A pause. Then, ‘Go on then,’ Gill said, ‘but don’t make me regret it.’
‘Yes boss, no boss.’
Rachel came back in the room, gave a ghost of a smile and jerked her head at Janet. ‘Let’s go then.’
‘So do I get to know?’ Janet asked as they approached the car.
‘What?’ Rachel said, heading for the passenger side.
‘You can drive.’ Janet threw her the keys.
‘God, you must be peaky. You’re not going to faint on me, are you? You getting enough iron?’
Janet ignored her, got in the car. ‘Where did you disappear off to?’
Rachel started the engine. End of discussion.
Janet knew better than to push her but it did rankle a bit. Supposed to be best mates, not just at work, looking out for each other, but Rachel had her secrets. And you don’t? Her health worries. Andy. Janet felt a swirl of nausea and the prickle of sweat across her neck. She wound down the window, letting some air in before they reached the motorway.
On their approach to Gallows Wood they passed two patrol cars, some of the units which were driving around the woods, watching for movement. The tracker guide had the CSIs documenting signs of foot traffic but as the car had been dumped near a public entrance to the area there was plenty of evidence of activity. A talk with the cyclist had told the police that it was a popular spot with local dog walkers too.
The dog handler, Gareth, was looking despondent and when Janet said hello he explained. ‘We’ve tried her with both Owen Cottam’s clothing and the kids’. Made a bit of a start up that way,’ he pointed along the road to the right, ‘but soon petered out.’
Could she trust Rachel? Gill had a sense that the woman was coming apart, this disappearing business not like her unless she had been looking into something to do with the case, working some angle, which she was prone to do, in her time off if need be, and then she’d come running to Gill with the winnings. A cat proudly presenting a dead mouse. But she’d not said anything in her defence and that made Gill doubt it was work-related.
There was something volcanic about her. Some source of steady pressure that built and built until it finally erupted in disaster, or near disaster. Gill had no idea where it came from, the recklessness, the wild side: her background, most likely, but it made her a nightmare to manage and it threatened her future and hopes of promotion.
Brilliance was worth very little if it came bundled with chaotic episodes and sudden meltdowns. As yet Rachel hadn’t learnt the lesson that she needed to master and tame that side of her behaviour.
Gill turned her thoughts to Sammy, to the conversation earlier. There was something nagging at her, something that didn’t quite gel. Before the stuff he’d said about Alton Towers and the whore of Pendlebury proving to be such a jolly good sport. Open days? Yes, open days – that was it. He’d said it was in hand, he was sorting it out. But shouldn’t he have already been to one?
She got her diary out. There it was – Open day, Leeds. Last week. One of the four courses he was looking at. She checked her watch and rang him; should be back from sixth form college by now. Would he pick up?
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Open day last Thursday, Leeds,’ she said.
‘What about it?’ Buying time.
‘Did you go?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Changed my mind.’
‘Without even taking a look at the place?’ She sounded shrill, tried to modify it. ‘Why change your mind?’
‘Not sure if I want to go to Leeds.’
‘Based on anything in particular?’
‘Dunno.’
Give me strength. ‘But you’ll go to the others?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Talk to me, Sammy, don’t just say dunno all the time.’
‘Well, I don’t. Dad said you’d do this.’
‘What? Do what?’
‘Overreact. You just want things your way all the time,’ he said.
Her skin felt tight, hot. ‘I want what’s best for you.’
‘No, you say that but you just want me to do what you think is right. That’s why I’m here. Emma and Dad, at least they’re not on at me all the time. They can chill, right?’
What, with a teenager and a brat to boot? Gill couldn’t quite envisage it. ‘Leave you to your own devices, you mean?’
‘It’s ’cos you’re never there,’ he said nastily. ‘You’re always at work so you make up for it by bossing me about, making like you care.’
The criticism stung. She didn’t know if Sammy really thought that or was parroting what Dave and his bit of uniform on the side said. Gill had tried never to disrespect his father in front of him but maybe they were playing dirty.
