by Sarah Hilary
Aidan didn’t say anything smart or vicious about Bevan’s injuries. Contrary to Ferguson’s expectations, he exhibited no pride in the vengeance his son had inflicted on his captor, knowing what its consequences might mean for Finn’s future.
He kept his hands linked on the table, his eyes fixed on her face.
‘What can I do?’ he said seriously. ‘Tell me.’
Outside the prison, Lorna Ferguson was waiting in her Range Rover Vogue, to escort Marnie back to the station. ‘How’s Mr Duffy?’ She leaned to open the passenger door, revealing dark roots to her platinum hair, before straightening in the driver’s seat. ‘Grateful, I hope?’
‘He’s going to help.’ Marnie fastened her seat belt. ‘Or he’s going to try.’
‘Did you tell him your theory about this woman, Zoe Marshall?’
Marnie shook her head. ‘Just that we need his help.’
‘Well, he’s around your little finger, thanks to Finn. That’s a nice pet to have. Now you just need this theory of yours to play out, and who knows? We might be talking promotion.’
When Marnie didn’t speak, Ferguson glanced her way. ‘Is the theory giving you cold feet?’
‘Not the theory. Just the practice.’
Proving it. Arresting Zoe, and making it stick.
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for letting me run with this.’
‘I messed up,’ Ferguson shrugged. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
60
Noah dropped his keys into the bowl on the hall table, listening to the silence in the flat. ‘Dan?’
‘Bathroom,’ Dan called back. His voice was thinned down.
In the bathroom, he was washing his elbow at the sink. ‘Came off my bike.’ Blood, and grit. A deep graze on his left temple. ‘I’m okay.’
Noah took charge of the first aid, sitting Dan on the side of the bath, taking what he needed from the cabinet. ‘How’d it happen?’
‘Black ice. Being stupid. It’ll teach me to make cracks about you and Eric Radford.’
Noah cleaned the cuts and smeared antiseptic cream over the damage, taping dressings in place. Dan’s shoulders shook. He turned his head away from the light.
‘Hey,’ Noah said. ‘Look at me?’
Dan looked. His pupils were blown by shock. ‘The bike’s a write-off. I’m sorry . . .’
The tap was dripping into the sink, an oddly dry sound.
Dan’s hands curled at the lip of the bath, holding on, his bones too near the surface of his skin, the red smell of his blood under the pink of the cream.
Noah reached to close off the dripping tap.
He rested a hand on the wall and said, ‘Tell me.’
‘It was an accident,’ Dan tried. ‘I’m sure— It was an accident.’
Anger took a scoop out of Noah’s stomach. ‘A car?’
‘A Merc. He—’ Moving his hand, jerkily. ‘Cut across me.’
These top boys are wearing Moschino and driving Mercs.
‘Did he stop?’
‘No, but when was the last time you saw anyone do that in London?’ Dan searched Noah’s face, looking desperate. ‘It wasn’t— I don’t think it was deliberate.’
‘But you’re not sure.’
‘Noah . . .’
‘Yes?’ He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice.
Dan shook his head. He didn’t believe it was an accident, or he’d have argued longer.
‘Where’s Sol?’ Noah asked him.
‘Sleeping, on the sofa.’
‘Right.’ He moved, shoving shut the door of the cabinet.
‘Where’re you going—?’ Dan straightened, sounding scared.
Noah smiled at him. ‘To make you a cup of tea.’
In the kitchen, he filled the kettle and clicked it on.
While it was heating, he looked in on Sol.
He was sleeping on the sofa, just as Dan had said. Expensive trainers on the floor, cheap watch on the table. A new smartphone. His head was half-buried under the blanket that Dan had brought out of storage for him. He wasn’t snoring, he never snored. His sleep was the sleep of the dead or the new-born, deep and contented and undisturbed.
Your brother. He’s your brother.
Noah saw his father’s face, and his mother’s, distant with censure. Shutting him out. Some things cannot be forgiven, he’d grown up hearing that. Some things put you out in the cold and kept you there, with no way back. Be careful what you walk away from, and what you walk towards. A bad family’s better than an empty sty. If a finger stinks, you don’t cut it off.
