Her Last Secret

by P L Kane

  He looked up then. ‘I … I found Jordan’s diary, Matt.’

  ‘What?’ His eyes went wide then. ‘But … but our people checked her room, they would’ve—’

  ‘She hid it. She hid it really well.’

  ‘Fuck,’ was all Matt could manage.

  ‘Yeah … that.’

  ‘But you can’t … Why haven’t you told anyone about this?’ He leaned back on his seat in the booth. ‘You can’t … Jake, do you realise how much trouble you’d be in if—’

  ‘Please,’ said Jake. ‘You can’t say anything about this. It’s … the diary’s kind of private.’

  ‘Of course it’s private, it’s a diary!’ Matt couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Does Julie know about it?’

  Jake gave a shake of the head. ‘And I’d rather she didn’t. Not yet. I know it was wrong to take it, but … Look, I’ve been getting to know her in those pages. That might not make much sense to you, but—’

  ‘It makes all the sense in the world,’ Matt told him. ‘Doesn’t stop it from being highly illegal.’ He knocked back his drink in one, another double. Maybe he could just keep on drinking until he forgot that Jake had told him this. ‘And there’s stuff in there that points towards Bobby in the run-up to the attack?’

  Jake nodded. ‘She says she’s frightened of him, his mood swings. He was also quite jealous of other guys apparently.’

  ‘Holy shit!’ Matt wiped a hand down his face. ‘Jake, you have to turn that in.’

  ‘I … I can’t. There’s other stuff in there, Jordan wouldn’t—’

  ‘We can say you just found it, or you were scared to hand it in because you took it without thinking.’

  ‘I’m not scared to,’ Jake told him, lip jutting out.

  ‘You’re not thinking clearly, you weren’t when you took it. Grief can do strange things.’

  ‘Matt, please don’t tell anyone about this. I need to work through it on my own.’ His hands were clasped together, almost like he was praying to his old friend.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to do that … No, wait, I can. You asked me to put you within strangling distance of Bobby Bannister, didn’t you?’

  ‘And you did it,’ Jake reminded him.

  ‘For you!’ Matt said, jabbing his finger across the table. ‘But this is too … It’s evidence, Jake.’

  ‘You said yourself, it’s all over bar the shouting. It’s not like anyone needs this to see him go down.’ Jake sighed.

  Which was technically true. They had everything they needed to put Bobby away for a long, long time. Put him inside where he’d never see the light of day again; the diary would just make the whole thing a lot … cleaner. It was motive, pure and simple – why couldn’t Jake see that? ‘That’s really not the point. There’d be no way Sam could argue reasonable doubt if we had that on record.’

  Jake frowned. He obviously hadn’t considered that. ‘And do you think she could get him off on reasonable doubt?’

  Matt opened his mouth, then closed it again. Shook his head, answering honestly: ‘No. Not a chance. But that’s—’

  ‘Not the point. Yeah, I know. Look, I wish I could make you understand …’

  Understand what? How crazy he was acting and had been acting since all this began? Matt actually, really did. Was trying to at any rate. People could go a little nuts sometimes, they just needed the right trigger. And he was trying to help his friend as best he could. But there were limits, there had to be. He was a policeman for heaven’s sakes – there were enough compromises already on the force for his liking. Too much looking the other way, too many sacrifices …

  That was when he looked up and noticed the time, when the bell for last orders went. ‘Let me get us one more, for the road,’ Jake insisted.

  Matt let out another long breath, but nodded. He knew Jake was only trying to stall, to get him to agree to say nothing about this. Even the drink felt like a bribe now, instead of how it was probably meant. He accepted it anyway, drinking half practically straight away. ‘We’d better think about ordering a taxi soon,’ said Matt. ‘They get booked up, and I’m not dragging Linda out of her bed to run us back again.’

  ‘Wasn’t expecting it.’

  Matt knew he wasn’t, didn’t know why he’d said it. ‘So …’

  ‘So …’ Jake threw back at him. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I really don’t.’

