Splinter the Silence (Tony Hill)

by Val McDermid

‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘And has she got a lead?’

  Carol nodded, seeing at once where this was going. He wasn’t a bad guy after all, just someone doing his job. Unfortunately for her.

  ‘Hanging up by the door. On the right-hand side. The door key’s on the same ring as the Land Rover key, you’ve got it there in your hand. Would you let her out?’

  ‘Andy,’ his colleague protested.

  ‘Dog’s done nowt wrong, she shouldn’t have to suffer.’ Andy withdrew and headed for the converted barn where Flash would be dancing up and down behind the heavy wooden door. Watching the pair of them emerge and walk a hundred yards up the moorside had been the last moment of comfort she’d known.

  They’d arrested her, processed her in the custody suite at Halifax’s cheerless but chaotically busy police station and locked her up to await a second breathalyser. They’d offered her a phone call but she’d chosen to wait till after the second test. Carol continued to cling to the hope that she might not need to let anyone know the ignominious end to her evening.

  She had taken one step to save herself. As she was being booked in by the custody sergeant, she had given him her best apologetic smile and said, ‘I’d appreciate it if you could let John Franklin know I’m here. DCI Franklin?’

  The sergeant had glared at her. ‘Why? What’s a drink-driving arrest got to do with CID?’

  Carol kept the smile in place. ‘Nothing, as such. But I’m sure he’d rather hear about it up front, from you, than on the grapevine.’

  He’d given her a suspicious look but said nothing further. She had no idea if he’d called Franklin or whether there would be any response if he had. But it was the only roll of the dice she had left.

  She kicked off her heels and paced back and forth in the tiny cell, hoping that physical activity would help her body process the alcohol faster. If it went badly for her, she’d have to call for help. She’d left the house with nothing more than phone and keys. No money for a cab, no card to hit a hole in the wall with. And no cab from Halifax would convey her to the middle of nowhere unless she flashed the cash first.

  She could call Bronwen Scott, the best defence lawyer in Bradfield, a former adversary who’d recently turned into a sort of ally. But Bronwen was too hard-headed to schlepp all the way out here for a drink-driving case. Because there was no defence for what Carol had done. She hadn’t been the victim of spiked drinks. She hadn’t been fleeing in fear of her life or serious physical danger. She hadn’t been in the throes of a medical emergency. None of the slender defences could be pasted on to her case. She was no more than another woman of a certain age who’d had too much to drink on a Saturday night. Nothing there professionally for Bronwen. And there wasn’t enough between them personally to surmount that.

  Paula would come, though. Carol was as sure of that as she could be of anything. Now she was no longer Paula’s boss they were free to be friends. Paula herself had made that clear when she’d played the friendship card not so long ago. But if she called Paula, Elinor would have to know too. And the shame of facing that cool, understanding gaze the next time they met would be too much. Sometimes kindness was the hardest thing to bear.

  She could call George Nicholas, who was too much of a gentleman to refuse her. But he’d been drinking too. He’d have to delegate the job to Jackie. Or worse, one of the guests’ drivers. It would be mortifying. But even worse than that, it would be the hot gossip of the valley. Everyone would know she’d disgraced herself, getting sloshed on George’s generosity. There would be tutting about women who couldn’t hold their drink, who didn’t know how to behave, who were a real disappointment after the previous owners of the barn.

  Carol pushed that thought away. The bloody history of the barn was something she only allowed herself to think about when she was at her strongest. Her brother and his wife, slaughtered in their own home, and all because Carol had failed them. She’d stripped the barn back to its bare bones and covered them with new flesh, but still the past leaked through into the present. Tonight, that memory linked directly to the one other person she could count on in a crisis. The one other person she truly didn’t want to call.

  Before she had time to reject the very idea, the metal hatch in the middle of her cell door slammed open. A pair of eyes appeared, then disappeared as the hatch closed again with a hollow echo. She stopped pacing and stood facing the door, bare feet apart, hands open at her sides, shoulders back. Poised for fight or flight.

