‘Very funny,’ Lexie replied, trying to disguise the shiver Cole’s last comment had sent up her spine. ‘How did you get on?’
‘Yeah, not bad considering. I had to spread them out further than I thought I’d need to. It seems like people think they can pull your pants down if you’re trying to shift a number of items at once. Perhaps if we’d had more success in Watford yesterday…’ he said, choosing not to end his sentence but raising his eyebrow knowingly.
‘Forget that,’ she said, waving a dismissive hand. ‘Whilst we wait for Taylor to get back let’s pool everything together and give us a running total.’ She held her breath for a moment, wondering if Cole would voice further complaint, and this time more serious. It was only now that it crossed her mind that he might insist everything was distributed evenly between them when they left for the airport.
‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said, reaching into his pockets and pulling out an untidy roll of notes.
Lexie turned around to Jordan and gave him a quick wink.
Chapter Thirty-seven
‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ Ruby said, which was only a half-lie now that the walk had calmed her down somewhat. ‘It’s just been a trying morning and what with the late night yesterday…’
‘Which is why I think you should come around tonight,’ Danny said on the other end of the line. ‘It’ll be like when we first met.’
The mere mention of when they had started dating was enough for a trace of a smile to cross Ruby’s lips for the first time that day. Without sounding pushy, Danny had made it clear early on she was welcome to visit him whenever she was in need of a little TLC. Things had calmed down a lot at home, with her mother no longer insisting on a blow-by-blow account of her day, and she found a lot more comfort living with her parents than she had expected when she first moved back home. But increasingly she was no longer satisfied with an evening sat in front of the soaps, even if it was accompanied by her mother’s excellent cooking.
Over the past few months Ruby had made many excuses to herself why she had yet to find a place of her own. Initially she had claimed it had something to do with an aversion to estate agents following her first investigation as a detective, and then it branched into more general observations about the cost of renting and how it would be far better if she were able to save up a deposit for a mortgage. But along with the fact she had saved barely a penny of her salary, despite her car payments on her beloved Up! GTI more than met by her increased salary and far lower living costs than when she had been in London, there was the ultimate truth that she didn’t really want anywhere on her own.
The downside of Danny’s laid-back demeanour was he showed no signs of sharing her sense of impetuousness and was therefore unlikely to ask her to move in with him so soon into their relationship. But having finally admitted to the real reason for her reluctance to fulfil the promise she had made to herself when accepting the offer of employment back in her home county, she would start to sow the seeds of her success. If nothing else, planning how to bring Danny around to the idea would help her to forget that Cooper was behaving like a dick, and being on a case that was causing her so much frustration.
‘Okay, sounds great. I know it’s well overdue my turn to cook but…’
‘Don’t worry, I like looking after you,’ came back the ideal response, reminding Ruby that Danny only had himself to blame if she was seeking to rush things.
‘Well, excuse me!’ Ruby shouted loudly.
‘What’s that?’ Danny responded, confused.
‘Oh, nothing honey, just some impatient little twerp whose forgotten his manners,’ she replied equally as loudly and not just for Danny’s benefit. ‘Listen, I’m at the next shop now, so I’ll call you when I’m about to leave work, okay?’ She hung up as soon as Danny offered a word of farewell and continued through the entrance to the jewellers.
‘Right, time to put your game face on,’ she muttered to herself as she walked up to the counter and pulled out her warrant card. ‘Hello there, I’m DC Knight and was wondering if you’ve had anyone come in over the past week looking to sell you some items.’
‘I’m sorry, officer,’ the elderly gentleman said, shaking his head. ‘People come in all the time; I’m afraid you’ll need to be a little more specific.’
Although the response was similar to what Ruby had received in the first two shops she’d visited, it didn’t aid her frustration. ‘I don’t have a list of the exact items,’ she replied wistfully, wishing that certain aspects of the investigation didn’t take so long. ‘But it’s likely to be more of a job lot than a single.’
‘Like watches?’
‘Yeah, like that,’ Ruby responded casually before her brain had processed the change in the jewellers’ tone. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I had a young lad in just now trying to sell me five timepieces. You may have just met him as you came in?’
‘What?’ Ruby cried, spinning around. Instinctively she dashed for the door and out into the street but, perhaps unsurprisingly, there was no longer any sign of the man who had barged into her a couple of minutes ago. ‘Tell me more!’ she demanded, sprinting back inside.
‘Well, erm, they were a mixture but all second hand. One was an Omega, another was a Tag…’
‘No!’ Ruby interrupted. ‘Tell me more about him!’ Some of her frustration was born out of the fact that had she not been on the phone to Danny, she might have paid more attention to the person in question herself.
‘He, er… well, he was young… and, er, I’d say about average build,’ the clearly flustered shopkeeper stammered before his eyes suddenly lit up. ‘Hold on! We could look on the cameras,’ he said, enthusiastically gesturing to the CCTV system above his head. ‘I had it installed recently and I’m told it’s state of the art, not that I’ve needed to…’
‘Show me!’ Ruby said, already rounding the counter and making out as though she was prepared to bundle the poor man through to the back of the shop.
