Innocent Blood (7 page)

‘Oh, how like him; but you should know.’

He shrugged helplessly, pinned by the sharpness of her stare.

‘It was long after Paul disappeared.’

She paused and drank her coffee in an unfussy way, not enjoying it but not grimacing either. Her neutrality characterised this as it did everything else about her. He waited.

‘The police had stopped looking though they never told us that of course. They didn’t have family liaison officers in those days, not like now.’

She rose with a jerky movement, like a pre-programmed robot, and went to a cupboard at the bottom of a built-in bookcase from which she lifted a heavy box file.

‘This is a recent case.’ She passed him the file. ‘Another boy. Look at the coverage and all the fuss. Fascinating what the police do these days. We had none of that.’

Sarah Hill bent down and opened another door. The file she passed him this time was much smaller, a bare half inch across.

‘That’s Paul’s file. See how tiny? And half of that is from references to him during other investigations. Criminal science has progressed wonderfully, at least in its vocabulary. Doesn’t save the children though.’

He winced at her words and looked up expecting tears, but she was dry-eyed.

‘Do you follow many cases?’

‘Every one. The loft is full of past files. The ones down here are only those from this year. On New Year’s Eve I take the old year’s files upstairs and put the new ones ready in the cupboard.’

‘New ones?’

‘Of course, empty, ready for use. I think of all those mothers on the 1
^st
January each year, singing “Auld Lang Syne” as if tragedy were going to apply to someone else and not to them. I make the files ready, stick on blank labels. Then I drink a toast to the New Year’s victims and their parents. I don’t know who they’ll be and neither do they, but there hasn’t been a year yet that I’ve put a file away empty on the 31
^st
December. Usually I have to buy more. 1992 was a bad year. I ran out of filing space down here in July.’

He realised then that she had become deranged by grief.

‘I write to them all. Letters of hope at first because I really appreciated those. Then the prayers. I was sent some lovely ones. They mean nothing to me but they might help the others. And, eventually, I send them condolences. I’ve improved the wording over the years and I’m quite pleased with the latest letter. Would you like to see it?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Hill. I’m sure it is very fine.’

His skin crawled and he wanted to be gone. He stood up.

‘Wait! I haven’t told you about my father, what he did to me and Paul. He came around one evening, months after Paul had disappeared. My husband was still living with me then, just…’

Her concentration drifted away into an echo of remembered conversation and he waited. He understood grief and remembrances.

‘He told me that Paul had to be dead, that I should give up hope and start to grieve. That it would be good for me. Good for me!’ Her shriek made him jump and he almost dropped his water.

‘He was murdering Paul with his words. I had to shut him up. Every sentence he uttered was death for Paul; I couldn’t allow it. I hit him. He didn’t defend himself. The more I punched the more he seemed to want it. Eventually, my husband pulled us apart. I told them both to get out, that I never wanted to see them again.’

‘And they stayed away?’ He was fascinated despite himself.

‘Not at first. It took a long time but I finally made them leave me and Paul alone. No one comes to disturb us here now.’

He tried not to stare at the dowdy woman in front of him who had shaped her personal madness from hatred born of grief.

‘He’s dying, your father.’

‘Of course he is. Why else would he send you here after all these years?’

‘He wants to see you.’

‘No. I will never forgive him for wishing Paul dead.’

The hatred in her face made him frightened for Stanley. It was better that his old friend never saw his daughter than be forced to confront this dangerous wreck. But still he argued, loyal to the last.

‘I don’t think that your father wished Paul dead. He was probably trying to help you, as well as finding a way to cope with his own grief.’

She shook her head in denial but he continued, endeavouring to do his best.

‘I’m sure that your father was as desperate for Paul to be found alive as you were. He just couldn’t hold on to hope for as long as you were able to. He never wished Paul dead.’

Sarah Hill bent forward and picked up the letter, weighing it in her hands as if it were her father’s soul on the scales of Judgement. Abruptly she ripped it across the middle, the noise as loud as a pistol shot in the silence of the room. She kept tearing at it until the pieces littered the carpet like confetti. He had his answer.

‘I’ll see myself out.’

‘Wait!’ She ran up behind him as he opened the front door and inhaled fresh air. ‘You’re a man of the world, you have experience. Tell me, do you think he’s still alive, my Paul?’

Her eyes held him. Their plea for something, anything, to keep her hope alive humbled him.

‘Yes,’ he said and felt his gut churn with guilt at the lie, ‘yes, I do.’

Based on his revised statement and on the authority of the Criminal Prosecution Service, with Quinlan’s approval, Nightingale rearrested Jeremy Maidment for attempted murder on 25
^th
July at ten o’clock. She took him into custody on her own authority knowing that she had until four that afternoon to gather sufficient evidence to persuade Quinlan that they could hold him for the full twenty-four hours. That was all the time she would have to prepare a case strong enough to convince a magistrate that Maidment should be remanded in custody and not released on bail. It was what the Crown Prosecution Service wanted and they had made it clear that they were relying on her and her team to achieve it.

