by Ed James
Tears soaked her cheeks. ‘Jesus . . .’
‘Do you want me to leave?’
‘No, it just . . .’ Her head dipped. ‘I can’t . . . Jesus.’
Fenchurch got up and sat on her side, hugging her tight.
‘I thought that video was deleted.’ She grabbed hold of him, her shoulders relaxing. ‘But it wasn’t. Nothing ever is. I can’t believe you saw it . . . How?’
‘Someone emailed me it. I want to find out who and throw them off a building. Now, who recorded it?’
A shiver ran through her. ‘Sam.’
‘Edwards?’
She nodded. ‘He ran the audition. Said he’d deleted it straight away.’
‘Okay.’ Fenchurch let her go then got out of the booth. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Fenchurch leaned forward to rest on the edge of the table. ‘I’m going to knock his block off.’
‘Why? What do you think that’ll achieve?’ She glared at him exactly like Abi would, those eyes tearing him apart. ‘You think you can just waltz in and sort him out?’
Fenchurch wanted to go round there and batter the shit out of him.
Maybe drive him up to the Scottish Highlands, lose him in some remote bog nobody would ever find him in.
‘I need to.’
‘No. It’s done, okay? I want nothing more to do with it. If I find out you’ve spoken to him . . . this is the last time you’ll ever see me.’
But she was right. The violence — for so much of his life, acting as a channel for his anger — that needed to stop. It wouldn’t solve anything. The video was out there and he didn’t know if Sam had sent it or not.
But if that file came back? If someone else got sent it? Then he could do him under revenge porn laws.
But what good would any of it do? Abi was right, this was his daughter growing up. His little girl becoming a woman. Learning life the hard way.
He slumped back in the seat. ‘Okay. Fine.’
‘You’re not going to beat him up?’
‘I’m not.’
She grabbed his hands again. ‘Thank you.’
Fenchurch soaked in her warmth through her hands. ‘I’ll help in whatever way you want. Just . . . Ask, okay? Anything, I want to help.’
‘Okay.’ Another squeeze then she frowned at him. ‘You know your phone’s ringing, don’t you?’
‘Kashmir’ was blasting out. Fenchurch hadn’t even noticed. The other punters in there had, a big man in a navy suit scowling at him as he messed about on his iPad.
Fenchurch checked the display. Reed. ‘Kay, what’s up?’
‘I’m at the hospital. I thought you’d be here? They won’t let me see Abi.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
The hospital canteen was buzzing with white noise. Fenchurch passed a couple who looked like they were dealing with bad news, then celebrating grandparents.
Reminded him of when they had it in their life, Abi’s and his parents cracking open champagne after Chloe’s birth, even though she was in an incubator for what felt like decades.
‘There he is.’ Dad’s sausage fingers were wrapped round a steaming coffee mug. ‘We were just talking about you, son.’
‘All good, I hope.’ Fenchurch took the chair between Dad and Reed. Couldn’t sit still. He frowned. Chloe wasn’t behind him. ‘Shit. Where is—’
‘I’m here.’ Chloe sat next to Dad. ‘You okay?’
Fenchurch shrugged. Too much in his head. Same as it ever was. But he was missing stuff. Obvious stuff. Phones ringing.
Or was it something to do with his wife being sedated while she was in labour?
He couldn’t think about it.
‘Dad, any more news about the baby?’ Tried to sound casual, but his voice was a squeak.
‘Spoke to the doctor about ten minutes ago, son.’ Dad gripped Chloe’s fingers tight. ‘We won’t get the blood tests back till midnight. Said everything else is okay, though. Midnight’s the next update.’
Fenchurch glanced at his watch. Almost two sodding hours.
Dad hauled himself to his feet. ‘Can I get you something, son?’
‘Tea would go down a treat.’
‘Coming up.’ Dad walked over to the servery, his limp almost identical to the one Fenchurch had recently acquired. Chloe followed him over.
Reed stared into her tea. Chamomile, judging by the smell. ‘Didn’t think to tell me that one of my oldest friends was giving birth?’
