Her Last Secret

by P L Kane

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ was the only answer Jake gave, shaking Matt out of his reverie. ‘She was my daughter. They were her friends. But you should probably talk to them too, because they’ve got quite a lot to say about this so-called “local character”, Sergeant. Creepy was one of the words used.’

  ‘Creepy? Of course he’s bloody creepy! It’s Drummond!’ snapped Channing. ‘Would you want to take him out for a drink? No. Would you want to take him home and introduce him to the family? Not in a million years. Would you want to get into a fight with him? Jesus God no!’ Those last words echoed Matt’s own thoughts about all this. ‘But he’s not—’

  ‘He was following Jordan around,’ Jake broke in.

  ‘What?’ said Matt, drawn further into the room by what his friend had just said.

  ‘Following her,’ he repeated.

  ‘Says who, these friends of hers?’ Channing again.

  ‘Yes. You can check with them. In fact, please do. It caused an argument between Bannister and her apparently. Might have been the thing that led up to her death. Or maybe this Drummond—’

  Channing sighed loudly. ‘Listen Columbo, I thought I told you to drop all this the last time we were in here? Let the police do their job, and you do your grieving.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Matt, thinking the last bit could have been a bit more tactful – but then Channing was starting to lose what patience he had left for all this.

  ‘Except you’re not doing your job, are you?’ Jake spat.

  ‘Yes, we are!’ Channing hit back. ‘We’re just not running every single detail by you, and frankly why would we? Isn’t it enough that we have the guy who did this? All the rest will come to light in due course, I promise you.’

  Jake shook his head, obviously not convinced.

  ‘Well, if you’re going to be running around causing trouble, then I see no alternative but to keep you here for a short while. Just till you cool down.’

  ‘And Drummond, are you going to keep him here this time … for a change.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Channing, ‘you’re lucky that nutter doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, or he’d be coming after you for assault.’ Channing gave a grin that held no warmth at all. ‘You think we don’t know who started this? Especially after what you’ve told us here. You went after him—’

  ‘I went to ask him some questions, to get answers,’ said Jake, but even Matt could tell he was lying.

  Channing pointed a finger at Jake. ‘You wanted to pound on someone. It’s understandable, though personally I’d have gone for somebody a bit smaller – who could feel it.’

  ‘Oh, he felt it all right,’ Jake assured the DS.

  ‘That cut?’ asked Channing. ‘Didn’t even need stitches. I’m telling you, the guy’s like The Hulk or something. But when we do let you out of here, you’d probably best watch your back. He’s never done anything violent before—’

  ‘That you know of!’

  ‘—But you might just have pissed him off enough to come after you, pal. Might just “Hulk smash” you!’ Sounded more like a threat from Channing than Drummond.

  It went quiet for a few moments, no one saying a thing. Then suddenly the DS piped up again. ‘Oh, yeah, I meant to ask you about this.’ He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. ‘We found it on you when you were brought in. Care to tell me what these numbers are?’

  Jake looked across and then down. ‘I’m … I’m not entirely sure.’ It was the truth this time, Matt felt – Jake didn’t know. But it wasn’t the whole story, Matt sensed that as well.

  ‘So where did you get them, then?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Still playing the detective, eh?’ Channing let out another long sigh. ‘All right, back to the cells with you then. DC Newcomb, do you want to escort our prisoner? Maybe you can talk some sense into him on the way.’ Matt nodded, waited for Jake to stand and beckoned him over. As they were about to leave, Channing stood too and covered the distance between himself and Matt, placing a hand on his arm. ‘Oh, and no pitstops at Robert Bannister’s cell along the way, you understand?’

  Matt nodded again, glancing down at the hand – which Channing removed. Then Matt was out in the corridor with Jake, leading him down to the cells. Neither of them spoke for a few moments, until suddenly Matt said, ‘You really do need to leave this alone, Jake. I’ve seen him like this before and it never ends well. He’s been cutting you some slack, but …’

  Jake didn’t reply, just looked over at his friend and then back down at the ground in front of him again.

