It was only now, in this intimate moment of bodies clutched unhappily together, that he realised his world had turned quiet. Sounds were muted but colours were overly bright, the sun dazzlingly sharp, the clouds so blinding in their purest white that gradually his gaze felt like it was slipping. The light began to refract and split into the spectrum as though he was losing focus. Meanwhile, sensation felt raw. The blow had felt like a massive punch to his belly. He was still shuddering from the force of it, and then came a new sensation of toppling.
Blood bloomed on his body. Was it hers? ‘Kate?’
‘Oh, Jack,’ he heard; her voice was strained and high, but her arms were around him, cradling him. Noise punctuated the silence as though the volume had been suddenly flicked on loud; he could hear police and ambulance sirens over a lot of yelling . . . was that Kate? Was she hurt? He could pick out the sound of pigeons disturbed from their rooftop nests as a jet made its approach to Heathrow and he idiotically wondered from where it was coming.
Jack could have sworn he was lifting up to float free from the rooftop, even from himself, which was odd but not unpleasant. There he was, finally able to view the scene with omniscient perspective. He hadn’t expected to see himself mostly prone, lying next to the rickety table and chairs. His head and shoulders were propped up against Kate, her long arms protective. He saw her look up helplessly from the ground and he followed her gaze, both of them desperately seeking out Jarvis as he pulled off his parka.
‘Jack, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to bring you physical harm. I only brought you here because I wanted you to understand what it feels like to know helplessness in the face of someone who simply doesn’t care about the people who matter to you. I assured Ms Starling I wouldn’t hurt her. My aim was only to bring justice to those defying it.’ He sighed, looked up towards the sun, then back at them. ‘Here, Kate.’ Jarvis flung his parka towards them. ‘Keep him warm as the shock hits,’ he said, before moving to the edge of the building. Then, using the small, creaking chair to get some height, he hauled himself onto the ledge.
‘Jarvis, no!’ Jack yelled, finally finding his wits, all of his senses switched back on to full focus. He tried to struggle from Kate’s grip but it was no use. He looked down, expecting to see her rigidly clasping him but she wasn’t; instead his belly and lap were a mess of blood. Oh, for fuck’s sake, he thought. We have to stop him, and he pushed deeper to find some strength. Move, Jack!
He was suddenly trying to clamber onto his knees to reach towards Jarvis. Kate was screaming at him again and he was beginning to see stars.
‘Can’t let you have me, but you have my respect. Don’t die, Jack. Don’t want you on my conscience when I answer for my sins.’ Jarvis gave them a friendly salute and jumped. He made no sound through the air, although they heard the crunch of his body hitting the pavement seconds later and the shrieks from Sarah, Ali, maybe Lauren, and other people below.
Jack had fallen forwards, raging with despair but also fading as he watched Kate scrambling to lean over the edge and look before she too slumped back down. Immediately, she was punching numbers into her phone.
‘Sarah. Is he dead?’ Kate demanded. Jack listened to her pause . . . his hearing was becoming distant, his sight beginning to narrow to tunnel vision as Kate blurred. ‘Best outcome, I suppose,’ he heard her say from far away. ‘Listen, forget Jarvis. Ambulance on the hurry-up for Jack. He’s been seriously hurt. Now!’
He frowned as he faded. ‘Hurt? No, I’m . . .’ The stain of blood was spreading across his shirt, even creeping up towards his chest.
Kate was back at his side, ripping open the shirt, buttons flying across the rooftop so she could see the state of his wound. She pressed on his belly. ‘Jack, keep your eyes open. Please, Jack, please.’ It took effort but he did as she demanded. He began to shiver, and she wrapped the parka around him, pulling off her jacket and placing it beneath his head. ‘I won’t leave you, Jack, but you mustn’t leave me. Okay? Promise me.’
‘I thought he’d stabbed you.’
‘He got you instead because you’re a heroic lunatic. Let me see.’ She pulled back the parka. ‘Shit!’ She dialled again and snarled into the phone. ‘Where’s that fucking ambulance? Okay, thanks. Jack, they’re coming up now . . . it’s a lot of stairs and hopefully they’re as fit as you. I need to put some pressure on the wound. It will hurt.’
