Langley outlined the rationale for the removal of the perk, and Barry reiterated his objection; the provision of a car clearly formed part of his contract. At which point, Angela said, “Well, actually, Barry, the most recent iteration of your contract makes it clear – as was always implied – that any benefits in kind provided by the company are discretionary and can be withdrawn at any point, if circumstances justify it. So, the company isn’t technically altering your contract.”
Barry was livid. After Neville’s departure, Andrew had initiated a review of everyone’s terms and conditions of service. This wasn’t wholly unexpected as, because of the history of mergers, there were people working in the same organisation on a range of different contracts, and so it wasn’t unreasonable to try to standardise them all. Barry (and, indeed, Maxine) had actually queried the new clause about benefits in kind being discretionary, but had been assured that their salary and benefits would remain the same: it was purely a tidying up exercise. But now it appeared that it wasn’t.
Langley closed the discussion by advising Barry that the company would “carefully consider” (with more implied inverted commas) his request to keep his car and get back to him shortly.
Barry left the meeting and immediately went out to lunch to think through his options. Whilst he could have kicked up a fuss, months of arguing with Monument was not an attractive proposition. Angela had made it clear that they had taken extensive legal advice and were confident they had the right to withdraw the car, so really all they would be arguing about was the precise legal process by which Monument would enforce its will. Barry decided, therefore, not to bother getting angry; instead, he determined to get even.
If Monument were not prepared to honour their clear moral obligation voluntarily, then Barry felt less guilty about the idea of ensuring that they did so anyway. He had tried to be reasonable, he pointed out to himself, but it was clear that that approach was doomed to fail. Accordingly, he would reluctantly have to take further action himself if a fair outcome was to be assured. His fifteen per cent management fee would be increasing.
But the only way that Barry could see to access more of the money that he’d diverted within the window of time that was available was to pay it into someone else’s bank account, and for them to withdraw the money and give it to Barry. In short, he needed an accomplice. But he needed an accomplice who was gullible and naïve enough to be prepared to help him without asking too many questions. Ideally, based on what Alun said, he needed an accomplice with a foreign bank account.
It seemed an impossibly tall order. Who, after all, would be naïve enough to agree to have over forty grand paid into their account without asking any questions? And, even more pertinently, who would be gullible enough to agree to simply pass that money on to Barry? No matter how many scenarios Barry ran through in his mind, he just couldn’t see how it could be done.
But that was before Saleema dropped her bombshell. That would change everything.
Twenty-Six
“PC Rathbone? I’m DS Norton. Can I have a word?”
Gemma’s heart skipped a beat. She was on a late shift, so had come in at what would normally have been lunchtime. She was not looking forward to several hours stuck in a car with Molloy. But if the prospect of that was unappealing, the prospect of being grilled by CID for several hours over what she had and hadn’t done in the cases of Chris Malford and Shana Backley was even worse.
But it soon became apparent that Lindsey Norton had no interest in hauling Gemma over the coals. “It’s all right,” she whispered in Gemma’s ear once they were out of earshot of Molloy. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’re not in trouble. Let’s go for a coffee.”
They went to a coffee shop round the corner from the station, and grabbed a couple of drinks; Lindsey even paid. She was taller and stockier than Gemma, and her look betrayed evidence of the thousand disappointments with the frailty of human nature that were the inevitable consequence of eighteen years in the police. But there was something in her manner that Gemma had always admired from afar. She seemed to fight against the fatalism that Molloy was so keen to succumb to. It meant that her smile had not entirely lost its innocence. Gemma hadn’t had a chance to get changed into her uniform before Lindsey had grabbed her, so, as they settled down in two easy chairs, they just looked like two friends having a chat.
“Why did you cover for him?” Lindsey was nothing if not direct.
“What do you mean?”
“Molloy – why did you cover for him?”
Gemma squirmed in her seat. “I didn’t cover for him.”
“Look, Gemma, you’re a good copper. I’ve read the file. You’ve done everything right – even gone ‘above and beyond’. Don’t feel you’ve got to protect Molloy.” She looked Gemma squarely in the eyes. “He didn’t want to go, did he? You did all that work – behind his back, I bet – and then when you went to him with what you’d found, he didn’t want to know.”
“It wasn’t quite like that,” Gemma said, but without much conviction.
“Look, we all know what Molloy’s like. He’s a lazy bugger who’ll do the minimum possible to cover his fat backside. Don’t feel you’ve got to take one for the team – if the roles were reversed, he’d quite happily leave you to hang. And Davis knows that.”
“It’s difficult. He’s been trying to help me. I didn’t want to… y’know.”
“What?”
“Get a reputation. I’m new; it’s difficult. You’re expected to put up with it.”
“Not by me, you’re not, and not by Davis. He didn’t want to put you onto traffic, but you didn’t give him a choice.”
Gemma didn’t know what to say. She bowed her head and took a sip from her drink.
