My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (6 page)

‘What’s going on?’ he asked the nearest shadow.

‘Shut up, man. Get dressed.’

It sounded like Trey.

Bull rolled up on to an elbow, feeling the start of a headache beginning to bang in his head. He’d always hated being woken before he was ready; sometimes it made him throw up. Not that it was unusual for sleep to be interrupted here. And there was no choice; if they said get up, you got up.

Bull heaved his legs off the bed, straight away feeling the chill. He fumbled under the bed for his clothes, dragging the pile free and finding his trousers by touch. He needed to speed up; others were already filing out. He shrugged on the rest of his clothes and followed, blinking as he passed under the spotlight outside the door. The others were ahead and to the right, lined up behind two trucks waiting in the dark.

He joined the nearest queue, checking around him for the more experienced guys, anyone who might be able to explain. But they all looked confused.

Bull glanced around, suddenly scared. He didn’t want to get in the truck without knowing where they’d end up. But others had joined the queue behind him, and it wasn’t a good idea to show weakness.

He reached the truck and climbed in, back into darkness. Enough light leaked in from outside for him to make out around fifteen other guys, but he couldn’t tell who was who. He joined the end of the right-hand bench. Still nobody spoke.

Chill.

His brain started scratching for clues. Last night they’d eaten at the usual time, everything had been normal, nobody seemed uptight. That meant one of two things. Either the others had known about this and weren’t bothered, or he wasn’t the only one caught by surprise.

The last few guys arrived, two more joining the end of the bench next to Bull. There were muffled voices from outside.

Suddenly, vibration shot through the bench and Bull’s gut turned over as the truck pulled away. Was he supposed to know what was going on? Had he not been paying attention when they were told? The headache was getting worse. He pinched his nose.

They rode in silence as the truck turned left out of the gates. They must have been behind the other vehicle, because he could hear both engines. There were no windows, but the rear of the truck was open and Bull watched the scenery pass as they jolted and swayed along the pitted road. These crates weren’t built for comfort, and he strained his ears over the crashing suspension, trying to pick out familiar sounds. It might have been his imagination, but the night air seemed strangely peaceful, and for a moment he wondered if it was all over.

Maybe they were being taken home.

He lost track of time as they jerked along, passing through a couple of small towns before a longer stint on a dual carriageway, then back on to local roads. Eventually, a few of the guys started talking quietly. Was it good that none of them seemed to know where this journey would end?

But everyone shut up as the truck slowed and began crawling through a built-up area.

Then it stopped.

They all sat in the blackness. Nobody moved, and Bull realized he was holding his breath. He inhaled, catching the first traces of a smell he hadn’t known before two months ago, something like a mixture of fireworks and scorched wood. A smell that meant only one thing.

Trouble.

14

‘Hold on a minute.’ Alan Hawkins stopped the car and peered out through his partially steamed-up window. ‘This isn’t the doctor’s surgery; this is your bloody work.’

Rumbled.

He scowled at his daughter but was forced to break eye contact and park when another car drew up behind them in the restricted space and sounded its horn. Silence endured throughout the typically protracted manoeuvre, but as soon as the car had stalled and the handbrake was engaged, he regained the attention of his passenger, who was staring the opposite way.

‘What’s going on?’

Hawkins turned to face him; there was no point trying to prolong the façade. Until now she’d forgotten that he’d been here a couple of times, once to drop her off for an interview, and another when she was lecturing at the Peel Centre and having car problems. She’d been convinced, right up to the moment he recognized the place, that her plan was going to work.

The previous day, she’d made the mistake of approaching Mike and her dad simultaneously to
propose her immediate return to work. Their response had been annoyingly cohesive. Mike had dug his heels in so far that he could have anchored a wind farm, which compounded the problem by prompting her father, who was normally more malleable, to harden his line. Both men, and by proxy her mother, had insisted that Hawkins spend at least a week on the sofa. At the time, she’d been smart enough to concede, but only until their draconian ranks had been depleted by Mike’s early-morning departure.