  ‘Look, just give me a little more time,’ Jake said.

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘It’s … Matt, just give me a bit of time. That’s all I ask. Then I promise I’ll do the right thing. You can forget I ever told you in the first place, nobody would ever know.’

  ‘Apart from me.’

  ‘Yeah, apart from you.’ Jake looked sad about that; he knew what he was asking. How big the favour was … again.

  Matt finished his double and got out his phone – started to punch in the numbers. He saw Jake shift about, looked like he was about to say something when Matt spoke up: ‘Hi, could I order a taxi, please. The Peacock …’ The person at the other end queried where it was. ‘Yep, that’s the one,’ Matt told him.

  Jake finished up with his whiskey, too, then followed Matt as he headed for the door to wait outside. The air was chilly, sobering up the DC a little as he stood there, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, hands shoved into the pockets of the jacket he’d tugged on. If he remembered rightly, he had a bottle of brandy at home in one of the cupboards. He might just continue with this session at home, on his own. Katherine would probably be in bed when he got back anyway; she had work in the morning.

  His friend stepped forward at that point, looked like he was about to say something when the taxi crested the hill and made its way towards them, stopping right outside the pub.

  The driver, wearing a flat cap, opened his door and half-climbed onto the roof to shout over the top of the car. ‘Newcomb?’

  ‘That’s us,’ Matt answered, getting into the front and leaving the back for Jake – same as he had on the way here. He made conversation with the driver on the journey back to the hotel, various topics including the match that had been on in the pub (‘They was robbed tonight, I tell you … robbed.’) and, eventually, events in the city of late (‘I told our girl, you want to stay in for a while. Getting too dangerous to be out at night lately. Getting as bad as that there Graffitiland over in Granfield, it is …’).

  Every now and again, Matt’s eyes would flick over to the rear-view, which threw back a reflection of Jake in the back, slumped in the corner, staring out of the window.

  ‘It’s the parents I feel sorry for,’ the cabbie was continuing. ‘I mean, young people they don’t see the danger, do they. The parents are the ones who end up suffering when all’s said and done. Don’t ya think?’

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yeah,’ answered Matt, still staring at his friend in the back. ‘Definitely.’ The cabbie had obviously not recognised Jake, one of the very parents he was talking about.

  Then, abruptly, the vehicle halted and they were at Jake’s hotel. ‘Here we go then, squire.’

  ‘I’m staying on, need to get to Hallow Crescent – on the Bradbury estate, if that’s okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the man, clearly relishing the prospect of more scintillating conversation. ‘Whatever you want.’

  Jake was getting his wallet out, fishing for notes. ‘It’s all right,’ said Matt, ‘I’ve got it.’

  He looked like he was about to argue over it, but then Jake just got out of the back. Matt thought about leaving him there without saying goodbye, but then he got out too.

  ‘Thanks for … Thanks for tonight,’ said Jake when he joined him. ‘I needed it.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’

  ‘Think about what I said, will you, Matt?’ He said nothing. Couldn’t come up with anything to say. He’d be thinking about nothing else probably until Jake woke up, realised what he was doing. Then the man leaned in and said qu
ietly: ‘It’s all I have left of her.’

  Matt’s mouth fell open. He hadn’t been expecting that, a final entreaty which really would make him think. About how Jake had lost his daughter, not just the other week but a long time ago. About how the diary was his lifeline, a connection to her now she was gone forever.

  Then Jake leaned in further, and suddenly he was hugging Matt. Hugging like they used to do when they were in their teens, as close as they’d been back then. Brothers. For a moment or two, Matt wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. Then he was patting Jake’s back, returning the bear-hug he was giving him.

  And as quickly as it had started, it was over. Jake was heading into the hotel, leaving Matt on the street staring after him.

  The horn made him start. ‘You ready?’ the cabbie called over, having clambered out again to hang off the frame of the car – his favourite position aside from being in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Matt, getting back in. ‘Yeah, I’m ready. Take me home.’

