‘The hell it is.’ Eve grabbed her keys from her crumpled coat pocket and headed for the door. ‘I’ll see myself home.’
The house was in darkness. A black-and-white cat slunk between yellow pools of light from the overhead streetlights – the only life in the small cul-de-sac that the terraced home lay on. Eve twisted her clenched fists on the steering wheel, watching. Five a.m. Five hours since Cooper had called and everything had changed.
Her view of the front door was clear; she could see how nothing would’ve got past Ferguson. If Hardy had come out that way. But what if he’d sneaked out the back? Where high fencing bordered the gardens of the row of five houses and, behind that, more gardens led nowhere except to the owners’ homes? There was scope. Opportunity not visible from the road.
She lay her forehead against the cold leather of the steering wheel, fighting every instinct to get out of the car, march to the door and kick the shit out of Hardy. If he was even there. She shouldn’t be here. She scanned the upper floor again, looking for something, anything to give a sign that Hardy was in. When the passenger door flew open, she cried out and spun her head around. ‘What the fu—’
‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Ferguson. Eve stared at him and dropped her hands to her lap. No use in trying to make excuses, so she waited for Ferguson to say what he was going to say.
‘I would’ve done the same. Problem is, seems Hastings would’ve too; it’s him that told me to come.’
‘Great. What now?’
‘Quit while you’re ahead.’
Eve lay her head back on the headrest. ‘Do you think that?’
Ferguson shrugged, didn’t look so sure. ‘Look, I know I brought him to you with the drugs and the stalking, but what’s the motive?’
Eve couldn’t answer that, so avoided the question. ‘Are you sure he couldn’t have got past you earlier?’ She watched Ferguson’s face for a reaction, saw something she didn’t like. ‘What? Tell me. What is it?’
Ferguson looked away, out of the window. ‘Look, I was pissed off about being put on duty here.’
‘So, what – you found the link to Hardy and you said you wanted to be more involved, but you meant only if it’s tasks you like?’ Eve wanted Ferguson to look her in the eye and leaned forward, trying to see his face again. ‘Is that it?’
Ferguson stayed as he was.
‘I said, is that it?’ Eve’s voice was rising.
Ferguson turned round, Eve shocked to see tears glinting in her colleague’s eyes. She grabbed hold of Ferguson’s upper arm, shook it. ‘Talk to me. Are you sure he didn’t leave the house?’
Ferguson sat still, his mouth moving but no sound coming out.
‘For Christ’s sake, Ferguson. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.’ Eve was shouting, not caring what time of night it was.
And then it was Ferguson shouting. ‘I fell asleep. OK? I fell asleep.’
Eve’s heart fell, bile rising. She shoved Ferguson’s arm, banging his other shoulder against the window. ‘You fell asleep?’
‘Yeah. OK? Nothing you say or do can make me feel any fucking worse about it.’ A single tear dripped down Ferguson’s cheek, surprising Eve, even in her anger. But she didn’t trust herself to speak, let alone move.
Ferguson stared at her. ‘By midnight I was bloody freezing and knackered with the hours we’ve been putting in. I didn’t mean to drop off, couldn’t’ve been out more than a couple of hours, but it was the call from Jo checking in that woke me.’
Mearns. Eve flexed her fingers, thinking about them together, wondering how Mearns could be that stupid, trying to calm herself. ‘You mean the call to say they’d found Sanders, to see if Hardy’d been out?’
‘Yeah. But I know he hadn’t – saw the curtain twitching shortly after I hung up. Like it had been earlier in the night. The guy’s not stupid. He knew I was here.’
Eve couldn’t begin to take in how dense Ferguson was coming across. When she spoke, it was low and dangerous. ‘You brought him to us. Weren’t you fired up to prove your point? How could you fall asleep? You gave him time.’
Ferguson scowled. ‘I gave him nothing, boss. He never left.’
