by Dal Maclean
Will sprang to his feet and walked fast to the door, leaving Salt gazing after him, open-mouthed.
“He’s in Meeting Room 2,” James said, when Will reached him. “Agitating to go home. I told him I had to nip out but I doubt he’s fooled.”
“Jamie . . . thanks.”
James colored. “I put up the Engaged sign. Don’t fuck it up.”
Tom sat at the end of the long table in the Meeting Room, eyes fixed on its veneered surface. He looked far away, immeasurably sad. When he looked up and saw Will, his expression closed down even further.
“I’m just waiting for Jamie to finish,” he said. “Then I’ll be off.”
Will closed the door behind him. “Can we talk?”
“Here?” Tom gave a bitter smile and clasped his hands on the table; focused on them. “Why not? Get it over with. You always did like to nail things down.”
Alarm surged and bubbled in Will’s chest.
“You said . . . we don’t trust each other.” He sat in the chair beside Tom. “That’s my fault. But I knew you wouldn’t do it. I had no evidence, but I came for you because I knew you wouldn’t send those messages. I do trust you. And more than that, I know you.”
Tom’s frowned, but his gaze remained fixed on his hands.
“Cam said,” Will went on. “He said you think I want out.”
Tom grimaced but he said clearly, “You’ve held yourself back from me since we got together again. I thought at first it was just . . . the legacy of what I did to you. I thought I just had to convince you I really meant it. But the truth is, too much happened between us. I should have listened to you at the start. There’s even a part of you that blames me for Sanjay.”
Will gaped at him in horror. “No! No Tom!”
“Once trust is gone,” Tom went on relentlessly. “It’s gone. But I railroaded you into trying again because I just . . . wanted it so badly. And maybe then you even thought you wanted me too . . . .” His eyes dropped to his hands, white-knuckled on the table. “But the reality of having me was pretty clearly a lot less appealing than the idea, especially when you expect me to betray you any moment.”
“I don’t!” But Tom was already talking in the past tense.
“You could barely say you love me! Only when I said it first and you had to say it too.” Words spewing out as if they’d been dammed up, as if Tom had been aching to say them. “If someone else wanted me, you waved them through. Like, ‘Feel free. Take him off my hands!’”
“No,” Will protested.
“I thought last summer. In my head, it was settled, you know? Because I’d finally stopped fighting the knowledge that you were it for me. Fade to black. And I wouldn’t let myself consider that maybe for you it wasn’t the same.”
“Please Tom,” Will said. “Listen to me. Last summer . . . you reversed your decisions so completely, so fast, I thought you were probably reacting to trauma. Looking for safety, like I said. I thought you’d regret it when you got back to normal. But I had take that risk, even if I just had you for a while. It’s not so easy to live like that though, trying to enjoy what I could, trying to protect my—” Will grimaced but pushed on. “My dignity. For when you changed your mind. Got tired of living with a copper.”
Tom sat up straight. “Wait. Is that why you’ve been pushing me to take more modeling work?” he demanded. He flopped back in his chair with a strangled sound. “You moronic tit!”
Will sighed. “I needed to know your career would be there if you wanted it back. That you hadn’t given up everything. For me.”
“For fu . . . Will. How many times? I gave it up to get something I valued far, far more. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes!” Will exclaimed. “Because you said for so long your big career was the focus of your life.”
“I was full of shit! God . . . I thought you’ve been pushing me to keep modeling so I’d still have that when you finally got up the guts to finish with me. Because you’re a good guy.” He held Will’s gaze and said deliberately, “I thought you were with me out of . . . pity. And I still stayed, trying to drag it out as long as I could. Fuck, but I’m my father’s son.” His thin smile held no humor; it was all self-disgust. “Do you know why I didn’t tell you I’d be at Pez’s party? Because he told me you had a new case and how he’d blackmailed you into going and I thought . . . if you knew you didn’t have to, you’d choose duty and I wouldn’t get to see you.”
