by Val McDermid
‘I’ve always enjoyed working with Mr Brandon,’ she said. ‘How are things bedding down with the task force?’
‘Oh, you’ll see all that for yourself,’ he said dismissively, ushering her into the lift. ‘Of course, Tony’s been singing your praises to the heavens. What a joy you are to work with, what a delightful colleague, how bright, how easy to deal with.’ He grinned down at her. ‘And the rest.’
Now Carol knew he was a bullshitter. She had no doubt as to Tony’s professional respect for her, but she knew him well enough to be certain he would never have spoken about her in personal terms. His ingrained reticence would have taken far greater subtlety and skill to penetrate than Paul Bishop clearly possessed. Tony would never talk about Carol because to do so he’d have to talk about the case that had brought them together. And that would mean revealing far more about both of them than any stranger had a right to know. He’d have had to explain how she’d fallen for him and how his sexual inadequacies forced him to reject her, how any hope of them ever getting together had been the last victim of the murderous psychopath they’d tracked. She felt in her bones that he would never have told another living soul these things, and if there was one thing that raised her above her colleagues, it was her instinct. ‘Mmm,’ she said noncommittally. ‘I’ve always admired Dr Hill’s professionalism.’ Bishop brushed against her hip as he pushed the button for the fifth floor. If I’d been a man, Carol thought, he’d just have told me which floor to go for.
‘It’s a real bonus for us that you’ve worked with Tony before,’ Bishop continued, eyeing his hair in the brushed metal doors. ‘Our new trainees will be able to learn a lot from watching how you divide up the process, how you communicate, what you both need from each other.’
‘“You know my methods, Watson,”’ Carol parodied wryly.
Bishop looked momentarily puzzled, then his face cleared. ‘Ah, yes.’ The lift opened. ‘This way. We’re going to have coffee together, just the three of us, then you and Tony can work through the initial contact interview with the students looking on.’ He strode down the corridor and held a door open for her, standing back while she entered what looked like a scaled-down scruffy school staff-room.
Across the room, Tony Hill swung round, coffee filter in one hand, spoon in the other. His eyes widened at the sight of Carol and she felt a slow smile spread irresistibly across her face. ‘Tony,’ she said, managing to keep her voice formal. ‘How nice to see you.’
‘Carol,’ he greeted her, dropping the teaspoon on the table with a clatter. ‘You look…well. You look well.’
She’d have been lying if she’d said the same to him. He was still pale, though she’d seen him paler. The dark smudges under his eyes were less like bruises than they’d been the last time the two of them had stared at each other, but they were still the badges of someone to whom eight hours’ sleep was the impossible dream. His eyes had lost some of the strain she’d grown accustomed to seeing there after their one memorable case had finally been resolved, but he still looked tense. Regardless, she wanted to kiss him.
Instead, she placed her briefcases on the long coffee table and said, ‘Any chance of a brew, then?’
‘Strong, black, no sugar?’ Tony checked with the hint of a smile.
‘You must have made an impression,’ Bishop said, striding past Carol and dropping into one of the sagging chairs, carefully lifting the knees of his trousers to avoid bagging them. ‘He can’t remember from one day to the next how I like mine.’
‘When we worked together before, it was the kind of situation where every detail is engraved on your brain forever,’ Carol said repressively.
Tony flashed her a quick look of gratitude then turned away to brew up. ‘Thanks for sending the case files over,’ he said against the wheezing of the elderly electric kettle. ‘I’ve had them copied and the team have had them to study overnight.’
‘Fine. How do you want to play this?’ Carol asked.
‘I thought we could go into live role-play,’ Tony said, still with his back to them as he made the coffee. ‘Sit across a table from each other and run through the case file exactly the way we would do it for real.’ He half-turned with a tentative smile and a spasm ran across Carol’s stomach.
Get a grip, she told herself angrily. Even if he could, he wouldn’t want you. Remember? ‘That sounds fine,’ she heard herself say. ‘How were you planning on involving the trainees?’
Tony juggled the three hot mugs in his broad square hands and managed to get them on to the coffee table without spilling much on the tobacco brown carpet. ‘Specially chosen to hide the stains,’ he muttered, frowning in concentration.
‘There’s half a dozen of them,’ Bishop said. ‘So it’s not feasible to let them each have a crack at you, even if you were willing to give up that much of your time. They’ll watch you and Tony work through the case files. Then, if they have any questions about that part of the process, they’ll ask them. After you’ve gone, Tony will work with them on the drawing up of a profile, which will be passed back to you in a matter of days. What we’re hoping is that when you develop a suspect to the point of arresting and charging, you’ll liaise with Tony on interview strategies and allow us access to the taped interviews afterwards.’ His smile said he wasn’t accustomed to being refused.
‘That may not be possible,’ Carol said cautiously, not completely sure of her position. ‘You may have to wait until after a trial to have access to the interview tapes, and then only if the interviewee agrees. I’ll need to take advice on that.’
Tiny movements of muscle beneath the skin stripped Bishop’s face of its bonhomie. ‘My impression from Mr Brandon was that we weren’t being slavish about formalities on this one,’ he said briskly.
