by James Oswald
‘“The game was up?” Have you any idea how lame you sound, Con?’ Izzy shakes her head like I’m some old fogey or something. I certainly feel like one just now. ‘Anyway. I went and unlocked the car and Ben was in the back. Hands tied, duct tape over his mouth. I gave him Char’s phone and told him to call the police. Came up here to see what was happening. Just as well I did, really.’
I can hardly keep up with the stream of consciousness that’s Izzy’s overexcited babbling, but one thing sinks in. ‘You told him to call the police.’ As I say it, so the sound of sirens wafts in on the background noise of the city. ‘You have to go, then. You know how to drive?’
‘Drive?’ Izzy looks at me like a spaniel told not to eat the pheasant it’s just retrieved.
‘Ben knows how. Just take the Bentley and go, OK? You don’t want to be here when my colleagues arrive.’
‘But . . . You’re coming with us, right?’
I shake my head. Back through in the office, Roger DeVilliers groans and begins to stir. Someone’s going to have to make sure he doesn’t get rid of that gun before the forces of law and order arrive to arrest him, even if that means they arrest me too.
‘Not this time, Izzy. You go. Get Ben back to Charlotte. She won’t even have made it to Harston Magna yet. Then the lot of you take off somewhere far, far away.’
It’s going to take a very long time to explain this all to the powers that be.
I can’t quite believe the officers who came here with Bailey and Penny didn’t rush in when they heard the first gunshot, but by the time the real police arrived, they’d all mysteriously disappeared. I’ve no doubt Professional Standards, by which I mean the real Professional Standards and not the inspector in Bailey’s pocket, will track them all down. How deep the rot goes is anyone’s guess. I’m not sure I want to be around to find out.
‘Tell me again how you even came to be in here, Detective Constable.’
I’m just about ready to believe DCI Bain’s not bent. The look on his face when he saw Dan Penny sprawled on the floor, Roger DeVilliers semi-conscious beside him, was enough to convince me he really had no idea what was going on all around him. That doesn’t say much for his promotion prospects, mind you. I’ll be very surprised if our entire division doesn’t get disbanded, promoted sideways or pensioned off.
‘It will all be in my report, sir.’
‘Your report? For fuck’s sake, Fairchild. You’re suspended from active duties. You’re not supposed to be here. Don’t talk to me about reports.’ Bain turns a circle around the room, taking in the space where Roger DeVilliers almost died of a heart attack, the dark stain where Dan Penny’s blood and brains mixed together in the carpet. ‘Just tell me what the fuck happened.’
I try my best, but every time I get two or three steps into the story he stops me with yet another question. I can’t blame him, it sounds unbelievable and I lived through it. Unlike Pete, and Dan Penny. Gordon Bailey? Well, that’s still to be determined. He lost a lot of blood.
‘I should really take you into custody. Lock you up in a cell until we can get to the bottom of all this.’
I hold my breath. There’s nothing I can do if he decides that’s the best step. I’m done running from shit anyway.
‘But I’m not going to do that,’ Bain continues. ‘Go home. Get yourself cleaned up, get some rest. You look all done in anyway.’
‘Have you had a call from Birmingham yet, sir?’ I chance the question even though I know I should keep out of it. So much hangs on the footage from my carefully staged meeting making it to another police force. That’s what I asked Veronica to do. After she’d made a copy, of course. That and get one of her ex-military friends to call Adrian at exactly the right moment and let him know just how bad things were.
‘Yes. Can’t say the Deputy Commissioner’s too pleased with them being involved, but given the circumstances it was probably the right thing to do.’
‘And Adrian?’ I see Bain’s confused frown. ‘The blond-haired man. DeVilliers’ chief of security and bodyguard. The one who killed DC Penny.’
Bain’s frown deepens into a scowl. ‘All ports notified. He won’t get far.’
