‘Can we go via my nan’s? I need to pick up some clothes.’
‘Well, make sure it’s your uniform. You’re back with me, son, as soon as the briefing’s over.’
‘Great news,’ Sean said. ‘I should have stayed on the roof.’
‘Feeling’s mutual!’ Gavin laughed and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.
The briefing had started when they arrived. As he sat down, something caught Sean’s eye. Stuck to the corner of the whiteboard was an A4 piece of paper with a childish drawing of a face. The cheeks and lips were out of proportion but the eyes were unmistakable. Terry Starkey was staring straight at him.
He couldn’t follow what was being said. In his two days off the job the world had gone mad. A girl was dead. The picture of her body surrounded by leaves and flowers was like something artistically staged. He’d need to be very sure, but her eyes, the set of her nose, even in death, were familiar. Then it struck him. She was the girl in the picture in the library window, in the black and white photo of the playground.
He forced himself to listen. Each whiteboard had its separate family tree, its lines and patterns linking people and places, the fire at AK News, prints on a fragment of glass. DCI Khan was saying that the motive was unclear, but he drew a line in red pen to a photograph of Saleem, who was also being linked to low-level drug dealing on the estate.
Khan was talking about the Asaf brothers, the fathers who were both away in Pakistan. One had lost a son and both had lost their business, so why hadn’t they come back? Sean’s head was swimming and his mouth was dry, then DI Rick Houghton had his hand up, he was saying Sean’s name.
‘PC Denton might have some useful information, DCI Khan, can we invite him to address the briefing?’
Khan nodded and Sean made his way to the front. As he went past, Rick whispered:
‘Tell them about the CUC and Starkey.’
His colleagues were egging him on with grins and even a thumbs up from Carly at the back. Even DS Simkins offered him a nod and half a smile. Sean felt a little light-headed.
‘Excuse me. I think we need to consider that Mohammad Asaf’s murder was racially motivated. I … um … I was at a meeting, by mistake, which turned out to be organised by a right-wing group. A key player in that group is a man called Terry Starkey and, look, sorry this isn’t what I was going to say at all, but that drawing, on the other board, looks very like him.’
If he was expecting everyone to stand up and applaud him, he was disappointed. There was a brief silence, broken by Rick clearing his throat.
‘Um,’ Sean tried to get the ideas in his head into some sort of order. ‘I think Terry Starkey is in the middle of this. It was something Saleem Asaf said. He knew the lads who’d been paid to chase his cousin, presumably to his death. Sorry if that’s not much use, but if Saleem can identify those involved in killing Asaf, maybe we should talk to him again.’
‘And he trusts you?’ It was Khan. The question seemed straightforward enough, no hint of sarcasm. Maybe Sean had been forgiven.
‘Yes. I think he does. He may have just saved my life.’
There was a ripple of laughter across the incident room and Sean realised that news of his escape in his underwear to the roof of Eagle Mount One was now common knowledge. He sat down again, his face and ears burning, but Khan was watching him, stroking his beard and nodding slightly, as if something had clicked in his mind. Sean needed this briefing to be over so he could fill Khan in on some of the other things he’d worked out, but first he needed get to the toilet. A cold sweat gripped him and his stomach was churning.
People were standing up and a hubbub of conversation broke out around him. Images from the briefing merged in his mind: bodies and fingerprints, Lizzie had been waving a sharp weapon and some gardening gloves, and all Sean could do was breathe in and out of his nose, deep, slow breaths to keep the nausea still. He got to his feet and pushed his way out.
He was only just in time. With one hand on the edge of the cistern he emptied his stomach and then some. He left the cubicle and washed his face, rinsed his mouth and stared at the hollow-eyed fool in the mirror. The more he stared, the more he could see his father’s features starting to creep up on his own. He turned to go and let the door of the gents’ toilet swing shut behind him. Along the corridor the door to the incident room was open and the rows of chairs were empty. He could hear two female voices raised in an argument. He looked in. Lizzie Morrison and DS Simkins broke off when they saw him.
‘Sorry, am I interrupting?’
‘You OK?’ Lizzie said. ‘You look pale.’
‘Rough night.’
‘Lucky you!’ she said.
‘Not really.’
DS Dawn Simkins was smiling at him. It pushed her cheeks into an unfamiliar pattern, as if the muscles weren’t used to it.
‘Good to have you back, Denton. If you’ve got a minute, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you. In private.’
Lizzie was busy removing a memory stick from the back of the laptop. Sean didn’t want her to go, but Simkins was pointedly waiting for her to finish and leave them alone.
‘Catch you later, Sean,’ Lizzie said.
‘Yeah, where can I find you …?’ He faltered. ‘If there’s something I want to … I need to catch up a bit first, but …’
‘Extension 205, any time.’
Then she was gone and the square jaw of DS Simkins was back to normal.
‘Let’s get down to business.’
Sean looked at the boards and the drawing of Starkey. He wasn’t sure what it was he was searching for and then he saw it. Someone had written a list of vehicles under a heading which said: Halsworth Grange. Small white Fiat. Scout minibus. Dark posh car.
‘Could “Dark posh car” be a blue BMW?’
He reached for his phone to find the photo, but the battery was still as dead as before. Someone here must have the right sort of charger. He’d have to go on a hunt.
‘Never mind that, I want you to look at this,’ Dawn Simkins was tapping the end of a pen on a document printed on green paper. ‘Have a seat.’
Sean sat down.
‘What is it?’
‘Whistle-blowing Policy. Can’t you read?’
Fuck off.
‘Of course I can. I mean, why?’
If he’d been expecting to have the word ‘whistle-blowing’ put under his nose, he’d have seen it straight away, but he was still trying to break it down, match it to something on the incident board, but it didn’t fit.
‘Wendy Gore suggested we have a word. Professional Standards?’ she said, moving closer, the soft muscle of her upper arm pressing against his. ‘Now, I’m here to support you if you want to file a complaint against DCI Khan.’
‘Dawn, can I call you Dawn?’ Sean said, moving away. ‘I don’t need this right now, what I need is a phone charger, so I can get on with some police work. So you can stick your whistle-blowing policy up your arse, and unless you’ve got a phone charger up there too, I’ll see you later.’
He almost skipped out of the room. He might be off his head on lack of sleep and lack of food, but he was buzzing. In the corridor he found Rick Houghton.
‘What are you smiling at?’
‘Nothing,’ Sean said. ‘Have you got a spare phone charger that fits this? I’ve got a load of stuff. I don’t know what to make of half of it. God knows if it’s even admissible evidence, but we need to look at it. Khan needs to see it too. Our very own DCI Sam Nasir Khan. Let’s keep him here, shall we, where he’s wanted? And send that old trout back to Sheffield.’
‘Sean?’ Rick said. ‘Are you still drunk?’