He could hear the kettle boiling. Sirens in the street. Dan, getting dressed.
Sol slept on, curled under the blanket.
Some things can’t be forgiven.
Noah walked to the kitchen and poured the tea.
Then he took out his phone, and made the call.
61
Harry Kennedy took a seat by the window with its dizzyingly tall view of London; one of the newer high-rise restaurants spreading like a rash over the smarter parts of town.
Zoe had been here a while, long enough to have lost the look of cold that haunted the faces of those like Harry more recently arrived. She’d kept her parka on; the air conditioning was a tribute act to the weather outside. ‘Thanks for saving the table.’ She tucked her fist under her chin and smiled at Harry. ‘It’s a nice spot. Just a good job we have a head for heights.’
‘Have you ordered?’ Harry shed his coat, but didn’t sit. ‘I’m going to the bar. I could get us some food?’
‘I’ve got a ginger beer coming, thanks.’
‘Great. I’ll be right back.’
At the bar, Harry kept his eyes on the staff, away from the CCTV camera fixed high on the wall to his left. He ordered a second ginger beer and a bowl of rice crackers before returning to where Zoe was sitting with her head turned to the view.
The sun still touched the city here and there, that low winter sun which was slow to rise but lingered, reluctant to set. Plate glass dazzled in all directions. In half an hour, the city would be punchy with neon.
‘Lovely evening,’ Harry said.
She turned to face him, her eyes flooded by the city’s reflection, filled with tiny shards and the slow slink of the Thames below them. ‘Long day, though.’
‘We got through it.’
‘Yes . . .’
‘Hey.’ He reached for her wrist. ‘We did.’
‘Ollie didn’t.’
Harry waited before he said, ‘Ollie was lost years ago.’
‘He shouldn’t have been,’ she gave back fiercely. ‘People shouldn’t just lose kids.’
This was going to be tougher than Harry had anticipated.
‘At least Finn’s safe . . .’ He knuckled the bridge of his nose. ‘You know he’s saying there was someone at the hospital last night. A woman.’
Zoe reached for her drink, not speaking.
‘DI Rome’s about the only person who believes him. Everyone else, doctors, psychiatrists, they’re all saying PTSD. One has a theory about abandonment – Finn’s conjuring his mum because God knows where else she’s been in his life just lately. He’s in a bad way, poor kid.’
‘This job . . .’ She ran her thumb around the lip of her glass. ‘I hate it.’ She drank a mouthful and set the glass down with a snap. ‘And now he’ll get juvenile detention because of the knife.’
It wasn’t a question, not quite, but it was close enough.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Harry said. ‘But DI Rome has other plans.’
‘I’m glad.’ She put her glass at arm’s length. ‘I hope she gets him proper help. Children’s Services, what a joke—’ She dialled it down. ‘Sorry, I’m spoiling the vibe. It is a lovely evening.’
Harry helped himself to a rice cracker. ‘I’ll do better next time.’
‘Better?’
‘Ginger beer and stale crackers. Not much of a thank you.’
‘You didn’t need to thank me.’ Friction in
her neck and fingers.
She looked little, light, but she was made of muscle. If Harry were to stand, even if he did it quickly and with his height advantage— If he picked her up and threw her at the expensive view, she’d fight back. Reinforced, just like the windows; the higher they climbed, the tougher the glass.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ Harry said, ‘for Tobias. And the rest of the Crasmere Boys. We’d never have reached them without your help.’
‘Great.’ Her voice dulled. ‘More kids in trouble because of me.’
‘Not in trouble. Out of it. You know where gangs lead, what that life means.’
She jerked the neck of her jumper, a flash of white puckering the base of her throat as if someone had tugged a loose thread under the smooth skin. ‘Sorry . . .’ She pressed the jumper back into place. ‘It’s been a long day.’ Forcing a smile. ‘I should just’ve said no.’
‘To what?’
‘This.’ She touched the back of his hand, awkwardly. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘For drinks after work?’ He lifted his glass to his lips.