‘I’m the investigating officer here, Commander. This is not a classroom exercise. It’s an inquiry into an unlawful death and it’s my intention to get a conviction if that’s appropriate. I will take absolutely no risk that could cost me a successful prosecution. I don’t leave windows open for smart defence counsel.’
‘She’s right,’ Tony said unexpectedly. ‘We get carried away with ourselves here. It’s heady stuff, you know, Paul. The bottom line is, Carol has to make the case against this arsonist stand up in court, and we can’t expect her to go along with anything that might interfere with that.’
‘Fine,’ Bishop said curtly. Ignoring his coffee, he stood up and headed for the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got some phone calls I need to get out of the way if I’m going to sit in on your session. See you later, DCI Jordan.’
Carol grinned. ‘Would five get me ten that he’ll be on the phone to John Brandon before his backside hits the chair?’
Tony shook his head, eyes glinting with amusement. ‘Probably not, actually. Paul doesn’t like being crossed, but he keeps his powder dry for the battles that matter.’
‘Not like me, rushing in where angels fear to tread, eh?’
Tony met her gaze and recognized the goodwill there. ‘Nobody’s quite like you, Carol. I was genuinely sorry that you didn’t want to join the team here.’
She twitched one shoulder in a shrug. ‘Not my kind of policing, Tony. Sure, I like the big cases, but I don’t like living in limbo.’
Her words hung between them, freighted with more meaning than any casual bystander could have read. Tony looked away and cleared his throat. ‘All the more reason why I’m pleased to have the chance to work this case with you. If we’d already been up and running, I don’t expect you’d have come running to us with what looks on the face of it to be a fairly straightforward serial arson that’s turned nasty almost by accident. So it’s a bonus for the squad that they’re going to get to see someone as good as you at work.’
‘You know, all I’ve had since this task force was mentioned in connection with my case is enough flattery to choke a politician,’ Carol said, trying to cover her gratification with a sardonic tone.
‘When did I ever offer you flatt
ery?’ Tony said simply.
Again, Carol’s stomach clenched. ‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea,’ she said. ‘Having an officer like me along, I mean. You should have given them a reality check and wheeled in one of the cavemen,’ she added, struggling to keep her smile in place.
Tony laughed in delight. ‘Can you imagine? Great session that would be.’ He dropped his voice and broadened his Yorkshire accent. ‘Right bloody load of crap this is. You want me to go round asking me suspects if they pissed the bed when they were kids?’
‘I’d forgotten you were from round here,’ Carol said.
‘I hadn’t,’ Tony said. ‘Back in the West Riding, last place on earth I ever wanted to be. But I wanted the task force, and the Home Office were adamant we had to be based outside London. God forbid we should do anything sensible like billet the profiling squad with the intelligence unit. How are you finding it out in the primeval ooze of Seaford?’
Carol shrugged. ‘Life among the dinosaurs? Ask me in six months.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘What time are we due to kick off?’
‘Couple of minutes.’
‘Fancy catching up over lunch?’ She’d practised the casual tone half a hundred times on the motorway coming over to Leeds.
‘I can’t.’ He looked genuinely sorry. ‘We eat together in the squad. But I was going to ask you…’
‘Yes?’ Careful, Carol, not too eager!
‘Are you in a hurry to get back?’
‘No, no rush.’ Her heart singing, yes, yes, he’s going to ask me to dinner.
‘Only, I wondered if you’d like to sit in on the afternoon session?’
‘Right.’ Her voice bright, her hopes squashed, the light in her eyes dulled. ‘Any particular reason?’
‘I set them an exercise last week. They’re supposed to produce their conclusions today and I thought it might be helpful to have your response to their analyses.’
‘Fine.’
Tony took a shallow breath and said, ‘Plus, I thought we could maybe have a drink afterwards?’
Apprehension and anticipation had pitched Shaz on an adrenaline high. Even though she’d only squeezed three hours’ sleep out of the night, she was buzzing like a raver on an amphetamine high. She’d attacked the photocopied newspapers the minute she’d got home, laying them out in piles on her living-room carpet and pausing only to phone for a pizza. So engrossed was she that she didn’t even notice when they sent her a ten-inch Margarita and charged her for a twelve-inch with everything on.
By one in the morning, she’d eliminated everything except the entertainments ads and the sports pages. Her earlier conviction that the external link that would prove her contention was lurking in the local papers was starting to look less like a solid hunch than a desperate clutching at straws. Stretching her stiff back and rubbing her gritty eyes, Shaz got to her feet and staggered through to the kitchen to brew another Thermos of coffee.
Refuelled, she returned to her task, deciding to go for the sports pages first. Maybe the same visiting football team with its loyal supporters? Or a player who had moved from club to club and then become a manager? Maybe a local golf championship that attracted outsiders, or a series of bridge trophies? Eliminating all the sporting possibilities took another couple of hours, and left Shaz jittery with exhaustion, caffeine and a looming fear of failure.