“Look, forget it now. It’s gone,” Lindsey continued, “and this’ll all be forgotten about in six months, you mark my words.”
“Really?” Gemma was not convinced.
“Really! Believe me, I know. I’ve been on the force long enough to see it happen loads of times. You think it’s going to be a disaster, but it all blows over. And – let’s be honest – you’ve practically solved both cases for us.”
“Have I?”
“Yes! There’s no way we’d have made the link between the two cases. If it had been left to Molloy, the Chris Malford case wouldn’t even have been investigated. It’s you thinking to check the CCTV and spotting Adam Furst that means we know what’s happened. If we can get some prints off the syringe, we can probably pin this on him. If it hadn’t been for you, it’d have just been forgotten about.”
Gemma hadn’t thought about it like that before, but now she realised that Lindsey was right. And yet… “I guess so. But does it matter? Really?”
“What d’you mean?”
“He’s dead – and no one cares.”
“I care!”
“Yeah, I get that. You care about the case. But it’s not as if anyone’s mourning him. There’s no one who needs to see justice being done, is there?”
Lindsey put her coffee down deliberately and fixed Gemma with a stare that was so piercing it pinned the young officer to her seat. “Gemma, people rate you. That’s why I’m here. To let you know this isn’t the end for you. But you can’t start thinking like that – that justice doesn’t matter, or that it only matters when someone says that it does. If you start thinking like that, you’ll end up like Molloy – doing the bare minimum, and not even doing that properly.”
Gemma wanted to take a sip of her coffee, but found herself rendered immobile by the ferocity of Lindsey’s look.
“Justice matters, Gemma. It always matters – even when people think it doesn’t. Especially when people think it doesn’t. You’ve got to believe that if you want to be a decent copper, girl. It’s not just about the figures. Something happens when people do bad stuff and get away with it – even if no one else notices. It ch
anges things.”
“God, yes. I get that. I really do. Sorry.” Her admission seemed to release something in her nervous system and she quickly took a long gulp from her mug.
“I know you do. Just don’t forget it.”
The two officers chatted on, initially about the case, but then more generally about Molloy and how utterly useless he was.
“He must have been in nearly every LPU on the force. They keep moving him around, but he just creates a new mess everywhere he goes,” Lindsey said.
“Did you ever work with him?”
“Oh God, yes”, Lindsey replied, shuddering at the memory. “We were at Brierley Hill together, years ago now. What a laugh that was. Molloy was responsible for the best call-out I’ve ever heard about.”
And Lindsey proceeded to tell the story of the time Molloy had been sent out to deal with a man trying to smuggle a pet horse into his council flat in a multistorey block in Dudley.
“So, anyway,” she concluded, “Molloy says to the guy, ‘Why are you taking that horse up the stairs?’ And the bloke replies straight off – without a word of lie – ‘Because he won’t fit in the lift, will he?’”
There was a momentary pause whilst the punchline sank in and then both Gemma and Lindsey collapsed into full-throated laughter. Gemma became aware, as the laughter rolled on, that she felt – and she couldn’t think of a better way to put it – completely herself, as though her laughter came truly from within herself and was not prompted by the need to appear polite or to win Lindsey’s approval.
“Having fun are we, ladies?”
It appeared that their merriment had provoked a reaction. They were sitting in a quiet corner, specifically to try to avoid noise from the other customers, but next to them was a raised bench with bar stools where business customers could work on their laptops. However, one such customer had decided to spin round and interpose himself in Gemma and Lindsey’s conversation.
Lindsey shot Gemma a glance that said, “I’ll deal with this.”
“We’re good, thanks.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Aye up, here we go,” Lindsey said. “Not today, sunshine.”
He was tall, thin and muscular, in a smart suit and open-necked shirt. He looked older than Gemma, but younger than Lindsey. Probably early thirties. He was, all things considered, pretty good looking. But, despite that, Gemma was annoyed at his intervention. It wasn’t that she didn’t find him attractive – she did. It was the presumption that bothered her; the fact that he somehow felt entitled to join in their conversation – as though two women weren’t allowed to enjoy themselves without a male being present.
“Can I at least get you two ladies a coffee?” he asked.
“No thanks. We’ve got to get back to work,” Lindsey said, gathering her handbag from under the table.
Gemma couldn’t believe it. She was so annoyed.
“Work? Look, I’ve got a Jag outside – racing green – if you fancy a spin. We could have some fun. Forget about work for a bit.”
“Look, pal,” said Lindsey, finally adopting a firm line, “we’re not interested, OK? We don’t want a spin in your Jag; we just want to be left alone.”
His face fell. But not into a look of humiliated despair. Rather it fell into a look of grim-faced contempt. He turned back toward his laptop, but as he did so he let his frustrations slip out under his breath.
“Jeez… Dykes.”
“What did you say?” Gemma asked accusingly, standing up and facing him.
