Blue On Blue

by Dal Maclean

  “I can’t believe this,” Ingham spat. Then she asked out of the blue, “You said Joey had someone watching Jamie’s party. Who was it?”

  “The party?” The nonsequitur bewildered him. “Charles Priestly. Hang on.”

  From nowhere, the penny dropped. “Stevie” had just got engaged.

  Jamie? No. No way. Sir Magnus Henderson wouldn’t even breathe the same air as a woman like Eve. Then . . . .

  “Ben?” he breathed. “It isn’t Ben Morgan?”

  “If you so much as hint at that to anyone else DI Foster,” Ingham said quietly. “I will crush you with one hand. Is that clear?’

  “Crystal,” Will said, dazed.

  But he was aware that for all her bluster, Ingham had given him that one hint and allowed him to work it out. That she’d trusted him to join the small and select group who knew. A group that must include the top brass he realized, as that conversation between Ben and Hansen at Jamie’s party finally made sense. Hansen had treated Ben with fascination, because she’d realized he was Kelly’s son. Ben had understood, and responded with discomfort and unhappiness.

  And Hansen hadn’t revealed to Will who Ben was, even last night. He found that . . . reassuring.

  “But how does Joey fit in with Eve and her son?” he asked, confounded.

  “Joey doesn’t,” Ingham snapped. “Charles Priestly used to have a different identity, which I can’t reveal to you on pain of litigation. But that identity was intimately linked to Eve Kelly.”

  Will mentally leafed through those redacted files.

  “Stephan Kriaszek,” he breathed. The last remaining one of Eve’s slavish disciples through her murderous rampage.

  “You have been a busy boy,” Ingham said, dust dry, though she must have expected Will to have read Eve’s records.

  “So Priestly was watching the engagement party for Eve,” Will said “Not for Joey.”

  “I’d say so.”

  Did that make things better? Or worse?

  “Does Joey know who Priestly is?”

  “Probably,” Ingham sounded distracted. Indifferent. “It takes connections to create a whole new identity, as effectively as Priestly did. And he’s loyal to Joey, though . . . who knows if he’s more Eve’s creature. He worships her. Pretty much literally.”

  “That must have been a hell of a case,” Will said, with something close to envy.

  Ingham sighed. “You have no idea.”

  Will made the decision on the spur-of-the-moment. “There’s something I didn’t mention, Boss.”

  Ingham gave a theatrical moan, and Will laughed despite himself. God, he wished he didn’t like her so much.

  “Eve told me that June’s baby was adopted by Joey and Pauline Clarkson.”

  Couldn’t he tell her that much?

  Another stunned silence. “What?” Then, “Why would she volunteer that?”

  “She was . . . trading commodities. It was a gesture to show how valuable she could be if we give her the things she wants.”

  “Well fuck that! She’s not calling the shots.”

  “Boss . . . .”

  “Anyway that clears him. If Joey’s man killed Daria, why would he plant June’s DNA there? To try to get the killer-mother of his adopted kid out of jail? No way.”

  Which was the conclusion Will himself had reached before he discovered the DNA wasn’t June’s. They talked it over for another few minutes—scenarios Will would have been probing if he hadn’t discovered the truth.

  But maybe Ingham was aware they were wasting time too. If she knew June had been framed, she knew what was really happening, and she was leading the whole unit away from the truth.

  “By the way,” Ingham said out of the blue. “Media and Communications called to make sure you’re going to meet Catherine Millar. You and Emily made quite a stir.”

  Will groaned. His desk phone began to ring.

  “Boss, I can’t go to lunch with her. I’m in the middle . . . .”

  Salt appeared from nowhere behind him and picked up the receiver. Will hadn’t even seen him come in.

  “Don’t bother, DI Foster,” Ingham was saying in his ear. “I know what you’re in the middle of, and if the real world mattered to Media and Communications, it’d count. But they exist on a totally different plane, so it doesn’t. Look,” she coaxed, “just go to the meeting so you can get them off your back. Let Catherine give her patter, say no. Or yes. Whatever. Then fuck off. And Media and Communications’ll leave you, and more importantly, me, alone.”

