by Jo Bannister
He waited until he saw in Carney’s eyes the stark terror of certain and imminent death. Then he broke the gun open and thumbed the shells out.
Chapter Six
Cars took Carney and his mechanic away. An ambulance came for Donovan. Still sitting on the ground by the wheel of the car, resting his head on the paintwork, so weak and dizzy it was plain he could not have stood up to save his life, he tried to persuade Shapiro it was an unnecessary precaution. ‘I’m all right. I’ll creak for a couple of days, then I’ll be fine. I don’t need to go to hospital again.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Shapiro said with conviction. Donovan still had the gun. Shapiro took it gently from him.
‘If I have any more X-rays I’ll glow in the dark!’
‘Sergeant, do as you’re told,’ the Chief Inspector said wearily. ‘Just for once. For me. Just to show that you can.’
Donovan opened his mouth, then shut it again. His eyes shut too.
Hampered by the tight skirt Liz knelt beside him. ‘Excuse me.’ She put her hands inside his shirt.
Without opening his eyes he grinned lazily. ‘Back home in Glencurran this’d mean we had to get married.’
The wire had been taped to his skin under his belt where only a strip-search would have found it. A man looking for a gun could have patted him up and down all day and never known it was there. Liz gave the slender thing to Shapiro who couched it in hands that were not quite steady, looking at it as if it were something alien, something outside his experience.
As if she were his mother Liz buttoned Donovan’s shirt again. As she did so his good hand came up and held her wrist for a moment. He looked her in the eye and said, ‘Thanks, boss.’
Liz stared at him. In the glare of lights his face was a death’s head, the skin bone-white except where it had been blackened. He’d been beaten within not too many inches of his life. Every breath cost him pain. She looked at the hand he was holding and there was blood on her fingers from inside his shirt. She said faintly, ‘Whatever for?’
‘For the back-up. I couldn’t have managed alone. And for keeping your nerve. A lot of people would have stepped in to finish it before the big man showed. Don’t worry about that.’ He’d noticed his blood on her fingers. ‘There’s plenty where that came from. I’d have given a damn sight more of it to get Carney where we have him now.’
For a moment Liz was unsure how to respond. If he’d been on his feet she might have slapped him down, reminding him tacitly if not explicitly of their respective ranks and the fact that she had higher imperatives in running an operation than obliging her sergeant. Somehow she couldn’t say that to an injured man, and by the time she’d worked out why she was glad. It was an honest expression of appreciation from someone who’d literally risked everything to do his job and he deserved better than to have his head bitten off for a breach of protocol.
‘Wait till tomorrow,’ she advised, ‘see if you’re still grateful then.’
‘We got the bastards,’ said Donovan. The edges of his words were growing woolly but there was no mistaking the satisfaction, happiness even, in his voice. ‘We got the man who killed Alan and the man who sent him. I don’t care how I feel tomorrow.‘
‘I’m glad it worked out,’ she said. ‘It was a clever idea of yours. Risky, but clever. I’m glad it worked out how you wanted.’
Donovan’s hand slipped off the cuff of her velvet jacket, the bony knuckles brushing down the leather of her skirt. ‘I couldn’t have done it without Sheena.’
‘Tina, damn it,’ she exploded softly, half of her wanting to laugh and half, inexplicably, to cry.
He didn’t answer. His eyes slid closed again but a trace of the grin remained on his broken lips. Shapiro nodded to the paramedics and they took over.
When the ambulance had gone he turned to Liz and smiled sombrely. ‘I hope you know how honoured you are.’
‘Honoured?’ She didn’t understand.
‘Donovan. He calls me sir because he has to and he calls you ma’am because you told him to, but boss is what he used to call Alan.’
They began the slow walk up the track to the main road, where four young men on motorcycles were trying in vain to convince the check-point that they were only out for a moonlight ride round the Levels. Shapiro’s car was with the other police vehicles.
