by Gytha Lodge
Hanson shook her head, feeling the truth rush to make its way out. ‘He’s been messaging me. Constantly. All from anonymous accounts.’ She swallowed, feeling strangely all right about saying it now that she’d begun. ‘And turning up at my house. Sometimes watching me from his car. Never quite often enough to constitute harassment, and not always – not always close enough for me to be certain it’s him before he leaves.’ She gave another humourless smile. ‘He’s a clever bastard like that.’
Lightman nodded again, slowly. ‘Have you written it all down?’
Hanson started to nod, and then shrugged. ‘I started doing. More recently I’ve been – I’ve been a bit lax. It’s been getting to me.’ She took a large, steadying breath. ‘I wrote down some of the worst times, though. Like when I got outside and found all my tyres slashed. And the – the mutilated Barbie doll he left on the doorstep. And the smashed security light last night.’
Lightman shook his head. ‘The man has problems. You reported all of those?’
Hanson nodded. ‘Not the security light. Not yet. But the other two. I couldn’t prove it was him, though. I did put up two big, noticeable, completely fake CCTV cameras off Amazon, but he still took out the light. Looks like he stood at the end of the drive and threw rocks at it until it went.’
‘I’d say the odds are definitely in favour of it being him,’ Lightman said, drily. ‘You don’t generally go around pissing people off that much.’
‘Hey,’ she protested. ‘I work pretty hard at being annoying.’
‘Granted.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I should probably say that this isn’t the first defamatory bullshit I’ve read from your ex.’
Hanson’s shaky sense of certainty took another dip. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A month after you joined, I got an email,’ he said. ‘An anonymous one. It tried to claim that you’d been dismissed from your last role for gross malpractice, but that Birmingham had hushed it up.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘I thought I should take it to the chief, and it turned out he’d had an email too.’
Hanson turned away from him, a reflexive instinct based on defence. She hadn’t thought she could feel any more humiliated by her ex-boyfriend. But, of course, Damian could always sink lower. Could twist the knife in that little bit further. She’d never met anyone with such a gift for hurting people.
‘I would have told you,’ Ben said, with a note of apology, ‘but the chief was convinced it would just stress you out, even if you knew he didn’t believe a bloody word of it. And I thought he was probably right.’
‘You’re sure he didn’t believe it?’ she asked. The thought of it made her cringe. This must have been, what, a week or two after she’d had a showdown with the DCI over his own behaviour in an investigation? What must he have thought of her?
‘Come on,’ Lightman said, with a grin. ‘He’s too smart for that. What he actually did was have a quiet word with our IT department, asking them to filter out any similar content and report it to him. He was hoping to catch the perpetrator out. And by the way, his immediate guess was a disgruntled ex, which was what I thought, too.’
There was a short pause, and then Ben said, ‘I guess the question is what we do about all this.’
The word ‘we’ made Hanson feel indescribably better.
‘You aren’t starting to wonder if Damian’s actually telling the truth?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice light. ‘Whether I am actually a deeply manipulative, deceptive psychopath who’s been stringing everyone along?’
Lightman out and out laughed at this. ‘Don’t give yourself airs, constable.’
‘Yes, sarge.’ Hanson found herself grinning, a genuine grin that almost broke into real laughter.
‘So we’re going to sort this.’ Ben gave a nod.
‘Do you think so?’ she asked, a little less cheerfully. ‘I mean, I’ve seen how this stuff goes. Women being stalked and harassed. The full weight of the law means nothing in so many cases.’
‘Agreed,’ Lightman said. ‘But there might be better ways than the law itself to stop him.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she answered, thoughtfully. She’d thought that herself, early on, before it had all seemed to pile up on top of her.
‘I can explain things to Jason,’ Lightman said, after a moment. ‘If it comes from me, he’s not going to end up dismissing it.’
Hanson felt her face growing hot. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘I honestly think it would help.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said. And then she swallowed. ‘The speed with which he chose to believe it is … well, I think it tells me something. I mean, he’s the one with the bloody degree in criminal psychology. He’s the one who’s supposed to know what to look out for.’
