The Judgement Book

by Simon Hall

  ‘That’s it,’ said Adam, his voice strangely quiet. ‘That’s it.’

  Dan shifted forwards to stare at the plaque. It was fixed to the stone by two thick metal screws. He could see from the shining wear marks across their heads that they’d recently been removed.

  The policemen creaked the toolbox open, found a large, cross-headed screwdriver and positioned it over the plaque. One tried twisting it, but the screw wouldn’t give. The other man had a go. Still no movement.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ muttered Adam impatiently. He wiped some sweat from his forehead. Dan chewed on his ulcer but didn’t notice its stinging pain. All he could concentrate on was the plaque.

  One policeman found a rag in the bottom of the toolbox, wrapped it around the screwdriver’s handle and tried again. His face creased with the effort. The other joined in, forcing his weight around the tool. This time the screw grated and gave, just a little. Panting, they tried again. Now it started to unwind, slowly at first, then smoothly. After a few seconds the screw dropped onto a flagstone. Arthur bent down and picked it up.

  The policemen went to take a brief rest, but Adam chided them on. The detective couldn’t keep still, his black shoes continually shifting on the smooth stone.

  The second screw gave easily. One policeman held the plaque as the other kept working the screwdriver, turning it rhythmically. The shiny metal protruded further and further as it eased out. The thread was almost free. The policeman stopped working, the two officers glanced at each other, then over to Adam.

  He held the look, breathed out hard, nodded. Finally he said simply, ‘Do it.’

  They lifted the plaque from the wall.

  Something fell from behind it, a blur of motion, streaking down the stone, thudding softly into the ground. Their eyes followed as it bounced and settled.

  It was a black book, plain and the size of a pocket diary. It had fallen so some of the pages fanned open. Dan strained his eyes, but couldn’t see any writing. The tension in his chest was such that he was struggling to breathe. He noticed he was trembling.

  He started eagerly forward, but Adam reached out a warning arm. ‘Arthur,’ he prompted hoarsely.

  The technician had snapped on some plastic gloves. He knelt slowly down by the diary and picked it up, then slid it into a large, clear plastic bag and sealed the end.

  ‘You can have a look now, Mr Breen,’ he said, holding it out.

  Adam took the bag and through it turned some of the pages of the book. Dan took a couple of fast steps forward, stood over his shoulder, chewing hard at his ulcer. The two policemen sat down on the toolbox and watched. One shook his head, as if wondering at all this fuss about a small black book.

  Adam kept turning the pages. The first few were blank, then the next, then the next. He got to half way and still no writing. He turned some more pages. They remained blank.

  The book was almost finished and still nothing written there. Not a word. Not a thing.

  Dan felt himself start to sweat harder. Where were the tales of sex and lust, lies and deceit? Where was his entry? Where was Adam’s? Where was the report he needed for the programme tonight?

  Adam got to the final page and now, at last, there were words, scribbled in blue ink, but clear and familiar. It was the same handwriting as the final two blackmail notes. Adam held the pages open, Dan’s face close by his shoulder, reading too.

  “Good try,” it said. “But the Judgement Book lives on. Remember your initial thoughts if you want to find it. They would be DEAD right. This is your final chance.”

  Adam stared at the open pages, then threw the book down onto the flagstones.

  Dan squinted in the sunshine. The lines of red dots of the digital clock above the post office said it was just after ten. Chimes started to ring out from St Andrew’s Church. He had to force his mind to remember where there was a florist in the city centre. He’d never had to find one before. He was struggling to concentrate on anything, but some small logic in his brain told him that if he was going to lose his job he should at least try to save his relationship.

  He found a florist by the banks, a small place, but full of the rich scents and colours of fresh flowers. It was doing a healthy trade. Men who neglected their partners, prompted by the sight of flowers as they withdrew money from the cashpoints, he wondered? It was a clever location for a shop that often traded on guilt.