‘Kay, I’m sorry.’ Fenchurch waved over at Dad. ‘Been really busy. All this shit with Chloe.’
‘Chloe?’ Reed scowled at the servery. Dad had his arm wrapped around Chloe, even though she was about three inches taller than him. ‘That’s her?’
‘Didn’t think Dad had a new girlfriend, did you?’
‘Jesus.’
‘It’s a long story, but . . . I think we might finally have her back.’ Fenchurch clasped his hands together. ‘For good, this time. Our daughter, accepting us. Talking to us. We went for a burrito and . . .’
‘A burrito?’
‘She loves them too.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Reed was smiling. She patted him on the arm. ‘I’m happy for you, guv. But . . . Next time, you tell me, okay?’
‘There’s not going to be a next time.’ Fenchurch waited until she stopped laughing. His gut fell through the floor, leaving an empty vacuum. ‘I’m scared, Kay. What if Abi . . .? What if our son . . . ?’ The lump in his throat threatened to tear at his skin. ‘I don’t think I could cope if . . .’
‘Hey, guv.’ She rubbed his arm. ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘You know that?’
‘No, but . . . There’s nothing you can do, is there?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, you can’t change anything. All you can do is wait and see what happens. I know you hate that, but that’s how it is. Abi might be fine. Your son might be fine. You just don’t know. But your daughter’s over there.’
Chloe was helping Dad make himself a coffee on the state-of-the-art machine.
He grimaced at Reed. ‘She told me it was Sam Edwards who recorded her audition. I want to kill him.’
‘Guv . . . You need to watch yourself. Mulholland’s gunning for you.’
Fenchurch squeezed his thighs together. ‘You getting anywhere with the case?’
‘Stuck in the same situation as you, guv.’ Reed waved around the canteen. ‘Sitting around while other people do their work. Mulholland thinks you and I are too close, so she’s sidelined me. Jon’s the golden child now, practically running the investigation. I’m updating the bloody whiteboard.’
‘What did you do?’
She slid her teacup across the table, some of the liquid sloshing over the side. ‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, Kay. Mulholland’s a vindictive witch, but she’s dealing with Loftus now. You said something to her, didn’t you?’
‘I suggested that we—’ Reed sat up, all businesslike. ‘Here’s my thinking, guv. Keane had Hannah’s and Sharon’s computers. Those MacBooks. He was definitely up to something on them, but he was shot halfway through whatever it was. Which means he didn’t get a chance to wipe his tracks. And those computers log everything. So I asked Lisa to unpick what he was doing.’
‘And?’
‘Mulholland found out. I’ll let you guess the rest.’ She took another sip of tea. ‘But she’d done some of it. Keane had been running lots of searches, trying to find a particular file. Searching on all three machines.’
‘Any idea what was in it?’
‘The name didn’t mean anything, just some numbers.’ Reed sighed. ‘Problem is, Mulholland’s told Lisa to focus on Thwaite’s background instead.’
Fenchurch stayed out in the corridor while Bridge snuck into the Incident Room. Mulholland was by the whiteboard, the pen squeaking as she scribbled. Five members of her team around her, acting like they’d won the Premier League, or at lea
st secured a conviction.
Fenchurch set off to find a room.
Nelson and DI Winter walked towards him, sipping from coffees. Winter tilted his head to the side. ‘Si, you still around?’
‘Going to ask you the same thing.’
‘The deal for getting credit for the case is that I’ve got to help Jon get this prosecution over the line.’ Winter grinned at Nelson. ‘Anyway, thought you’d left for the evening, Si?’
‘Had to pick something up. For Abi.’ Fenchurch scratched his ear. ‘She’s . . . gone into labour.’
Winter’s mouth fell open. ‘She okay?’
‘Ish.’
‘You should be with her.’
‘Better go.’
‘Hang on a sec, guv.’ Nelson waited for Winter to enter the Incident Room, sucking coffee through the lid, the plastic rattling. ‘The heating in your flat is broken.’
‘So get it fixed, Jon.’
‘Guv, I’m seriously busy.’
‘And I’m not? Did you miss the bit where I said that Abi had gone into labour?’
‘Thought you’d have a contract with someone?’