‘See much of your dad, do you?’ Dave’s job, as Chief Super, carried heavy responsibility. Not as full on as Gill’s but more than full time.
‘Yeah, like a normal person. But you don’t trust me and all you do is check up on me and treat me like a little kid.’
‘Well, if you behave like one—’
‘Leave me the fuck alone.’ He hung up on her.
Trembling, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Nice one, Gill, she told herself. Could you have handled that any more badly?
Issued with high visibility jackets and torches and a map of the search area, carrying protective masks and gloves and evidence bags in case they found anything of significance, Janet and Rachel began. They’d no idea whether this was a crime scene or a wild goose chase. They were looking for people, for disturbance of the undergrowth or the ground, for clothing, for bodies or shallow graves or puppets dangling from a tree.
A helicopter had been raised and was already sweeping to and fro above, using heat-seeking equipment to try to determine if there was anyone hiding in the woods. As well as helping in the search, the police helicopter took film and still photographs of the search area. Again part of the documentary evidence. Analysts receiving live feedback at the station acted as extra pairs of eyes, alert for any signs of activity on the ground that might lead to their quarry. Recorded footage was logged and stored in case it was needed for the construction of case files evidence. No chance of hearing anything when the helicopter was overhead but when it swung away to survey a different quadrant it was possible to listen. To walk and talk with one ear alert to children’s cries or footsteps, to the snap of a breaking branch or the rustle of clothing.
The wood was a mixture of deciduous and evergreen. Some had autumn colours but most of those still held their leaves, which made it hard to see any distance. Among the trees were clusters of shrubs, leggy weeds and brambles and nettles.
‘Ow! Fuck!’ Nettles had stung Rachel through her trousers. How could they do that?
‘You okay?’ Janet said.
‘Nettles.’ Dock leaf, he’d tell her, rub a dock leaf on it. One time, she remembered, her almost in tears. It must have been way back when her mum was still on the scene. Renting a static caravan at the coast. Sand in the bed sheets, the sunburn tight across her shoulders and ice creams and wasps and staying up as late as her parents. And shouting. One night them going at it like prize fighters. Another teatime, maybe the same week, Dom getting leathered for nicking another kid’s blow-up dinghy. Where was that holiday? She could ask Alison, except their memories never really meshed. Like they’d grown up in parallel realities. Always squabbling about what really happened and who’d done or said what to who.
‘Everyone says he’s a good bloke,’ Janet said, stepping over a fallen tree trunk and waiting for Rachel to follow.
‘Bit of a control freak, though,’ Rachel pointed out.
‘But on the scale of things,’ Janet said, ‘we have no evidence of domestic abuse, no criminal activity, he brings home the bacon for all these years, never strays that we know of, loves his kids . . . I mean, most of the people we deal with, they’re building up to it, aren’t they? Known to us, history of violence. Cot
tam’s Mr Normal.’
‘You better keep an eye on your Ade.’
‘Not funny,’ Janet said.
Rachel scowled at her. Why so touchy? Usually Janet could take a joke.
‘I don’t understand how he got from that to this,’ Janet said.
‘You’re not the only one. That’s all everyone’s on about. It’s Jekyll and Hyde, isn’t it?’
‘Superficially,’ Janet said, ‘but according to Lee and Leonard Thingy, Cottam thinks this is good, too. That it’s his responsibility to take the family with him.’
‘Suttee,’ said Rachel. ‘That thing they do in India, where the wife is burnt ’cos her husband’s died. Or all the poor sods buried with the pharaohs.’
‘I’m talking Oldham, Rachel, 2011. We’re talking a pub landlord and a woman from Ireland and a learning disabled man and an eleven-year-old just started at secondary school.’
‘Hey!’
Janet was being weird. You didn’t let it in, didn’t let it touch you. You empathized (only if you had to as far as Rachel was concerned), you commiserated but you kept yourself clean and unsullied. Only way to do the job. And Janet had done it for years. Rachel wondered if the stabbing, Janet’s own brush with death, had changed that. They’d worked a couple of murders since then and Janet had seemed the same as always. Delayed reaction?
