Pulling her laptop back onto her knees, Harriet studied the photograph of Ryder a little longer. It was definitely just paranoia, she decided as she slammed the lid shut, cutting herself off from his austere glare. Saturday would come and Bianca would go out with him and everything would be totally fine. Really, she was worrying about nothing at all and come Sunday morning she would look back at all of this and smile.
Draining her glass of wine, Harriet found herself wishing Sunday morning would hurry up and arrive if only so she could feel like a complete fool.
Chapter Four
He stared down at the locket and turned it over in his hands. Sian hadn't wanted to part with it, he'd seen it in her eyes as he'd plucked the necklace from her throat. But she didn't need it anymore.
He closed his eyes and thought back to the moment she had succumbed. Such sweet bliss to watch her slip away. She hadn't fought as much as the other two and he found himself wondering if perhaps he'd given her too much sedative. It was important to get the dosage just right. Too much and they wouldn't know what was happening and then how would he know it was the right thing?
No. Perhaps it was time to changes things. The sedative had worked well on the others but for the next one he would use something else. She would know what was happening. She would consent in the end and he would watch as her light faded and she was free of this world.
After all, he wasn't a monster.
Chapter Five
Balancing her notes in a precarious pile, Harriet pushed backwards through the swing doors that led to her office. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Mrs Martha Metcalf—her secretary—clicking out of the shared works calendar.
“Have I got an appointment this morning?”
“Actually, you’ve had a phone call.”
“A phone call from whom?”
“The police actually.”
The brisk tone of her secretary made Harriet jump and the pile of papers she’d so carefully managed to carry into the building scattered across the tile floor.
Swearing beneath her breath, she bent down to scoop them all into a heap as Martha stood and observed from the edge of her desk.
Harriet didn’t bother glancing up at the older woman; she already knew the censorious expression she wore. It was the same thing every morning. Harriet had asked her once if perhaps the reason she disliked working for her was because she resented her the position she’d managed to attain at the university. The question had gone down much as Harriet had suspected it would—in fact a lead balloon would have gone down easier—but it had confirmed at least some of her suspicions about the other woman.
Harriet tried to pull the notes together into some semblance of what they had been before she’d dumped them across the parquet flooring.
“Did they say what they wanted with me?” Harriet paused her rearranging of papers long enough to glance up in Martha’s direction.
“No. Just that they wanted to speak to you as a matter of some urgency.” There was an air of triumph in Martha’s voice, as though she honestly believed the police had finally caught up to her for all her wrongdoing down through the years in the university. From what Harriet had seen of her reactions, the woman had a terrible tendency to equate misuse of a copier machine with murder.
As she spoke, Martha shifted back in behind her desk and proceeded to pick her coffee mug up from the almost empty workspace. “And now that you’re here, I’m going to head out on my break.”
Pursing her lips, Harriet kept her thoughts to herself. It was easier not to make a fuss and anyway the older woman would only spend her time trying to eavesdrop on the conversation Harriet was about to have with the police. Definitely much easier to let her go on her break and have a little peace and quiet in the office.
Straightening up, she hurried into her small office space and dumped the papers down on her desk. The surface of which was the complete antithesis to Martha’s. Harriet had often found herself wondering if perhaps the reason her desk was so messy was a small subconscious protest against her secretary. She certainly didn’t remember being so untidy before Martha arrived.
She watched through the half open door as Martha slipped into her heavy outer coat. Was it her imagination or was the other woman deliberately taking her time?
“I’ll be off then,” Martha called out as she took a tentative step toward Harriet’s office.
She didn’t usually announce when she was going. Martha was definitely more the swan off without a word type.
“Fine.”
Martha hesitated, shuffling from one foot to the other in the doorway. If she waited long enough, Martha would reveal her true intentions.
“Do you want me to call them back for you?”
Bingo!
Harriet sighed. Martha was never this helpful. She was definitely loitering in the hopes of hearing something she shouldn’t.
“I can manage, thanks,” Harriet said, meeting Martha in the doorway.
The older woman nodded briskly but made no immediate move to leave. “I’ve got the number here,” she said, indicating her sparse desk.
Harriet glanced down at the desk and spotted the small yellow sticky note that rested on the edge of the computer screen.
“Enjoy your break,” Harriet said, hoping her prompt would sink in.
“I could just call them up for you,” Martha said, snatching the note up into her hand and holding it possessively against her chest as though it were a small child in need of protection and not a sticky note.
“It’s fine, Martha, I’m more than capable of dialling a number myself. Thank you.” Harriet held her hand out, palm up expectantly.
Martha startled and glanced guiltily at the floor as though she knew she’d been caught out.
“Oh, all right then,” she said bitterly, dropping the note reluctantly into Harriet’s hand before she finally moved toward the door.
Harriet waited until she was sure the other woman really had left. She certainly wouldn’t have put it past her to sneak back in under the pretense of having forgotten something vital.
Satisfied, Harriet retreated to her inner sanctuary and shut the door, closing out the rest of the world.
