Splinter the Silence (22 page)

Slowly but surely, he was getting there. He just wanted to accelerate the process. He wanted to look out at a world where the women had learned their lesson and acted properly. That was all he wanted. A world where women like Sarah would never —

He slapped himself in the face. He needed to be stronger. He wasn’t going to think about what Sarah had done. The pain of her betrayal remained so intense it was like a red-hot needle being pushed into his flesh. He wouldn’t dwell on what she’d done. Instead he’d focus on how it had made him understand that it was time for someone to take these women on.

Take them on and win.

29

G
ood sense should have kept Paula’s mouth shut until Carol raised the subject. But good sense had never prevailed where her former boss was concerned. As soon as she picked up the call, Paula said, ‘Congratulations. Tony told me you got off yesterday.’

‘That’s not why I’m phoning.’ The voice was frosty. Not a great start, then.

‘No, of course, sorry, I…’

‘How would you like to come and work with me again?’

A swirl of thoughts chased each other round Paula’s head.
Yes! How? Where? Doing what? Something dodgy happened here…
‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘It’s not a trick question, Paula.’ Carol’s voice had softened. ‘Would you like to come and work with me again?’

‘Of course I would. But how? I mean, you resigned. You’re not a cop any more.’ Paula wished she could see Carol’s face. Surely this couldn’t be some sort of weird joke? Or was Carol setting up as a private eye?

‘As of today, I am Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan again. Just to clarify, in case you thought I was crossing over to the dark side and going private.’

‘What? You’re coming back to BMP?’ Paula heard her pitch rising to a squeak but she couldn’t control it. Yesterday morning Carol had been facing disgrace. Now she’d somehow become flavour of somebody’s month.

‘No. It’s a new initiative. John Brandon’s fronting it up for the Home Office. We’d be a floating MIT covering six forces, only doing murders and serious sexual assaults. Maybe the odd armed robbery, but only if the local lads were pressed and we were at a loose-ish end. We’d be a small, tight team, with the locals doing the grunt work.’

Paula couldn’t quite make sense of it.
Definitely something dodgy.
‘So I’d still technically be a cop?’

‘You will hold the office of constable. You’ll be considered to have continuous service and your pension rights won’t be affected. You’ll simply be reassigned to a different unit. A regional MIT, for want of a better name. No doubt some Whitehall mandarin is racking his brains trying to come up with a suitable acronym. ReMIT or something equally stupid. But we’d be like freelances, with our own budget. No more dealing with James Blake.’

‘Or DCI Fielding,’ Paula muttered. ‘Are you serious, Carol? This isn’t some kind of wind-up?’

‘Never been more serious in my life. Yesterday morning, I thought my life was being flushed down the toilet. Now, I’m looking at the best prospect in years. What’s not to like?’

Paula could hear the delight. And it was starting to rise in her too. Working for Carol again, doing serious, proper investigative work, using her interview skills on criminals who deserved the best filleting possible. Oh yes, that would be worth getting up in the morning for. ‘Where would we be based?’

‘Obviously there’ll be a lot of travel. When we’re working a case, we’ll be there on the ground. But our home ground will be here in Bradfield. They’re giving the top floor of Skenfrith Street a makeover as we speak.’

‘Coffee machine?’

‘On order.’

‘In that case you’d better count me in. When do we start?’

‘Officially, Monday. But if you want to show up tomorrow, that’d be good too. We won’t have an office yet, but I’ll text you to let you know where we’re going to meet.’

‘Have we got any cases yet?’

Carol laughed. ‘Steady on. We’ve not even got a whiteboard yet.’

‘So, we’re going to sit around and drink coffee till we do?’

‘Not exactly. I thought we might need a bit of practice to hone our skills.’ There was a forced casualness in Carol’s tone that prepared Paula for what came next. ‘We could carry on taking a look at the cyber-bullying suicides. To get our hand in.’

‘Oddly enough, I hoped you might say that. Are you busy this evening?’

Alvin Ambrose reeled in his line and stared gloomily at the untenanted hook. He’d been certain there had been something there. Well, obviously, there had been. Something that had taken the bait but not the hook. Something that was getting fatter at his expense. Angling was supposed to be calming. That’s why his wife had bought him a basic set of gear for his last birthday. ‘Go and sit on a canal bank and chill,’ she’d said. What actually happened was that he sat on a canal bank and brooded. It wasn’t the same thing. Not even remotely.

