by Alex Walters
Maybe that was why, despite all their supposed efforts, Morrissey had succeeded in going to ground between then and his appearance before her just now.
She took a breath, her mind racing through the implications of all this. The spate of professional executions across the north west. Welby’s supposed attempt at suicide. Further back, the question of who had carried out the skilfully executed torture and killing of her former lover, the informant Jake Morton.
And the question, above all, of what Morrissey was doing, here and now.
For a long moment, ringed in the street light’s halo, Morrissey continued to stare back at her, his face clearly visible now in the pale orange glare. She could sense, somehow, that he knew she was watching.
She continued to stare back at him until, to her surprise, he suddenly turned on his heel and, with what appeared to be a valedictory wave of his cap, began to stride off down the street, heading back towards the High Street.
She watched, baffled by what she was seeing, until he reached the corner and vanished from sight.
There was no question, she thought. It was Joe Morrissey. And he had wanted her to see him, wanted her to recognise him. He had waited by the door until he knew he’d been spotted. And then he’d stood with his face in the light until he was certain that she had identified him. And then he had simply left.
Why? Just to scare the shit out of her?
Well, possibly. Maybe it was a warning. Lay off Salter and I won’t come back.
But she couldn’t believe that. It was too low-key, too unreliable. Morrissey might be good, but even he couldn’t have been absolutely confident that she’d recognised him. His final gesture felt more like the departing flourish of a great performer who can’t resist one last moment on the stage. It was an embellishment to the act, not the act itself.
She was holding her breath again, she realised, her chest suddenly tight with fear. As she’d grabbed the phone from her handbag, she had seen something, though she hadn’t consciously registered it at the time. She hurried across the room and picked up the bag, rooting frantically around inside.
Brennan’s disc was gone.
The chill had reached her heart now.
If the disc was gone, Morrissey had been in the house. Had been in her bedroom. Had been in there, standing over her, and then had left, without her even being aware of his presence.
She rushed through into the spare bedroom and fell on her knees in front of the table fumbling around in the darkness. She could still feel the shape of the disc concealed under the carpet. Morrissey hadn’t found that. She had to keep reminding herself that, however skilled he might be, he was only human. There was no way he could have discovered the concealed copy.
But it didn’t matter. If Salter knew that she’d received this evidence from Brennan, he would also know that Brennan had the original. And Brennan would no doubt have made his own copies, probably located more securely than this one. Salter’s aim wouldn’t have been to destroy the evidence. He would simply have wanted to get his hands on it, find out what was on there. Prepare his own defence and alibis before she or Brennan had a chance to do anything with it.
She stumbled to her feet, still shaken by the realisation that Morrissey had been so close to her. That, if he’d wanted, he could have shut off her life just like that…
Afterwards, she didn’t know where the thought had come from. But, as soon as it entered her mind, she had known instantly that it was true.
It felt now as if Morrissey had somehow managed to reach into her body, grasp her heart in his cold fingers, and squeeze it until she could no longer breathe. She raced down the stairs, stumbling as she neared the bottom, catching herself against the front door. She turned and slammed open the door of the dining room, fumbling for the light switch as she did so.
At first, she thought there was nothing wrong. Liam was lying as peacefully as ever, his eyes closed, one hand tucked under his cheek.
But the room was silent. Utterly silent.
As silent as the grave.
29
The DI was holding her hand between both of his, in a gesture which, in other circumstances, might have seemed unduly intimate. ‘We’ve done everything we can, Marie. Believe me.’
She did believe him, though she knew that he hadn’t believed her. She knew him a little, DI Warrington. They’d done basic training together, a long while ago. He was obviously making decent progress. A bright career ahead of him.
She knew they’d made a concession in even sending a DI out, let alone all the other stuff they’d done that morning. The SOCO had crawled all over the dining room, painstakingly gathering any shred of evidence that might be there. The only difficulty was that he, like Warrington, clearly didn’t believe there was any evidence to be found.
