THE FOURTH FRIEND a gripping crime thriller full of stunning twists

by Joy Ellis

  ‘Oh yes, but I’m not paying too much attention to it.’ She grimaced. ‘Nor will most of the other officers here.’

  ‘Personally, I can’t see a problem with it.’ Jackman sat back. ‘We obviously can’t take it too far, but we are all working together in a very demanding job, and we become a pretty tightknit unit. I think relaxing some of the “sirs” and “ma’ams” is a good thing. I’m more than happy for my colleagues to address me as Jackman. They are closer to me than most of my family! Sometimes I think they are my family.’ He grinned. ‘We’ll just need to make sure Max doesn’t call the super, “Me old cock sparra!”’

  ‘Perish the thought!’ Marie laughed. DC Max Cohen was one person who would have no trouble with relaxing the rules. The young detective came from the East End of London, and he had never lost his distinctive Cockney accent. ‘Still, it wouldn’t come easy to most of us and frankly, I think there should be boundaries. Some of the rookies really need them.’

  ‘Surely those of us with rank should win the youngsters’ respect by the way we behave and work? Most forces dropped the formalities years ago. We in the Fens are just behind the times.’

  ‘Nothing new there, then.’ Marie still looked unconvinced. ‘And we aren’t “most other forces.” I can’t see it working here, sir.’

  ‘Oh well, ask the others what they think, and I’ll report back to the super.’

  Marie nodded absently. ‘I was going to ask if the super has given Carter the go-ahead to work here, considering we have the Holland case running.’

  ‘She’s tight-lipped where Carter is concerned. You know they’ve never been the best of friends.’ Jackman raised an eyebrow. ‘She says that as far as she’s concerned there is no conflict of interest. She can see no problem with Carter being part of our investigation, unless he finds it difficult, then naturally she would have to relocate him.’

  ‘So we play it by ear?’

  ‘One day at a time.’ Jackman looked serious. ‘Marie, you know Carter McLean better than any of us, so watch him like a hawk, okay?’

  Marie nodded solemnly, though she really did not need to be told this. She was worried sick about Carter, and she was not about to take her eyes off him. Not for one minute.

  * * *

  Jackman and Marie were not the only people reflecting on the case of Carter McLean. Laura Archer stared gloomily at her computer screen and wondered if her thesis would ever see the light of day.

  Muttering a curse, she stood up and began to pace her office. Who would have thought A Study into Psychosocial Transitions could be so bloody draining? But then it wasn’t the thesis that was really bothering her.

  She saved the document and reluctantly closed the program.

  Her first meeting with Carter McLean had caused her heart to leap, for no other reason than that he was the perfect case study for her paper. He was complex, one of the most interesting clients she had ever dealt with. Now she was reconsidering her decision to use him as her key study. In fact, she was on the verge of abandoning the whole thing and starting again. With a sigh, she headed to the kitchen. Time for yet another coffee.

  She spooned coffee into the jug, thinking about her meeting with Barry Richards, the force medical officer. The conversation had left her with an uneasy feeling, and his words reverberated in her head. Six months ago, a medical panel had decided that Carter McLean was physically fit to return to work. The only person to disagree was Superintendent Ruth Crooke, who in any case had nothing to do with the final decision. Laura and Richards had agreed that Carter ticked all the right boxes and was good to go. He would start with desk work, and if he showed no deterioration, he would be allowed to return to full duties.

  Now Laura was perturbed, but she had no idea why. Her gut instinct told her something was very wrong, and her gut never let her down. She was still seeing Carter once a month for counselling, and on the face of it, he was doing very well. Or rather, Carter was doing very well at work. She had a deep suspicion that away from the office, things were very different. For Carter McLean was a very good actor. Sometimes he even fooled her, and she was a psychologist. His work colleagues would be a pushover.

  She took a mug from the cupboard, threw in two lumps of sugar and waited for the coffee to brew. It wasn’t Carter, but Richards who was bugging her. The conversation had gone like this:

  ‘Absolutely incredible, the way he’s coped. If you saw him in his working environment, Laura, you’d be pretty astounded too. He’s a real trooper to come back from all that. Top Brass are very impressed with him. You should know that they are talking about moving him up the ladder if he carries on the way he is now,’ Richards said.