Glancing down at Martha’s spider-like scrawl, she drew in a deep soothing breath. The last time she’d had any interaction with the police it had ended in disaster. Her type weren’t always the most welcome when it came to an investigation.
“This is completely different, Harriet. Stop fretting.” Closing her eyes, she pressed her head back against the door. “Just get it over with.”
Pushing away from the door, she crossed the floor quickly and snatched the phone up from its receiver before she had the chance to change her mind or find some excuse to put off the inevitable.
Dialling the number, she waited as the line buzzed and then began to ring.
After a couple of rings, the line clicked and she held her breath but instead of getting to talk to a human being, Harriet listened as the robotic voice of the voice mail kicked in and informed her the message box was full.
With a disgruntled sigh, she hung up and drummed her fingers against the wooden top of her office desk. At least whatever it was about, it couldn’t have been important, if it had then she wouldn’t have been met with a full voice mail box.
Relief washed over her as she turned and dropped into the chair behind her desk. The old chair squeaked in protest but Harriet ignored it. She’d tried. There was nothing else she could do now. The excuse sounded feeble even to her. It would be very easy to keep trying the number but deep down she knew she wasn’t going to do that. Not with everything that happened in the past.
No. If it were truly important, then they would call her back and until then she had more than enough work here to occupy her mind.
Firing up her computer, Harriet pulled up her weekly calendar and groaned as she realised she was already late for the quarterly review with Dr Baig. Just another fantastic start to a Monday morning.
&nb
sp; Grabbing her bag from the floor, she pushed to her feet and hurried for the door.
She was already in the corridor when her phone began to ring. Glancing down at her watch, Harriet made a snap decision to ignore it. She was already late and whoever was on the other end of the line could wait.
Chapter Six
“DI Haskell, have we got a decision on the case yet?” Superintendent Burroughs paused next to the desk. From his position, Drew could see the wrinkled look of distaste on the other man’s face as his gaze slid over Drew’s desk. Some might consider it to be nothing but chaos but for Drew it was anything but. He knew exactly where everything was. Without glancing down, he snaked his hand out and scooped up the beige case file from beneath an empty, coffee-stained mug.
“Gods, man, the place looks like a dump. Can’t you clean it up?” Burroughs asked, this time not bothering to hide his disgust as he eyed the grimy mug Drew set aside.
“That is tidy, sir,” DS Arya said from the other side of the overcrowded office space.
“I don’t need your help, Maz, cheers,” Drew said gruffly. He ignored the speculative look Burroughs gave him as he flipped open the file and presented the coroner’s findings.
“As far as the autopsy is concerned, it’s a suicide just like the other three.”
“And you’ve informed the family of this?” Burroughs’ clipped tone grated on Drew’s last nerve.
“I have, sir. And I’ve shared the resources available to them but, sir—”
Burroughs nodded. “Good, good.” He cut Drew off and began to move away.
“Sir, I’m really not happy with—”
“What was that?” Burroughs snapped turning back.
From the corner of his eye, Drew spotted Maz shaking his head but when Burroughs cast a cursory glance in the other DS’s direction, Maz dropped his gaze, pretending to study the report in front of him as though it contained the secrets to the universe.
“I’m not really happy with declaring this a suicide. To be honest I’m not really happy to declare any of them suicides.”
Burroughs folded his arms. “And why is that?” There was an edge to the older Superintendent’s voice that set warning bells off in Drew’s head but it was now or never. He’d already shared his discomfort with his DCI only to get shot down in flames there too. At this point--as far as Drew was concerned--he had nothing left to lose.
“Sir, three suicides in as many months is a little much for such a small area and—”
“And that’s why it’s such a tragedy, lad,” Burroughs said, interrupting again.
Drew sighed and scrubbed his hands up over his face. He hadn’t bothered to shave. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper shower, never mind having the luxury of a shave too. Overworked and understaffed was the motto they seemed to labour under.
“With all due respect, Sir,” Drew said, trying to keep the irritation in his voice to an absolute minimum. “I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m trying to say.”
“Spit it out then, man. I don’t have all day.”
“I think these cases need investigating.”
Superintendent Burroughs sighed. “These aren’t cases that need looking into. They’re tragedies, plain and simple, Detective. Don’t you think the families of these youngsters have been through quite enough already without dragging them through the horror of a full-on enquiry?”
“Well, of course, but if it were me, I’d want to know.”
“Lucky for them then, it’s not your call. I won’t authorise an investigation into a senseless tragedy, Detective, and that is final.”
“But Sir—”
Burroughs fixed him with a glare and Drew fell silent. He was already skating on thin ice after his last case went tits up. If he kept pushing now, he was only going to find himself in more shit than he could swim through.
“Of course, Sir,” he said, balling his hands into fists at his sides.
Burroughs glanced down at his fisted hands and quirked an eyebrow in his direction before he moved off.
Letting out the breath he’d been holding onto, Drew dropped into his creaky office chair and closed his eyes.
