by Gytha Lodge
Hanson guessed that Chief Inspector Heerden had mentioned the case to the chief. Heerden had probably felt that she had to. Hanson was eager, however, for the whole situation to be handled by the uniformed police. The idea of it landing somewhere within CID, with the people she worked with every day, was agonising.
There shouldn’t be any need for them to get involved, anyway. There was little investigating that needed to be done. Jason had written a summary of his conversation at the pub, including all of Damian’s allegations about her. It had been awkward asking him for it while they existed in such an unresolved state, but he had been eager to help. Ben had, of course, provided an account of Damian’s presence on the evening of the arson. And Hanson also had her own diary entries, detailing almost all of the grim reality of being harassed.
None of which might have been enough if Damian hadn’t petrol-bombed her house. She still found herself smiling whenever she thought about it. It was the one real mistake he’d made, presumably triggered by anger that she still had her job and was being protected by her colleagues.
She’d asked for a quiet chat with Lightman the morning after. It had been hard not to grin at him as she shut the door of the meeting room behind her. Despite a large hole being smashed in her window, and a similar hole bored through her night’s sleep, she’d felt more energised than she had in months.
‘I’m going to report Damian,’ she said. ‘Today, if possible. Would you be able to write up the conversation you had with him outside the station yesterday? I’d like to link his behaviour with it.’
‘What behaviour is that?’ he asked.
She told him, in a few words, about the night-time vandalism.
‘Which means we’ve got him,’ she said, her eyes bright with exhilaration. ‘I caught the whole thing on camera, by making him feel clever.’
Lightman narrowed his eyes at her. ‘The fake cameras …’
‘I opened them up and put real ones inside.’ She laughed with total glee. ‘It cost me a fortune, but I knew it would work. He’s such a smug, egotistical arsehole that he was congratulating himself on knowing they were fake. The best bit is, they’re the same ones he put up when we lived together in Birmingham. He knew for sure that they were fake because he recognised them and was too arrogant to realise that I knew exactly what I was doing.’
She held her phone out to him, which featured a close-up image of Damian’s face. He’d actually turned to look, in satisfaction, at what he believed was the fake camera over the doorstep.
‘The upstairs one got his car, too, and his approach to the house. Add that in to the lesser crime of smashing my security light, and we’ve got a pattern of violent and destructive behaviour.’
‘God,’ Lightman said, taking it with one of the largest and most open smiles she’d seen him give. ‘That’s absolute genius.’
She’d filed her report with the crime desk three and a half hours later. And although she hadn’t felt quite as upbeat since – had, in fact, had moments of squeezing anxiety at what Damian might do when he found out about the charges – she’d generally felt as though she’d been cut free from a heavy weight.
‘Well,’ the DCI said to her now, with an expression that was somewhere between wary and warm, ‘I may not be able to get involved, but that doesn’t mean I can’t offer support. Just tell me if you need time, or space, or a rant, or – I don’t know, alcohol – to get you through it.’
Hanson gave him a grin. ‘Thanks, chief. I will. And, um …’ She shifted a little before going on, ‘thank you for the, er, help with the emails he sent. Ben told me about it. It means a lot. Knowing you have that kind of faith in me.’
‘Well, you know,’ Sheens said, with a shrug, ‘I sort of had to. Otherwise it’d make me look like I made a bad hiring decision, so …’
She gave an out-and-out laugh at that. ‘Yeah, true. Well, thanks anyway.’
Jonah was enjoying the pub more than he’d expected to. He generally had trouble relaxing in these situations. He was too conscious of being the boss. And despite liking his team a great deal, he half expected them to exchange a look about something he’d said, or to quietly hint that he should go.
But tonight he was finding his team’s company genuinely helpful. The lack of resolution to their case had made him dissatisfied. He couldn’t quite let go of it all. Something in him didn’t really want to believe that Alex Plaskitt had been so twisted, and he’d found himself picking over it all with a feeling of depression.
