by S M Mala
‘He wasn’t you biological father.’
‘He was my father since I was five! How would you know about parents? Didn’t you wash your hands of your Sheffield working class ones?’
‘Hugh is better off without you!’ Helen snapped loudly. Scottie could see the venom in the Commissioner’s face. ‘What he saw in you, I never know.’
‘No wonder the old man died of a heart attack,’ said Ruby quietly. ‘You probably drove him to it.’
‘And what did he leave me with? You!’
‘But not the cash, aye?’
‘And Scottie? I bet you instigated that!’
Helen Trott walked around the table.
Ruby sat perfectly still, unperturbed.
‘I didn’t know he was a policeman,’ Ruby replied then stroked her tummy. ‘And when he found out about me? You know the story. But I love him very much and I’d do anything to make him happy.’
‘You think this little stint with the serial killer, letting her go, is going to help him? You’ve as good as destroyed his career!’ laughed out Helen Trott, taking a chair and sitting next to her. ‘How’s that going to work out when he won’t be employable in the Met? How’s that going to look?’
‘You could defend him?’
‘I think because of you, I won’t even try.’
‘I see,’ Ruby said and glared at the woman. ‘You’re not going to play nicely.’
‘Not when it comes to you.’
‘I’ll work. I’ll support him. He can care for our child.’
Scottie couldn’t help but grin at her comment.
‘Hugh played around behind your back and you had no idea. You don’t think Scottie will do the same?’
Ruby’s face turned to stone.
‘You bitch!’ said Ruby, leaning closer to the Commissioner. ‘He wouldn’t let me print what I found out about you, all those years ago. Hugh stopped me and I was so mad, so let down. And you know why? Because the expose on you was far more interesting in my eyes. Then he probably realised that people would find out he was sleeping with you. Wouldn’t look good either way, would it?’
‘It was after you had Theo.’
Instantly Scottie noticed Ruby’s face and it was more anger than hurt.
‘Tell me something I don’t know. But Helen Trott, I will get you back, you wait and see. Now if you’ve finished with me, I need to get to my son. If you can make up some charge, carry on but I’m pregnant and need my bed.’
Ruby stood up and looked down at the woman who was glaring hard at her.
‘And I know you shoved your tongue down Scottie’s throat on two occasions. Some things don’t change. You can’t say he came onto you, I know that’s your trick, because the man’s eyesight is perfect. As for Hugh? He’s been going blind for years.’
‘Don’t you dare leave this room without my permission?’ Helen Trott shouted and he recognised a look of pure hate.
‘You’re not my mother, thank goodness for small mercies. And you know what? Don’t you dare try and shaft Scottie because I will come at you. You’ve got until the end of the week to vacate my house.’
‘I’m not-.’
‘Oh you will be going, one way or another, believe me,’ she replied and walked out.
Scottie quickly left the side room and waited for Ruby to head towards him.
‘Hello,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘We keep bumping into each other today.’
‘Who’s looking after Theo?’
‘Jacinta.’
‘Where were you this afternoon?’
‘Out.’
‘Are you going to tell me what you were up to?’
‘Eventually,’ Ruby replied then grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him closer to her face. ‘I love you so much.’ Then he felt her shove something into his hand. He looked down and noticed a USB. ‘It’s a gift to cover your arse.’
‘Cover it in kisses to make up for your behaviour today,’ he grinned as she squeezed his hand.
‘I might have to do that for the next few days,’ she said with a grimace. ‘And remember one thing in all of this. I did it because I care, regardless of what the outcome. Have you arrested that prick Mick Dawson yet? I want to press charges against him and-.’
‘Go home and I’ll see you later.’
‘Come home and I’ll be very good to you, I promise.’
Scottie locked the door of one of the offices and looked at the footage.
He was torn between laughing and crying based on what was going on screen. It was Nana Gwen’s comments that kept making him laugh. What was more noticeable is that Annette Hector seemed incredibly calm. Ruby was more shocked and upset.
Then the offer to take out the Commissioner came and the footage stopped.
Burying his face in his hands, he could see what was going to happen and that Helen Trott might make something out of it.
Aiding and abetting a criminal was all he could think about.
After watching it a few times, he sat back in his chair and knew he had to hand it over.
Then the phone started to ring.
‘Hello,’ he said, examining a still of the Samaritan slayer. ‘Assistant Commissioner Jonathan Scott.’
‘This is Hugh Yates,’ said the voice down the other end of the line. There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘I hear congratulations are in order.’
‘Yes, thanks,’ Scottie replied, sitting up in his chair. ‘I’ll look after Ruby and especially Theo. I realise this is happening fast and-.’
‘Four kids, four different mothers,’ said Hugh and Scottie knew that was a dig. ‘You’re a busy man.’
‘I’m a very faithful and committed man when I fall in love,’ he replied, knowing that was the exact opposite of Hugh. ‘And I’ll do my best by them, you can be sure of that.’
‘I still love her and I made a big mistake.’
‘I know,’ Scottie replied, gulping hard. ‘And I love her too.’
