Blue On Blue
Page 26
“I have a safety-deposit box in Coutts,” James said.
Of course he did. Coutts was a private bank; one of the oldest banks in the world. Will remembered reading it had been used purely by the nobility and landed gentry, but now serious money could get the rich and famous on the client list. “That’s where the Queen banks, isn’t it?” Will teased.
James flushed. “It’s a legacy from my days working for my father,” he said with dignity. “And it’s just as well. It’s one of the few banks that still does safety-deposit boxes.” He chewed his lip. “Maybe we should stay here and keep working, till we can get there in the morning.”
Will followed his reasoning easily.
If Joey found out they had this evidence or if any of the policemen implicated or on his payroll got an inkling they had it in their possession, Will’s life and James’s life—and Steggie’s evidence—were worth nothing.
“It’s safest if we guard it,” he agreed. “Fuck,” he ran an exhausted hand through his hair. “I’m sorry I got you into this Jamie.”
“Hey,” James chided. “I’m a cop for the same reasons as you. What happened to these kids . . . to Steggie, wasn’t fair. What happened to June, wasn’t fair. I want to get justice for them as much as you do. I want to try to clean out every dirty cop in the system, and make the guilty pay, just like you do.”
Ingham’s assessment echoed in Will’s head. Idealist.
“I know,” Will said. “But the odds of the two of us getting out of this with our careers—or ourselves—in one piece. They aren’t that promising.”
They stared at each other for a long beat of silence. Then, unexpectedly, James gave a devastating grin. “You know, when I was an innocent PC, I had more than a few fantasies of working alongside you like this. An all-nighter. All alone. In shirtsleeves.”
Will’s morbid mood blinked out. “If only I’d known,” he flirted, though he more than half meant it. If he had known then . . . .
But James said, “Nah. Things worked out the way they were meant to, for both of us.” But a playful smile still teased at his mouth.
“Shirtsleeves,” Will mocked. “Was that as dirty as it got?”
“You were a superior officer,” James said primly. His gray eyes danced. “I always stick by the rules.”
“Even when you’re wanking?”
James gave up, and laughed out loud. “They’re especially useful when I’m wanking.”
They couldn’t trust anyone when it came down to it. Except, perhaps each other.
18
Will called Hansen that evening at just after half past eight. She was in her car on her way to Wiltshire to see her elderly parents, so he kept information to a minimum. Just enough to make her realize the importance of what they’d found, no more. No details. Not over a police-origin mobile connection.
“It’s significant?” she asked. Her voice sounded tinny and far away on the hands-free she was using, not helped by Will putting his phone on speaker too, but still, her tension was audible. “You think so too DI Henderson?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” James said. “Extremely significant.”
He and Will had discussed again whether it was sane to trust anyone at senior levels in the Met, but in the end they had no choice. It was that, or try to bring in another force and at their relatively junior level it would be next to impossible. Or, they could give the whole thing to the press, but that had no guarantee of going anywhere either and their careers would certainly be crushed. How could they know how many powerful people were involved? Who their friends were?
There was a crackling pause, filled with the sound of Hansen’s distant car engine.
“I want you to stay at the station overnight. I’ll be back in London first thing. I’ll see you both at 9:30, my flat.”
James made a face. Coutts opened then, on the Strand.
“We can be there at 10:30,” Will offered. “We need to do something first.”
“For God’s sake Will, be careful,” she said.
James’s gaze flicked to him with a frown, as if he’d registered that Hansen sounded too familiar. But he didn’t say anything.
Instead, when the call ended, they started work again, scanning and photographing Steggie’s evidence, until, just after ten o‘clock, Will slipped out to the corridor, to leave James the privacy to call Ben and to make a call himself.
“Impeccable timing,” Tom said. It sounded too neutral.
“There’s someone with you.” Will’s stomach sank with disappointment. “Never mind. I just called to say I won’t make it home tonight.”
