by Tania Carver
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Marina, her voice as soothing as possible.
‘Yes it was,’ said Josephina. ‘You know it was.’
‘It was… difficult,’ said Marina. ‘But we never stopped loving each other. You knew that. I told you that.’
Josephina still didn’t look convinced. Before she could answer, Phil spoke.
‘Mum’s right,’ he said. ‘This is different. Not like the last time.’
He could barely look at her as he spoke. Their separation had been through Marina’s fear of what the woman calling herself Fiona Welch could do to them. The punitive action she might take against them. Against their daughter. She hadn’t believed Phil – or his department – could adequately protect them as a family. So she had taken Josephina away. And now this. He had to make his daughter understand the truth of the situation, but only as it concerned her. Namely, that he was coming back.
‘No,’ he said, as emphatically as he could, ‘nothing like that at all. This is just a work thing. That’s all. Just a couple of days. Get it sorted out, and then I’m back.’
Josephina stared at him. ‘Promise?’ Part of her wanted to believe in her father’s words. Another part of her didn’t dare to.
‘Promise. Just a couple of days for work. That’s all.’
Marina smiled. ‘We just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t get worried tomorrow. Get home from school and Daddy’s not there.’
Josephina looked between the pair of them once more. Then down at her food. ‘You’re definitely coming back?’ she said once more.
Phil found a smile. ‘Definitely.’ He leaned forward. ‘You think I want to be without you?’
Josephina smiled.
‘Good,’ said Phil, still smiling but out of relief now. ‘Right, then. What shall we do after this? Who wants to go to the cinema?’
Josephina put her hand up.
Phil kept smiling. He couldn’t look at Marina. Just had to keep staring straight ahead.
6
‘Detective Inspector Brennan?’
Phil opened the front door to his house, looked at the man in front of him. Well over six foot and solid with it. A rugby player’s frame that his suit was barely able to contain. His flattened and reset nose seemed to back that initial impression. Hair cut close to his scalp, heavy boots.
‘That’s me,’ said Phil.
The man stretched out a hand, all muscle and meat. ‘Detective Sergeant Beresford, sir. DCI Franks sent me. I’m your lift to Colchester.’
Phil shook it. Powerful, and Beresford knew it. No crushing finger games. Not needed. Phil would have hated to be on the receiving end of it. He almost smiled. Franks wasn’t joking when he said he’d send him a bodyguard. ‘Of course you are.’
‘D’you need to get anything?’ asked Beresford, pointing back towards the door.
‘Yeah, give me a minute. You want to come in?’
‘I’ll just stay here, sir, if it’s all the same to you.’
Barrel of laughs, thought Phil. The drive to Colchester’s going to fly by.
Phil went back into the house. Marina was at work, Josephina at school. He had filled a holdall with enough stuff to last two or three days. He didn’t think that the investigation would be wrapped up in that time, but he didn’t intend to be there longer than that. At least not initially. He had made a promise to Marina on waking and he intended to keep it.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. I won’t stay there longer than I have to.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
‘I know you,’ she had said, a resigned smile on her face. ‘You’ll get drawn into the investigation. You won’t be able to help yourself but you will.’
‘I won’t. I promise. Franks can sort it out. I’ll give them what I can then come straight back.’
They had held each other longer than they had for ages after that.
He grabbed his bag, slung it over his shoulder. Took a last look round at his home, went out, locking the door behind him.
A big, heavy Vauxhall was parked in the street. An Insignia. Silver and powerful-looking, it screamed unmarked police car. Before they reached it, Phil stopped, put his hand on Beresford’s arm. Beresford stopped moving, looked at him.
‘Before we go any further, could I see some ID?’
‘Sure,’ said Beresford, putting his hand into his pocket. He drew out a warrant card, handed it over. Phil took it, examined it, turning it over in his hands. He knew the things to look out for, how to spot a fake. But this wasn’t it. This was genuine. He handed it back.
‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said.
‘I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t asked to see it, sir.’
‘Quite right.’
Beresford took the holdall from Phil, swung it into the boot of the car. Straightened up, looked at Phil. Quizzical.
‘Something wrong, DS Beresford?’
‘Well, it’s probably not my place to say it, sir, but DCI Franks wanted you to go straight to the station.’
‘And that’s where we’re going, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir, but…’
‘But what?’
‘I just assumed from your clothes that… I mean we just won’t have time to go to your hotel first for you to change. DCI Franks likes his officers to be suited at all times.’
Phil smiled. ‘I’m sure DCI Franks has seen a man in a pair of jeans before. He’ll get over it. Let’s go.’
Beresford didn’t reply. They drove away.
Out of Birmingham city centre, onto the M6. Then from there, the M1 to the A14, the wide featureless expanse of motorway giving way to something more scenic. Or it would have been had the road not been shrouded in fog and drizzle. Beresford all the while driving cautiously but not timidly. With restrained power. Like there were several more gears he could step up through if needed.
Phil’s initial thoughts had been proved right. Beresford wasn’t one for conversation. The radio had been playing when he’d started the car but he’d turned it off immediately. Some right-wing phone-in host berating his callers.
