Mitch was on the phone reporting back to Gilclass="underline" no response at Greg Tandy’s address on Manton Road. According to probation records, Tandy was living there with his wife and son.
‘Try again in the morning,’ Gill said.
There was suddenly a crashing sound in the outer office and raised voices.
‘Night,’ she ended the call and flung open her office door. ‘What the fuck is going-’
Dave. On his hands and knees trying to pick up the contents of Kevin’s desk, by the looks of it. Lee bending over him. Dave threw up an arm, holding a fistful of papers, released them on to the desk. Then saw her.
‘Gill.’ He practically dribbled the word. ‘I just wanted…’
She just wanted… to die. There and then. To disappear.
‘All right?’ Kevin stood at the door from the landing, coffee in hand, bemused.
‘Kevin, Lee,’ she said briskly, ‘I’ve got this.’ No introductions needed. They both knew Chief Superintendent Murray.
‘Shall I get a first-aider?’ Kevin said. ‘Or the paramedics?’
‘No need,’ Gill said.
‘Give you a hand,’ Kevin said, ‘my desk, don’t mind.’
Fuck off and die. ‘Kevin – thanks. No. Leave. Now. See you in the morning.’ The messages hit their target. Kevin stopped, Lee nodded, grabbed his jacket and left. Kevin trotted after him.
She could just imagine the conversation. The humiliation.
‘Get up,’ she told Dave, though maybe he’d be safer on his hands and knees. She couldn’t lift him. He was half her weight again. Probably more these days.
He levered himself upright using the desk as ballast. ‘Sit there,’ she pointed to Kevin’s chair, ‘and stay there.’
She went for coffee, praying that no one would come in meanwhile, no cleaners or any of her syndicate. Rachel and Janet were still interviewing. No one else was due back. She might get lucky. Lee and Kevin had seen the floorshow and although Lee might be tactful, respectful, Kevin was a gobby little git. He struggled at work and she’d ridden him hard and he’d probably see this as his chance for payback: Lady Muck reckons she’s got it all under control, never puts a foot wrong, but her old man is a pisshead.
She went back upstairs with the drinks. Dave was where she’d left him. He smiled inanely when he saw her. She gave him a coffee. Told him to drink it.
‘Why are you here?’ She intended to be calm, to try to reason with him. Get him to understand the boundaries.
‘Sorry,’ he slurred. He reeked. 40 per cent proof in his veins instead of blood. ‘To say sorry, sorry for last night.’
‘Sorry? Look at you now.’
‘Got a taxi,’ he said, ‘not the car, no car.’ As though that made everything all right.
‘You come here, you barge into my office in front of my colleagues, you can’t even see straight, you stink like a brewery and you call this some sort of apology.’
‘Sorry,’ he said again.
‘You can’t do this, Dave. You are not part of my life any more.’
‘Just friends.’
‘No.’ She shook her head irritably. ‘Not friends. Not even that. Not anything. You left me, Dave. It’s over. It’s dead and buried. I’ve moved on and you need to do the same. And this, getting pissed out of your head, have you any idea what people think? Word gets round – and it will – you’ll be suspended.’
‘OK, OK.’ He waved his hands to shut her up. ‘You are out of control,’ she said, ‘sort it.’ She felt her temper rising, warmth in her face.
‘You don’t understand-’
‘You’ve got that right. And you need to understand…’ she said hotly, ‘… you need to understand that you are making a complete prick of yourself. You could lose everything.’
‘I already have,’ he said.
‘Oh, spare me the bloody melodrama.’
She began to clear up the stuff scattered over the floor, papers and pens and Post-it notes. Kevin’s in-tray, his Man United trinkets. Arranged them roughly on the desk.
‘Get up,’ she said. ‘I’ll drive you home.’ She didn’t want to say ‘to your mother’s’, didn’t want to rub it in.
‘I can get a cab,’ he offered.
‘No.’ She didn’t trust him not to just head off to some pub or off-licence. At least if he got into the house he might sleep it off. God knows how his mother was coping with it. But that wasn’t Gill’s concern.
Dave went to stand up, failed, tried again and made it.
There was a dark patch round his crotch. Oh God, he’d pissed himself. He wasn’t even aware he’d done it. She felt her stomach drop, a moment’s sadness. This had gone way beyond the occasional bender. He had been a proud man, a vain man who thought he was cleverer than he really was. Sometimes a stupid, weak man, particularly where women were concerned. Now he was a wreck. How could he not see that, sense her disgust, want to stop it?
‘You come here again,’ she said, ‘off your face and I will have you escorted from the building and inform professional standards.’
12
Noel Perry requested a break after an hour and a half of denial and stonewalling. Janet went up to the incident room. She switched her phone on. Elise had replied to Janet’s earlier text which had read Money in jar 4 taxi. Take extra £20 in case. Have fun xxx. Elise’s reply: LYSM. Love You So Much. Did Rachel know that one? Janet liked to test her every so often.
Rachel was still in with Neil Perry but Gill had disappeared. No Lee or Kevin either; it was getting late but they always worked late on a murder. Kevin had left his desk in a right mess. There was a stapler on the floor nearby and a whiff of booze in the air. Had someone been spicing up their brew with a drop of the hard stuff? If Gill found out, they’d be off the syndicate so fast their feet wouldn’t touch the floor.
Janet drank some juice from the carton she kept in the fridge and checked her e-mails. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d been totally alone in the office. It felt spooky. Like the Marie Celeste. Tired, she told herself, that’s all. She logged off and washed her cup. The tap made a clanking sound which startled her and brought a rash of gooseflesh to her arms.
When her phone rang, she was halfway downstairs, her footsteps echoing in the empty stairwell. Elise.
‘Hi,’ Janet answered. Only ten o’clock. Had they not been able to find the party? Had they had enough?
‘Mum.’ Elise’s voice was high with panic. ‘Mum, it’s Olivia. I don’t know what to do. I can’t wake her up. Mum, please.’
Shock riveted Janet to the spot. She could hear noises in the background, voices, more distantly the thud of a bass line. A shout of laughter.
‘Where are you?’ Janet said.
‘At the party.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Olivia’s collapsed. I can’t wake her up.’
‘Why’s she collapsed?’
‘I don’t know,’ Elise said wildly, ‘I don’t know, she just… she just fell down.’
‘Call an ambulance-’
‘But-’
‘Elise, listen, call an ambulance and tell them exactly what happened. Stay with Olivia. Do whatever they tell you. Yes?’
‘Mum-’
‘I’m coming. What number is it?’
‘Sixty-four,’ she said, beginning to cry.
‘Elise, hang up and call the ambulance. Call them now.’ The line went dead.
Janet ran downstairs, heart in her mouth. She told the custody sergeant she was leaving, a family emergency, and to inform Noel Perry’s solicitor to attend the following morning at 9am for a 24-hour superintendent review. At that point, all being well, they’d be granted another twelve hours to talk to the Perrys, and if they needed yet more time then they’d go to court to apply for a further thirty-six hours.
Thankfully the lights were with her all the way as she drove as quickly as she dared to the address Elise had given her. Reaching the avenue – a development of upmarket three- and four-bedroom modern houses, with open-plan gardens – she saw the ambulance was already there and a patrol car as well. People outside the house, party-goers, Janet assumed, were drifting away in small groups.