Bad Press

by Maureen Carter

  Flint ignored the question, leaned forward, elbows on desk, gazed at Snow as if he was an exhibit in a freak show. “Would you say you’re a violent man, Mr Snow?”

  The pale blue eyes darkened. “Meaning?”

  “Ever glassed a bloke,” Bev said helpfully. “That clear enough?” He mumbled something that sounded like bitch. “Didn’t catch that, Mr Snow.” Bright smile from Bev. “Once more for the tape, please.” He leaned back, arms folded. “Mr Snow refuses to repeat his statement.”

  She leaned forward, lowered her voice. “Son-of-a-bitch.” Spat out. “Jack Pope could’ve lost an eye.”

  “It was self defence. Pope was off his face.”

  “Liar. Unprovoked attack is what it was.” Normal volume now. “So to answer DCS Flint’s question...?” Flint cocked an expectant head.

  “I need the loo. I want a break.”

  She curled a lip. “Locking up’s what you need.”

  Flint twirled a pen in his fingers. “Ever met him?” The sudden change of tack was pre-arranged. Bev scanned Snow’s face for the slightest tic, the tiniest signal that might say more than words. The reporter’s face was frozen. The piston leg had stilled too.

  Recovery came, but not quick. He licked dry lips. “Met who?” As if he didn’t know. Snow was playing for time.

  “Your psycho pen pal,” Bev sneered.

  The reporter’s gaze flicked between his interrogators. Bad cop. Worse cop.

  “Well?” Flint prompted. “Have you?”

  Snow’s head dropped to his puny chest. “No.”

  “Didn’t catch it, Mr Snow.”

  “No!” Snow shrieked.

  “Let’s see if I’ve got this right.” More ticked fingers. “You’ve never met your informant, you don’t have a name, a number, or any means of contacting him.”

  “Like he’s going to tell me,” Snow snarled.

  “Hear that, sergeant?” Flint turned his mouth down. “Mr Snow appears to be the official mouthpiece of the Invisible Man.”

  Bev sniffed. “That the same as non-existent?”

  The reporter nodded slowly, ashen-faced. “I see what you’re doing. I get it now. You bastards aren’t gonna shoot the messenger. You’re gonna stitch me up and throw away the key.”

  “I’d say that’s another one of your little fantasies, Mr Snow.” Flint stood, signalling the end of the session. “I’m giving you some time to think about what you’re doing. I strongly advise you to consider your position. Sort the fact from the fiction.”

  Mid-morning. The canteen at Highgate was quiet. Couple of traffic wardens quaffing tea, and a pair of community support officers at the counter. The plastic plods were stocking up on Penguins and bottled water. Bev sat at a window table in a shaft of strong sunlight, picked a hair from a corned beef and tomato bap. Flint had stumped up for the coffees. She suspected the DCS thought there was a crack in the case, and they’d soon be celebrating with more than Nescafé.

  “Reckon he’s up for it?” Bev asked, pulling a face as she extracted another hair. Maybe one of the caterers was moulting.

  “Up for something. Wish I knew what.” He pursed his lips. “He’s either devious or dangerous.”

  “Dickhead or dupe.” She sniffed. “Make that both.”

  “You don’t see him as a killer?” He popped a couple of sweeteners into a steaming mug.

  Mouth full, she waggled a wavering hand. She and Snow went back a fair few years. Her instinct said no. Then again, she’d never have envisaged him taking a bottle to anyone. Jack Pope had definitely not been drunk. Snow had played fast and loose with the truth there. She wondered if his grasp on reality was any stronger. Either way instinct wasn’t evidence. If Snow’s hands were dirty with something other than newsprint, they needed to find out what – and stand it up in court.

  “Dunno,” she said. “Think we’ve got enough for a warrant?” Search of Snow’s home, motor, might uncover proof one way or the other. That the so-called Disposer existed or was a figment of what Flint clearly saw as Snow’s fevered imagination.

  The DCS leaned in, held her gaze, lowered his voice. “Not with what we’ve got.”

  “Best get some more then.” She frowned. Was Flint talking cutting corners? Bending procedures? Dangerous territory given Snow’s accusations of police embroidery. She’d stitch up Snow like a shot, but only because the bloke was falling apart. As well as the state of his nails, he smelt as if he could do with a wash, his clothes were none too clean and his face was the colour of lard except for the pus in his spots.