They’d followed the primrose BMW out here – at a safe distance, once it began moving this way there was no question but that it was on Donovan’s trail. Only after Inspector Graham radioed in that McMeekin had reached the car park did Shapiro move his vehicles up to close the road and lead his men down into the trees.
He needed them near enough to halt the action at a moment’s notice, near enough to prevent either of the targets disappearing into the dark wood, far enough away that an unlucky step wouldn’t betray them. He set up his cordon about sixty metres out from the car park. Three officers were armed with guns, the others with torches.
His only contact with Liz was by radio. She was covering Donovan from as close as she could escape detection and any movement towards her would certainly have been seen. As the person with the best overview of what was happening she was effectively running the operation.
‘Why did he wait so long?’ wondered Shapiro as they walked. ‘He damn nearly let them kill him. Why?’
‘To make sure,’ explained Liz. There was a shake in her voice of which she seemed unaware. ‘He was sick of being told he needed more evidence. He wanted taped confessions from both of them. He wanted them to admit to DI Clarke’s murder. Then he wanted them to admit to killing the bag-lady. In case there was a cock-up and the first charge wouldn’t stick.’
Shapiro turned to look at her. ‘And what’s your excuse?’
She didn’t know what he meant. ‘Sorry?’
‘You were in control. You could have blown the whistle at any time. You let that animal beat the living daylights out of him. Why?’
It was a question she’d known she would have to answer some time. She had not expected it to come so soon, or from him. ‘Because of the stakes. Because it was the only sure way to put behind bars criminals who’d killed one police officer and tried to kill another.’
‘That’s why we gave Donovan’s idea a shot,’ agreed Shapiro. ‘That’s why we engineered the argument in the pub, why Donovan spent the evening drinking and then came up here with no back-up to speak of. Because Carney had to believe he was out on his own, an easy target.’
‘What do you mean, no back-up?’ Liz waved the curly black wig indignantly.
Shapiro allowed her a smile. ‘Apart from Tina the tom with her Saturday night special in her handbag. But if McMeekin had thought to search you, or thought it wiser to kill you too, I don’t know if you could have stopped him. It was a hell of a gamble. I could have lost you both. As it is the lad’s taken more damage than I ever imagined. God knows how long he’ll be out of action, or even if he’ll make a full recovery. A beating like that can stay with a man for life.’
‘It was a gamble,’ agreed Liz. Her tone was determined: she was aware she was defending her credibility. ‘But whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to happen till Carney arrived. He didn’t want Donovan dead in a nice, quick, discreet accident – not this time. He wanted him to know why he was dying: that there were some people he couldn’t push around even with the weight of the law behind him. And he wanted to watch.
‘If Carney hadn’t turned up we’d have had to take McMeekin on his own. But there was every chance that Carney’d be there. That’s why it was worth waiting, even with Donovan getting hammered. He thought so or he’d have called me in sooner. He wanted it wrapped up so it couldn’t come untied. That was worth a couple of cracked ribs to him.’
‘Donovan is a sergeant,’ Shapiro reminded her. ‘You’re an inspector. That gives you both the right and the duty to override any decisions of his which, because of emotional involvement or plain bad judgement, don’t stand up. That’s what I require of my inspectors. Power
and responsibility.’
‘That’s what you got, sir,’ Liz said quietly. ‘It was my judgement that the risks we took, including the risk of injury to Sergeant Donovan, were justified by the likely outcome. That judgement was vindicated by events. I’m sorry if you feel I was wrong to let it go on so long. I accept that there’s room for other views on the matter, that it would also have been a valid judgement to stop it before the officer got hurt. But if I’d done that we wouldn’t have got Carney. I’ll defend my decision at a disciplinary hearing if you feel that’s appropriate.’
Shapiro sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m not suggesting that. I’m not even saying you’re wrong. I just wanted to be sure that you’d thought it through. That you hadn’t let the thing run out of control.’
‘It wasn’t out of control,’ insisted Liz. ‘It could have ended badly. If it had I’d still have defended my judgement.’
