by Mark Dawson
> Who are you?
> It’s best that you don’t know that.
> Best for who?
> For both of us.
Atticus stood and went to the window. He looked out into the street below. It was deserted. The snow had been falling all night and now even the road was smooth. There were no tyre tracks or footprints to disturb the white. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched, yet could see no evidence to suggest that it was more than just a premonition.
He went back to the desk and saw another message was waiting for him.
> I just wanted to say hello. Properly. I’d like to be able to be honest with you.
> How can you be honest if I don’t know who you are?
Another message flashed up at the bottom of the chatbox.
> JACK_OF_HEARTS HAS LEFT THE CONVERSATION
Epilogue
Atticus waited in the same café where he had taken Allegra Mallender on the first day of her husband’s trial. He had stopped at court first of all, but, as he had expected, there was a scrum of activity both inside and outside the building. Television outside broadcast vans had parked along the side of Wilton Road, and reporters were filming to camera pieces as bemused members of the public made their way around them. There was a queue of interested parties waiting to pass through security, and the usher—a man Atticus knew from his days in the police—had told him over a cigarette that the public gallery and the space reserved for the press were both full, and that no one else would be admitted.
The Crown’s case against Allegra Mallender and Tristan Lennox started today. Both stood accused of murder, and the magistrates were sitting in order to send the case straight to the Crown Court. Even though the hearing was purely procedural, this was still the biggest show in town. Ralph’s trial had been a cause célèbre, but this—adding his murderous wife and her illicit lover to the existing tragedy of the Mallenders—had given proceedings a salacious edge that went beyond what had gone before.
Atticus had two polystyrene cups of coffee on the table. He blew on his to cool it down before gingerly taking a sip. He heard the sound of the door opening and, as he turned his head, he saw Mack as she came inside. She raised a hand in acknowledgement, took off her coat and sat down opposite him.
“Morning,” she said.
He pushed the other coffee across the table. “For you.”
“Thanks.” She put the cup to her lips and sipped the coffee. “I need it.”
“Long morning?”
She smiled wanly. “Long few days.”
Atticus didn’t doubt it for a moment. The law allowed Mack twenty-four hours to interview Allegra and Lennox, but she had secured an extension for thirty-six hours before making the decision to charge them both. He remembered what it would have been like during that initial period: a concentrated burst of questioning, investigation and more questioning. The case might have appeared straightforward, but there were questions of the admissibility of the evidence that had been gathered at the farmhouse that needed to be discussed with the CPS. That, together with the inevitable media attention that the case would attract, would have been enough to give Mack a full plate.
“Did they give you an idea what they might plea?” he asked her.
“Not guilty,” she said.
“A trial in the summer, then?”
“At the earliest. I’ve got months of this to look forward to. I’ve already done it once before. Now I’ve got to do it all again.” She shook her head and laughed bitterly. “Listen to me. Maybe I ought to come and work with you.”
“For me,” he corrected. “I have an established business now.”
“Sorry,” she said, smiling. “Of course.”
“Actually, I’m not completely joking. I could do with the help.”
“You have work?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. The phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
Atticus had been approached by the BBC’s Look South news show yesterday and had accepted their offer to be interviewed about his role in the case. He had been careful not to prejudice the fresh investigation, but had discussed how he had unravelled the case against Ralph. It was only a local programme, but he had immediately noticed a spike in traffic to his website, and the phone calls had started soon after. A good number of the enquiries were easily dismissed—crank calls, those looking for help in finding lost pets, someone who asked whether he could help investigate a possible haunting—but there had been half a dozen that were promising.
“Look at you,” she said. “On the TV and now you’re a big shot.”
“Hardly,” he said, although he enjoyed the acknowledgement that was hidden within her gentle sarcasm. “What about Ralph?”
“Haven’t seen him. Probably best—the rumour is that he’s getting lawyers on board to make a civil claim.”
“It’ll settle,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Probably.”
Atticus thought that she looked tired. It wasn’t surprising. Mack had had a difficult two weeks with the disintegration of the first trial, and he didn’t doubt that she had been given a rough time of it by Beckton and the other senior officers. The BBC reporter to whom he had spoken had suggested that there was going to be an external investigation into what had gone wrong, and he had heard rumblings that Ralph was gearing up for a civil claim against the police. Mack was the face of the investigation, and that would all have taken a toll.
“Everything else all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
“Home?”
Her eyes flicked up and to the right. “All good. The kids are a handful, but that’s par for the course. We’re doing good.”
Atticus knew Mack well enough to know the baseline for when she was being honest, and her body language was a million miles from that. She shifted a little, there was a slight crack in her voice—almost imperceptible, but not to him—and there was the shirked eye contact. The self-deprecating shrug of helplessness when she mentioned the children came after her words, rather than accompanying them; it had been added after the fact to reinforce the lie, rather than being contemporaneous, as would have been the case if she was answering truthfully. Atticus knew that she was hiding something.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it must be,” he said. “You’ve been through the mill the last few months. Don’t forget to look after yourself.”
“What is this? Detective Sergeant Priest thinking of others?”
He wondered whether now was the time to tell her about the conversation that he had had with Jack_of_Hearts, but decided not. Mack was up against it, and there was no sense in burdening her with something else now, especially since it was probably just a crank. Atticus had given the online exchange a lot of thought and had come to the conclusion that it was someone who was messing around with him. It was elaborate, certainly, and could only really have been someone with knowledge of the investigation and the events of that evening in the woods. A police officer, then. He had made a lot of enemies during his time in the force, and it wouldn’t have been difficult to fill a list with those people who would have both the motive and inside knowledge to spoof him.
That was what he was telling himself, anyway. It hadn’t stopped him from obsessively checking his account for further messages, but, so far, Jack had made no further moves in their game nor sent another message. Atticus would watch and wait. There was nothing else that he could do.
“I’d better get back to the nick,” Mack said. She stood. “Thanks for the coffee.”
He got up, too, and watched her go. It had started to rain again and she stood outside the door and stiffened the collar of her overcoat before disappearing around the corner. Atticus scattered the coins in his pocket on the table as a tip, swiped his own jacket from the back of the chair, and put it on. Bandit needed a walk and he had made an appointment with a potential new client that afternoon. Something about a missing person, with enough in the initial email to
suggest that it might be interesting. He thanked the woman behind the counter and went outside just as one of the news vans with a satellite dish on its roof rolled around the roundabout and headed away in the direction of London.
Atticus was reminded of something that his father used to say: “Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip papers.”
There was truth in that. The Christmas Eve Massacre would soon fade from the news, to be replaced by the next lurid scandal. The benefit to Atticus’s brief fame, such as it was, would soon fade, too. He needed to take advantage of it while it lasted.
Life went on.
And Atticus had things to do.
Acknowledgments
Thank you, as ever, to Team Milton for their diligent inspection of the manuscript and suggestions for improving it. Special thanks to former detective (and current thriller writer) Neil Lancaster for making sure I didn’t embarrass myself with my policing and to a criminal barrister who wishes to remain anonymous for dispensing advice when it came to the courtroom action.
And, of course, to my wife for her sage advice. The ending is a little different because of it.
Atticus will be back.
Mark Dawson
Salisbury 2020
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