The man bit his lip, deep in thought. ‘Okay, but you’ve only got a few minutes. She’s in Number 17.’
Collins hurried down the narrow staircase in case the officer changed his mind. She made her way along the line of cells, examining the numbers outside each door, until she reached the third from the end.
Collins pulled up the flap on the front of the door and peered inside. Matthews, her face seemingly still wet with tears, sat on the edge of the bed in the far corner. The cell had been especially stripped to ensure she would not be able to take her own life. The bed was a low concrete shelf covered in a thick rubber mattress. Aside from the narrow toilet – designed to prevent inmates from fitting their heads inside – and a tiny sink area, it was empty.
Matthews started to rock back and forth, as if dancing to the beat of an imaginary drum. Collins scrutinized her carefully. Up close she looked even more ragged, more wasted. And Collins didn’t believe a single word of it.
‘I know you’re faking it,’ Collins said softly.
Matthews did not appear to react; she simply kept up her steady rocking, back and forth, back and forth.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to get out of it. Okay, so you won’t be in prison but there’s not much difference between that and a secure unit. And at least in prison you’d have had a whole load more privileges than you’re going to have in a secure hospital.’
Matthews continued to rock back and forth. Collins stared at her intently.
‘There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just playing the system. The way you always have done. It’s what you do best and you think it’s going to get you somewhere, but let me tell you something. You’re wrong. This case may be over but I’ll be keeping my eye on you.
‘You think you can get away with almost killing my daughter? You’ve scared her for life. And let me tell you something, you picked the wrong target. You made a big mistake when you took me on and I won’t ever let you forget it.
‘Mark my words: I’ll be watching, and if I get one more shred of evidence, if we find one more body, if I get one hint that you’re faking all this, I’ll come down on you like a ton of bricks.’
Sophie had spent more than two weeks in hospital after the attack. The doctors told her mother that, although the physical scars to her chest and torso would eventually heal, the psychological scars that she suffered might never go away. Ever since she had beome quiet and withdrawn. More than ever she craved the company of her father. Having been there, having been injected with the same drug as her, she believed that he understood the way she felt and the ordeal she had been through better than anybody else in the whole world. All of Stacey’s attempts to keep the two of them apart, to improve her relationship with her daughter, seemed to have backfired on her. Now they were further apart than ever.
It had not been an easy ride for Stanley either. He had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the murder of Danny Thompson. He had, incredibly, been released after a lack of evidence – typical in his kind of case. Sophie refused to believe a word of it of course, dismissing the whole thing as a police conspiracy. She went further and cited it as further evidence of her mother trying to drive a wedge between father and daughter because of her jealousy.
Collins was breathing hard now. During the whole of her rant, Matthews had not reacted in the slightest. Even the rhythm of her rocking back and forth, back and forth, had not changed at all. It was almost as if Collins was not even there. She might just as well have been talking to a brick wall.
Perhaps Woods had been right after all. Perhaps Matthews had finally lost her mind. Perhaps the horror of what she had been involved in for the past decade, the horror of what she had experienced as a young child, had finally caught up with her. Perhaps, Collins thought, she did deserve some small element of sympathy after all.
Collins sighed deeply, lowered the flap and began to walk away. She managed only two steps before a distinctive voice called out from behind her.
‘I haven’t finished with you yet, Stacey Collins, or with that little brat of yours.’
Collins rushed back, snapped open the flap and peered inside. Matthews did not appear to have moved from her previous position. Even her rhythm was identical to what it had been before. But this time, as Collins looked in on her, Matthews very slowly, ever so slowly, turned her head and stared directly at her.
The eyes were blank; the expression was that of a face that gave nothing away – no emotion, no depth, no understanding. But Collins knew it was a mask. She knew that Matthews was just as dangerous as ever. Whatever game the killer was playing, Collins did not understand it. But she would be forever looking over her shoulder.
Epilogue
The officers from SOCA and the DPS, along with Commander Patterson, DCS Higgins and DCI Anderson, had been summoned together to discuss the future of DI Collins in light of the revelations about Jack Stanley and her daughter.
The corner office on the twelfth floor of New Scotland Yard was nicely shaded from the sun and comfortably furnished. The men who entered said nothing as they took their seats around the large rectangular table in the centre. They were all too aware that a major decision had to be made and none of them were in the mood for smiling.
‘I don’t think any of us can underestimate the seriousness of this situation,’ said Higgins solemnly after they had all sat down. ‘On the one hand we have an officer who identified and brought to justice one of the most dangerous serial killers we have ever come across. At the same time, we have someone who has flagrantly disregarded the rules and regulations and put God only knows how many lives at risk because of her relationship with a hugely important figure in the London underworld.’
The other officers around the table nodded slowly. None of them could have expressed it better, and none of them relished having to make a decision about the best way to move forward.
Each man spoke in turn. Higgins reminded everyone that, although Collins was undoubtedly a maverick, she always got results. They had, as yet, no evidence that she had done anything illegal in her relationship with Jack Stanley, though she had in fact lied under oath.
DCI Neil Barker leaned forward. ‘You can’t dismiss that element of it. It’s an absolute offence. Perjury is perjury.’
Patterson shook his head. ‘But this kind of lie isn’t one that’s going to lead us to press criminal charges and that only leaves a disciplinary matter. The question is whether we kick her off the force, suspend her or do nothing. We can’t have one law for those we prosecute and another for those who work among us. The same laws have to apply to everyone. There are mitigating factors, for sure, and we can take those into consideration, along with her track record, but that doesn’t change the facts.’
‘Well, doing nothing clearly isn’t an option,’ said Anderson. ‘That would give the wrong signal to dozens of other officers out there who might be in similar situations. We need to make a stand that says that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated by anyone on our staff, no matter how successful or able an officer they may be.’
‘Then we are agreed on one thing,’ said Higgins. ‘That we must do something. Now the next question to be resolved is exactly what that thing should be. Who wants to begin?’
The meeting lasted for another two hours, and when it was over the men emerged mentally exhausted. They had debated and discussed every possible angle and every possible outcome. The final decision was one that nobody was entirely happy with, but was the one they felt they could best live with under the circumstances.