  Laura inhaled slowly. She raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s certainly not something I’d recommend just yet. In fact, if you want my opinion, I strongly oppose any such suggestion. Out of his comfort zone, you might find that Carter McLean doesn’t act the way your Gold Braid expect him to.’

  ‘Well, as far as his commanding officers are concerned, if we’ve signed him fit for duty, he’s fit for duty, along with everything that involves, including possible promotion. But okay, I respect your assessment and I’ll take it on board. Nothing’s concrete as yet, although I’d hate to be the one to stand in the way of someone’s promotion.’

  ‘And I’d hate to be the one to light the blue touch paper.’

  The FMO shrugged. ‘All right, you win. I’ll monitor him for a while. At least that will please Superintendent Crooke. She was the only one to oppose the suggestion.’

  ‘Well, that’s par for the course, I guess. Carter told me that Crooke has never liked him, and it’s common knowledge that Carter only got his last promotion because she was away helping with the hunt for the Golf Course Killer.’

  ‘I hadn’t realised that old feud was still going on. Hey, did you know Carter’s running the marathon?’

  She grinned. ‘Yes. He made quite sure that I put my name on his sponsor sheet beside an exorbitant sum of money! He’s running on behalf of Matthew Blake.’

  ‘Ah, one of his deceased friends.’

  ‘Mmm. Nice lad, by all accounts. He was a master carpenter. Carter wanted his friend to have what he called a “meaningful memorial.”’

  ‘But actually he’s done it out of a sense of guilt?’

  ‘Almost certainly. He blames himself for the whole thing. In his mind, he owes all of them, big time.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t exactly his fault that the pilot tried to take on a storm force gale that had suddenly changed direction. I saw the accident report. He should have asked to be vectored away from the worst of the storm, but they believe he took a “push through” decision and, well, he misjudged it and paid with his life.’

  ‘And that of four young men. And Carter believes it is entirely his fault. He organised the stag do in Amsterdam. He chartered the plane. Ergo, he is to blame. If it had been down to the other lads, they’d have had too many beers in a club in town, ripped Ray’s pants off and tied him to a lamp post. Everyone goes home and has a monster hangover. End of story.’

  ‘But instead, they all died, except Carter.’

  ‘Exactly. With the exception of Carter.’

  ‘So how on earth does he cope so well with work?’

  ‘As I said, he’s in an environment he understands. He’s in command of what happens. Luckily his friends weren’t coppers, so there’s no connection there either. He’s not immediately reminded of a dead friend every time he sees a uniform.’

  ‘How come they were such a close group? From what the papers said about them it seemed that they were all as different as chalk and cheese.’

  ‘Carter knew Tom Holland from school. Apparently they teamed up with the others doing voluntary work with disabled and disadvantaged kids. Some kind of outward bound holiday thing? They just gelled. Then they found an old lifeboat rotting away in a boatyard down on the estuary. They’d spent the last five years restoring it, using Carter’s money, their joint expertise and
hard work. I understand it was almost finished.’

  ‘The best laid plans, and all that. Let’s just hope McLean gets rid of the damn thing. He’d never be able to set foot on board without thinking of his mates.’

  Laura smiled. ‘I don’t think that’s quite how Carter sees it. It’s very precious to him, but for now, he’s rather sensibly making no decisions about it.’

  ‘Well, in conclusion, I’m very happy with his progress, and as we still have two more cases to discuss, perhaps we should move on . . . ?’

  Laura pressed the plunger on the cafetiere down hard. So that was that. Carter was fine. End of story. We can all move on.

  She poured her coffee and stirred it, slopping some onto the table. Carter McLean was far from fine. She knew it. Maybe she was closer to him than most — well, she should be, it was her job to be. She would hate to see the force put pressure on him simply through sheer ignorance. He needed stability and order in his life, not the stress of a new position — the responsibility, the administrative garbage, and the interminable senior management team sessions it would involve. It seemed the only thing that the powers that be had listened to was her suggestion that he take a step back from the drugs squad. It would have had him racing all over the place on dawn raids and the like. She gave a small laugh. Like so many other specialist units, the drugs squad had been disbanded, so her suggestion had amounted to nothing in the end.