“You were pushing it there, mate,” Maz said.
“Don’t see that I’ve got a choice. Anything less is just failing them.” There was a heaviness in Drew’s chest and he sucked down a deep breath in an attempt to dispel the uncomfortable sensation. Not that it did much good. It wasn’t a feeling he could just shake off and even if he could, he wasn’t entirely sure he would want to because that would mean he’d let go.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Maz said, cutting through the sentimental track his thoughts had taken with the ease of a knife.
“They’re not worth a penny,” Drew said, pushing up onto his feet. The desire to move, to work, to do the one thing he was good at was almost overwhelming and he knew from past experience that if he stayed cooped up in the office for much longer, he would only end up causing some kind of clusterfuck.
“Haskell!” The shout went up from Detective Chief Inspector Gregson’s office as he slipped his arms into the sleeves of his khaki overcoat.
“Shit! Tell him I’ve already gone,” Drew said to Maz as he grabbed his car keys from the drawer in his battered desk.
“Too late for that, mate.” Maz inclined his head in the direction of the DCI’s office and Drew felt the telltale prickle of being watched slide down his spine. “The Monk has already spotted you.”
The Monk was their own little pet name for DCI Gregson. No one really knew where it had come from as such, just that one day everyone seemed to refer to him with that moniker behind his back as though the name had suddenly crept into the zeitgeist and they’d all taken it up by osmosis or perhaps hypnotic suggestion. Drew had his own theories on where it had come from; the fact that the other man was rapidly going bald being one of the more obvious reasons for the name. And then there was his recent divorce. For a time, it had seemed that the DCI would live up to his new name. But that had been blown when one of the guys from the arts and antiquities squad had spotted the DCI out and about with a woman who appeared to be at least fifteen years his junior.
Of course, that knowledge had made the name even funnier, not that Gregson would see the entertainment in it if he got wind of them using the name.
“In here, Haskell. Now.” There was no arguing with the tone the Detective Chief Inspector was using.
Dumping the coat back onto his swivel chair, Drew headed in the direction of his superior’s office. Sometimes it felt like he was nothing more than an errant and naughty schoolboy and not a senior member of Her Majesty’s police force.
“Yes, sir?” It was an effort to keep his voice suitably level and neutral as the scent of the DCI’s aftershave wafted toward him. Some sort of cheap musky scent that threatened to make his eyes water.
“Shut the door.” The DCI’s Baltic tone could have frozen the brass balls off a monkey. Christ, closing the door and trapping the lingering odour of the chemist’s finest aftershave in here with them was going to make it feel like he was shut in with a teenage boy and not a middle-aged man.
Drew felt the tension in the air begin to climb as the door slid shut with a click. He hadn’t even fully turned around when the DCI finally exploded.
“Just who the fuck do you think you are going behind my back and undermining me to a superior officer?”
“I didn’t think I was undermining you, sir. I was just trying to get a second opinion is all.” He was skating close to the wire and he knew it. And from the apoplectic expression on DCI Gregson’s face he knew it too.
“A second opinion? The only opinion you should be concerned with around here is mine and I thought I made myself clear? These are suicides, Haskell. I know it. The families know it. The whole fucking world knows it. The only one who doesn’t seem to know it yet is you.”
“Sir, I just—”
“I don’t know if it’s your past is clouding
your judgement on this one but I need you to move past it.”
His words were a bucket of icy water to Drew and his body reacted as though he’d been submerged in that frozen lake all over again. His shoulders stiffened and he sucked an audible breath in through his nose as the memories of that night—memories he had carefully packed away into the deep recesses of his mind—flooded his mind much the same way the water had flooded the car after it had left the road and plunged into the inky darkness.
A couple of seconds passed during which Drew struggled to shove the memories back into the iron lock box he’d stuffed them into. But like the air from a punctured tyre, somethings couldn’t be put back, no matter how hard you tried or even wished for it.
“Are you even listening to me, Haskell?”
“Yes, sir,” Drew said, the words forming because his mind clicked into autopilot.
“So, you agree to close the cases and be done with it?”
“I’ll file the paperwork now.”
Drew noted the way his DCI narrowed his eyes at him in suspicion and for a moment he wondered if perhaps the Monk was more perceptive than he led them all to believe.
“Good, I’m glad we got that sorted,” DCI Gregson said, relief etched on his face as he dropped back into his seat. The fluorescent light from overhead reflected in his bald pate. Did he get up every morning and deliberately polish it, or was it some naturally occurring joke the universe had played on him? Drew fought the urge to ask him which one it happened to be but bit back the question as it hovered on the tip of his tongue. The last thing he needed to be doing right now was pissing off his superior any more than he already had.
Gregson turned his attention to the pile of paperwork neatly arranged on his desk and sighed.
“You’re dismissed,” he said, without bothering to glance up at Drew.
Drew made it as far as the door before Gregson’s voice brought him up short.
The Hanging Time Page 3