The Hanging Time

by Bilinda P Sheehan

  She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “No, not really,” she said, feeling somewhat childish for her initial outburst. “Sorry, it’s been one hell of a night so far.”

  “You and me both,” he said with a huff. “I had to let Nigel Thompson go,” he said. “I wasn’t getting anywhere with him.”

  “So you just let him go like that?”

  Drew shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I’m not disagreeing with you. There’s definitely something there and even if he’s innocent this time I wouldn’t put it past him for the future.”

  “But you couldn’t get anything on him?”

  He shook his head. “We took his computers, phone, tablets, the works but it’s going to take some time to go through them.”

  Harriet nodded. She knew only too well just how slowly the wheels of justice moved. She’d seen enough people get caught in the flow to recognise that he might never even be charged for the abuse, let alone convicted of anything.

  “Anyway,” he said, holding a blue folder aloft. “I just came over here to give you this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sian’s diary.” Harriet took the folder and flipped it open. The pages within were photocopies of the ones she’d seen in Sian’s diary.

  “Thanks for this,” she said, her eyes already scanning the top page. “Did your people find anything?”

  Drew shook his head. “Nothing conclusive. There are too many sets of fingerprints, mostly Sian’s. If Nigel got his hands on her diary, I’m sure we’ll match his fingerprints to the ones they’ve managed to lift from the pages.”

  “Do you want to come in?” Harriet asked, stepping to the side.

  Drew started to shake his head.

  “I’ve got the remnants of a bottle of wine,” Harriet said. “And my head would really appreciate it in the morning if you’d help me finish it?”

  He smiled and stepped inside the door. “I’m not much of a wine drinker,” he said. “More of a beer drinker if I’m honest.”

  Harriet wrinkled her nose in disgust and let the door slam shut. “That’s one beverage I’ve never been fit to tolerate.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, I’ll have to bear that in mind in case you drop by my place.” Drew paused in the living room doorway, and Harriet studied his profile as his gaze swept the room.

  “Well, at least you’re consistent,” he said finally.

  “What does that mean?”

  “This place is just as messy as your office.” He grinned at her as Harriet hobbled past him and swept some of the papers aside to make a space for him on the couch.

  “I’ve been a little preoccupied.” She stacked a couple of books she’d used for research on the coffee table. “It’s not normally like this.”

  Drew shot her a knowing smile before he sat tentatively on the edge of the couch.

  “Just leave your coat on the back of the chair,” she said, gesturing to an armchair in the corner. “I’ll get you a glass.”

  “I can get one,” Drew said as she started to hobble toward the kitchen. “You need to stay off that foot.”

  She pulled a face at him and stepped into the kitchen. He followed her and paused in the doorway, from the corner of her eye as she washed up a second wine glass, she could see him taking in the take-away boxes.

  “Did you have company?”

  “Unfortunately,” she said, turning back to him with the glass in her hand.

  “That bad, huh?”

  Harriet smiled. “You have no idea. There’s food there that hasn’t even been opened if you’re hungry.”

  Drew shook his head. “I’m fine thanks, I grabbed a sandwich at the office.”

  Harriet knew a polite refusal when she saw one, but she wasn’t going to push him. “So, what did Nigel have to say when you questioned him?”

  Drew’s expression changed instantaneously, his shoulders tightening almost imperceptibly.

  “The usual crap to be honest. I loved her; I wouldn’t hurt her. That kind of thing.”

  Harriet nodded. “I thought he would. Like I said, in his mind what he did wasn’t wrong. It’s just that society has misunderstood him.”

  Drew’s face screwed up in a grimace. “How do you deal with that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re so calm about it all. Put me in a room with one of those blokes and it’s difficult not to knock their heads off.”

  He spoke with such passion that Harriet was forced to hide a smile behind her hand she reached over to the half empty bottle of wine on the table to pour him a glass.

  “It’s my job,” she said.

  “Yeah, and it’s my job too. Doesn’t change the fact that I find it hard to hide my disgust.”

  She sighed. “If I let them know I was disgusted by them I wouldn’t be doing my job.”

  Drew gave her a sceptical glance. “How does that work?”

  “If they come to me as a psychologist, I have a duty of care to help them in any way I can.”

  “But they’re sick, perverse.”

  “But they don’t see it that way. To them, their proclivities are just at the opposite end of the spectrum to you or me. If I let them know I was disgusted by everything they told me they would be less likely to want to confide in me. And that’s not a healthy working relationship to have. They need to trust me to open up to me and if I abuse that trust then I shouldn’t be doing this kind of work.”

  “But it must make you sick?”

  Harriet shrugged. It was very difficult to explain to someone like Drew who saw the world only in such stark black and white colours.

  “Of course I don’t like it,” she said. “But I can’t allow myself to think like that. When I do, I lose all ability to gain the trust of my client.”

  Drew stared at her like she’d grown a second head and Harriet sighed. “You don’t need to understand, DI Haskell, suffice to say I try to do good with my job.”