  The man who walked in and pushed the door to behind him was no stranger even though he’d changed since she’d last seen him. The thick dark hair swept back from his jutting brow was threaded heavily with grey and he’d grown a ridiculous goatee in the shadow of his prow of a nose. He was even more gaunt than the last time they’d been in each other’s company, but he’d bought new clothes to accommodate the shrinkage. His shirt no longer ballooned at the waist under a jacket that resembled a superhero’s cape. Now, he was wearing a fitted shirt under a lightweight leather jacket that looked surprisingly stylish. John Franklin had found something approximating a mojo, Carol thought, almost smiling at the notion. ‘Carol,’ he said, acknowledging her with a nod.

  ‘DCI Franklin. Thanks for coming out.’

  He leaned against the door. ‘I was in the office anyway. You’ve fucked up royally this time, haven’t you?’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘I can’t do owt for you, you know that? Even if you were still a DCI, I wouldn’t be able to make this go away. Even if I wanted to. Face it, there was never any love lost between your team and my lot.’

  Her heart sank even though she’d had no real expectation of anything different. ‘I always thought there was respect. You can’t blame me for trying.’

  ‘Oh, I think I can. You should know better than to try and pull strings. It makes me look bad, getting calls from the custody sergeant about people he’s got banged up.’

  Carol’s chin came up. ‘I’d have thought it would take a lot more than that to make a copper with your stellar reputation look dodgy.’

  ‘You should know better than anybody what it’s like these days. It’s a perpetual night of the long knives.’ He pushed off from the door. ‘I’m sorry, there’s nowt to be done. It won’t be easy for you, living out there in the middle of nowhere with no wheels. I suppose you can always get a quad bike and go up across the moor.’ He gave a sardonic smile and opened the door. ‘The lads who brought you in will be coming back in a minute to do the second test. The custody sergeant will bail you and let you make a phone call.’ He cleared his throat. ‘But you know all that. Good luck, Carol.’

  And he was gone, leaving her to stare at the blank door for what felt like moments before it opened again to reveal the custody sergeant. ‘Let’s be having you,’ he said. ‘Time to blow in the bag again.’

  6

  Brandon couldn’t help enjoying the sight of James Blake struggling with his composure. The cocky fool had thought he was being touched up for a job that was so far beyond his reach as to be laughable. Blake had never run a murder inquiry, never mind an MIT. People’s capacity for self-delusion never ceased to amuse Brandon.

  ‘Interesting,’ Blake managed after a long moment. He lifted his glass of port and took a slow sip. ‘But of course, she’s not actually a police officer any longer.’

  Carver flapped a hand idly, as if that were an insignificant detail. ‘Easy enough to have her apply for the job. People come back on board all the time, I’m told. Different force, different rank, even. I’m not interested in fiddle-faddle. What I want to know is whether this Carol Jordan is the woman for the job.’

  ‘Maybe it would be easier if we went through the specifics,’ Brandon said quickly, seeing a glint in Blake’s eye that he didn’t like. ‘What’s your opinion of her as a detective?’

  A flush darkened Blake’s cherub-pink cheeks. ‘She’s good.’ It wasn’t quite a grudging response but it wasn’t enthusiastic either.

  ‘
Clever?’ Brandon asked.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s very intelligent.’

  ‘Quick on the uptake, would you say?’

  ‘You don’t have to explain things to her twice.’ Blake stared at the table, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

  ‘And resourceful? I always thought she made a little go a very long way on that MIT squad.’

  Blake breathed heavily through his nose. ‘She’s not the budget option, but she doesn’t waste what she’s got at her disposal. She fights hard for what she wants in terms of the wherewithal to get the job done.’

  ‘What about teamwork? Is she a team player?’

  ‘She built a very tight team round her in Bradfield. So in terms of her junior officers, yes, she’s very much first among equals. They’re not afraid to bring things to her, but she also instils the confidence in them to strike out on their own if they’ve got a theory to pursue.’