When the connection finally emerged, her first response was that she was hallucinating. It was so outrageous an idea she couldn’t take it seriously. She caught herself giggling nervously, like a child who hasn’t yet learned the appropriate response to the pain of others. ‘This is crazy,’ she said softly, double-checking through all seven sets of newspapers to confirm she wasn’t seeing things. She lurched stiffly to her feet, trying to loosen her cramped muscles, and staggered through to the bedroom, stripping her clothes off as she went. It was too much to take in at half past three in the morning. Setting her alarm for half past six, Shaz fell face down on the bed where sleep hit her like a truck colliding with a motorway bridge.
Shaz dreamed about television game shows where the winner got to choose how they’d be killed. When the alarm clock went off, she dreamed it was a buzzer on an electric chair. Still groggy from sleep, her memory of what she’d unearthed in the newspapers felt like an extension of the nightmare. She pushed the duvet back and tiptoed through to the living room as if normal footfalls would scare her discovery away.
There were seven ragged piles of photocopies. On the top of each pile was a page from the entertainment section. Each page contained either an advertisement for a personal appearance or a featured interview with the same man. However she cut it, it looked as if one of the nation’s darlings was somehow tied in to the disappearance and presumed murder of at least seven teenage girls.
And now she was going to have to share her revelation.
It wasn’t difficult to set tongues wagging, Micky had soon discovered. Whenever she visited the rehabilitation unit where Jacko was learning how to use his artificial arm, they made a point of closing the door of his room and sitting close together so that when they were interrupted by a physio or a nurse, they could spring apart and appear embarrassed.
At work, she would phone him when the surrounding desks were occupied and she was almost certain to be overheard. The conversations would swing between animated hilarity, with his name dropped in at regular intervals, and the low, intimate tones her colleagues would unimaginatively associate only with lovers.
Finally, to move things up a gear, it was time for scandal and drama. Micky chose a friend on a middle-market tabloid. Three days later, the paper splashed with PERVERT TARGETS JACKO’S NEW LOVE.
Lifesaving hero Jacko Vance’s new girlfriend has become the target of a terrifying campaign of vandalism and hate mail.
Since the start of their whirlwind romance, TV journalist Micky Morgan has had
* paint thrown over her car
* dead mice and birds posted through her letter box
* a vicious series of poison pen letters sent to her home.
The couple met when she interviewed the world record-holding javelin star in hospital after the motorway pile-up where Jacko’s tragic heroism cost him his lower right arm and his Olympic dream. They had been trying to keep their affair under wraps.
But we can exclusively reveal that their secret has leaked to someone who bears a grudge against attractive blonde Micky, 25, a popular reporter on Six O’Clock World.
Last night, at her West London home, Micky said, ’It’s been a nightmare. We’ve no idea who’s behind it. I just wish they’d stop.
’We’ve been keeping our relationship to ourselves because we wanted to get to know each other better without the glare of publicity. We’re very much in love. The private man is even more exciting than the person the public sees.
‘He’s brave and he’s beautiful. How could I not be madly in love? All we want now is for this heartless campaign to end.’
A spokesman for Jacko, who is undergoing intensive rehabilitation and physiotherapy at London’s exclusive Martingale Clinic, said, ‘Jacko is obviously disgusted that anyone should treat Micky like this. She’s the most wonderful woman he’s ever met. Whoever is behind this better hope the police catch them before he does.’
Jacko, who ended his engagement to (Continued on page 4)
The press coverage was hectic for a couple of weeks, then it slowly died away, resurfacing every now and again whenever something happened to either of the alleged lovers. Jacko’s emergence from rehab into his old life; his hiring as a TV sports presenter; Micky’s new job as an interviewer on breakfast television; Jacko’s voluntary work with the terminally ill; all of these and more refreshed interest in their supposed affair. They soon learned it was necessary for them to be seen together somewhere public and high profile at least once a week to avoid speculation in the gossip columns. Often, knowing they were being followed, Jacko ended up spending the night under the same roof as the two women after he and
Micky had been clubbing or charity working. After nearly a year of this, Micky summoned Jacko to a powwow over dinner with Betsy.
Her lover’s culinary skills had not deserted her since the years she had spent catering for boardroom lunches. As he swallowed the last morsel, Jacko gave the two women his most wolfish grin. ‘It must be bad,’ he said, ‘if it took something that good to soften me up.’
Betsy smiled demurely. ‘You haven’t had the sticky toffee pudding with home-made hazelnut ice cream yet.’
Jacko pretended to be shocked. ‘If I was a police officer, you could be arrested for an offer like that.’
‘We do have a proposition for you,’ Micky said.
‘Something tells me you’re not talking three in a bed,’ he said, rocking gently on the back legs of the chair.
‘You might try and sound a little disappointed,’ Betsy said drily. ‘The idea that we’re so unappealing is bad for what the Americans so charmingly call our self-esteem.’
Jacko’s smile reminded Micky disturbingly of Jack Nicholson. ‘Betsy, my dear, if you knew what I like to do with my women, you’d be profoundly grateful for my lack of interest.’
