‘I know,’ Dylan said, pressing the button to start up his computer.
‘You know already? How come?’
Dylan nodded. ‘I spoke to Thewlis.’
‘Did you know that the blood tests showed Kay was well over the limit?’
Again, Dylan nodded. ‘I did.’
‘Don’t you think that’s odd? She was practically teetotal!’
Dylan narrowed his eyes. ‘I didn’t know you took so much interest in my wife’s drinking habits?’
Larry cleared his throat, suddenly looking hot under the collar. ‘She never accepted a drink from me …’
Dylan smirked. ‘And that makes you an expert?’
When Larry didn’t respond, Dylan felt guilty. After all, he was only trying to help. ‘Mind you, I lived with her, and it turns out I didn’t know her any better than you. She was shagging her boss right under my nose, for God’s sake!’ Dylan absentmindedly shuffled papers around his desk. ‘And come to think of it, I think she might have been drinking more lately.’ He suddenly recalled the image of Kay the night he had gone to the retirement party, standing in the living room with a large glass of wine in her hand. He’d known something was odd, but with his other suspicions swirling round his mind hadn’t worked out what was wrong with the picture.
‘I know it might sound trivial at the moment,’ Larry went on, ‘but would Fisher have been insured to drive your car? Bearing in mind it’s a write-off.’
‘I think having car insurance is probably the least of his worries right now, don’t you?’
‘I’m just trying to be practical.’
Dylan stared at him thoughtfully. ‘I’m sorry, I know. I guess I can’t get away with using the firm’s car for ever.’
Larry frowned. ‘Don’t you want to go and see him?’
Dylan looked at him askance.
‘Fisher! Don’t you want to have it out with him?’
Dylan sat back in his chair. He looked deflated. ‘You know I do,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, I don’t trust myself.’ He paused. ‘I know I’ve got to be patient. Thewlis is dealing with the enquiry and I’ve got to trust him to inform me of any developments, especially in regard to Fisher.’ Dylan’s voice was even and calm. He paused again. ‘However, I’m going to have a drive over to the police garage and see the damage to the vehicle for myself. If there is any evidence to be found, I’ll be damned sure not to miss it!’
Larry grinned. ‘That’s more like it!’ Then he gave Dylan a grave look. ‘I’ve been thinking. Do you suppose it could’ve been Fisher that put you in hospital the other week?’
Dylan frowned, watching closely as Larry took a stack of photographs out of the brown paper envelope.
Larry paused, eyebrows raised in question. ‘Or did he pay someone to get rid of the competition?’
Photographs of men recently released from prison flashed in front of him as Larry dealt them out in front of Dylan like a pack of playing cards. On the eighth turn of the card, Dylan stopped him and took the picture from Larry’s hand. He looked at Larry, then at the picture and back at Larry again. ‘Patrick Todd! It was him who I saw on the train. How bizarre is it for his name to suddenly come to me now?’
‘Guess that’s what they call a lightbulb moment,’ said Larry, grinning from ear to ear.
‘What worries me is how come he’s out of prison?’ said Dylan. ‘I put him away for armed robbery. Surely he’s not out yet?’
Larry collected all the photographs together, bar the one of Todd. ‘I’ll do some checks,’ he said, waving the picture in the air.
Dylan followed him through the doorway and into the CID office. It was relatively quiet, with most of the officers out on enquiries and the majority of the admin staff either typing, filing or discussing cases. They kept their voices down, respectful of colleagues whose jobs required concentration.
‘Come to think of it, he did threaten me in court when he got sent down,’ said Dylan pensively as they approached Larry’s desk, one of the few placed near the door. The desktop was messy, but not half as bad as some of the others, with a semblance of organisation in the separate piles of paper.
The chair was turned to the door and Larry dropped into it, spinning around to face Dylan, his expression philosophical. ‘Don’t they all?’
