The Rule

by David Jackson

  He was crying freely now. His finger was whitening on the trigger. Hannah had a horrible feeling she was powerless to prevent this death. Images of Suzy Carling running in front of a train flashed into her mind.

  Not again. Please don’t let that happen again.

  ‘Scott—’ she said.

  ‘Look at him,’ Scott interrupted. ‘What do you see? A big man in his twenties. Strong. Powerful. So powerful that we had to give him a rule to stop him from touching other people. That’s what the courts will see, too. What they won’t see – what nobody ever sees – is the real Daniel. There isn’t a harmful thought in his head. He only ever wants to please people. He loves animals, even though we can’t let him have a pet. If everyone was like Daniel, the world would be a better place. Why is it that people always have to destroy what they don’t understand?’

  Hannah searched for an answer, but none came.

  And then it stepped out in front of her.

  Tilly.

  She appeared from the shadows behind Daniel and she slipped her tiny hand into his immense one. Neither Scott nor Gemma saw her, but Hannah could have sworn that Daniel’s gaze lowered to settle on her.

  And suddenly Hannah was no longer a police officer, following rule books and procedure.

  She was a mother, pure and simple, with all the resourcefulness and intuition that motherhood entailed.

  ‘Maybe there’s a way,’ she said.

  ‘There’s no other way,’ Scott answered. ‘I tried to protect Daniel, but I failed. I’m tired now.’

  He was saying he’d reached the end, that there was no going back.

  ‘Listen to what I’m saying, Scott. Daniel saved my life, so now let me save his.’

  The earnestness in her voice made Scott’s eyes widen.

  She said, ‘What you did personally is one thing. You’re going to have to face up to that. Daniel doesn’t have to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We can change the narrative, Scott.’

  ‘I don’t . . . What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about putting it all on your shoulders, instead of Daniel’s. Are you enough of a father to do that?’

  Scott laughed when he realised what she was saying. He shook his head. ‘You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about that. But here’s the problem. Daniel can’t lie. He calls things as he sees them. He’s as honest as the day is long.’

  ‘I’m not asking him to lie.’

  ‘Forget it. It’s too late now.’

  Scott flicked off the safety catch on his gun.

  ‘Daniel,’ Hannah said. ‘I want to ask you a question. Are you ready?’

  Daniel nodded.

  ‘Don’t put him through this,’ Scott warned.

  ‘That day when you met Joey Cobb in the lift. What happened after he attacked your dad?’

  ‘Please,’ Scott said. ‘Stop.’

  ‘Somebody came and saved him.’

  ‘And who was that?’

  ‘Adam-9. He stops bad guys.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, he does. And how did Adam-9 stop Joey?’

  ‘He used his robot arm. He’s used it before, against the Quark Monster.’

  ‘Good. You’re doing well, Daniel. Here’s a harder question for you. Who is Adam-9 really?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. Nobody knows.’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been Joey, right? That only leaves you and your dad.’

  Daniel looked down. Tilly looked back at him.

  ‘I suppose. I think . . . I think it must have been me.’

  ‘You see?’ Scott said, wiping tears away with his free hand. ‘See how easy that was? They’ll tear him apart in a courtroom, and they’ll do even worse to him in prison.’

  Hannah said, ‘I think you need to tell your son the truth now, Scott.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your secret. You can’t keep it any longer. You have to tell him.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what . . .’

  Hannah turned to Gemma. ‘You’ve got no choice now, Gemma. Go and get the things.’

  Gemma looked mystified.

  ‘Please, Gemma. Scott’s secret things. The stuff he keeps in the bedroom. You told me about them when we first met. I promised not to tell anyone else.’

  It clicked. Gemma took a step towards the doorway, then looked to Scott, checking with him.

  ‘Let her do it,’ Hannah said.

  Scott nodded apprehensively. Gemma disappeared, but was back in seconds, her hands full.

  Hannah saw how Daniel’s eyes widened. He said, ‘That’s . . . that’s an Adam-9 briefcase. A real one!’

  ‘Yes it is.’

  ‘And that’s one of his masks. He uses that one the most.’

  Gemma held up the third item.

  ‘His identity card! How did you . . . ?’

  ‘Only one person could have all these things, couldn’t they, Daniel? Only one.’

  Daniel turned fully around to face his father. As he did so, the gun muzzle came to rest directly between his eyes.

  ‘Dad?’

  In shame, Scott lowered the gun.

  ‘Dad? Is it true? Are you Adam-9?’

  Scott looked across at Hannah, then back at his son. He seemed unsure about whether to play along, and then it was as though he’d decided he had nothing to lose. He nodded, blinking more tears away.

  ‘You stop all the bad guys? You stopped Joey Cobb?’

  ‘I . . . I had to, Daniel. He was threatening us. He had a gun. This gun.’

  ‘But . . . but . . . your briefcase. You didn’t have it with you that day. You need it for the robot arm.’

  Scott looked troubled that the pretence had been demolished so quickly, but then something triggered in his eyes.

  ‘I had my backpack with me. Only it wasn’t really a backpack. The camouflage switch, remember? I can disguise the briefcase. I used it that time when I had to hike up that mountain in Tibet.’

  ‘To get to the Ice Lair!’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  Daniel’s mouth dropped open. ‘Dad! I can’t believe it!’

  Scott looked across at Hannah. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Can I see? Can I look at the identity card?’

  Scott started to bring his gun up, and for a moment Hannah thought she had lost him again. But then he said, ‘Sure. Careful with it, though. I’ll be needing it.’

  It was as though Daniel’s life had never been in danger. His entire focus now centred on his discovery of his father’s top-secret identity.

  Hannah swallowed hard. It was then that she realised Tilly was no longer in the room. She had disappeared as quickly and silently as she had entered.

