‘Half? You’re kidding me, right?’
‘I’m sorry, Tom.’
‘The bastard,’ said Tom, when he realized there was absolutely nothing he could do to rectify the situation.
‘Yes,’ admitted Kane. ‘I’m afraid he is.’
There was a long pause before Tom concluded, ‘Make sure you put Helen’s name on the sheet when you resubmit it.’ And before Kane could ask him why, the journalist was gone.
A moment later Ian Bradshaw reappeared. He stood framed by Kane’s office door, as if he didn’t know whether he should come in.
‘Bloody hell, Bradshaw, you’ve been ages. Did he say anything?’
‘He did,’ said Bradshaw, and he held up his notebook.
‘Well, come on then, out with it,’ Kane said impatiently.
Bradshaw looked intensely weary. ‘Have you got all day?’
‘How do you mean? What did you get?’
‘Everything,’ said Bradshaw. ‘I’ve got it all.’ And he tapped the notebook with his free hand. ‘Chapter and Biblical bloody verse.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Two days later DCI Kane was summoned once again to see Deputy Chief Constable Tyler and instructed to bring DS Bradshaw with him. Once they were safely behind closed doors, Tyler, who looked apoplectic, produced a copy of the Daily Mirror and virtually threw it at Kane. ‘What the hell is this?’ he hissed.
Kane blinked, looked down at the front page of the newspaper then looked back up at Tyler, who was glaring at him malevolently. He fished the paper from his lap and began to read the article.
The headline was ‘TOP COP’S BLUNDER FREES KILLER TO STRIKE AGAIN’. The strap line below it said, ‘Durham’s Next Chief Constable Let Murderer Slip through His Fingers’.
The byline underneath the article proclaimed it to be the work of Paul Hill, but that was fooling no one, least of all Tyler. Hill was Tom Carney’s former colleague and was known to be a buyer of Tom’s stories. Deputy Chief Constable Tyler might not be aware of that link, reasoned Kane, but that probably didn’t matter because who else, apart from Tom, was in a position to write this piece without insider knowledge of the case?
Tyler’s name appeared in the first paragraph, to ensure there could be no doubt which top cop was personally responsible for the killer’s ability to strike again. Kane read every word of the damning report then he looked up and said, ‘Oh dear.’
‘This was you!’ thundered Tyler. ‘You know it and I know it.’
‘This has nothing to do with me,’ protested Kane truthfully.
‘Nor me,’ said Bradshaw.
‘I’ll sue you both for this. It’s defamation.’
‘We didn’t write this.’ Kane was trying to stay calm. ‘It’s the Mirror you want to be suing, but …’ The words trailed away because he wasn’t sure how far he wanted to go with this.
‘But what?’ snapped Tyler.
Kane took a deep breath and steeled himself. His career was over anyway. He could tell that by the look of deep, vindictive hatred in Tyler’s eyes. ‘It’s true. You did interview the girl, and no one took her story seriously.’
‘How dare you presume to know what happened in that interview, Kane? I’ve never come across such insolence and insubordination! You’re just a DCI, for God’s sake!’ He made that sound like the lowest of the low. ‘Oh, you think you’re so bloody clever, don’t you? I’m going to prove you are behind this story …’
‘I repeat: I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Are you seriously suggesting this article wasn’t written by Tom Carney?’
‘No, I’m not, sir,’ replied Kane. ‘I’d say, on the balance of probability, he almost certainly wrote this.’
‘Because you put him up to it,’ Tyler said.
‘Because you refused to pay him.’
Tyler avoided this uncomfortable truth. ‘I want him arrested for leaking confidential information while on our pay roll.’
‘But he isn’t on our pay roll. I put the girl’s name on the form.’
‘Then arrest her!’ Tyler was so angry he was starting to sound unhinged.
‘But she didn’t write the article and we can’t prove Carney did. The Mirror will never reveal their source.’
