Spare Me the Truth

by CJ Carver

  ‘I guess it’s good to see you too,’ said Dan. ‘But I’m not sure how good because –’

  ‘You can’t remember me!’ Joe began laughing so hard, he staggered slightly, almost spilling his beer which made him laugh even more. People glanced at them and smiled at two friends having a beer, having a laugh. Dan felt a stab of real sorrow that he couldn’t remember Joe.

  ‘Joe,’ said Dan. ‘Who else works at DCA? I thought I recognised someone earlier.’

  Joe blinked. Slowly, he put down his empty glass. ‘Like who?’

  Dan described the sandy-haired man who had entered Stella’s house, along with his colleague.

  Joe was frowning. ‘The fair-haired guy is Toby James but I don’t know the other one. We have a lot of people coming and going, so I’m not surprised. Shall I ask Toby for you?’

  ‘That would be great.’ Dan drank some more beer. ‘Another thing. I don’t suppose a Denise Anne Gabriel works with you?’

  Joe gave a sudden lurch, spilling his beer. He swung round. ‘Hey,’ he admonished someone behind him before returning to Dan. ‘Sorry. You were saying?’

  ‘Denise Gabriel. Do you know her?’

  Joe pushed out his lower lip as he shook his head. ‘No. Sorry.’

  Dan drank his beer, wondering how to approach the next subject, and quickly decided a head-on approach would be best. ‘Sorry to keep asking you questions,’ he said. ‘But I have another one . . .’

  ‘God, don’t worry about it.’ Joe flapped a hand. ‘Happy to help. Go ahead.’

  ‘It’s about my son, Luke.’

  Immediately Joe’s eyes became wary.

  ‘I didn’t ask you about him when we last met. I didn’t think to, or maybe I didn’t want to. But I want to talk about him now. I want to know how he died.’

  ‘Christ, Dan.’ Joe grimaced. ‘You already know. Why torment yourself any further?’

  Dan just looked at him.

  ‘OK, OK.’ Joe flung up his hands. ‘He was hit by a van off Brick Lane. You went insane because you blamed yourself. There, does that make you feel any better?’

  Dan considered what Stella had said to him. Your identity, your past, is a lie. Was Joe lying too?

  ‘Tell me about my job in Immigration,’ Dan said. ‘What I did day to day. Who I worked with, who I spoke to.’

  Joe groaned. ‘If I’m going to bore us both to death, then it’s your round.’

  Dan bought them both another pint and drank while listening to an extensive inventory of what sounded like an incredibly tedious job of paperwork, form-filling and reference-checking. He’d had a secretary – a rarity nowadays – called Katy that he’d shared with Stella. He’d travelled to work by Tube and took his hour-long lunch break at one o’clock except he usually ate his sandwich at his desk to ensure a prompt departure by 6 p.m. He’d been promoted several times, and was up to head the department. Then Luke died and everything went pear-shaped.

  ‘Did I do any fieldwork with Stella?’ Dan asked.

  ‘What?’ Joe looked at him blankly.

  ‘Did we do any work outside the office?’

  ‘Not that I know of. You could have, though. It’s not like we were in each other’s pockets. Why, did she say something to you?’

  Dan hesitated. He was struggling to gather any information from Joe that he didn’t already know. Although he was reluctant to give anything away, he thought if he offered something it might prompt his supposed old friend into revealing a fresh tit-bit.

  He turned his glass in his hands. ‘Apparently she suspected an amnesia drug had been used on me.’

  Joe looked stunned. ‘You’re kidding.’

  Dan took a sip of beer. ‘No.’

  Joe’s mouth opened and closed. ‘Jesus Christ. I thought you lost your memory due to the shock of seeing your son die.’

  ‘That’s what everyone thought.’

  ‘It’s true? That a drug was used on you?’

  Dan shrugged.

  ‘Jesus,’ Joe said again. ‘Who the hell makes such a thing?’

  PepsBeevers, thought Dan, but didn’t say so. Instead, he offered Joe another drink.

  Joe turned his wrist to look at his watch. ‘Sod it. It’s later than I thought. Buddy, I’ve got to go. Laura will go nuts if I don’t pick up Noah on time.’