A short pause. “I’m alone,” Tom said.
Will frowned at the magnolia-painted expanse on the other side of the corridor. Tom sounded . . . hostile. That familiar nervous emptiness began to flutter in his abdomen.
“Is everything all right?”
Tom made a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
A pinging sound in his ear told Will a message had arrived on his phone.
“These came five minutes ago,” Tom said. It took Will a second to fumble his way to his messages, just as another arrived and another. All forwarded from Tom’s phone.
The first was an image. He recognized it, after a second or two of disorientation. He was in profile, smiling down at Hansen who stood in the open front door of her flat in her gym gear, a towel turban round her head. The night he went to see her after finding out about June’s DNA.
The second message was a text.
Ask him when they started fucking.
A gap opened in Will’s chest. His throat closed with dread. He tried to make sense of it. Someone was surveilling him—he couldn’t be surprised by that. But—someone who knew about his past with Hansen.
He forced himself to thumb to the next message: He’s not working when he stays away all night.
And again. He’s bored with cock.
And again. He can’t give up dicking her pussy.
“No!” Will exclaimed. But one part of it wasn’t a lie, and this was the worst possible way to have this discussion—on the phone, in a corridor where any one of his colleagues might overhear an argument about a past affair with his boss. He’d always known Tom wouldn’t take it well. But this . . . .
One more alert. You fucked me over. Now you know how it feels. Cuck.
“Ken strikes again,” Tom said calmly. But Will knew he wasn’t calm.
“You still think it’s Schuler?” Will asked, dazed, but his mind was darting round other possibilities. He was sure Joey would know by now that Will was coming too close to things he wanted to keep buried, but the idea that this had come from Joey to throw him off track? That was taking paranoia to insane levels, even in a situation that richly warranted paranoia.
Joey would just shoot him.
Tom asked, “What else would that last message mean, if it didn’t come from Ken?”
Will hadn’t really absorbed it in the stunning barrage of accusations that had arrived one after the other, but when he read the text again, it did fit Schuler’s belief that Tom had casually cheated with Cam.
Now you know how it feels. Cuck.
It was personally disastrous, but at least it probably wasn’t part of a criminal conspiracy to derail his investigation.
But how would Schuler’s PI find out about his past with Hansen?
“I was going to call you when I saw there isn’t a pap agency credit on the newspaper article,” Tom went on. His voice was distant. No discernible emotion. “I thought your producer-friend might have been behind it. Or the program PR or Emily . . . it’s standard practice to tip off or hire paps when there’s someone to sell . . . a movie, a show, a celebrity.”
Will’s heart rate was beginning to slow down. Tom was talking to him, and he’d checked the article. Incredibly, Will had forgotten about it after the events of the day, and no one at work had seemed in a mood to tease him about it. It was as if he’d dreamed it.
“So . . . what does that
suggest to you?” he asked. Paps . . . agency credits—that was Tom’s expertise.
“That the images came from a member of the public. Someone sold them the story.”
Will sighed. “Schuler.”
“It’s the same pattern as the first photos from the States,” Tom said. “But Cam’s been out scoping agents, not with me. The PI couldn’t get anything to do damage from my end. So they moved to surveil you.” Will winced. He’d certainly obliged Schuler with ammo. “The image of you at Hansen’s door looks like it came from CCTV in her hallway. Easy to access if they have someone like Pixie on the payroll.”
Tom had analyzed it even through his emotional upset. Will felt oddly proud.
“So is it true?” Tom asked.
Will lungs emptied of air, as if he’d been walloped in the solar plexus. Had he really thought Tom would dismiss the texts, just because he understood their malicious intent?
He’d looked at the likely source. He’d prioritized Will’s security. Will couldn’t fault him. But he was still Tom Gray. And Hansen was one of his sorest spots—by now, close to an enemy in Tom’s head. This, on top of the article . . . .