  It was like pulling teeth, but Brandon reckoned his presence made it hard for Blake to be dishonest or to appear too partial. He must know Brandon would jump all over any attempt to paint Carol in a bad light unless he could justify it with chapter and verse. But before he could ask his next question, Blake was off on a flanking move.

  ‘Having said that, ex-DCI Jordan’s team support didn’t travel in the other direction. She always put the interests of her team, her cases, above everybody else. She didn’t see the bigger picture of the force’s best interests.’ He thrust his chin up, making contact with his natural belligerence. ‘I did offer her the chance to return to the fold recently, but she made it clear she wasn’t about to revisit her decision to go.’

  Brandon gave him a sharp look. This was the first he’d heard of an olive branch. Before he could follow up, the minister butted in. ‘A bit of a maverick, then?’ Carver didn’t sound as if he thought that was a bad thing. The public did enjoy that in a politician, even if party leaders hated it. Brandon wondered about Carver’s relationship with the whips’ office. ‘Can you give me an example of what you’re talking about?’

  Blake darted a glance at Brandon, who read its malevolence. ‘I can. The MIT had developed a very close relationship with a psychological profiler. I believe DCI Jordan was actually his tenant at one point.’

  ‘You mean she was living with him?’ Carver leaned forward like a wolf picking up a scent. They do love their gossip, our lords and masters. ‘Something more than a financial arrangement?’

  ‘I couldn’t say,’ Blake said loftily. ‘At the very least, he was her landlord.’

  ‘If you’re talking about Dr Hill,’ Brandon interrupted, ‘there was nothing more to it than that. When she first came back to Bradfield she wasn’t sure whether she’d stay. She didn’t want to sell up in London and burn her bridges so she rented. Her flat was completely self-contained. Tony and Carol have never been more than friends. I know them both and neither of them would presume to work together if their relationship had ever stepped across the line.’

  Carver looked startled at his adamantine certainty, then smiled. ‘I’ll happily take your word for it, John.’

  ‘That wasn’t my point,’ Blake said firmly. ‘The point is that Dr Hill worked extremely closely with the MIT. He was never away from their ops room when they were running a case. And his word was law. DCI Jordan would listen to him ahead of senior colleagues. He was one of the most significant expenses of the unit and, frankly, I thought most of what he came up with amounted to little more than the application of common sense.’

  ‘I’d have to disagree with you there,’ Brandon grunted.

  ‘With all due respect, John, of course you would since it was you who brought Dr Hill to BMP in the first place.’ Blake’s voice was tart, his mouth prim. ‘So when we were looking to make significant savings across the piece, I told Carol Jordan to stop using Dr Hill. And what happened on their next major case? There was Hill, back in the driving seat. And let’s bear in mind that this is a man who ended up under arrest as a suspect in the first major murder inquiry following DCI Jordan’s departure from BMP.’

  ‘A murder for which somebody else is currently awaiting sentence,’ Brandon said, eyes dead as flint. ‘I’m amazed you think it’s a good idea to use another officer’s incompetence to try to blacken Tony Hill. After all he’s contributed to BMP and other UK police forces over the years. Of course Carol wasn’t going to give him up. Taking Tony off the payroll would be like having the sniffer dogs put down because they don’t work every day.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Carver said smoothly. ‘Whatever the merits or otherwise of Dr Hill, I think the point James here was making is that Carol Jordan can be something of a law unto herself? Would that be fair?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Blake said.

  Brandon harrumphed, then nodded. ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘Splendid,’ Carver said. ‘I like someone who thinks outside the box.’

  Brandon was disconcerted, but less visibly so than Blake. ‘She’s not easy to work with,’ he said. ‘I can imagine her putting people’s backs up if she was parachuted in as the visiting firefighter.’

  ‘They’ll soon shut up if she starts getting results,’ Brandon said. ‘Which she will do. James, do you think she’s resilient enough to operate a team outside the usual management structures?’

