The Judgement Book

by Simon Hall

  At the meeting after the programme, Lizzie professed herself “reasonably pleased”, quite an accolade. It was one notch below the current absolute peak of her praise, an unqualified “pleased”. That was reserved for exclusives of the quality of the revelation of alien life, or proof of the existence of God. She’d never understood the meaning of the word wholehearted.

  In the excitement of the raid, Sarah’s arrest and questioning, Dan realised he’d hardly thought about Claire or their baby. But now the image was back with him, playing football in the park with his son. It was raining, but the two of them didn’t care. They were belting the ball at each other as they took it in turns to go in goal, shouting and laughing as they floundered in the morass of mud.

  So, they were going to have the child again, then. What was going on in his mind that one minute they would be proud parents, the next not? They had to talk about it.

  Dan fished his mobile from his pocket and called Claire. Good timing, she was almost finished at work and was about to head home. He’d tend to Rutherford and take him for a quick walk if she would pick up a Chinese take-away. As he slipped some clothes, shoes and shampoo into a bag, a sudden nervousness hit him. He didn’t want to think why.

  Claire unwrapped the plastic containers and spread them out over the coffee table. Dan stared at the colours of the chicken, beef and pork and realised he didn’t feel at all hungry. He picked at the food and noticed she was doing the same. They weren’t even drinking the glasses of red wine she’d poured, hers another conspicuously small measure. They sat side by side on her sofa and made small talk about how their days had been, the state of the investigation and Rutherford until he couldn’t take it any more.

  Dan put down his plate. ‘This is ridiculous. We might as well just get on and talk.’

  She turned to him and nodded. Her eyes were full of tears and her lips trembled. She reached out, cuddled into his neck and held him close. He felt the trembles of her sobs shiver through him.

  Dan held her and stroked her hair until the crying had subsided. She sat back and looked at him, dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to do. I’m not used to feeling like this.’

  Dan took her hand. He weaved his fingers into hers.

  ‘I don’t know either. What can we do?’

  ‘There are two options,’ she said, after a pause. ‘And I’m frightened of both.’

  ‘Me too.’

  She began crying again and he reached out and held her. Her voice was muffled by his body.

  ‘I’m sorry, so very sorry,’ she sobbed once more, the words tumbling out. ‘I just don’t know what to do. I hate the idea of an abortion, but I don’t know if I’m ready to have a baby. I don’t know where we’d live, or how we’d cope. I don’t know what it might do to my career, or yours. I’m worried it might force us apart, whatever we do.’

  Dan squeezed her shoulders, then sat back and took her face in his hands. He unfolded another tissue from the box. It was almost empty. There’s been too much crying lately, he thought.

  He dried her eyes. ‘We’ll work something out.’ Even to him, the words sounded hollow.

  She managed a weak smile and nodded. He knew she didn’t believe it either. Her eyes were full of doubt.

  ‘I know we will,’ she said. ‘I just feel so tired and unsure of myself. I’m all lost and helpless. Whenever I think I’ve made a decision, all these doubts crowd in on me and I start to change my mind again.’

  ‘Me too. I keep thinking about having a son, then wondering how on earth we’d cope.’

  ‘Or a daughter.’

  ‘Or a daughter.’

  ‘I keep imagining taking her to the hairdressers for her first proper styling. She’s so bouncy and excited. She’s got hair like yours.’

  ‘I play football with him in the park. He’s so full of life, always smiling.’

  They cuddled back together. Outside a car raced past, hot tyres squealing in protest.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ asked Claire finally.

  Dan took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He stared at the window and the darkening sky outside. A cloud bank was gathering in the western sky, a solid line of shadow creeping across the land, its base tinted orange by the lights of the city.

  ‘I just don’t know. All I can come up with is that it’s best if we have a few more days to think about it. With everything that’s going on in the blackmailer investigation I’m not sure I can cope with anything else. Can we leave it a couple of days, then talk again?’

  Claire cupped her hands over her stomach, gazed down and rubbed it.

