Splinter the Silence (6 page)

‘We all thought she was handling it. She would come into work and mock the trolls, poking fun at their appalling spelling and grammar. She was determined to carry on as usual. But obviously, beneath the surface, it was a different story. We’re all in shock. We can’t believe we’ve lost such a champion for people who are victims of exactly the kind of men Jasmine spoke out against.’

Tony stared unseeing at the screen while he thought through what he’d read. Suicide had never been a central part of his practice, but inevitably he’d ended up dealing with patients who’d attempted it. Most of them had also cut themselves, often over a long period of time. He’d come to think of self-harm as the junior partner of suicide. People spoke of suicide as a cry for help, but he’d always thought it was more like, ‘See how bad it really was?’ By the time people killed themselves, they’d gone past the point of believing help was a possibility. But when they were still at the stage of cutting themselves, he knew it was possible to intervene and bring the patient back to something like safety.

Of course people killed themselves without necessarily going through a literal blood-letting as a way of releasing their anguish. But there were generally other signs. It never came from nowhere. When nobody noticed, it was mostly because there wasn’t anyone close enough. But it didn’t sound to him as if Jasmine Burton lacked support. Which made him wonder.

Frowning, he started trawling his social network sites to see what the world had to say about Jasmine Burton’s end. Most of the trolls had been shocked into silent retreat, but a few were poking their heads out of the cave even now to crow over what they were already claiming as a success for rapists’ rights. Rapists, in their world, being the victims as often as the women they were convicted of attacking. Tony was fascinated and repelled in equal measure.

‘How did we get to here?’ he muttered. He knew better than most that poison pooled below the surface in the dark psyches of men who raped and mutilated and killed. He’d spent his professional life dealing with the results. But the level of venom that the apparent anonymity of the internet had provoked was significantly higher than he would have predicted ten years before.

What troubled him most was how much of the vitriol was deployed against women. Yes, men in the public eye were insulted, derided and belittled. But the treatment dealt out to women for offences as trivial as suggesting Jane Austen should appear on a banknote was infinitely worse. They were threatened with sexual violence, demeaned and intimidated. If his patients had spoken of women in those terms, he’d have recommended they stay inside the walls of a secure mental hospital.

‘OK, so you attracted the haters,’ he said. ‘But what else is going on here?’ Beyond the vilification, there was love. Dozens of people – not all of them women – had posted comments regretting Jasmine’s death, praising the work she’d done in life, even suggesting a memorial fund. There was anger here too, that she’d been pushed so far that ending her life had seemed the only answer.

There was also more detail about the circumstances of her death. Apparently, Jasmine had been spending a few days at a friend’s holiday cottage in Devon. She’d had dinner with a former colleague and his wife in Exeter then left to drive back. At some point in the early hours, she’d walked into the River Exe estuary, her pockets full of stones, and drowned.

‘Why drowning?’ Tony said. ‘It’s not an easy way to go, walking into the sea. Or the river. It’s not like jumping off a bridge, where there’s no going back once you’ve gone over the parapet. But walking in? There’s got to be a moment when the survival instinct kicks in, when you have second thoughts. Walking in, you’ve got the chance to change your mind. Take the stones out of your pockets. Stumble back to the shore. Give yourself a good talking to. But keeping going? That takes a lot of nerve.’

Maybe it hadn’t been a matter of choice. Maybe she’d been overwhelmed with the urge to end it all in a place where other options hadn’t been available to her. Most people didn’t carry the means of an overdose in their overnight bag. She was off her own turf, so she might not have been able to access a tall building or a motorway bridge to jump off. And holiday cottages were notorious for their lack of sharp knives.

But still. She’d have had to be pretty bloody determined. Tony felt a heaviness in his heart for her, that she had felt so isolated and vulnerable in spite of a clearly devoted circle of friends and workmates. That someone so respected and so cherished should end up walking into the chill waters of a dark river in the middle of the night was hard to understand for him, a man who spent his life empathising with the damaged, the deranged and the despairing. For those who knew and loved her, it had to be so much worse.

