by Simon Hall
‘And Linda Cott? She came in to the Judge as well?’
‘Yes indeed, Adam.’
‘And what did she talk about that you used against her?’
‘Good try, but we’ve discussed that. It’s up to you to find out.’
‘Come on, Sarah, it hardly matters now. Linda’s dead and we’ve caught you. You might as well tell us.’
‘Not yet, Adam. Let’s say it’s another of the riddles you have to solve.’
Adam sighed again, but kept his voice calm. ‘I’ll ask you this then. How many people are in your Judgement Book, Sarah?’
‘You know, Adam, I’ve lost count. Quite a few. It seems everyone has their little secrets. Even I was surprised how fast the Book became gorged. You’ll know when you find it. You might get a few surprises too. It’s quite a read.’
Sarah was nodding now, the smile growing on her face. There was something wrong, Dan sensed it. She was too sure of herself, too confident.
Adam stared at her. A vein ticked angrily in his cheek. ‘Like what? What surprises?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Just think about yourself, Adam. You always wanted the best table too, didn’t you? Loose talk about breaking the law to catch a rapist, giving away the address of a senior police officer to get him off your tail … that kind of thing can cause you real trouble. I would have thought an experienced detective like yourself would have known better.’
Dan caught his breath. He waited for the reaction from Adam. He could see his friend was surprised, but was trying not to show it.
‘And you too, Dan Groves,’ Sarah added, looking over at him. ‘You’ve conspired with Adam here in ways which wouldn’t do your professional reputation any good, would they? I doubt you could carry on as a journalist if the public knew how close you were to the police and how they use you. Not that you seem to mind. You play along very happily. In fact … some of the little schemes are all down to you, aren’t they?’
Dan didn’t know what to say. He glanced at Adam.
‘That’s enough of your crap, Sarah,’ the detective spat, sitting back on his chair and placing his hands on his hips. ‘You have nothing against us, and we are not part of this investigation. Now, back to where this bloody book is.’
Sarah shook her head, the smile never slipping. ‘You know, you might just come to find you are a part of the investigation, Adam. What a lovely twist to the story it would be if both you and Dan were in the Judgement Book. You’ve had enough intimate conversations in the Ginger Judge to qualify yourselves eminently, haven’t you?’
Adam jumped up from his chair. It screeched backwards and looked about to topple over. He shot out a fast hand, caught it, leaned forwards, into her face.
‘Enough of your crap, Sarah. This is over.’ His finger jabbed out at her, but she didn’t flinch. ‘You’re caught, you’re going to jail for a bloody long time, and there’ll be no more of your sick little notes.’
Sarah leaned back on her chair, laced her hands behind her head. She gave him a knowing wink.
‘We’ll see, Adam, eh? We’ll see.’
They walked upstairs to the canteen for a cup of coffee. Dan’s mind wouldn’t let go of what Sarah had said. He tried desperately to remember exactly what he and Adam had talked about in the Judge.
They’d mentioned the rapist case, but in enough detail for her to know what they meant? He couldn’t avoid the conclusion the answer was yes. And what had they discussed during the other times they’d been in? Osmond certainly, and that was enough to end Adam’s career. She was right about Dan’s future too. If it all got out, his credibility would be destroyed. Lizzie would be forced to sack him.
Adam was striding hard up the stairs, taking them two at a time. ‘Bloody woman,’ he grunted under his breath. ‘Cold, callous, scheming bloody woman.’
He sat down at the canteen table furthest from the door. Dan took the hint and got the drinks.
‘There you go, two coffees,’ he said, sitting beside Adam.
‘Bloody woman,’ the detective growled again. ‘She got to me there and I should never let that happen. I hadn’t thought she could have anything on me.’
‘On us.’
Adam looked up from his drink. ‘Yes,’ he said, more gently. ‘On us. Sorry.’
They sipped at their drinks. Adam began picking little semicircles from the paper rim of his cup.
