by Mark Ayre
Christine met Abbie's eye. The detective's glistened with tears, but she found the strength to shake her head.
"You're suspected of assaulting one police officer and shooting another. I can't be talking to you. Whenever I get the chance, I phone my boyfriend or my parents, and we talk. I tell them everything. They're my outlet."
"And do they understand?" asked Abbie. "Or do they watch Line of Duty and think this all must be terribly exciting for you. Do they get the pain, the loneliness? Can they?"
A tear trailed down Christine's cheek. Raising a hand, she wiped it away. Once again, she looked into her empty tumbler.
"They do their best."
"I know they do," said Abbie. "And you're lucky to have them, but that doesn't make you a bad person for thinking they don't quite understand your plight. Because they don't."
"And you do, do you?" said Christine, her tone bitter. "You, the cop killer."
"Last I heard, Kilman wasn't dead," said Abbie. "Also, I didn't shoot him. I did punch Ndidi, but he deserved it. He was attacking Gary."
Christine shrugged a sulky teenager's shrug. "If you say so."
But the detective didn't honestly believe Abbie had shot Kilman. If she did, she wouldn't have held off phoning the police. She would have run screaming from the building if that was what it took to get Abbie locked up.
Abbie took a breath. Christine had bared her soul. Maybe it was Abbie's turn.
"Right now, back home, I have a boyfriend waiting for me, just like you. Our relationship is in its early days. We don't live together, per se, but I think there's every chance he loves me. Stranger still, I think I might be falling in love with him."
A cough overcame Abbie, and she picked up her water, took a long swig. Okay, this was going to be more challenging than she thought.
"At midnight last night, I told this guy a young girl might be in trouble. I had to try to save her. He didn't like it, because he worries, but he knew what I did when we started seeing each other. He'd already told me he'd be okay with it, though this was his first test. So, although he was worried, he bit his tongue. Rather than begging me to stay with him so he could be sure I wasn't in danger, he told me to be safe and to come back to him. I couldn't promise either, but I did anyway because loves makes us weak, and occasionally it makes us liars."
Love makes us weak. That was a phrase straight from the teachings of Ben. No one in love could be an effective soldier or saviour. Heroes had to be alone because once they let people into their heart, they could no longer put their lives on the line to protect the innocent.
That's what he believed. Abbie would prove him wrong.
"I left my boyfriend to come here," said Abbie. "I rushed to this town where no one knows who I am, where I'm alone, where I knew I would face only mistrust and dislike. I did that not because I wanted to; what I want is to be spending the day with my man. I did it because there's a child in danger, and duty, my duty, comes before my happiness."
Christine was enraptured by this story. Abbie was still struggling to tell it. It still hurt to think about it. And Bobby's smile shone brighter in her mind than ever before.
"Most people won't understand how you feel, but I do," said Abbie. "I've spent years putting duty before happiness. I've cut myself off from society. I save lives, but I've been isolated, alone when I'm not protecting the innocent. My only allies are people like Ariana," Abbie waved a hand to the lawyer. "A woman who only a month ago almost drowned trying to murder me."
"That's true," said Ana.
"I know how you feel," said Abbie. "I know how much it sucks. I..." she paused, struggled to find the right words. "Duty is the chain around your neck. You were pushed into this job, and that isn't fair. I wish I could do something to help you. I only hope that in saving Isabella, we can root out the remaining corrupt officers in your local station, so you can go home."
Abbie finished her water. Wanted another but left the glass where it was rather than give Christine an excuse to request another vodka.
"I pray you'll find a way to trust Ariana and me because I think, if we work together, we can uncover what Orion Becker's up to. We can stop him and the officers he has on the payroll, and we can do the most important thing of all: we can save Isabella."
Abbie looked to Ariana, the woman she had turned away, told to go home because she could barely stand to look at her, knowing what Alice's daughter had done.
"You're on board, aren't you, Ana? You'll do what it takes to save Isabella?"
"Hell yeah," said Ana. No hesitation or reservation.
Abbie returned to Christine.
"What about you?" she said. "You still have your phone, I guess, so now's the time to decide. Do we work together to stop Becker? Do we put all our cards on the table to untangle what's going on here and save Isabella? Or do you phone the police? If you want to, I won't stop you, though I'll run. With or without you, I will do my duty."
Christine looked at Abbie. Turned to Ana. Looked into her tumbler and stared at the empty glass for a long time.
Then she looked back up.
"Cards on the table," she said. "Let's save that little girl."
Twenty-Six
Christine insisted on another drink, and this one she poured herself. Thankfully, she went for wine rather than vodka. She emptied a bottle and chucked it into a box in one of the kitchen cupboards. Abbie heard the clank as the new bottle fell on a mountain of others. She tried not to wonder how often that box needed emptying.
There was an unopened bottle in the fridge. Christine offered it around. Ana gratefully finished her vodka and excepted the wine, while Abbie asked for another water.
When they were settled, drinks in hand, Christine began laying her metaphorical cards on a metaphorical table.