  ‘I mean it, mate.’

  ‘I’m doing this for Jordan,’ Jake said under his breath.

  ‘Jordan would want you to leave this alone too.’

  Jake looked at him again now, eyes narrowing. ‘You didn’t even know her.’

  Matt opened his mouth, was about to say, ‘And did you?’ but thought better of it. Instead, he said: ‘I know she wouldn’t want you to keep getting in trouble like this. No daughter would.’

  Jake lapsed into silence once more.

  ‘If nothing else, think about the people you’re affecting. Jules, for example. All this publicity, it’s—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. It was always about Julie with you, wasn’t it?’

  Matt stopped, tugged his friend’s shoulder to pull him around. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Come on,’ said Jake. ‘We both know how you felt about her, you even told me a few times when you’d had a skinful.’

  Matt gazed at him. Shook his head. ‘Yeah, but I—’

  ‘She never felt the same way,’ Jake said bluntly.

  Below the belt that one, way below. Okay, thought Matt, if the gloves are off … ‘Yeah, I got it. She chose you. And then you walked away from her. From both of them, your wife and daughter.’

  Matt tensed, wondering if his friend would go for him now – another punchbag to take this out on. Go on, just try it, he thought. But he didn’t, Jake just looked sad. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Can we go now?’

  He turned away and Matt let him, fell in pace alongside him. They stayed silent even as he escorted him to his cell, then Matt said, ‘It was a long time ago.’

  Jake nodded. ‘It was. It was all a very long time ago.’ Then he sat down on his bunk, facing away from Matt.

  Nothing more was said, so Matt closed the cell door. He couldn’t help looking through the flap one last time, but his friend hadn’t moved, didn’t even stir.

  When Matt closed that again, he leaned back against the metal, head resting against it.

  His turn to let out a long, slow sigh.

  Chapter 13

  It was funny how things turned out, and how – in the space of a couple of days sometimes, not that he knew how long it had been – they changed.

  Time was a peculiar phenomenon. He’d thought about that a lot again after Matt had closed the cell door on him, those last words they’d exchanged echoing in his ears.

  ‘It was a long time ago …’

  And yet it was no time at all. The blink of an eye, and they’d gone from idiotic teens themselves who didn’t know what they were doing, to almost middle-aged … and still didn’t really know what they were doing. Adults like to pretend that they do, but all it boils down to is more experience, thought Jake to himself. You’ve just been through more shit, and hopefully learned from it. Or not.

  ‘You walked away from her. From both of them, your wife and daughter.’

  They could have been Julie’s words, and they were also correct. Time sped up, slowing down. But you couldn’t go back – not even a little bit. Not even a few days, a week …

  He’d deserved that response. Hadn’t known where all that was coming from about Julie, certainly hadn’t meant to hurt his friend in that way – rub in the way she’d felt about him, like a brother and nothing more. Just lashing out again, same as he had done when he’d left Julie and Jordan – hurting the ones you love. And
you always hurt the …

  ‘If nothing else, think about the people you’re affecting’, that had been the trigger … And he’d pushed back, as usual.

  They’d taken away his watch, along with his other belongings and of course his belt, shoelaces. So he had no way of telling how much time was passing in this box; another box. Could see when the sun went down through his grilled window, had passed a fitful night without sleep that seemed to last forever.

  They’d brought him meals, but he’d barely registered it. Should have had the presence of mind to ask what the time was then, but he’d only have forgotten it later. Would’ve lost track of it here on his own, with just his thoughts for company. Thoughts about the day he was told, about rushing to Redmarket, about Jordan in the morgue. About how time had worked then, and the first night in his hotel room … drunk, seeing his daughter. Making that pledge he was still trying to honour.

  Thinking about her room, the diary – those entries. Her friends, Drummond … Getting arrested. Everything spinning round and round and round, until he felt like he was going insane. Was that it, was the grief sending him crazy?