  Laura. The name conjured up a vision of vintage velvet and gypsy earrings.

  ‘She’s still the Gypsy Queen?’ Dan said. For some reason, the name popped into his head.

  ‘Shit.’ Joe stared. ‘You remember my ex-wife?’

  ‘Am I right?’ Dan felt a surge of hope. Maybe talking to an old friend had worked some magic. Maybe his memory wasn’t totally wrecked. ‘Her name’s the Gypsy Queen?’

  ‘That’s what you used to call her.’ Joe pulled a face. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Say hi from me.’

  They parted outside, but although Joe said he was looking forward to seeing him again the next day, eyes wide, his whole body expressing friendliness, Dan’s spine tingled. He had the peculiar sensation that by mentioning Joe’s ex-wife he’d made some sort of gaffe, and when Joe rang the next day saying that he was sorry, he couldn’t see him and Grace after all – an urgent meeting had cropped up in Amsterdam – Dan was frustrated but not surprised.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Thursday 29 November, 7.20 p.m.

  Lucy sat in the hospital, holding Bella’s hand as she told the girl about her call to Dr Grace Reavey. ‘It’s the thing I hate most about my job,’ she admitted, ‘telling people someone they know has died. Dr Reavey seemed really fond of Jamie. I’m seeing her on Monday as she might shed some light on why you were both taken.’

  Lucy checked her watch, thinking it was probably time to head for the station, when Bella suddenly gripped her hand. Lucy gave a startled yelp of shock. She leapt to her feet, looked down at the girl.

  ‘Bella?’

  The girl’s eyes were shut, her mouth slack.

  Lucy shot into the corridor and grabbed the first nurse she came to.

  ‘Bella just moved.’ Lucy spoke fast. ‘She grabbed my hand!’

  She was glad the nurse didn’t hang around but headed briskly for Bella’s room where she checked her reflexes and pupil size.

  ‘Is she going to wake up?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Not yet I’m afraid.’

  The nurse took a blood sample. ‘Now, Bella, there’s going to be a small prick in your arm . . .’ When the needle pierced Bella’s skin, the girl grunted. ‘That’s a good sign.’ The nurse smiled. ‘She felt that, and let me know it.’

  ‘When will she be conscious?’

  ‘It’s a long, slow process I’m afraid. She had no motor response yesterday but today she felt the injection. When she’s ready, then maybe she’ll surface. It could be days yet but it’s looking really positive.’

  After the nurse had left, Lucy picked up Bella’s chart and had a look. The continuing assessment record didn’t look great to Lucy’s eye, with an overall score of four out of fifteen today, but it was at least an improvement on yesterday’s score of three. ‘Attagirl,’ she told Bella. ‘You’re up a point. Let’s make it another point tomorrow, OK?’

  When she stepped outside it was into icy, driving rain. Christ, it was cold. She dropped her overnight bag at her feet and snapped open her brolly. She’d packed haphazardly on her return from Merseyside, having been told she was accompanying Mac south later in the day, but her mind hadn’t been on the job and she hoped she hadn’t forgotten anything vital. As long as she had a spare pair of undies, her toothbrush and her computer and chargers, she should be OK. At the last moment, she’d tossed her Swiss Army Knife inside her handbag along with a packet of toffees. She didn’t want to get caught without a corkscrew or a sugar hit when the going got tough.

  She yawned and shivered. It had been a long, exhausting day helping to kick off an investigation to find a serial killer. Thrilling and horrifying in equal measure. It could be the biggest case of her
life but only because four people had been brutally murdered.

  When Mac finally arrived Lucy flung her bag in the boot and jumped into the passenger seat, shoved her brolly by her feet.

  ‘I thought I was supposed to be driving,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll swap after we’ve filled up.’ Mac increased the wiper speed a notch. Traffic was heavy, the lights from oncoming cars shimmering in the wet. Lucy closed her eyes briefly against the glare.

  ‘You can sleep if you want,’ said Mac. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  Her eyes snapped open. ‘I’m not tired.’

  He winced again. ‘Christ, Lucy. You don’t have to bite my head off.’