It was simple enough. Someone unknown had tipped off the anti-corruption teams following suspicions that certain team members were taking bribes and, in return, protecting local criminals from examination and prosecution. Run of the mill stuff. An investigation was opened, but no one got very excited until irregularities were discovered in the behaviour and bank accounts of DCI Hammond.
"He was careful," said Christine. "Just not careful enough. It didn't take long to discover he was spending a lot of money in cash. Simultaneously, income streams were arriving in his bank account that were unlinked to his salary and bonuses. He was interviewed informally by a couple of anti-corruption agents, and his explanations held up to initial scrutiny. But flags were raised. The detectives agreed something wasn't right. It was decided further, and closer investigation was needed."
Enter Christine Lakes. Hammond was an intelligent man and savvy operator. Having been questioned by anti-corruption officers, it was decided he would be suspicious of undercover operations against him. What was the best way around this? Superior officers decided rather than giving an experienced detective a false identity, they would pluck a newly qualified detective from another department and parachute them into Hammond's team. There would be no need to give this detective a false identity, and her youth and inexperience would less likely incur Hammond's suspicion.
"And he never did seem suspicious," said Christine. "From the day I arrived, he was kind. Took me under his wing, ensured I felt part of the team. A charming, friendly, funny man, it was easy to see why everyone idolised him. Within about an hour, I came close to idolising him myself."
"That must have been difficult," said Abbie as Christine took a big gulp of wine. "Guess you hated yourself for a little while."
"If that's strong enough," said Christine. "I despised myself. I sat in my apartment and screamed and cried. I didn't want to be here. I loathed my boss back home and the anti-corruption guy who had sent me here. I told myself I'd find nothing, and that would show them."
Abbie smiled a sad smile. "But finding nothing turned out to be difficult?"
Christine nodded. The informant, who remained unnamed and unknown to Christine, had passed across plenty of information. One of t
he prime concerns was regarding a potential link between Hammond and local businessman Davesh, the car dealership owner.
"I told myself it wouldn't matter if Hammond was corrupt or not," said Christine. "He'd hide it so well; someone with my experience would never learn the truth. But once I knew about the possible Davesh link, it was easy. See, Hammond was careful about the things that might be checked by senior officers—the money coming into his account, the reports he filed, that kind of thing—but day to day, he barely bothered to hide it. Like I said, everyone idolised him. More than once, I flat out heard him quashing the beginnings of an investigation into Davesh's dealings, and people would go along with it. They never suspected anything untoward was going on."
Before long, Christine had what she believed to be enough evidence to convict Hammond and Davesh of various crimes and was ready to call it a day.
"They'd been friends for years. I got to thinking Hammond was corrupt, but not in a general sense. He was just keeping a mate out of prison. Beefing up his bank account was an added perk. I thought that was the extent of it."
Then something new came up.
"You know a little bit about the casino on the edge of town, Lucky Draw. One of those places everyone knows is run by crooks, but they're clever. No police investigation had ever managed to gather enough evidence to convict the owners or anyone else that mattered. There was always an open case, but no one expected it to be solved. There were plenty of suspicions that, just like with Hammond and Davesh, police officers were protecting the casino owners. But I just wanted to go home. Far as I was concerned, it didn't involve Hammond, so it didn't involve me."
Christine took another swig of wine. Her glass was almost empty, and it had been a big glass. Ana's drink was almost full.
"Then, one evening, someone comes to my door. A teller at the casino. She's only worked there a few weeks and promises she's not involved with any criminal activities. But she's seen something. Says she can't let it lie, even though she's afraid. I tell her she needs to come to the station and make a statement, though I'm not hopeful. The casino owners aren't going down over one statement from one of their employees, but what can we do? We have to try. Then she tells me this isn't about the owners. It's about DCI Hammond."
Abbie leaned back in her chair and let this sink in. Cogs were turning, wheels were whirring. There were plenty of moving pieces here, but as yet, Abbie didn't know if they were moving closer together, ready to slot into place or scattering further apart.
"This informant came to you personally? To your front door?"
Christine nodded. "We'd met once before and got on. She had offered to take me for drinks with her friends, but I kept making excuses as to why I couldn't go. As you guessed earlier, I was keen to isolate myself because I didn't want to build any friendships on lies. So the friendship was a non-starter, but she remembered me when she needed somewhere to bring her suspicions."
Something was missing here; a vital piece of information. Abbie bookmarked her concern and waited for Christine to go on.
"When she arrived at my door, this witness, Leilani, told me she had thought I seemed honest when we met, though she didn't decide to confide in me because of that. Because I was new in town, she figured the casino owners hadn’t had time to get their claws into me. Because I was young, she thought they'd fail even if they tried. Almost everybody joins the police for the right reasons. The young are idealistic; it's time and experience that turns certain police officers into cynics, makes them more susceptible to corruption and bribery. Leilani was taking a risk but needed to talk to someone, and I appeared to be the safest bet."
Abbe nodded. If Leilani was determined to talk to someone and knew unknown corrupt officers were working at the local station, her options were limited. With Christine being new and young, she was the logical choice. But revealing her suspicions to a woman she barely knew still presented a considerable risk to the witness. Leilani was clearly incredible brave.
