by Caz Frear
“And I thought I was. I thought by reining her in when it came to making the big decisions, I was freeing her up to do actual police work. And we needed all hands on deck, trust me.”
“Requesting bank records, though. That’s grunt work. I’ve had rookies who’d have turned their noses up.”
A defiant stare. “Tess Dyer has never turned her nose up at anything she’s been asked to do, and that’s why she is where she is. I wouldn’t put it past her to head up the Met one day, and she’ll still be doing the grunt work then if that’s what needs to be done.”
“Well, that’s quite the school report, Olly, but she’s not quite the model student, I’m afraid. See, it turns out that she requested them, but didn’t upload them to the system. God knows what happened to them, but there was only ever Tess’s eyes on them until this week.”
He doesn’t blink. “So she’s fallible.”
“Hmm, fallible’s one word. Negligent is another.” What Dyer did was more than negligent, but Steele’s holding back, teasing things out. “Olly, she shouldn’t have been on the case at all, not with the hell she was going through in her personal life.”
“No.” He points a swollen finger. “No, don’t use that against her, Kate. A bloody admin oversight has nothing to do with what was going on at home. Tess Dyer is a professional.”
Tess Dyer is a professional.
Tess Dyer never turns her nose up at what she’s asked to do.
Tess Dyer shits glitter and cries rainbows, and heals the sick in her spare time.
I’ve no idea why I’m being caustic. I fell for it, for a while.
Cairns isn’t finished. “And whether you’ve a sick spouse at home or not, mistakes get made, Kate. Things get missed, mislaid. It’s human error. There’s only so many hours in the day.”
Steele sneaks a look at me—wish me luck.
“Thing is, Olly, that’s all well and good, but I haven’t given up my Monday night crochet circle”—I have no idea if she’s joking—“to come here telling tales about an admin oversight. Those bank records that Tess requested, read, and then failed to upload or report to anyone, prove that Christopher Masters wasn’t in London the day Holly Kemp went missing. Which means the witness isn’t credible and all assumptions fall apart. In all likelihood, someone else killed Holly and Tess has known that all along.”
I expect shock, outrage, maybe a short period of silence while he struggles to digest. But the ex–Chief Superintendent comes to the fore almost instantly. His body may be crocked, but his brain is still needle-sharp.
“So, let me get this straight, Masters wasn’t at the house, but Holly was?”
“So Serena Bailey insists,” I say, finally inserting myself.
“Well then, Tess was right and I was wrong. An accomplice is the obvious explanation.”
“Sir, we’ve got doubts about whether Bailey was even there herself. She’s lied to us throughout the course of the investigation. There’s no sign of her on CCTV. She wasn’t marked as being absent . . .”
“Tess was right?” Steele cuts across me, her voice breaking the sound barrier. “Olly, she ignored crucial evidence in a murder investigation.”
“How do you know that for sure?” His tone is changing, every word a provocation. “You only know Tess requested the bank records, then received them. You don’t know, you can’t prove, that she read them.”
Steele’s eyes widen. “I’m sorry, is that supposed to be an observation, because it sounds a lot like a challenge? A threat.” She gives him a long penetrating stare, playing the tough nut to a T. “Oh, she read them, Olly, because she’s a professional, like you say. And it’s not up to me to prove anything. That’ll be up to the DPS.” The Department of Professional Standards, or the Department of Professional Shit-stirrers as Flowers likes to call them. “She can explain to them why she withheld potentially vital evidence.”
Cairns folds his arms, lets out one short, angry breath. “She did it because I ordered her to.” Steele audibly gasps. “I told her to delete those records out of her email and never speak of them again. And I told you, Tess Dyer does what she’s asked to do.”
“And that includes committing misconduct in a public office?” Steele’s shock goes beyond the implications of this case. She’s looking at Cairns like she’s never seen him before. “What the actual fuck, Olly?”