The moral grey area over Louise Reakes’s actions had also left a sour taste in his mouth. He supposed it was in his nature to look for certainties and endings. To keep pushing until an investigation felt rounded off. Closed. Finished. And yet, as he well knew, life was rarely like that. There wasn’t always a definite conclusion about who the bad guy was. And when there was a bad guy, there was usually a reason. Like Alex Plaskitt’s awful parents, or Louise Reakes getting drunk because of a faithless husband, and then lashing out as she was attacked.
The great thing about his team was that they understood. They got that he might feel a little melancholy right now, even though it seemed like time to celebrate. Their expressions were full of that same feeling, and it soothed him.
But at quarter to nine his phone buzzed with another text from his ex-wife.
Did you get my text last Saturday? I really need to talk to you. Can you ring me, please?
He felt strangely depressed reading it. He really didn’t know what to do. Ignoring Michelle felt like unnecessary cruelty, even if she was angling for nothing more than an ego boost. But talking to her felt like a betrayal of Jojo. And, worse still, it reminded him uncomfortably of how badly he’d slipped when he’d seen his ex four months before. Of how stupid he’d been to sleep with her.
He looked at it for a minute and then put his phone away. He’d call her tomorrow. Tonight, he needed to see his girlfriend.
Hanson watched the DCI go, thinking it a shame that he couldn’t stay out and be one of them.
‘It must be lonely,’ she said to O’Malley, ‘being the chief.’
‘Ah, you’d think so,’ O’Malley agreed, ‘but don’t feel too sorry for him. He has a burning-hot girlfriend and a house that’s three times the size of yours.’ O’Malley leaned forwards. ‘And a proper pension, too.’
‘OK, fair point,’ Hanson agreed, picking up her beer. ‘He’s clearly an arsehole. Who’s getting the next one?’
Louise had actually made it to a club again, one that looked not unlike Blue Underground. She wasn’t blind drunk, and she was almost having a good time. The ‘almost’ part of it was less to do with anxiety, as she’d expected, and more to do with the fact that drunk people turned out to be incredibly annoying.
It was strange to think that she’d never really seen other people getting this drunk before. Sober Louise had always headed home before it got too late, and Drunk Louise didn’t seem to see anything that wasn’t rose-tinted.
‘Oh my God, look at the state of him,’ she said to April, safe in their little cordoned-off area and watching as one of the other punters staggered over to the bar and then managed to drop all the cards out of his wallet onto the floor. He’d already tried to slobber over some poor girl and been told to sod off. ‘Please, please tell me I’m never like that.’
April glanced over at him stooping to pick the cards up, seemed to weigh it up, and then said, ‘Hell no. You’re way less coordinated.’
‘You can go fuck yourself,’ Louise said, with a laugh.
One of the bar staff came over and asked if they wanted anything, which felt bizarre to Louise. This was a crowded club. They ought to be elbowing their way to the bar. This VIP thing was strange.
‘I’d like another screwdriver,’ April said. ‘You should have one too,’ she added to Louise.
Louise looked at her doubtfully. ‘I’m not – I’m probably OK. I had the Prosecco.’
‘You sure?’ April asked it a little slyly, as if the only ri
ght answer was to change her mind. The inevitable pressure drinkers applied to those who were not drinking.
Louise let out a sigh. Truthfully, she felt a bit over-sugared. The three non-alcoholic cocktails she’d sunk had all tasted like variations on Um Bongo and she would really have killed for something to cut through it a little.
‘OK. A single gin and tonic. But that’s all. That’s me done for tonight.’
‘Great,’ April said, and then, to the guy taking their order, ‘Is Charlie here yet? He’s supposed to come say hi.’
‘Oh yeah,’ the guy said, glancing around. ‘I think he’s here. I’ll tell him.’
‘I’d love you to,’ April said, giving him a look that was one hundred per cent Predator Mode.
The guy grinned back at her as he walked away, and Louise shook her head. ‘I don’t think he’s your type.’
‘But that’s the thing,’ April argued. ‘Maybe my type needs to change.’
Louise narrowed her eyes at her. ‘What about this Charlie, then? Your friend? You seem quite keen to see him?’