Will couldn’t stand it. He grabbed Tom’s hand, still lying on the table. “Tom, can’t you see? We’re the same. We’re just afraid of each other. Each afraid of how much power the other has.”
“I don’t want to change my mind,” Tom said fiercely. “I don’t want anyone else. How much clearer can I be? I don’t want you to want anyone else. I get jealous. And I fucking hate that. I hate that I want you to be jealous.”
Will gripped Tom’s hand tighter. Vice tight.
“I don’t want anyone else either,” he said. “I can’t see anyone else. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts. It’s always you.”
Without warning, Tom launched himself from his chair onto Will’s lap, bashing his elbow against the table as he went, but he didn’t seem to notice. They grappled into a clumsy, ferocious hug, frantic with relief. The narrowness of their escape from their own stupidity.
They’d both been so careful not to spook the other with unwanted honesty, when honesty had been the only thing that could save them.
“I love you,” Will said fiercely against Tom’s hair. His chest felt light with joy, intoxicating after so much worry, for so long. “I’m so sorry. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Hansen.”
Tom pulled back, to look at him. “I knew I was overreacting when I was stomping out the door. But it was just . . . more proof I’d lost you. That you were hiding things from me. But I’d have ridden the bike for an hour or two and gone home and waited to talk to you about it. I would never have . . . ”
“I know.”
Tom gave the ghost of his beautiful grin. “I’d give a lot of money if this room had a bed.” He pressed his forehead against Will’s. “And it wasn’t in the middle of a police station.”
“There’s a table,” Will pointed out. “And lawyers meet their clients in here, so it’s guaranteed to be unmonitored, because we . . . .”
Tom kissed him and Will was more then ready for him, mouths pressed hard against each other with the need to get closer, to get inside each other’s skin. Gasping for air, lungs burning. Hot, wet starving kisses.
“I want to fuck you,” Tom muttered when he pulled back, barely an inch. “Or I want you to fuck me.” Will could still feel the gusting heat of his breath. “Or both.”
Will grunted with amusement. “Both,” he said with decision. He stroked the strong, determined line of Tom’s jaw.
“I was so scared,” Tom said.
Will thought he might mean anything or everything. All the things he’d needed and hadn’t needed to be afraid of. Will understood, because he’d felt exactly the same. Now he just felt profoundly, happily alive. Uncomplicated joy. Right in the middle of the worst investigation of his life.
“Maybe they’ll let me go home,” he muttered, against Tom’s soft, full mouth. His dick was achingly hard. “I’m starting to feel the aftereffects of trauma.”
Tom pushed the rigid bulge of his erection against Will’s abdomen. “Me too,” he said. “Exact same symptoms.”
“I can ask,” Will volunteered. “I mean there’s nothing I can actually do right now so . . . .”
“Will?” James’s voice came from the corridor. He knocked at the same time. “The DNA results are back. Ingham wants us.”
Tom closed his eyes and slumped in Will’s arms.
“Okay.” Will called back. “I’m sorry,” he said to Tom.
But Tom was grinning . “It’s okay,” he said. “I can wait.”
“She wants you to bring Tom,” James called.
Will raised his
brows and went to open the door, trying to talk down his hard-on. James eyed him up and down.
“Well that’s disappointing,” he said, though there was a question in it. “You have your clothes on.”
Will grinned and he could see the moment James understood and relaxed.
“Why does she want Tom?” he asked.
James gave a “search me” shrug as Tom came to stand in the doorway with them. “I don’t know but there’s smoke coming out of the top of her head.”
Ingham was staring at her monitor when they piled into her office and as James had said, she looked furious. “Close the door and sit.” Then, to Tom: “Jamie tells me you have DNA expertise.”
“Well . . . I’m doing a postgrad,” Tom said, uncertain. “If that classifies as experience.”
“We have matches,” Ingham announced. “For both assailants you came into physical contact with. Peter John Glynn—record for violence and firearms offenses. And Edward Theodore Butts, who needs no introduction.”
