by Jane Isaac
He lifted his head and gestured for her to sit on the chair opposite. His mouth opened, then closed again, as if he didn’t trust his own voice.
The anxiety in Dean’s face flicked a light switch in her mind. She had seen this deadpan expression in colleagues before. The average police officer views multiple dead bodies throughout their career. And every one leaves a mark. But there was something about suicide, something desperate that clung like a barnacle to a rock. Especially if you knew the victim.
His phone buzzed next to him. Helen glanced at it, then at Dean. “Are you going to get that?”
He picked up the phone, pressed a digit and cast it aside.
Dean rubbed his right hand up and down his face. “I keep seeing his eyes.” He swallowed loudly. “Desperate, dead eyes… ” Helen’s instincts told her to comfort him, wrap her arms around him, pull him close. But she didn’t want to do anything that may convey the wrong impression. “I should have known,” he continued. “I could have done something.”
She was desperate to ask about Eva, seek his support in her continued search. Only now just wasn’t the right time.
“Right, that’s it,” she said and stood. “We’re getting you out of here.”
He shook his head. “No… ”
“We’ll go for a coffee,” she interrupted.
He ran his hands through his hair. “There’s no need.”
Helen wasn’t listening. She’d moved around the desk and was wrestling his jacket onto his shoulders. “I insist.”
Chapter Nineteen
As soon as they walked through the door of The Angel Tavern, Helen felt eyes burning into her. It was one of those old-fashioned pubs with a jazzy carpet that stank of stale beer and a bunch of regulars at the bar who gaped at every stranger that entered. The gazes lingered as she followed Dean to the bar and she knew why. Even in plain clothes, cops stood out in a place like this. She might as well have worn a name badge.
After parking nearby, Helen had tried to steer Dean into Hayes cafe, but the look on his face at the mere suggestion silenced her. There was only one kind of solace he sought this evening. She watched as he ordered a pint of Guinness for himself, a vodka and coke for her.
The gentle music in the background was drowned out by the hoard of teenagers that surrounded the pool table at the end of the bar. A couple of young heads looked up momentarily, their attention quickly taken by the next shot.
Helen took her drink and followed Dean to a table tucked away in the far corner, away from the intrusive glares. The music seemed louder in the private space and she could make out Sting’s dulcet tones, although couldn’t place the song.
Dean took a huge gulp of his pint and placed it on one of the many beer mats scattered on their table.
“Are you okay?” Helen asked as she sat next to him on the lumpy cushion that covered the wooden bench.
He didn’t speak for a moment. When he turned towards her, a shadow of despair crept across his face. “He was so young.”
Helen swallowed. The job exposed you to the most horrific situations on occasions, those that most folk wouldn’t experience in a lifetime. For the most part, you become numb, training sets in and you adopt an empathetic but detached approach. But every now and then, some events catch you, drive a needle below the surface and leave a residue behind that’s hard to erase.
She had seen the same anguish in her father’s eyes on many occasions. That kind of deep despair that hit home when all hope was dashed. She looked away, gave him time to regain his composure.
The walls were plastered in painted woodchip, yellowed from years of smokers before the ban. It was curled in the corners, peeling back from the wall. The photo of Naomi seated at the piano at the Spences’ house entered her head. She was young too, young, talented and beautiful…
The song changed to ‘Every Breath You Take’. She listened awhile. When she looked back at Dean, his eyes were fixed on his glass.
“There was nothing you could do,” she said gently.
He lifted his head to face her. “How do you know?”
The question took her aback and she thought for a moment before she answered, “He was… ” She hesitated, not wanting to say the word ‘informant’. Because Jules wasn’t an informant. Not officially. “… helping you with enquiries,” she said. “There was no way of your knowing what a mess he was in.”
“Mess?” Dean hissed the word out.
“People don’t commit suicide unless they’re desperate,” Helen said, battling to keep the conversation calm. “If he killed his girlfriend… ”
“If?”
“Well, we still have to establish… ”
“We don’t have to establish anything. We have his jacket, the note. He killed her, then himself.”
The anger in his voice jarred her. “You couldn’t have known.”
He rose. “Another drink?”
She stared at her glass, still two thirds full and shook her head. This was going to be more of a challenge than she thought.
As he disappeared around the corner to the bar, Helen thought about Jules Paton. Jules had admitted to murdering Naomi before killing himself. It was clean. But something didn’t feel right.
Dean returned with another Guinness, accompanied by a chaser this time. The thick scent of whisky filled the air as he planted himself next to her. He threw his head back and downed the chaser.
“You’re not responsible,” she said, in almost a whisper.
“Responsible for what? The murder of Naomi or the suicide of Jules?”
His words startled her. She said nothing, ran her eyes up and down his face.
“You have no idea,” he snarled.
“About what?” Helen was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I have no idea about what, Dean?”
His face folded like an admonished child. “Don’t listen to me. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Just wish I’d seen the signs, could have done something.”
Helen pushed her lips together. The first rule of being a handler of informants was not to get personally involved, but there was a very fine line between befriending them and keeping them at arm’s length. Sometimes the only way to get the information needed was to draw them in. And this had implications. This was one of the main reasons why registered informants were dealt with by specialist officers. To avoid situations like this.
