It was a sobering thought to which neither of them had an answer.
19
Whenever Wendy waited until one o’clock to go out, she had to waste half of her lunch hour queueing for a sandwich, so she decided to take an early break. The sun was shining and she didn’t want to be stuck in a shop for the little time she had away from the office. As it turned out, she was doubly pleased with her decision because not only was there no queue in the sandwich shop, but they had just taken a fresh tray of sausage rolls from the oven. The smell was irresistible so she bought three and scoffed one before setting off to find a bench in the sun, clutching the paper bag with the rest of her lunch in one hand, and her handbag in the other. As she turned off the main road, she was faintly aware of the sound of footsteps behind her. Someone was in a hurry. She was about to move over to the side of the pavement to allow them to pass when she felt a violent tug on her handbag.
‘What the hell –’ she burst out, tightening her hold on her bag and trying to yank it away.
Looking round, she saw a stocky boy staring at her. Caught by a ray of sun, the blade of a knife glinted brightly in his hand. Two other boys were standing on either side of him, glaring at her, and she now saw it was one of them who had caught hold of the strap on her bag. The third boy looked younger than the other two, and she thought he looked scared. At any rate he seemed to be trembling, and his dark eyes stared wildly at her as though he was afraid she was going to hit him. The boy who had attempted to snatch her bag was taller than the other two and very skinny, with untidy dark hair. He shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, as though he was incapable of keeping still. Only the boy who was brandishing a knife didn’t move a muscle but just stood there, gazing coolly at her.
‘Come on, hand it over,’ the tall boy said.
He pulled the bag but again failed to dislodge it from her arm. For a second no one spoke. No one moved.
Wendy gave the strap a sudden tug. ‘Get your hands off!’ she shouted, too outraged to care that she might be in danger. ‘Help!’ she cried out, more loudly. ‘I’m being robbed!’
The street was deserted. The boy with the knife took a step closer, and another. When he spoke his voice was so quiet, she had to strain to hear. ‘Shut your trap or I’ll shut it for you.’
His eyes gleamed with suppressed excitement and she realised he was high, and unlikely to respond rationally to anything she said or did. Her thoughts racing, she clutched the bag of sausage rolls more tightly and, in that instant, the boy lunged forward. A point of cold metal tickled her skin as the tip of his blade touched her neck. She was conscious of the warmth of the sun on the back of her head, and a few flecks of white fluff floating high overhead in a bright blue sky. Slow resentment unfurled inside her like a cat flexing its muscles. It was never wise to react in anger, but all her life she had been pushed around – by her parents, by her teachers, by her boss. Now even these imbeciles thought they could bend her to their will.
She had to resist their assault, if only to protect her painstakingly constructed self-esteem. But there were three of them, and at least one of them had a knife. All she had was two sausage rolls and her handbag. Even if she had been carrying a weapon, she wouldn’t have been able to reach for it because her hands were full.
She stared at the boy who was threatening her, gauging his weight and height. If it wasn’t for the knife, she might have stood a chance, even against three of them. None of them looked particularly fit. But the sharp metal point was pressing against her neck, and she didn’t know whether the other boys were armed. Holding her breath, she edged backwards until the tip of the knife was no longer in contact with her skin.
‘OK,’ she said, lowering her head submissively, but keeping her eyes fixed on the boy. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I’m not stupid. I can see there’s no point in trying to resist. But put the knife down, for heaven’s sake. If I slip, there could be a nasty accident, and I don’t think you want to end up drenched in my blood, do you? I’m a haemophiliac,’ she added, with sudden inspiration, ‘and that means even the tiniest cut makes me bleed a lot. And I do mean a lot. I have to go straight to hospital or I can bleed to death in minutes.’
She was talking nonsense, but it seemed to work because the youngest boy muttered something about not wanting to have a murder on their hands. The boy holding a knife grunted and lowered his arm. Seconds later he was lying flat on his back, winded, and staring up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. He wouldn’t have known what hit him. As he flipped over he had let go of his knife, which had gone skidding into the road. She was afraid he might have cracked his head on the pavement when he landed, but there was no time to worry about that. Before the other boys could take in what had happened, she turned and sprinted back to the main road, still clutching her handbag. She had dropped the sausage rolls, but the boys who had tried to rob her were welcome to them.
After glancing up to check there was a camera facing the doorway, she darted into the first shop she came to and whipped out her phone. On the point of reporting that she had been mugged, she hesitated. She might have injured the boy who had been waving a knife in her face. It was possible she had killed him. She was confident she had been justified in using her martial arts skills to defend herself, but if she had actually hurt her assailant, perhaps seriously, she could end up in trouble. The law was tricky, and she had heard of people being prosecuted after innocently fighting to defend themselves from attack. On balance, she decided it might be best to keep quiet and not report the incident at all. If by some horrible accident she had actually killed her attacker, she might lose a lot more than a couple of sausage rolls if she was apprehended and prosecuted. As it was, there was no way the assault could be traced back to her.
Thoughtfully she put her phone back in her bag and made her way to the office. She hadn’t even been away for an hour.