“Ah now, calm down. Misconduct? I was protecting our case. We had Serena Bailey and we had no reason to doubt her. None. Why the hell would she lie?” The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “She was as solid a witness as ever I saw in my career, and that was a forty-three-year career, I’ll remind you. Forty-three years of making decisions that put villains where they belong.” He sits up straighter, seeming braver, even physically stronger after dropping his bomb. “And look, OK, maybe I wasn’t totally honest with you. Maybe Tess’ personal life was affecting her work. Maybe I should have taken her off the case. But that’s my failing, not hers. I pushed her into tying Holly up with Masters. Blame me, not her.”
Blame me, not her. The same thing Dyer had said about Susie Grainger. A warped sense of responsibility passed from mentor to mentee.
“But why?” says Steele, still wide-eyed and dumbstruck. “And what would you have done if Masters hadn’t decided to play silly buggers and keep schtum? He could have given himself an alibi at any point. It’s a measure of the man’s lunacy that he didn’t.”
He shrugs. “If he did, he did. I was fairly sure he wouldn’t, though—that bastard liked the control, liked giving people the runaround. As for why . . . I had pressures too, Kate. Looking out for Tess. Turvill breathing down my neck. Me and Moira on the skids. I wanted that case closed.”
“So you withheld evidence. Jesus, Olly . . .”
He closes his eyes, taking a moment. “Look, those bank records weren’t the be-all and end-all for me. His card could have been stolen or cloned. Jesus, my nephew had his whole bloody account emptied by someone on a spending spree in São Paulo!”
“His card wasn’t stolen,” I say, deadpan. “It’s clear from his bank records that he used it the next day, in and around Clapham. And as for cloned—one quick call to the bank would have put that to bed.”
His eyes land on mine for a second, then dart back to Steele.
“Anyway, you call it withholding evidence, I call it directing resources and attention down the most obvious path—and with Bailey, Masters was the most obvious path.” Another shrug. “And anyway, Masters’ brief could have requested the very same records at any point and he didn’t. It wasn’t our job to prove him innocent.”
“You don’t believe that, Olly. I know you don’t. What happened to you?” Her eyes glitter with what could be tears. The tough nut, cracked. “You know I have to hand this over to the DPS. I should have done it already.”
“Then why haven’t you?” There’s hope in his voice, but it couldn’t be more misplaced.
“I chose professional courtesy over professional duty and I’m already regretting that decision.” She stands up. “And I’d really appreciate you doing me the courtesy of not speaking to Tess about this. Let me do my job.”
“I will, Katie, love, if you do me one last courtesy. Forget this last half-hour. Remember all the years, all the pints. All the holes I dug you out of. I’m begging you, don’t finish her career over this. This was me, this was all on me.”
I look across at Steele, not sure what to say. She hasn’t spoken a word since Cairns’ front door closed, apart from a muttered “bloody typical” at the dollop of bird shit on her windshield. Eventually, I break the silence.
“You look like you just found out Santa doesn’t exist.”
In truth, she looks worse. She looks like she just found out not only does Santa not exist, but the very notion of him has been eradicated and outsourced to an expensive app. Presents downloaded. All letters to the North Pole scrapped forthwith. No more grottoes and elves and leaving a carrot out for the reindeer. All trace of mag
ic stripped away.
“He’s dying,” she replies, her tone appropriately lifeless. “Prostate cancer. And now it’s spread to his spine. Good days and bad days, he says, but the upshot is it’s terminal.”
I think I always suspected it on some deep level. Even that first time in the pub, despite all the handshakes and wisecracks, Cairns still had that haunted, hollowed-out look of a man living on borrowed time. It’s a look I saw on Mum’s face enough times, even as she booked minibreaks, made plans for Christmas, tried to smile as she planted sunflowers she wouldn’t see bloom.
“Right. So not arthritis then?”
“Oh, he has rheumatoid arthritis. He got a nice double-whammy.” A quick glance upward. “Yep, Olly Cairns certainly did something to offend the big guy in the sky.”
My buttons are pressed. “Oh, come on, that’s bullshit. When your time’s up, your time’s up. It’s down to cell mutations, nothing to do with a vengeful God.”