It was a tough order. Maidment looked an unlikely criminal or flight risk. While she understood all about someone being innocent until proven guilty, and their right to liberty until trial except in extreme circumstances, she could not help but wish that the law cut the police some slack once in a while. Twenty-four hours was so little time, particularly with Bob Cooper and the other original arresting officers tied up in the inquiry.

She needed their detailed statements double-checked; the report on the gun and bullet from ballistics (which still had not arrived); information from Maidment’s doctor about his tremor…the list went on. The one thing she did not actually need was a lot of time with the major himself but as he was only supposed to be in custody to help her gather evidence, or prevent him from hindering her investigation or committing another crime, she had to go through the motions. One of her small team was re-interviewing him at that moment as she struggled to complete her work.

When the phone rang she ignored it but the team secretary interrupted her anyway.

‘It’s the assistant chief constable,’ she said white-faced. ‘He’s not best pleased at having to wait to talk to you.’

Nightingale grimaced.

‘Put him through – oh, and close the door, would you?’

The phone rang and she picked it up at once.

‘Inspector Nightingale.’

‘About time. Don’t you answer your own phone since you’ve been promoted? Too grand for all that now, are we?’

‘No, sir, not at all. I was just up against a deadline and—’

‘Never mind that. What’s this I hear about you rearresting Major Maidment? I gave an order only last week for him to be released on bail. The man’s a pillar of the community.’

After her interview with Maidment she had known that there were strong grounds for a renewed charge of attempted murder. It had only been a matter of time before the ACC found out and called her.

‘I was aware of the reasons for Maidment’s release, sir, but subsequent evidence has come to light that has led CPS to prefer a charge of attempted murder.’

‘Preposterous! Whose evidence? I demand to see it.’

‘It was mine and I’ll arrange for a copy to be sent to you as soon as Superintendent Quinlan has reviewed it.’

In the silence that followed she could feel the fury directed towards her but when he spoke Harper-Brown’s voice had returned to its normal smoothness – and that worried her even more.

‘I shall expect your report immediately, Inspector, and if I find that you have been motivated in any way by the mistaken desire to elevate the charge in order to somehow alleviate the situation in which the ridiculous Cooper now finds himself, you will be in serious trouble.’

He broke the connection without another word and she replaced the receiver carefully. Her heart was pounding but she was pleased to see that her hand was steady and her voice normal as she asked the secretary to email a copy of her interview to the ACC. It was a full record of their conversation and CPS had congratulated her on its clarity and value. She doubted Harper-Brown would have the nerve to go up against the prosecutors but far from vindicating her, that would only serve to deepen his resentment.

Fenwick hadn’t been warned of Harper-Brown’s mood before he saw him later that morning in another attempt to excavate the terrace at The Downs Golf Club, which had been undergoing reconstruction at the time of Malcolm Eagleton’s disappearance in 1981. It had been a frustrating meeting. Harper-Brown again refused to grant permission and had ended up ordering Fenwick out of his office.

Drinking a foul but strong coffee from the canteen before he drove back to MCS, Fenwick calculated the damage he had inflicted to his prospects by pushing his demands so hard. On the Richter scale of career suicide he thought he was moving up over a seven. Serious structural damage, economic disruption and potential loss of life. The ACC was not the shock-absorbent kind.

As he dashed across the busy car park Fenwick cursed his lack of an umbrella for the second time that day. The heat wave they’d been enjoying for ten weeks had been broken without warning by a storm that started before dawn and showed no sign of easing. In the steamy shelter of his car, he turned on the air-conditioning to clear the windows and hung his jacket on a coat hanger. The worst of the creases should fall out by the time he arrived but there was no hope for the trousers. It did nothing to improve his mood.

The ramp out of the car park was flooded. With the earth baked hard and drains cluttered with debris, the water had nowhere to go but onto the roads. His journey to Burgess Hill took an hour, double the normal time and his desk was covered with new reports when he finally reached it.

He was reading the last of them when Nightingale rang. Although they now saw more of each other in their spare time, it had not become a habit – at least not as far as he was concerned. She was calling to invite him out for a drink and he almost said no on principle as he’d seen her for dinner at his house the Friday before. But it had been a frustrating day and he felt in need of company before he faced Alice and the children, so he said yes. They agreed to meet at the Bull and Drum, a pleasant village pub overlooking a cricket field that was on his way home. It also served some of the best bitter in the county.

Her car wasn’t in the car park when he arrived, making her late again. It was becoming a habit and it was one that annoyed him. He expected punctuality in others even though he achieved it infrequently himself. The rain was, if anything, heavier and he took his pint into the cosy snug bar where an arrangement of dried flowers took the place of a fire in the grate.

Nightingale was a puzzle to him. The previous year they had come very close to having an affair but he’d stopped it. In the aftermath though they had gradually become friends; he corrected himself, they had become very good friends. They saw each other once, at the most twice, a month, sometimes at his house where her presence was exerting a subtle influence over his children. She was careful not to seem in any way like a replacement mother. It was friendship that she offered and easy, undemanding companionship. Because she wasn’t looking for anything from them they naturally loved her.

