Requiem

by Celina Grace

  Vertz was crying, harsh, open-mouthed sobs. The tears were running between his dirty fingers.

  Anderton repeated his statement.

  “You loved her, didn’t you Nathan?”

  Vertz nodded. After a moment, he spoke, his voice hoarse.

  “I loved her. We—we found each other—we knew each other. We both knew what it was like…” His voice trailed away into a mumble. Then he cleared his throat and spoke again. “I didn’t kill her. I would never hurt her.”

  “You have a police record for assaulting your wife,” said Anderton. “A serious assault. Are you telling me you’ve changed that much?”

  “That was different. Elodie was different.”

  “What happened that night?”

  Vertz shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Did you kill Elodie Duncan?”

  “No, I didn’t. I would never hurt her.” He began to cry again. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Anderton placed the letters back into the folder, gently. He closed it and gave it back to Kate. Vertz tracked the movement with his eyes.

  “Those are mine.”

  “You will have them back, Nathan,” said Anderton. Then he said, in the same gentle voice, “Are you aware that Elodie was pregnant when she died?”

  If Vertz had been pale before, it was nothing to the colour he became. He looked almost transparent.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “Elodie Duncan was pregnant when she died,” said Anderton, looking straight at the man. Some premonition made Kate brace herself, shift herself just a little closer to the edge of her seat.

  Anderton continued.

  “It was your baby.”

  Vertz exploded. Roaring, he flung himself forward, shouting something incomprehensible. Anderton and Kate dived, one to each side, and then Olbeck was on Vertz, the officer flinging himself forward, shouting for reinforcements. Anderton pushed Kate towards the door as the uniformed officers stampeded into the room, piling themselves on the struggling Vertz. His wordless shouts resolved themselves into a recognisable word.

  “No, no, no…”

  He continued to scream as they dragged him from the room. Kate could hear him as he was pulled towards the cells, getting fainter with every step.

  His cries were abruptly cut off as the heavy metal door to the cells swung closed with a crash. The silence left behind seemed deafening.

  Anderton still had his hand on Kate’s arm. They both looked at it as if suddenly remembering it was there. Anderton removed it quickly.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  Kate nodded. She was still trembling slightly from the backwash of adrenaline.

  “He wasn’t expecting that,” she said.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Anderton agreed. He pushed his hands through this hair and dropped them to his sides, exhaling loudly. “There’ll be no more out of him tonight. He won’t be in any fit state.”

  Kate nodded. She knew that Vertz was probably being sedated right about now. She took a deep breath. Her trembling gradually stopped, but she felt empty, hollow, and suddenly depressed.

  “Fancy a drink?” said Anderton suddenly.

  Kate looked at him in surprise, so shocked she didn’t at first know how to answer.

  “Now?” she managed, after a moment.

  “Yes, right now.”

  She was still so surprised she agreed without thinking.

  Once they were in the pub and sat down with their drinks, the awkwardness between them threatened to return. Kate cast about for something to say, something to break the conversational deadlock, but she couldn’t think of anything that didn’t have some sort of negative connotation. She took a hurried sip of her orange juice.

  “Do you ever drink?” asked Anderton abruptly. “Alcohol, I mean.”

  Kate shrugged. “Sometimes. At Christmas. It’s just not my thing.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Does there have to be a reason?”

  “There normally is.”

  Kate sighed. “My mum’s a drinker. Not exactly an alcoholic but—well, perhaps she is an alcoholic. I don’t really know. She drinks too much, anyway.” Talking of her mother reminded her of Peter and the email she’d discovered. She must look into that when she got home later. “It’s just not something I enjoy, I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t apologise.” Anderton turned his pint glass around a few times. “You’ll probably outlive us all.” He looked up into her eyes. “Or perhaps you’ve got plenty of other secret vices.”

  Kate smiled in order to hide the sudden physical jolt his words had given her. “I do have a secret fondness for Gardener’s World.”

  Anderton actually laughed. Then the smile from his face dropped abruptly and another awkward silence fell.

  “Sir,” said Kate after a moment, rather hesitatingly. She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to say. “This case—”

  “What about it?”

  Kate sat up a little straighter. Then she shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m confused.”

  “Please tell me you’re not hiding anything else from me that I need to know.”

  “No,” said Kate, shocked and a little hurt. “All I mean is—oh, I don’t know. There’s something more to this case than what we’re seeing, what we’re investigating. Can’t you feel it too, sir? There’s something underneath it all that we haven’t got yet.”

  Anderton was regarding her intently. “I think I know what you mean.”

  Kate dropped her head momentarily into her hands. When she raised it, she looked Anderton directly in the eye.

  “There’s so much rage in this case,” she murmured. “Everyone connected with Elodie is just so angry. Vertz. Her mother. Her stepfather. There’s this constant, simmering undercurrent of anger everywhere.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Anderton suddenly sounded exhausted. There was another beat of silence. Kate was about to speak again when he pre-empted her.

  “I owe you an apology, Kate.”

  Kate went blank for a moment.

  “You do?” she said.

