of Katie’s friends from the nursery where she worked on her college placement, including her best friend—and line manager—Dawn, sat with her at a high bar table, mulling over the day, swapping stories about the individual disasters they’d had with their children, most including spillages or toilet incidents. Careful to laugh in all the right places, Katie paid just about enough attention to avoid too many concerned glances. After staring at her phone for a minute too long, Dawn noticed she’d gone quiet and turned away from the conversation, leaving the other two to carry on chatting.
“You OK, mate?” Dawn asked.
Katie looked up from her phone to meet Dawn’s gentle blue eyes. “I’m fine. Just trying to write a text message to my sister. Trying to find the right words, you know?” She reached out and took a huge slurp from her white wine glass.
Dawn flashed a sympathetic smile. “I guess you’re both still grieving your aunt? It has only been a week or so since the funeral, so it’s bound to be a bit raw still for you both.” She swept a lock of long blonde hair from her face. “You don’t really talk about her that much. Maybe this is an opportunity to reconnect?” Her words were interrupted by a loud beep from Katie’s phone. Katie looked down at the message and frowned. Dawn noticed and put a hand on Katie’s shoulder. “You don’t really talk about your childhood, or when you used to live with Jenny up north. Where was it again?”