‘I’m just . . . bad night.’ Janet was red, her face sweaty and blotchy, like she was sick. Maybe she was, gastric bug or something. Rachel needed Janet to be strong, to be calm and level and solid. Holding Rachel steady, like her anchor. Else what might happen? A breath of wind clattered the leaves on the trees and Rachel felt cold inside. Rattled.
The helicopter bobbed low and loud and their radio crackled into life: a positive result on the heat generation. One individual. One. Cottam on his own. He’s done the kids already. Rachel felt her stomach clench. She and Janet ran to the given coordinates only to find a homeless woman by a makeshift shelter, terrified by the clamour and attention. Once they had calmed her down and reassured her that they were not there to arrest her for trespass, she answered their questions. She had not heard children or seen a man with children in the last twenty-four hours.
They had two hours of walking, looking. The light faded and soon the call came to abandon the search until the following morning. Tired and scratched from brambles and with nettle stings ringing her ankles, Rachel drove back to town with Janet for the end of day briefing. She felt like going out and getting hammered. Finding some feller to flirt with, maybe more if he smiled the right way and made her feel good. But before that there was something she had to do.
‘This is progress,’ Gill told the team. Aware that they would all be disappointed at not having captured Cottam. ‘The finding of the car will provide us with a wealth of information. We are significantly closer than we were this morning. If you are thinking but we haven’t got him, we haven’t picked him up, then add a word to that thought. Yet. Fuller briefing tomorrow, meanwhile some bullet point updates. Andy?’
‘Yes, boss – large volume of calls to the incident line. We’re checking anything plausible but we’ve a confirmed sighting yesterday afternoon. Cottam stopped at a roadside snack bar on the A570 and bought two lots of chips as well as tea and milkshakes. Paid cash.’
‘Further indication that he was laying low and not travelling far for much of the day. Details of the recovery of the Mondeo being released immediately. How is he travelling?’ Gill asked. ‘If he’s not hiding in Gallows Wood?’ Still that possibility, only a third of the area adequately scoured before darkness fell.
‘Stolen vehicles being flagged and taxi firms all on board,’ Andy said. ‘It’s two miles from Gallows Wood to the nearest train station at Lundfell, three and a half to a functioning bus route. Support staff have examined the CCTV from the railway station up until six p.m. this evening. Single camera looks out over the platform near the ticket office. Anyone travelling across the bridge for the opposite platform would also have to pass that camera. No sign of Cottam and his children. We’ll keep looking,’
‘He’s not going to be walking that far with two kids, even if he could cover the distance with them. He’d be too exposed,’ Janet said.
‘I’d want to put some mileage between myself and that area, after the business with Mr Rahid. Cottam knows we’ll be all over the place like a rash,’ Rachel said.
Janet wasn’t so sure. ‘He sat there, or near there, all night. I think instead of moving further afield, his new plan involves this area.’
‘But if he stays, there’s more risk of us finding him, so maybe he’ll run again. Start another plan,’ Rachel said.
‘No one’s expecting him to give himself up then?’ Gill asked. Rachel compressed her mouth. Lee raised his eyebrows.
‘Thought not,’ Gill said. ‘We have no idea if Cottam is still in the county at all. He could have reached the Scottish border or the south coast if he’s got hold of another car and put his foot down. Okay. To your beds, get some kip. And keep your phones on.’
There was a low muttering and the scrape of chairs as people left.
Gill carried on working. Lost track of time until Janet appeared at her office door. ‘Gill? You still here?’
‘Might as well move my bed in,’ Gill said. Her eyes ached. She rubbed at them and groaned.
‘You okay?’ Janet said.
‘Not so as you’d notice.’
‘We’ll start again in the morning. At least we didn’t find—’
‘It’s not the job,’ Gill said.
‘What then?’
‘Sammy. I don’t know what’s going on with him, and when I try to talk to him I end up screaming at him like a fishwife. How does that happen?’