Or had been.
"So, what did Leilani have to say?" Abbie asked.
After a big swig of wine, Christine explained. Leilani had seen Hammond arrive at the casino through the back entrance a couple of times. There had been clandestine meetings. These were suspicious in and of themselves, but Leilani told herself Hammond might be interviewing the Lucky Draw owners as part of an ongoing investigation. He might have been searching for a way to imprison one or more of the crooks at the top of the casino's food chain.
The chances of this appeared to diminish to zero a day after the final of these meetings. Hammond returned to the casino, bought some chips, and sat at one of the exclusive tables. One of the tables at which people like Leilani, the people who weren't involved with the criminal side of the casino owners' business, were never asked to work.
"Way Leilani tells it," said Christine. "He was there for half an hour and walked away with winnings totalling a hundred grand."
Ana let out a long, low whistle. "Damn. That's good going."
"It's outstanding going," said Christine. "Especially for a man who, so far as I could tell, had never gambled a day in his life.”
Another whistle from Ana. Abbie was drumming her hands on the side of her chair but stopped when she started annoying herself with the sound.
"That's not a bribe," she said. "That's a payment. A big payment. Probably near enough double what Hammond would earn in a year. And a big old payment means a big old job."
"My thoughts exactly," said Christine.
"So your hopes of leaving were dashed, and your investigation kicked into high gear?"
"Right."
Christina took another swig of wine, and her face twisted as though the drink was off. It wasn't that. Abbie could see almost at once what it was.
"Let me guess," said Abbie. "You knew now you had to dig deeper, but there was only so much you could learn given your position. If you were afraid Hammond was about to do something major for the owners of Lucky Draw, what you would really need was an inside man." Abbie paused. Or woman.
Hands shaking, drink all gone, Christine nodded.
"I warned her not to take any risks," said Christine, confirming Abbie's suspicions. "I said she should carry on as normal. Not go looking for any information, but to tell me if she heard or saw anything else suspicious."
And, of course, Leilani hadn't listened. Christine should have seen that coming. Hadn't Leilani already proven she was willing to put her life on the line by opening up to Christine, a woman she barely knew, in the first place?
That didn't make it Christine's fault, and Abbie would never say it was. But it was clear what had happened next.
"Lucky Draw discovered what she was up to?"
"I don't know," said Christine, wiping her eyes. "All I know is, one day, the communication stopped. I hoped she was lying low because she was worried about being found out. Then, a few days later, I learned she was missing. That wasn't the story—the story was that she'd run off, disappeared in the night without a word, but I never believed that. She definitely vanished, but not by choice."
Vanished. Disappeared.
As the next question began to form on Abbie's lips, something clunked into place, and realisation hit her like a lightning bolt.
"You heard she'd disappeared in the night?" Abbie said.
Christine nodded. "That's right."
Abbie sighed. "Are you holding out on me, Detective Lakes?"
No answers were forthcoming, but Christine's cheeks flushed. Again, Christine confirmed Abbie’s suspicions without needing to speak.
"This witness, this brave woman," said Abbie. "Her full name... was it Leilani Ndidi?"
Christine closed her eyes. Forced herself to nod. Abbie fell back into her chair and let out a low groan.
"She's Isabella's mother."
Twenty-Seven
Leilani Ndidi. Wife of the detective inspector, mother of the kidnapped little girl.
"You weren't going to mention this?" said Abbie.
“I’m the one you can't trust?" Abbie pointed at herself, incredulous. "You said yourself, everyone in the local community knows the owners of Lucky Draw are crooked. Especially the police. You can't seriously be saying no one found it suspicious that the wife of a detective inspector was working for these people."
"Like I said, she'd only been there a few weeks. Maybe no one knew."
"You knew," said Abbie. "Seeing as she told you, so you didn't ask what Ndidi felt about her working for these gangsters?"
"Of course I did. Leilani said she and her husband were equal partners, but they made their own decisions. He had no right to veto where she worked just because he was the man."
Abbie scoffed. "Rubbish. This isn't a patriarchy thing. I can't imagine any police officer would like his or her spouse working for dangerous criminals. It isn't only that it looks bad for the police officer. There's the danger element."
"She wasn't in danger," said Christine. "She'd have been fine if she didn't start feeding me information about these guys."
Abbie shook her head. She couldn't buy this. Wouldn't.
"What about this information feeding. Leilani came to you because there were no other cops she felt she could trust. Except that can't be true. What about her husband?"
"Leilani was a straight talker," said Christine. "Told me if her employers learned she'd expressed concerns to a police officer, there was every chance they'd ensure both she and the officer disappeared. Supposing, that was, the officer wasn't the one to blow the whistle on Leilani."
Abbie took this in. "Her story was that she was thinking of her daughter? If she didn't involve Idrissa, and things went wrong, there was a chance the crooks would leave Isabella with at least one parent."
"Exactly," said Christine. Then held up her glass. "I need another. Anyone else?"