‘Had a good morning?’ one of her colleagues asked as she went back inside.
She nodded, and gave a tight smile. ‘Oh, you know. Same old, same old.’
20
Tom was sent home, threatening to complain about wrongful arrest and police brutality. No one took any notice of him, least of all the impervious custody sergeant who had heard such accusations many times before.
‘Well, he wasn’t a happy man,’ the sergeant told Geraldine cheerfully, ‘and he certainly wasn’t at all pleased with us, I can tell you that much.’
She shrugged. It couldn’t have been easy for Tom, finding himself imprisoned like that, completely out of the blue. Admittedly he had only spent a single night in a cell, but he had originally been locked up for an unspecified period. That must have been a terrifying experience, especially for someone who had little reason to feel confident in the police. After all, they had taken him in for questioning and then accused him of a double murder he hadn’t committed. It was understandable he might have been afraid he was being stitched up as, without an alibi, he had little defence against the power and credibility of the police. He was probably still feeling stunned by the whole experience.
After lunch the team assembled to discuss the latest development. Eileen was doing her best to sound encouraging, but she couldn’t conceal her disappointment.
‘We have to put this behind us and move forward,’ she said. ‘With Tom in the clear, we must redouble our efforts to find the muggers. They are now back to being our main suspects.’
Geraldine glanced around the room. Her colleagues were all gazing at Eileen, and most were nodding earnestly. No one seemed prepared to challenge what she was telling them. But just because Tom had been exonerated didn’t automatically mean that the muggers were guilty of murder. Worried that she was alone in her silent criticism of the detective chief inspector’s focus, she went to look for Ian to find out whether he shared her opinion. There was no one else with whom she felt comfortable sharing her private views about the way their senior investiga
ting officer was conducting the case.
Ian dismissed her reservations straightaway. ‘What would you do in her position?’
Geraldine took a deep breath. They both knew she would never rise to the position of detective chief inspector after her demotion to sergeant. The fact that she had once been a likely candidate for promotion made her position harder to bear.
‘I just think we should keep an open mind,’ she replied, trying not to sound bitter. ‘When we thought Tom was guilty, we abandoned the idea that the muggers were responsible without a moment’s thought. So how plausible does that make them as suspects in a murder investigation? Why are we suddenly so convinced they are our killers, just because it wasn’t Tom? Isn’t it possible there’s someone else out there who killed those two victims? Why are we being so limited in our search?’
‘It’s not true we abandoned our attempts to find the muggers. And I don’t see why the killers wouldn’t also be muggers.’
‘That’s hardly a reason to think they would be.’
‘The victims were stabbed to death, and we know the muggers carry knives.’
‘Again, why is that a reason to suppose they are the same people? Are knives so difficult to come by?’
‘Well, the plain fact is, we don’t have any other leads.’
‘That’s exactly my point. Instead of devoting all our resources to looking for people who may or may not be implicated in the murders, we ought to be searching for the actual culprits. It might be the muggers, it might not. We just don’t know.’
‘But what else can we do?’
‘For a start, we could be searching for anything that connects the two victims. And how about taking DNA samples from anyone matching the profile we have got, Caucasian, male with blond hair and blue eyes.’
‘You really think we should be taking DNA samples from every blond adult male in York? That would be an impossible task. And we don’t even know if the killer lives in York.’
‘But why are we only pursuing these muggers?’ Geraldine insisted.
‘I would have thought the reason was obvious. If Tom was guilty, then it wasn’t the gang who’ve been out mugging people. But now we know he’s not the killer we’re after, they could be guilty. That’s all. It seems perfectly simple to me.’ He stared at her with an intensity that made her feel uneasy. Doing her best to conceal her disquiet, she lowered her gaze. ‘It’s understandable you’re feeling disappointed about your position in the team, Geraldine,’ he went on, ‘but you must guard against letting that feeling turn into resentment against the DCI. You could have been in her shoes, but you’re not. You need to get past that and concentrate on the job.’
Geraldine’s face felt hot. ‘Is that what you think of me? That I’m so unprofessional I’d let myself be influenced by my feelings about my own career?’
He frowned, but before he could respond she spun round and left his office. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to snap at him. She had never felt so despondent at work before.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ariadne asked, catching sight of Geraldine’s scowl when she returned to her desk.
‘Oh, nothing, it’s just this case.’
‘I know. It’s driving us all nuts. Fancy a coffee?’
Geraldine nodded. ‘Might as well.’
They went down to the canteen together. Sitting over steaming mugs of coffee, they discussed the likelihood that the muggers and the killer were one and the same. In its own way, Geraldine found Ariadne’s reaction to her reservations even more depressing than Ian’s. While he had accused her of being distracted by her own personal disappointment, Ariadne didn’t even seem that bothered by what Geraldine was saying.
‘It’s what the DCI wants us to do,’ she replied, when Geraldine questioned their focus on the muggers.
‘But what if these muggers have got nothing to do with the murders at all? We could be wasting valuable resources and time in searching for them. We’ve spent hours studying CCTV footage of the areas around the scene of their attacks, questioning the victims of the muggings, trying to trace the goods that were stolen, and asking around in all the locations where youngsters hang out. What if we’ve been looking in the wrong place all along?’