A few minutes later, and with Ruby having to take over the controls after watching him unsuccessfully try and navigate through the programme on his ancient laptop computer, she had a decent image of the lad in question. Although it was taken from an elevated view, she trusted that it provided enough points of reference for it to run successfully through the station’s software.
She clicked on the share button and selected email from the resulting menu. ‘What’s your password?’
‘Oh, I, erm… I think I have it written down somewhere…’ The owner, who had now introduced himself as Graham said, beginning to sift through an untidy pile of papers. The back room was as Ruby had expected of a small, and rather old-fashioned looking independent jewellers. Along with the obligatory loupe, and various sized boxes, was a work bench with miniscule tools for carrying out repair work.
‘Great,’ Ruby shouted, snatching the grubby Post-it note from Graham’s hand as soon as he retrieved it. After punching in the password, she began dialling Cooper with her left hand whilst finishing sending the email with her right.
‘Yes,’ came the cold answer over the phone line.
‘I’m in a jewellers and I…’
‘Good for you,’ he interrupted sourly. ‘Do you know how much CCTV footage there is to trawl through from yesterday?’
‘Yeah, it’s about the CCTV…’
‘You’ve finally got over your hissy fit and are coming back to the station?’
‘Cooper!’ Ruby shouted with enough force that saw Graham back up into his pile of papers, scattering most of them onto the floor. ‘Don’t you dare say another word until I’m finished!’ She gave a deliberate pause to check his compliancy. ‘I’ve just emailed you an image that I need you to run through the facial recognition software right this minute. Is that clear?’
‘What’s going on, Rubes?’
She sighed. ‘A young lad has just tried to flog a number of second-hand watches. I’m not saying it’s definitely our guy but it’s the first credible lead we
’ve had all investigation.’
Ruby could hear some clicking on the other end of the line which she presumed was the terminal at which Cooper was sat. ‘Okay, I’ve got it,’ he said a few moments later, his tone now business-like.
‘Good. We’re only talking a matter of minutes ago that he was in here,’ Ruby added, filling some of the silence but choosing not to reveal she had literally bumped into the suspect on his way out.
‘Just running it through now.’
Ruby had only been in CID for a few months, but she was already familiar with the facial recognition software and could imagine the points of comparison being drawn on the image as it compared what it was picking up with what was in the police database. ‘I think we’ve got something.’
‘What is it?’ Ruby called impatiently, excitement building.
‘Not a lot, just some shoplifting and petty theft, nothing to suggest…’
‘But even if he wasn’t responsible for the attack then he might have bought the stuff or be selling it on for them,’ Ruby said before realising she was wasting time justifying the situation to Cooper. ‘What’s the address?’
‘Lavender Crescent, just behind the hospital.’
‘Shit!’ Ruby swore loudly, remembering that she had chosen to walk into town. ‘Come and pick me up on your way, I’ll be by the Clock Tower.’
‘I could just send a panda car around there?’
‘No! We’re going to go,’ Ruby replied firmly. ‘They may get to him quicker, but it’ll slow things down if we need to get any information out of him.’ She hung up before Cooper could voice any complaint.
Turning back to Graham, she allowed herself a half-smile at the way he regarded her nervously. The Clock Tower was only a couple of minutes’ walk away, giving her enough time to embark on some community relations. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your assistance in the matter,’ she beamed warmly and causing a confused look to spread over Graham’s face. ‘I’m sorry I had to rush you and I wish I was in a position to provide you with some details about our current investigation, but it’s safe to say that you might have been instrumental in helping us identify a key suspect.’ The statement was far more confident than Ruby truly felt about the situation but she figured it did no harm for Graham to believe it.
‘Well thank you, officer,’ he replied, his chest puffing out. ‘I knew there was something suspicious about the lad the moment I clapped my eyes on him. What’s more, if you hadn’t walked in when you did, I probably would have called the police station about it.’
Probably, Ruby thought sourly. Having tossed Graham a bone it seemed he was determined to amplify his role further. ‘Well I wish I could stay and help you tidy up,’ she said, gesturing to the paperwork strewn on the floor.
‘Oh no, of course, officer,’ he responded eagerly and for one dreadful moment Ruby thought he was about to clap her on the back.
Perhaps it was her threatening look that prevented him.
Chapter Thirty-eight
‘It’s the right thing to do,’ Kate muttered to herself, now back at her desk. She had originally tried to dismiss the thought when it first came to her whilst she drank her coffee, but as soon as the idea became lodged in her mind it had proven impossible to shift.
Whichever way she viewed it, the logic was there.
‘Better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb,’ she added, remembering the phrase her father had used when she had been caught with chocolate around her face, following a clandestine raid of the sweetie jar. She had stared at him blankly before he explained that he hoped she had taken more than one item, seeing as she had just landed herself in trouble.