‘I assume your ex-boyfriend played on his feelings,’ Ben said, quietly. ‘I wouldn’t blame him too much.’
‘And yet here you are,’ Hanson countered, ‘not in a relationship with me, and refusing to believe a word of it.’
‘Well,’ Lightman said, ‘as you’ll know, I don’t have any feelings to play on, so …’
Hanson gave a real throaty laugh at that. ‘Fair point.’
‘And can you turn to your right?’
The female officer was softly spoken. She sounded like she came from Swansea, and she seemed sympathetic. Kind, even.
Louise turned as directed, feeling strangely like she was back at her engagement photo shoot with Niall. Though they’d been in the grounds of a National Trust property that day. Not in a small bare room in a police station. She’d been wearing a brand-new wool sweater and jeans, too. Not just her bra and leggings.
And it had only been her constantly smiling mouth that had ached on that day. Not her back. Her head. And somewhere difficult to pinpoint in her chest.
The soft flash of the camera came three times, and the officer asked her to extend her left arm out to the side. Louise twisted, trying to see the arm herself. There must be bruising that she hadn’t discovered yet.
‘If you could just look forwards …’
Louise straightened her head, having caught sight of nothing more than a purplish-yellow tinge on the back of her arm. The camera flashed again.
And then suddenly Louise was not in that room, but face-down on icy grass, the taste of mud and leaves in her mouth. She was fighting to move. To breathe. There was pain in her back, and in her left arm, where his hand was pushing her down.
That’s a knife, sweetheart, he was saying. You feel it? I’m going to squeeze down on it every time you move. So you’d better keep fucking still, hadn’t you?
And then she was crouching on the floor of a brightly lit room, her breathing rapid and shallow, begging them to let her have some air.
With Hanson and Lightman back in CID, Jonah called a briefing in the big meeting room before doing anything else. The one advantage of being in on a Sunday night was that they had their choice of rooms, which meant they were back in the much-coveted conference room, complete with big windows and comfortable chairs.
He gave them all a moment to settle, his gaze resting briefly on Hanson. It looked as though she’d been crying, and very recently. She now had the hesitant, careful air of someone just holding it together. He needed to check in with her again. It was frustrating that it might have to wait, though. They had two people in custody, both potentially to be charged, and a limited time frame to do something about it.
He loaded the map up on to the projector again and began.
‘Having established that Alex Plaskitt died in Louise Reakes’s bed, it now looks fairly certain that he wasn’t actually attacked there. There are significant splashes of blood down Saints Close, none of which were visible until the snow melted.’
There was a brief silence. Then O’Malley said, ‘It might scupper our theory about Niall Reakes finding them in bed together and going mad.’
‘It might,’ Jonah agreed. ‘Though it still remains possible that
he went out hunting for his wife, found something going on and went on the attack.’
‘We have blood found at Asylum Green,’ Lightman said. ‘It could be Alex Plaskitt’s. We also have an earring and a glove. If Louise identifies either as hers, we can pin down some kind of event happening there. Possibly an attack.’
‘If it was Louise’s husband,’ O’Malley commented, ‘is it possible she’s still covering for him? Out of a sense of guilt for having cheated?’
‘Would he really have risked refusing to see her if so?’ Hanson asked, doubtfully. ‘Surely he’d want to keep her sweet.’
‘Unless refusing to see her is just an act,’ O’Malley countered, with a shrug. ‘They’re pretending to have rowed when they were both in on it.’
‘We’ll have a clearer idea once those bloods are back,’ Jonah said, aware that he was, as usual, slightly damping down the general enthusiasm. ‘We need to work out whether Niall really was in Southampton. I want to check public transport. Trains. Buses. Taxis.’
‘I’ll get on it,’ Hanson offered.