April gave her a slightly wicked grin. ‘Oh, he’s a doll. But I was thinking of setting the two of you up, honey. He’s Chez. The guy you kissed at the wedding.’
‘No, April,’ Louise said, with a rush of horror. She tried to be firm. ‘I really don’t want to see him. And anyway, there won’t be any of that. I’m in this … non-situation with Niall, I’m still shaken as hell over someone assaulting me, however little I can remember, and … and the rest. We’re not going to do any setting up. Not for a long, long time, all right?’
April tutted. ‘If you say so.’ She sat back a little. ‘But I bet he won’t even remember that whole kissing and running thing. It’ll be like you just met.’
‘Well, here’s to almost having put a case together,’ O’Malley said, raising his glass of tonic a little unsteadily. It was wonderful to Hanson how he could simulate drunkenness with the rest of them without ever touching a drop. He told her that he never consciously modified his behaviour. He just got drunk on their drunkenness.
‘Ugh, thanks,’ Hanson said, lifting her glass. ‘I just spent five hours today trying to prove that Alex Plaskitt had the knife in time to kill a young woman in London, and I can’t seem to do it. She’s the one person we still don’t have a DNA match for, but I’m so sure it was him. The Viagra. The way she looked.’ She sighed. ‘He didn’t order two knives at once, and the only order that’s anywhere nearby was made after she was killed. And given a similar weapon was used, I may have to accept that he didn’t do it, even though every other thing fits.’
‘But he didn’t have that knife on the night of January the nineteenth, either,’ Lightman pointed out, ‘as he’d given it to Step. We’re positive he was the person who attacked Gianetta Jilani. She specifically mentioned a knife. Maybe he was using something else for quite some while, but eventually decided he wanted something more like Step’s artistic one from Steel and Silver.’
Hanson hesitated for a moment. ‘Yeah, or … or what if he took it off Step on the nineteenth? Offered to look after it and then used it, cleaned it and returned it?’
She put her glass down onto the table, quickly, and pulled her phone out of her pocket.
‘Um … It is Friday night, you know,’ O’Malley said. ‘You’re not actually supposed to be working.’
‘It’ll only take a second,’ Hanson said, grinning.
She took her phone out of the warm pub and into the cold street. It was another arctic night, and there was a sharp, all-penetrating wind tearing down Shirley Road. She regretted leaving her coat on the padded bench inside but made the call anyway.
Step Conti picked up warily, and she didn’t blame him. Finding out that your best friend had been at the very least a serial rapist would have made anyone wary. Each phone call from the police so far had revealed a darker and darker truth, and she felt a twist of guilt that she was now in the process of pinning a murder on Alex, too.
‘Step, hi,’ she said. ‘DC Hanson here. I’m sorry to call you on a Friday night, but there’s something we need to check with you. It’s about that night that Alex and the guys gave you the knife. January the nineteenth.’
‘If you’ll just give me a second …’ There was a brief toddler screech in the background. His daughter, she guessed, up later than she was supposed to be. After that came the sound of a closing door. ‘OK,’ Step said. ‘Yes.’
‘I just wanted to know what happened to the knife after you were given it,’ she asked. ‘Did you hold on to it yourself? Or did someone else look after it?’
‘Um … oh,’ Step said. ‘I left it behind the bar. Marc’s brother Charlie owns the club we went to, and he offered to keep hold of it.’
‘Marc’s brother,’ Hanson said. ‘So that’s Charlie Ruskin?’
‘Yes,’ Step confirmed.
‘Does he own any other clubs?’ she asked, trying to make the question sound as if it had no importance at all.
‘Yeah, he has three. We normally go to the one in Southampton but we did an overnighter in Portsmouth for my birthday.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said, aware that her voice sounded not quite right. ‘The one in Southampton, is that Blue Underground, where you were last Friday?’
‘Yes, that’s the one.’
Hanson was aware that she was shivering, and that it had as much to do with the adrenaline that was suddenly coursing through her as it had to do with the cold. She tried to keep her head. To ask all the relevant questions.
