by Jack Probyn
A smirk grew on Murphy’s face. ‘Excellent. Stellar work, Danika.’
His words filled her with pride. It wasn’t often she was appreciated, either at home or in the job – policing was a thankless occupation at the best of times – but whenever she was, she always stood there awkwardly, uncertain how to accept it.
In the end, she settled on, ‘Thank you, sir.’
Murphy turned his back on her momentarily, handed the documents to a female officer beside him and instructed her to write the information on one of the whiteboards in the Horseshoe. Returning his attention to Danika, he said, ‘I’m impressed. We’ll make a good copper out of you yet. What else have you found?’
‘Nothing at the moment, sir.’ She hesitated, glancing back at her desk. ‘DC Tanner mentioned that there was some CCTV footage coming in from Farnham Golf Club? He believes a suspect may have handed in a key there.’
Murphy’s face illuminated. ‘Is that so? First I’ve heard of it. Thanks for the heads-up. When it comes in I’ll make sure somebody gets on it immediately.’
‘Of course, sir. Is there anything else you need me to do?’
‘No, that’s everything for now.’
Danika nodded and thanked him once again. As she started away, Murphy called her name and waved her back.
‘Actually,’ he began, keeping his voice low. ‘There is something. It’s about Tanner… if he’s not following the chain of command, I want to know about it. Information should be coming through either myself or DCI Pemberton. I want you to keep me up to date with everything he’s telling you.’
‘Of course, sir. No problem.’
There was a pause. Murphy glanced down at her feet and then back into her eyes. ‘Is he asking you to do anything else for him?’
Danika opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her mind had turned completely blank. Then she stuttered, ‘He… yes… he wanted me to… to… to develop a victimology report on Candice.’
‘What about her?’
‘He said that she was acting strangely – that there was something a bit off about her.’
Murphy nodded approvingly. ‘Right. Make that your next project. Anything you find, I want you to tell me about it, all right? I’ll need to sign off on any information you choose to share. Can you do that for me?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Great. Thanks, Danika. You’re a good egg.’
CHAPTER 29
SPORTS DAY
In all the years that Carl Jenkins had been a detective constable with Surrey Police, he’d never experienced as much excitement as he had today. Murders, rapes and other forms of serious crime were only able to offer a certain amount of exhilaration. They were the norm, the mundane tasks required to complete the day so it could roll over to the next. But this… this was like sports day in the yearly school calendar. The day everyone looked forward to, that gave them a renewed sense of enjoyment for sticking out the rest of the school year. It gave him a sense of purpose. And now he was in the thick of it, helping DCI Pemberton to save the life of a middle-aged woman who’d found herself in a predicament, trying to find the third and fourth keys that would, with any luck, remove the device from around her neck. There’s hoping. Or not. The collar device was the hundred-metre sprint, the event everyone crowded behind the thin white tape to see. Where the fastest – and most often coolest – kids got to show off their skills in front of the entire school. Notoriety was either gained or lost in such a small distance, and part of Carl almost wanted to see how it ended at the finish line.
He was headed towards the location of the third key. With a little help from the team in the office, they’d been able to solve the clue:
MONASTERY, O MONASTERY, WHERE FOR ART THOU, O MONASTERY? HIDING IN THE THREE WINDOWS OF YOUR MIND.
If the device was a hundred-metre sprint, then the clues were the four-hundred-metre relay, the second most popular sporting event. Carl had never been much of a runner, but now he was just happy to be a participant.
‘Pull a left after this bend,’ Smithers said beside him. The young, fresh-out-of-school constable had been sent with him by Pemberton and it was Carl’s job to babysit and make sure he followed instructions.