‘And if Donovan had shot Carney?’
‘There was never any question of that.’
‘Liz, I saw him! You saw him – we all bloody saw him. He decided against. But he thought about it.’
‘Of course he thought about it. After what he’s been through he’d have been superhuman not to. But he didn’t do it, and he didn’t try to. We’re responsible to society for our actions: our thoughts are our own.’
‘If he’d done it his defence would have been that he was too punch-drunk to think straight. Any jury in the land would accept that. I’m not sure what they’d think of an inspector who watched her officer beaten witless because she wanted her case to have a belt as well as braces.’
‘Legal errors occur. People do walk on technicalities. If for some reason we can’t put them away for killing DI Clarke we can have them for killing Lucy. If they went free they’d do a lot worse than beat up the odd policeman before we could get them again.’
Shapiro sighed. ‘I’m not challenging that. I’m just concerned that you don’t make that kind of decision – that kind of pay-off between damage and results – too easily.’
‘Easily?’ Incredulity caught in her throat. ‘Sir, I’ve sweated blood! I didn’t want to leave him with McMeekin. While I was hidden in the wood waiting for you to get in position, every moment I wanted to stop it. I had the gun, I had the element of surprise, I could have done it. Donovan would never have forgiven me but I could have lived with that. Every time McMeekin hit him I thought, That’s it, he’s going to kill him – even if I stop it now, maybe he’s crippled already.
‘But Donovan was conscious, I could hear him, he was still making sense and he hadn’t called me in. You think I enjoyed watching that – obscenity? We agreed I’d stay out until we had what we wanted unless he absolutely needed me in there sooner. It was my judgement that that moment had not quite come.’ She shook her head and her voice broke, angry and distressed. ‘You don’t need to throw this at me, Frank. I’m going to have enough trouble sleeping after what I let them do to him. If I got it wrong, if he’s badly hurt, you’ll have my resignation in the morning. You can have it now if you want. I don’t know what I’m doing in a job that asks you to make that kind of decision, those kinds of choices.’
Shapiro took her into the fold of his arm, felt the rigidity that would any moment turn to shaking. ‘The best you can, like all of us. We do our best, we hope it’s enough, mostly it is and sometimes it isn’t. But it’s never easy. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I think I’m a bit punch-drunk too. Come on, we’re about finished – let’s get out of here.’
They went back to town, Shapiro driving. Because it was just the two of them, and their friendship went back a long way, Liz felt able to ask him what could have been an impertinent question. ‘If it had been your call, Frank. If you’d been the man on the spot. If you’d been standing where I was, in the wood, watching, with a gun in your hand – would you have stopped it? If McMeekin had laid into your sergeant with both ends of a shot-gun, knowing what interfering would cost, would you have blown the whistle?’
Shapiro didn’t even hesitate. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said simply. ‘Whatever the consequences I couldn’t have watched an officer I was responsible for take a beating like that without trying to stop it.’
‘Then you think I was wrong.’
‘Not necessarily. I don’t know which of us is right. Maybe there’s no right and wrong about it. If Donovan’s OK it’ll have been worth it; if he isn’t it’ll be harder to judge. All I can tell you is what I’d have done. But then, I always knew you were tougher than me. You had to be, to come this far. Maybe the new generation of coppers are all tougher than me. Maybe I’m getting old.’
‘There’s something else,’ Liz ventured after a pause. ‘Something I took into account which you mightn’t have considered. Perhaps I shouldn’t have but I did. Donovan. He needed a success. If he was going to be any use in the future, to himself or anyone else, he needed to break the jinx.’
Shapiro thought about it. ‘At the cost of blood?’
‘Especially if it cost him blood. You know about Donovan’s Luck: other people collect his flak, pay for his mistakes? But not this time. This time it was his plan, his neck, his risk; and he pulled it off, and the only one who got hurt was him. I think, by the time somebody’s strapped up his ribs and stitched up his face, he’s going to feel pretty good about that.’