Her eyes flickered into focus. ‘Oh God.’ She took her hand away. ‘Am I making an arse of myself? I’m making an arse of myself. I thought—’
‘My fault,’ Harry said. ‘Should’ve just sent you a text.’
They smiled at one another. A boat went by on the water, trailing light and noise. The air changed: a helicopter churning the sky.
Marnie couldn’t see the helicopter. It was out of range of the CCTV camera above the bar, the transmission from which was playing live on the monitor in the manager’s office where she was seated, several floors below the restaurant. Harry’s phone picked up the chop of the helicopter’s blades, just as it picked up the smaller sounds of his and Zoe’s conversation. Between that and the CCTV, Marnie was able to observe everything which was unfolding at the table by the window.
‘I like stale crackers,’ Zoe was saying.
‘In that case,’ Harry handed her the bowl, ‘please.’
When Marnie had told him what was going through her head, he’d listened. She’d seen him thinking, ‘You’re wrong, you must be wrong,’ because he’d worked with Zoe for over a year and he liked her. But he’d kept his mouth shut and his mind open, and thank God he did, because Marnie could not have done this without him. She’d given him all the evidence she had, told him what was missing because paperwork had been lost, or stolen. Plenty was missing. She’d admitted how much of it was gut feeling, which Harry didn’t seem to mind, since their work relied on it.
‘She trusts you,’ Marnie had said, thinking, ‘I trust you.’ It’d shaken her how much that mattered.
A waiter blocked her view of the scene, collecting empty glasses from the table. Harry ordered another round and the man moved away, letting Marnie see them again.
Harry, and Zoe.
Behind them, the sun was sinking fast now, draining the gold from the office blocks, making way for the night’s neon. The helicopter had moved east, taking its sound with it.
‘DI Rome’s got other plans for Finn?’ Zoe said. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me. I could use the good news.’
‘I shouldn’t.’ He rubbed a hand over his head, as if rinsing off the last of the day’s cold. ‘It’s good news, though. For Finn. She’s got a reputation as a dragon slayer.’
‘She’s a survivor.’ Zoe picked a loose thread from her sleeve. ‘Gotta love a survivor.’
‘Easy to see why Bevan fixed on her,’ Harry agreed, ‘though I’m wondering how it’s going to hit her now that—’
‘Ginger beers?’ The waiter had fresh glasses stacked with ice cubes so huge they’d have intimidated the Titanic. He took the lids from the bottles, pouring a measure for each glass.
‘How what’s going to hit her?’ Zoe asked, when the waiter was gone.
‘What?’
‘You were saying you wondered how it was going to hit her now that . . .?’
‘Sorry, not my story to tell.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘You’re sure you don’t want some food?’
Zoe took up a fork, using it to fish the ice from her glass. ‘I heard about her foster brother, from the news. What is it with tabloids and dead bodies?’ Contempt in her voice, and that special empathy one professional gives to another when each is trying to sidestep sentiment. ‘It’s not enough they have Ollie for their headlines, they had to go digging up her parents. Shit—’
An ice cube skated into her lap. If it was deliberate – to edit his impression of her interest in Marnie – it was expertly done. She fished the cube up and dropped it onto her napkin. All the ice was out of her glass.
‘You wouldn’t like to do mine?’
Harry was joking, but she took his glass and began scooping out the ice.
Marnie watched her small fingers, round wrists, the neat way she judged the angle of the fork.
Harry was watching, too. ‘Her foster brother’s dead. He was found a couple of hours ago.’
The fork rang a note from the glass.
Zoe lifted her big eyes to his face.
‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ He shook his head, warningly. ‘But it’ll be on the news soon enough. You’re right, the tabloids love a dead body.’
‘God.’ She gave back his glass, pushing her hands into the pockets of her parka. ‘That’s . . . I don’t know what that is. Good, or bad? How does she feel about it?’
‘I don’t know. I heard it from DS Jake. She’s had to go out there, of course, to Cloverton.’
‘When did it happen?’ The city stained her face with its neon. ‘And how?’
‘They’re not sure. Suicide, or murder. He was hanging in his cell.’