He shifted his considerable bulk on the tiny stool and, with a slight shudder, slid another maggot on the hook and cast the line. He didn’t often encounter maggots at work; West Mercia wasn’t exactly overloaded with murder scenes. But he’d come across them enough to have no love for them, in spite of their forensic usefulness. The heat and smell given off by maggot masses chomping their way through a corpse would turn the strongest of stomachs.

Ambrose sighed and looked down the bank. Two hundred yards away, another man sat hunched over a rod and line. He’d looked suspiciously at Ambrose as he’d walked past, offering no response to the sergeant’s cheerful greeting. That was another thing. He was accustomed to being the only black man in the room a lot of the time – in the pub, in the CID, in the courtroom – although it was getting better with every passing year. But in all those other places, people acknowledged him. He’d never seen another black man fishing by a canal, and he’d never come across another angler who was willing to exchange more than the most basic of greetings. His wife tried to convince him that it was because angling was such a solitary pursuit. But she hadn’t succeeded. So the pastime that was supposed to make him relax and feel calmer had turned him into a frustrated misfit.

His phone vibrated, breaking into his mood. If he was lucky, it might be work. Something interesting to get his teeth into. ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ he grumbled to himself, standing up so he could wrestle his phone out of the pocket of jeans that were always tight on his muscular thighs. ‘No caller ID,’ the screen read. Almost definitely work, then. ‘Ambrose,’ he said, punching authority into his tone.

‘Alvin? This is Carol Jordan. Remember me?’

As if he could forget. Carol Jordan, the woman who had plunged him into the most demanding investigations of his career. A woman who could eviscerate you with a look, but also fill you with pride and self-confidence when her smile reached her eyes. ‘Ex-DCI Jordan,’ he said. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘Almost right,’ she said, a bubble of laughter under the words. ‘It’s not ex any more. I’m back in harness and I’m building a team, Alvin.’

His heart leapt but he told himself to hold back. She’d disappointed him once before, when she’d accepted a job that would have made her his boss then shocked everyone by walking away from the whole business of being a cop. He’d heard she’d had some kind of breakdown.
Once bitten, Alvin.
‘Back in harness?’

‘I’ve been tempted back by the kind of offer you can’t refuse. I’m going to be running a free-standing MIT that will cover six forces here in the North. We’ll be the visiting firemen with back-up from the locals. It’s a new initiative. We could be the future, Alvin. And I want you on my team.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m used to how we do things down here.’

Carol chuckled. ‘You were keen enough for me to come down there and shake things up a bit. Come on, Alvin, you know you’re wasted in the depths of Worcestershire. Come and join me where the action is.’

‘Who else is on the team?’

‘Paula – DS McIntyre. You know her, best interviewer in the business. And Stacey Chen, the queen of digital forensics. Tony Hill, of course. I’m trying to persuade Kevin Matthews to come out of retirement to be my DI. And we’ll have a couple of DCs. And maybe another sergeant to do the logistics.’

‘Where will you be based?’

Carol listed the six force areas they’d be covering. ‘But our home base will be Bradfield. It’s going to take you away from the family to start with, I appreciate that. But if it works out, there’s plenty of good places to bring up kids around here. What do you say, Alvin? What’s it to be? Stick with the rut or reach for the stars?’

God, but she was persuasive. He could see why Tony Hill was trapped in her orbit like a captive moon. ‘When is this thing getting off the ground?’

‘We start Monday.’

‘This Monday?’

‘No time like the present. John Brandon, my old chief constable, is running the Home Office liaison. He’ll arrange your transfer.’

‘You don’t hang around.’

‘No. Ideally, I’d like you here in Bradfield tomorrow. We need to get our skills up to speed and I’m running a little exercise for us.’

‘Tomorrow? That’s… that’s…’

‘Eminently possible. You’ve got an afternoon to clear your desk and sort out your caseload. If you say yes, your DCI will get the message before you’ve found a box to empty your drawers into. I promise nobody will stand in your way.’