Perhaps that was the way Scott had viewed it following his first extra marital shag. Having made himself an adulterer, he probably figured that he might as well keep going. Once Kate had time to digest the news that David’s death was being attributed to the gang in St. Albans, she realised that, as welcome as it had been, she was far from out of the woods. There were many ways in which it could still be linked back to her and, in reality, the only thing it had definitely bought her was more time.
It was consideration of how to best use this indeterminate period that had led her to the conclusion she now understood to be the right one. Having already rejected fleeing, she similarly knew that she would be a fool to hand herself in now. Even if there was a chance that they would still accept she had been acting in self-defence, she would be crazy to walk into a police station whilst they believed someone else to be responsible.
‘Better to be hung for a sheep than a lamb,’ Kate repeated coldly. If she were to be arrested, wouldn’t it be better for it to be for the one thing she truly wanted? Perhaps that way she would be more accepting of her fate because, whilst she felt no remorse for what had happened to David, she was damned if she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison for killing a man who meant precisely zero to her. No, far better that it be for Scott. She had been kidding herself that embarking on her own affair would somehow wrestle the power back in their relationship. Irrespective of whatever emotional hurt it caused him, the result would still be the same: he would run to that whore, Donna. Kate had believed the outcome to be inevitable but now knew there was an alternative.
She would kill Scott.
Why had it never even crossed her mind before? It was probably a belief that it was inevitable she would be caught. However, the past twenty-four hours had taught her two things. Whilst she may not have strictly intended David’s death, it did illustrate that she was capable of killing. More significantly, the news conference that morning had made her question the inevitability of her arrest.
If the police had been so quick to attribute her actions at David’s flat to the gang terrorising St. Albans, what was to say that one more death couldn’t be added to the list? Sure, it being so close to home, quite literally in this case, made it even more of a risk but this time she would have the advantage of knowing what she was doing, and had time to prepare.
‘But not that much time,’ Kate whispered, knowing that the gang wouldn’t be around forever and that, as soon as they were caught the opportunity would be lost. ‘Strike whilst the iron is hot,’ she added, remembering another of her father’s sayings.
Kate was in two minds whether to finish up early and go home. She would welcome the chance to plan things away from any distractions and it would ensure she got back before Scott, but there was the danger associated with continuing to pretend she had a sick mother. The likelihood of the detectives speaking to Mark was slim, but having relied on luck to evade capture for David’s death, she knew that her continued survival rested on leaving nothing else to chance.
So caught up was she in trying to balance the inherent risks in her mind, that she nearly missed the incoming text on her phone.
Gonna be a bit late again tonight. Work and stuff. S x
Under other circumstances Kate would have been infuriated by how casual her husband was about finding the time needed to continue pursuing his affair. At least he could come up with a better excuse than work and stuff, but Kate was keen to capitalise on the opportunity she had been presented with.
‘Enjoy it whilst it lasts,’ she muttered coldly.
Chapter Thirty-nine
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Lexie said, finding that Cole’s pacing the kitchen was doing nothing to settle her own anxiety.
‘We could just go,’ Cole said, ignoring her request. ‘You know, we could have him meet us at the airport or something.’
‘Calm down,’ Jordan growled. ‘Try and call him again if you’re so worried.’
‘I’m not worried, but what if he’s been arrested? He’s such a pussy, I bet that…’
‘You’re right,’ Lexie interjected, standing up. ‘I don’t mean about being arrested,’ she added hurriedly, seeing the concern in Jordan’s eyes matched by the downright fear now in Cole’s. ‘But we’ve been waiting here long enough. I reckon it’ll take ten minutes for us to pack up our
stuff and if we haven’t at least heard from him by then, we should leave.’
‘Okay,’ Jordan said, shrugging, but Lexie could see the relief in his expression.
‘Great, I’ll get his shit together along with mine,’ Cole declared, bounding towards the stairs.
Lexie was about to follow but she found a strong arm holding her back. ‘I could go and deal with Cole, you know,’ he said mildly but causing the skin where he was touching her to prickle.
‘Let’s just give it another ten minutes,’ she replied, delicately removing his hand. ‘The value of those watches could make a big difference,’ she added, hoping more than ever that Taylor got his arse back there.
‘As you wish,’ Jordan responded plaintively, making Lexie wonder whether it had been more about him reminding her of the consequences should she decide to double-cross him than a genuine suggestion.
Offering him a smile she hoped had translated to her eyes, she went to pack. It had been her idea to escalate their activities into the sort of jobs that would provide them with the cash to escape the cycle of committing petty thefts purely to sustain themselves, and not for the first time she wondered whether she was now out of her depth.
However, the process of packing a few of her more precious items served as a reminder that she was close to the end. If she could just hang on a few hours longer then it would all have been worth it. It would be simpler if the four of them were jetting off together but at least having recruited Jordan there was a certain degree of protection.
‘Shit!’ Lexie cursed loudly, remembering that she had left all the money piled on the kitchen table. In her keenness to get away from Jordan and to ensure she was ready to go the moment Taylor arrived back, she hadn’t considered that she had left the person who posed her the greatest danger with all of their money.
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