She heard a soft snort which for a moment she failed to identify. Then she realized Shapiro was chuckling. She stared at him until he felt her eyes and explained. ‘You two. Have you any idea how alike you are? Oh, you talk nicer than Donovan, you‘re better company, but beneath that nice middle-class veneer you’re as much of a street-fighter as he is.’
Liz blinked, astonished. ‘A street-fighter? Me?’
‘Undoubtedly. A beautifully brought-up street-fighter, a street-fighter with a grammar-school accent, but the velvet glove doesn’t alter the essential nature of the iron fist. You’ll go a long way. I’ve always worried too much about the minutiae, about justifying every detail – occasionally it’s paid off but more often it’s bogged me down. I can’t see you making the same mistake. You have the courage of your convictions. You’re like Donovan in that too.’
Liz was troubled. She wasn’t sure that Shapiro was paying her a compliment. She’d known him too long to think he admired ruthlessness, even when it was effective. She said in a low voice, ‘I don’t know if that’s the sort of copper I want to be. I’m not ambitious, Frank. Not enough to want promotion more than respect,’
He glanced fondly at her. ‘Liz, whatever you choose to do – if you want to be the first female chief constable or the best detective inspector in the country – wherever you want to go from here you will always have my respect. Even if we don’t agree on everything. Look. Police work, particularly CID, isn’t an exact science. You do your best and hope it’ll work out, but often enough the results are disappointing. It’s hard to keep on trying, but you have to. That’s where street-fighters come into their own. It’s better to try too hard than not hard enough.
‘That’s Donovan’s strength: that he’ll put himself on the line for something that matters without wanting a cast-iron guarantee that he’ll come out of it all right. You have to watch your back in this job, but if you’re always watching your back you lose sight of where you’re going. Donovan doesn’t mind making himself unpopular. He doesn’t mind being in a minority of one. It doesn’t make him the easiest man to work with but it means he sometimes gets results that almost nobody else could get. You do that too. Eyes on the prize: isn’t that what the Americans say?’ He sounded pleased and surprised that he knew that.
They drove another mile in silence. Then Shapiro said, ‘I want to make a call on our way in, if that’s all right?’
It was a purely rhetorical question. Liz nodded automatically. ‘Of course, sir. Where are we going?’
‘It’s time I talked to Marion Clarke. For both their sakes – hers and Donovan’s. I shouldn’t have let this go on so long: her blaming the l
ad for Alan’s death and both of them hurting because of it. It’s time I put a stop to it.’
Liz studied what she could see of his profile by the gleam of the instruments. ‘At two o’clock in the morning?’
Shapiro nodded warily. ‘I know. I should have done it sooner. I’ve been busy. She’ll be in bed, I’ll have to get her up. But I think – I think – she’ll be glad I did. I think she might want to go down to the hospital, see if he’s all right.’
Liz didn’t know Alan Clarke’s widow, didn’t know how she was likely to react. And she was learning something new about Shapiro all the time. When he’d parked the car she said, ‘Shall I come in with you?’
‘No need,’ he said, ‘and anyway better not. She won’t be wondering who’s on her doorstep, she’ll know it’s me. And we might get cross with one another before we’re done so we’d better be left alone for ten minutes. Then you can drive us both to Castle General.’
But as he was climbing out of the car, a man past middle age weary with all that had happened in the last eight days, he came slowly to a halt and turned back to her. ‘There is something you can do.’
‘Name it.’ She was tired too but she meant it.
‘Think if there’s any way you could stay here – take Alan’s job on a permanent basis. Brian’s an art teacher, isn’t he? Could he get work in Castlemere? There are some good schools. If not, would one of you consider commuting? I don’t want to put you on the spot, Liz, I’m not expecting you to choose between your marriage and your career. I haven’t said anything to Headquarters, if the idea doesn’t appeal to you all you’ll be turning down is an informal approach, there’ll be nothing on your record. But if there was a way I’d like to have you here.’
Momentarily she was dumbfounded, amazed and not amazed.