She shut her eyes and shuddered. For a second, there was revulsion on Harry’s face, but he’d wiped the expression before she’d reopened her eyes.
In the manager’s office, Marnie held her breath, waiting for Zoe to excuse herself. To stand and head for the unisex loos with their hammered zinc doors. But she stayed seated, hands in the pockets of her parka and—
We got it wrong, Marnie thought, her throat squeezing shut. This plan of hers and Harry’s was smoke on the wind, with an incoming Arctic blast of disciplinary procedure.
Go and make your phone call. You need to be sure, you always need to be sure. It’s why you couldn’t stop. It’s why Kyle died, and Carole. You need to be sure. So make a phone call—
Finn’s father had a handset taken from his friend, Jacob Collins, who’d been persuaded that it was safest in Aidan’s keeping. Two of the calls received by the phone had been traced to a handset belonging to Huell who was still in hospital recovering from his amateur vasectomy. Which meant Zoe knew how to contact her man inside Cloverton, to confirm Stephen’s death. Except—
Zoe wasn’t moving from her seat by the window.
‘Makes you realise how lucky we are.’ She put her hands on the table. ‘Having families that haven’t imploded. At least— Yours are all good, yes?’
Back to the empathy, an eyebrow raised at Harry, not quite a smile.
Marnie’s skin crawled. The moment, if it’d ever been there, was passed. Gone. There was only Harry, hung out to dry by this insane plan of hers—
Buzzing, from her coat pocket.
She reached for it, pushing back the chair and standing for a second with one hand propped on the desk where the CCTV was still playing on the monitor.
So many flights up to the restaurant from the manager’s office, Marnie lost count.
Disorientating, to see the widescreen version of the scene she’d been viewing on the monitor downstairs. Worth it nonetheless, to find herself reflected in the woman’s wild eyes.
Harry turned in his seat to see what was making Zoe stare.
‘DS Kennedy. Ms Marshall. Hello.’ Marnie had the sharp scent of traffic on her clothes. And a smartphone in her hand. ‘I’m afraid Mr Collins isn’t taking calls this evening.’ She held the phone where Zoe could see it. ‘Or texts.’
Movement across the table, but Zoe was too slow.
Harry clamped her wrist before her fingers could reach the fork.
‘Pocket of her parka,’ he told Marnie. ‘She must’ve texted that blind.’
‘Just one of her many talents . . .’
Zoe hadn’t taken her eyes from Marnie’s face.
Green eyes, full of the sun that was at the foothills of the city, a tight bright line breaking to black above the river, the last of its light burning back from the curved surface of her stare.
62
At street level the restaurant was poorly lit, its lobby a concrete box, uncarpeted. The Arrest Support Team shook their heads at Marnie. ‘Car won’t start. Cold battery, we reckon.’ They shivered in their uniforms. ‘We’ve called it in, but the traffic’s a joke. We’ll have to hang around here for a bit.’
A couple in smart suits swung through the main entrance and crossed the lobby to the lifts, trailing a shockwave of cold air. Marnie set her teeth. They couldn’t wait here. It wasn’t secure, for one thing. Her own car was back at the station. She’d taken the tube after looking at the traffic news. The ASTs were right, it was a joke. ‘Should we cuff her?’ one of them asked.
Zoe stood at Harry’s side, her eyes as vacant as a child’s. The plate glass walls made a fish tank of the lobby, putting them on show for passing crowds and cars. A headline waiting to happen: Met Police arrest promising young campaigner for children’s rights. The adverse publicity concerned Marnie less than the prospect of a prejudiced jury, or a mistrial.
‘How long’s this wait likely to last?’
‘Could be ten minutes, or fifty.’
London’s streets were locked with cars and lorries, the winter grinding everything to a halt. At least Noah had made it to the hospital, staying with Finn until this was over. Marnie checked her watch, and her phone. Fifty minutes for a squad car then a slow crawl to the station. It felt as if the city was conspiring with the weather, against her.
‘One of you wait down here for the car,’ she told the ASTs, ‘the other come with us.’