‘You can keep it on if you like,’ Phil said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘Better not, sir.’
And that had been that. Phil wished he had insisted on taking his own car. At least that way he could have played music as they drove. His own choice of music. God only knew what Beresford would have listened to.
Phil took out his mobile, texted Marina.
Been picked up. On the way. Love you. Xxx
Pressed Send, put it away again.
On the A14 Phil tried to talk once more.
‘How’s the investigation going, then? Into the three dead men?’
Beresford frowned, as if he didn’t know whether he should answer. Or indeed which answer to give. ‘It’s progressing, sir.’
Phil gave a small laugh. ‘You’re exploring several avenues and examining every lead, right?’ He shook his head. ‘Come on, DS Beresford, I’m not a punter. I’m just asking how it’s going.’
Beresford thought for a while before answering. He gave a quick, unreadable glance towards Phil then turned back to the wheel, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. ‘It’s… we don’t have many leads as yet.’
‘Have you identified the victims?’
‘Not yet. It’s proving difficult. We’ve contacted MisPers, sent out descriptions. No matches yet.’
‘PMs? Forensics?’
‘Lots of alcohol in their bloodstreams, it looks like. The one thing they all had in common. Some evidence of drug use. They’re still looking to see how much and how long ago that was.’
‘And no one saw anything.’ A statement not a question.
‘Only the people who found the bodies. We checked their backgrounds out. Nothing to link them to each other, nothing in their backgrounds to link them to the victims.’
‘So far as you know.’
‘Yes, sir. But we’ve shown them pictures of all
three victims. None of them know any of them.’
Information given, Beresford fell silent once more.
Phil settled back in his seat. Wondered what exactly he could add to the investigation.
It was going to be a long journey.
7
Work. That’s what Marina thought would take her mind off things. Work.
She sat at her desk in her office at Birmingham University, the once temporary arrangement now looking more permanent. Dark wood bookshelves covered the walls, initially filled neatly, now overflowing and haphazard. Framed photos of Phil and Josephina rested on desk surfaces. Journals, periodicals and magazines accumulated in piles all around. The room looked slightly chaotic but still managed to retain a kind of academic order to it. Framed prints hung in between the bookshelves, mainly Edward Hopper. Marina thought she had been expected to put something on the walls that reflected her subject, psychology. Something like Escher or even Magritte. Something that could become a talking point for the students who visited, get them revealing layers of meaning in the work, become some kind of symbol or metaphor for the study of the mind. But Marina wanted Hopper.
He wasn’t a great painter, she thought, not in a technical photorealist way, but something about his sketchy, almost blankly realised characters stuck in often bleak environments while the light, usually luminous and penetrating, fell somewhere else, invited constant questions. Who were these people? Why were they drawn to that particular spot? What was their relationship with the other characters in the paintings?
Nighthawks, his most famous piece, showed disparate figures sitting round a diner counter at night. None of them touching or close to the others. Office at Night showed a man at a desk and a woman at a filing cabinet. Light came in from somewhere, missing them both. Marina liked to imagine what went on before and after the moment Hopper had captured them. The psychogeometry of the spaces in between them. The lives they lived, the values they held, what they meant – or didn’t mean – to each other. If that wasn’t a psychological view of painting, and a valid reason for hanging them on her walls, she didn’t know what was.
But she wasn’t looking at them now. She had marking to do. Piles of essays from second-year students on reinterpreting and modernising Jungian archetypes. Get them to think creatively but constructively. She tried to get involved in their arguments, correct and question with a light hand where possible, condemn and contradict only as a last resort. She had hoped that doing this would take her mind off Phil and his journey. And it did, intermittently. But something she would read, or a random thought would spark within her and she would find herself thinking about him again. Wondering. Hoping.
Her phone, beside her on the desk, pinged. She glanced at it. Smiled. A text from Phil.
Been picked up. On the way. Love you. Xxx
She read it twice, the smile not moving from her face. Tried to break it down, squeeze every last item of information, both real and imagined from it. He was on the way. In a car. Franks had sent a driver. Someone he could trust, someone who would keep Phil safe. So there was nothing to worry about. Nothing.
She went back to work, resolved to become as involved as she could with the essays.
She did, not noticing another hour slip away.
Until her phone rang. Her office phone.
She picked up. ‘Dr Esposito.’
‘Marina? Alison Cotter.’
Marina immediately sat up straight, asked what she could do for her.
‘It’s Phil. Just wondering where he is.’
Marina frowned. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, I’ve just had a call from Gary Franks telling me the officer he sent to pick him up, DS Beresford, couldn’t get his car started. Developed some kind of problem, apparently. I went looking round the building for Phil but couldn’t find him. I’ve tried your home number but no reply. Same with his mobile. Any ideas?’
Marina froze. Thought of the previous text.
‘I’m coming in. Right now.’
She ended the call, went straight to the door. Passing a Hopper print on the way: House by the Railroad. Bleak and forlorn. The model for the Bates Motel in Hitchcock’s Psycho.
8
‘So you got a first name, then, DS Beresford?’
