Kind of Cruel (28 page)

If this is what Amber believes, I think she’s wrong. Children who have been victims of physical, sexual or emotional abuse often grow up to be non-tactile adults. Often the sole exception they’re willing to make is for their children.

Jo’s thoughtlessness is a recurring theme for Amber, and particularly wounding, I would guess, because Jo has proven herself time and time again to be capable of its opposite; there’s no doubt she knows how to be considerate when she wants to be.

Shortly after Amber and Luke got married, Jo asked Amber if she planned to give up her job when she had her first baby. Amber said no: she couldn’t bear the thought of giving up her career. Jo, who had been a speech therapist until she had William and stopped working, laughed at this quite openly. Assuming Amber’s recall is accurate, Jo’s response was to say, ‘Anyone’d think you were a Hollywood actress or a Nobel-Prize-winning scientist. You’re a licensing officer for the council, for God’s sake.’ In fact, Amber wasn’t
a
licensing officer, she was
the
Licensing Officer for Rawndesley city council – she didn’t, of course, point this out. Nor did she tell Jo that it was possible to love and take pride in a job that, from its title, didn’t sound particularly glamorous. I’m assuming Jo decided to end the conversation there, secure in her assumption that Amber was wrong to prize her professional identity so highly. What she ought to have done was say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, how ignorant of me. Tell me about your job. What do you love about it?’

When Amber told Jo about her promotion from Licensing Officer to Licensing Manager, Jo said, ‘Aren’t those just different names for the same job? I still don’t understand what it is you do all day.’ When Amber tried, not for the first time, to describe the ins and outs of her work, Jo interrupted her and changed the subject.

Once, before Barney was born, Amber and Luke went away for the weekend with Jo, Neil and William. On the Friday evening, Amber had a bath immediately before going to bed. The next morning, when Jo asked her if she’d had a good night’s sleep, Amber replied that she had and that she’d known she would when she got into bed. ‘I always sleep well on the rare nights that I and my bedding are spotlessly clean at the same time. Not that it happens very often,’ she joked. Luke and Neil laughed. Jo wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Yuck! That’s disgusting. Did you really need to tell us that?’

Generally, Jo seems to feel free to question Amber’s ethics and behaviour whenever it suits her. She tried to interfere in Amber’s wedding plans, leading Amber to tell Luke she’d always wanted to elope abroad to get married, which was a lie. After Sharon died, when Amber told Jo that she and Luke were planning to buy a bigger house that could more easily accommodate four people, Jo was dead set against the plan and seemed unaware that it was none of her business. She accused Amber of being selfish, putting her own needs before Dinah and Nonie’s.

Amber was confused. Her main reason for wanting a bigger house was so that the girls wouldn’t have to share the only spare bedroom she and Luke had at the time. Amber made the mistake of admitting to Jo that a secondary consideration was that she herself might feel the need for space, both physical and psychological, once Dinah and Nonie moved in. Jo tutted and said, ‘The size of your house is neither here nor there. What those poor kids need is stability. They’ve always known you and Luke in that house. Don’t you think they’ve got enough change and trauma to deal with, without you adding to it?’ When Amber pointed out that Dinah and Nonie were excited about helping to choose the new house, Jo shook her head dismissively and said, ‘There’s no point talking to you. You’ll think what you want to think, whatever I say.’

Point or not, that conversation wasn’t followed by a change of policy on Jo’s part. She continued to criticise Amber’s actions and decisions, particularly with regard to the girls, and regularly expressed the view that it was ‘wrong’ for Amber and Luke to have guardianship of them. ‘They should be with their grandmother,’ she doggedly insisted whenever the subject came up. ‘You and Luke might be fond of them, but you’re not family. It can’t be the same.’ On being reminded that Marianne Lendrim, though opposed to the idea of adoption, was perfectly happy for her granddaughters to live with Amber and Luke and had said it would be impossible for her to have them live or even stay the occasional night with her, Jo’s response was to sigh heavily and say, ‘Well, of course she’s going to say that, isn’t she? If I were in her shoes, I’d also minimise contact, protect myself. She knows that one day Dinah and Nonie are going to be old enough to be told that their dead mother made a will that said she’d rather her daughters were brought up by any old heroin addict or paedophile than by their own grandmother.’