‘Fuck!’ he yelled as she pressed warm hands onto his skin and then harder still. ‘Don’t tell Joan. FUCK!’
‘She’ll never know how much we owe her, I promise. Now, keep those eyes open for me. They’re beautiful and I want to keep looking at them.’
He was cold suddenly, but the shivering sensation was waking him back up. Now he could feel the pain of the stab wound. He noted Kate didn’t have a drop of colour in her complexion. This is what shock looks like, he thought, knowing he probably appeared the same. He groaned as a searing seam of agony sliced through his body.
‘Good. Stay awake,’ she said, sneaking another glance at his wound. Somehow she hauled him against her again, leaning back at a flattish angle against the wall and clasping his wound so tight he yelled again. ‘You’ll make it, Jack. I can hear them.’ She kissed his thick hair. ‘It could be worse.’
‘Could it?’ he heard himself bleat from far away through his panting. ‘This shirt is from Savile Row. You find my buttons!’
They both found his remark far funnier than it probably was, and when the paramedics arrived, staggering under the weight of their equipment with Sarah not far behind, gasping for breath, they found Kate and Jack laughing together in each other’s arms, like they were at a summer picnic.
Kate watched the man she still desired stir and work out that he was in a hospital bed and she was holding his hand. He was unshaven, hair messy, wearing a crumpled hospital gown. He looked splendid.
‘There you are,’ she murmured, squeezing his hand and shifting out of her chair to perch on the side of the bed.
‘Here I am,’ Jack said, voice husky. She helped him to sip through the straw of a nearby beaker of water. ‘Thanks.’
‘You saved my life, Jack. Do you remember that?’
‘Because you were aiming to save mine.’
‘It was probably my turn.’
He looked back at her, confounded. ‘I’m not keeping score.’
‘Are you in pain?’
Jack shook his head. ‘I’m sure I should be.’
‘Morphine’s a wonderful thing. Enjoy it – it’s legal in here,’ Kate quipped.
‘Where is here?’
‘St Mary’s. I’m very sorry about Anne, Jack. It’s my fault that she came into Jarvis’s frame.’
He shook his head. ‘No, he followed me, remember.’
‘Yes, but it was my idea for you to consult her.’
He held a brief silence. ‘You know, I had time in the ambulance, distracting myself from fear while the emergency team put me through my paces, to consider the ruin of her life.’ He gestured for another sip of water as his foggy mind became clear. ‘She’d only done two years of prison and she was already a ghost of the woman I remember. She was going to fade in there. She was trying to stay positive because she knew it was for the rest of her life – no reprieve, no chance to see her daughter, who would potentially never know who her mother was and how much she loved her. And even though I could see that she was using her skills to help others, I felt only relief when she said it was probably best we didn’t see each other again. I didn’t want to see her again – that’s the truth of it.’
‘And now you won’t have to face the guilt?’
‘No, it’s not that. I think if she could have worked out how to check out in a non-messy, non-suffering way, she would have. Jarvis took a difficult decision away from two suffering women, guilty of crimes that were in the public’s interest but had to be punished. In a way I guess I could be grateful to him for that. Anne’s free now.’
‘Who is sorting out her funeral?’<
br />
‘I guess I will. She has no one.’
‘I’ll help. You’re not going to be doing much at all for a while. I’ve let Geoff know. He’ll call.’
He nodded. ‘Jarvis?’
‘Dead on impact. Best decision he made.’
‘Lauren?’
‘Seems fine. When we were packing you up into that ambulance, I sensed Lauren was more excited than fearful.’
‘Truly?’ Now he did laugh and then groaned from the pain it prompted. ‘Yes. Imagine how she’s going to dine off that . . . up so close and personal with the country’s most hunted man of recent times? Her feature story will be devoured. She deserves it.’
‘Sharpe is impressed,’ Kate said, tiring of his admiration for the other woman. ‘We did exactly what he set us up to do and saved the Met the usual press circus.’
As if he’d been cued, there was a knock at the door, and they could see Martin Sharpe’s face as he lifted a hand to wave through the glass.
He stepped inside. ‘Not interrupting?’
‘No,’ they said together.
‘Morning, sir,’ Kate said.