Bess was obsessed with Nightingale’s slenderness, style and sleek hair, so different from her own curls and puppy-fat chubbiness. Recently he’d even noticed Chris curling himself up against her like a kitten, content to feel her warmth without any other demonstration or contact. It was strange behaviour from his detached and difficult son. Some of his irritation towards her faded as he acknowledged to himself how sensitively she managed their affections.

As to her present feelings towards him, he’d been left to fathom them out for himself. Once he’d made it clear that he didn’t want a relationship she had never raised the subject again. If anything, over the past few months it was she who was becoming more detached. As a result, he was starting to find her more interesting. He loathed clinginess in women, a lasting consequence of his doomed marriage. Overt dependency had the same effect on him as bromide, killing any sense of lust. When Nightingale had declared her love, part of him went into hiding. The more distant she became the more attractive he thought her, though fortunately she seemed unaware of the fact. Or perhaps, he thought with a jolt as he spotted her walking towards him with a small glass of wine, she had found someone else and no longer cared. The idea upset him.

‘Sorry,’ she waved him down as he started to rise from his seat in an automatic gesture of politeness. ‘The main road out of Harlden is flooded underneath the railway bridge. I had to find a route through the back roads. This rain is terrible.’

‘You shouldn’t have bought your own drink.’

‘Why not? It saves time and as I drink white wine I knew that you wouldn’t have got me one in case it went warm. Am I right?’

It was obvious that she was.

‘Are you hungry? Only I missed lunch and I don’t want to drink this on an empty stomach.’

‘Alice will have something for me,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘but let me get you a bite to eat.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

She was gone before he could protest but was back in minutes with a cheese and pickle sandwich. No matter how busy a bar she always seemed to be served quickly.

‘So, good day?’ His opening line was always the same, nice and neutral.

‘Awful.’ They were on their own in the snug but she still lowered her voice. ‘I heard from CPS on the major. His revised statement means that they’ve raised the game to attempted murder again. You can imagine H-B’s reaction to that.

‘I think they’re being a bit ambitious but they’re in charge. It’s going to be a difficult case because he has public sympathy and he’s a likeable old man. Everyone we’ve interviewed can’t speak highly enough of him. Apparently he sold the family house after his wife died and bought somewhere much smaller. The proceeds were split between his son and a couple of charities and now he lives a very modest life. On top of that, he’s a regular churchgoer, does charity work, helps out those less able than himself and he’s well connected. His time as secretary of the golf club was one of the most effective in the club’s history according to a number of people, and his service record is distinguished. He’s not the sort of man one would ever expect to see in the dock.

‘But frankly that’s irrelevant; he shot and almost killed a man. Chalfont could have died.’ Nightingale’s hushed voice held the outrage only a truly logical person could feel.

‘It was the major’s presence of mind that saved him.’

‘From his own bullet,’ she hissed.

‘How is the ACC coping? He must have known Maidment well.’

‘He’s deeply pissed.’ Fenwick blinked in surprise at Nightingale’s uncharacteristic choice of language. ‘Now that his attempt to have Maidment released on a minor charge has failed he’s said that his involvement will be at purely arm’s length. He wants to be kept informed of any developments with CPS but he’s made it abundantly clear that I’m on my own if it starts to get rough. I think his strategy is to maintain a low profile and hope that he isn’t called as a character witness!’ Nightingale’s laugh at the idea of Harper-Brown in the dock faded quickly.

‘I’ve got to build enough of a case against Maidment to persuade the magistrate to keep him in custody tomorrow; no bail for attempted murder as far as CPS is concerned.’

‘The press will have a field day.’ He thought but didn’t say:
particularly with you as SIO
. They knew to their cost that her face was good for sales.

‘Right but what choice is there? I still have a job to do. How about you?’ she asked, changing the subject that was obviously unpleasant to her. ‘Any nearer to going public on Malcolm?’

He told her about his failure with the ACC. To his surprise she was unsympathetic, almost critical of his desire to push for an excavation in the first place. He found himself having to defend his position and didn’t like it.

Nightingale put the last of her sandwich in her mouth and chewed with obvious delight. ‘I might take another of these with me; they’re better than the canteen’s.’

‘You’re going back to work?’ It was gone seven.

‘Yes. I have to try for remand tomorrow so I’ve got more work to do.’

‘I’m sorry, if I’d known I would have suggested a different pub.’

‘Well, I did try to call you to rearrange once I realised I was going to work late but all I got was your answering service. Never mind, I needed the food and the drive has cleared my head.’

She picked up her handbag, obviously ready to leave, forcing Fenwick to down the rest of his beer. He’d been going to suggest another drink but that clearly wasn’t an option. They left the pub together, Fenwick walking in her wake watching the eyes of every man follow her to the door. If she was aware of the effect she had on them she gave it no heed.