  Chapter 18

  She’d given him some time, a day or so since the funeral. Hadn’t wanted to disturb him now even, but figured he’d want to know this as soon as possible. He’d been distant, though; not quite with it. Another sleepless night perhaps? Hardly surprising.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’ Sam Ferrara had asked.

  ‘A bad … No, no. What’s up, Sam?’

  ‘Well, you know the sets of numbers you gave me … I thought I should ring and … I’ve figured out what they are.’

  There was silence at the other end, and for a moment she’d thought Jake had lost signal on his mobile. Then he replied: ‘Tell me.’

  Sam knew how important this was to him, that’s why she hadn’t left it. It was getting to the stage where she was doing this just as much for Jake as she was for her client, Bobby Bannister.

  Bobby … The last time she’d seen that poor kid had been the worst yet. Escorted into that cramped interview room at Redmarket nick, because there still wasn’t room for him elsewhere – and she’d been stonewalled at every turn trying to get him transferred. It was almost as if they wanted to keep the lad close, keep a watchful eye on him because he’d murdered one of their own (they thought). Bloody Redmarket folk, she’d encountered the same kind of resistance when she’d moved here herself; that same League of Gentlemen ‘You’re not local’ mentality. All she’d wanted was somewhere quiet after spending years in the capital and getting burned out, becoming jaded by the horrors she’d seen.

  Only to end up here, representing a young man who’d allegedly committed one of the worst crimes this town had seen in recent years. The image of the brutal killer – and Sam had seen her fair share in the past – didn’t really tally with what she’d seen sitting across the table from her, handcuffed to the wood. Just a scared youth, terrified in fact. Lonely and lost after being locked up here for so long, the days and nights blurring into each other.

  He’d looked at her with eyes that were a combination of red and black, sore from crying and dark from lack of sleep. ‘How’re you doing, Bobby?’ she’d asked.

  ‘I …’ Bobby had hung his head, shook it. This was more than just remorse, more than guilt about what he’d done – Sam knew that. She felt it. She’d hadn’t been bullshitting Jake that day when she’d told him she could read people, really read them … sometimes, anyway, if she concentrated hard enough.

  Didn’t work in your private life though, did it, Sam? Don’t even go there …

  She could read Bobby at any rate, knew he was a decent person. Knew he wasn’t laying this on for sympathy or because he thought it might get him off the charge. She could also tell when someone was genuinely grieving for a person they loved as well, and Bobby had loved Jordan Radcliffe, there was no mistaking that. Had that love turned to hate? Sam didn’t think so. Had it caused him to become uncontrollably jealous and commit what they were calling a crime of passion? Sam didn’t think that either, in spite of what Jordan’s father – and the rest of the population – obviously believed.

  ‘All right, you just hang in there,’ Sam told him, reaching over and giving his hand a squeeze. If she’d thought she could get away with it, she might just have gotten up and gone round to give him a hug. He looked like he desperately needed one.

  They’d gone over everything once more, and his story hadn’t changed. Hadn’t wavered in all the time they’d been discussing it. Wasn’t like he was going over a script either, just saying the words as if he’d learned them parrot-fashion. Every single time they’d got to the part where he found Jordan, he’d practically broken down. Sam could see him reliving that moment, seeing her covered in blood on that market stall, going to her and gripping the knife – not thinking, not really caring how it looked at the time – then realising it would do little good to pull it out. Even if she’d been alive, she would have bled out, but she was already dead by the time he reached her, that much was obvious.

  ‘S-She … Her eyes,’ Bobby had said. ‘There was nothing there. No life, you know what I mean?’ The exact opposite of his own, so full of life and emotion, wet with tears that were threatening to break free again. ‘Jordan was always so … When we were together, she was full of energy, wanting to do this or that.’ Bobby had pinched his nose, causing the first blooms of saltwater to break free. ‘She’d dance the night away in those clubs, like a force of nature she was.’