Eve shot her hand out, grabbed Ferguson by the throat, pinning him against the side window, shock written across his face, probably at her strength. ‘And how do you know that? All this time. All the shit you’ve given me about how I let Sanders down the night MacNeill laid into us. She’s dead. Do you hear me? She’s fucking dead.’ But what she really couldn’t process was how he could’ve left himself open to more guilt than he already felt after letting Sanders down the first time. His belief that he should’ve known something was wrong after the length of time they’d been at the call-out.
Ferguson’s eyes were wide, his hand grasping at Eve’s, trying to release her grip on his throat. ‘I’m not fucking proud of myself.’ His voice sounded strangled.
Eve watched Ferguson’s other hand reach behind him, grappling for the door handle. She was powerless to stop him from opening the door, from falling backwards out on to the muddy street. Eve threw open her own door, all the frustration, all the rage of the last year driving her. She sprang from the car, sprinting round to the pavement, not caring about the ice beneath her feet, wanting to batter Ferguson, needing to make him pay.
But Ferguson was on his feet running around the back of the car – across the road, sliding and slipping towards Hardy’s home, slowing as he came closer to the front path, realizing he’d left it too late to run in another direction, Eve inches behind him.
Eve lunged at Ferguson, grabbing hold of his jacket, bringing them both down, landing hard on him. Then they were both rolling across the wet paving slabs of Hardy’s front garden. Into the mud and leftover snow of the grass borders. Both of them grunting and kicking, oblivious to anything around them.
Until the flash in the dark.
Not one but two. Three. Four. Stopping them dead, where they lay breathless.
There, standing on the front step, was Hardy. An iPhone in his hand, a smile on his face. The camera clicking away.
Chapter 34
Now
He’s in the newsagent’s at the bottom of Union Street, the city’s main strip, granite-grey buildings stretching to the sky either side. People are coming in and out, moving around him, bumping into him, no clue who he is, of what he’s done.
He can’t stop looking at the news-stands, his eyes flitting along the row, the whole shelf a montage of the detective. The photos came out perfectly, the rage on her face in sharp focus as she rolled around the garden. The DI making her own headlines. Again.
It worked out better than he’d hoped. They really were useless. Unprofessional. Clueless. So easy for him to notch up the pressure, making sure he was still in charge. But he had to be careful. He didn’t want her taken off the case. Definitely not. He wasn’t finished, not by a long way. He lifts the paper with the largest photo on its front page, wanting to pick them all up and wallpaper his home with her.
Arthur, the short wiry man behind the counter, smiles. As he’s done every morning for as long as he’s been coming here. The same smile and the same mundane mutterings about the weather. No matter whether a work day, or the weekend. A creature of habit. He’s made sure that he is too, has bought the same thing every day. Boring. Never anything new to draw attention to himself, nothing different about him. Ever.
He smiles back as he hands over his change for the hot sausage roll and newspaper, careful not to touch the two against each other. He doesn’t want grease spoiling the picture. He says his goodbyes and pulls open the door, the old bell above ringing as he does.
The cars and buses on Union Street are busy, as always. He walks along to the traffic lights in front of the Tourist Office, waits to cross over towards the Miller & Carter Steakhouse. Aberdeen Police Headquarters a stone’s throw away.
The red man changes to green and he steps out into the road, the invisible man, his shoes squelching throu
gh slush. He walks fast, with purpose, a smile on his lips as he walks through the crowds, all heads down, walking their own line, no one any the wiser who walks amongst them. How could they, when he lives the lie?
He glances up at the windows of the high-rise police HQ, seeing faces in the odd one, looking out, staring down on him, as small as an ant. An ant amongst hundreds. Not a clue that he’s head of the army.
Chapter 35
Saturday, 30 November
‘Are you going to let me in?’
Cooper stood on her doorstep. She smoothed her hair, knew she was looking like she’d been run over, the driver reversing for good measure.
She stepped aside, not too happy that Cooper had refused to give up, the doorbell ringing non-stop on the intercom out in her shed. She led him through the cottage, out the door, through the garden and into the shed. She picked up the brush she’d been working with minutes earlier.