  Blake’s eyebrows rose slowly. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was being handed on a plate. ‘Resilient? I don’t know, John. Twice in her career she’s had a major crisis. And twice she’s walked away. I offered her the chance to come back inside the tent, but she threw it in my face. And even if we put that on one side, we both know, I think, that she is liable to take comfort in the bottle.’

  His words hung in the air between them like a gauntlet thrown down in a challenge. Brandon rubbed his long chin, then shook his head regretfully. ‘You’ve got a point, James. But here’s what I think. I think very, very few of us have ever been tested to the limit as Carol Jordan has. I don’t know that I would have survived what she’s been through. What I find admirable is that she hasn’t let either of these terrible events destroy her. She’s still standing, James. In spite of everything, Carol Jordan’s still standing.’

  7

  By the end of dinner, Tony had felt mellow and relaxed. Good conversation, good food and the sensation of being among friends continued to be a novelty, one that he was slowly learning to trust. But walking home across town had woken him up, then he’d discovered he’d forgotten to adjust the heating timer before he went out. Now it was too chilly on the narrowboat where he lived to strip off and get into bed. Muttering under his breath, he boosted the thermostat. Half an hour of blasting heat and he’d start to get warm and sleepy again.

  To pass the time, he opened his laptop and pulled up a news site. What caught his eye was the story of Jasmine Burton’s suicide, and he clicked on it.

  Charity organiser Jasmine Burton was driven to suicide by internet trolls, friends said last night.

  Jasmine, 36, came under fire from a string of vicious bullies after her recent appearance on the TV current affairs debate show The Big Ask. Controversially, she demanded that convicted rapists should never be allowed to take up jobs after their release that would put them in direct contact with women and children.

  Jasmine, chief executive of SafeHouse, a charity that supports women and children trafficked into the UK sex trade, was criticised by organisations supporting offenders who have served their sentences. One said, ‘There’s an important principle at stake here, that we should help people reintegrate into society after they have paid their debts. We must not treat people like pariahs when they show they want to be rehabilitated.’

  A colleague from SafeHouse told us, ‘Jasmine had no problem with people who disagreed with her and wanted to enter into a proper debate around the issues.

  ‘The problem was the trolls who piled abuse on her personally via social media. The things they said to her were beyond vile. Some of it made me feel physically sick.
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  ‘At first, she stood up to them. She took them on directly, she complained to the social media sites, she made it clear that she wasn’t going to shut up. But it got worse and worse. SafeHouse actually complained to the police, who were investigating the most atrocious and threatening messages.

  ‘We all thought she was handling it. She would come into work and mock the trolls, poking fun at their appalling spelling and grammar. She was determined to carry on as usual. But obviously, beneath the surface, it was a different story. We’re all in shock. We can’t believe we’ve lost such a champion for people who are victims of exactly the kind of men Jasmine spoke out against.’

  Tony stared unseeing at the screen while he thought through what he’d read. Suicide had never been a central part of his practice, but inevitably he’d ended up dealing with patients who’d attempted it. Most of them had also cut themselves, often over a long period of time. He’d come to think of self-harm as the junior partner of suicide. People spoke of suicide as a cry for help, but he’d always thought it was more like, ‘See how bad it really was?’ By the time people killed themselves, they’d gone past the point of believing help was a possibility. But when they were still at the stage of cutting themselves, he knew it was possible to intervene and bring the patient back to something like safety.

  Of course people killed themselves without necessarily going through a literal blood-letting as a way of releasing their anguish. But there were generally other signs. It never came from nowhere. When nobody noticed, it was mostly because there wasn’t anyone close enough. But it didn’t sound to him as if Jasmine Burton lacked support. Which made him wonder.

  Frowning, he started trawling his social network sites to see what the world had to say about Jasmine Burton’s end. Most of the trolls had been shocked into silent retreat, but a few were poking their heads out of the cave even now to crow over what they were already claiming as a success for rapists’ rights. Rapists, in their world, being the victims as often as the women they were convicted of attacking. Tony was fascinated and repelled in equal measure.