From the little time Carl had spent with the man, he’d realised Smithers had a youthful set of legs and keen eyes. He was full of life and excitement. Eager. Like Carl had once been before the stresses and inane politics of the job had withered him down to nothing but the miserable bastard he was. But, more so, there was a fire to Smithers that he appreciated. The only problem was that Smithers wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, and if he didn’t agree with something – like the original answer Carl had given for the third clue, or the route to get there – then he had no qualms about voicing it. That irked Carl some. On the journey down, Carl had already told Smithers to watch himself, and that any more out of place chat would result in the termination of their journey together.
At the edge of the bend, Carl turned off the road and parked up beside a sign pointing towards the location of the third clue: Waverley Abbey, the ruins of a twelfth-century Cistercian monastery, situated a few miles north of Candice Strachan’s mansion. Home to monks and lay brothers, the abbey had been a celebrated community of worship before it had been suppressed by Henry VIII in 1536 following the dissolution of the monarchies. Now a protected heritage site, the abbey attracted hundreds of visitors a year.
Carl parked beside a wooden fence and alighted the vehicle, the torrential sound of the River Wey gushing over rocks and discarded branches coming from behind them. They followed the signs to the abbey, through a gate, and then along an unmade path littered with mud and rabbit holes. A small lake ran to their right, home to a handful of ducks and geese, gently gliding across the water. Beyond the lake was Waverley Abbey House, a Grade II-listed Georgian mansion that looked out across the fields and abbey.
After reaching the end of the path, they arrived at a turnstile, then continued through a minefield of dog and horse manure until they came to another gate. The English Heritage emblem and information on the site was proudly displayed in front of them. On a good day, Carl would have liked to visit, but now there was no time for him to appreciate the magnificence of the site. That didn’t stop him admiring the view, however.
Over a hundred yards away to his left was a yew tree, its leaves and branches blossoming into a perfect mushroom over the grass. Beneath it was a piece of ruin, rivers of petrified and exposed bark weaving its way through the stones, gradually claiming it as its victim. To its right were the well-preserved north and south transepts of the abbey. Within the transepts were the remains of three lancet windows, the lower stages of which had been intricately built to allow for the cloister on the other side. Beyond it, at the back of the abbey, knots of tourists and families ambled the grounds, marvelling at the magnificence of the site, cooling themselves off with makeshift fans constructed of newspapers and hats.
For a moment, Carl contemplated evacuating the site entirely but decided against it; it was unlikely that anyone would have found the key already and taken it for themselves. It wasn’t in the nature of the type of people who visited these sorts of sites; he always found they were more a ‘look but don’t touch’ type of community.
He and Smithers arrived at the centre pieces of the abbey, the most well-preserved parts of the remains: the undercroft to the right and the monk’s dormitory to the left.
Monastery, O monastery, where for art thou, O monastery? Hiding in the three windows of your mind.
Three windows.
Carl started with the vaulted undercroft first. A portion of the rectangular building on the left-hand side was missing, and the roof was held in place by two pillars, gorgeous archways spreading out across the ceiling like the underside of an umbrella. The ground was dry and course, and small stones – remnants from the walls – had fallen onto the floor. The lower half of the brickwork was darkened a shade of black and covered in moss, evidence of the floods that the
abbey had suffered over the centuries thanks to its proximity to the river. Where there wasn’t evidence of decay, there was evidence of graffiti – brickwork and stones defaced by those ignorant enough to destroy such wondrous feats of history. Those were the real criminals, Carl thought as he reached the back of the undercroft and came to a stop by two windows that looked out onto a row of trees. Somewhere amongst the undergrowth was the river, which snaked its way round the abbey.
Two windows. Not three.
‘I want you to stay here,’ Carl told Smithers, his voice echoing beneath the ceiling. ‘Have a look around and see if you can find something. Also make sure nobody comes in. I’m not expecting it to be heaving with people in the next thirty seconds, but if anyone gives you any lip, get them out of here. They start launching verbal assaults on you, come and let me know. I’ll take care of it.’
‘Absolutely! No problem,’ Smithers said, far too jubilantly for Carl’s liking.