Will’s shoulders dropped with relief. There was knowing, and there was getting the information formally entered into evidence.
But when Ingham looked up again, Will could tell there was more and he wasn’t going to like it.
“The lab found other samples of interest on your jacket, DI Foster,” Ingham went on. She rubbed her mouth as if she didn’t want to say what was coming next. “Multiple, different profiles, in different quantities. Notably, a match for the DNA found all over Ricky Desmond and Daria Ivanescu.”
22
“How?” Will breathed.
“You tell me,” Ingham snapped. “How did you have physical contact with the killer?”
Will opened his mouth and closed it again.
“DNA transference could explain it,” Tom said. “Where exactly on the jacket was the sample? It could it have transferred by something like a seatbelt, maybe. Or . . . Will touched an item the killer touched, then touched the jacket.”
Ingham frowned. “It’s that easy?”
“Oh yeah. We’re finding out it’s much easier than we thought.”
Ingham eyed him suspiciously for a second longer then clicked her mouse and peered at the monitor. “They found traces of that DNA on both shoulders at the front and a much bigger sample on the right lower sleeve. There’s also a sizable sample of another profile on the shoulders, and several other minor ones on the sleeves.”
She looked up expectantly.
Tom said, “These particular areas. If you got the DNA on your hands, you might touch one of your sleeves say, but would you naturally touch the front of your shoulders?”
They all considered it. Then Ingham said, “Not unless you’re in the habit of crossing your arms across your body, like . . . you’re about to jump out of an airplane. Did you jump out of an airplane DI Foster?”
Will said. “Doesn’t ring a bell, Boss.”
James said, “So try to remember anyone who might have touched you or brushed against you while you were wearing the jacket.”
Will looked at him with incredulity. “Jamie, that’s . . . ” Will shook his head, but what was the alternative? “I’ll work backward then,” he said with resignation. “From where my memory’s freshest. Today. Nick’s flat. The only people I came into direct physical contact with were Tom and . . . are we sure it’s not Eddie’s DNA? That’d answer everything.”
“Yeah it would,” Ingham said. “But it’s not. Keep going.”
“My car . . . I sat in the driver’s seat. We went directly to Nick’s from AC Hansen’s flat. We had to drop something off with her. Maybe she touched my arm. I sat on her sofa. Fuck, it’s impossible to remember every movement.”
“You’re doing well,” James said.
“Before that I went to a bank, but I didn’t come into physical contact with anyone in there. I sat down, but that wouldn’t affect those points of the jacket. I changed into that suit this morning. It’d been in the car overnight, lying on the backseat.”
“So . . . what’s the likelihood you had the killer in your car?” Ingham asked.
Will huffed with disbelief. “Only Jamie, Des and Tom have been in that car since it was valeted last and no one’s been in the back seat. Unless the killer got in without my knowledge. ”
“Right.” Ingham scribbled on a notepad. “That’s always a possibility. Keep going.”
“The time I wore that suit before was . . . .” The night Tom stripped it off him and fucked him bare. He flushed instinctively at the memory. “A couple of days ago. I slept at home. Before that we were at Jamie and Ben’s house. I took the jacket off and laid it over the sofa back.”
Ingham wrote it down.
“Before that, I spent the afternoon working at my desk here, and before that I had lunch with the Witness people. And before that, it was in plastic from the dry cleaners.”
“So did anyone touch the jacket at work or at lunch?”
Will ran a weary hand down over his face. “It was hanging over the back of my chair at work. I suppose it’s possible someone touched it.”
Ingham scribbled on her notepad again. “Lunch was . . . .” He sat bolt upright. “Fuck!”
“What?” Ingham looked up, eyes wide with alarm.
The answer felt ridiculous. “That air-kiss thing.”
There was a short silence, then Tom said softly, “Palms on shoulders.”
“And a hand on my arm when she left,” Will finished.
“Who?” Ingham demanded.
“Catherine Millar,” Will said.
“Catherine?”’ Ingham repeated. “The television producer? A double murderer performing gangland executions?”
