‘Steve, I’m as devastated as you are. I’m grieving too.’ Tears shone in her eyes. ‘What happened was terrible. Outrageous.’
But? There was a ‘but’ filling the space between them. He willed her not to say it.
‘And whoever’s responsible should be locked away for the rest of their lives,’ Emma said.
‘It’ll keep happening,’ he said. ‘Until people like Allie are properly accepted. Don’t you see? You going to the papers, acting as if you had any right to talk for us—’
‘I wasn’t claiming—’
‘You had no right. And the stuff they print, that feeds into it. It feeds the disgust and the hatred.’
‘You’re being melodramatic,’ she said.
‘Jesus! She’s dead, for Chrissake,’ he yelled.
‘Because it wasn’t safe.’
He stared at her, horrified. Blaming him, blaming Allie.
Emma ran her hands over her face.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want you in my life any more. Or Teagan’s.’
‘Steve—’
‘I mean it,’ he said. And he left without looking back.
Donna
Donna received an email on her way back from the hospital. The DNA profiles from the crime scene and from Allie’s body matched both Dale Harris and Oliver Poole. It was all she needed to go ahead and arrest Martin Harris on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and assisting an offender. It chilled her to think of him in custody, in interview. A Judas in the team trailing the stink of corruption.
In Dale and Oliver’s second interviews she would look more closely at their version of events, start to query and challenge what they said, pick out contradictions and inconsistencies, find holes in the story. She would need to use angles they wouldn’t be prepared for and also probe for any weaknesses in the relationship. Who followed whom? According to Bishaar, Dale was the instigator of the attack, the more violent. It was also Dale Harris who had harassed Candida Gallego earlier in the evening. What did Oliver feel about that? And the brutal murder? How long-lived, how strong, was the friendship? What had the men argued about as they walked on Deansgate looking for a taxi? What capacity was there to drive a wedge between the two as a way of breaking through to the truth?
Nothing to date suggested the murder was planned. It seemed to be random, spontaneous. It was purely chance that Allie had gone out to look for her friend Bets, chance that Bets wasn’t there, chance that Dale and Oliver had been on New Mill Street at that exact time.
Donna received a text message. From Bryony. Hows dad? Whens visiting? Bx
OK, Donna typed. 7 pm. You get tea first. Pick you all up at 6.40 xx
It’d be easier to see Jim with the kids there as a buffer. The thought brought her up short. Was that how the pair of them functioned now, only as parents, no longer partners or lovers? She didn’t want to think about it. Not now. There was too much other stuff jostling for space in her head.
Donna had just got out of the lift on the fourth floor, when a figure burst through the door at the top of the stairs, making her jump.
Jade Bradshaw.
The woman looked wild, eyes darting here and there, jaw set. Poised – for what? To run? To attack?
Donna spoke calmly, determined not to inflame the situation. ‘Jade. Are you all right?’
‘You need to listen to me,’ Jade hissed. Obviously agitated.
‘Look, you can’t be here. Not like this. We’ve enough of a problem already. Go to Reception and I’ll arrange for someone to take your statement.’
Jade threw her hands into the air, made a half-turn, which led Donna to think she was doing as she’d been asked. Wrong.
Jade lunged, grabbed Donna’s wrists and began pulling her along the corridor.
‘Get off me,’ Donna shouted.
Jade was surprisingly strong for someone who looked like she hadn’t had a decent meal for weeks.
Antipsychotics. Was she dangerous? Really dangerous? Donna moved to get ahead of Jade, putting out her foot to try to trip her over but Jade stepped round it and shoved Donna sideways through the door into the Ladies, letting go of her as the door swung shut behind them.
‘Calm down,’ Donna said. ‘Calm down now.’ She held up her hands, partly in defence. Jade stood blocking the door. Donna glanced at the cubicles, hoping there might be help from someone there but they were alone.
‘Oliver Poole.’ Jade said. ‘Dale Harris.’
‘I can’t discuss that. You’re on sick leave, Jade.’