‘They know how to push our buttons?’ Janet said.
‘Yeah – but you—’
‘Me nothing. I lost it big time this morning with Elise. I’m still working on my apology.’
‘You know what Dennis Cottam said about Owen? Never any trouble, not a scrap of bother. And then – pow!’
‘The quiet ones?’ said Janet.
‘Maybe we should be thankful that they’re kicking off.’
‘But it’s us, isn’t it? Well, me,’ Janet said. ‘I was the one throwing a hissy fit.’
‘Sammy . . . he said I was controlling to make up for being absent so much. Never there when it really mattered.’
‘You were!’ Janet protested.
‘Should have stayed home like the whore of Pendlebury up to my armpits in nappies.’
‘She still off work?’
‘Not sure,’ Gill said. ‘Think she might have gone back part time.’
‘You know where this is coming from?’ Janet said. ‘Dave. Because he never got over your outshining him when you worked in the crime faculty. You’re a great mum, Gill, Sammy’s just testing you.’
‘Know what he said? Leave me the fuck alone. Do I let that go? I can’t let that go.’
‘Sleep on it. Maybe he’ll ring to say sorry.’
‘Where was she?’ Gill said.
‘The whore?’
‘Rachel.’
‘I don’t know,’ Janet said.
‘If there’s something going on that I need to be aware of . . .’ Gill didn’t want any nasty surprises in her team.
‘There isn’t. Well, if there is, I’m not party to it either. But she’s been fine since. No worries.’
Gill knew Janet was loyal to Rachel, the pair firm friends. Just as Janet and Gill were. A friendship that went way back. Gill saw that this put Janet in the middle, and when Gill had issues with her newest detective constable it must be uncomfortable for her.
‘Well, I’m keeping a sharp eye on her, and if there’s anything that will compromise her ability to do her job I want to hear about it as soon as.’
‘You’re asking me to tell tales?’ Janet said, folding her arms.
‘No, I’m asking you to consider the safety and welfare of your colleague and the res
t of the syndicate.’
‘Message received,’ Janet said, less warmth in her tone now. But she needed to be reminded of what the priority was here. And Gill knew Janet was mature enough, experienced enough, to distinguish between the personal and the professional, to respect and protect her workmates whatever their relationship. One thing they all had in common – police officers through and through.
It was bred in Gill: her parents both officers, though her mum switched to office duties when she started her family. Janet got the call as a teenager. Rachel had the conviction that this was what she was meant to be. But in Rachel’s case her temperament sometimes undermined that professionalism. A lack of patience, an over-reliance on instinct and a tendency to leap before she looked had led her into scrapes. Her communication skills were still a weak area, but even so Gill expected her to achieve her sergeant’s exam before very long and go on to greater things. Gill wanted to see her succeed and that meant keeping a weather eye open for potential car crashes as they loomed on the horizon. Gill needed Janet as part of that early warning system; she just hoped Janet understood that she was monitoring Rachel more closely for the best of reasons, not the worst.
Like Sammy. Surely.
12
It was after eleven when Rachel got to Alison’s, but the hall light was still on. She rang the bell and waited, shivering on the doorstep. A clear night and frost making her nose and fingertips sting.
Alison took her time but finally the latches were thrown back and the door opened. Alison in a candy-striped fleece dressing gown.
‘What sort of time do you call this?’ Alison said. Never very original.
Rachel shot her a baleful glance. Alison huffed and crossed her arms. ‘Changed your mind, have you? Thought you’d see sense. Flesh and blood. Do you want to come in? But keep it down, Tony’s just gone up.’
Rachel sniffed, stepped over the threshold, arms wrapped about herself, trying to get warm. ‘I’m not here about Dom,’ she said as they went into the living room. Plastered with photos of Alison’s three kids.
Alison turned to study her. ‘Are you drunk?’
Not yet, thought Rachel; wish I was though. ‘No,’ she snapped, ‘course I’m not. Why would you think I’m drunk?’
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