Because if it was, it’d be Dad’s grave I’d be laying sunflowers on every month. Mum never did anyone any harm.
“How long have you known?” I ask.
“A few days. I tried to get hold of him the day Fellows’ name came up, just to sound him out, you know—I mean, it’s been years, decades, since he worked Organized Crime, but Olly’s always had his ear to the ground, always been well networked. Anyway, his phone was off for hours. He called me back that night, we talked, and he told me. He’d been in the hospital. Palliative radiotherapy. It manages the pain, slows things down, although by the looks of him . . .”
“Does he know how long?”
“If he does, he isn’t saying. He doesn’t want the sympathy. He’s been passing it off as a bad RA flare-up as much as he can.”
“Dyer knows, presumably?”
She nods. “I’d say it’s hit her hard.”
“We can’t think about that. It’s not our place to get sentimental.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that, Kinsella. Thank you.” She glances sideways. “God, it’s come to something when I’m being lectured on empathy by you, of all people. If I said Cairns is to Dyer what Parnell is to you, or he certainly used to be, would that soften your hard heart?”
“Is her career definitely finished?” I ask, punching away the thought of a seriously ill Parnell rattling around a big, lonely house. “I mean, as in finished finished? If she was acting under Cairns’ instruction . . .”
“That might wash if I ordered you to do something dodgy, but Dyer’s a DCI. She should have known better.” She thinks about it some more. “There’s a small chance they could be lenient, I suppose. She might not lose her job entirely. But the career she had planned, that’s finished. They’ll definitely take action against her.”
“And Cairns.”
She turns and looks back down the road, toward the house. “Well, he hardly needs the pension, does he? And he’s dying. Suspended sentence is my guess, but God knows.”
Despite everything, it’s hard not to feel sad about a life ending in pain, probable loneliness, and complete reputational ruin.
“So what did he have to say about Fellows?”
She looks distracted. “Who?”
“Cairns. Or didn’t you get around to that? I guess, ‘I’ve got terminal cancer’ is a bit of conversation stopper.”
“Oh no, we did. He didn’t have a lot to say, though. He knows who Fellows is, of course—hadn’t a clue he was gay, which surprised me a bit; Olly always used to have the goss on everyone. But he hadn’t a clue how he’d be connected to this case either. Said his name certainly never surfaced the first time around, although can we trust anything he says now? He’s a corrupt police officer, Cat. A criminal.”
Which makes me what, exactly?
The lights of New York City have never burned as brightly as they do right now.
25
Thinking about Mum always drives me to Dad. Unfortunately, Dad’s “recuperating” at Jacqui’s and Jacqui drives me to drink. Seriously, I haven’t been in the door five minutes and I’ve already failed my sister on a hundred different levels. The color of my top doesn’t suit me. The timing of my visit doesn’t suit her. I’ve opened the Sancerre, not the Sauvignon, and the Sancerre was for the PTA raffle. I haven’t noticed she’s had her hair layered but I have noticed the damp patch on the kitchen wall.
I’m too quick to notice faults, apparently.
I’m not what her decluttering guru would call a “natural uplifter.”
Still, at least Finn is pleased to see me, barreling into me with such force that half my wine ends up on the kitchen floor.
“Hey, steady, Finn-bo. Not the precious Sancerre.”
“Can I have a bit?” he says, sticking his nose in the glass. “Yuck, that smells like wee.”
“Ah, give it ten years and you won’t be saying that. Actually, maybe you won’t be drinking wine in ten years. Vodka or cider, I reckon.”
He looks up at me, hazel-green eyes just like Mum’s. “What’s cider?”
“It’s fizzy and it tastes of apples.”
“Sounds nice.” Next question. “Why is Sancerre precious?”
“’Cos it costs lots of Mummy’s money.”
“I’ve got lots of money,” he tells me. “I’ve still got the £50 Uncle Frank gave me.” He races to the kitchen drawer, retrieving the fifty, then waving it in my face, “I’m gonna buy a droid gunship.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I pull a “WTF?” face at Jacqui, who’s busy making a Stormtrooper helmet out of milk cartons.