‘I need to tell you something. All I ask is that you decide what you have to do with this information. I expect Ruby’s not said a word about what she’s up to?’
‘I just got a copy of her interview with Annette Hector. Have you seen it?’ Knowing it was a loaded question, he waited for the response.
‘She wants Annette Hector to have her say before she’s caught.’
‘So you’ve seen it?’
‘She came to my offices this afternoon and gave me an ultimatum witnessed by Jacinta so I couldn’t change my mind. I think my ex wants to show she can write a piece without the influence of anyone around her. I stopped her, you see, all those years ago. I never let her publish what she wanted, one thing in particular. That’s when she stopped being a journalist.’
‘She thinks that’s what upset you and led you to throw away your marriage.’
‘Maybe it did,’ Hugh replied quietly. ‘I never meant to let her down and she’s made it perfectly clear I did, on many levels. Now she wants me to help her as payback. I will but it may be at the expense of the police. But not you.’
‘What she done?’
One hundred and forty one
Patiently she waited for him to come home, knowing he would have seen the footage. Later on that morning, she would find out if Hugh decided to print her story.
Sleep eluded her, mainly because she was going to get a kicking from Scottie.
He came in just after one in the morning. Lying in bed she waited for him, hearing the footsteps in their bedroom after checking on Theo. Then he walked into the bathroom. The shower was turned on and she started to bite her lip, anxious for his comment about her meeting with the serial killer.
Suddenly she felt a cool body pressed against hers and an arm wrapped around her waist. She closed her eyes tightly, pretending to be asleep.
‘I take it you’re awake,’ he whispered into her hair. She decided not to say anything should it lead to a quarrel. ‘Shall I tell you how I know? You’re not snoring.’
‘I do not sn
ore!’ she replied, turning around to face him.
She didn’t recognise the look. It was a blank expression.
‘Hello,’ he said and let out a sigh. ‘Do you know how much shit you’re in? The Commissioner wants you to be charged with converting the cause of justice and-.’
‘I did nothing of the sort.’
‘You should have called the police knowing full well she was a leading suspect.’
‘That was your fault for not telling me first thing.’
‘Go to sleep,’ he said seriously. ‘You need to rest. I’ve got Riley tomorrow so I’ll head off back to Barnes first thing.’
Then she remembered what was going to happen, what should be happening if Hugh hadn’t changed his mind.
She didn’t want to rock the boat.
‘Do you want some advice?’ he asked quietly, leaning closer. ‘Next time you give me something like that, which I hope you don’t, could you please delete the bit where a serial killer asks you if you want to knock off the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police and you decide to stop the recording. Sort of doesn’t look good.’
‘I sort of don’t care. She was a right cow to me today. I turned myself in and all she does is throw stuff in my face.’
‘You don’t help matters. I can tell you’re just winding her up.’
‘And what she doing to me?’ Ruby hissed, her voice getting louder. ‘I got a confession out of Annette which is more than you lot did. You should be thanking me, not treating me like a common criminal. I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ Scottie said quite firmly.
‘You sound like a policeman.’
‘That’s because I am.’
Ruby let out a huffy sigh and turned around so her back was facing him. She was now one hundred percent sure he was going to go ballistic when he found out what she’d done.
‘Annette always gave me good advice, helped me when I was feeling low. I owe her a lot because when I was down, she really picked me up. Scottie, I was so very upset at one point due to Hugh, I couldn’t cope. She gave me good advice, never bad and I owed it to her.’ Ruby closed her eyes. ‘I needed to hear what she had to say and I was scared, I admit.’
‘You ask a serial killer, with over a twenty year span of committing these heinous crimes, if she wanted to kill you?’ he said. Even his tone from behind sounded arsy. ‘And you expect her to tell you the truth?’
‘I expected nothing less. It’s about the truth, isn’t it? Anyway, she must have been bored after she retired and picked an exceptionally weird hobby, don’t you think?’
She stirred in the morning, mainly due to being smothered in Scottie’s arms. He was fast asleep. Ruby lodged herself away from him and walked to the bathroom to instantly throw up, knowing it wasn’t morning sickness but mainly nerves.
After brushing her teeth, she went back into the bedroom and grabbed some clothes then quickly got dressed. As she walked into the corridor, she checked on Theo, who was hanging off his bed asleep and smiled.
When she got to the living room, she opened her laptop and went straight onto the website of Hugh’s paper.
Her heart went straight into her mouth.
He had printed her story.
The headline being ‘Bad Advice – the story of the Samaritan Slayer by Ruby Marquis’. Then she noticed a sub headline and gulped hard. ‘Good cop, bad cop by Hugh Yates’ which was a slight edit of the story she’d originally written about Helen Trott and her sluttish manipulation of her male colleagues.
Ruby held her breath for a moment and knew all hell was about to break loose.
‘Oh god,’ she said, torn with delight and dread, knowing the call would come in soon to wake up Scottie and show how much of a deceitful bitch he was sleeping with.
This time she went to the downstairs toilet to be sick.
When she walked back to her laptop, she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Scottie looking at what was on the laptop screen.
