Chapter Twenty Four
Bridger sat on the edge of one of the desks in their small office; the remaining team members were all there deep in their own thoughts leaving the office deathly silent. Two very vacant desks were sitting in their midst as a stark reminder of the terrible task at hand, he could almost feel the desks mocking him as he sat there. He shook his head; he felt a lot like he had yesterday, a huge sense of failure after they had released Tama without charge. The view from the window did not even grab his attention, as it normally would have. He remembered what Brian had said to him yesterday, that he had ‘done the right thing’ and ‘not to kick himself’, he had also said ‘Tomorrows another day’. Well that bit was true, it was another day, but it was a whole lot worse. He could not help thinking what he could have done differently, if he had made better decisions none of this would have happened. He had been back at work for a little over 72 hours and everything had turned to shit. All he had left in his life was his job and it looked like he was not very good at that either. A slight uneasy feeling began building in his stomach and he felt himself become dizzy, breathing deeply he tried to calm himself, he didn’t want another panic attack if he could help it.
He desperately needed a drink; times like these he needed to dull from his psyche to release the stress and he knew no better way than sinking into a mellow bottle of whiskey. He could almost taste it and feel the peaty burn in the back of his throat. He swallowed letting the thoughts hit the bottom of his stomach, he felt it warming him from the inside as the mellow feeling flowed through his system. Closing his eyes, he felt himself relaxing; he unscrewed an imaginary cap then poured himself another hit, going with the feeling. This one had the same effect as the last. He felt his thoughts clearing as they always did at the beginning, just before the bite set in and the alcohol took you on its own journey. He let the feeling continue, knowing there would not be any journey this time. He let the thoughts jumble in his head, like pieces of a jigsaw. He mind always worked better when he could let his thoughts flow freely, something he had not been able to do in a long while. He downed another imaginary hit and the results were instant. McLaren… Kingi… Tama… Three players that were all connected somehow. Martin… Shotgun… Prison… Lawyers… There was a connection somewhere. Matthews… Ropata… Laura… Something was not quite fitting into place. Laura… Jane… Lawyers… Divorce… It started to fall into place now. Jane… Tama… Duty lawyer… McLaren had a man on the outside. Matthews… Kingi… Matthews… Ropata… Could it be that simple? Jane… Lawyers… Kingi… Lawyers… Lawyers… Jane… Matthews and Ropata… Ropata and McLaren. A shot of adrenalin surged through him, better than any whisky he had tasted. Ropata was McLarens man, he had to be, Ropata had been with the gang for most of his life, and he would have served under McLaren at one point. He was the link and if that were the case then Matthews would be the officer to whom he gave his information. Then what had happened between Matthews and Ropata in the cells? The initial account was that Ropata had slashed his own wrists with a piece of broken plastic that he had managed to smuggle into the cells. Bridger was at a loss to say how he managed to conceal it during the searches Ropata underwent subsequent to his arrest.
'Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.' The familiar Nietzsche quote came to mind for the second time, but he dismissed it out of hand, that was a line to far for any police officer he knew, including Matthews. But that didn’t really concern him now, what it meant was that McLaren was blind without Ropata and if McLaren was blind and had no reach anymore, then Laura was safe…, for now…, all he had to do was find her. He just hoped that Ropata had not had time to get to her before being forcibly arrested at the pad, but if he had, she was likely to be being held with his colleagues. He knew it was dangerous to think this way; Ropata might not be the man McLaren spoke of, but he could not bring himself to think otherwise, it would be all consuming and that would get him nowhere.
The thought of his colleagues brought about the other much more pressing thought he had, which was Jane… her name connected to his colleagues via Kingi. Lawyers, Colleagues, Kingi they all went together. Jane was a lawyer, he had to reach out to her, she could find out whom, or if, anyone was acting for Kingi and if she did then he could then get him or her on board and force Kingi’s hand. No lawyer would want to hold back once he let him or her know what his or her client was doing. Besides, there was no way he was lodging the false confession in court, it was laughable if Kingi thought otherwise.
His brain was making connections now and the next one hit without warning. McLaren knew Jane was a lawyer, he had said so back at the prison when comparing his wife and her in the photo. The only way he could know that was if he knew whom Jane was, and if he knew Jane in that capacity, then Jane knew more than what she was letting on. Timeline or not, it was time he took back control of this situation and made some decisions.
He dialled Jane’s mobile number.
Wasted Lives, a Detective Mike Bridger novel Page 26