  ‘I don’t want to leave it too long. I just can’t. I can feel the baby growing inside me. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll get.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Just a couple of days. Let’s leave it for now and try to relax. I’ll see if there’s a film on the TV.’

  They cuddled up on the sofa and watched a documentary about Emperor penguins. Neither of them saw it. It could just as well have been a blank screen. Then they went to bed.

  Dan was surprised at how well he slept. But in a dream, just before he awoke, again he saw the joyrider’s knife poised above Claire’s swollen stomach.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE DAY BEGAN BADLY and only got worse.

  ‘Two more blackmail notes, the two final clues to the bastards’ riddle,’ said Adam grimly. ‘And with a little twist this time. Note I say bastards, plural. There’s another worm. Sarah’s got an accomplice. No wonder she was so sure of herself yesterday.’

  Eight o’clock, Wednesday morning, the Major Incident Room at Charles Cross. Dan leant wearily on the window sill, Claire stood at the front beside Adam, Eleanor and Michael sat on a pair of desks. There was no banter, no chat. They’d believed, or at least dared to hope, the case was over with the arrest of Sarah. Now, this cold deflation.

  Dan ran his tongue over a small but painful ulcer which had formed on the inside of his lower lip. It stung enthusiastically and he winced. Tiredness and stress, the classic causes.

  ‘Bastards,’ growled Adam again. He kept pacing up and down beside the felt boards, looking haggard. He’d shaved sloppily again with the shadow of a beard shading patches on his face.

  ‘Everyone listening? Right! Today we work this until we’ve cracked it. I’ve had enough of these bloody riddles and being sodded about. We’ve got all the victims now, we’ve got the last two clues and we’ve got Sarah in custody. We’ve got all the info we need. So let’s get to it.’

  Dan took a sip of the canteen coffee. It tasted foul, worse even than usual. They always made it overly strong and he usually avoided it, but today he wondered if he might need the caffeine’s help. He tried to stop working his tongue over the ulcer. The coffee had made it throb and his eyes watered. The ulcer was busy justifying one of the laws of dentistry. Small was not beautiful, but painful.

  ‘Right,’ said Adam again. ‘An hour ago, at around seven o’clock, a despatch rider called at two locations in Plymouth, one a barracks, the other an office. He brought a letter to each. The person named on the envelope was fetched, read their letter, then both immediately rang us. Forensics are looking at the letters to see what they can tell us. Copies are being made and will be with us in a few minutes. For now, I’ll tell you about our new victims.’

  He turned and pinned a couple of pieces of paper on separate boards. They were covered in scrawled writing, mostly capital letters.

  ‘First, Major Anthony Robinson of the Royal Dragoons. The letter was delivered to their barracks in Stonehouse. He’s a 47-year-old officer, who has been in the forces for just over 20 years, married, with two children. He’s often eaten and had a few drinks in the Ginger Judge. He also served in the Iraq War. That may come to be a very important connection.’

  Dan nodded to himself. The sheaf of cuttings the search teams had found at the Judge were all about Iraq. There were hundreds of them.
He sensed a pattern emerging.

  ‘The other victim is Steven Sinclair,’ continued Adam. ‘He’s 39 years old, single, and, as you’ll no doubt know, a prominent powerbroker in the Greater Wessex Strategic Assembly. He confirms the Ginger Judge is a place he regularly goes to entertain VIPs or important contacts. Ironically, he says they favoured it as it was seen as somewhere you could hold a sensitive conversation without the danger of being overheard. Both our victims deny the allegations against them, but I’m working on the basis they’re true.’

  Adam paused and stared around the room. He lowered his voice, and Dan leaned forwards, straining to hear.

  ‘We have two very high profile victims. And as you’ll see in a minute, the blackmailers have raised the stakes significantly. We need to get on top of this immediately. Everyone got that?’

  A couple of heads nodded, but no one spoke. The door rattled with a gentle knock. ‘Come in,’ growled Adam impatiently.