I doubt that. He’s got a head start and strikes me as the sort of man who knows how to pass through borders unseen. The thought of him out there after what he did makes me shudder. I’ve seen dead people all too often; hard not to in my line of work. Today was the first time I watched someone be executed.
‘Go home, Fairchild.’ Bain puts enough emphasis on the words for me to know it’s an order. Best to do what I’m told before he changes his mind and has me locked up.
‘Yes, sir.’ I nod, take one last look at the place where Pete and Dan died, then turn and walk out of the room. I’m almost at the top of the stairs when Bain calls out for me to stop.
‘One last thing. Before you go.’ He’s at the door, sticks his hand into his jacket pocket as he crosses over to where I’m standing. When he pulls it out again, he’s holding a warrant card. My warrant card.
‘Here. This should never have been taken off you in the first place. If everything you tell me’s true, I dare say you’ll be a DS soon.’
I reach for the card, tucked neatly into its slim plastic folder. It represents everything I wanted to be when I first signed up to join the Met. All the years of training, the work on the beat as a uniform officer, being cut off by my father and shunned by my mother. This was the life I intended to pursue until it was time to retire. Or I met someone attractive enough to consider having a family of my own. All that changed though, in that room I’ve just left, when Pete Copperthwaite died at the hands of a fellow police officer.
I let my hand drop, DCI Bain still clutching the warrant card.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Thank you, sir, but I don’t think I want that any more.’
He looks at me with a slightly surprised expression, then shrugs his shoulders, tucks the card back into his pocket.
‘We’ll discuss it later. It’s going to take months to sort this all out, and you’ll be on suspension while that’s ongoing. With full pay, of course.’
It’s something, I guess. There’s still the small matter of my reputation though. ‘You really think anyone in the Met will want to work with me? After this?’
‘I guess that depends on who they think they’re working with. You’re resourceful, Fairchild. You think on your feet. I’d hate to lose those skills. Not all police work is about teams, you know. And there are other forces beside the Met.’
‘You offering me a job, sir?’ Bain doesn’t answer, just stares at me until I feel uncomfortable.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.
Then I turn away and walk slowly down the stairs.
50
‘. . . More news about disgraced financier Roger DeVilliers, who has been implicated in the murder of journalist Steve Benson. Benson was investigating allegations that DeVilliers was involved in a paedophile ring and had serially abused his own daughter. We go live now to the Old Bailey . . .’
It takes me longer than I would have liked to locate the remote and click off the television. I don’t need to hear it all over again, nor do I particularly want to see that sneering face. I take some small comfort from the knowledge that he’s in prison awaiting trial, but I know too that he’s enormously wealthy and has access to the best legal defence that money can buy. There’s already an appeal lodged against his bail refusal.
That bigger story has completely overshadowed the arrest of Detective Superintendent Gordon Bailey and half a dozen less senior officers in the organised crime team. I’ve not been back except to give a series of long and rambling statements to DCI Bain and Inspector Williams. Bain keeps on dropping hints about a promotion and some new job in the Met, but I’m still undecided what I want to do. Pete’s death and the fallout from it have left me bruised and cynical. I�
��m not sure I’m ready to do it all again. At least I won’t have to think about it for a while yet.
A light knock at the door interrupts my musing, and when I peer through the spyhole it shows me the ample form of Mrs Feltham, clutching a large tupperware pot to her bosom.
‘Saw you on the news, child. That’s some trouble you got yourself into, now.’ She beams at me with a broad smile as I open the door. I glance past her nervously, looking for reporters, but for now the coast seems to be clear.
‘I hardly think it was my fault, Mrs F. Trouble has a habit of coming looking for me though. You want to come in? I was just packing up some stuff.’
‘You moving away?’ Mrs Feltham doesn’t move, but she does look over my shoulder and into the narrow hallway. I pack light, usually, but there’s still two large suitcases behind me.
‘Just for a while. There’s too many people know my face in London right now. When the trial starts it’s going to get even worse.’