He was talking to someone on the phone.
Then he looked over and their eyes met for a second.
Slowly she walked backwards, not in the mood to have a quarrel, and gently went up the stairs and into the bathroom, taking a shower the same time as brushing her teeth.
It felt like she was having a cold sweat as she stood there. Then she heard the door open and was too scared to turn around.
A few seconds later, Scottie was standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
‘Do you want to tell me something?’ he said as she hung her head down.
‘She got on the coach from the care home and went on a day trip to Bruges with the other oldies. There was no way anyone would find her. I thought it was best to give her some lead time.’
‘Oh god,’ he mumbled into the back of her head. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me or anyone?’
‘And I gave the footage to Hugh as well as writing a piece about meeting the serial killer. He owed me for years of mistreatment, so printed an article about your boss I wanted him to do six years ago which I updated. He covered for me by putting his name on it, but it’s mainly all my words.’
‘Not only have you harboured a criminal, lied about her whereabouts, you have given the footage to a newspaper, written the piece, implicated my boss in an allegation of her abusing her position of power to extract sexual favours and blackmail. Is that it?’
‘I can’t think of anything else right now.’
‘I knew,’ he said, burying his head in the back of her neck.
‘You what!’
She turned to look at him.
‘I got a call from Hugh late yesterday evening. He wanted to give me the heads up on what was going on.’
‘I supposed that slipped your mind to tell me this morning?’
‘I could say the same thing to you?’ he replied, the big blue eyes smiling down at her. ‘Is this what our life’s going to be like? You going off on a tangent to get the other side of the story while I try and do it legally.’
‘I didn’t break the law,’ Ruby replied, looking up at him as water splashed off his face onto hers. ‘I just converted an enquiry to find out the truth and it was just a bit of a shock, that’s all.’
‘You seriously believe that!’ he laughed out. ‘You have warped values.’
‘I have a sense of honesty, that’s different.’
‘Those two articles are going to cause a lot of trouble for the force, do you know that? Not only does it look like you tracked down the killer before we did, when we know you didn’t.’
‘I sort of did. I mean, I recognised her from being at Mick Dawson’s.’
‘You didn’t believe me when I told you it was her.’
‘I was giving Annette the benefit of the doubt!’
‘Now you’ve got the editor of a well-established newspaper to write a really crushing piece about the Commander of the Metropolitan Police.’ Scottie narrowed his eyes then shook his head from side to side.
‘Who he was incidentally screwing for years,’ she shrugged and bit her lip, feeling a little nauseous again.
‘Are you telling me you want to go back to being a journalist? Is this what it’s all about?’
‘It’s about feeling good that I can do something right. I’m sick of being told I was crap at being a Samaritan and my agony aunt column wasn’t good. But right now, I’m sick of helping people who don’t really need my help. And I’m upset I’m not allowed to help others who truly do.’
Ruby gulped hard and rested her head against his chest.
Scottie wrapped his arms around her.
‘I’m dreading today,’ she mumbled into his skin.
‘You and me both.’
‘Do you still love me?’ she asked meekly.
‘I do still love you and always will but do you want some advice from me?’
‘Go on,’ she grimaced.
‘Promise me in the future, you’ll speak to me first about things?’
/> Ruby nodded and knew that was a blatantly lie as he laughed.
‘I’m here to protect you,’ Scottie said quietly.
‘You’re in the police force, that’s what you’re paid to do.’
‘And what will you do when Helen Trott comes at you regarding this alleged story and-.’
‘You know it’s the truth. You had her tongue in your mouth not so long ago.’
Scottie stepped back and held her by the shoulders, staring with a smile.
‘You’re jealous? You did this because you were jealous?’
‘That’s not true. I did it because she has abused her position of power to get what she wanted, including my ex-husband and probably you,’ Ruby said defiantly. ‘I won’t let you be exploited like that.’
‘Admit it. You’re jealous that she tried it on with me.’
‘Have I reason to be jealous?’ she asked, blinking back the water splashing onto her face. ‘Will my expose reveal that you exposed yourself to her? You might as well tell me now.’
It was horrible, the feeling she was currently experiencing in her chest. It had never occurred to her that he might have been a willing participant and her defiant act, of getting Hugh to cover her arse, might all backfire.
‘You have no reason at all to worry,’ he smiled, bending down to look at her in the eyes. ‘I, on the other hand, have a lot worry about as I could have stopped both the stories. Hugh gave me the chance to.’
‘He did what?’ she snapped. ‘Why that little fucker!’
Immediately she stepped out of the shower and flung a towel around her body, then marched into the bedroom.
Scottie came up from behind and started rubbing her hair dry with a towel.
‘You’re creating drips,’ he whispered.
‘Why didn’t you stop it? You could have pulled the whole thing. He gave you the chance and why did you refuse?’
‘Because I love you Ruby Marquis and I want you to be happy, that’s why.’
One hundred and forty two … six months later
‘No! This can’t be happening!’ shouted out Scottie, running out of the meeting room. ‘She’s three weeks early. The baby’s not due now!’