  A woman walked hesitantly in carrying an armful of sheets of paper. Adam didn’t thank her and she left hurriedly. Dan began reading the first of his two sheets. The style was familiar.

  Dear Major Robinson,

  You are a despicable man. Like many of your kind, you pretend to be one thing in public, when the private reality is very different.

  You are an accessory to murder, and quite possibly a murderer yourself. That, despite your fine talk of peacekeeping, restoring law and order in a foreign country, democracy and respect. You are utterly odious.

  I know what happened in Iraq. Your troops were sick to death of the abuse they suffered. The endless taunting, the rocks and stones hurled at them, not to mention the petrol bombs, the gunfire and, of course, the booby-trapped explosives by the side of the road. Basra wasn’t a comfortable posting, was it?

  But your job was to keep the lads in line. However much you understood their frustrations, you had to maintain discipline. There could be no revenge and no retaliation. Even after that ambush that claimed the life of one of your young dragoons and left two more badly injured.

  So, what happened, Major Robinson? Was it your idea of retribution, as well as your troops? Or did you merely think it would be cathartic, to let them vent their frustration, and so you turned a blind eye? Those two poor Iraqi lads, caught by your boys after throwing stones at them. They couldn’t have been more than about fourteen or fifteen, could they?

  There was no one about. A little beating wouldn’t hurt. It might teach them a lesson. So you managed not to notice while your boys set about them. It was just bad luck that one of them died, wasn’t it, Major Robinson?

  You didn’t take part yourself. But nonetheless, you are complicit. You let the lads get on with it with your tacit approval. And later, you said you understood. I can’t quite decide if that makes you a killer or not. Well, we can leave that to a court martial. But we can certainly call you an accessory to murder.

  So, Major, we have established you are a thoroughly despicable man. The question is, what do I intend to do about it?

  You’ll know by now about your predecessors in the Judgement Book, and what has become of them. The news has been full of it.

  You have a chance to save yourself. I will set you a code to crack, but it is not just in your interests that you do so. The answer to your riddle, together with the other I set this morning, will lead you to the hiding place of the Judgement Book. If you do not find it by seven o’clock tomorrow evening I will release its location to the media.

  For the unlucky journalists who don’t get the original book, I will make sure copies are posted on the internet. I can assure you it will cause a wonderful and long-remembered scandal. I have lost count of the number of well-known people whose actions The Book describes, and the depravity of their conduct.

  Here is your code. As a clue, I say this – it is very different from those which have gone before, but try a hunch, urchin. If you do, it may have the answer.

  Good luck.

  Dan put down the piece of paper and swallowed hard. The ulcer was throbbing. He caught Adam’s look and knew exactly what his friend was thinking. Were they both in the Judgement Book? Dan took another sip of the coffee. He barely noticed it was almost cold.

  He stared at the final two lines of the letter. There were no numbers, no figures, as there had been in the other two blackmail letters. So where was the damn code?

  His mind flapped at it, but came up with nothing. Dan allowed himself a quiet groan, then tried to breathe deeply, find some calm. He picked up the next photocopied sheet and began to read.

  Dear Mr Sinclair,

  You are a despicable man. Like many of your kind, you pretend to be one thing in public, when the private reality is very different.

  You are corrupt. That, despite your fine talk of fairness and honesty, of building a better region, good homes for local people, a bustling economy and a community everyone can be proud of. You have your hand in the till. You are utterly odious.

  I know what happened with the Western Approaches offshore wind farm. What a fine idea that is, so important to help us meet our renewable energy needs. Who could oppose your excellent vision? But then, who else knows about the sizeable extension to your own home that the company kindly built in gratitude for being awarded the contract?

  So, what happened, Mr Sinclair? What went wrong? Did the power corrupt you? Well, you certainly wouldn’t be alone in that. I’ve seen so many examples of it now.

  So, Mr Sinclair, we have established you are a thoroughly despicable man. The question is, what do I intend to do about it?

  Dan compared the end of the letter with the previous sheet. It was the same, apart from the riddle.

  I predict this clue will give you the most trouble –.