‘Hastings know you’re here?’ Eve pulled at the strap of her dungarees, loosening it as she crouched and dipped the brush into varnish.
‘Mearns said she’d cover. Nice bruise.’
Eve lifted her hand to her cheekbone, now a deep shade of purple. Cooper looked away and around the shed, his gaze resting on the cork board where Melanie, Lexie and Jenkins stared out at them, each headline found alongside their bodies pinned next to their photograph. No photo of Sanders. Eve didn’t need one. She was never free of the women, or her work, even when she was trying to switch off out here.
Cooper lifted the carrier bag he was holding. ‘Brought you some breakfast.’ The smell of hot and fattening food was wafting from it and, despite herself, Eve’s stomach grumbled.
Cooper smiled. ‘Sausage roll. Oh, and the morning paper. You made the front page again.’
Eve groaned, placed the brush on the rag by the varnish tin and stood as Cooper passed the newspaper to her. She was sick of headlines.
Cooper shrugged. ‘Got myself a butty in here too. You want a cuppa?’
‘Yeah.’
He headed into the house. Eve knew he was giving her space to read the paper. It wasn’t good. A large picture of her and Ferguson rolling on the ground, the way her face had been caught in the camera’s glare making her look like a rabid dog. The article dredging up the old stories about her failures to date, lack of professionalism and how she was proving to be a loose cannon. Great. She put it on the workbench as Cooper came in, two steaming mugs in his hands. She didn’t realize she’d been looking at the paper for that long.
Eve sighed. ‘Can’t believe Hardy has the brass neck to be banging on about bloody police harassment.’ It was like MacNeill all over again.
‘Yes, you can.’ He set the mugs on the workbench, alongside the carrier bag, before helping himself to a softie full of grease. He leaned against the bench.
‘Christ, what was I thinking?’ Eve bent to pick up the brush and placed the lid on the varnish tin.
‘You weren’t thinking. And no wonder.’
‘I bet Hastings doesn’t see it like that.’ She threw the brush into the sink in the corner.
‘He has to be seen to be giving you a bollocking for what happened. But he’ll come round. Elliott’s working on damage limitation – pacifying the press and hoping to appeal to a sympathetic public regarding what happened and why.’
‘At least there’s that.’ Eve was glad to hear Elliott was still on her side. ‘He’s good at what he does.’ Eve squirted soap on to her hands, turned the tap on and lathered. ‘I feel useless. Hastings is going to take me off the case.’
‘You don’t know that. He just thinks it’s best you stay at home until the dust settles.’
‘Stay at home?’ Eve turned off the tap, rougher than she needed to be, and reached across for a paper towel. ‘This madman killed one of my officers. My friend. I don’t want to be at home. I want to catch the bastard.’
Cooper nodded his understanding. ‘But who do you think that is? Are you still convinced it’s Hardy?’
‘Aren’t you?’ She looked straight at him.
‘Honestly? Yes. But it’s like I said that day at Hardy’s, he could just be some weirdo. I agree, it’s hard to ignore all the links, and I get why you think it’s him. But I can see that you’re desperate to make it him.’
Eve narrowed her eyes. ‘You think I want to make it him?’
‘It’s been a tough ride for us all. But it’s nothing compared to what you must be feeling.’ Cooper stopped, searching for the right words. ‘What happened to you and Sanders was horrific. The fact people blamed you, or were at least willing to listen to what was being said, Ferguson and Mearns included, must’ve made it worse.’
Eve stared at him.
‘You must’ve thought you had to prove yourself. But to come back to this? I doubt there’s many officers who could.’
‘You think I’m making a bad judgement due to stress or some crusade.’
‘I think you need to keep more of an open mind.’ Eve was surprised at Cooper’s backbone. Surprised but not angry. As usual, he was right. He looked worried though, as if he’d overstepped the mark.
‘You’re right.’ She saw Cooper’s shoulders relax. ‘I need to refocus. Get off Hardy’s back. At least until I can prove otherwise. But I’m not going to lie, I still want to punch that smarmy git in the face.’