  Bev chucked what was left of the food on her plate. Couldn’t stomach it any more, nor, if she’d read it right, Flint’s innuendo.

  “What about the headaches?” It was another box to be ticked or not on the doctor’s clipboard. Jo Esler looked more media woman than medico. Early thirties, casually dressed, blonde hair in sleek ponytail; her regular features were usually set in a smile. No white coat syndrome in Doctor Esler’s consulting room. Byford still felt apprehensive. The detective slipped an arm into a crisp white shirt, took a quick peek at how he’d scored so far. Blood pressure. Heart. Chest. Reflexes. Looked like a clear round.

  “Headaches...?” Byford fastened the top button. “Remind me...” He hoped what Bev called his George Clooney smile would conceal the barefaced lie. The searing pain was unforgettable, but they struck much less frequently now, and his balance was virtually back to normal.

  Doctor Esler rolled her eyes. She’d treated Byford since the night of the attack, almost certainly saved his life. She’d come to know and respect the big man. She was also wise to his little ways. “How many a week, Bill? And let’s have the truth.”

  Byford resumed his seat. “Maybe one a fortnight.” Esler’s eyebrows were almost as eloquent as the big man’s. “OK, OK,” Byford ceded. “Two.”

  “So that’s twice weekly.” She made a note. “Do they respond to pain relief?”

  Occasionally. “Sure, and they’re nowhere near as intense.” Esler applied her visual lie detector test. Byford held the diagnostic gaze, managed not to shift in the seat. The detective wasn’t being foolish. There was no point trying to swing the medical if he wasn’t ready to go back to work. Physically, he reckoned he was eighty, eighty-five per cent fit, and resigned to the fact that was it for the foreseeable. The thought of early retirement was appealing, too appealing. If he didn’t go back soon, he never would. And though tempted, he wasn’t ready for that.

  Esler ticked another box. Her grateful patient breathed a mental sigh of relief. “How do you feel about three days a week, Bill? See how it goes.”

  Byford saw a part-time lame duck with two Achilles heels. “No way.”

  “Glad you thought it through.” Esler smiled. “Can’t say I’m surprised. You’re stubborn as a mule.”

  Byford reached for his jacket. “Clean bill of health, then, doctor?”

  She turned her mouth down. “Slightly soiled, I’d say. But probably in excellent working order.”

  Bev had worked through more lunch breaks than she’d had hot dinners. Not this one. She fed coins into a hungry ticket machine, swallowed the last bite of blueberry muffin, checked her watch. Given the twenty-minute drive across town, she calculated she had quarter of an hour at most. Why’d hospital car parks cost an arm and a leg?

  A steroids ’r’ us security guard patrolled the General’s main entrance. She flashed a warrant card. The gorilla searched her bag anyway. Cursory check though or it would’ve taken a month.

  “Health hazard that,” he snarled. Cheeky sod wiped a hand on his trousers, pointed to the right. “Reception’s...”

  “I know.” The General was second home to a lot of cops. Mostly on account of crims. She grabbed directions from the desk, headed for the lifts, halted halfway down the ward. No sign of Powell. “Buggery-bollocks.”

  “I beg your pardon?” It was an admonition, not an apology. Bev turned. A matronly sister stood there, lips puckered, hands buried in surplus hip fles
h.

  Bev couldn’t be doing with the aggro. “Running late, love. Visiting Mike Powell. Know where he is?”

  “Outside regular hours, you’re not.” Sister Smug folded her arms, tapped a foot. “Unless you’re next-of-kin.”

  “Wife.” Blue eyes blazed. “That kin enough?”

  “Babe.” Powell in grey silk PJs, wrapped an arm round Bev’s shoulder, pecked her cheek. “I didn’t know you cared.” Fatso was clearly sceptical. He confided sombrely, “We’re estranged, you know.” Bev wanted to strangle him. He planted another peck. “Good to see you, chicken.” She itched to wring his neck. “Excuse us, Mary.” He smiled. “Bev and I have so much catching up.”

  The DI led her to relative safety. “Mrs P, eh?” He grinned, lying on his side, blond hair ruffled for what must be the first time in history. Bev slumped into a visitor’s chair. “Breathe a word, ever,” she hissed, “and you’re dead.”