  When Ingham rang off, Will stared at his mobile. He was more than ready to call Hansen and tell her he wasn’t going to do any more. He’d relaxed with Ingham by the end, as if nothing had changed, his treacherous subconscious as ready as ever to trust her, as she’d just trusted him to protect Ben.

  Ben.

  That revelation still boggled him. But Ingham could be all he’d ever thought she was, or almost all, and keep Ben’s secret safe, and still have been bought. Or blackmailed. Life was complicated like that.

  “Guv?” Salt said. Will dragged his eyes up to him. Salt held the receiver of Will’s desk phone to his chest. He looked very worried. “Bronzefield.”

  “Aw fuck.” Will moaned. “Whatever it is just . . . .”

  “June’s been found dead in her cell.”

  And stupidly, Will found that was the one thing he hadn’t expected to hear.

  He was far, far out of his depth. Events changing and shifting like treacherous tides, and Will was the single figure in their way. Trying to hold a finger in a dam with increasing power gathering behind it. He couldn’t do this alone.

  He led Salt to Ingham’s empty office, though he knew Scrivenor, among others, watched them with surprised suspicion. They should all be a team. They shouldn’t have secrets from each other.

  But Will had to work out what he could do now, what he could say, who he could tell.

  Most of all, he felt the heavy weight of guilt settling round his shoulders like a lead cloak.

  What June had said when he left. Looking back on it now, it had sounded like a final goodbye. Why hadn’t he heard that then?

  “She killed herself?” he asked though he knew the answer.

  Salt said, “Only if she held herself down and smothered herself with her pillow.

  “Fucking fuck!”

  Will’s interest in June had been a death sentence for her, and she’d known it. That was why she’d been so terrified, giving that sample. Dear God.

  He shook his head sharply, trying to force away the fog of regret. He had to remember—there was a reason he hadn’t insisted on segregation—because Eve would have done everything in her power to make June pay the price. As it was he had to assume now someone else had got her.

  She’d been doomed the moment her supposed DNA had turned up at a new murder scene . . . no . . . the moment Will had been assigned the case. Because he had refused to let the link between Daria and June go, as Ingham had told him to let it go.

  June had asked him to tell her child she loved her.

  But how could he do that?

  How could he not?

  “All our dirty linen’s going to be shoved in the public’s face when June appeals . . . .”

  “They removed her before she could embarrass them,” he spat. “It suits everyone that she’s dead, not least the MPS. No retrial.”

  “Guv,” Salt said, shocked. “You’re not suggestin’ one of us . . . ?”

  “Who’s us?” Will asked. “And who’s them?”

  “Jesus,” Salt slumped down onto a chair in front of Ingham’s desk as if his strings had been cut. He looked devastated.

  “It could have been ordered by anyone,” Will drove on. “Let’s face it. They’re tying up loose ends. She was one of the main ones.”

  “They’d better tie us up too then,” Salt said fiercely. “Because that isn’t right.”

  Will leaned down to grip his shoulder, then let go and sat on the edge of th
e desk.

  “Who knew I took a DNA sample from her?” he asked.

  “Eve Kelly knew you would,” Salt said. “The prison guard? Patrick in the lab? Nah. I’ve dealt with him for years.”

  But that felt now, like no defense at all.

  “Not exactly sealed down tight then was it?”

  Salt looked hopeless, all his usual cheek and spark wiped away. “What do we do now, Guv?”

  It sounded plaintive. As if Will had the answers.

  “They’ll do a postmortem on her,” Will said. “And . . . they’ll take samples.”

  Salt frowned. “But would they bother to cross-check her DNA with the records they have?”

  “They might not. But they also might. Which means the fact her DNA doesn’t match the DNA that convicted her could still get out there. That can’t be what the people who colluded in framing her would want. So why risk it? Unless they can control who does the PM too.”

  It felt like wild paranoia to think it, far less say it out loud. Conspiracy theory. Everyone’s in on it. But how the fuck could they know?