Carl left the young man alone and headed towards the monk’s dormitory. As he entered, he slowed to a halt and absorbed the surrounding atmosphere. It seemed as if the ghosts of everyone who had ever set foot in there were alongside him now, gazing at the wall at the back of the dormitory. The structure was bare, save the skeletons of three windows, nearly twenty metres tall, splitting the wall.
Hiding in the three windows.
Perfect.
Carl carefully edged forward, looking down at the ground beneath his feet, wanting to savour every moment as the rocks and grass squashed under his weight. As he approached the wall, Carl pulled on a new pair of latex gloves. He studied the windows for a moment, wondering if he could uncover the secrets of what had taken place there.
He reached for the centre window and moved a piece of rock he’d noticed nestled at the bottom of the window frame, placing it delicately on the ground before returning his attention to the window. There, hidden beneath the rock, was the key, wrapped tightly in another strip of paper. At the sight of it, Carl let out a small celebratory fist pump.
He was one step closer. Three hundred metres down, another hundred to go.
Now all he needed to do was keep the key safe.
Carl pocketed the small piece of metal against his breast and unravelled the fourth note.
RUNAWAY, RUNWAY, RUNAWAY – YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE. SEVENTEEN MILES OF TARMAC FROM TAKE-OFF SEPARATES YOU FROM TOUCHING DOWN SAFELY BACK ON EARTH.
CHAPTER 30
MINEFIELD
‘I thought you were looking after the kids tonight?’ Pemberton snarled into the phone. She kept her voice low and shifted from one foot to another, struggling to find a comfortable standing position.
‘I know,’ her husband replied. ‘But something’s come up with work. They need me to come in.’
‘Can’t it wait?’ She nestled the phone in the crook of her neck and rolled back her sleeve to check the time. She had only been on the phone for a minute, but it was already beginning to feel like ten.
‘Leakages tend not to wait, love,’ he said, his voice deadpan. ‘Especially if they’re your biggest client.’
‘And no one else is available to do it?’
‘No. I’ve tried.’
Pemberton sighed in despair and ambled away from the crime scene through the beds of flowers to the conservatory at the end of the garden, lest she draw any unwanted attention to herself.
‘When will you be gone?’ she asked.
‘Soon. I’ll need to come back to pick up the boys from school, but then they’ll need someone to look after them afterwards.’
‘Well, I’m sure as anything not going to be able to leave on time. Nowhere near it. I could be here all day.’
‘So you’ve already had to cancel with the girls, no?’
‘I’m definitely going to need a drink after the day I’m having,’ she said, folding her free arm across her chest and planting her hand under her armpit, ‘regardless of what time it is. They’ll wait for me. Even if I only get to see them for five minutes.’
‘Then what do you suggest we do?’
‘You need me to tell you?’
‘I—’
‘Book a sitter.’
‘No.’
‘Come on. Someone we trust.’
‘No.’
‘William – stop being ridiculous. How many times do I have to say it? Not everyone we hire to look after our kids is going to turn out to be a predator. That was one time—’
‘Which was your fault. You convinced me to let him into our home.’
‘I’m not getting into this with you again – I haven’t got time right now. I’m stressed to the max, and the last thing I need is to get into an argument with you over something so trivial and something we’ve both discussed a thousand times already.’
Pemberton paused. There was silence in her ear, save for the sound of her husband’s wheezy breathing. She had won… at long last. But it was bittersweet.
‘Like I’ve told you before, if anything happens to our children under the watchful eye of a babysitter, I will not stop until I find them and hurt them. Just like last time. Surely there’s someone we know who we can ask?’
‘I’ll find out,’ he said and hung up on her.
Immediately after the call disconnected, she scrolled through her address book, searching for another number to dial. It was a phone call she wasn’t looking forward to making. She was going to have to cancel the plans she’d been looking forward to for weeks; it was a nightmare trying to organise anything anyway, let alone an evening for them both to be together without the risk of children and husbands interrupting.