  “Feel better already.” His lip still twitched. “So what you doing here?”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Surprised to see you that’s all.”

  Bev was surprised, too. Apart from the bruise on his left temple, Powell looked fit as well as fairly tasty. The casual look suited him better than the customary sharp tailoring. Mind, dressing down didn’t get much lower than jim-jams. “Not at death’s door, then?”

  “Nah.” He stroked the side of his head. “Observation mainly. Should be out tomorrow. Where’s my grapes?”

  “Tesco?” She suspected he was trying to keep the chat light, noticed a slight tremor in his hands. Lonely places, hospitals. Especially for someone who never talked about family, whose wife had buggered off years ago, and whose professional life hung in the balance. No time for social niceties though.

  “What you did was freaking stupid.” His knuckles turned white. She looked him in the eye. “And I’d’ve done exactly the same.” If she were Powell. And felt guilt for losing a young officer in a fire. “It got to you, didn’t it?”

  “What you on about?” Seemed to her the snarl was token.

  “I was there, Mike. I saw it.” The use of his Christian name was a first. Maybe it was that, maybe the warmth in eyes as blue as it gets. Still he hesitated. She sat forward, reached for his hand. It took more than quarter of an hour for it all to spill out. He told her about the trauma he’d gone through when Simon was killed, the continuing night terrors, the torment he’d felt watching impotently as events unfolded outside Milton Place.

  “Had to do it, Bev. No choice.” He searched her face for approval.

  “Saved a life, Mike.”

  “Yeah. And lost a job.”

  “Don’t know that.” Nor was he aware of the leverage she might now have with Flint.

  “Guy’s in here you know.” Powell had been visiting the sick when she arrived. Apparently the young victim was in the next ward. “Shattered nose, jaw, cheekbone, detached retina.”

  “Live though, won’t he? Why’d they go for him?”

  “He’s no idea. No convictions for sex offences. No one said anything, just dragged him out.”

  “Mistaken identity?”

  Powell shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Briefly she told him how it was panning out: twenty-two arrests, eighteen remanded on bail, four blokes in custody refusing to give more than their names. The DI was still thinking about the guy he’d saved. “He thanked me for helping him, Bev.”

  She smiled. “Deserve it, mate.” No wonder he’d been in high spirits earlier. “Best hit the road.” She reached for her bag. “You like blueberry muffins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too. Next time maybe. Ciao.”

  She was four beds away when he shouted. “Hey, babe, I want a divorce.”

  “Bite me.”

  25

  “Much as it grieves me, I think we’ll have to let him go.” It was Flint’s verdict after the day’s second session with Matt Snow, the latest with his brief banging on about rights. Early evening now and Bev was in Flint’s office reviewing the interview and the evidence – lack of.

  Forensically, nothing linked Snow to the murders. No prints, hairs, skin cells, fibres. On the witness front, one anonymous phone call did not a conviction next summer make. As to motive, whatever Flint’s opinion, Bev thought it was questionable, if not risible. Killing as a career move? I don’t think so. One thing she was sure of: Snow had vital information, and he wasn’t sharing. They could probably hang a police obstruction charge round his scrawny neck, but...

  “Know what they say about giving people enough rope?”

  “If we release him... he’ll incriminate himself?” Flint was chucking balls of paper in the bin.

  “Guy won’t do diddly in custody.” Set him loose, he might slip up. And they only had Snow’s word that he’d not got up close and personal with the Disposer. Assuming the bastard existed, surely there’d be physical contact at some stage?

  “We’d need a tail.” Flint’s missile went wide.

  “Natch.”

  “Twenty-four-seven. Doesn’t come cheap. I’ll give it some thought.” Another wide ball.

  Bev shrugged. What price a life? Thank God Anna Kendall wasn’t charging for sleuthing on the side.

  “What do you make of this?” Flint turned a newspaper to face her, Evening News, late edition.

  She’d already seen it, still couldn’t work out why Snow had messaged the desk to hold the front page. “Ain’t gonna set the world on fire, is it?” The sidebar wasn’t much more than a re-run of the Disposer’s first letter: I am our children’s saviour. Paedophiles are scum. Paedos are vermin, yada yada. Bev narrowed her eyes, envisaging a cat among the pigeons. Make that a feather-ruffling pig. “Why don’t we write to him? The Disposer?”