  ‘Let the police do their job, and you do your grieving.’

  Round and round until finally he must have passed out at some point on the bunk from sheer exhaustion; mental and physical. He’d opened his eyes, woken up and it had been dark outside again, the second night (some part of mind could hold on to that, at least).

  And there, in the corner of his cell, had been Jordan.

  ‘Oh … oh my,’ he spluttered. ‘Sweetheart, is it really … I’ve been trying, really I have. I think I’m getting somewhere with all this. That guy who was following you, Drummond. I went to see him and … well, that’s how I ended up in here, you see. I got into a fight and …’ Jake was aware that he was rambling, excited and trying to get everything out that he needed to tell her, while he remembered. While it was still fresh in his mind and he hadn’t tipped too far over the edge. ‘Your friends said he caused argument between you and Bobby, that it might have been the thing that led up to … I know he was jealous from what you said in your diary, sweetheart. I’m piecing things together bit by bit, it’s slow but …’ He was also aware that he wasn’t allowing her any time again to speak, no gaps in his verbal diarrhoea for her to come back to him on any of these points, so he closed his mouth. He’d got most of it out that he needed to say anyway, ordering his thoughts just like she’d wanted to do with her diary, only becoming more confused at the end.

  Jake waited. But Jordan had just stared at him, her skin as pale as it had been in that morgue again. Stared like Drummond had been doing at the leisure centre, like he … like she couldn’t understand him. Maybe it had been too much to take in, all at once?

  He’d started to speak again with his garbled report when she’d moved, had begun shaking her head.

  ‘What …? No? Is that what you’re saying to me? Is that what you’re trying to say? But to which bit, Drummond, the argument …’

  She’d continued to slowly shake her head. Was it disapproval? Was it because he wasn’t going fast enough?

  Just moving her head from side to side, from left to right.

  ‘Sweetheart, I don’t know what you … You have to speak to me. Please!’ Jake was down on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. ‘Please tell me what I’m doing … What I’ve done wrong!’

  (Do you have all day? The thought just popped into his head …)

  But she kept on shaking her head, saying nothing. Until, eventually, he heard the noise. Metal on metal, screeching and scraping. From somewhere really far away to begin with, then closer. The door behind Jordan. She was fading away now, obviously not allowed to be here if someone else was intruding.

  ‘Go away!’ he shouted at whoever it was, the guy bringing a meal, Matt … Jake didn’t care, they were interrupting this time with his daughter, scaring her off. Time … not enough time with her.

  More noise and the door slamming back on its hinges. ‘Rise and shine, sleeping beauty! We’ve let you lie in long enough.’ A voice he recognised, one he was beginning to hate. Channing’s. That smug, superior voice, always telling him to leave things alone – when he couldn’t, because that would be going against what he’d promised his daughter.

  And it was only then that Jake realised he was opening his eyes for real this time, that he’d just been dreaming about Jordan. Not seeing her in the here and now like he had – like he’d thought he had – back at the hotel that night. So now he resented the fact he’d been woken up by Channing, that he’d ruined this opportunity of spending more time with Jordan, whether she was something conjured up by his subconscious or not.

  He rose from the bunk, scowling. Glaring at Channing. ‘Don’t look so glum, you’re being let off with a caution. And a warning. An official one this time to stay out of business that doesn’t concern you, before you get yourself into a real mess.’

  ‘Okay,’ stated Jake.

  Channing said nothing for a moment, trying to read him, gauge whether he meant it – which he so obviously didn’t. ‘Also, don’t go thinking this is out of the goodness of my heart. You’ve got your new little friend to thank for it. Easier just to do this than have her kick up an official stink.’

  Jake’s scowl transformed into a frown. ‘New friend?’

  ‘Have her kick up a fuss …’

  ‘She’s waiting for you at the desk, where you can also pick up your things.’ Channing told him, then cupped and swept his hand in a motion that said, ‘Come on, we haven’t got all day’. Jake got up and joined him quickly, more out of curiosity than anything.