‘Shame on them, chasing you out of your own home. Who am I going to find to eat my curry now?’ She proffers the tupperware pot as if only then remembering she has it. When I take it from her it’s still warm, and a wonderful spicy smell leaks from the lid.
‘Thank you, Mrs F. I’m going to miss these for a while, but I’ll be back. I’m sure those boys of yours will eat everything if you let them. I never got the chance to thank them, and you, for what they did that night.’
‘Ah, that was nothing. Just them venting a little frustration. Better them do it there than somewhere they get in trouble with the police.’
I turn slightly and wave my free hand towards the doorway again, hoping the old lady will come in. I’m almost certain there will be paparazzi with long lenses trained on my front door, and the last thing I need is for them to start hounding Mrs Feltham too. ‘Sure you don’t want to come in for a coffee or something?’
‘No time, child.’ She shakes her head. ‘But thank you for the offer. You been a good neighbour. I’ll be sorry to see you go. Don’t you be a stranger now.’ She steps forward then, and sweeps me up into a bear hug so tight I fear the pot of curry still clutched in one hand will burst open and cover us both. A few moments, and then she releases me, wipes a tear from the corner of one eye, and walks away.
Slate-grey clouds scud across a wide-open sky, the wind from the north bringing with it a promise of winter even though it’s barely autumn yet. It’s taken me hours to find this place, but in many ways the effort seems worth it. I left the car down in the village, outside a pub that I hope will give me a warm meal when I get back in an hour or so.
I don’t know how many times I’ve travelled through Yorkshire, but I’m fairly sure this is the first time I’ve stopped. Wrapped in a thick coat, a garish yellow fleece hat keeping my head warm, I trudge up a steep and narrow track towards what looks like a set from a Hammer horror film, but is actually the remains of an abandoned church. I remember Pete telling me about it, but I never thought I’d come here.
The wind whistling through hawthorn bushes and rattling the tops of nearby trees is almost as loud as being in London. That’s where the similarities end though. I can breathe freely here, and the scent on the air is of coming rain, not unwashed bodies and diesel fumes. I haven’t seen another soul since I parked the car either.
It doesn’t take long to find what I’m looking for. The graveyard is surprisingly well tended given the state of the church itself, and a neat path leads to a freshly dug plot. It’s a good spot, sheltered from the worst of the wind by a drystone wall. Beyond that, the hill rises to the moors, where I’m reliably told you shouldn’t venture without your hat. I’m not going any further than here, Pete Copperthwaite’s grave.
‘It’s not a bad place, really. Even if I couldn’t wait to get away.’
I don’t turn, there’s no need. It’s enough to know that he’s there. I can sense his presence like a calming influence, and even the wind seems to die down as I read the weather-faded names on the surrounding gravestones.
‘They disbanded the unit. Half of the officers were corrupt or knew about it and did nothing. Everyone else is either taking early retirement or moving to a different region. Start again from scratch, I guess.’
‘You’re a bit young to be retiring, aren’t you, Con?’
‘I’m still suspended on full pay. You know, I never imagined how boring that can be.’
A thoughtful pause is punctuated by the distant screaming of a buzzard.
‘What’ll you do next?’ Pete’s ghost finally asks. It’s a good question. Exactly the sort of thing my subconscious would ask.
‘Short term, there’s a couple of trials I’m going to be involved in, a lot of media attention I could do without.’
‘And long term?’
The buzzard’s shrieking comes closer. I look up to see it swooping and diving, a couple of jet-black crows harrying it for whatever reason crows need.
‘DCI Bain keeps dropping hints. I think he wants to set up a new unit. Not just London-based though. More a National Crime Agency thing.’
‘You going to take him up on it?’
I stare at the gravestone, then up at the clouds.
‘I don’t know,’ I say to the sky. ‘Maybe.’