  The sharp ring tone of Will’s mobile broke the miserable silence. Ingham’s name was on the screen.

  “Boss?”

  “I called Bronzefield about Eve,” she said. “Only to find out June is dead. Did you know?”

  Her voice sounded tight. Sharp. Accusatory. There was too much emotion in it. What was it?

  “I just heard too,” Will said with curt economy. “Des and I’ll head up there once . . . .”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Ingham cut in. “The local force are taking it.”

  Oh no, Will thought. Please don’t.

  “But it’s linked to our case, Boss,” he said reasonably. “To Daria.”

  “We’ve been here already,” Ingham said through clenched teeth. “And the scenery hasn’t changed.”

  “But it has! It can’t be a coincidence. We show interest in June because of Daria, and she’s murdered.”

  “For God’s sake Will, think! You really haven’t considered Eve had it done to make sure she has our attention? That’s the likeliest scenario by a long way. It’d mean no more to her than sending a letter.”

  Will hadn’t considered it, because to Eve, June had been a pawn still in play.

  Though he could see how useful Eve was to Ingham to muddy the waters. Or maybe . . . Ingham had a point. It was a mistake to believe Eve was predictable.

  “So what are you suggesting we do?” he demanded “Just . . . not even look?”

  “Don’t go scurrying up there to give Eve what she wants! And I’m not suggesting DI Foster. I’m telling you. It’s not our case. Do you understand?”

  Will drew in a huge anguished breath through his nose and breathed it out again. Ingham could probably hear it down the phone.

  But he managed to grit out, “Yes. Boss.”

  She cut the call.

  Salt peered up at him wide-eyed. “She won’t let us look at it?”

  Will shook his head angrily.

  One more log on the pile of evidence against her. She’d done everything in her power to stop him investigating June, alive and dead. He pressed the side of his fist hard against his mouth. He felt devastated.

  “Get me the SIO who’s taken June’s case on the phone,” he said. That wasn’t disobeying direct orders. That was friendly cooperation.

  “And you can tell Alec she’s dead.” He looked at Salt. “Watch how he takes it.”

  Salt grimaced. But Will was far too angry to care.

  13

  The Surrey SIO turned out to be the same officer Will had met when he visited Ava, and again, he was easygoing and unterritorial. June’s body had been found toward the end of the dinner period. Apparently, her friend had gone to look for her, because she never missed a chance to eat. Her killer had taken advantage of the habitual upheaval of mealtime and dispatched her in her bed. The officer told Will that details of her possessions had been uploaded onto HOLMES, and he emailed a few images to be helpful.

  There was a photo of a newborn, and one of a slightly older baby in a pram—what looked to be an expensive modern version of an old-fashioned perambulator which June could never have afforded. A small, faded and worn pale pink toy rabbit with floppy ears. Some unfinished knitting: a scarf for someone who barely saw the sky. And that was all June had to show for thirty-one years of life.

  She’d thanked him. At the end.

  He could barely believe there had been a time he hadn’t known who she was. He thought now he’d remember her as long as he lived.

  The sound of Will’s mobile broke into his self-reproach.

  He looked impatiently at the screen then hesitated, but like any addict he couldn’t help himself. He needed to hear Tom’s voice, even as he dreaded what the voice might say.

  “Hey.” Tom sounded relaxed and easy. Maybe too relaxed, as if he was forcing it. “How’re things?”

  Tom rarely rang him at work and Will never rang him at uni, or on a shoot. They texted instead.

  Will forced his voice to steadiness around the lump in his thoat.

  “Complicated.”

  “Ah,” Tom said, as if he understood. “I just wanted to let you know, I called Pix this morning. She says Ken’s not in the UK. He’s doing his shoot. But she says the video you were sent looks like professional equipment was involved. So . . . .” His voice showed disgust at last. “He’s probably hired a private detective.”

  Will rubbed his eyes as he thought about that. “That’s better than the guy coming all the way here to stalk in you person. I assume Pixie’s going to keep a eye out for his passport flagging UK entry?”