  He shook his head and stared down at his hands. “I mean, I thought that what I do is hard. Obviously, I had it all wrong.”

  Harriet gave him the ghost of a smile before she turned her attention to the glass in front of her. “So what really brought you around here?”

  He looked up, startled. “I brought you Sian’s diary.”

  “You did but that could have waited until the morning. There must have been something else on your mind to bring you around here so late.”

  “I’m that easy to read?”

  Harriet shrugged and scooped up the glass. “You’ve got an honest face,” she said tactfully.

  Drew started to laugh, and the sound warmed her from her toes all the way up to the tips of her ears. It was good to hear him laugh. He had struck her as the type of man who needed to laugh more, maybe even for his own sanity.

  “Is that shrink code for: I can read you like a book?”

  Harriet didn’t bother to conceal her grin. “Maybe.”

  Drew’s laughter died away as he grabbed his own glass and downed the contents of the wine in two large mouthfuls. She sat and waited for him to finish, her impatience growing with every second that slipped by. There was obviously something bothering him but unless he told her what it was, she wasn’t going to guess for herself.

  “I’m starting to think we’ve been barking up the wrong tree after all,” he said ruefully.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Where’s the evidence?” He set the glass down heavily on the coffee table and Harriet winced. “I mean all we’ve really got to go on is my gut instinct and so far it’s gotten us diddly squat.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Harriet said softly. “You’re making new lines of enquiry all the time. A case like this, such a complicated beast requires patience.”

  He shook his head and buried his face in his hands. “I asked the mother like you suggested about whether there was anything missing belonging to Sian.”

  Harriet held her breath.

  “There was a locket
on the necklace she usually wore,” he said. “You know the one we found wedged in her hand.”

  Harriet pursed her lips. “In the crime scene photos, I don’t remember seeing a locket anywhere.”

  Drew shook his head. “That’s because there wasn’t one. At least not one that got logged in by forensics from the scene.”

  “What about in her bedroom?”

  Drew shook his head. “I’ve asked them to go over the place again but I’m not sure we’re going to find it.”

  “So why are you suddenly doubting your own gut instinct?” She stared at the man who didn’t seem able to bring himself to meet her gaze. It was the break he was after, so why wasn’t he happier about it?

  “Because whoever is doing this is like a fucking ghost.” He cringed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—"

  Harriet cut him off with a dismissive wave. “I’ve heard worse, Detective.”

  “Seriously, call me Drew already.”

  She grinned at him. “Fine, Drew. I’ve heard worse.”

  He smiled at her then before he ducked his head and returned his attention to his hands. “They’re a ghost. We’ve got nothing to go on. Hell, until you came on board there was no case. And even now it’s just all hearsay and gut instinct. I can’t bring a case with just that. I need more, we need proof.”

  “And we’ll get it,” Harriet said. “We need time.”

  “He’ll kill again,” Drew said softly. “He’s gearing up to murder some other poor sod and we’re sat here chasing our tails.”

  Harriet couldn’t argue with him there. Every bit of knowledge she had told her their killer was only going to escalate. And the sad part about her job was that the more people he murdered the more chance she had of figuring out just who he was and why he was doing the things he did. More bodies on the ground, meant opportunities to catch him and a greater risk that he would make a mistake. That was the sad part about the job she did. It wasn’t preventative, at least not entirely. It was prescriptive.

  “As his kills escalate, he’ll make more mistakes,” Harriet said, sounding more sure of herself than she truly was.

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  “We’re going to catch him.”

  Drew nodded and glared down at his hands. “I hope you’re right, Doc, I hope for everyone’s sake you’re bloody right.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sunlight peeked in through the curtains and fell over Drew’s face. His head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it and his tongue—he was almost positive—had grown fur overnight.

  He stretched and his leg bumped something solid. This definitely wasn’t his bed, he thought as he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling overhead. The plaster moulding was unfamiliar, as was the height of the ceiling. His apartment definitely wasn’t kitted out with original Victorian features.

  He straightened, pushing upright and wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Ever since he’d caught the case, he’d been so dead on his feet that he hadn’t been making it to bed before dropping off on the couch. However, this was a new low even for him.

  Reaching up to his head, he ran his fingers through his hair and scanned the room.

  He’d called around to the good doctor’s house the night before.

  “Bugger,” he said, sliding the blanket she’d draped over him at some point during the night off himself. He folded it neatly and was in the process of sliding his feet back into his shoes when the tantalising aroma of freshly ground coffee hit his nostrils.

  This definitely wasn’t the same black slop they drank down the station, that was for sure and certain.

  Cautiously, he moved toward the kitchen and toward the sound of someone moving about out there. Tugging open the door, he came face to face with Harriet. She glanced over at him and then did a double take before shooting him a wide grin and gesturing to his head.

  “Slept well, did you?”

  He rolled his shoulders, half expecting them to protest over the position he’d contorted himself into the night, but he was pleasantly surprised to find them pain free.

  “Actually, I did,” he said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. He had slept well, better than he had in a long time and he found himself wondering if maybe the doctor had slipped him something in his wine.