‘I’m not sick.’
‘Well, you do a pretty good impression of it,’ Donna said.
‘Just shut the fuck up, will you?’ Her eyes flashed.
Had she got a knife? Was she hearing voices or seeing things? ‘Jade—’
‘He knew. DS Harris. He knew it was Dale. He lied about the tape from Fredo’s to put us off the scent. That’s what he was doing with all that shit about the CCTV. He was getting rid of the evidence and blaming me. He lied about the Cavalier. They didn’t have a power cut. I’ve been there. I’ve got the file.’
The bastard.
‘And listen to this.’ Jade put her hand into her pocket and Donna jerked backwards. But it was a phone, that was all. A mobile phone. A recording.
Jade’s voice: ‘You spoke to DS Harris?’
Then a woman: ‘I didn’t get his name.’
Jade: ‘A big man, in his fifties. Grey hair, blue striped tie?’
The woman: ‘Yes.’
‘That’s Sonia Poole,’ Jade said.
Oh, Jesus. Sweat pricked Donna’s scalp, her pulse galloped.
‘She came here yesterday,’ Jade said. ‘I saw her in Reception. She was reporting her son was Man B from the photo-fits. You know what Harris told me? She was a psychic who claimed Allie and all the angels were talking to her. He knew, boss. Maybe not at first, maybe not even when the photo-fits came, but as soon as he went to Fredo’s he saw Dale and Oliver on the tape, off their skulls and hurling abuse. He knew then. That’s why he got rid of the tape or lost it or whatever he’s done.’
The extent of Martin’s betrayal hit Donna anew. He hadn’t just betrayed the team, his colleagues, but the Kennaways too. The very people he was meant to serve, to protect.
‘Here . . . from the Cavalier.’ Jade tapped at the phone and turned it so Donna could see the screen. Dale and Oliver at the pub before the murder.
Donna watched the clip, saw the lads buying drinks. Evidence Martin had tried to prevent them ever seeing.
‘Jesus,’ Donna said. She held onto the basin for a moment.
‘I’m not sick,’ Jade said. ‘He is. Those two fuckers are. Not me.’
It was enough to crucify Martin, but Jade had been removed from duty. The legality of the evidence was questionable at best. ‘Jade, I don’t know that we can use any of this.’
‘Why the fuck not?’ She glared at Donna, face incredulous.
‘I sacked you, remember? You don’t have the proper authority.’
Jade pulled out her warrant card. ‘I had this, my notes back everything up. It’s all solid.’
Donna felt breathless as if she had run too far, too fast.
‘You were off the case.’ Donna raised her voice.
‘Who knew?’ Jade demanded. ‘Did you tell the team?’
‘Not yet but—’
‘HR?’
‘No,’ Donna said.
‘Me neither. So, I’m back on the team. No one knows the difference.’
‘Jade, I can’t. You’re being treated for—’
‘It’s none of your business,’ Jade said. ‘You’d never have known if Harris hadn’t snitched on me. There’s no problem with my work. I’m not the one who lost evidence. He is. He probably torched it, actually – that’s what I’d do in his shoes. But you believed him over me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Donna said, guilt ballooning inside her.
‘I should have questioned it more. Gone deeper. But the fact remains you’re on medication for a psychiatric condition. I can’t ignore that.’ It was a boulder blocking the way.
‘You can. We go back to how it was before,’ Jade said.
‘Jade, I can’t.’
Jade’s face tightened, darkened. ‘Or I go to the Federation, raise a case against you for unfair treatment, bullying, failure to listen to a serious complaint. I don’t give a fuck, take your pick.’
‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ Donna said.
‘No. We could just put our heads together and nail the bastards, all three of them.’ She spoke bitterly, ferociously, and Donna sensed the need, the passion beneath words.
‘You’re a risk, Jade. If you’re not well—’
‘Fuck! How many more times?’ Jade shouted. ‘I’m fine. It doesn’t affect my work.’