‘And then there’s Niall’s strange trip to Zurich,’ Jonah went on. He switched tabs to bring up a zoomed-out version of the route from Geneva to Zurich. ‘We’ve got the receipt for the new flight he booked, and it cost him a small fortune. Zurich is also a three-hour drive from Geneva. O’Malley’s looking to see if he went there to purchase the murder weapon.’
‘And I’ve confirmed there were spaces on flights from Geneva,’ O’Malley commented. ‘For less money, generally. He could have flown straight home.’
Hanson glanced up. ‘But if he went to buy the knife, then the attack was premeditated. That doesn’t tie in with him finding her with another man.’
‘It could, if he was already convinced his wife was cheating,’ O’Malley countered. ‘He may not have known Alex Plaskitt, but he might have had reason to think there was infidelity going on. He could have been planning this for months.’
Lightman shifted slightly, and Jonah asked, ‘Thoughts, Ben?’
Lightman breathed out for a moment. ‘It’s … strange behaviour. If it really was all planned, then it seems unlikely that he would have left the ticket purchase until the last minute. He was running a big risk that he might not get one.’
‘Yes,’ Jonah said, thoughtfully. ‘He was.’
‘Doesn’t it read,’ Hanson asked slowly, ‘more like a sudden crisis? That ex-wife of his …’
‘Dina Weyman,’ Jonah said.
‘Are we positive she isn’t lying?’ She glanced at Lightman. ‘Maybe she did summon him for an urgent conversation.’
‘It’s hard to say,’ Jonah told her. ‘Perhaps we need to see her in person. But Niall Reakes’s story about a job offer is more than a little far-fetched. As you say, his actions sound more like a crisis.’
‘So our hypothetical situation would be that Dina needed to see him in a hurry,’ Lightman said, slowly, ‘for some reason requiring him to get to Zurich first. He was doing something for her, maybe. And then, once they’d met, Dina denied it.’
There was a brief pause, and then Jonah said, ‘Talk to her. And to anyone who knows her.’ He glanced at O’Malley. ‘Didn’t you say April Dumont knows the ex-wife too?’
‘Yeah, she does,’ O’Malley said, and gave a grin. ‘And she doesn’t seem much of a fan of hers, either.’
‘Talk to her, as soon as you can,’ Jonah said.
‘I’ve arranged to see Step Conti again shortly,’ Lightman commented. ‘Should I keep that appointment or bunk it?’
Jonah hesitated. Their priority seemed clear: to dig into everything to do with Niall Reakes. But the possibility of Niall having planned his attack shifted things. It made him wonder whether they were missing a link between him and Alex Plaskitt.
‘I think see him,’ he said in the end. ‘Show him photos of the Reakeses and see what he says. O’Malley, let’s go and talk to Niall Reakes. Juliette, see if you can book us in to see Dina Weyman later this evening.’ He gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Happy crap weekend.’
‘Ah, I have nothing to do except watch shit TV,’ Hanson said, with strange cheerfulness. ‘It’s all good with me!’
Hanson was glad that their investigation seemed to be going somewhere, and not just for its own sake. It meant she could get her head down and work, and not think about Jason and how awkward it was going to be seeing him every day from now on. This, she thought, was why you should never date someone at work.
And also, she added to herself, why you should get yourself an actual social life.
She woke her desktop up, and her eyes drifted over to where Jason sat on a normal working day. She thought of Louise and her husband, who had been so quick to condemn her. And she thought how, in a way, Jason had done exactly the same.
She suddenly found herself coming to a decision. Pulling out her phone, she typed him a brief message.
Thank you for that essay. I have nothing to say in reply except that I want your things gone from my house before I get home later.
And with that done, she was ready to work.
Jonah hid himself away to prep for the interview with Niall Reakes. He knew he needed to be on form. Niall had ended up being represented by Daniella Hart, who was with the same firm as Patrick Moorcroft. Like him, she was expensive, and Jonah’s one encounter with her had been exhausting.
He’d dropped in on the solicitor and her client to give them warning and found the atmosphere a little tense. It was clear that having someone who wasn’t Patrick was galling for Niall. It was equally clear that Daniella Hart didn’t like being second choice. He couldn’t help smiling as he left them again.