  She knows she’s not needed, Hannah thought. She’s done what she came for.

  While Daniel was engrossed in the identity card, Hannah took a step towards Scott. She was about to do something she would have thought unthinkable an hour ago.

  ‘You can make a case for self-defence,’ she told him. ‘Joey Cobb was threatening you and he had a gun. Daniel’s story will no longer jeopardise that defence. I will personally supervise the interviews with Daniel and with Gemma.’

  She let that sink in. Let him know that she wouldn’t be pressing them for any version of events that would endanger him. She wasn’t going to tell Scott that, as of tonight, she was no longer the senior investigating officer on the case. She was going to demand that role back from Devereux. He could hardly deny that right of the detective who had cracked the case.

  Scott looked across at his wife, who was doing her best to keep Daniel occupied while staring at her husband with frightened eyes.

  ‘Gemma,’ he muttered.

  ‘She knew nothing,’ Hannah said, her voice loud enough to ensure that Gemma got the message. ‘You brought a man into your flat who was injured. Gemma got annoyed at you for getting into a fight, and she left you to sort it out. The next day, he was gone again, and she thought no more a
bout it. Could Daniel contradict any of that?’

  Scott scratched his head, as if to dislodge memories and assess their ramifications. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘There’s still the disposal of the body,’ she said. No point trying to sugar-coat it. ‘You’ll have to own up to that. You were frightened. You’d seen the drugs and the money and the gun, and you were afraid of retaliation or jail. You didn’t know what you were doing, and you acted spontaneously.’

  Scott swayed in uncertainty. From his appearance – the mud, the way he was holding himself as though in severe pain, the fact that he’d casually wandered in here with a gun – she suspected there was a lot more to this story. She didn’t want to know. But at the same time she prayed it wasn’t something that would undermine the edifice she was desperately trying to construct and bring it tumbling down again.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I tried to cover it all up. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I only wanted to protect them.’

  Hannah nodded. She was almost there.

  The sound of the doorbell and then the urgent knocking galvanised all of them.

  Hannah reached out. ‘The gun. Give me the gun.’

  More wavering. More knocking.

  ‘The gun, Scott. You can do this. You know you can.’

  Scott handed it over. Hannah opened her bag and pushed the gun down to the bottom. Then she looked Scott in the eyes and nodded. A tacit contract between them.

  ‘Gemma,’ she said. ‘Could you let the officers in, please?’

  53

  When it was over, when it had been explained to the uniformed officers what was going on and what they had to do, when they had been instructed that nobody was to interview the suspects until she got back to the station, when she had made it clear how special Daniel was and how he needed to be treated with the utmost care and sensitivity, when they had all disappeared again except for a single officer who would remain at the door and cordon the flat off until forensics specialists arrived – when all that palaver was out of the way, Hannah Washington took one final look around the Timpsons’ flat.

  Everything she had done in the last half hour had gone against her training and pledges to uphold the law of the land. She knew that.

  She also knew that there were justices on a much larger scale than those enshrined in her job description. Her conscience was clear.

  She didn’t know if it would work out. Scott, Gemma and Daniel would all play a part, and it would take only a mere slip from one of them to drag the others down too. There was also the possibility that whatever Scott had been up to would come back to bite him. If that happened, she might be unable to save him. Might even be unable to save her own hide.

  She was willing to take that chance.

  And afterwards, when she had seen this investigation through to its conclusion, she knew she would hand in her resignation. She wanted to see the look on Devereux’s face as she went out on a high note, rather than in the disgrace and humiliation he had tried to engineer for her.

  Right now, though, there was plenty of work to be done.

  She went to the front door. As she reached for the lock, she thought she heard a noise behind her. She turned.

  Tilly was there, in the doorway to Daniel’s bedroom.

  Hannah raised her hand and gave a slight wave.

  ‘Mummy loves you,’ she said.

  Tilly smiled the sunniest of smiles. And then she went back into Daniel’s room to play with her toys.

  Hannah opened the front door and left the building, knowing she would never see her daughter again.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The Rule is my tenth published novel, which feels like some kind of milestone. Going into double digits should make me an old hand at this, but in fact I’m learning all the time and hopefully getting better at it. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is the value of a good editor, and Miranda Jewess is undeniably one of the very best. She’s also one of the most modest, but I’m afraid she’ll have to suffer some toe-curling while I praise her as Queen of the Editing Spreadsheet. And although Miranda acts as my interface and sounding board, I’m fully aware that surrounding her is a talented and dedicated team that has worked wonders on this book. My heartfelt thanks go out to them all.

  In The Rule, Daniel is fixated upon the exploits of his fictional secret agent Adam-9. I have my own not-so-secret agent in the form of Oli-1, or Oli Munson, to reveal his true identity. Oli has an endearing habit of surprising me with the outcomes of his covert activity when I least expect it, and long may it continue. Again, my thanks go not only to him but to all the wonderful gang at A.M. Heath.

  I cannot overstate my gratitude to all the authors who have kindly agreed to read early copies of my books and who have provided such amazing quotes. Their support has been incredible, as has that of the many book bloggers who have spent their valuable time in writing reviews and spreading the word.

  A major turning point for me in the past year was giving up my day job to become a full-time writer. I have only one regret about that, which is that I will dearly miss all my colleagues at the University of Liverpool. I worked there for a long time, and it was a wrench to leave. My thanks go to every one of them for their friendship, encouragement and many fond memories.

  As always, my love and appreciation of Lisa, Bethany and Eden is eternal, not least for putting up with me during a pandemic lockdown. I have seen much less of other family and friends than I would have wished in the past year, but I know that they have been rooting for me too, and I am profoundly grateful.

  And, of course, to you, the reader: thank you for sharing this journey with me. It wouldn’t be the same without you.