“How long have you known him?” she asked gently.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached up, undid the top button of his shirt and pulled his navy tie loose.
They sat in silence, listened to the music and sipped their drinks. ‘Fields of Gold’ played out, followed by ‘Roxanne’. It seemed the landlord was a keen Sting fan. Helen was aware that Dean got up, approached the bar at intervals and returned with more drinks. He seemed content to ignore the bleeps coming from his mobile.
Eventually the room started to feel warm. Helen became aware of her movements. She suppressed a yawn. Dean’s actions slowed, his speech started to slur. If she didn’t get him out of here soon, she’d have to call for backup. She could only begin to imagine the amusement at the station, let alone the landlord at two drunken police officers.
Helen stood gingerly. The room swayed slightly. “I’m just heading to… ” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. Dean nodded, eyes fixed upon his glass.
When she later emerged from the ladies room, having splashed cold water over her face, Helen heard ‘Every Breath You Take’ playing again. The same CD. How many times had it played over while they’d been sitting there?
Dean was just finishing the last drop of Guinness when she reached him. The glass clattered as he missed the drip matt on the table. She blinked, the noise jolting her insides. She could no longer watch him wallow here.
“We’re going,” Helen announced.
Dean was picking at a chip on the side of the table. “Going where?”
“I’m taking you home,” she said firmly and before he had time to argue she grabbed his arm and wrench
ed him into a standing position. He looked at her, eyes glazed.
“Come on,” she said and pushed him around the table towards the exit, ignoring the chuckles at the bar.
A fresh night breeze slapped her in the face as she stepped outside. Her senses awakened. She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and the alcohol had taken a firm grip. She concentrated her mind on the job in hand: to get Dean home safely, without any more altercations to draw attention to them. Neither of them was fit to drive. Her car would have to stay at the station overnight. She’d hail a taxi home.
“Where is your hotel?” she asked.
He pointed right, and she grabbed his arm and edged in that direction, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
They walked about a quarter of a mile up the road. A man passed them on a bicycle, followed by a red Toyota, but apart from that they had the road to themselves. Just before they reached the lights, Dean veered off into a side road and stopped three doors down at a white pebble dashed house in desperate need of a good paint job. A small plaque above the door read ‘Hotel Merion’ in peeling black paint.
In spite of the veil of alcohol, the surroundings made Helen start. “Don’t you get expenses?”
“Yeah… Well, I need to keep a bit back to cover bills back home. The ex is bleeding me dry.” He didn’t look up, his attention drawn to his trouser pocket where he was struggling to retrieve his keys.
Helen didn’t reply, just followed him inside to a tiny hallway, a lone table with a bell indicating that it also doubled up as a reception area.
“You’re welcome to come up if you wish?” he said, flat intonation implying it would be preferable to standing down here in the empty hallway.
Helen winced. She hesitated for the shortest of minutes. She’d just make sure he reached his room safely. It didn’t mean anything.
His room was on the first floor. The number four hung loosely off the dirty white door. As he fiddled with his keys, they slipped through his fingers and dropped to the floor. They both bent down together. Helen rose quickly. Dean smiled awkwardly. He unlocked the door.
Even later, when she looked back, Helen couldn’t explain how or why it happened. One moment she was stood beside the door, the next she was encased in Dean’s arms, kissing him with voracious hunger, pressing herself against him with an urgency that suggested the world was about to end. They stumbled into the room. The door slammed behind them.
This was the total opposite of what Helen intended. All evening she had fought to keep her emotions in check. But the urge was too strong to fight anymore. Her whole body tingled with innate animal pleasure as she gave into it, into him, unconditionally.
***
Eva lay on the bed, her body curled into a ball, arms wrapped around her knees. The more she tried to make sense of her situation, the more the demons crowded, blurring her weakened mind.
She fixed her eyes on the black hole of night through the uncovered window. It looked cavernous and dark, emulating her mood. A sparkle in the sky caught her attention. She cast her mind back to when her grandmother died. She was barely eleven-years-old at the time and had been confused by the grief, the tears; uncomfortable with the sadness that descended on the household.
Weeks later, walking back from the bus stop with her mother on a clear, dark night, she felt afraid. She remembered she’d clasped her mother’s hand, expressed her fear of the dark, an embarrassing admission at eleven. Her mother had stopped, pointed up at the brightest star in the sky and said, ‘Never be afraid of the dark. That’s your grandmother, looking down on us, keeping us safe.’ Ever since, when Eva glimpsed a bright star, she felt safe, that she wasn’t alone.
Eva raised her head hopefully. The sparkle disappeared for a moment, then flashed again. And again. Her heart sank as she watched the intermittent flash of the aeroplane moving across the sky. Even the stars wouldn’t offer consolation tonight.
Her iPod sat on the table beside her bed, the only part of her former life that she had with her, apart from a dead mobile phone.