Over lunch she’d asked her father for a lift to a fictitious doctor’s appointment for a check-up and then directed him on a deliberately circuitous route to her work. He hadn’t twigged on the way where they were headed; she was sure of that. But it had obviously been too much to hope that her ageing chauffeur would fail to recognize Hendon’s unsigned car park, which could have passed for any other to unfamiliar eyes.

‘I’m not senile just yet, madam,’ he persisted. ‘Don’t think you can get round me.’

‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? I knew you wouldn’t bring me in if I asked directly. But you can still tell Mum I was at the doctor’s.’

‘Women’s problems, you said.’

‘I was just trying to make things easier for everyone.’

‘By lying?’

‘Oh don’t be so dramatic; you know what she’s like. I lied for the same reason you always make the tea: so you can put whiskey in yours.’

His
brow contracted. ‘I didn’t know you knew about that.’

‘I’m a detective, Dad.’

‘It’s medicinal. I never drink and drive.’ He held out his hands, retracting them quickly when he realized they wobbled these days whether he’d had a drink or not. ‘Bad example.’

‘So we understand each other?’

‘I suppose. What’s so urgent about coming back here, anyway? You’re not being bullied into it, are you?’

She laughed. ‘Dad, I’m not six.’

‘So why the rush?’

She sighed. ‘Okay. You know I’m on temporary promotion to Chief Inspector. Well, I bent a few rules before Christmas and got my wrists slapped. So I can’t afford to be off any longer, in case they second someone else into my role and demote me. They’ve already got some graduate prodigy lined up.’

‘Oh.’

‘I promise I won’t overdo it.’

He chewed a fingernail. ‘We don’t have to tell your mother?’

‘Our secret.’

‘I don’t want you to be demoted.’

‘And neither would Mum, really.’

‘Right.’ His eyes lit up. ‘What’s the plan?’

Moments later, with details of their conspiracy agreed, Hawkins watched her father exit the car. She almost laughed as he negotiated his way along the
Rover’s flanks, probably picturing himself in a tuxedo, licensed to kill.

He was crouching.

After manhandling the wheelchair back into shape in remarkably un-spy-like fashion, Alan Hawkins loaded his daughter and pushed her across the car park to the building’s entrance.

In the foyer of Becke House, she reiterated their cover story about his having delivered her to a girlfriend’s house for afternoon tea, from where Mike would collect her on his way home. It was flawless. As long as she could convince Maguire to play along.

Hawkins pecked her dad on the cheek and, after he reassured them both that he’d find his way back to the house, she watched him walk away, feeling a renewed faith in the independence of this seventy-three-year-old man in navy-blue trousers, bottle-green jumper, grey flat cap.

And Mike’s fluorescent orange trainers.

15

Hawkins bumped the wheelchair over the door runners and out of the lift. She turned left and propelled herself slowly along the wide, soberly decorated corridor. Fortunately, the tall glass door ahead on the right stood open and, after aligning herself with a mildly painful three-point turn, she rolled through the entrance.

In the centre of the room, four squat leather chairs surrounded a coffee table, occupying most of the space in the glass-fronted meeting-cum-waiting area. The tasteless wallpaper hadn’t changed since her last visit, but at least somebody had dusted the artificial flowers.

‘Good afternoon.’

Hawkins nearly cricked her neck as she turned to find the recess to her right; previously home to an oversized vase containing a tragic collection of dead sticks, it now housed a desk. And, behind it, a secretary.

‘Hi.’ Hawkins masked her surprise. ‘Am I still in the right place to see the chief superintendent?’

‘Oh yes.’ The secretary smiled. ‘Mr Vaughn is out on lunch at present, but he won’t be long. May I take your name?’

Hawkins told her, wondering why she had pro
nounced ‘Detective Chief Inspector’ so specifically. Perhaps it was because the irritatingly attractive secretary was not only ten years younger than her but neither had she been repeatedly stabbed and ended up, albeit temporarily, in a wheelchair. As the assistant tapped her keyboard, Hawkins read the name plaque on the desk: Amy Park. She resisted asking if the younger woman needed help because all the words in her title contained more than four letters.