  See have mind good land, Plymouth.

  Dan put down the sheet and looked around. All the faces were engrossed in what they were reading. Heads were shaking. There were a couple of intakes of breath at the blackmailer’s words.

  He rubbed at his eyes, blinked hard. He wasn’t sleeping well, but that was hardly surprising given all that was going on. Dan took off his jacket; he felt oddly warm, despite the cool of the day. It was a graphite morning, the sky a dome of glowering cloud, ominous with the threat of the coming rain.

  Outside, he heard a shout, then another. On the steps below some photographers were clustered around a police officer, reporters yelling questions at him. The man struggled through the pack, jogged in to the entrance. Adam swore under his breath. His mobile rang and he walked to the corner of the MIR to answer it.

  His gesturing said it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. The odd phrase drifted across the room. ‘Yes, sir, I know the world’s media are all over us. Yes, I know it’s getting ridiculous. Yes, I am confident of getting a result. Yes, sir, it will be as soon as possible.’

  Adam put the phone away, walked back over. His face was flushed. ‘Deputy Chief Constable, keen for a breakthrough,’ he explained, with impressive understatement. ‘So let’s see if we can give him one. OK then, what do we make of these notes?’

  Claire studied her sheets. ‘Clearly an accomplice, sir. Someone who shares Sarah’s views on authority.’

  ‘So we’re looking for another embittered person,’ said Adam.

  ‘And smart too,’ added Dan. ‘Those two letters are both well written and follow exactly the same format as the other notes. We’ve got two clever people working closely together.’

  ‘Any reason to suspect more than two?’ Adam asked. ‘We’ve been surprised by one accomplice – blackmailers normally work alone. Any thoughts there may be more?’

  ‘No,’ replied Eleanor. ‘The more people involved, the greater the risk. That’s the problem with conspiracies. This smacks of two like-minded people working together.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Adam said, sitting down on a desk. ‘Eleanor, what do you make of the codes?’ he added.

  She studied her pieces of paper and bunched her flowing skirt. Irises today, Dan thought, a
lthough he wasn’t quite sure. He’d never been great on flowers. That gave him an idea. Perhaps he should buy a bouquet for Claire. The gesture would say a lot. He couldn’t remember ever having bought her flowers before.

  ‘Well, the first one doesn’t fit the pattern we’ve seen before, of giving us numbers. But I’ve got a couple of ideas. I’m guessing it’s fairly simple, if my hunch is right. Which, like before, makes me suspect it might be designed to be broken easily. The second one I think will be much more difficult. It looks like it’s intended to take us longer, probably because it’s the vital clue in the sequence of five, the one that gives us the location of the book.’

  ‘Which fits in with what you thought before,’ Claire observed. ‘The first riddle, Freedman’s, was tough, to make sure he could be exposed and to start this whole thing going. The next three were easier, because they didn’t matter so much. The final one is hard too, as it’s the most important of all.’

  ‘Because they want to release the Judgement Book,’ Dan said. ‘Despite their claims about giving us a chance. And this provides their little justification for doing so – that we couldn’t solve the final riddle.’

  ‘And taunting us all the way, and intensifying the pressure on us as much as they possibly can,’ Claire concluded.

  Adam let out a long breath. ‘Get cracking then, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘We have to move fast. See if you can get anywhere with the codes.’

  ‘I’ll need a library again. I’ll call you when we find anything.’

  Eleanor left, Michael following carrying his laptop computer. Dan realised he hadn’t heard Michael speak for several days, then remembered that wasn’t uncommon. He took the old caricature of the strong and silent type to its extreme.

  ‘Where else do we go then?’ asked Adam, when they’d left.

  ‘The despatch rider?’ prompted Claire.

  ‘Already interviewed, and no go. He’s a local lad who does it on the side. He got a note through his door asking him to do the jobs, along with two hundred quid in cash. It also told him to chuck the instructions in the sea as he was helping in a test of Plymouth’s security systems and it was important not to leave a trail. He did that as well. He’s not the brightest.’