  “Yes. I was totally wrong to speak to you like I did the other day. It was extremely unprofessional of me, and for that I sincerely apologise.”

  Kate muttered, “That’s all right.” What else could she say?

  Anderton leaned forward a little.

  “I’m not used to apologising,” he said. “‘Never apologise, never explain.’ That was always my motto.”

  “Everyone thinks it was Churchill who said that,” said Kate. “But it was actually some Victorian admiral, I can’t remember his name.”

  Anderton grinned. “I’ll let you off. Anyway, things…circumstances change. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” said Kate, a little awkwardly. “I should have come to see you first of all, anyway. It was my fault as—as much as yours.”

  Silence returned but this time it was easier. They had nearly reached the end of the drinks, and Kate opened her mouth to ask if he wanted another. Again, he pre-empted her.

  “My marriage is breaking down,” he said. Kate was again so surprised she was struck dumb. Anderton went on. “Well, breaking down is too positive. It’s broken. It’s over.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Anderton leant back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling.

  “When you came into my office the other day, I’d just finished a call to my soon-to-be-ex wife. I was barely thinking straight, I was so upset. And then you came in and told me something that, ordinarily, would just merit a brief ticking off. It seemed like the last straw, just then. I blew up—”

  “I know,” said Kate. “I was there.”

  Anderton gave her a tired smile. “You chose the worst possible moment and bore the brunt of it. I’m sorry.”

  Their eyes met again, and Kate was again aware of something she’d been forcing down for so long that she’d almost forgotten it was ther
e. Her attraction, her desire for Anderton crystallised in one long, charged moment. What made it worse was that she knew he was suddenly aware of it too. There was a breathless pause in which all the hubbub surrounding them faded away and there was just the two of them, eyes locked, leaning towards each other over the table.

  Anderton put a hand over hers.

  “Kate—”

  Kate shot to her feet, knocking over her glass, dislodging his hand.

  “Just going to the loo—back in a moment.”

  She hurried down the stairs to the toilets in the basement of the pub, almost falling in her haste to get away from him. She locked herself in a cubicle and sat on the closed seat for a moment, her hands over her eyes. He’s married, he’s your boss; don’t go there. He’s married, he’s your boss; don’t go there. She was shaken with the intensity of her desire, by the raw, urgent hunger she felt for him. He’s married, even if it’s over. He’s your boss. Just get up, go back, smile, say goodbye, and leave.

  As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. When she got back to the table, Olbeck and Jerry were there, deep in conversation with Anderton. He looked up briefly as she came back and smiled, a quick flicker meant solely for her. Kate sat down, grateful for the company of the others.

  For the rest of the evening, she barely said a word.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There was no way that anyone would be questioning Nathan Vertz the next morning. Kate had been informed that when the doctor’s sedative had worn off, Vertz had launched a bleary attack on his cell door: kicking it, shouting, rebounding off the frame to stumble to his knees. The doctor had been called again and had examined him, announcing that no interrogation would be possible for some time. Two representatives from the Mental Health Team were called and spent several hours with Vertz in his cell. Anderton had him under twenty-four-hour observation. Kate knew as well as Anderton that if a vulnerable suspect wanted to kill themselves, they would do their best to find a way.

  “I’ve not lost one on my watch yet, and I’m not about to start now,” Anderton said, striding ahead of Kate down the corridor back to the office. “We’ve got another day, and then we’ll have to charge him or let him go again.”

  “I know,” puffed Kate, hurrying to keep up. She wondered whether she’d mistaken that electric moment between the two of them the night before. Thank God she hadn’t done anything about it. Best to put it to the back of her mind once more and focus all her energies on the job.

  This good intention buoyed her up for all of five minutes once she sat down at her desk. She was very tired after a restless night with bad dreams and fractured sleep. She made herself a strong coffee, rubbed her eyes, and sat down to bury herself in paperwork. For once, she was glad of Olbeck sitting across from her and moaning softly that his head was killing him. He still found time to respond to whomever it was that kept sending him text messages, sending his phone buzzing and skittering across the desk like a large, shiny insect.

  “Would you turn that off?” snapped Kate eventually, unable to take any more.

  Olbeck gave her a hurt look. Kate pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to concentrate. Something was nagging at the back of her mind. Something about a phone message. She stared mindlessly into space for five minutes before she remembered.

  She took out her own phone and hunted through the applications until she came to her photograph storage. There was the one she’d taken of the screen of Peter Buckley’s laptop, the picture of the email that had piqued her curiosity.

  From: gil450231@gmail.com

  To: pbuckley@hotmail.co.uk

  Subject: Alice

  Message: got those files you were looking for. Check new website https://www.nys1016.com.

  Kate brought up an internet browser on her computer and typed in the website address. A blank blue screen came up with a password-protected log-in box in the middle. Kate frowned. She tried typing in Peter’s name and ‘password,’ then his email address and ‘password.’ Error messages came up. She sat back, blowing out her cheeks. There was no way she was going to be able to guess his password, and she didn’t know whether the site would automatically log her out after a certain number of erroneous attempts. She tapped her pen against her jaw for a moment and then picked up the phone.