“I know,” Will said. “But she was the only one who touched those areas of the jacket.”
“We can ask her for a voluntary sample,” James said. “To eliminate her from our inquiries.”
“And she can refuse,” Will said. “And if it really is her DNA, she will. And she’ll know we’re on to her. More to the point, so will Joey. Catherine would be walking around with a target on her back—one that we put there.”
Ingham sat at back in her chair with an impatient huff. “We have no grounds to arrest her, to force her to give us a sample . . . hell we have no evidence against her at all. How do we get round that?”
The idea came to Will from nowhere. Ridiculous. Personally horrifying, but . . . .
“She offered me a slot on her TV show, copresenting some bullshit about how policing works. She was honest about it . . . it’s for ratings . . . supposedly playing to sexual tension with Emily.”
He looked apologetically at Tom who gave a weak shrug.
“And?” Ingham demanded. She looked as jittery as Will felt.
“How about I tell her I’m reconsidering the offer, and suggest an item idea . . . maybe something on the new rapid DNA turnaround at Lambeth. I could offer her a tour of the lab or something, and work it so she’s put on-the-spot to give a sample to be tested. It’d be pretty much impossible to say ‘no’ without making a scene. Either we get a voluntary sample and it doesn’t or does match, or her reaction confirms she’s the person to pursue, without confronting her. And from that point, all resources go into finding enough to arrest her and to get a sample we can use in court.”
No one spoke for a few embarrassing seconds. Then James said, “That’s sort of brilliant.”
“It’s batshit crazy,” Ingham said.
“But brilliant,” James repeated. “And, it’s worth a try.”
Ingham sighed. “Why not? Speaking for myself, I prefer basic police work.”
“But time isn’t on our side Ma’am,” James pressed on. “The way things are, the more Joey learns about what we know. . . if we don’t act on it quickly the more time he has to bury us.” And possibly Catherine.
Ingham said absently, “Jamie. Stop calling me Ma’am.”
“Yes Ma’am,” James said. It was an ancient joke between them that seemed to give them some weird comfort. Will w
ondered if they’d ever tire of it.
“I’ll give her a call then,” Will said. “Say I’m reconsidering.”
“And do some background digging,” Ingham said wearily. “Just so I can feel like we’re still detectives.”
They stood up. But Will hesitated. “What about Nick? We have hard proof that Eddie was one of the assailants now. We can arrest him.”
“When we find him we will,” Ingham said.
“When he’s finished with Nick.” James said what they were all thinking.
Will glanced at Tom, but Tom looked was looking at the floor and he seemed far away.
“Still think she’s Joey’s stooge?” James asked with satisfaction, as he closed Ingham’s door behind himself, Will and Tom.
“I don’t know,” Will snapped. The three of them had stopped a few feet away from the office in a small private huddle, Tom beside Will, James in front of them. “Sorry,” he said with a sheepish sigh.
Did he trust Ingham, or was he just grateful to be working with her again? Maybe she was going to get right on the phone to Joey?
“Four cases now we’re keeping secrets on,” Will said with disgust. “Daria, June, Nick, Joey. I don’t know about you, but my mind’s a fucking blancmange.”
James’s head tilted to one side “They’ve all fallen into our orbit because they’re connected. It’s just a matter of knowing which trail to follow.”
“Yeah.” Will shook his head, exhausted. Tom’s hand came to rest on his back, warm and comforting through the thin cotton of his shirt. He pushed minutely into the touch.
“It feels like I’m trotting after whichever piece of bait is thrown in front of me,” he said. “Like I’m doing what they want every time, distracted by something new and shiny. It’s impossible to see anything like a complete picture.”
James frowned as the truth of that slid home.
“You’ll find the missing piece,” Tom said. “The thing that makes it all fall into place. I mean . . . finding someone who wasn’t on the database who matches the killer’s DNA . . . that was incredible luck in itself. What are the odds?”
It didn’t feel like luck though. It felt like one more impossible complication.