‘She’s bluffing,’ said Dan finally. He knew his voice sounded more hopeful than convincing. ‘She’s in here, locked up. What else can she do?’
‘I’d like to think you’re right,’ Adam replied. ‘But she’s planned this bloody well so far. And she’s been ahead of us all the way. It was only luck and your weird imagination that got her. I can’t help but think she must have had a plan in case she was caught. Look at the clues and taunts she left for us. Fried shark and pigs! Evil bloody woman.’
Dan hesitated to ask, but knew he had to. ‘Like what? What kind of plan?’
‘I have no idea.’ Adam stood up, straightened his jacket. ‘But I’m going to find out. Let’s go and talk to her again. And this time, no being sidetracked by her taunts.’
They found Sarah standing by the tiny opaque window, staring up at it.
‘Saying goodbye to the world for a few years?’ asked Adam, sitting back at the table. ‘We can make that time as short as possible if you start cooperating with us.’
She turned and again smiled at him, but this time more wistfully.
‘You know, I’m really not sure I’ll miss it out there. It’s a rotten place. If you’d heard all that I have over the past few months, you’d wonder if there were any decent people left. Everyone carries an invisible stain, Adam. It comes from their moment of submission to their weakness. And it lives with them in disgust, or regret, or rage. I think I’ve come to see it in people’s faces now. Everyone’s marked with it.’
‘Is that how long it’s been going on, Sarah? Your listening in to people’s conversations? Months?’
‘Yes, Adam, I can tell you that. It’s been going on for months.’
‘Ever since you’ve been running the Ginger Judge?’
‘Not quite. A little while after that.’
‘Why?’
Sarah looked at Adam, then back out of the window. She stretched up a hand to touch the thick, dusty glass.
‘Why?’ asked Adam again. ‘What started it all?’
‘I don’t think I can tell you that yet. You’ll know soon enough.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No, no. Just a fact. I’ll happily tell you when the time is right.’
Adam looked over at Dan, tilted his head towards Sarah. He walked to the table and stood beside the detective.
‘Is it an establishment thing, Sarah?’ Dan asked. ‘I remember one conversation when you talked about how difficult it was to be in business with all the regulations the government heaped on you. As far as I can see, all your victims have been establishment figures. So is that what it’s all about? Hitting back?’
She turned to look at him. ‘I was wondering when you were going to chip in, Dan. I know from your conversations how much Adam relies on you. While we’re talking about memories, I recall one time when he told you that you were much better at the psychological bit than he was. The understanding why people do the things they do. So is it my turn to be the subject of your famous insights? You certainly do have that knack of making people talk to you. I felt it myself on a couple of occasions and had to be careful about going too far.’
Dan breathed out hard, swallowed to calm himself. ‘I’m just interested, Sarah,’ he said neutrally. ‘It’s part of my job to understand.’
‘I’m flattered, Dan. But then, I suppose I’m going to be the subject of some of your reports now. Shall I consider this two interviews in one then? A criminal one from Adam and a journalist’s one from you?’
Dan heard Adam snort.
‘I’m just interested, Sarah,’ he said again. ‘It was an establis
hment thing, wasn’t it?’
She shifted her position, leaned back against the hard, whitewashed wall.
‘Yes, Dan, your wonderful insight is right. It was an establishment thing. But it was a little more than that. I could have taken what the government did to me if it wasn’t for something else that happened one night.’
And now her voice was tense, strained, and Dan knew he was on the verge of discovering something important. He held her look. Her eyes were soft, misty. She was somewhere else, lost in the comfort of a favourite memory.
He let the moment run, then gently prompted, ‘What was it, Sarah?’
She stared at him, then down at the concrete floor. Seconds drifted by, but Dan kept quiet. The old trick, the one he’d used so many times in interviews.
The power of silence.
He stood still, waited. Finally, Sarah looked back up, said softly, ‘Nice try, Dan. You almost got me … almost. But I’ll leave you to think on that one. You’ll find out soon enough how it all began.’