‘Did you take it home at the end of the evening? The knife?’
‘No,’ Step told her. ‘Charlie wasn’t around when I left so I got it off him the next day.’
‘That’s great, thanks,’ she said. And then she added, ‘So it couldn’t have ended up with Alex?’
‘No,’ he said, firmly. ‘No, it couldn’t.’
April swung herself to her feet and grabbed her handbag. ‘I’m going to pee and redo my lip gloss. You coming?’
Louise shook her head, determined not to be a tag-along. Not to be needy, anxious Sober Louise any more. ‘I’m good here, thanks.’
But as soon as April was gone, she regretted not going with her. The club turned from a comfortably dim place into a shady, crowded cavern. The men dancing down on the floor took on a predatory shape, and she found herself staring at the closer ones.
One of them glanced round and gave her the smallest of smiles, and she looked away, quickly, ashamed of how wobbly she suddenly felt.
She pulled her bag onto her lap, the big, comforting shield, and pretended to be rooting around in it. When she looked up again, the dancing guy was facing away from her, as though nothing had ever happened, and she sighed.
For fuck’s sake, get a grip, Louise. Nobody’s looking at you. Nobody cares.
She wondered whether she should have just one more drink. Another gin and tonic. Just to ease the panic.
She looked over towards the bar, which she realised wasn’t even that crowded. It was still only eleven fifteen. Early for a club. It wouldn’t turn into a real crush until later, at pub kicking-out time.
The barman April had flirted with was speaking to someone, but there was no queue behind them. She could get over there, get herself a drink and get back before April returned. A small victory for independence.
She stood, pulling her bag strap over her head, and began to walk over. She saw the barman nod in her direction, and the guy who’d been talking to him turned towards her.
And as she took in his face, her whole body felt like it was tipping sideways into some kind of a void.
‘You’ve got a fucking nerve.’
Hanson swung round, the phone still close to her ear, even though she’d rung off. There was urgency thrilling through her, and the person she cared least about just now was Damian. And of course, of course, he had followed her to the bloody pub. And of course he’d chosen now to confront her.
‘What exactly do you think you’re going
to get out of this shit?’ he asked her. ‘Do you think you’re going to get me put away? Because I’ve done nothing the fuck wrong, and you’re going to look like a total tit in front of your precious new colleagues.’
She’d thought so many times over of the things she’d love to say to him if she were to confront him. She’d fantasised about it for days. How she’d laugh at him and tell him to talk to her solicitor. Or she’d ask how he’d liked being caught on camera.
But in the end there was no time for anything she had to say. And when she thought about it afterwards, there couldn’t have been a better way of pulling the carpet out from under him than what she said instead.
‘Sorry, but I don’t have time for your bullshit right now.’
And she pushed through the heavy swing door of the pub and said, ‘We’ve got everything, everything, wrong.’
It was strange how quickly hours and hours of memory could suddenly replay themselves. Louise was standing in a bar in Portsmouth with her bag over her shoulder and had faltered for only a second. That was the truth of it.
And yet the truth of it was also that she had been sitting at another bar for almost an hour while a tall, handsome Italian bought her drinks. While he charmed her. She couldn’t quite remember his name. And she felt as though he was familiar somehow, but she wasn’t sure how and had somehow missed the part where she should have asked.
She had also been thinking about Dina and Niall. Specifically, about Dina’s hand on Niall’s knee, and she had rested her hand on this man’s leg, imagining that she was Dina. That she had that sort of power. And the handsome man had given her a long, slow smile and said, ‘Drink up.’
And then she’d been leaning too heavily against the bar. She’d felt too drunk. Sick drunk. She’d become suddenly frightened of it and of herself, and she’d stood up, unsteadily. She found out only then that the man’s hand had been right at the top of her thigh. And she was no longer sure that she even knew who he was. What had she been thinking?
‘Are you leaving?’ he’d asked. And she’d tried to focus on his face. He seemed to be giving her a smile that wasn’t quite right.