  “I’m heading down to IT,” she said to Olbeck after a short telephone conversation. He grunted, finally intent on his work.

  “Hi Sam,” said Kate to Sam Hollington, the youngest, newest and keenest member of the Abbeyford team’s Information and Technology Department.

  “Hi Kate. What’ve you got for me?”

  Sam had a round face, round wire-framed spectacles, and a mop of curly black hair. He reminded Kate of a Labrador puppy, in the nicest possible way.

  “Can you check out a website for me? Who owns it, who the domain is registered to—anything, really.”

  “No probs. Gimme the URL and leave it with me.”

  Kate resisted the urge to pat him on the head. “You’re a star. Thanks Sam.”

  “When do you need it?”

  Kate paused, her hand on the door handle.

  “No real hurry,” she said. “It’s probably not important. Whenever you can do it.”

  “Righto.”

  Checking her watch as she reached the ground floor—IT was located in the depths of the basement—Kate could see it was nearly one o’clock. Lunchtime. She hesitated, debating whether to drag Olbeck to the canteen or head outside to grab some fresh air and a sandwich. The lure of the outside won. She pushed the door open to the station foyer and immediately spotted Jay and Courtney, waiting side by side on the uncomfortable chairs against the wall. Both of them looked scared and small and young.

  Kate reached them in three large strides. They both stood up together and the three of them stood in an odd little huddle for a moment.

  Kate put both of her hands on their arms, one on each.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jay swallowed. His face was noticeably thinner, his eyes ringed with shadow.

  “I’ve come to change my statement,” he said.

  The floor rocked for a moment. Kate closed her eyes and opened them again.

  Courtney put her hand into Kate’s, much as she had when she was a little girl.

  “Sis—“

  “Why—why now, Jay?” whispered Kate. She had a sudden, piercing flash of memory: baby Jay in her mother’s arms, smiling gummily up at his big sister, clamping his tiny fingers around Kate’s thumb. He used to grab onto her fingers while she was feeding him and pull her hand up and down as he sucked at the bottle, surprisingly strong for a baby. She fought the urge to turn him around bodily and push him back out the door into the street, before it was too late.

  “I have to, sis,” he said. He was deathly pale, but his chin was up, his shoulders squared. Kate knew she couldn’t stop him. She stepped back, Courtney’s hand slipping from hers.

  Kate handed Jay over to Theo and watched as the two men walked away along the corridor to the interview rooms. Her ears buzzed. What was Jay going to say? What was he going to confess to? A bubble of nausea came up into her throat.

  Courtney was still standing beside her, almost hanging onto her arm. Kate turned to her little sister.

  “Do you—do you know this is about?”

  Courtney, her eyes huge, her mouth pinched, nodded.

  Kate swallowed. “I can’t talk to you right now, Courtney. Don’t wait. You should go home.”

  Courtney shook her head.

  “I want to wait for Jay.”

  How could Kate tell her that she might wait all night, all the next day? How could she tell her that he might not be released at all?

  She put her hands on Courtney’s shoulders.

  “Don’t wait here, darling. It might take—it might take a long time. Why not go home?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “All right,” Kate said helplessly. “How about I give you some money and you find yourself
a coffee shop or something? Have a look around the shops?”

  For a second she thought Courtney was going to argue with her. Then the younger woman’s eyes fell and she nodded.

  “Okay.”

  Kate pulled her into a quick hug.

  “Give me a sec,” she said, her mouth against Courtney’s messy hair. “Let me get my purse. I won’t be long.”

  She ran along the corridor and up the stairs, not waiting for the lifts. What room had Jay been taken to? At her desk, Kate grabbed her handbag and riffled through it for her purse. The phone on her desk rang.

  She hesitated. For a moment, she was determined not to answer it. Then duty got the better of her and she snatched it up.

  “Kate Redman.”

  “Kate, it’s Sam.” For a second, she had to think about who that was. Because of her state of mind, it took her a moment to recognise his voice.

  “Sam, I’m kind of busy right now—”

  “It’s about that website you asked me to look at.” Now she could hear the shock in his voice. “I think you need to see it.”

  “Oh God—” Kate squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “Can’t it wait?”

  “I think you need to see it.”

  Kate breathed out as slowly as she could, tamping down a scream of frustration. It wasn’t Sam’s fault, after all.

  “Okay,” she said, after a moment. “I’m on my way.”

  She pounded back to the foyer, tucked a tenner in Courtney’s hand and kissed her. “Now, don’t worry,” she emphasized, gently propelling her sister out of the station entrance. “Come back in a few hours. Text me and I’ll come down and meet you.”

  Courtney gave her a wan smile and trotted obediently down the station steps at the entrance. Kate watched her cross the road and waved when she turned back for a last look before disappearing around the corner. Then Kate swivelled on her heel and ran back across the foyer, heading for the steps to the basement. She had to physically force herself past the turn off to the interview rooms. What in God’s name was Jay confessing to in there?

  Sam met her at the door to the IT department. His round, friendly face was pale, his freckles standing out.