Ariadne shrugged. ‘Then it’s the DCI’s head on the block, not ours.’
‘But surely the most important thing is to find these killers?’
‘Yes, of course it is, but we’re part of a team and we can only do what we’re told.’ She gave Geraldine a curious look. ‘I know you were an inspector, and you’re used to having more say in what goes on, but well, you’re just a sergeant like me now, and we can’t question what a DCI tells us to do, can we?’
Geraldine had no answer to that. It seemed that any time she questioned the detective chief inspector’s views, she was accused of insubordination. She genuinely believed she was right to challenge Eileen’s judgement, but perhaps Ian and Ariadne were right and she was actually voicing a resentment she couldn’t acknowledge, even to herself. If that was true, then she could no longer trust her own objectivity.
‘You’re right,’ she told Ariadne. ‘We can’t question our superiors. We just have to follow orders.’
She hoped she hadn’t sounded bitter, but the words sickened her. She stood up abruptly and hurried back to her desk, leaving her half-drunk coffee on the table.
21
It wasn’t that they had failed to profit from their intended victim. That would have been depressing enough, but it wouldn’t have been the first time they had messed up an attempt to mug someone. Once, they had approached a man who had turned out to be homeless and destitute. Not only that, but they hadn’t noticed he had a dog. The hobo had chased them down the road, waving a bottle, while his dog barked and worried at their legs. Another time, they hadn’t realised that a young man had been lagging behind a crowd of his friends. As soon as he called out, more than half a dozen youths had come bounding towards them and they had barely managed to escape a thrashing.
So it wasn’t the defeat itself, but the uncomfortable nature of it that had thrown them into disarray. Carver had always boasted that he was invincible. As long as he had his flick knife in his hand, no one could touch him. Now, not only had he had been beaten in a fight, he had been overpowered by an unarmed woman who had tossed him over her shoulder as easily as she would a child. Daryl could still picture Carver flying through the air, his fair hair splayed out around his head, his arms and legs flailing helplessly, his eyes glaring wildly, and his mouth stretched wide in silent outrage. The incident had lasted no more than a second, but the image was indelibly stamped on Daryl’s mind. If the butt of the joke hadn’t been Carver, it would have been funny.
After the woman had fled, Daryl stood gazing helplessly from Nelson to Carver, and back again, wondering what to do. Refusing to meet Daryl’s eye, Nelson scurried to retrieve Carver’s knife from the middle of the road. Daryl trotted past Carver without looking down at him and picked up the white paper bag the woman had dropped. Smelling food, he glanced inside and saw two sausage rolls. Between Carver and Nelson, he didn’t suppose he would get so much as a bite, but Nelson had come back and was eyeing him suspiciously.
‘What you got there?’
Resigned, Daryl held up the bag. ‘Must be her lunch,’ he said.
Nelson reached forward and snatched the bag from him.
‘Hey! Give that back. I found it.’
Ignoring Daryl’s protest, Nelson picked a sausage roll from the bag and took a bite.
‘Not bad.’ He crammed the rest of it in his mouth.
Neither of them dared go over to Carver to check he was all right. Daryl was afraid he was dead. He had certainly landed on the pavement with a loud thud.
‘We should split,’ Daryl said. ‘She’s bound to call the pigs.’
Nelson frowned. ‘Fuck her. We’ll say we never seen her be
fore.’
‘But what about him?’
As though he knew they were talking about him, Carver groaned. They both turned to look at him. He was lying on the ground where he had fallen, but now his eyelids were flickering. Nelson walked over to him, still holding the knife, and the bag with the remaining sausage roll.
‘Here you go,’ he said, dangling the knife above Carver’s face.
Carver stirred. Slowly he heaved himself into a sitting position and glowered up at his two companions, before clambering to his feet. He stood upright for a moment, swaying almost imperceptibly, then grabbed his knife from Nelson and slipped it in his pocket.
‘What’s that you got there?’ he growled.
Nelson barely hesitated. Able to move and speak, Carver was the leader once more.
‘It’s a sausage roll. It’s for you.’
He held out the bag.
Carver looked perplexed. ‘What the fuck you doing with a sausage roll?’
Nelson didn’t answer.
‘She dropped them,’ Daryl said.
‘Who?’
‘The woman.’
‘What woman?’
‘The woman –’ Daryl broke off, realising his mistake.
Nelson turned to him, head on one side, as though he was genuinely interested in hearing what Daryl had to say.
‘What woman?’ Carver asked again.
‘Yeah, what woman?’ Nelson repeated.
‘Just some woman who walked by. She saw us and she was scared so she dropped the bag as she ran away and it had –’ Daryl glanced at Nelson. ‘It had a sausage roll in it,’ he finished lamely.
‘Here.’ Nelson held out the bag with the sausage roll in it.
Carver took the bag and sniffed it. ‘Smells like shit,’ he said.
‘It must have been her lunch,’ Daryl said pointlessly.
He watched Carver take a bite out of the sausage roll.
‘Not bad,’ Carver admitted.
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