‘I’ll take a contract out on you.’ Fenchurch grinned, but Nelson wasn’t seeing the funny side of it. ‘I’m doing you a favour, Jon. In case you’ve forgotten, you got caught shagging around and I’m letting you stay in my flat for free. Get a plumber in and we’ll call that rent.’
‘Right.’ And with a nod, Nelson walked over to the Incident Room door. Cheeky bastard was going to grass to teacher, wasn’t he?
Fenchurch led towards the meeting rooms, finding an empty one halfway down. He flicked on the lights and shut the door behind them. ‘You think Keane was searching for a file?’
Bridge rested a laptop on the table. ‘Well. It’s more than that. Keane was doing a deep system audit on the laptop. By that I mean he was recreating everything that Hannah had done on the machine. All the files she opened, everything she searched for. There was a file he was interested in. IMG7329.mov.’
‘A video, right? Any idea what was on it?’
‘That’s all I’ve got. Maybe you’re better than me at guessing.’
‘Does that match either file I got?’
‘They were both renamed from the default. Something like JS underscore audition dot mov, and naughty boy dot mov.’ Bridge swivelled the laptop around, showing a file system Fenchurch couldn’t even process. ‘But the thing is, that file was saved to the MacBook, but then Keane deleted it and wiped where it’d been. Locally and the server. It’s gone forever.’
Fenchurch sighed. ‘So you don’t think you’ll find it?’
‘That’s the other thing, sir.’ Bridge glanced at Reed. She twisted her laptop back round and started typing. ‘Jon’s put me on the Thwaite investigation. I was searching through his emails and I found a load of photos someone had sent him.’
Fenchurch rubbed his forehead. ‘I take it these weren’t nice photos?’
‘Thwaite having sex with a woman. Call this number if you don’t want your wife to find out.’
‘What did DI Mulholland say?’
‘Very good. Have an apple, teacher’s pet. That kind of thing.’ Bridge turned the laptop around. The screen was filled with images of the same woman who Sam Edwards had been having sex with.
Zoe.
The Custody Suite was quiet. Far too quiet, given how late it was. Usually expect a few idiots from a fight in a curry house in by now. Big Martin sat behind the desk, watching some TV on his phone, propped up on the case. He collapsed it when he saw them, hauling out his earbuds in one fluid motion.
Fenchurch rested his arms on the high desk. ‘Spotted you a mile off. Better than sleeping, I suppose.’
‘Funny.’
‘What are you watching?’
Martin folded his phone up in its wallet case. ‘That Shooter show on Netflix. Very good. Much better than the film they made.’ He stuffed it in his pocket. ‘Anyway, you’re after something, aren’t you?’
Fenchurch scanned around the area. No smell of brimstone. ‘Has DI Mulholland been down?’
‘Yeah, brought Richard Thwaite down for processing.’ Martin waited for Fenchurch’s nod. ‘Isn’t shooting someone kind of his job?’
‘Not when the suspect’s unarmed.’
‘Heard he was going for a knife?’
‘True enough, I suppose.’ Fenchurch drummed his thumbs on the desk. ‘Any chance we can have a word with him on the QT?’
‘I need to speak to Mulholland about it. Standing order.’
‘Martin, mate. You owe me one.’
‘Feels like I owe you five billion.’ Martin opened his phone and propped it up on his table. ‘Ten minutes, at the very most. And it never happened.’
Fenchurch tried to get Thwaite to look anywhere near him. ‘Richard, who’s blackmailing you?’
Thwaite frowned, fiddling with his neck. The St Christopher was missing. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your depression. I know the reason you were off for so long. You’ve got a secret and someone’s blackmailing you. Am I right?’
Fenchurch didn’t get a reply
Reed was sitting next to him. She pushed the emails across the table. ‘I take it you called that number?’
‘Why would I?’ Thwaite nudged them back. ‘This is spam. You open every email offering to make your cock bigger?’
Fenchurch smiled as he fanned out the pages on the table. ‘Those emails don’t attach photos of me at it with someone.’
Thwaite’s face fell. ‘What?’
‘You’re pretending you’ve never seen them before?’