  She turned her head away. She hadn’t meant to be harsh. Did her continual battle to conform mean she might be bipolar? She’d looked up bipolar on the Internet but aside from the sleeplessness and bouts of wild energy (and the odd couple of days when she struggled to get out of bed, but never more than once or twice a year) she had absolutely nothing in common with any of the people diagnosed with the disorder. She wasn’t crazy. She didn’t cut herself, twitch, rant (well, only occasionally, but didn’t everyone?), abuse drugs or alcohol (again, occasionally, but didn’t everyone?), suffer from suicidal thoughts, poor concentration, poor judgement, or have difficulty making decisions. If she did, she’d have been thrown out of the force a long time ago. You couldn’t have a PC failing in those particular areas, surely. She was, she decided, pretty normal aside from her insomnia and somewhat volatile temper.

  ‘Sorry,’ she muttered.

  He shot her a look. ‘Will you bite my head off again if I ask why you never took any of my calls?’

  She groaned inside. They were back to that old chestnut. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just leave it, would you?’

  ‘God help me, I wish I could,’ he sighed. ‘But I can’t.’

  Feeling cornered, she turned aggressive. ‘Why not? It was just sex for Chrissakes.’

  He looked at her again. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Look. I was horny. You were there, OK? Get over it.’

  ‘We spent five days buddied-up on that course. We got to know each other, trust each other, before we . . . er –’

  ‘Fucked,’ she supplied helpfully.

  He frowned. ‘So tell me, our walks along the beach were . . . what?’

  Hot sun scorching her salt-encrusted shoulders, sand beneath her feet, between her toes, wet hair from her swim and his skin is as cold as marble from the sea and his arm is around her waist and hers is around his, she comes up to his chest and fits neatly against him like a jigsaw piece slotting into place – very odd, never thought of that before – and they’re walking side by side and she looks at his feet and is amazed. He has lovely feet. She’s never met a man who hasn’t got ugly feet.

  ‘A nice way to get some fresh air,’ she said, keeping her gaze firmly ahead. She couldn’t look at him with those memories crowding her mind.

  ‘Fresh air?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘We made love like we were the last people on earth, Lucy, in case you forgot. We spent every minute together. For almost a week you were mine, with me one hundred per cent, and the next minute you’d gone. Vanished. Kaput.’

  She remembered going home that night. Nate wanting to kiss her. She hadn’t been able to bear him touching her – she’d found it hard not to recoil – and when he’d wanted to make love the next morning a scream had been in the back of her mind no no no. But she hadn’t stopped him – she’d never stopped him, she’d had no reason to – and afterwards she’d shut herself in the bathroom and cried.

  Mac said quietly, ‘I thought we had something really good between us.’

  She decided not to talk any more. It only seemed to encourage him.

  ‘Why won’t you admit it, Lucy?’

  Because you’re my DI. Because I don’t want to lose my colleagues’ respect. Because I don’t want to risk getting transferred again. It won’t be you who gets moved should our relationship go tits up, it’ll be me, and next time I might end up even further from London, like the Shetland Isles.

  She gazed through the windscreen. The traffic had eased slightly since they’d joined the M1 south, ribbons of cars heading home at the end of the day. She reached forward and switched on the radio. Turned up the volume. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mac heave an exaggerated sigh. God alone knew what the next few days were going to be like working closely with him, but she knew she mustn’t let down her guard. She mustn’t drink any alcohol when he was around, and above all, she had to maintain her distance and NOT LOOK AT HIS MOUTH.

  *

  When they arrived at their hotel – a bland and characterless block reserved by the Basingstoke Police – Lucy’s eyes were burning from three hours of night driving and attempting to keep her mental distance from Mac. She couldn’t stop yawning. As Mac checked them in, she stood a good yard from him and the instant she was given her key card she walked off with a muttered ‘see ya’.

  Since she hadn’t slept the previous night, Lucy thought she’d better give the bed a go. Stripping off, she curled in the middle, pulled the duvet up over her ears and closed her eyes. She felt tired enough to sleep through the night, but she was jerked awake after four hours. She wasn’t sure what had woken her but she was sweating, trembling slightly, the tendrils of her dream still gripping her.