‘True,’ said Dylan, perching beside Larry. ‘But that’s Patrick Todd without a shadow of a doubt. That’s definitely him, the chap I saw on the train, one hundred per cent. I remember smiling at him, obviously unaware of his identity. And he recognised me as well, I’m sure of that.’
Larry fired up his computer. ‘He’s changed quite a bit,’ he said, scrutinising the mug shot. ‘More muscular than I recall.’
‘Well, he would be, wouldn’t he, having spent the last eight years in prison?’
Dylan’s eyebrows knitted together. He was distracted; something was bugging him. ‘Is hitting someone over the head really his style?’
‘Who knows? What I do know is that if it was that violent twat who hit you, you’re lucky to be alive.’
Dylan swallowed hard. Could it have been Todd’s intention to murder him?
Larry scrolled through screen after screen of intelligence on the computer system. ‘Let’s see what we can find out about his release,’ he said. He turned to look at Dylan. ‘If we’ve housed the bastard, then we’ll know where he is and we can go feel his collar.’
Dylan nodded.
Larry pointed at the screen. ‘Remember when we picked him up for that spate of street robberies? The witnesses were petrified and no one dared pick him out on the ID parade. We were about to release him and then you told him you were sick of being messed about and that the people he had robbed had seen him, and he just rolled over!’
‘There’s a first for everything. I think it was about the only time we didn’t have a fight bringing him in either, because although we didn’t have any evidence, he thought we had, which is always helpful.’
‘He didn’t fall for that again, did he? Sadly, he’s broken a few officer’s noses since,’ Larry snarled. ‘Nasty bastard!’
There was a holler from the outside corridor, a shaft of light as the CID office door opened and Detective Constable Ned Granger barged in larger than life, chuntering to himself. His eyes swiftly explored the room and, on seeing Dylan, immediately lit up.
‘Just the person!’ he said. He aimed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Divisional commander wants to see you urgently, sir.’
‘Did he give a clue as to what it’s about?’
‘Nah. I told him you were out, but then he started shouting, telling me to get you back in now. He’s a pillock.’
Dylan stood up and stretched. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better see what he wants. I’ll be back in five. Put the kettle on, Ned, will you? I have a feeling I’m going to need a caffeine boost.’
As he walked down the corridor, Marcus Thornton MP passed Dylan, heading in the opposite direction towards the exit. The limp biscuit had a grin on his face and Dylan had a wild desire to wipe it off.
Chief Superintendent Hugo-Watkins’s secretary nodded and smiled at Dylan, ushering him into his office with her eyes as she continued to type some recorded dictation.
Dylan knocked lightly on the door and walked in. A wave of heat and a nauseous smell of tuna and tomato sauce sandwiches hit him. Hugo-Watkins waved him towards a chair and took a sip of tea from his bone-china cup. Dylan watched him eat. When he’d finished, he got up, went to his en-suite and washed his hands before settling once again behind his desk. He took another sip of his tea and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. A large custard tart on a plate beside him awaited his attention and his greedy eyes were focused on it. A loud burp preceded his tight-lipped smile, followed by a hollow apology.
‘I’ve had a complaint about you,’ he said, finally.
Dylan nodded. ‘Yes?’
Hugo-Watkins’s brow furrowed. ‘I’ve been extremely annoyed lately by reports of your unprofessional – cavalier even – behaviour whilst dealin
g with the, I have to say spurious, allegations against our local children’s home. I have had complaints from some stalwart members of the community.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘And now the local MP’s on my back! I’ve been forced to assure everyone that this attitude will stop immediately. I’ve no idea what the hell’s got into you! But, since you … well, let’s say, since you are grieving, I’ll make allowances for your errors of judgement just this once. Now go, before I change my mind,’ he waved a hand in dismissal, his eyes returning to the custard tart. He picked it up and took a bite.
But Dylan was not for leaving. There was not a flicker of emotion as he edged forward in his chair and leaned towards the little man, forcing him to make eye contact.