  Dan had no idea what to buy, but went for the safety of half a dozen red roses. The old lady who ran the shop seemed to find his confusion amusing and recommended he should buy flowers for his girlfriend more often.

  If I still have her I will, he thought.

  He walked south, out of the city centre and towards the Hoe. The sun had climbed higher in the sky now, and the day was growing hotter. People sat at tables outside cafés and laughed together. The sunshine was infectious.

  Adam had stalked back to Charles Cross. Dan asked him what he planned to do next and was surprised by the answer. Adam rarely swore, and when he did it was usually at the mild end of the range. This explosion of profanities would have made a navvy nod with respect. The upshot was he was going to go back through all the case material they had and try to think of what he could do next.

  He wasn’t hopeful. There were only nine hours before the Judgement Book was released to the media. They had very limited time and no leads.

  Dan had asked for half an hour in town to sort out a couple of important matters. He’d been prepared to plead urgent personal reasons, but Adam had just said ‘whatever’. He looked defeated, his shoulders hunched and his tie hanging low on his neck. Dan watched as his friend took out his wallet and stared at a picture of Annie and Tom. He’d never seen the detective look so forlorn.

  Dan tried to come up with some grand vision to solve the case as he walked to Claire’s flat, but his brain was utterly lifeless. What chance did he have if Adam couldn’t think of anything? They needed to find the Judgement Book, it was as simple as that, and they had no idea where it was. He thought of Sarah, sitting in her cell, laughing at them, then ducked as a seagull wheeled over his head. It had become an instinctive reaction. Twice in the last year he’d been hit by their stinking, flying droppings, once right in the face.

  The anger of the memory stirred his brain. There must be another way to help themselves. Lateral thinking, he’d always prided himself on it. When he’d bought his flat, there were three other people who wanted it and they’d all had to submit blind bids. It looked to Dan like a game he could easily lose, and he’d never cared for such lotteries. After remarkably little agonising, he bribed the estate agent to tell him what the other bids were and won the flat by a convenient five hundred pounds.

  It had become a motto. If you can’t win by the rules, there’s only one thing to do. Change them.

  He wondered if there was any way to change the rules here. Well, if they couldn’t find the Judgement Book, how about the other blackmailer? That would be just as good. It would stop them releasing the book and give the police a chance to find it. A tiny hope sparkled in Dan’s mind. Not a bad idea, not bad at all. But how the hell would they find the blackmailer?

  He felt the brief glow of optimism fade. He knew he had no idea.

  Claire lived on the first floor of a converted Victorian house, dating from the 1850s. It was the way the Hoe had evolved, just like in countless other cities, from the showy family homes of the affluent Victorians to the flats of the young and modern middle classes.

  The area was popular, close to the city centre and the sea, but suffered with the clutter of cars all competing for scarce parking spaces in its narrow lanes. It was a haven for seagulls too, who never seemed to rest. After his first couple of sleepless nights staying over and raging at their screeching cries, Dan had bought himself a pair of earplugs. Claire, who could sleep through anything, had never stopped ribbing him for it. The memory made him smile, until he remembered why he was here.

  He fumbled for his key, let himself in to the
exterior door and slowly climbed the carpeted, wooden stairs. They creaked with the rhythm of his steps. Outside the door to her flat, he paused. He felt nervous, jittery, just as he had when he came to pick her up for their first date. It was a sign of just how far he feared their relationship had deteriorated that he didn’t put his key in the door and walk straight in.

  Dan bent over and rested his ear against the door. Inside it was silent. He knew she wasn’t there, but he knocked anyway. There was no answer, so he opened the door.

  The flat was tidy, apart from a couple of mugs and plates on the side of the sink. A chat with a friend over a cup of tea, most likely. Another thought surfaced in his mind and he tried to force it away, but it wouldn’t go, kept nipping at him. Another man …

  No, it couldn’t be. Claire wasn’t like that. But the fear wouldn’t quieten. It kept whispering snidely – how many other men had been sure their partners weren’t like that?