‘There’ll be a post-mortem,’ Warrington said. ‘Then we’ll know for sure.’
‘But you don’t believe me.’
He stared at her for a moment as if unsure how to respond. ‘Jesus, Marie. I know you. You’re a copper. A good one. If you say something, we’re going to move heaven and earth to check it out.’
‘And I’m very grateful. But you still don’t believe me.’ She was aware that she was beginning to sound, in the circumstances, inappropriately petulant. Shit, Marie, she thought, get a grip on yourself.
Warrington looked around him, perhaps hoping that one of his colleagues might come to his aid. ‘It’s an emotional time for you, Marie. Of course it is. I mean, Christ knows how you’ve coped with all this–’
‘If you tell me it’s a fucking blessing, I might be forced to punch you in the teeth,’ she said.
‘No, of course not. It’s awful. But that’s the point. You’re not in a position to think about it rationally yet . . .’ He caught the look on her face and trailed off. ‘I’m not handling this very well, am I?’
She shook her head. ‘No, you’re doing fine, Rob. You’ve done it all by the book and more. The doctor’s been and concluded that it was most likely natural causes. Asphyxiation caused by fluid on the lung. Not that unusual in MS cases that have progressed as far as Liam’s. And, yes, he did have a chest infection, though we didn’t think it was serious. And, no, there was no obvious sign of a break-in. And, yes, all I did was catch a glimpse of a figure standing on the far side of the road in the middle of the night.’ Almost without realising it, she discovered that she was crying. She buried her face in her hands, embarrassed at losing control among people she thought of as her colleagues.
Warrington awkwardly passed her a box of tissues from the coffee table in front of them, waiting while she regained control. ‘Look, I’m not writing it off, Marie. I know what you do – well, something about what you do – and I know it must put you at risk. We’re taking this seriously. If there’s any evidence in that room, the SOCO will have picked it up. We’re following up Joe Morrissey, though there’s not much on the record about him.’
‘There wouldn’t be,’ she said. ‘He’s a pro.’ It was good of them to go through the motions, she thought, but she knew they’d find no evidence in the dining room and Morrissey would have long made himself scarce. Probably with a pay-off and the prospect of a nice long break in the sun. Somewhere where the talents and resources of the Met were unlikely to track him down.
She couldn’t even be certain herself that Liam had been murdered. Sitting here, with the bleak autumn sunshine streaming through the grubby sitting room window, it all seemed unreal. All just a horrible coincidence. Maybe she hadn’t seen Morrissey last night. Maybe she’d just let her imagination get the better of her.
She wiped her eyes with the tissue and looked back up at Warrington. ‘I know you’ll do your best, Rob. I’m probably just overwrought. Like you say, it’s been a strain. And now he’s gone – I don’t know what to think.’
‘You need a break,’ Warrington said. ‘They’ll give you compassionate leave. You should get away somewhere.’
That was it, she thought. Salter’s
grand plan. He’d insist on her taking compassionate leave, show what a fucking caring boss he was. Get her well off the scene before any of the stuff with Brennan came into view. And if she started challenging Salter with Brennan’s evidence, he’d let everyone know that, well, she was under enormous stress, wasn’t she? Not surprising, after everything she’d been through. He’d probably get Winsor to conclude that she was perhaps a little unbalanced at the moment. Not quite getting everything in proportion. She’d even suggested that her partner, Liam, had been murdered, even though there was absolutely no evidence and he’d clearly been in the terminal stage of multiple sclerosis. It was terribly sad, but there you were. You had to ask whether she’d ever really be capable of resuming an operational career.
She nodded to Warrington. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s been a tough time. Not just this. Lots of stuff. Work as well. Maybe a break would do me good.’
Warrington nodded, with the relieved air of a man who had just managed to extricate himself from unfamiliar and uncomfortable emotional territory. ‘Think about it, anyway. I’m sure it would help to get away.’