‘David,’ grunted Beresford. The word, grudgingly given, seemingly excavated from his body.
‘David. Right.’
‘But everybody calls me Dave.’
‘Dave.’ Phil nodded. ‘Sure they do.’ He checked his watch. ‘You thinking of stopping soon?’
‘DCI Franks told me to get you to Colchester as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m sure he did. But didn’t he say anything about coffee stops or toilet breaks?’
Beresford acted like he hadn’t heard.
‘DS Beresford.’ Phil slipped a blade of authority into his voice. ‘I want to stop.’
Beresford didn’t reply, nodded.
They drove in silence until he found a Little Chef on the A14, pulled the Insignia off the road, parked up. Turned to Phil. ‘Quick as you can, please, sir.’
Phil got out of the car, made his way to the restroom. Finished up, made his way to the café. Queued. Saw that the coffee was instant and picked up a bottle of water instead. There weren’t many things Phil couldn’t abide but instant coffee was one of them. No excuse, he thought, this day and age, for instant. No excuse. He paid for the water, went back to the car.
Beresford looked like he hadn’t moved. He started the car, not looking at Phil, and drove away.
‘So,’ said Phil, once they were on the road and had gone some distance, ‘you got any hobbies, Dave?’
Beresford shrugged. ‘Play golf. That’s about it.’
Phil nodded, wished he hadn’t said anything. Nothing worse than a golf bore. Thankfully Beresford didn’t feel the need to expand on that. Phil went back to looking out of the window.
He may have nodded off. In fact he was sure of it. He sat up, looked around. Still on the road. He leaned over to the back seat where he left his jacket, felt inside for his phone, thought of checking for emails or texts. Couldn’t find it. Tried his jeans pocket. Not there either. Felt around on the seat. Nothing.
‘You seen my phone, Dave?’
Beresford kept his eyes on the road. ‘No, sir.’
Phil checked once again. ‘You sure?’
‘Sure, sir.’
Phil frowned. ‘Must have put it in my bag.’ He thought back, tried to remember. He had texted Marina. Put the phone back in… his pocket. He felt again. No phone. Had he left it in the Little Chef? No. He didn’t take it in with him. He tried looking round, seeing if it had fallen out underneath the seat.
‘Do you need it, sir?’
Phil straightened up. ‘I just thought I’d check my work emails. That’s all.’
‘Won’t be long now, sir. We’ll be there soon.’
Phil nodded. Glanced across at Beresford. The DS was sweating. Despite it not being particularly warm.
Phil began to feel uneasy. He didn’t know why, couldn’t explain. Just a feeling. But it was the kind he had come to trust over the years.
‘Can you stop, please, DS Beresford? I need to find my phone.’
Beresford didn’t reply.
‘DS Beresford? Hello?’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Beresford, sweating even more now, his voice shaking slightly, ‘I can’t stop.’
‘DS Beresford. I’m ordering you to stop. Right now. Pull over and stop.’
‘I… I can’t, sir…’
Beresford pushed harder on the accelerator. Phil looked round. Something wasn’t right. Seriously not right.
‘DS Beresford. Stop right now. I’m commandeering this vehicle.’
Beresford ignored him.
‘I’m your superior officer and I’m telling you —’
‘Just don’t move…’ Beresford shouting now. But not angry, just like a pressure cooker about to blow. ‘Stay where you are…’
Keeping one hand on the wheel and increasing his speed, he reached into his jacket and produced a taser. Pointed it at Phil.
Phil just stared. Open-mouthed.
‘Listen, sir,’ said Beresford, not able to look Phil in the eye, ‘I really don’t want to use this. Not on a superior officer. Just do what I tell you and don’t give me cause.’
‘Why would I give you cause, DS Beresford?’ Phil tried to keep his voice calm and steady, despite his heart hammering away. So fast he was sure Beresford could hear it. ‘What would I do that would make you use that?’
Beresford increased the speed of the car. ‘Just keep your hands where I can see them. Don’t make any sudden moves. I really don’t want to use this…’
‘Who says you’ve got to?’
Conflicting emotions appeared on Beresford’s features. ‘She… I really didn’t want to, sir, especially not a fellow officer, but I had no choice. She’s… it’s my son, sir. I have to… have to do this for…’
Beresford’s words confirmed all of Phil’s fears. He felt his heart sink as he tried to find the right words – any words – to say. ‘Look,’ he said eventually, ‘you don’t have to do this, Dave. You don’t. Just stop the car now, give me the taser and we can sort this out. OK? Just do that and we can sort this out.’
Beresford stared straight ahead, some kind of struggle being waged on his features.
Phil kept on. ‘Your son, that right? She’s threatened your son?’
Beresford nodded. ‘More than that.’ Moisture appeared at the corners of his eyes. Tears or sweat, Phil wasn’t sure which.
‘That’s… that’s understandable. Your behaviour – this – is understandable. If we’re talking about the same person then I know what you mean. She threatened my daughter too. And my wife. But I didn’t let her win. I can’t let her win. And you… you can do the same, Dave. Can’t you? Just… just stop the car, hand over the taser and we can make this all go away.’