“Nothing,” he replied, gathering his things together.
“Yes you did. I heard you.”
“Leave it, Gemma. It’s not worth it.”
“You said we were dykes. I heard you.”
“Look, I’m going, OK? Is that good enough for you?”
She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t a surrender to the superior force of her argument; it was merely a tactical retreat that would enable him to regroup and try his luck somewhere else. But, against her better judgement, she was going to let it slide. People were staring, and her police training had taught her that you should never humiliate someone in public; it only made the situation worse. But, as he made to go, he couldn’t resist one last dig.
“You and your girlfriend can stay here if you want.”
Gemma’s right hand instinctively clenched into a fist.
“Just let it go, Gemma,” Lindsey said.
There was a moment when Gemma thought she was going to do it. But, looking at his stony-faced defiance, she knew that it was pointless. She wanted to punch some sense into him, but she knew that she couldn’t. There was too much to be said – too much sense to be punched into him – so she worried that if she started punching she might not be able to stop. A punch was too much, and yet somehow still not enough. It wouldn’t change anything for him, but it would change everything for her.
She unclenched her fist. He walked past and headed out of the door.
“We’d better get back,” Lindsey said.
But it felt to Gemma as though she was already back; back in the world of Molloy and Inspector Davis. It was a world she had left behind for a few brief moments with Lindsey, but it was the world she had to live in.
Twenty-Seven
It was now three weeks from the point at which Monument had issued their invoice to The SHYPP and so far no one in either organisation appeared to have noticed that anything was amiss. People, including those in the finance team, appeared more interested in who was going and who was staying as part of the VR trawl. There was a degree of concern amongst the remaining team members that they were going to be expected to carry out the same amount of work as previously, but with fewer members of staff. There had been much muttering about plates being spun and balls being dropped. It seemed typical of Monument – make a big announcement about cutting costs, but then, essentially, just engineer a situation where the same number of bricks would have to be produced with significantly less straw.
For once, however, Barry was quietly encouraged by Monument’s apparent inability to properly judge the level of staffing that was required. It occurred to him that if the finance team was going to be under-resourced, the invoice to The SHYPP might be the ball that they would drop. Having received payment on time every quarter for fifteen years, perhaps no one would even bother to check that this quarter’s invoice had been paid, especially as it was Saleema who had issued it and Saleema (as she delighted in telling everybody who came near her) would soon be gone.
Barry felt it wise to keep in regular contact with her in the run up to her departure, just to be sure that he was made aware if there were any concerns about the invoice to The SHYPP. This generally meant sitting through a fifteen-minute update report on Saleema’s imminent departure every couple of days. Yet, despite the inevitable stresses of an international house move, Saleema dealt with it all without losing her cheery demeanour. This was partly because she had left her husband to do everything, and partly because she retained her absolutely unshakeable faith that the whole thing was God’s will and so would somehow work itself out in the end, whatever problems the Devil might try to put in the way.
So Barry was more than a little surprised to go up to the finance team at the end of a particularly wearying day to find Saleema on the phone, apparently in tears. As she saw Barry approaching, she hung up.
“Everything OK, Saleema?”
“No, Barry, everything is not OK. Everything is not OK at all,” she said, drawing her cardigan tightly around her in response to another of the comfort cooling system’s apparently random bursts of activity.
Barry wondered if perhaps her father had died, but didn’t like to ask directly. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Beyond that, he didn’t know quite what to say.
“It’s all falling apart – everything!”
Saleema cried, as if deciphering the question behind Barry’s look. “I thought we’d got everything planned, but now I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She tried to hold back her sobs, but it was no good.
Barry looked around. It was nearly 6pm and there was no one left on the finance desk islands apart from Saleema. Ruth was locked in her office, discussing something with Angela. He was tempted to phone downstairs to see if Jean was still at her desk, as she was generally the go-to person in situations like this, but, as he was standing not ten feet from Saleema, Barry reluctantly concluded that this meant that he should probably offer some pastoral support himself.
He edged toward Saleema and awkwardly placed a hand on her shoulder. Barry wasn’t a man comfortable with physical contact with work colleagues, particularly colleagues of the opposite sex. Having placed his hand on her shoulder and this having failed to stem the flow of tears, Barry didn’t really know what else to do. He looked around the office desperately for any obvious sources of support and advice, but there was none within calling distance.
“There, there,” he said, patting Saleema’s shoulder as though it were a ball being bounced. “I’m sure it’s not that bad.”
“It is, Barry. It really is.”
There was nothing for it but to ask.
“Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
“Oh, Barry. You’re such a good man. I know you want to help, but I just don’t think you’d understand. It’s complicated – and a bit embarrassing.”
Barry worried that this meant it might be a ‘Woman’s Problem’. For that reason, he thought there was a very real possibility that he wouldn’t understand. He felt the need to show willing, however. “Why don’t you try me?”
“It’s to do with our move to Peshawar.”
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