I break into a grin.
“What?” she says, shaking a can of white spray paint. “What’s so funny?”
“You know you could buy one of those for a tenner.”
“Why pay when I can make one myself?”
Why take the easy option when I’d much rather martyr myself?
“’S’pose,” I agree, sensing this could turn into an argument. It doesn’t take us much, especially after white wine. “Hey, I was up this way last week. Riverdale Primary, just down the road near Canons Park. Did you never think of sending Finn there? It seemed nice. The head had this collage of all the pupils and their favorite books and fruits and all this other stuff.”
“Cute. But I’m more interested in SAT scores. King Alfred’s is much better.”
“You’d hope it would be at £5K a term.”
Side-eye from across the kitchen. “Can we leave the Marxism for one evening, Cat?”
“It just seems harsh that Dad’s paying all that money when all he wants is for Finn to play for West Ham.”
She makes a hmph sound. “Yeah, well, he paid enough for your education and you joined the police. I think he’s used to disappointment.”
“Jesus, you and Noel will never get over that, will you?”
Not the police officer thing, the private school education. Jacqui and Noel were both well into their teens when Dad “made” his Big Money, and Mum decided there was probably no point in them moving schools then. That meant no fancy school uniforms, no after-school archery lessons. It was only me who was deemed young enough to be molded into the perfect private school princess.
A failed project, if ever there was one.
“Noel might be coming back from Spain,” Jacqui says with a sprinkle of barbed glee. She and Noel are hardly doting siblings, but it’s payback for the reminder that Dad funds her life.
And something I could have really done without hearing.
“When? What do you mean might?” I look over at Finn, currently engaged in a climactic gun fight on his PlayStation. I lower my voice. “He’s out of prison then?”
She sets the Stormtrooper mask aside, stands up. “He’s been out for months, Cat. It was nothing . . . a few Es.”
“Three-hundred, Jacqs. Remind me not to come out with you for ‘a few’ cocktails.”
“Yeah right, like that’s ever going to happen. Remind me when we last had a night out?”
To be fair, I walked straight into tha
t one.
I quickly change the subject. “So where is he then? The one-armed bandit?”
She flicks her head toward the kitchen window. “He’s in the garden. I think he likes the peace.”
“He lives above a bloody pub!”
“A pub that doesn’t have an eight-year-old boy constantly shouting at Fortnite.”
“Ange didn’t fancy playing nursemaid then?”
“She runs her own salon, some swish place out in Essex. Does pretty long hours. It made more sense for Dad to stay here for a week or two.”
“Is there any danger of her turning up here?” If the answer’s yes, if there’s even the slightest chance we might be forced into a pained intro, I’m going to break the land speed record getting out the front door.
“No, she’s coming tomorrow night. But there’s no ‘danger,’ Cat. She’s nice.”
“I’m sure she is,” I lie. “I’m just not in the mood for small talk.” I pour another wine—a large one this time, a third of the bottle. “And anyway, I need to talk to Dad. Alone.”
“Oh yeah, what about?”
“Work.”
I leave her pondering that and head outside into the now-bearable evening heat. Dad’s sitting on a wooden swing bench at the top of the garden, his head back and eyes closed, two citronella candles flickering on either side of his bare feet.
“Didn’t think you were a meditation kind of guy?” I call, halfway up the path.
He stirs and looks up. A look of complete love that makes me feel five years old.
“My God, we don’t see you up this way often. Did you bring your passport?” He sits up a little, smiling. “I was having a snooze, actually, sweetheart. I think my painkillers make me drowsy.”
“Or it’s old age.”
He laughs. “You might be right. Catches up with everyone at some point.”
Except in his case it hasn’t. Dad’s always had good genes and kept himself in pretty good shape, but I’m starting to believe that he was kissed by a fairy at birth. Even in his weakened state, he could pass for a decade younger than his fifty-six years.