He said, “No. It’s not true.” But he couldn’t lie outright. “Not the most important bit.”
There was a short pause. “And what’s that?”
“I’m not—” Will lowered his voice to a murmur, though there was no one else in the corridor. “Sleeping with her.”
“That picture doesn’t look like the typical boss-employee chat.”
“We had a meeting at her flat when I found out the truth about . . . .” His voice lowered again to a whisper. “June.”
He could hear Tom’s breathing down the line. The questions that Tom didn’t allow himself to ask sat between them. Why was she wearing so few clothes? Why was she smiling at you like that? Why were you smiling back?
“Tom . . . .” Will pleaded. “This is all in Schuler’s head. It’s no more real than you and Cam.”
There was a hard silence. Somehow he’d misstepped. Maybe Tom and Cam had come closer to real than he’d hoped. Or maybe Tom thought Will was taunting him about that near kiss.
“Listen! Schuler imagined you and Cam, and now he’s twisting an urgent work meeting, that had to happen at Hansen’s flat. He probably doesn’t even believe any of this shit himself. He just wants to hurt you.”
There was a pause as Tom seemed to take that in. “So,” he asked after a moment. “What’s the unimportant bit?” His voice sounded easier; the difference was noticeable.
Ironic. Those chickens Will had thought would never come home to roost . . . .
He took a bracing breath and stood straighter.
“It was true,” he said. “Not long after I joined the force.” He squeezed his eyes closed and waited.
An agonized silence as Tom worked it out. His reply when it came sounded stunned. Clearly, he hadn’t really believed it at all. “You were fucking Hansen?”
A male DC came out of the Incident Room. Omar. He nodded and Will forced a casual smile in return. “About ten years ago, yes.”
“But . . . she was your boss.” Tom still sounded winded. As if he desperately wanted Will to take his cue and deny it. Bewildered. Worse. Betrayed.
Will swallowed. His mouth felt parched. “Sort of.”
“Sort of. And all last summer. Since last summer. You never said a word to me. We worked for her. She was playing with my life . . . patronizing me . . . protecting Nick . . . hanging me out to dry and you didn’t say a thing about you and her.” Will banged his head back against the wall. It hurt and he welcomed the pain. “All the way through . . . I thought you were on my side.”
“I was on your side! I am!”
“You acted like . . . she was as distant to you as she was to me. And after. But you were always in her camp too. Did you tell her how much you hated me? How I fucked up your life?”
“No Tom! We weren’t friends. I hadn’t talked to her for years when I saw her last summer.”
“You hadn’t talked to me either,” Tom said.
“It wasn’t the same.”
“Then why? Why didn’t you tell me? Why weren’t you honest with me?”
“Because . . . it was her secret too.” He’d had so many different rationalizations. All looked blindingly stupid at this exact moment. “The time was never right. And you wouldn’t have taken it well.”
Tom spat. “You think this was how I wanted to find out?” And his facade of calm was gone. “Isn’t she married?”
Incredibly, it was getting worse.
“I didn’t know,” Will protested. Tom made an explosive sound of scorn. “I thought she was separated. When I found out she wasn’t, I ended it.”
“How long? How long were you and Hansen fucking?” He sounded dangerously angry.
Will squeezed closed his eyes. “Eight months.”
Tom barked a laugh. “And I was finding reasons for the way she looked at you when we met her. Admiration for your fucking detective skills. And now she’s got you back in her orbit.”
Two more officers came out of the Incident Room and headed toward the vending machine.
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Will said. “My going back to the Met had nothing to do with—”
“Ridiculous? She talked you back in! And the date on the photograph. The timestamp. You’d just been out to dinner with me. You reacted to that video of me and Cam like . . . you’d been waiting for it. Waiting for me to let you down.” It felt like a body blow. A bull’s eye. Because that was exactly what had happened. “And then you backed away, like you always do. And you went straight to her.”