  He shouldn’t snoop, he knew it, however strong the temptation, but he had a quick look around to see if there was anything that might indicate where Claire had gone. Nothing.

  Dan put down the roses on the coffee table and debated whether to leave a note. No, there was no need. She’d know they came from him. The flowers said more than words.

  He’d been trying to keep his eyes away from it, but he couldn’t help looking at the photo of them together on Dartmoor, Rutherford sitting between them. It was her favourite, taken at Christmas, patches of snow on the wiry moorgrass and distant hilltops. Claire liked the way their hair was being blown back by the mischievous Dartmoor wind, how glowing and happy they looked. Her strange little family, she’d called it.

  Dan stopped himself before he could wonder whether they would still be together for a photo next Christmas, or the one after, and whether there might be an addition to the family in that picture.

  He remembered the day well. It was one of those rare photographs that felt genuine, captured their happiness, no need for forced smiles. It’d been taken by a passing rambler he’d waylaid. For once they hadn’t even had to struggle to get Rutherford to sit still.

  They’d gone for a walk out from Princetown, around King’s Tor, then back to the Spray of Feathers Inn for a pint and a pie. Rutherford had got himself stuck in a gully and they’d had to pull him out. Claire fell backwards as the dog escaped, Dan had burst into helpless laughter and she’d tripped him, pulled him down with her and they’d rolled together in the snow.

  And now her voice was in the room, screaming and vicious, bouncing from every wall. The two words from that row, in the MIR.

  “Selfish arsehole!”

  Dan felt a sudden urge to pick up the photo and throw it against the door, enjoy the cascading shards of shattering glass crashing around him.

  Where the fuck was Claire? Why was she ignoring him? Avoiding him? Tormenting him? How could she do this?

  He felt like running around her flat, kicking out at the TV, the stereo, the bookshelves and the CDs, picking up the plates and glasses and bowls in the kitchen and smashing them onto the floor.

  Dan stared at the photo. He took a couple of deep breaths, turned away, closed the flat’s door with an exaggerated calm and walked slowly down the stairs, one leaden foot automatically following another. It was over, his career, his relationship. He might as well start facing it.

  Unless …

  He could never explain where the idea came from, how the defiance fired so quickly through his mind. Perhaps it was the instinct of survival, the human willingness to believe. All he knew was that it was there, a firework in the night. It was a chance where before there was only hopelessness, a possibility where previously there was none.

  Dan stopped, reached out a hand, gripped the banister.

  The idea was growing.

  The only thing they had was that they’d solved the riddle. It might not have led them to the Judgement Book, but that was all part of the blackmailers’ plan to humiliate them. To get another one over on the establishment. To lead them to a false book and laugh at them. To enjoy their defeat and despair.

  So would the second blackmailer be able to resist if they were offered the chance to witness such a humiliation in person?

  The thought gathered impetus. Dan started jogging down the stairs.

  One last chance, he thought. Maybe we’ve got one last chance to save ourselves. But we’ll have to move fast.

  He didn’t notice he’d already stopped thinking about Claire.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  THE MIR SMELT OF defeat. It was hot, despite the open windows and the air tinged with the sour staleness of dry sweat. Dan was reminded of a night spent covering the last General Election, the local Traditionalist Party headquarters, a group of dedicated and driven people who had stayed up all night in hope to await a result which had rendered all their months of work worthless.

  Now it was apparent in the MIR. The movements of the people slow and laboured, lacking urgency or energy. There was nothing left to try for. And it was captured in each expression. No belief, no spark, no hope.

  Adam stood, head bowed over a pile of files and a spread of papers. The bin beside him was full of empty coffee cups and screwed up balls of paper. He didn’t look over when Dan walked in. There were a couple of other detectives on the phones, but their voices were hushed. One kept glancing over at Adam, as though worried for his superior’s sanity.