  For some reason she felt unusually protective of Carter McLean. She was no fool. She knew what disasters befell therapists who became personally involved with their clients. It was just that she liked Carter. Nothing more. Some people you just liked, and he was one of them.

  She took the coffee back to her office and opened up her paper again. Sadly, she thought, this was the problem. Carter McLean was interwoven with her thesis as tightly as an Axminster carpet. A sudden, serious accident, like his, was one of the most stressful of life changes, and one of the most dangerous to mental health. And that was what her paper dealt with — life events, their impact and finding appropriate coping mechanisms.

  For the fifth time she re-read what she had written, and wondered if it would be prudent to shelve it for a while. Every time she began working on it, those niggling worries about Carter crept back into her head, and her concentration flew out the window. Better to leave it for a while, until Carter McLean no longer occupied such a large part of her thoughts.

  With a sigh, Laura closed the document and checked her diary. She looked through her games, selected Mah-jong and began to play.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Carter threw himself across the finish line, pushed the timer button on his watch, and collapsed onto the tarmac. His lungs felt as though they were full of hot coals and his legs were like jelly.

  The atmosphere, the camaraderie that came from running with thousands of others had not been the thing that spurred him on. He had run the twenty-six miles and three hundred and eighty-five yards alone, in a big private bubble of pain.

  He accepted the thermal blanket that a steward wrapped around him, and as he tried to thank the man, he found he had no voice. Tears were streaming down his face.

  He’d done it! He’d actually done it. But not for himself. No, he’d done it for Matt. Well, for Matt’s dad to be precise.

  After his dad had died, Matt had felt the need to do something in his father’s name, something special. Tom had suggested the East Coast Marathon and Matt was well up for it. But no matter how hard he tried, he never quite built up the fitness level or the stamina for the long, gruelling race. Now that Matt was gone, Carter was running it for him. It was the least he could do.

  On the back of his vest there was a picture of Matt Blake Senior, and the legend, “I’m running for Matt and supporting the Macmillan Fund.”

  Carter staggered to his feet, and saw two of his fellow police officers jogging over the line. He must have overtaken them somewhere, but he hadn’t even seen them.

  ‘Blimey! Talk about focus!’ gasped DC Max Cohen. ‘I was sure we’d beat you by a mile at least.’ The two young coppers sank to the ground beside him.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what they call in the zone. You were in a world of your own, sir,’ gasped DC Charlie Button.

  Carter managed a painful grin. ‘It’s the only way I could do it,’ he gasped.

  He’d been training for six months. Not just running, but studying the science behind it too. He’d worked out his food and training regime like a pro. And it had worked. He’d made a hell of a lot of money from his sponsors, and he had promised Matt that whatever he made, he’d match it from his own pocket.

  He slowly moved off after his two colleagues to collect his medal. Matt’s medal. He touched the shiny metal almost reverently.

  It was done.

  * * *

  A couple of other officers from their station collected them up in a 4 x 4 and drove them home. Most of the lads were meeting later for a celebratory drink in the social club, but Carter declined. The last thing he wanted was to share his evening with a raucous bunch of coppers, all getting rat-arsed. Anyway, he was expecting guests.

  He showered, pulled on some loose pants and a sweater, and went down the wide, open-plan stairs to his lounge. He unlocked the big patio doors and slid them open. Then he leaned on the rail of his wide balcony and stared out. The vista stretched for miles across the landscaped gardens, to the town and the acres of fields beyond. He should be grateful. He was the owner of an apartment that most people only ever saw in magazines. He could furnish it with the best of everything and not even need to check his bank balance. It meant nothing to him. How was it that he felt so empty, so detached, so cut adrift from life?