There’s a point around Newcastle when I think the old Volvo’s going to die on me. Aunt Felicity’s mechanic’s done a good job on the bodywork and sorted out a few other bits and bobs, but it’s a twenty-year-old car with almost 200,000 miles on the clock. It can’t live for ever. The detour around Yorkshire involved a lot more twisty bends and steep hills than its previous life as a motorway patrol car ever saw too.
As it turns out though, all it needs is fuel. That and another appointment with a garage to get the petrol gauge fixed. I take the opportunity to wake myself up with a coffee before setting off north again and over the border.
If you’d told me a year ago I’d not just be going to Newmore but actually looking forward to it, I’d probably have laughed in your face. A month on from watching Izzy Taser her stepfather insensible and I can hardly wait to get there, even if the weather’s turning more wintry and the nights are going to be fair drawing in.
Visiting Pete’s grave felt right, even if I doubt that’s the last I’ll hear from him. I don’t much believe in ghosts and spirits, but it’s nice to think that someone’s got my back. It’s good to have someone I can trust to bounce ideas off too. Even if it’s just the voice of my imagination. He has a way of getting to the heart of the matter. I can kid myself I’ve not made up my mind about Bain’s offer, but I know I’ll be reporting for duty just as soon as the dust has settled.
These and other thoughts occupy my mind as the car slowly eats up the miles. I’ll have to go back down south again soon enough, give evidence at more than one trial. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I know I’m not going to be alone.
The sun’s almost set by the time I crunch to a halt on the gravel outside the front door, park alongside Aunt Felicity’s car. Light spills from half of the windows, making the house feel far more welcoming than ever it was when I was a child. I turn my back on it for a moment as I stretch and ease out the kinks from the long drive. Out across the loch, the dusk paints the sky in a riot of oranges and pinks, mirrored perfectly in the still water.
‘Thought I heard a car.’
I turn to see the front door open, and Izzy steps out into the gloom. As she walks across the driveway to where I’m standing, Cat trots out behind her, doing her best to trip my half-sister up, tail held high and bullet-torn ear healed. I reach down, offer a hand to be sniffed. I’m rewarded with a deep rumbling purr that’s the loudest noise in all the surrounding silence. And for the first time I can remember, I feel like I’m home.
Acknowledgements
It’s always a struggle writing acknowledgements at the end of a book. So many people have helped me along
the way, it seems somehow unfair to pick out just a few to mention by name. There’s the worry that I might forget someone important too.
Having said which, I’m going to go ahead and name some names regardless. If yours isn’t here, it’s not that I don’t care, just that my brain is full.
I am eternally grateful to my agent, the indispensable Juliet Mushens, and her assistant, the amazingly organised Nathalie Hallam at Caskie Mushens. So much more than just a literary agency.
No Time to Cry is the first book I’ve written in a decade that’s not part of an already established series. I don’t think it would have happened without the support of Alex Clarke, Ella Gordon and the rest of the team at Wildfire. Their energy and enthusiasm have been a much needed impetus for me to try something new. I’ve enjoyed the experience, and I hope you do too.
Many others have helped mould my wayward words into something readable, and special thanks must go to Mark Handsley for once more preventing me from heading into disaster. Thanks must go as well to the crime writing community, a bunch of misfits and ne’er-do-wells I’d not trust at a crime scene, but whose kindness, support and capacity for drinking never cease to amaze me.
But the biggest thanks of all go to Barbara, who keeps everything running while I’m away in my own head. Without her holding the fort, I doubt any of this would have happened.
And lastly, a specific thank you to Vincent Holland-Keen, who may well have forgotten the conversation, many years ago, about naming a character Constance because she was anything but. My Constance has turned out rather more steadfast, I feel, but it was from that spark of an idea that the character was born.
About the Author
James Oswald is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling Inspector McLean series of detective mysteries. The first two of these, Natural Causes and The Book of Souls, were both short-listed for the prestigious CWA Debut Dagger Award. No Time to Cry is the first book in James’s new Constance Fairchild series.