Pemberton found the mobile number in her address book and dialled. The phone rang and rang. Rang and rang. Until it clicked through to voicemail. She sighed and tried again. On the second time, the person on the other line answered.
‘Ma’am?’ he said tentatively, as if he were uncertain it was her on the other end.
‘Mark – where are those files I requested? It’s been a couple of hours now,’ she said, cupping the microphone on the device with her hand, even though the nearest person was a little over a hundred feet away.
There was a brief pause as Murphy registered what she’d said. ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘I’ve been swamped. I’ll have them over to you ASAP.’
Pemberton moved towards the patio doors of the conservatory. She peered in, trying to focus on the inside of the building and not the reflection of the garden behind her. From what she could see, there were four chairs positioned around the edge of the structure, facing the centre. In the middle was a small fireplace, its chimney protruding from the top of the conservatory.
‘Ma’am?’ Murphy insisted. ‘I said I’ve been swamped. I’ll have them back to you as soon as.’
Pemberton snapped to reality. She shook her head and focused. ‘Something’s come up.’
‘What?’
‘I have to cancel tonight. William’s been called into work and I might have to look after the kids.’
‘You’re shitting me?’
‘I wish I was. I tried to argue against it, but he doesn’t want to get a babysitter.’
‘Fucking idiot. The guy’s a tool. You need to break it off with him.’
‘It’s not that easy. You know I’m trying. Slowly.’
‘He’s such a flannel.’
Pemberton shuffled her feet from side to side. She hated letting Mark down like this. It had happened on too many occasions, and she was beginning to think that she might have to fake her own death to even get a chance to speak with him in a non-professional capacity. They had even tried romancing their time together at work after hours, but even that had been interrupted by late-night staff and the cleaning crew. And there were only so many training weekends she could fabricate as an excuse to get away from her husband and kids.
‘What have I said before, Mark?’ she continued. ‘William’s a good guy. And I have my reasons for doing what I’m doing, but you don’t need to make sarcastic com
ments like that, OK?’
‘Sorry, Nic. I was just really looking forward to seeing you.’
‘And so was I. I know we’ve had tonight organised for weeks.’
‘It is what it is,’ Murphy said, his voice rigid.
‘Don’t be like that,’ Pemberton replied, casting a glance over her shoulder. ‘It’s going to be tough, but I’ll make it worth your while when I do eventually get to see you. Maybe we’ll just have to find a nice quiet place in the toilets tomorrow night after work – after everyone’s gone home. Not the most luxurious place, I know, but we’ll have to make sure we don’t have a repeat of last time.’
‘Depends on whether your arsehole husband decides to throw a fit again.’
‘It’ll be all we can afford to risk at the moment. Listen – I’ll speak to him tonight whenever he gets back from work, and we’ll reorganise something soon, OK?’
‘I won’t hold my breath.’
Pemberton sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers. ‘Don’t be like this – please. I do want to see you. I really do.’
‘You sure? Because so far, it doesn’t seem that way to me. I’m always second best.’
‘I have a family – a husband and kids to think about.’
‘A husband you no longer care for and kids you hardly see? Yeah,’ Murphy said. ‘That’s what I thought. Sounds like a real happy family to me.’
He rang off, leaving Pemberton to stand there blankly, staring into her reflection in the window. She closed her eyes, swallowed and exhaled.
She had hoped he wouldn’t say that. She loved her family – her husband, Damian, Jules – but things hadn’t been the same for a long time, especially with William. The arguments. The late nights. The black hole that her libido had fallen into. The revulsion she felt every time he tried to touch her. But there had been a light at the end of it. Mark had made her feel things she’d forgotten existed. Made her feel things she wanted to feel every day. Her marriage had stagnated, and the only thing keeping her from being with him was the crippling guilt she felt every time they met up. The situation itself was a minefield: she was his senior, and if word spread, she could lose her job, and everything she’d ever cared for.