‘Sir,’ Jack echoed, struggling to lift his head from the pillow.
‘Be still, Jack,’ Sharpe said, waving away protocol. ‘Good grief, what a pair you two make – you’re the talk of the Met.’ He clasped Kate’s hand before shaking Jack’s and then, surprisingly, touching his cheek as a father might with a son. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Sounds rather epic to say I’ve survived a stabbing.’
‘You were both heroic. And I’m certainly grateful. Well done to all in the team. This could have all got ugly. Mirror was slickly handled and brought to a close faster than I could have hoped. The media is only just waking up to it and your Ms Starling has the scoop.’
‘Thank you for giving her the exclusive, sir.’
‘Well, it’s my last formal interview.’
‘Going shopping for deck shoes instead, sir?’ Jack wondered.
‘Your day will come, Jack,’ Sharpe groaned. ‘My wife is determined to kit me out, so I stop looking like – in her words – an ageing plod, and more like a retired gentleman. What a load of old arse,’ he grumbled.
Both Kate and Jack laughed.
‘Don’t do that, sir. It hurts,’ Jack moaned.
‘I’m recommending you for a promotion, by the way,’ Sharpe said, addressing Kate.
‘Me?’ She sliced a glance Jack’s way, making the presumption he was behind it.
‘Yes. My last act before I leave. You’ve earned it, DI Carter. There’s a lot of respect for you out there, not least from this fellow who holds you in such high esteem.’ He prodded Jack gently.
Kate blushed. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Right, you need some sleep – I hear you haven’t left his side.’
She looked down, embarrassed.
‘Go on, he’ll still be here when you wake up. He’s getting the best care.’
Jack smiled at Kate. ‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll come by tomorrow.’
Sharpe waggled a finger. ‘And Joan says she’s going to make a guess at how many pound coins you both owe after what happened on that rooftop.’
Kate gave a dramatic sigh. ‘Right, I’m dialling Joan to tell her to empty out that wretched tin, and as soon as Jack’s allowed out we’re all going to celebrate with the proceeds.’
She bundled Sharpe out the door and looked back at Jack, giving him a bright smile. ‘Be well.’
He nodded. ‘By the way, Kate . . .’
She turned back.
‘Dr Cook has been asking about you . . . and not in a professional way, I might add.’
‘If you weren’t so weak, I’d fling a pillow at you, Jack.’
He blew her a brief kiss and then she was gone. As she left, she saw him reach for his phone. She knew with a helpless pang that it would be to call the very lucky Lauren Starling.
‘Jack!’
‘How are you doing?’
‘Just stopped shaking, I think,’ Lauren admitted. ‘I’ve been to the hospital twice now but they won’t let me onto your ward. That Detective Inspector Kate Carter is quite protective.’
He grinned. ‘You’ll have to get used to that. Where are you?’
‘Here, drinking awful hospital coffee and lurking in the main reception.’ There was a pause and he hoped she wasn’t crying, that he had read her wrong. He didn’t think she was the weepy sort. He was right. Her voice was steady when it came to reassure him. ‘I really want to see you, Detective Superintendent Hawksworth.’
He laughed. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? I’m all alone now and helpless in bed, wearing a frock of sorts that has no ties at the back. Come and take advantage of me.’
The sound of her laughter through the phone felt like a balm, exactly what he needed right now. ‘Give me a few minutes,’ she said.
The pain of Anne’s death would take a while to lessen but he already believed that she was in a better place; he felt strangely content knowing she was no longer that beautiful caged bird.
He would honour his promise to her as her farewell, hoping that by the time he was well enough to organise her funeral, he would know of Samantha’s whereabouts. He would whisper it to her mother’s coffin and, as Anne was cremated, perhaps her spirit could travel to where her daughter lived in what he hoped was the love and security Anne had wanted for her.
But right now his focus was on healing, and the best sort was to be found in the arms of a bright, smart woman, especially the one who had just arrived in the doorway to smile widely, a takeaway coffee in her hand from one of the new coffee shops in Paddington.
‘I’m assured this is the best three-quarter-full latte in London,’ she said, bursting in.