  Sam recalled when she’d been the same, a youngster so full of get-up-and-go she hadn’t needed to sleep. Would study all day and dance all night herself, or do … other things. Before life had intruded, before she’d been hurt so many times. Before she’d become weary and had been worn down by the very life she’d been full to the brim with. She could relate.

  Bobby had realised too late, when he’d heard those sirens, how all this would look to the police. Had woken up from the daze he’d been in (but not the daze he’d committed the murder in, not that) and fled the scene – only to be picked up not long afterwards, covered in Jordan’s blood. So, of course his prints had been on the knife – he’d handled it, thought about trying to pull it out. Didn’t mean he’d put it in there in the first place … although his had been the only set, Sam had to admit.

  Didn’t look good, she had to admit that too. Looked pretty damned awful, but she hadn’t passed that on to her client. She didn’t want to give him false hope, but at the same time didn’t want him going off and doing something silly either. He wasn’t stupid, though, he knew what kind of trouble he was in. Yet all he seemed to care about now was that he’d lost someone he thought could have been ‘the one’. Yes, he was young and she remembered how many guys she’d thought that about back when she was naive enough to think it was possible – but that didn’t stop this hurting for him, didn’t stop it feeling that way. And, she had to remind herself, it actually was possible; look how long her mum and dad had been together and they hadn’t been that much older than Bobby and Jordan.

  Then there was the flipside of that, Jordan’s parents. They’d got together when they were even younger, had been childhood sweethearts, and look how that had turned out. There was still love there, she’d seen that for herself only the other day at the funeral, seen it in the jealous way Julie had been staring across at her when she was anywhere near her ex-husband. If they hadn’t fallen out about Jordan, maybe they’d still be together – maybe they would be again at some point if Julie ever saw that arsehole of a current partner for what he actually was. For what was written all over his face, as far as Sam could see (even without knowing some of the stories about him).

  It would not be a good idea to get in the middle of that, one of the reasons she’d headed off before the wake. But still … her mind kept going back to Jake, thinking about him when she least expected it. At first, she’d put it down to just feeling sorry for him because, you know, who wouldn’t? That was partly why she’d sorted out getting Jake released in the first place that Monday morning; something that seemed so very long ago now.
She’d also wanted an ally, of course, someone who might have the same goal as her: uncovering the truth. Jake Radcliffe thought he had the ‘who’, he just didn’t have the ‘why’ – probably because, in her humble opinion, there wasn’t one. It was what was driving him on his quest, getting him into all kinds of trouble of his own.

  Since she’d got him out of his last predicament – fighting with that guy Drummond because Jake figured he’d had something to do with the ‘why’ – and she’d bought him breakfast or brunch or whatever, they’d seen each other a few times. Enough to call themselves friends? Sam would’ve said so, she wasn’t sure about Jake. Enough that when all this was over, whatever turns the case took, they might see each other some more …?

  Dangerous thoughts, but they were definitely there. He didn’t even live in this town, she reminded herself. They both had busy jobs. Don’t jump into anything too quickly; traditionally that was one of her biggest problems. And the complications this time were staggering. So, for now she would help him – they’d help each other as she had suggested that first time they’d met. And what better way than what she was doing now, how she’d cracked what those numbers he’d given her were all about (though it was still bugging her where they’d come from).

  Who’d cracked it again? Well, she’d had help herself on that score, and more than a bit of luck. A happy coincidence that a colleague, Martin – who’d been at their solicitors apparently since it had set up shop, or close enough – had been working on a boundary dispute. The border between two farms, which had shifted over time without anyone noticing – until one of the farmers had claimed that a section of land was his and had run into issues (something to do with a grab for a well a hundred years back). Sam just happened to be passing Martin’s desk, which was strewn with papers and maps going back years, all part of his ongoing investigation which he was moaning about to anyone who’d listen, and something she’d seen had struck her. Something about the numbers he’d been checking and re-checking …