After the internet cafe, Eva had driven around Glasgow, negotiating the throng of shoppers on Sauchiehall Street before heading past the Cathedral and out of the city centre. With no particular direction she drove out into the suburbs - through backstreets, up main roads, across housing estates. Hours passed. She remembered stopping at a park, sitting on a bench, watching blackbirds huddle together on a telegraph pole above, two of them vying for the same perch, before she took to the road again. Eventually, she headed back into the city and stumbled across The Hollies, a two star guest house secluded down a side street, with a car park at the rear.
The proprietor, a middle aged wiry man named John with a wisp of grey hair scraped across his bald head, had regarded her warily when he answered the door - a woman on her own arriving unannounced with no booking or luggage. If she had been capable of rational thought, Eva would have considered it an odd proposition herself. She wasn’t sure if it was the empty car park or the dark rings beneath her eyes that persuaded him to relent.
Eva had barely noticed the peach hallway and the hall table displaying informative leaflets on Glasgow highlights.
Her hand trembled as she completed the form with a fake name, dug her hand in her pocket and paid in cash.
Tears brimmed in Eva’s eyes. Suddenly, she wished for something she had never wanted before. She felt a yearning to be fourteen again, back in her parents’ kitchen, full of hormonally charged attitude, her mother fixing her fruit juice and cereal even though she was perfectly capable of doing it herself.
She brushed a hand across her face as she recalled the rustic, pine kitchen table where she sat to eat her breakfast; her younger brother, Callum, picking at his cornflakes whilst reading the back of the box, her stepfather already left for work. Life had seemed so hard in those days, everything so irritatingly trivial. All she had to worry about was how her hair looked, whether she’d picked the right jacket for school and whether she would achieve her GCSE grades. Now she longed for triviality, to turn back the clock, to live under her parents’ support and protection. Only now did she feel like a child in an adults’ world.
Chapter Twenty
Helen trudged down to the organised crime suite early the next morning. All night, Jules Paton’s part in her case had scratched away at the lining of her brain. Was this because she hadn’t participated in the search, because she felt a fellow officer had intruded on her investigation, or was there something else niggling at her? She decided the only way to get closure was to take a look at the exhibits. Perhaps if she examined them herself her mind would rest.
Helen slowed as she approached. The last person she wanted to see was Inspector Dean Fitzpatrick. She had awoken in the early hours, slipped out of bed, dressed and scurried out of the room. It wasn’t that she regretted sleeping with him; Jo had been right in her observations, it had been a wonderful release. But it didn’t restore the purity their relationship once held. She still wasn’t sure whether or not to believe his story regarding the text message, whether she could really trust him again, or whether she really wanted to.
Her ears pricked at the sound of DS Edwards’ voice. He was talking about an Audi A3 he was due to collect at the end of the week, congratulating himself for buying second hand and saving a few grand. Helen hesitated. A phone rang in the distance - a welcome interruption. She deliberately turned her eyes away as she scooted past the open door. Fitzpatrick’s team were bound to discover her visit sooner or later but, for now, she wanted to take a look at the evidence in her own time, without them breathing down her neck.
She made for a door that sat ajar, about ten metres down the corridor on the opposite side, and slipped inside. A startled face looked up at her from beneath a curly mop of dyed, blond hair. The eyes held prettiness, but the face had long since bloated with age. A sleep crease stood out underneath her left cheekbone.
“DC Taylor?”
The woman stood up from behind the desk and ey
ed her warily. “Yes.”
The small space was barely four metres square and furnished with a desk facing the door, a single chair behind. The air smelt musty. Helen wondered how she managed to squeeze her ample frame into the tight space.
“DCI Lavery. Good to meet you.”
Taylor seemed to relax as she shook her proffered hand. “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.
“Yes, I’d like to see the evidence collected from yesterday’s search of Mr Paton’s property.”
“Of course.” Taylor cast her eye across the desk and reached for a buff folder. She fished through the enclosed documents and pulled out a few sheets of paper, stapled together neatly in the corner, and handed them to Helen. “This is the full inventory.”
“Thank you.” Helen swept her eyes down the page: photographs, gun, address books, laptop charger, answerphone… She turned the page, looked at the next and the next, taking her time. The list seemed endless, all items packaged, numbered and catalogued. Her eyes hovered over the suicide note recorded on the third page, which had been recovered from the kitchen table.
“Right, I’d like to take a look now.” Helen flashed a fleeting smile, before she turned towards the door in the corner of the room that led into the exhibits store.
Taylor shifted uncomfortably. “Oh… I’ll just need to check with the inspector.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “In any case, I don’t think he’s in yet.”
Taylor crossed to the door, glanced down the corridor, then back at Helen. “I am under strict orders not to disturb the detained property unless he’s consulted first.”
Helen was accustomed to exhibits officer’s being wary of their catch. It wasn’t uncommon for pieces to be removed and put back in the wrong place or lost altogether, jeopardising a whole investigation. She also felt sorry for the detective, compromising an order. But she needed to see that evidence.
“Oh, is that so? Well, I understand the need to be careful, but I’m not asking you to give the whole station access. Just me. I assure you I won’t remove anything.” She formed her mouth into a cool smile.