Through the glass windows of the Ginger Judge, Dan could see three white-overalled forensics officers unscrewing a table. Another pair checked the walls for wires, leads and any possible hiding places. They’d been called in as soon as Sarah was arrested. The trouble was they didn’t know what they were looking for. A modern day Judgement Book could be small or large and it might not even be a book, just a memory stick, a CD, or a file on a computer’s memory.
Adam stood outside and talked to the head technician, a small, reedy young man called Crispin. He seemed nervous, continually pushing his glasses up his nose. Adam explained he’d been newly promoted and this was his first time in charge of a crime scene. He would have preferred a straightforward burglary or mugging, but this was a high profile and complex case and it was making him edgy.
A small crowd of people had gathered to watch. Adam was about to have the street closed off when Dan interrupted.
‘Could you wait half an hour?’
‘A story?’ the detective asked wearily.
‘Yep. There’s no way this won’t get out. Give me half an hour and I can get Nigel and El here. I’ll have exclusive pictures for tonight and El will get the story in the papers for tomorrow. You can put out a message that you’re making progress with the case. It’ll play well with the public and your High Honchos.’
Adam straightened his impeccable tie, asked coyly, ‘And I suppose you’d like an interview with me too?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Half an hour only then.’
Dan almost smiled. He found himself wondering if Adam recorded his TV appearances, to preserve them for posterity. It wasn’t beyond the detective’s vanity.
He made the calls. El arrived, panting, twenty-five minutes later. He didn’t even say hello, just raised his camera, loosed off some shots and then flopped heavily down on the pavement.
‘Had to run all the way from the top of town,’ he gasped, between breaths. ‘Doing a job on a bloke who’s suing the hospital after his wife died in there. She only had an in-growing toenail. Bloody car wouldn’t start.’
He caught his breath and panted out a rhyme.
‘It’s rare to get Dirty El to run,
But he’ll do it if he sniffs out some fun,
And for this blackmailer,
He won’t want to fail ’er,
’coz he knows he can make some good mon–’
El waited for a few seconds, then added the missing ‘ey’.
Dan pursed his lips. The paparazzo’s latest masterpiece defied comment.
When Nigel had finished filming the forensics team, they interviewed Adam. He sounded positive about the arrest and search of the bar, but made it clear the case wasn’t yet over. Dan again found himself wondering what Sarah could possibly do from a cell in Charles Cross. Nothing, he reassured himself. Just simply nothing. Those claims about exposing him and Adam were pure bluff, the ranting of a criminal bitter at having been caught. The case was over.
He couldn’t quite convince himself. She had sounded very sure.
After that last interview with her Adam had given up, said they were getting nowhere. They’d left her in a cell, sitting on the thin, padded mattress, still wearing that whimsical smile. As the heavy steel door closed, they’d both looked back. Through the narrowing gap, Sarah had waved.
Dan checked his watch. Almost four o’clock it said, so probably about ten past. He waited outside the Judge for another hour. The forensics teams had nearly finished and he wanted the latest news to put on air. So long as he left by quarter past five he’d have at least an hour to get the story together.
He could get it edited in less, but it was always a delicate balance. The longer you left yourself, the more time there was for thought and a well-considered script. Only the reckless went for last-minute edits when they could be avoided. Besides, it wasn’t good for the heart. He had to look after himself. In future, he would have responsibilities, the most important a man could know. That was if they decided to have the baby, of course.
That word again. If.
Dan’s mobile rang, a welcome interruption to his thoughts. It was Lizzie and she was fizzing. He held the phone a little away from his ear as it buzzed with her voice. He didn’t have a chance to get a word in until the hurricane that was his editor in full flow had abated.
‘There’s some kind of police raid at a pub in town. It’s to do with the blackmailer case. The cops are ripping the place apart, apparently. What’s the good of you being part of the inquiry if we don’t get these things? The pictures sound fantastic! Really dramatic! I need them! I want them! I want to lead the show with them tonight. I want you on it at once! I want interviews. I want you live in the studio to talk about it. I want you moving! Now!’