  Flint’s ball hand stilled mid-air as he stared at her. “Saying?”

  She leaned forward, elbows on knees. “The guy thinks he’s smart, right? Leading the dance, calling the tune, writing the script...”

  “I get the picture.”

  “’Kay. So we ask him something only the killer could know.” While Flint thought that through, she ran a mental checklist of some of the information they’d withheld from the media. “What about the spray paint in the alley? No one outside the squad knows about that.”

  “And?” He was prepping another missile.

  Just let me get my crystal ball. “Depends what we get back.” She sniffed. “It could prove whoever’s writing’s genuine.”

  Flint shrugged. “There’s no doubt the killer was behind the first letter. There’s privileged information in it.”

  “Yeah. The first.” She let that sink in. “What if there’s a copycat clown out there?”

  He threw the ball from hand to hand, four or five passes, then laid it on the table, game over. “We’d have to run it past the lawyers. Police using the press to correspond with criminals raises all sorts of issues, ethical questions.” He gave her a fleeting smile. “Joined-up thinking though, Bev. I like that.”

  Ain’t gonna like this. “Not my baby, boss.”

  “Oh?”

  “DI Powell’s. Saw him in hospital. Lunchtime.” She was taking his name in vain: Powell wouldn’t have a clue what she was on about. Bigging up the DI was more leverage in her one-woman campaign to get him back in harness. Fact that so far there’d been no media mauling helped; the DI was a hero according to the Post’s leader column.

  Flint’s thin lips almost disappeared. “Powell’s not on the inquiry.” He reached for a file: case closed.

  No one said it’d be easy. She straightened, aimed for gravitas. “Mike Powell saved a man’s life out there, sir.”

  “Potentially jeopardising the entire operation.” Chipped ice.

  “It was a calculated risk. You ever taken one?” Supplication? Insubordination? Knew she was treading a fine line.

  “He disobeyed an order, sergeant.”

  “An order issued before the immediate threat to a man’s life, sir.” God’s sa
ke, Bev, tell it like it is. She spread her hands. “That bloke was toast any second.” Waited till he made eye-contact. “Powell couldn’t stand idle and watch a repeat performance of Monk’s Court.” She put some spin on what the DI had confided earlier. That he’d acted on instinct, initiative; doing nothing wasn’t an option. Flint listened, nodded a few times. Bev thought it was in the bag.

  “Thanks for that, sergeant.” The DCS picked up a slim gold pen, started writing.

  Bev closed her gaping mouth. “And?”

  “I’ll bear it in mind at the inquiry.”

  OK. Bull by the bollocks. “We need senior officers like Mike Powell, sir.” Again she waited. Her eyes held more meaning than the words. Was Flint up to the interpretation? “The DI wouldn’t bend a rule if it bit him in the bum. He’s as straight as a die.” She couldn’t afford to query Flint’s integrity straight out. If mistaken, it would be professional suicide.

  Cold stare. “Is that why you’re still sergeant?” If attack was the best form of defence, he’d got her drift. And like Bev, he was treading carefully. Maybe they had the measure of each other.

  “Nah.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Too lippie for the men in grey, me.” She’d never get further than DS cause she didn’t lick arse, and didn’t stay in line. Never crossed an important one though.

  Flint leaned back, crossed his arms, looked her over. “Yes.” The word had three syllables.

  Waste of sodding time. She gathered her bits, grabbed her bag. Gobbing off had done squat for the DI and now she’d made an enemy of Flint. Great day’s work.

  He reached for the paper ball, played it between his hands. “Pick your battles better in future, Bev.”

  She rose. “Sir.”

  “Soon as he’s fit, I’ll ask Powell to take on admin duties pending the inquiry.” The bin pinged as the ball went in. “I’d already made the decision.”

  Bev could barely speak her teeth were clenched so tight. He’d let her bang on like a drum kit. “So all this...”

  “Was very revealing. It taught me a lot about you.” She so didn’t like the sound of that. Nor Flint’s thin smile. She didn’t trust the man. He might know more about her. She was kidding herself thinking she’d got his measure.