Kane wanted to say, That’s what you get when you shaft a journalist, but at that point Chief Constable Newman walked in. He, too, was holding a copy of the newspaper. Great, thought Kane, as if things couldn’t get any worse.
‘Ah, James, I’m glad you’re here,’ Tyler said, forcing himself to calm down. ‘I feel like I might need a witness.
‘You know,’ he continued, not bothering to mask his contempt, ‘I’ve been giving a lot of thought to CID, and I reckon it needs a bit of a shake-up. We could do with some new keen, fresh officers who don’t find it quite so hard to obey orders or feel the need to go off on witch hunts with tabloid hacks.’
Oh well, thought Kane, Siberia awaits. At least he was a proper cop, though, not like this empty uniform currently lecturing him. ‘In short, I think a new broom is required around here.’ He turned to the man he would soon replace and said, ‘Don’t you agree, sir?’
‘Perhaps,’ said the chief constable, and his deputy’s smile was one of triumph, until his boss added: ‘But I’m afraid it won’t be you, Edward.’
‘What?’ Tyler’s shock was palpable.
‘I wanted you to hear it first, and I wanted you to hear it from me,’ the chief constable explained. ‘I’m withdrawing my support for your candidacy and will be recommending we go outside the force for the next chief constable.’
Kane stared at his boss in bewilderment.
‘But why?’ Tyler almost wailed. ‘I haven’t done anything. That whole business with the girl was years ago. I defy anyone to have done it differently.’
The chief constable waved his excuse away. ‘I’m not talking about that. Frankly, the only person who really knows what happened back then is you.’
‘Well, then!’ His voice was a high-pitched plea and Kane could see how desperate he was to stay in the game.
‘It’s never really the act itself,’ explained the chief constable, ‘it’s the cover-up. It’s always the cover-up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, someone removed those notes from that file.’
‘It wasn’t me!’ Tyler blustered.
‘Who, then?’ his boss asked simply, and no answer was forthcoming. ‘And you applied pressure to a subordinate to omit you from an account of the initial investigation.’
‘I did no such thing.’
‘I’ve been to see him, Edward. I knew Hugh Rennie when I was a chief super. A good man, but liable to wilt under pressure, though he did at least put Bradshaw here on to you at his leaving do.’
All eyes turned to Bradshaw, who nodded his agreement.
‘This is ridiculous,’ blustered Tyler.
‘You hindered an investigation into several missing women. They might have died.’
‘You can’t prove that. No one can.’
‘I don’t have to prove it. You won’t end up in jail, though some might say you should. I’m merely withdrawing my support for your candidature, which I have a perfect right to do.’
‘Without your backing they won’t pick me!’ protested Tyler.
‘Probably not,’ said the chief constable, and Kane knew there was no probably about it. Edward Tyler was finished.
‘I’ll resign then, if that’s what you want.’ His boss didn’t seem too perturbed. ‘You never liked me.’ It was the accusation of a schoolchild.
To Kane’s surprise, the chief constable said, ‘No, Edward, I never did, much.’ He let that sink in before concluding: ‘But I didn’t have to like you, just respect your judgement. Then I would know this force was in safe hands.’ He shook his head. ‘And you just said it yourself: you haven’t done anything, except cover your own arse, which, frankly, is unforgivable.’
Tyler knew he was finished. ‘So you thought
you’d tell me this in front of an audience?’
‘I did that for the same reason you were initially happy to see me. I wanted witnesses. If this incident has taught me one thing, it’s that you cannot be trusted.’ With that, Newman must have decided he had said enough, and he made to leave the room. When the chief constable reached the door, he turned back to face Tyler. ‘Oh, and Edward, I accept your resignation.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Tom thought Helen would want to hear the good news about Tyler’s professional demise right away, even though Bradshaw tried to tempt him with the prospect of a celebratory pint. He thought about it, but for the second time recently he turned down the detective’s offer. Later, he would wonder to himself what the consequences might have been if he had met Ian at the pub instead of heading straight home.