She watched Cooper put down his bun and reach inside his jacket to pull out a piece of paper. Eve said nothing as he unfolded it and slid it across the workbench, letting it rest by her bun, still untouched inside the bag.
His tone was soft. ‘Maybe this will go towards proving otherwise. Or not. MacLean found it.’
Eve lifted the paper, her hand trembling as she did. ‘What do you mean he found it? Where?’
It was a photocopy of yet another original newspaper headline: ‘Female Officer Has Long Road Ahead’. Eve glanced at the cork board, Sanders’ face not there, forever in her mind; another space where the headline should’ve been.
Cooper coughed. ‘It was on Sanders’ body, tucked inside the pocket of her pyjamas.’
Eve swallowed, her eyes welling. She’d been devastated by the loss of her friend, couldn’t handle the headline that would be left behind. She could see the shadow of a bloodstain, clear on the photocopy, and swallowed again. Hard.
Cooper whispered, ‘Do you have any idea what he’s trying to tell us?’
She shook her head. ‘But I can’t see how this isn’t about what happened. First Jenkins and now this.’
‘Do you think it could be MacNeill and his cronies?’
‘I don’t know what I think any more. Maybe it was wrong to return. I wasn’t ready. I’m not the officer I was. But all this?’ She looked at the board, to the headline in her hand. ‘I can’t even think – other than what happened to Sanders and how people held me responsible – what else this could be.’
Eve put the photocopy of the headline on the table, moved to the window. She couldn’t look at Cooper. ‘I was starting to make things right with her, to move forward. She wanted me to. I don’t know if I can handle this being something to do with me again.’
‘Do you remember anything about the article?’
Eve turned. ‘Jenkins wrote it. A few weeks after what happened. I remember thinking it was a shit headline at the time. But I thought that about everything she wrote, how shit it made me feel. Still, hardly an original headline, was never going to win any awards.’
Cooper was staring at her. ‘I’m sorry Mearns gave you such a hard time.’
Eve shrugged, turned to the window. ‘Don’t worry about it. I know you would’ve tried to convince her otherwise. Although I was a bit worried that night we went to yours.’
Cooper frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Bit dangerous sitting next to her at a dinner table with all those sharp objects to hand.’
She could hear the smile in his voice when he replied, familiar with her habit of using humour to diffuse the tension when she found herself in an uncomfo
rtable situation. ‘That’s the night I think she realized she was wrong. Listening to you talk about visiting Sanders, discussing what happened to her, what she said to you that day.’
‘She wasn’t to know.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Shoot.’
‘Are you going to tell her you’d been drinking that night? The night MacNeill attacked you both.’
Eve’s heart quickened; she felt close to lashing out at Cooper for bringing it up, but she took a deep breath, calming herself. Beneath it all, she knew he meant no ill. Her colleague, her friend, was asking her to be upfront with her team, to get it out there in order to move forward. Something that made sense – honesty, which she’d always prided herself on before.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was strong, clear.
‘Eve, I think Mearns was a little scared. Anxious.’
‘Anxious?’ She turned around, surprised.
Cooper smiled. ‘You think she doesn’t worry?’ He tutted. ‘Harsh. Anyway, I think she had concerns over whether she was safe working with you. Unfounded, of course. I know that. But I think it was more about her trying to be as good as Sanders. And listening to Ferguson.’
Eve could see why. ‘I would never have expected her to step into Sanders’ shoes. Sanders was Sanders.’
‘I think Mearns will be great in time too. She’s opening up a little at a time. That night at mine was the first time she’d ever said anything about herself.’
‘What?’
‘That her mother used to sing to her.’
‘Stop press.’
Cooper shrugged. ‘It seemed important to her.’
‘Yeah. A favourite memory.’
‘Funny that, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ She waited, wondering what he was going to say.
‘Us remembering all those rhymes, thinking they were soothing songs to help us nod off. But when you look at the words of some of them, what they were supposed to be about, it’s the stuff of horror movies.’
Hold Your Tongue Page 21