  Wembley Stadium.

  The massive crowd, eerily silent.

  The dread inside her building inexorably, until she couldn’t control herself and she had to flee for her life.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand over her head, scrubbed her face. Weird, how that experience had stayed with her.

  Walking into the bathroom, she switched on the shower and stepped beneath the jets of hot water, wishing she could soap away the memory. Anything to dispel the sickening sensation of fear that remained.

  She’d read somewhere that the unconscious mind introduced people to one’s dreams because of how they made you feel. So when she dreamed of her mother, which she did from time to time, her unconscious could have created her to generate a feeling of being loved and secure. Quite what the concert dream meant – aside from fear – Lucy couldn’t think, but she wished it would go away. She didn’t like being reminded that she’d suffered some kind of breakdown and it invariably made her start her day feeling vulnerable and oddly shaky.

  Breakfast wasn’t until seven so she made herself a cup of tea and soon she was hunched over her laptop, her brain on fire.

  The handcuffs were the clue, she was certain.

  Why else leave them on the bodies?

  He’d chosen handcuffs because they wouldn’t rot or get lost. They were a permanent sign, remaining even when the bodies decomposed; something impossible to remove from the skeletons without a key.

  He wants them noticed.

  Why?

  She picked up her mobile, dithering. Could she claim a phone call to India? She checked the time to see it was 8.30 in the morning in Chennai. Before she could talk herself out of it, she dialled.

  ‘Namaste,’ a boy’s brisk voice answered.

  ‘Chitta?’ she said.

  ‘Madam Constable Lucy!’ Chitta’s cheerful voice greeted her.

  She liked Chitta enormously, and he’d proved himself to be exceptional in his investigative work, but she couldn’t get around the fact he was the office cleaner. Why wasn’t Niket answering his phone?

  ‘Hi Chitta,’ she responded. ‘Look, I don’t want to insult you because you’ve done a fantastic job, but I was wondering if I could speak to Niket.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said regretfully, ‘but this is not being possible.’

  ‘Could you tell me why?’

  ‘It is a simple matter,’ he told her. ‘Senior Constable Niket is being suspended.’

  Something prickled at the back of her neck. ‘Why?’

  Silence.

  Was Niket involved somehow? Was that why he’d been so reluctant
to help her?

  ‘Chitta?’ she prompted.

  He gave a groan. ‘I cannot be telling you this, much as I would like to be imparting what I know, because Inspector Chakyar will be tearing my head off and kicking it down the street for the dogs to eat if I breathe even a word . . .’

  ‘OK, OK.’ She got the message. ‘Can I talk to the Inspector maybe?’

  Another groan. ‘I cannot be interrupting him, Constable Lucy. He has told me I must not be intruding upon him unless it is a matter of life and death and if it is not, I must to be taking him a message and giving it to him quietly, and without speaking.’

  Lucy nibbled her lip. ‘Maybe you can talk to me about the case?’

  ‘Of course.’ He sounded pleased. ‘How can I be helping you?’

  ‘Have you found out who dumped the bodies?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The truck driver is doing this. The first time he is finding a body in his container, he is speaking to the charity but they are not wanting to be reporting this thing so they are paying the driver to dispose of it. This is what is happening each time, you see.’

  He gave her the names of the driver and the charity personnel who had admitted to covering up the bodies’ disposal. According to Chitta, they’d been terrified not just of the chaos that would ensue but in case they were accused of the victims’ murders.

  ‘Why do you think the victims were wearing handcuffs?’ she asked him.

  ‘I am thinking of this nearly all of the time,’ Chitta admitted. ‘But I cannot be finding any solution to this matter. Perhaps it is like a . . . how do you say it? A calling card?’

  Lucy rubbed her eyes with her fingers. ‘You could be right. But why handcuffs?’

  Chitta dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Perhaps the killer is being a police officer.’

  Please God, no.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she told the boy, ‘he is using them as a decoy.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed, but he sounded doubtful.

  They talked a little more, but it soon appeared there was little more she could learn. After a protracted farewell, she hung up.