‘Tell me what it’s for, exactly? The medication?’ Donna said.
‘No.’
‘Jade, what happened to you?’ Donna said.
Silence. Jade’s fingers busy, picking at her nails.
‘Look. There’s no way I can—’ Donna said.
Jade turned away. ‘Bad things happened. A long time ago. Antipsychotic, the clue’s in the name.’ Her head snapped round to face Donna. ‘It’s only a problem if I don’t take them.’ A bright anger in her eyes. And something else. Pain.
‘Do you see someone? Have you ever had—’
‘I need it. It works. That’s all. I swear. No one need ever know. Take me back.’ Jade’s eyes, dark as ink, were locked on hers.
‘I don’t know if I can. If anyone ever found out . . .’
Jade flung out her hands. ‘Sure you can, you’re the boss. If you can’t do that, then what the fuck are you for?’
Donna thought of what Martin had done to Jade. How he’d scapegoated her. The lies.
Jade waited, hands on hips, head tilted, fringe hanging over one eye. Scrawny, fierce, vulnerable. Donna saw she carried with her the power, the raw vitality that would make her a brilliant cop and a living nightmare to work with.
I must be out of my tiny mind. Donna gave a nod.
Jade returned it with a ghost of a smile, stepped back and held the door open for her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jade
While the boss pulled together an arrest warrant for Martin Harris and notified all those who needed to know, triggering a series of detonations up the force hierarchy, Jade was given the job of interviewing his son.
The DI had told her the gist of what the lads were saying, basically dobbing Bishaar in for the crime and claiming to be in fear of their lives.
Jade watched the recording of the first interviews. Dale spoke as little as possible while appearing cooperative. He echoed Oliver’s words. He was polite, outwardly calm.
Just as polite as Jade when she began the second interview by recapping what he’d said earlier in the day.
Then she said, ‘There are a few things I’m finding hard to understand. You’ve been through this traumatic event, you’re party to kicking a woman to death, then you’re released by the man you say had a knife. Now, your father is a police officer, a detective, why don’t you turn to him? Tell him what happened?’
‘We were scared,’ Dale said.
‘I get that,’ Jade said. ‘But didn’t you think the police might be able to protect you if you told us what had happened?’
‘The African guy said not to tell the police.’
‘Perhaps you thought your father wouldn’t believe you?’ Jade said.
‘No. Yes.’ He couldn’t work out how to answer. So Jade kept at him.
‘It’s all a bit random, isn’t it? Hard to believe. You’re a sportsman, aren’t you? Footballer? Fit? Strong?’
‘I play football,’ he said, guarded. Not bragging. Or lapping up the flattery. Jade wondered what that restraint cost him.
‘And your pal Oliver is a big lad, six foot, well-built. So there’s two of you and Allie Kennaway. I make that three against one. Mr Bishaar is five foot six, a flyweight,’ she said. ‘You could take him down.’
‘He had a knife,’ Dale said.
‘Describe this knife,’ she said.
‘A big hunting knife, one of those with curvy edges.’
‘And he pulled this knife on Oliver?’
‘Yes,’ Dale said.
‘Where’d he pull it from?’
Dale pinched the end of his nose. ‘His pocket.’
‘Which pocket?’ Jade said.
‘In his pants,’ Dale said.
‘Which side?’
‘The right,’ he said.
‘You sure about that?’ Jade remembered Bishaar doing the sketches. He was left-handed like her. Sweet. A gift for the prosecution, if they went to trial.
‘Yes,’ Dale said.
‘We’ve got a witness who ran into you in the Cavalier earlier that evening. She said you were harassing her, sexually harassing her.’
He scoffed, a laugh of disbelief, then cut it off, straightened his face. He was attractive, if you liked the glossy mag/male-model look. Jade didn’t.
‘It was a bit of fun,’ he said.
‘You touched her breasts, you touched her genitals. When she objected you called her a frigid bitch. Is that what passes for fun in your life?’ Jade said.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he said.