Tom parked up and went inside. He called her name, because the lights were on and he assumed she was in the kitchen, but there was no sign of her there, so he took a bottle of beer from the fridge and walked into the lounge. He found Helen there, unconscious, lying on the floor.
The ambulance reached him in minutes, but it still felt like an eternity.
‘I found her like this when I got home,’ he blurted as they started to put her on a stretcher. Tom thought he had lost Helen when she went missing, then they had got her back, and now it looked like he might lose her again. There didn’t seem to be any sign of forced entry and he couldn’t see any obvious injury to her, so what the hell had happened?
He rode with her in the back of the ambulance and, to his immense relief, she came round groggily before they reached the hospital. Helen blinked at Tom and he took her hand. Then she realized she was in an ambulance. ‘What happened?’ she asked, as if he knew the answer.
‘I was going to ask you that,’ he said.
It was several hours before Tom was allowed to go to her bedside, by which time Helen had been tested for a variety of ailments, from low blood sugar to epilepsy.
‘You shouldn’t have waited all this time,’ she scolded him.
‘I was glad of the skive,’ he said. ‘Hospital waiting rooms are brilliant. I get to read all the old magazines I normally never have time for. How are you?’ he asked, then he smiled at her. ‘The things you’ll do for attention.’
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘I feel enough of an idiot as it is.’ But he noticed she was still too weak to fully sit up. ‘At least I didn’t miss another election.’
‘But you did miss the Eurovision Song Contest,’ he informed her, ‘and Britain won.’
‘Gutted I missed that.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Basically, yes. There’s nothing actually wrong with me. Unless you count syncope, which I don’t.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the technical word for fainting. I passed out, possibly due to a temporary blockage of blood supply to the brain, or maybe just because of hyperventilation. Either way, I feel like a complete fraud sitting here, but they told me to stay in for a night, just in case.’
‘Helen, you were held at gunpoint by a maniac who drugged you, then locked up in a cold bunker with little food and hardly any sleep. You escaped, then the maniac’s father fired a gun at you.’
‘Which didn’t contain any bullets.’
‘You weren’t to know that,’ Tom reminded her. ‘You could have been killed. Anyone would have a reaction to that. I’m surprised it took so long.’
‘I kept thinking about those poor women, and I think I panicked. I was only down there for a little while. They were there for years.’ She shuddered. ‘I could have been, too, if you and Ian hadn’t worked it out.’
‘You were doing a pretty good job of rescuing yourself when we arrived,’ he reminded her. ‘It was every man for himself down there for a while, but let’s not go over it again now.’
‘Agreed,’ she said, ‘and things could be a lot worse. Apparently, my kidneys and liver are in reasonable condition’ ‒ she smiled ‒ ‘and, considering I’ve been living with you for a while, I’d say that’s pretty amazing.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He surreptitiously glanced at his watch then and she noticed.
‘You don’t have to stay, you know.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I don’t need looking after,’ she assured him, ‘and I can be my own company. They’re just keeping me here for observation.’
‘Okay,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Well, if you’re sure.’
‘I am,’ she said firmly. ‘Have you got somewhere to be?’
‘It’s Penny’s birthday.’ He sounded apologetic.
‘Then you should go, obviously. Where are you taking her?’
‘Nowhere flash,’ he smiled. ‘She’s a student. She prefers pasta or pizza.’
‘Then have fun.’
‘You really don’t like her, do you?’
Helen was tempted to say, No, she’s a pain in the arse, but she had modified her view since getting to know Penny better. Instead, she opted for, ‘I’m just not sure she’s right for you, that’s all. She’s very young.’
‘I’m not planning on marrying the girl,’ he said, ‘but I do like her, Helen, a lot.’ For some reason, this stung. She was hoping it was just a physical thing between them – physical things usually burned out. ‘She makes me laugh and I really enjoy her company. It’s not just the … I know you think it is, but …’ He left the sentence unfinished but he must have read her mind.