Dan savoured the moment. Ah, the rare and sweet delight of being ahead of the game for once. He waited, waited, waited, delighted in the heady anticipation.
It was like the coming of the time to open a bottle of vintage wine, one you’d been saving for countless years.
The phone squawked again. ‘Dan? Dan?! Dan?!! Are you there?’
Another beautiful pause as he wondered which weapon of choice to employ. Indignation? Hurt? Irritation? Under-statement, he thought. It would be a fine and effective counterpoint to Lizzie’s tirade.
Quietly and calmly Dan said, ‘I’m already here. We’ve got all the pictures. We’ve been here for a few hours, in fact. Got an interview too. All exclusive to us – naturally.’
It was interesting how edifying a silence could be. That was all he heard in return, a first for Lizzie. ‘I’ll be back at the studios in 15 minutes,’ Dan added and hung up.
He had another quick word with Adam first. The search teams had found the two bugging systems, in the best tables in the house, just as Sarah said.
They were both radio microphones and both in the cutlery pots, linked to a receiver upstairs. There was a small digital recorder too, capable of storing hundreds of hours of conversations, but it was blank. The technicians thought it had been erased recently. Dan grimaced when Adam told him. Had it held the chat they’d had over lunch? And what others?
Adam believed the recorder was to keep a log of the conversations Sarah didn’t have time to listen to when potential victims were in the bar. She probably sat down and checked them later, wrote up the most compromising parts in the Judgement Book before the recordings were erased.
A mobile phone was also found. Initial investigations indicated Sarah had been using it just before the raid in which she’d been caught. A couple of officers from the Square Eyes technical division had been assigned to find out who she’d rung and why. That was their most urgent line of inquiry, Adam said. He looked worried.
Dan well understood why. The call must have been made just after they’d been discussing how Adam had directed him to Osmond’s house, and how previously they’d broken the law to catch a serial rapist. Were they such powerful snippets of information that Sarah couldn’t re
sist passing them on? Quickly and gleefully, as excellent blackmail material. And if so, who had she passed them to? Dan tried to push Adam to talk about it, but the detective wouldn’t. He seemed preoccupied, lost in his thoughts.
The teams had searched the bar and the upper floor, but there was no sign of anything that might be the Judgement Book. There was one oddity. A file of cuttings on the Iraq War and the death of a peace activist in Baghdad. Dan felt his imagination stir, but didn’t have time to think about it further. He had to get the story on air. He agreed with Adam what he could report and drove back to the studios.
He wondered whether to talk to Lizzie about turning the report into an edited package rather than him being live in the studio, but decided against it. Once set on a strategy, she wasn’t easily dissuaded. It was like trying to talk a torpedo into changing course. Plus, it wouldn’t do any harm to appear in person to claim obvious ownership of the exclusive.
Dan sat at the news desk, suffered the attentions of the floor manager as she clipped on a microphone, puffed some make up powder onto his face. At first, your macho instincts resisted it, but it made such a difference, stopped your skin shining distractingly in the inevitable sweat of nerves. It was especially important if your hairline was receding, as Dan had finally acknowledged – with great reluctance and annoyance – that his had begun to.
Lights flared in the metal trellis rigging of the roof and the thundering drumbeats of the title music played. Dan felt the familiar shot of adrenaline of live broadcasting, the knowledge of half a million people watching him. Craig turned to one of the cameras and introduced the story.
‘We begin tonight with another exclusive on the blackmailer case,’ he said. ‘The police have raided a Plymouth bar and made an arrest which they describe as highly significant. Our crime correspondent Dan Groves is with us.’
Dan talked about the search of the Ginger Judge for equipment that might be used to eavesdrop on conversations and the arrest of a member of staff. Nigel’s pictures ran as he commentated. Then there was a clip of Adam’s interview, the detective being cautiously optimistic that this was an important breakthrough. Dan summed up with a little of the background to the case.