‘This is the first time.’
Fenchurch tapped at the images. The last one had Thwaite going down on his lover. ‘But this is you, isn’t it?’
‘It does look like me; I’ll give you that.’
‘Are you saying it’s been Photoshopped?’
‘What’s the point?’ Thwaite let out a deep sigh. Guy seemed strangely serene, like he’d been living with the worst possible news for a long time and, now it was out, he could relax and let the shit swallow him up. No sense in fighting any more. ‘It’s me. Okay? Happy? I picked her up a while ago and . . . I can’t get enough of her.’ His fist clattered the table. ‘I hate myself for it.’
‘You, a cop, let yourself be blackmailed.’ Fenchurch thumped the desk, cracking his wedding ring off the wood. ‘Over something like this? In this day and age?’
‘You don’t understand.’ Thwaite played with his imaginary St Christopher. ‘My family. My religion. That’s my whole life.’
Fenchurch stared at him long and hard. ‘Whatever you want to do, so long as it’s within the law, nobody else is allowed to give a shit. It’s 2016. There’s no reason for you to be ashamed of what you want to be.’
‘My wife. She’d despise me for this.’
‘Can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’
‘I know.’ Thwaite nodded slowly. ‘It’s just . . . I spoke to the pastor at church. He tried to cleanse me. Wash away my sins. But the thoughts kept coming back.’
‘I thought that’d be a couple of Hail Mary’s for some common or garden adultery?’
‘What?’ Thwaite scowled at Fenchurch. ‘You think that’s it?’
Fenchurch frowned at Reed. Saw his reflection mirrored in hers. ‘What am I missing?’
Thwaite nibbled at his lips. ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got . . .’ He held up the sheet, his hands shaking. ‘She is a . . . a pre-op trans woman . . .’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
What?’ Fenchurch’s mouth hung open. He grabbed the sheets of paper back and started flicking through the pages, through Thwaite’s self-hatred. Hard to pin it down, but Zoe didn’t look like a man. She wore a black bra, possibly padded out. Skinny body, but looked curvy enough. ‘This is a man?’
‘She was born a man.’ Thwaite’s head hung low. ‘Identifies as a woman.’
‘But she’s got a penis?’
&nb
sp; ‘For now.’ Thwaite huffed out a sigh. ‘I’m pathetic, I know.’
‘You’re whatever you are, Richard. I’m disappointed that you felt so much shame about it that you let whoever this is make you do things.’
Things started to click into place, though. Zoe was a woman born a man.
‘I need to speak to her.’
‘Don’t know her birth name.’ Thwaite looked at the photos with a misty-eyed nostalgia, maybe seeing that there wasn’t anything that bad in what he did. ‘We met—’ He sniffed. ‘We met in a bar in Vauxhall. A lot of . . . these girls go there.’
‘Was this just the once?’
‘A few times.’
‘How did you contact her?’
‘She texts me.’ Thwaite stared at the floor. ‘I’ve got a burner at home, hidden away. For these sorts of things.’
‘Can we—?’
‘Too late. I threw it in the Thames when I went to the university. It’s long gone.’
‘When were you seeing her?’
‘Last year. I went off with stress just after I went to the pastor. Like I said, he did his best but the thoughts returned after I came back to work.’
‘Does Zoe know who you are? That you’re a cop?’
‘Every last detail.’
‘Did you ever meet the blackmailers?’
‘Whoever it is . . .’ Thwaite tapped the page. ‘I got these messages, telling me that they’d tell my wife if I didn’t . . .’
‘Didn’t what?’
‘They told me to shoot him, make it look like an accident.’
‘So you planned to be on the team?’
‘Pure luck. And I thought it was over. I’d wait out the IPCC investigation, they’d probably clear me. But it’s never over. They sent me another message. Threatened to send a video file to my wife. Said they’d project it on my house.’ Thwaite sounded close to hyperventilating. ‘They told me to meet at the university. In a specific room. So I ran off. It’s not like I was under surveillance. I checked. And turned up to meet, ready to kill, whoever was doing it. But I got to the room and I got caught. By you.’