And Jack’s groan was one filled with gratitude.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Without a retired Australian detective called Mick Symons, this book would never have come to fruition. I knew it would be an impossible story to write unless I had someone on the ground in London who was well versed in the procedures of Scotland Yard at a senior level during the early 2000s. Mick, an old friend and colleague of my husband, immediately put the word out through his networks and a retired senior detective, Mike Warburton, put his hand up. I remain very grateful to him.
Mike and I began to correspond and then, in early 2019, I flew to London and gave him a brief outline of my ideas and we were off. We spent the next few days with our heads bent over a couple of very good bacon butties in Wood Green Crown Court and the story began to come together. Mike caught on fast to my character of DCI Jack Hawksworth and helped me to bed down my police protocols. He took me into the public gallery for day one of a trial of three men accused of drug crimes. I found it particularly chilling watching the jury being sworn in; so many of them looked unnerved by the men staring straight back at them and the other intimidating folk in the public gallery and I didn’t envy them the task of deciding their immediate future. The case wasn’t relevant to my story but the surrounds were and I began to ‘feel’ the atmosphere of a British criminal court and all of its players.
We roamed all around Enfield area, walking the streets that the characters do and choosing locations that worked for the story. We visited the Alexandra Palace – known fondly as the Ally Pally by locals – on a stupendously cold day but I just couldn’t work it into the story. Next time! Mike and I met once again in Portsmouth, this time chatting for hours over several pots of tea in the faded surrounds of a once glorious hotel that formerly welcomed the well-heeled and glamorous, but now its seafront tearooms welcomed mostly pensioners coming in from the cold for a mid-morning treat. It set a perfect mood for a key scene with the wind whistling across the shingle beach and a lot more education on the subject of a concerted police operation. Mike continued to be invaluable through the year of Covid-19 restrictions when I could no longer visit or tramp across locations with him, and I know how fortunate I am for our early work together and
his ongoing commitment to the project throughout 2020, including numerous reads of chapters.
Few of my books these days are written without my hilarious, brilliant fellow writer in Britain – Alex Hutchinson – at my side. She writes under the pen name of Penny Thorpe but she’s one of Britain’s well-known archivists and is regularly called upon by broadcasters and TV hosts for her historical knowledge, particularly of chocolate. Alex and I tend to frequent a lot of chocolate shops while researching! She is the very best location expert and without Alex I would not have thought to go to Finsbury Park or found the particular spot where the character of Bernie Beaton hid. She can always find exactly what I need for the story – she’s been doing this since 2015 – so I now look forward to our jaunts all over London as we hunt down the perfect place for various scenes. This was the first time she’d helped me with a contemporary novel and it was a lot of fun, especially investigating an old bowling alley we found near Finsbury Park, visiting Southwark, roaming Borough Markets, walking London Bridge. She moves me around on foot because we never know when I’ll find just the right alleyway or shop, the perfect cafe or street. Penny Thorpe has written two novels about Quality Street and, now fully recovered from her own bout of Covid-19, she is busy working on her third. I miss not being able to move around Britain with her and I look forward to hopefully being reunited in 2022 . . . we have books to research.
Thanks to all the usual suspects in the Penguin Random House team – especially my publisher, Ali Watts, for giving me the opportunity to answer the determined campaign by readers to bring back DCI Jack Hawksworth in a new story. I doubt it will be his last. And a special nod to my editor, Amanda Martin, for her diligent and ever cheerful work on the manuscript – you are such a pleasure to work with.
Finally, a big kiss for Ian McIntosh. When I was first coursing about for a new crime story, the premise of this tale came at his suggestion, emerging out of his ongoing frustration – which I’m sure is shared by many – for the lenient sentencing given to convicted criminals and/or the early release of criminals due to the squeeze on our prison system. It’s an old chestnut that is hard to crack and I suspect we’ll wrestle with it constantly: I’m sure most of us appreciate that rehabilitation through incarceration is rare, yet none of us want to share our world with hardened criminals. And of course we want justice for the victims. I think we had one of those conversations of ‘What would you do if . . .?’ and out of it came the vigilante idea; hardly new but always intriguing and divisive and a perfect platform for a compelling story, which I hope you’ve enjoyed.
Mirror Man Page 37