He had a strange feeling that was a promise she could keep. Carol Jordan had always had a handle on how the levers of power worked. He didn’t understand how she cut through the red tape and bureaucracy but she seemed to have the knack. ‘I need to talk to my wife.’

She sighed. ‘I suppose you do. OK, you’ve got an hour. Then I need an answer.’ The line went dead. He realised too late he didn’t have her number.

But she clearly had his.

Carol took a deep breath. It was tiring, keeping up the image of having everything under control. She’d got past Paula and Alvin, but she wasn’t sure whether she could pull off the same trick with Stacey. When you were dealing with someone who didn’t expend much energy on human relationships, sometimes it was a struggle to pull the wool over their eyes because they just couldn’t see the wool for the truth. Carol forced herself into action and speed-dialled.

‘Good morning,’ Stacey greeted her. No name, no rank, no honorific. Bets thoroughly hedged, as always.

‘How’s things?’ Carol asked.

‘Pretty dull,’ Stacey said.

‘Not like it used to be.’

‘No. Though it’s been interesting to examine the cyber-trolling.’

‘How would you like to get back to the interesting stuff full-time?’

A pause. Carol could hear Stacey breathing. ‘Has this got anything to do with your case being dismissed yesterday?’

Now it was Carol’s turn to pause. She didn’t know the answer to that question and frankly, she didn’t want to know. But she had to find something to say that would keep Stacey on side. Admittedly, the digital specialist thought nothing of galloping headlong through data privacy legislation when it suited her, but Carol wasn’t sure if her cavalier disregard would extend to what she feared might be classified as noble cause corruption. ‘Only insofar as it means I’m eligible for a job that the Home Office wants done.’ It was a twisty, wriggling sort of answer, but it covered the bases, she hoped.

‘It must be quite a job, to tempt you back.’

And so she explained what Brandon was offering. Stacey listened in patient silence, then said, ‘There’s nothing to think about. Consider me on board.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. We’d have had a huge hole to fill if you’d said no.’

Stacey gave a little girlish giggle. ‘I know that. And Sam? He’ll be joining us too?’

Carol felt the sticky silence expand between them.
Grasp nettle, bite bullet
. ‘This is a very small team, Stacey. Everyone has to bring specialist skills to the table. I realise this is awkward for you, but Sam isn’t the right fit for this team.’ For an awful moment she wondered whether Stacey might withdraw.

‘He’s a good detective,’ she said.

‘I’m not disputing that. I’m sorry, Stacey. It’s not up for negotiation.’

A deep sigh. ‘I know. This is your team. And I’m glad to be part of it. I’m disappointed not to be working with Sam again, that’s all. Is that why you’re leaving him out? You don’t want people working together who are in a relationship?’

‘No, it’s not that. I want this team to have a different shape from the old MIT.’

‘Your call.’

‘I’ll let you know where we’re meeting tomorrow.’

‘I’m looking forward to it.’

That left Kevin. He’d celebrated his retirement by taking his wife on a month-long cruise. According to Paula, he’d never been so bored. He’d had an offer from a former DI to join his private investigation company in Manchester, but – again according to Paula – he wasn’t keen to join a profession that people disliked even more than the police. He had planned ahead for his retirement in one respect, however – he’d acquired a half-share in an allotment tenanted by an elderly uncle whose arthritis meant he couldn’t manage the plot on his own. The idea of Kevin rolling up his sleeves and digging over a vegetable patch was so entertaining, Carol decided she had to see it for herself.

The allotments were invisible from the road. They occupied an acre of land surrounded on four sides by houses that fronted on busy city streets in Harriestown, a formerly working-class area of Bradfield that had steadily become more gentrified in the wake of New Labour’s arrival in Downing Street. Each street of terraced redbrick houses was bisected by an alley scarcely wide enough for a car, ending in a paved area big enough for two or three to park, so the allotment holders could load up their produce when the inevitable gluts came along. Carol knew better than to drive down; any strange car would immediately be a source of curiosity and comment. Instead, she parked on one of the streets and walked down an alley, following a narrow tarmacked path round the perimeter. In the middle of the day, the place was mostly deserted. A few figures were visible, doing indecipherable things to plants and sheds.