Tony got up and made himself a hot chocolate, topping it up from a can of spray cream from the tiny galley fridge. It was one of his few indulgences. He took his first sip, not paying any attention to the treat. There was something niggling him about Jasmine Burton’s death, but he couldn’t pin it down.

Before he could chase the idea any further, his phone began to vibrate, doing a little dance on top of the saloon table. His heart sank. This time of night, it was almost certainly Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital. A crisis with one of his patients. Or a new admission that they were struggling with.

He lunged for the phone, a splat of hot chocolate barely missing it. ‘Number withheld,’ the screen said. Definitely Bradfield Moor. He fumbled the slider but managed to catch the call before it disappeared. ‘Dr Hill,’ he said, hoping the person on the other end caught the note of resignation.

‘Tony? It’s Carol.’ Not that she needed to identify herself. His name in her voice was enough.

‘Hi, Carol. I thought you were work. How are you doing?’ He didn’t know what else to say. They’d both tried building bridges lately. A few exchanges of texts. A tentative arrangement to meet for dinner that fell through because he had to go to Nottingham to testify in a court case. But the gulf between them yawned wider than their efforts to span it. Though if she was calling him late at night, that was something, surely? Even if the chances were that she was only calling because she’d been drinking. Dutch courage was better than no courage at all.

A pause. Then, ‘I’m truly sorry about this, but I need a favour.’ Her voice was tight, angry almost.

A small leap of delight that he was who she’d turned to. Unless of course it was one of those favours that only he could provide. Except he couldn’t think what that would be now she wasn’t a cop any more. ‘No problem. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m at the police station in Halifax. I’ve no way of getting home. I came out without any money. And they won’t give me my car keys back. I know it’s late and —’

‘Of course I’ll come,’ he said, cutting her off. He had no desire to make her beg. ‘The car’s outside. I’ll come straight away.’

There was no sigh of relief, no gushing thanks. Three simple words, but there was warmth in her voice now. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Are you all right? Why are you at the police station?’

‘I’m fine. I’ll explain when you get here.’

‘I’ll see you soon.’ The line went dead. Automatically, Tony slipped the phone into his pocket and made for the companionway and the hatch leading outside. He grabbed his coat from its peg and his keys from their hook as he passed. Everything in the right place. That was how he lived now, a change of habit forced by his environment. A literal battening down of the hatches to match the emotional equivalent; adjusting to life without Carol at its heart.

He stepped out into the damp chill of the Minster Canal Basin. Even on the cusp of midnight, it was still lively, the last stragglers leaving pubs and restaurants, standing around in chattering knots taking their leave of each other. The ebb and flow of conversation and music drifted across the water from some of the other houseboats. A tram drew a line of light against the darkness as it crossed the Victorian viaduct, its arches a bold silhouette against the glow of the city beyond. Normally, he’d have paused for a moment to drink it in, to remind himself of the unlikely haven he’d found here. But not tonight. Not with Carol waiting in Halifax police station.

Tony slipped behind the wheel of his car and headed for the motorway link that would take him to the M62 and onwards across the Pennines to Halifax. He was trying not to speculate about the story that lay behind Carol’s call. He suspected that, whatever it was, it involved drink. And that, whatever it was, it would involve trouble.

Trouble, after all, had always occupied the heart of their relationship.

8

T
ony wasn’t the only person in the city confounded by the puzzle of his relationship with Carol Jordan. Elinor raised her voice to compete with Paula’s electric toothbrush and said, ‘I think Tony’s getting the hang of coming out to play.’

Paula grunted through toothpaste.

Elinor stretched out in bed and yawned. ‘I mean, he actually had conversations. He talked to Torin about console games. And we all discussed that poor woman who killed herself. Jasmine what’s-her-name.’

Paula spat. ‘Burton. Jasmine Burton. Yes, he did well. We’re fighting an entire lifetime of not actually managing to achieve social interaction, but we’re definitely making progress.’ She came through from the shower room and slipped under the duvet, snuggling into Elinor’s side and giving her a minty kiss.

‘Do you have any sense of what’s happening between him and Carol?’ Elinor shifted on to her side and fitted her body into her partner’s in a familiar configuration.