In a menacing voice, he began, ‘If you think Marcus Thornton is a stalwart member of the community, you’d better think again. Don’t you know he’s currently under investigation for falsely claiming expenses? If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you were trying to protect a fellow Lodge member.’
Hugo-Watkins turned so red that Dylan feared he might burst. ‘How dare you?’ he spluttered, the unswallowed mouthful of custard tart spraying wet crumbs all over his desk.
‘If you think that I have been unprofessional in any way throughout this investigation of the serious sexual assault of two young children, then go ahead! Be my bloody guest! You might be annoyed. I’m fucking raging!’ Dylan stood and put his palms flat on Hugo-Watkins’s desk.
‘There’s a group of wealthy people in this community having sex parties with under-age kids. They ring up for them to be delivered, just like a fucking takeaway. I think Peter Donaldson – who says he’s a friend of yours and that you can vouch for him, by the way – knows all about it. I’ve told him I intend to investigate what’s been happening fully and, by God I’m warning you now, I won’t give up until everyone, and I mean everyone, involved in that particular paedophile ring, no matter how high a profile they have within the community, is brought to court and summarily dealt with.’
The room was quiet, so quiet that Dylan could hear the tap, tap, tapping of Janet’s keyboard outside.
When he finally took his hand away from his mouth, Hugo-Watkins’s voice was notably quieter, almost a whisper. ‘Yes, well, that said, your approach does seem to have been a little heavy-handed to me.’
Dylan’s eyes widened in amazement. ‘Heavy-handed?’ he shouted. ‘Heavy-handed?’ Once again, he bent over the commander’s desk and this time, as he slowly shook his head, he too spoke almost in a whisper. ‘Nobody is above the law, so I suggest you get your head out of your arse and realise what’s going on around you. The only reason they’ve got away with it so far is because they’re all mates together, feeding from the same trough. But, a word of warning, the lid is about to come off.’
‘You can’t talk to me like that! I will not allow you to do …’
Dylan raised an eyebrow as he spat through his teeth. ‘Won’t allow me to do what? Investigate the crime? Just you watch me.’
The ring tone of Dylan’s phone broke the ensuing silence, seeming to bounce off the walls. He took the call while holding up one hand like a traffic signal to prevent his commander from speaking. When he ended the call, his face was grave.
‘There’s a life-and-death situation. I’ve got to go.’ He turned and headed for the door. With his hand on the handle, he turned.
‘I’m sure you meant to say “sorry for your loss”,’ he said.
The door slammed behind him and the stud wall shook. As he ran down the corridor, the adrenalin pumped through his veins. He took the steps out of there two at a time.
Time, he was well aware, was of the essence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The single-crewed Traffic car, blue lights whirring, was waiting for Dylan directly outside the front doors of the police station. He jumped into the passenger seat to see Chris Cane behind the steering wheel. The traffic officer gave him a candid smile and put the vehicle into a rear wheel skid before Dylan had even secured his seatbelt. As they swung out into the main road the two-tone sirens sounded the alert to anything obstructing their free passage. Dylan was thrown from side to side as the car bounced along at speed. The radio communication was full of static and pauses, forcing the two to listen intently and repeatedly ask for clarification.
Harrowfield town was busy and it seemed to Dylan that some drivers took for ever to pull over to allow the police car to pass. Defiantly, Cane kept his foot down. He approached the red traffic lights on the ring road at high speed, on the wrong side of the road, overtaking the queuing stationary vehicles at the roundabout. As the police car approached oncoming cars, some drivers moved up onto the central reservation, having nowhere else to go in order to evade the emergency vehicle ruthlessly bearing down on them, refusing to give them any leeway. At last they were in sight of their target destination. As they rounded a corner, Dylan could see a marked police car parked broadside across the entry to the bridge. It had its blue lights on, blocking access to all traffic.