  Dan tried to force some enthusiasm into his voice. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘We’re not,’ said Adam curtly, shaking his head. ‘We’re stuffed. We’ve got no leads and almost no time left.’ He looked up at the clock on the wall. It was exactly midday. ‘Seven hours and no leads. We’re stuffed.’

  Dan knew he couldn’t talk in front of the others. He had to get Adam somewhere private, and fast. He didn’t have much time. The lunchtime news was on air at half past one. If he missed that, his plan was finished before it had begun.

  ‘Can I have a word?’ he asked the detective.

  ‘Go ahead. I haven’t got anything else on at the mo,’ Adam replied sarcastically. ‘Just trying to catch a blackmailer, save a few more people from suicide and myself from humiliation and the sack.’

  The anger that made him want to smash up Claire’s flat singed Dan again.

  ‘It would be better – if I could have a quick word – in private,’ he said in a strained voice.

  ‘I’m not leaving the MIR until there’s no hope left.’

  One more try, thought Dan. Hold your temper. One more.

  ‘It’ll only take a minute,’ he said determinedly. ‘Please.’

  ‘Here or nothing,’ replied Adam dismissively, looking back at the papers on his desk.

  ‘Adam, for fuck’s sake!’ shouted Dan. The two detectives stopped talking into their phones. The room fell silent. Adam looked up, his eyes narrowing. Dan couldn’t tell if he was surprised or angry. He wasn’t sure he cared.

  ‘I’ve got a fucking idea that might just help us and I want to talk to you about it in fucking private! Is that clear enough for your thick cop head?’

  Adam glared at him, stood up and strode out of the MIR. Dan followed, checking the door was shut behind. The detective stopped sharply in the corridor outside.

  ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he snarled. ‘Never talk to me like that, or you’re out of here and we don’t speak again. Got that?’

  Dan saw his finger jab out at his friend’s chest. ‘Then never put me down like that again – who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘I’m a senior detective with a vital investigation to run …’

  ‘And you’ve asked me here to help! And I’m as much in the shit as you are! And I’ve got an idea, and we haven’t exactly got anything else, have we?’

  Adam’s mouth opened as he tried to snap back, but Dan didn’t give him a chance. ‘I’m only in this because of you! It’s not just your bloody life that’s on the line here. It’s mine too. So do us both a favour.
Lift your head from the pit of your selfish misery and listen to me, will you?’

  The two men glared at each other, their faces set just a few inches apart. Neither blinked. A ridiculous thought grew in Dan’s mind. Were they going to fight, here, in the police station? Then Adam closed his eyes for a second and nodded.

  ‘OK,’ he said quietly. ‘I apologise. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  Dan felt the rage cool. ‘I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.’

  Adam put out a hand and Dan hesitated, then shook it. ‘Let’s forget it,’ they both said at the same time.

  ‘OK, what’ve you got?’ asked Adam.

  ‘It’s got to be quick if it’s going to work. You ready for this?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We need to find the Judgement Book, but we don’t know where it is. But wouldn’t finding the other blackmailer be just as good? It would stop them revealing the Book and give us a chance to find it.’

  ‘True. But there’s just the one tiny problem. We’ve got no idea who or where he or she is.’

  ‘Right. So we have to make him come to us.’

  Adam couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice. ‘And how do you plan to work that little miracle?’

  ‘Our blackmailers want to humiliate us. So let’s give them the chance to do it, and to a huge audience. I don’t think they’d be able to resist.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning we’ve cracked the riddle and we know it’s a fake. But they don’t know we’ve cracked it. So let’s use that.’

  ‘How?’

  Dan thought fast. ‘Here’s how it runs. I go live on our lunchtime news to say you believe you’ve worked out where the Judgement Book’s hidden and you’ll be going to recover it later this afternoon. I guarantee the other blackmailer is watching. They know how close you and I are. They’re bound to want to see what I’m up to and how you’re getting on with the case.’