Does any or all of this explain why Amber resents Jo as much as she does? I think there’s something else, something she’s not telling us.

Amber?

6

2/12/2010

‘Waterhouse!’ Proust sounded pleased to see him. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d present yourself at the appointed hour, but here you are: nine o’clock on the nose. Shut the door behind you, please.’

‘Six words. That’s all it takes.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘“Waterhouse, you’re sacked. Gibbs, you’re sacked.” Say it and get on with what matters. Someone tried to kill Amber Hewerdine and her family last night. They’ll try again. Next time they might succeed.’

Proust looked to his left, then his right. ‘Gibbs? You’re hallucinating, Waterhouse. Have a seat.’ He gestured towards the only one in his office.

‘That’s your chair.’

‘Am I using it at the moment? If I’m offering it to you and not sitting in it myself, how can there be a problem?’

Simon walked around the inspector’s desk and sat down. He felt foolish, as if he was trying to impersonate a DI, indulging an embarrassing ego-boosting delusion in public.
First point to the Snowman
. Soon it would be game, set and match.

‘I’m afraid I have more than six words for you, but let me suggest another time-saving ruse. How about you don’t interrupt me every ten seconds?’

Simon nodded.

‘Instant agreement. That means you imagine it’ll be easy for you.’ Proust smiled as he paced the floor. ‘You’re not afraid of me any more, Waterhouse. You always have been – until very recently you were – but no longer.’

Was this item one on the agenda, or preamble? Did it matter?

‘There was never any need for you to be, and I always wondered why you were. There’s nothing so terrifying about me, is there? I speak my mind, and I don’t suffer fools – which would be particularly problematic for you, I can see that – but still . . . why the fear? Nobody else is frightened of me. Anyone would think I was some sort of tyrannical bully.’

‘Anyone would,’ Simon agreed.

‘I’m sure you’d be the first to admit that I treat people fairly, you included. I bend over backwards to be fair to you.’ Proust shook his head. The puzzled look on his face appeared to be genuine. To which was he a great loss, Simon wondered: the acting profession or the specially-reserved-for-extreme-cases penthouse padded cell at the local nuthouse?

‘I’ve always put your fear of me down to some peculiar deficiency in you. One among many.’ The Snowman lunged across his desk to grab his new World’s Greatest Grandad mug. Simon flinched, remembering having its predecessor hurled at his head. ‘I’ll admit, there have been occasions when I’ve found your phobia useful as a means of controlling you, and times when it’s irritated me beyond measure because it interferes with your ability to listen to the many sound arguments I put forward, each and every working day. Either way, you can hardly blame me for noticing my new team member: Brave New Waterhouse. Brave and confused. You have no idea why your fear of me might have quit its post and strolled off into the sunset, hand in hand with your fear of unemployment. Well? Have you?’

No.

‘I’ll tell you why.’ Proust leaned in over the desk. His breath smelled of hot stewed tea. ‘Something new and daunting has entered your life. So petrified are you of it that, suddenly, all your trifling fears of old have been put into perspective: your doddery DI, your frail ageing parents. Have you been standing up to your mother as well? Refusing to drink the blood of the Virgin Mary or whatever it is that she and her oddball cult get up to, unfazed by recent proof that the whole outfit’s nothing more than a cover for a global epidemic of sexual perversion . . .’ Proust stopped. Frowned. ‘I’ve lost my thread,’ he said.

‘You were insulting my mother.’

‘I was not!’

A fist banging down on a desk, shaking it; tea sloshing in the air, spattering the floor. Simon was unmoved by the special effects; he’d seen it all before. He was trying to get his head round the Snowman’s battle tactics, struggling not to be impressed.
Challenge an opinion and the holder of that opinion might put forward a counter-argument; contradict an uncontestable fact and, chances are, your audience will slink off in confusion to question their own sanity
.