‘He doesn’t really talk about her. I think they’re in touch. I’m amazed he’s hanging in there. He nailed Blake to the wall for her. Forced the Wurzel to offer her a job at her old rank. And what did she do? Told him to stuff his job up his jacksie. Tony used all that leverage for her and she pissed all over it. In his shoes, I’d have cut her loose.’

Elinor chuckled, one hand rumpling Paula’s short blonde hair. ‘No you wouldn’t. You’re scarily like him. The pair of you would walk into machine-gun fire for Carol Jordan.’

Paula made a wordless sound of protest.

‘Well, maybe not machine guns. But close. You miss her, don’t you?’

Paula burrowed closer, pulling Elinor tight. ‘She’s the best cop I ever worked with. I look at the bosses I have to deal with now and I wonder how the fuck they got where they are. And truly, Elinor, I wonder whether I should be looking to transfer my skills somewhere they’ll be appreciated.’

Elinor shifted, leaning back so she could see Paula’s face. She knew her partner was frustrated with the narrow scope her job had assumed, but this was the first time she’d talked about walking away from it. ‘Like where?’

‘There’s opportunities. Carol always said I was the best interviewer she’d ever seen. Counter-terrorism’s big business, private sector as well as governmental stuff. Or maybe I could go totally over to the dark side and get some corporate headhunter job.’

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that,’ Elinor said. ‘I thought you were settled.’

‘I was, until Blake broke up the band and sent us off to play with people who have no sense of rhythm.’

Elinor smiled. ‘Ooh, extended metaphors.’

‘It’ll be zeugma next.’

‘I love it when you talk dirty to me.’ Elinor kissed the skin next to Paula’s mouth, the closest she could get to her lips. ‘Promise me you won’t do anything rash and impetuous.’

Paula laughed softy. ‘Now why would I promise you that when the last rash and impetuous thing I did was snog you in a lift?’

‘Because you have me now. But if you’re serious about making changes, I think you need to talk it over with the people whose opinions you respect.’

‘That would be you.’

Elinor gave Paula’s nose a gentle tap. ‘That would be me, but also Tony and Carol. We should kill two birds with one stone and have them both round for dinner. That way they’re forced to deal with each other, and you can use them as sounding boards for your thoughts.’

Paula gave a mock-shudder. ‘Mmm, you know how to turn a girl on.’ Then she sighed. ‘OK, let’s do it. Either they’ll talk to each other, or they won’t. I can hardly wait.’

9

T
he London night was raw and damp, a sharp contrast to the warm comfort of their private dining room. James Blake and John Brandon had been billeted in the same hotel so they were condemned to walk back together from the restaurant. Even a balmy summer evening wouldn’t have thawed the chill that had become obvious between them the minute they said their farewells to the minister and his officials.

After Brandon had made his defence of Carol Jordan as a staunch and tenacious officer, Blake had tried a last throw of the dice against her. ‘There’s one key issue you’re not taking into consideration, John,’ he’d said, his voice dripping condescension. ‘Whoever we choose for this job is going to be the focus of a huge amount of media attention. And Carol Jordan simply won’t stand up to that level of scrutiny.’

‘She has a remarkable record,’ Carver said. ‘The roster of her successful cases includes some of the most high profile killers of the last decade or more. The Jacko Vance cases alone guarantee she comes out covered in glory. I’d be hard pressed to come up with another officer we can parade in front of the media as more of a star.’

‘Look, this isn’t personal. I think she’s an excellent detective. I’m the one who offered her a job at her old rank, after all. What I’m considering is what’s best for the police service. Because dealing with Carol Jordan isn’t straightforward, is it? There’s a lot of bodies in her wake. Not least her own brother and his wife. In the wrong hands, she could come over as a sort of angel of death.’

There had been a sticky silence before Brandon jumped back into the fray. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that the fact her brother and sister-in-law were murdered is somehow a skeleton in Carol’s cupboard? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more offensive.’

Carver placed his forearms on the table and leaned forward. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite grasped the nature of the British press, James. Can’t you picture how well that story will play in the
Daily Mail
? Carol Jordan as the heartbroken crusader for justice. My God, they’ll be putting her forward for the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.’