He had spent about half an hour with Annie. She was very rational and together, though a desperate and tragic figure. Henry saw resilience in her and guessed that sooner rather than later her life would be back on track.
He left with a hopeful, positive feeling inside him. The carrier bag she had given him was dumped on the back seat of his car, forgotten.
Then he went home to Kate.
He could hardly bring himself to look at her, so ashamed was he of his actions with Siobhan. Did Kate pick up his body language? Could she see right through him? Did she intuitively know that not long before, he had literally been on the verge of making love to another woman?
Henry would not have been surprised.
Wives were so perceptive about their husbands’ every little transgression.
Thankfully she seemed far more concerned with his injuries and getting him into a hot, soothing Radox bath and subsequently to bed. She fussed around him like a mother hen, or at least someone who cared very deeply for him and to whom his wellbeing was her main concern. Inside, he boiled angrily with himself whilst on the outside he revelled in the blue water and the glass of Jack Daniel’s which Kate placed in his hand as he lay back and soaked his soul.
He was beginning to think he had the makings of a serial adulterer, but maybe he was exaggerating the problem.
His daughters, Jenny and Leanne, were another reason for this self loathing. With the soap bubbles covering his rude parts, they sat on their knees next to the bath, whilst Kate took a back seat on the lid of the loo, and listened wide-eyed at the story of his day, culminating in him being shot and the fight in the clothing displays of M amp; S. He proudly displayed his chest-wound for them to see. It had turned the colour of black grapes. He also carefully removed the bandage on his ear to show them how chewed it was.
He was their hero and although he knew the truth — he had been completely terrified most of the time — he never revealed it to them. Their dad. The hero.
The serial adulterer.
Kate ushered them out of the bathroom after the story.
She sat back on the loo, looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘I think you’ve got something to tell me.’
The words hit Henry harder than the bullet.
‘ How did you know?’
Were there claw-marks down his back he hadn’t realised Siobhan had inflicted on him? Teeth-marks around his foreskin?
‘ The fact you were in Lancaster for one thing. Then you had a gun. And you were arresting people for that multiple killing job. You’ve already moved onto, what’s it called, North-West Crime something or other?’
‘ North-West Organised Crime Squad,’ he corrected her, trying to cover the relief in his voice. ‘No, I’ve just been helping them out, that’s all, so they can look at me and I can look at them. See if we like each other.’ He went on to explain the possibility of a six-month secondment, followed possibly by a full transfer, and how right he thought the job was for him.
He didn’t mention Siobhan at all.
‘ OK,’ Kate said, tilting her head. ‘If that’s what you want — chasing criminals with guns all over the place, fine by me. If you’re happy at your work, I’ll be behind you. Just please don’t let it get in the way of us this time, Henry. That’s all I ask.’
‘ I won’t,’ he promised meekly.
And once again, Kate, his wonderful, beautiful wife, had surprised him with her generosity. And through no fault of her own, made him feel like an absolute bastard.
Maybe that’s my lot in life, he’d reasoned.
Henry was brought bang into the present as the phone went, interrupting his recall. It was Karl Donaldson.
‘ Karl, how you doin’?
‘ OK, buddy,’ Donaldson said, but Henry picked up a bum note in the American’s voice. ‘I need to see you pretty urgently, Henry.’
‘ About what?’
‘ Not over the phone. Face to face. I’m gonna travel up, bring Karen along too. Settin’ off shortly. Looking at four-five hours maybe with traffic and weather. Can you accommodate us?’
‘ Sure, sounds important. Nothing over the phone?’
‘ No clues, bud.’
‘ I’ll see you at home then.’
The phone went dead. Henry hung up, mystified and slightly worried. He had no time to ruminate, however. The phone warbled again.
‘ DS Christie — get up into my office now.’
Rather like Siobhan’s open-handed slap last night, Henry was caught unawares by what happened next.
He meandered down the corridor towards Morton’s office. When he was a few feet away from the door, it opened dramatically and Siobhan burst out, virtually into his arms. Tears were streaked down her face and she was heaving with loud, gut-wrenching sobs. She looked up at Henry and reacted instantly as though she had walked into the monster from hell.
‘ Get off me, get off me!’ she screamed, making a great show of disentangling herself from him. She was not entangled by any stretch of the imagination. She drew back, slapping the air like she was trying to free herself from Spiderman’s web. ‘Leave me alone. You’ve done enough damage.’
‘ Siobhan!’ Henry was wrong-footed completely. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘ You bastard! Don’t come near me again.’
With that she ducked to one side, swept past him and scurried off down the corridor towards the ladies toilets. Henry watched her retreating back with shock. He turned. Tony Morton was standing in the doorway of his temporary office.
‘ What was all that about?’ Henry asked, nonplussed.
Morton said nothing for a moment, but surveyed Henry with a calculating look which made him shiver.
‘ Come in and sit down.’
Morton stayed by the door. Henry slid by him into the office. He sat down, intertwining his fingers on his lap in a gesture of submission.
Morton closed the door softly and walked to his seat behind the desk, putting a large space between him and the Detective Sergeant and peering down at him from a greater height. Henry could not help but be awed by the old-fashioned power psychology. It always worked on him.
What the hell was going on?
Morton did not speak for a few moments, but allowed Henry to savour the atmosphere.
Then he dropped the bomb.
‘ DC Robson claims that you have sexually harassed her and this has culminated in a serious sexual assault. Namely rape.’
Three items appeared on Karl Donaldson’s desk just as he was in the process of packing his briefcase.
The first was from Madeira and had come by DHL. It was the sample of human tissue taken from under Sam Dawber’s fingernails. It was in an airtight container, with Santana’s signature across the seal as well as the doctor’s who had performed the post mortem.
The next item was a statement from an FBI scientist which contained the DNA profile resulting from the sample taken from under Sam’s nails at the second autopsy. There was a computer print-out attached which meant nothing to Donaldson. It went on to say that the FBI DNA database had been searched, but no match had been made.
He assumed that if he got the police here to DNA test the sample from Madeira, the result would match up with the one from the States.
He slid both items into his desk drawer and locked it.
They would have to wait.
He wanted to get on the road to see Henry, ASAP.
However, the next item caught and held his attention.
It was the photograph of Wayne and Tiger Mayfair taken on their arrival at Madrid Airport a couple of days before. Donaldson had already received a brief written report about the arrival from a field agent out there. They were good quality photographs and Donaldson was pleased by the high resolution. But it was the report which accompanied it that made him sit up. Again, from the same field agent, a guy named Moody, who had been doing a bit of digging. It briefly said that, under assumed names, the Mayfairs had now left Spain en route by air to Paris. The agent had also discovered that they had flown into Madrid from Lisbon.