  “Yeah,” Tom said. His tone was subdued now. Then he asked suddenly, “Can you still manage to get to Jamie and Ben’s tonight?” And Will realized that this was the point of the unexpected call.

  Will had lost count of the days. Before the party, Ben had invited Tom and Will to their house for dinner on the night he and James got back from their short holiday. Will had got an agreement from Tom in LA and accepted too, in the hope he wouldn’t be working.

  Ben, Will thought with a flush of apprehension. On top of everything else, how could he face Ben?

  But he had to. And the more private the setting the better.

  And he needed to talk to James. To get someone else involved in what was happening before he went off his head. He trusted James instinctively and implicitly. If James, the white knight, was corrupt too, the whole force may as well pack up and close the doors.

  He said, “Yeah, I can manage.”

  Tom gave a quiet exhalation that could have been relief or disappointment.

  “I’ll see you there then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will . . . .” A tense pause. “We do need to talk.”

  Will scrunched his eyes closed. Here it comes. The implacable approach of the end.

  “Tonight.” He cleared his throat, to try to regain the semblance of normality. “After Jamie’s.” There was an aching mass in his chest, huge and swollen like a tumor ready to burst. But he couldn’t stand the idea that Tom might feel obliged or guilty enough to try to keep going, to spare him. He had to seem strong. Unconcerned. Who’d want pity as fuel to keep a relationship alive?

  He wasn’t bloody Oliver.

  “Or . . . we could . . . I’m free in about an hour,” Tom suggested.

  To let us be civilized exes tonight.

  “I’m sorry,” Will said politely. “But I have to go to an important meeting.”

  “Oh,” Tom said. “Right.” Startled. Awkward. It was excruciating, as if they’d barely met. “See you tonight then.”

  “See you then. Bye.”

  Will rang off. He stared at his desk, his throat closing with grief. The thought of a future without Tom . . . with only images on billboards and magazines to remind him and to torment him . . . . He shook his head, forcing self-control. He had to pull himself together. He could be jumping to conclusions,
and if he wasn’t . . . .

  It was just one more love affair that hadn’t worked; that was all. A love affair he clearly hadn’t even expected to work, even before the inflammatory addition of Cam. This was just a rerun of the end. Inevitable.

  But it would be better this time. This time, he was ready for the blow. This time, he’d know for sure it couldn’t ever work between them. This time, he’d let go with dignity.

  Media and Communications sent Will a message with a time and a place for the lunch with Catherine. Will managed a shower and a shave before dressing in one of the suits that he kept at the office for what Salt called “fancy emergencies.” It was black and newly dry-cleaned, still in its polythene wrapper. He’d intended to wear it to James’s party before he and the others were hijacked by the top brass. God . . . how long ago was that? He counted it up in his head. Four and a half days for both his personal and professional lives to reach a crisis point.

  He’d rarely felt less in the mood for social chitchat.

  Still, he pulled a dark red tie from his last-ditch clothing stash, and made it to the restaurant by 12:45.

  It seemed to him to be peopled disproportionately with glossy, expensively groomed women, even on a Saturday, when he’d have expected a family crowd. But Knightsbridge was a very wealthy area and the restaurant was opposite Harrods. It wasn’t a place anyone would pop in to for a cheap burger.

  The cavernous space was floored and paneled in dark wood, with a mirrored ceiling, a long, sparkling curved bar down one side and huge windows on the other.

  Catherine waved from one of the tables at the back.

  “Will!” she sounded both extravagantly delighted when he reached her and, for some reason, surprised. She wore a long-sleeved black dress and a kind of scarf cum shawl draped around her shoulders and Will noticed that her spectacle frames that day were exactly the same crimson color as the dyed tips of her hair and her scarf. He could only wonder vaguely at the dedication to detail involved.

  Catherine stood up and leaned in to greet him, hands lightly on his shoulders, kissing both his cheeks, making slow, deliberate mwah mwah noises, as her lips skimmed his skin. Being part Italian, Will knew he should have been comfortable with kissed greetings, but he never had been somehow, and thankfully it was far from the standard greeting at South Ken nick.