  He stepped out into the kitchen and caught sight of his reflection in the metal cooker hood.

  “Christ,” he said gruffly, doing his damnedest to smooth his hair down that seemed to be determined to stand up in all directions.

  “There’s a shower through there,” Harriet said directing him to a small corridor off the kitchen. “Feel free to use it.”

  He shook his head. “I should go home and get changed there.”

  She shrugged. “It’s up to you. I’ve just brewed some coffee if you’d like some?”

  Coffee was something Drew could always get on board with and he nodded enthusiastically. Before he sat down, he nodded toward the bathroom. “I think I’ll use your loo though, if it’s all right with you?”

  Harriet shrugged. “Mi casa es su casa.”

  Retreating to the bathroom, Drew locked the door behind him and paused in front of the sink and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He hadn’t drunk a whole lot of wine the night before but he looked like a man who’d been out on a pub crawl.

  Starting up the tap, he splashed cold water up onto his face, the icy chill sending a shockwave through his body that saw his breath catch in the back of his throat. He needed to get a grip. This case wasn’t really any worse than the others he’d worked on in the past. It was a comforting lie but a lie none the less. It wasn’t really about one case being any worse than another.

  It was the method of the crimes and the victims themselves that made it so hard to stomach. Who in their right mind went around the place staging the suicides of teenagers?

  He could wrap his mind around a crime of passion. Even opportunistic murders made more sense than this, whatever it was.

  Sighing, he wet his hands and smoothed it over his rumpled hair. A quick coffee and then he would go home, shower, change, and finally get shaved before returning to the office. Maybe doing all of that would help him get his head straight, approach the case with a fresh mindset.

  Leaving the bathroom, he returned to the warm kitchen and plonked himself down on one of the stainless-steel barstools that lined the breakfast counter.

  “You only just moved in?” He asked casting a look around the bare walls and almost empty counters.

  “Actually, I’ve been here three years.” Harriet kept her gaze trained on the coffee pot she was pouring from.

  “Oh, right,” he said, accepting the mug she pushed over the counter to him.

  “Work keeps me pretty busy,” she said, and Drew couldn’t help but wonder why she felt the need to explain herself to him. It wasn’t as though he could judge. He’d lived in his place for going on a year and a half and still treated it more like a crash pad than a home. If it wasn’t for Rita, the woman who came in to clean for him once a week he dreaded to think what the place would actually look like.

  “It’s a nice place,” he said, and inwardly cringed.

  “Do you want milk, or sugar?”

  He nodded and watched as she moved over to the fridge and took a pint out. The fridge itself was practically empty, although he did spot the take-away boxes from the night before stacked neatly on the shelves.

  He loaded his cup up with sugar and topped the black coffee off with a generous helping of milk before lifting the cup up to his mouth. The coffee was rich and hot and Drew felt his tiredness slowly slip away as the caffeine hit his veins.

  “This definitely beats the crap we get at the office,” he said, with a grin.

  Harriet had taken up a position at the other side of the kitchen and she sipped her coffee delicately. She smiled and shrugged.

  “Coffee is the one thing I take very seriously.”

 
“You and me both,” he said. “I don’t think I’d get through even half a day without one.”

  “What are—" Before she could get the words out, Drew’s phone began to ring shrilly in the other room. Scrambling out of his seat, he hurried into the living room and snatched up his coat. The call ended before he could fish the phone out of his pocket and he swore beneath his breath.

  “I’ve got to return this.”

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll head upstairs and finish getting ready anyway.”

  He nodded and waited as she climbed the stairs quickly before he turned his attention back to the phone. The number on the screen was all too familiar to him and he hit the redial button before the noise of Harriet’s footsteps had completely receded.

  “Dr Jackson, sorry I missed your call. I was—"

  “I don’t care about what you get up to in your spare time, Detective,” the long-suffering tone of the coroner echoed in Drew’s ear. “I’ve got some news.”

  “What is it?” Drew snapped, unable to keep the impatience from his voice. He’d waited so long for this and he was damned if he was going to wait a moment longer.

  “Can you come by my office?”

  Drew sighed. “Can’t you just give me something?”

  The man on the other end of the line huffed. “I’m going to tentatively agree with your thoughts,” he said. “Don’t get too excited mind, I still need the other results to come back.”

  “But something changed your mind?”

  “We had some more in-depth results return today from the initial sets of bloods I sent off and while strictly there’s nothing particularly abnormal I took a second look and what I’ve found is concerning.”

  Drew bit his tongue to keep from babbling. He sucked in a deep breath and closed his eyes before he answered. “I can be there in twenty.”

  “Make it fifteen,” the coroner said. “I’ve got to be in court in an hour.” He hung up before Drew could answer.

  He stood in the middle of Harriet’s sitting room and his stomach clenched. He was right. This was foul play and if the coroner was correct then this was the evidence he’d been waiting for.

  Grabbing up his coat, he slipped it on before he headed for the front door.