‘They’re going to have to put a diversion in place up on Burdock Way, otherwise the town’s going to be gridlocked in no time,’ said Cane. ‘Bet when the Victorians built the bridge they didn’t consider it attracting people intent on ending their lives,’ he said, weaving in and out of the cars that were at a standstill. ‘How many would-be jumpers have we already had so far this year, boss? I’m aware of at least five.’
As soon as they’d stopped, Dylan opened the car door and quickly pulled himself out of the vehicle, thankful for the fresh air. Already planning his next steps, he shut the door and continued towards the police car on foot.
Meanwhile, Cane turned the car round. ‘Good luck!’ he said, from the open car window as he passed Dylan. ‘I don’t know how you’ve got the patience. Life’s too precious to throw it away in my book.’
Dylan tossed his head in the jumper’s direction. ‘They can’t be thinking straight,’ Dylan said. ‘There but for the grace of God …’
‘Give us a call if you need collecting, boss,’ Cane called, before heading back to town.
As Dylan stood thinking, contemplating the best approach to take, he looked up towards the dark skies. Night would be falling soon, and so would the rain he saw brewing overhead. Before him, the nearly one hundred metre span of North Bridge’s carriageways was unusually empty. Empty, that is, except for a hooded figure perched high up above on the ironwork.
Some of the motorists delayed by the incident had no sympathy for the individual on the bridge and weren’t shy in voicing their displeasure, calling the attention-seeking stranger a damn nuisance. The anger and frustration behind him was palpable, but Dylan couldn’t afford to be sidetracked.
At the south-west turret of the bridge, next to a drinking fountain, was a burly young man in a police uniform. He was deep in conversation with an irate man and two women. At the sight of Dylan, the police officer excused himself and walked towards him, leaving the three arguing between themselves.
‘Any update?’ Dylan asked, his eyes fixed on the lone figure, still standing solid for the moment at least.
PC Mohammed shook his head. ‘No, they’ve not moved. But according to a witness there’s no cords tied to the feet, nor any sign of a ’chute strapped to their back. Not even a can of Red Bull in sight. I think it’s safe to say it’s not someone seeking a thrill, rather than oblivion.’
‘Do we know whether it’s a male or female?’
Again, the police officer shook his head. ‘No, and it doesn’t help us that both sexes all dress the same these days. My orders are just to stop traffic at this end and my colleague’s doing the same at t’other side.’
‘Okay. Keep within earshot, will you, just in case I need something urgently? But keep at a distance so they can’t hear your radio.’
PC Mohammed observed the look of steely determination on Dylan’s face.
‘And have we got an ambulance waiting down below?’
The young of
ficer shrugged his shoulders. ‘I was just told to stop traffic …’
Seeing PC Mohammed’s hesitant expression, Dylan continued with his instructions. ‘Tell Control to get an ambulance down there as a matter of urgency.’
Dylan concentrated hard on putting one foot in front of the other as he began the ‘long walk’, aware that this was his first real test as a negotiator and that all eyes would be on him. Nothing other than the cool breeze on his cheeks and his own purposeful heavy footsteps were noticeable to him, such was his focus. His eyes were fixed on the lone, dark figure on top of the central pier, twenty-three metres above the main road. It was a good sign, he knew, that the jumper was still on the bridge.
As he edged forwards he felt the wind pick up, his footsteps now merely a whisper as his thoughts turned to wondering what might be holding the person back: fear of the unknown, guilt? Whatever it was, it was Dylan’s job to find out. He felt completely alone and with that loneliness came a rhythm to his footsteps, a kind of music that Dylan had never heard before. The music changed rapidly as he crossed the bridge and looked down at the River Hebble below, listening to the sound of rushing water. The blue lights of the ambulance reflecting off the river’s surface alerted him to its welcome arrival.
He was nearing the hooded figure and his heart quickened. Would the sight of him send them over the edge? Suddenly, a poignant thought came to him: he was possibly the only thing standing between this person living or ending their life.
Poetic Justice Page 18