“You know why I went there!” Will tried to keep his voice low but it was increasingly hard to control his own defensive irritation.
“I know your first instinct has always been to go to her for help when you’re in trouble.” Tom drew a shaky breath.
“That’s not true.” Was it? Was it true?
“Is she there now?”
“No! She’s gone to see her parents.”
“And you know that because she’s embedded in your life again. I should have asked myself why you’ve trusted her so blindly all along. When you can’t trust me.”
“Fucking hell, Tom!” Will hissed, desperate frustrated anger. “Why won’t you listen? I know you don’t like her but she’s my boss. That’s it!”
“Do you understand?” Tom demanded. “Do you understand why I feel so fucking betrayed?”
Will closed his eyes. His outrage vanished, like a candle snuffed out. All the oxygen gone.
“Yes,” he said.
The line went dead.
Will rang back, but Tom didn’t answer. He tried again. The next time, Tom’s phone was turned off.
Will went back into the Briefing Room in a haze of despair.
He was stunned by how fast, how easily, they’d fallen back into crisis. But maybe it was inevitable. Their rapprochements felt like . . . short reprieves. Will deliberately ignoring his own instincts telling him their relationship had always been teetering.
Tom was right. That was the reason Will felt as if his chest had emptied out. There was nothing in there but space and pain.
He didn’t trust Tom to love him. He had been waiting for Tom to let him down.
And it seemed Tom didn’t trust Will to love him either, anymore. Maybe he’d been waiting for the same thing.
How much of this was Will’s fault? His culpability for never really giving Tom a chance?
“Will?” James’s voice sounded very far away. “What’s happened?”
Will couldn’t go home tonight, just when he needed to most. He couldn’t leave James alone to protect Steggie’s evidence. Tom had no clue how badly timed this was. That the investigation had suddenly hit critical mass.
He had to just trust Tom would wait until they could talk. And maybe if they were both honest, they could salvage something. Because one thing he knew—Tom was the love of his life.r />
He met James’s worried eyes, and his own loneliness overwhelmed him. But he owed James honesty too. James needed to understand where Will’s head was.
So he told him about the messages Tom and he had both received suggesting infidelity by the other. That the last had been a picture of Will and Hansen and that he and Hansen had once been lovers, a fact which James absorbed with commendable savoir faire. And he told him the miserable truth that Will and Tom had been vulnerable to Ken’s sabotage because they were still enmeshed in the legacy of past pain and old choices.
When he finished James asked, “You’re confident this has nothing to do with the investigation?”
Will pulled up the last text again and showed it to James: Now you know how it feels. Cuck.
“Okay,” James dragged out the word. “So how did his PI find out about a year’s ago relationship between you and Hansen?”
Will said, “I don’t think he did.” He’d realized that too late. “He used the image to allege a current affair. He never referred to a past one.” His own conscience had made him see what wasn’t there.
He moved restlessly in his chair. Tom got reckless when he was really upset. Fuck-it-all, seethingly angry. Will picked up his phone again and called a number on speed dial which he realized, to his chagrin, he hadn’t called recently. He pressed the button.
It picked up on the third ring.
“Well. This is an unexpected honor, Will-i-am.”
“Pix.” Her smooth, cultured voice was like a balm on Will’s frayed nerves. He only now realized how much he’d missed her reckless reliability. “Sorry. The job took over.”
Tiana Braithwaite—Pixie—was a very expensively educated computing genius working for the firm of private investigators Will had joined, which was where Will had met her. She was third-generation British Bajan and her grandfather and father had built their fortune in wholesale foods, property and then venture capitalism.
“Nah,” she drawled. “Ya foofooloo.”
“What the hell is foofooloo?”
“Lovesick, honey.” Will couldn’t reply. “So what’s up?”
“Tom.” Will forced the name past the mass of negative emotion at the back of his throat. “You checked out some anonymous messages he was getting. From a guy in the States.”