‘Act your age for once in your life, Waterhouse!’ Proust snapped. ‘Don’t try to turn this into a slanging match. I’m trying to help you, believe it or not.’

Tough choice, but I’ll go for ‘not’.

Proust exhaled slowly. ‘Your disrespect used to spill out in spite of your best efforts; now, suddenly, you’re sloshing it around like a tramp urinating on a . . .’

Another unscheduled break. Simon was unwilling to help a second time by suggesting things a tramp might piss on.

‘Pathetic, Waterhouse. That’s not me talking, it’s your inner voice. I’d attempt the accent, only I don’t speak low self-esteem. It’s a language I’ve never needed to learn.’

Simon weighed up his options. What was to stop him walking out? He was waiting for one thing only: to be told he was fired. Was it better to be fired at close range than remotely, from a distance? Simon couldn’t see how; still, he planned to sit tight until he heard the words.

‘Any idea what this new source of terror in your life might be?’

‘There isn’t anything.’

Proust laughed. ‘What, not even Charlie Zailer? Wedlock, Waterhouse. Hear that second syllable:
lock
. You’re trapped. You can’t get divorced. That would involve admitting you made a mistake, which you’re congenitally incapable of doing. Yet you’re cripplingly afraid of the demands marriage is bound to make, demands you’re too inadequate to respond to. Blown everything else out of the water, hasn’t it? If you stumbled upon a ticking bomb, you might sit down on it and put your feet up. No other fear can touch you now that you’re grappling with the big one.’

‘If I disagree, will it spoil your fun?’ Simon asked.

‘If you disagree, it’ll prompt me to wonder, and not for the first time, how a person can live for more than forty years without self-knowledge and fail to notice its absence. There’s not a drop of the stuff in you, Waterhouse; this is my attempt at a much-needed transfusion.’

‘Your need’s greater than mine, as evidenced by your fantasy that you’re a suitable donor,’ said Simon. Did that make sense? In his head it did. His words echoed in the silence that followed.

‘Insult me all you like,’ Proust said eventually. ‘You won’t convince me that your judgement is the trustworthy ally it used to be. Do you honestly believe Sergeant Zailer went for hypnosis because she wants to give up the bifters? Smoking is one of the few pleasures in her miserable life. Aren’t you itching to know what she’s really up to? I promise you, however much money flows from your and Zailer’s joint bank account into the tasselled purse of a tinpot wizard in Great Holling, it’s not going to solve the problem, whatever it is. And if you happen to know what it is already, or if you take my advice and find out, please don’t enlighten me. There are limits.’

‘Apparently there aren’t.’

Proust spun round, his face a mess of pink and white patches. ‘You think I want to kick you off the job? You’re wrong. Cast your mind back over the toxic wastelands of our many years together. I’ve had any number of opportunities to get shot of you. What did I do? Let them roll on by, each and every one.’

That was true.
That and nothing else.

‘Trouble is, whether I want to lose you or not, I don’t have much choice. You’ve made it compulsory. If I were to let you carry on, business as usual, how would that look to the rest of the team? I’d be the DI who let an out-of-control DC trample all over him – everyone’d get to hear about it. I’d lose the respect of every single person in this nick, right down to the canteen staff and the cleaners.’

‘Culture shock might not be as bad as you anticipate,’ Simon muttered. He could cope with the abuse; what he couldn’t handle was the Snowman telling him he didn’t want to lose him.

That wasn’t what he said. Stop hearing things he isn’t saying.

‘It’s not about culture shock!’ Proust slammed his mug down on the windowsill and rubbed the sides of his skull with white-tipped fingers. Simon watched, inferred from the body language that the inspector cared about something. Since that thing was neither Simon nor basic human decency, it was hard to imagine what it might be. ‘It’s about hanging on to my own perishing job! It’s about having the gumption to recognise when one of my DCs crosses over from being a good bet to being a liability, and having the courage to point it out.’

‘You’ve never said I was a good bet.’