‘I didn’t say that was all it was,’ she managed, ‘and I’m happy for you both.’
‘Anyway,’ he said brightly, ‘who else would have me, eh? An ageing journo with commitment phobia living a hand-to-mouth existence. Penny kept me from being a complete Billy-no-mates when I couldn’t drag you away on that holiday with me, even on the rebound.’ Tom got up out of his chair, lifted his jacket from the back of it then picked up his bag. ‘Get some sleep, pet.’
‘I did come.’
‘What?’
Helen blurted it without thinking of the consequences, and now it was out there and she didn’t even know why she had said it.
‘To meet you,’ she said, her voice cracking a little. ‘At the pub before your flight, but you’d already left.’
‘You’re joking?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’d been sitting outside, but there was just a pile of newspapers, an empty glass and those bloody sunglasses of yours.’ He was always losing them.
Tom looked at her with a mixture of confusion and shock. It was almost comical how easy he was to read.
‘I thought you wouldn’t come,’ he said. ‘You kept saying you wouldn’t, and I believed you.’
‘A woman’s prerogative,’ she told him. ‘I changed my mind, but our timing was a little off.’
‘Our timing is always a little off,’ he said quietly.
‘It is,’ she admitted, ‘and you should go now, before you’re late.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘It was my own fault and I figured it was probably for the best.’
‘Because of the business?’
She managed a little nod that made her head ache.
‘So why tell me now?’ he asked. ‘Other than to mess with my brain?’
‘Don’t know.’ She was telling the truth about that. ‘Perhaps I hit my head when I passed out?’
There was a silence between them then that was full of meaning, until Tom said, ‘I’m seeing Penny and …’
She held up a hand. ‘It’s fine,’ she told him. ‘I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.’
‘All right then,’ he said, and there was a long pause before he added: ‘I’d better go,’ though he seemed far from certain about that now. Tom didn’t leave, not at first. Instead he walked up to the side of her bed, leaned in and kissed her very tenderly on the cheek. ‘Get well,’ he said, and then he was gone.
‘Oh god,’ she said to herself after he left. She co
uld see he was as conflicted about what she had said as she was.
She rolled over, eager to embrace sleep and willing to bet she would get more of it tonight than Tom.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
‘Calzone!’ she said triumphantly.
‘What?’
Tom looked so startled that Penny laughed and clicked her fingers. ‘… And you’re back in the room,’ she said, as if she was a stage hypnotist waking him from a trance. ‘I’m going to have the calzone.’
It had taken Penny an age to choose what she wanted for her birthday dinner and, normally, that would have irritated Tom but he had barely given it a thought.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Look, I can take you somewhere a bit better than here for your birthday.’
‘You keep saying that, but it’s my favourite.’
He wondered what she liked so much about the budget Italian restaurant with its PVC tablecloths and empty wine bottles with candles burning in them. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked him.
‘Nothing,’ he said, knowing he had been miles away.
‘You seem preoccupied.’ She leaned over and took his hand. ‘Is it Helen?’
‘No.’ How the hell did she know that?
‘You shouldn’t worry about her. She’s in the right place. They’ll look after her.’
‘You’re right.’ He realized she only meant that Helen was in hospital. Then he smiled. ‘I’m sorry. No more fretting about Helen, I promise.’
He squeezed her hand then and they had a moment, but it didn’t last. Tom’s mobile phone started to ring shrilly, causing more than one head to turn in disapproval.
‘Sorry,’ he said to Penny. ‘I’d better get this. It might be the hospital.’ And he was up out of his seat and heading for the door to avoid disturbing other diners. ‘If the waiter comes, you know what I want.’
Tom answered the phone before he was out of the door but as he passed through it and into a crisp, cool night he was surprised to hear Ian Bradshaw’s voice on the line.
‘Have you got a moment?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘How’s Helen?’
‘Resting. They think she’s going to be fine.’
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