‘I’m sure it would,’ she said. She looked around the room, and it struck her that she was already beginning to forget that this was her home. With Liam gone, that sense of domesticity seemed to have melted away. She almost wondered why this furniture, these ornaments, the picture on the wall, had ever meant anything to her. Now, suddenly, this house seemed as bland and anonymous as the places they’d allocated to her in the field. ‘Think you’re right, Rob,’ she went on. ‘I think I’ll get away. As soon as I can. Once I’ve tied up a few loose ends.’
It was another half hour or so before Warrington and the others left, though they were all clearly itching to get away. There’d been a stream of calls across the morning – her parents, Liam’s parents, friends who knew them well, friends she hadn’t seen for years but who somehow had picked up the news on the grapevine. She knew there was a hell of a lot to think about – organising the funeral, dealing with the fact that Liam had left no will, sorting out the life insurance they’d had on the mortgage. She managed to phone the undertakers and put that side of things in train, but the rest she intended to defer to another day.
As the morning wore on, she’d increasingly ignored the phone and allowed the callers to leave messages, wearying of having to engage with the uncomfortable dialogue that followed the initial expression of sympathy. Somewhere in the middle, Salter had called. She’d let that one run to voicemail, and later listened, feeling nauseous at the sound of his voice. ‘Very sorry to hear the awful news. Give us a call when you’re able. Assume you’ll be off for the next day or so anyway, but we should talk about giving you a longer break. We all know how much you’ve been through.’ At least he’d refrained from calling her ‘sis’.
After the police had gone, she fixed herself a coffee and stood staring into the empty dining room. Liam had been sleeping in that room for only a relatively short while, and he’d been increasingly uncommunicative, but the room’s vacancy still felt strange and wrong. Social services would eventually be back to collect the bed and the room would, she supposed, return to its former use. Whether she’d be here to see that happen was another question.
As she returned to the sitting room, she heard one of her mobiles buzzing in her bag. She pulled out the pay-as-you-go phone she’d bought for calling Brennan and glanced at the screen. The number wasn’t withheld but was unfamiliar. ‘Hello?’
‘Sorry to hear the news, girl. Bastard thing to happen.’
She managed to stop herself from answering immediately. Instead, she made her way quickly through the kitchen and opened the back door. ‘Sorry, can you hang on a sec?’ Once outside she said: ‘Sorry, Keith. I don’t know whether the house is bugged. I’m in the garden now.’
‘Wouldn’t put it past him to bug the bloody garden,’ Welsby said. ‘They’ve allowed me to use Lizzie’s phone. Should be safe enough. How you doing?’
‘Not great, Keith.’ She’d phoned Lizzie earlier to break the news to her, but had given no real details. ‘I don’t think it was natural. I think Joe Morrissey was involved.’
There was a long pause. ‘Jesus. That psycho for hire. He’s certainly had links with our friends over the years.’
‘He tried to kill me before,’ Marie said. ‘I thought he’d been hired by you and Kerridge.’
‘Christ, girl, you really do have a low opinion of me, don’t you?’ He paused. ‘Not Jeff’s style, either. Might be prepared to turn a blind eye to it. But wouldn’t commission it. That was what Boyle was for. You got evidence he was involved?’
‘No, of course not. Nobody believes me. But Morrissey wanted me to know.’ She described what she’d seen during the night.
She could almost hear Welsby’s mind working and reaching similar conclusions to her own. ‘Jesus, he’s a ruthless bastard, isn’t he? Our friend, I mean. I never thought he’d go that far.’
‘He’ll go anywhere he needs to. I realise that now. Should have realised it before.’ She could feel the emotion building again. ‘Christ, Keith, how do we stop him?’
‘We need to do it by the book, I reckon, girl. You need to take that stuff you’ve got to Standards.’
‘They won’t take it seriously. Salter will have come up with smart answers to all of it by now. I’ll just make an idiot of myself.’
‘No, you won’t. You just got to take care how you do it. You raise it as something that’s come into your hands. Something you’ve got concerns about. That’s just you doing your job. It’s up to them to look into it. But if you do that, it puts him on their radar. It obliges them to do something about it. Even if it goes nowhere in the short term, it’ll start to put some pressure on him.’