  He walked back inside and poured himself a drink. There was no point trying to find answers, and anyway, they’d be here soon. He glanced at his watch, flopped down onto the couch and picked up the TV remote. For a while he flicked through the channels, then pressed the off button. He wondered why he’d bothered with the best TV money could buy when he couldn’t concentrate on anything.

  Carter threw the remote onto the soft leather of the couch and looked around. As always the apartment was meticulously tidy. Nothing out of place, no mess, no clutter, everything just so. Carter smiled bitterly. His mother would have been proud of him. He remembered Laura carefully explaining it to him. “Your whole life had broken down, Carter. It was chaos. It’s quite natural that you now choose to live in a carefully structured environment. You have control over your world when everything is in its correct place.”

  She was right, of course. Laura Archer was a damned good shrink. Sometimes he wondered what she was doing working for the police. With her ability and endless patience, she could have made a fortune in private practice. And she was good-looking too.

  Carter yawned. He ached all over, as though he had been play-fighting with a polar bear. He closed his eyes. Matt’s charity stood to receive a pretty impressive cheque. He had raised nearly three grand today, plus his own contribution. Carter sighed. It was a small gesture, but it was the best he could do. He hoped it would make his friend happy.

  His eyes were still closed, but now he knew they were there. A sickly smell of burning flesh was slowly filling the room. Deep down, Carter knew that it was his mind playing tricks — insidious, nasty tricks. He knew there was no such thing as ghosts. Like most policemen he was a staunch sceptic, but nevertheless, he saw them.

  ‘So, you actually did it then?’ Tom’s voice held a touch of admiration. ‘That’s champion, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, well done,’ said Jack. ‘I bet it hurt like hell. How many blisters have you got?’

  ‘Enough, thanks,’ replied Carter dryly.

  ‘Well, respect! I take my hat off to you, man. I’m damn sure I couldn’t have done it.’ Ray was always generous.

  Carter opened his eyes. ‘Where’s Matt?’

  ‘He said to say thank you.’ Tom’s voice was soft.

  Carter looked at them. His friends visited him all t
he time, and this was the first time that one had failed to turn up. ‘Is he okay? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ answered Ray. ‘In fact he’s good, he’s really good.’

  So why wasn’t he here? Carter frowned. ‘But the race, I . . . I wanted to tell him . . . it was for him, and his dad.’

  ‘No need, mate. He knows.’

  Carter closed his eyes and the smell began to dissipate. When he opened them again, he was alone.

  * * *

  Marie sat on her sofa. Her lodger sprawled opposite in a comfortable armchair.

  PC Gary Pritchard had transferred from the neighbouring division of Harlan Marsh, and was currently occupying Marie’s guest room. The arrangement was intended to last until Gary made up his mind whether he wanted to commute each day across miles of fenland, or sell his Harlan Marsh home and move to Saltern-le-Fen. Several months had now passed, and neither of them was tired of their new domestic situation. Gary was an excellent cook, and Marie had put on weight, but chose to ignore it. She hated cooking. She was tall and athletic-looking, especially in her motorcycle leathers. She could cope with a few extra pounds if it meant having more of Gary’s “this’ll set you up for the day” breakfasts. In return, she was the perfect landlady. She kept a clean, warm home and imposed no restrictions on her guest, besides feeding the cat if she was on a back-to-back shift. Two lonely people, both bereaved, were no longer quite so lonely. What was to lose?

  Marie grinned at him over the rim of her wine glass. ‘I hear Carter made it to the finish line ahead of Max and Charlie.’

  ‘I know.’ Gary shook his head. ‘Between the three of them, I’ve spent a small fortune in sponsorship money.’

  ‘You and me both. Carter was very persuasive, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He’s going to double whatever he receives.’ Gary stared into his glass. ‘I though DI Jackman was well off, but Carter is something else. He’s a very rich man, isn’t he?’

  Marie grimaced. ‘In some ways. But even before the accident, he’d had a really tough life. No loving family, no siblings, just a cold, distant, workaholic father. His mother died when he was quite young. He was a very sad little boy.’ She looked at Gary. ‘My Bill was his best friend when he was in uniform. Another loss he’s suffered.’