Midway through getting his notes together, Jonah’s landline rang. McCullough, with the blood results.
‘Her blood tests are negative for Rohypnol,’ McCullough said, her voice slightly raised to speak over music she had on in the background. ‘There was still alcohol present, indicating that she’d drunk more than twenty-four units that night. Enough to explain serious memory loss. But perhaps more interestingly, she’s showing traces of Viagra.’
‘That’s … slightly odd …’
‘They do say it’s the modern man’s drug of choice,’ Linda commented, drily. ‘There are lots of rumours online that it can be used to make women aroused. If true, that would be a score for any potential rapist. It’s pretty easy to defend rape if the victim was clearly horny as hell in the earlier part of the evening.’
‘And is it true?’ Jonah asked, with interest.
McCullough gave a derisive laugh. ‘I’d say it’s pretty unlikely to do anything at all. Viagra works by increasing blood supply to the groin. Men who take it don’t need it because they can’t get horny. It’s because they can’t get an erection.’
‘Right,’ Jonah said, not sure quite why he’d thought this conversation a good idea. ‘So it’s more than a little odd that Louise Reakes had it in her system.’
He thought of Niall and decided that this was a strong sign against his involvement. Unless he’d somehow spiked something that he knew Louise would drink. Viagra tablets could presumably be crushed and added to most things. But that would be a bizarre move. Could he really have got himself into such a twisted state that he’d wanted his wife to cheat so he could take revenge?
‘I’ve also taken prints from the articles we found at the park,’ McCullough said. ‘Obviously no analysis run until tomorrow, but if you need to show them to your suspects, they’re now yours.’
‘I’ll get one of the team to pick them up, thank you.’
Jonah ended the call feeling as though nothing quite added up. The only theories he currently had to explain everything seemed more than outlandish.
Which meant they had to go for hard facts, however small, he thought. There were things they could pin down.
He ducked back out into CID, and told O’Malley he’d be ready in a minute, then asked Hanson if she’d had any response from Dina Weyman, Niall’s ex-wife.
<
br /> ‘She’s going to call back,’ Hanson replied. ‘She’s supposed to be at some important meeting but will see what she can do.’
‘OK, great. I’d like you to show Louise the items you picked up at the park. They’re ready to collect from Linda.’
Hanson nodded and rose, her expression still distant, but not bleak or on edge, he thought. Whatever was going on, she seemed to be holding it together.
‘Is everyone hanging in there OK?’ he asked O’Malley once she’d left, trying to say it lightly.
‘Ah, sure, I think so,’ O’Malley said, with a shrug. ‘I mean, sure, it’s Sunday night and we’d all rather be at home, and I think Juliette got hypothermia at the park, but, you know.’
Jonah nodded, and glanced over at Lightman, who was on the phone.
‘Is Ben on the line to Step Conti?’
‘Yup,’ O’Malley agreed. ‘Just started the call. Do you need something from him?’
‘Nothing that can’t wait until we’ve seen Niall Reakes,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Sorry about this,’ Lightman told Step, once his wife had fetched him to the phone. ‘I know Sunday evenings aren’t the best time.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Step said. ‘You got me out of the world’s longest Peppa Pig marathon.’ He added, more seriously, ‘And I’m happy to do anything I can to help. Alex was the closest thing I ever had to a best friend.’
Lightman thanked him. ‘There are a few things we need to ask you. The first is whether you saw Alex with a woman on Friday.’
There was a long pause, and then Step said, ‘I’m sorry. I should have said before. Karen – my wife – was angry with me for not telling you about it. I just … Yes, I did see Alex with someone.’ There was an audible swallowing noise down the line. ‘There was a woman who was – well, she was hitting on him quite hard. And – he ended up kissing her.’
‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’
‘Because it happened much earlier on,’ Step said. ‘A long time before I left. And he clearly immediately regretted it. He backed off, and she was angry with him about it. I actually had to get involved, to try and calm things down.’