  Who was this person who’d stepped up on his account? This woman who was apparently in his corner? Jules? He doubted it somehow, and the words ‘official’ made it sound like it was someone whose words carried weight around here.

  When he arrived at the desk, he saw a woman sitting on the bench opposite waiting – someone he’d never clapped eyes on before in his life. She had dark brown hair, cut in a bob, was wearing a dark trouser-suit with a cream blouse beneath it and had a raincoat folded over her crossed legs. Resting on top of this was a shoulder bag, which was standing on end as if she was using it as a shield. He didn’t get time to take any more in, as Channing ushered him across to be given back his belongings. This included his watch, and Jake noted that it was almost half ten on Monday morning.

  Channing moved away without saying goodbye to Jake, but he did nod to the seated woman with a sort of grudging respect. ‘Miss Ferrara.’

  She nodded back, finally getting to her feet and wandering over to Jake – who’d finished tying up his laces, was taking possession of his jacket. She was about a foot or so shorter than him. ‘Mr Radcliffe,’ she said, transferring the bag to her left shoulder and draping the raincoat over that same arm, before sticking out her right hand.

  ‘Yes?’ Jake answered cautiously, taking the hand and shaking it. Her grip was gentle, but there was a firmness there too – and he thought to himself it could probably get firmer if the need arose and depending on who she was greeting. There was also a steel in those eyes of hers, in spite of the fact they were brown to match her hair.

  ‘I’m Miss Ferrara, of Goodwin and McDonald,’ she told him, breaking off the shake.

  ‘A lawyer?’ he asked, puzzled.

  She nodded.

  ‘But I didn’t … Who …?’

  ‘It’s not exactly a secret that you’re here. In fact, you’re becoming quite the celebrity with your exploits.’ She smiled. ‘And I was visiting anyway … to see my client. You might be familiar with him.’

  ‘Your … Drummond?’ He was even more puzzled now. The giant didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d have a lawyer onside, if indeed he needed one; the police didn’t appear overly bothered about what that man got up to.

  She laughed out loud. ‘Oh my goodness gracious, no. He was let out yesterday anyway. No, I came to make sure my client was all right – seeing as they sti
ll haven’t bothered to move him yet. Some nonsense about not being able to find space at the local prison. More like they just want to keep a close eye on him …’

  Jake finally got who she meant. ‘Your client is Robert Bannister.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  He couldn’t help his lip curling at that; so much for someone being in his corner. ‘Then I don’t see what … Isn’t this a conflict of interest, you just talking to me?’

  She gave him a disapproving look. ‘I’m not representing you, Mr Radcliffe. I was just doing you a favour because … Well, I think you could use one.’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  Miss Ferrara looked about her, then wrenched her head towards the corner – out of earshot of any officers who might be nearby. Jake reluctantly followed her. ‘Okay, I’ll level with you,’ she said, keeping her voice down. ‘I was hired by his parents even before they got back to the UK. I’ve had several meetings with both them and Bobby, and to be frank I don’t think he did what he was accused of, Mr Radcliffe.’ She held up a hand before he could say anything. ‘Listen, just hear me out. He’s said again and again over the last few days that he arranged to meet with your daughter at the market and they were going to head off clubbing. When he found her, she’d already been stabbed.’

  Jake’s lip curled again; he felt like vomiting at the words.

  ‘I’m sorry, I know this is difficult,’ she told him. ‘But a young man’s freedom is at stake.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about his freedom!’ snapped Jake, a little too loudly, drawing looks from a couple of passing uniforms.

  ‘Yes, yes. I totally understand that. At the same time, you wouldn’t want to see the wrong person punished, would you? Or someone else who did it go scot-free?’ Miss Ferrara met his gaze and held it, and without giving him time to answer said, ‘No, I thought not.’

  ‘His fingerprints were on the handle of the knife, Miss Ferrara.’