Jade could feel resentment coming off him. His face was taut. He’d balled his fists but didn’t appear to have noticed. ‘What was it like?’
‘Just a bit of banter. She took it the wrong way.’
‘How should she have taken it?’ Jade said. On her back with her legs open?
‘We were just having a laugh,’ he said. There was a flinty look in his eye, a spark of something beneath the clean-cut nice-lad image.
‘And Allie Kennaway, when you ran into her on New Mill Street, was that just a bit of fun?’
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘She wasn’t there. She was in the alley, Spring Gate Fold.’
‘Once you’d dragged her there,’ Jade said.
‘No. We didn’t.’
‘The woman in the Cavalier had sent you packing. You tried to get into a nightclub and they told you to do one.’ A flare of alarm ran across his face, quickly hidden. The abortive trip to Fredo’s wasn’t part of the script he’d learnt. His dad would have told him that was all tidied away. ‘I think you were still looking for fun,’ Jade went on. ‘Pissed off that the night was turning out to be rubbish. You see Allie Kennaway. You determine to have some fun one way or another.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She was in the alley. The African was trying to rape her.’
‘How could you tell?’
‘What?’ Dale said.
‘How could you tell he was attempting rape?’ Jade said. ‘What was he doing?’
‘He was grabbing between his legs – her legs. She was screaming.’
‘Like you grabbed the woman in the pub?’ Jade said.
‘No, not like that,’ Dale said.
‘Explain the difference.’
‘This was serious – he had a hand on her throat too. He didn’t stop when she screamed.’ Dale was describing himself, Jade was sure of it. His own actions now played out in Bishaar’s name.
‘You called him an African?’ she said.
‘He was,’ Dale said.
‘How did you know?’ Jade said.
‘He’s black, isn’t he? Coal black.’ How original. And what am I? Nigger brown?
‘Wasn’t it because your dad told you he was African?’
That light in his eyes again. He didn’t like it when she mentioned Harris. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘We never made his name or his ethnic identity public,’ Jade said.
‘I could tell from his colour, and the way he speaks, the accent.’
‘What did he say? His exact words?’ Jade said.
‘He said, “Kick her! Kick he
r.” Then he kept saying, “Again! Again!” ’
‘This knife . . .’ Jade switched track, saw Dale swallow. ‘You said he pulled it from his right pocket. Was it in a sheath or anything?’
‘No.’
‘You said it was a big knife. How long was it?’
‘A foot or so,’ Dale said.
‘A knife like that, kept in a trouser pocket. Wouldn’t it cut through the material?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe there was a sheath in the pocket.’
‘I thought you said there was no sheath.’
‘I didn’t see one,’ Dale said. His pupils shrank. A sign of anger. She saw him adjust his posture. He was struggling to keep calm now. She jumped to another topic. ‘What were you and Oliver arguing about just before you got the taxi?’
‘What?’
‘You were seen arguing. Oliver had stopped. He was shouting at you. You pulled him, made him walk on,’ Jade said.
‘I don’t remember,’ Dale said.
‘Really? You remember all those other details clear as day but not this. A barney with your mate?’
‘I don’t remember,’ Dale said.
‘How did you get the blood on your shirt?’ Jade said.
He went pale. ‘What?’
She felt a kick inside. ‘There was blood on your shirt, on your sleeve. How did it get there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Dale said.
‘You told us you kicked Allie Kennaway six or seven times. Did you thump her too?’
‘No.’
‘Punch her or slap her?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘But you did hit Mahmoud Bishaar?’ Jade said.
‘I didn’t.’
‘You held him in a headlock and you hit him several times. His nose was bleeding. And his lip. He was bleeding on your shirt.’
‘No way. No. He had a knife. He had a knife on Oliver. That’s all.’
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’
‘What?’
You heard. ‘Have you got a girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Boyfriend, then?’
He turned his face away. She could see how tight the muscles in his neck were, like he was straining to remain seated. She imagined his teeth crushed together.
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