‘And is that the best we can do? Put some fucking pressure on him? Jesus, Keith–’
‘Just trust me, girl. We’ll get the bastard. One way or another.’ He paused, and she could hear his rough breathing down the line. ‘I’ll get that bastard, girl, if it’s the last fucking thing I do.’
30
‘Ms Donovan? Come in. Take a seat. First of all, let me offer my sincere commiserations.’
He didn’t sound particularly sincere, she thought, but he’d clearly done his homework. That was impressive, but slightly worrying. Did that mean he’d spoken to Salter? She decided there was no merit in being tentative. ‘I’m impressed,’ she said. ‘Who told you?’
He frowned and looked momentarily puzzled. ‘It’s the talk of the building, I’m afraid, Ms Donovan. I’m sorry these things get spread as tittle-tattle, but I’m sure people’s intentions are good.’
So that was it, then? Not good research. Just the usual grapevine. She wondered whether everyone also knew she’d asked them to treat Liam’s death as murder. Quite probably. Shit. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t entirely a surprise, given his condition, but it was still a shock. I think I’m a little over-sensitive.’
‘We can never entirely prepare ourselves for these things, can we?’ He had the air of an Anglican vicar, she thought. Never more than a sentence away from a comforting platitude. ‘Jonathan, by the way,’ he added, holding out his hand, ‘Jonathan Caulfield. I’m in charge here. Jon.’
‘Please,’ she said, ‘call me Marie.’ She could feel herself wanting to scream at the suffocating politeness of it. No doubt Caulfield was the one they wheeled out to the press when they wanted to demonstrate that one bad apple hadn’t caused the whole barrel to decay.
‘I must confess, Marie,’ Caulfield went on, treating her name with the nervous care of a scientist handling a radioactive specimen, ‘I was a little surprised that you asked to see us today. I’d rather assumed you’d be taking a few days off.’
‘I was offered the opportunity,’ she said, conscious that she was coming close to mimicking his circumlocutory style. ‘And I’ll probably take it. That was really why I wanted to deal with this now. So that I could take some leave with a clear c
onscience.’
‘I see. And would this be concerned in some way with the sad death of your, um, partner?’ The ecclesiastical air was again evident in the awkward emphasis he gave to the final word. But his question suggested that he was aware of the questions she’d raised about the nature of Liam’s death.
She shook her head. ‘No. This is something different.’ She felt almost treacherous in denying the link to Liam, but she knew that it was better to present this as objectively as possible. She didn’t want to give Caulfield any excuse to dismiss her as hysterical or unbalanced.
‘I understand that there are some potentially serious allegations against a senior officer?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m making no allegations.’
He blinked. ‘But I’d understood from your phone message–’
‘Mr Caulfield – Jon – I’ve worked regularly as an investigating officer and as an evidence officer. I understand the standards of evidence required to sustain a criminal conviction or even to bring a misconduct case. I don’t think that anything I can give you will meet those standards at present.’ She’d prepared this speech in her head while waiting outside for Caulfield to see her. She hoped that she was striking the right note. ‘But I also know what kinds of issues would prompt us to begin an investigation. And I think what I’ve got to say at least merits your attention.’
Caulfield nodded slowly. ‘But your – comments do involve a senior officer?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Relatively senior.’
‘Have you read our policy on whistleblowers, Marie?’ His tone implied that their policy might involve throwing them into a prison cell and tossing away the key.
‘Yes, I have.’ She’d skimmed it quickly on the intranet when she’d arrived at the office at the start of the afternoon. She’d attracted a few odd looks from her co-workers for appearing at the office on the day of Liam’s death. ‘I needed to get away from the house,’ she’d said, wondering quite why she felt the need to make excuses. ‘Just for an hour or two. Thought I’d come in and tie up a few loose ends. Then I can take some time off properly.’ They’d all nodded sympathetically, clearly thinking that grief affected people in strange ways.