As if hearing her thoughts, the secretary looked up. ‘Is there anyone with you?’

‘
With me?
’ Hawkins frowned. ‘No. Why?’

‘Oh.’ Amy’s composure faltered, but only for a second before the smile returned. ‘No reason.’

Hawkins let it go, wondering whether it was her imagination or if the secretary was talking more loudly than the environment seemed to require.

Apparently keen to move on, Amy offered her a coffee, which she accepted. The slender aide stood, before sweeping elegantly past her and out of the room.

Unsure whether to be impressed by or annoyed at the woman for ignoring the fact she was in a wheelchair, Hawkins zigzagged herself into line with one of the armchairs, rotating back to face the hall. Opposite, visible through the floor-to-ceiling glass, was the handsome wooden door of the Detective Chief Superintendent’s office, beyond which her last visit had ended in suspension from the force. Technically, that abeyance still stood. But, since then, Antonia Hawkins had
personally bagged the most notorious serial killer in recent history and spent six weeks in hospital recovering from the near-fatal wounds she had sustained in the process.

Surely that made them even.

She glanced at the wall-mounted clock, 1.50 p.m. She’d arrived at the perfect time. According to Mike, the current DCS was a true believer in mucking in. Vaughn operated an open-door drop-in half-hour daily, from two o’clock, even on a Saturday. So unless others arrived in the meantime, Hawkins would have the full thirty-minute session to herself. Which gave her ten minutes to figure out how she was going to convince her boss she was ready and, more crucially, that she deserved, to return.

Mere weeks ago she’d been summoned here to explain a missing detective, a faltering investigation and her own flagrant disregard for authority. Had she been about to face the same man who suspended her, Hawkins’ hopes of success would have been low. However, the past six weeks had seen one of the fastest leadership transitions she could recall. Lawrence Kirby-Jones, her previous commanding officer, had obviously been lining himself up for the exit well in advance of their collective triumph, because, thanks to some typically sensational media headlines, he’d handed over command within weeks and ridden out on a crest of public and political acclaim. Rumour said he was due to receive an official commendation for his
management of the case, in addition to an honorary non-executive post at the top of Special Branch.

Narrowly averted disaster, it seemed, worked out for some.

His younger replacement, Tristan Vaughn, had come straight from Special Enquiries, the media-centric unit set up to deal with people on either side of high-profile criminal cases. He’d become involved towards the end of Hawkins’ most recent investigation, although it hadn’t been clear at the time that his feet would end up quite so far under the table. Yet his attitude throughout had been reasonable, and Hawkins was counting on his experience with the type of extreme media pressure she’d been under to curb his ire. The outcome of this meeting had profound implications for her future career, because she was in competition with an unidentified rival, unproven but also unmarked, while demotion would mangle her chances of returning to DCI status anytime soon. So she was counting on her previous record, plus the positive outcome of her and Vaughn’s recent collaboration, to save her now.

Plus, there had to be at least a
tacit
sympathy vote for the chair.

But as two figures appeared in the corridor beyond the glass, thinking time was up. The slender Amy led, carrying Hawkins’ coffee, followed by the even taller but equally fluid Tristan Vaughn. Like his predecessor, Vaughn’s height and stature lent him an imposing air, but Vaughn’s modern dress sense and a less brooding
nature set the two men apart. There was something altogether more approachable about the new Chief Superintendent. Or so Hawkins hoped.

Amy opened his office door and disappeared inside, while the DCS arrived in the entrance to the waiting area.

‘Antonia.’ He was smiling. ‘Good to see you. Please come through.’

He moved to let Hawkins pass, and followed her into his office. Amy stood obediently by as her superiors settled, before departing gracefully. Hawkins watched the Met-liveried mug of coffee steaming away on the near side of his desk, and waited for the secretary to close the door.

They sat in silence for a few seconds, the hiatus allowing Hawkins to spot further differences in otherwise recognizable surroundings. Pictures of the previous DCS’ family had gone from the walls, replaced with tasteful art, and the whole room seemed brighter somehow. The walls could even have received a coat of lighter paint.
Had she really missed just six weeks?