‘Penny for ’em.’
Lost in the past, she hadn’t even heard Les Bryant march up to her table. He plonked down his polystyrene cup and sat down opposite her without asking if it was all right. As yet she hadn’t made up her mind how to play things with him. He was leaving it to her to speak first. Elbows on the formica surface, jaw cradled in his palm, studying her face as if it were a cipher that he’d been tasked to decode.
Pushing her plate aside, she said, ‘We had a call about a case I once worked on.’
‘Yeah, I heard. You and Ben Kind.’
‘You knew him?’
‘Our paths crossed a long time ago.’ Bryant pondered and for a moment she wondered if he was teasing her, making her await his verdict. Had he — somehow — picked up on gossip about her and Ben? It seemed unlikely, but after all, he was a detective. ‘Yeah, he was all right. So — what do you think he would’ve made of Sandeep Patel?’
The question knocked her off balance. She took a breath, telling herself not to let this man rattle her. That was his game, for sure. He’d been asking questions, checking up on the woman he was supposed to report to. He meant to see what stuff she was made of, test her out. No way would she let him walk all over her.
‘He’d have wanted to see him put behind bars. If you mean, would he have taken the risk of staking so much on Ivan Golac’s confession, God only knows. I think he’d have done the same as me.’
Bryant shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
The smart thing was to leave it there. She didn’t want to be forced on to the defensive, but he’d succeeded in needling her. She couldn’t help saying in a cold, flat tone, ‘Hindsight’s wonderful, but someone had to take a stand. No regrets.’
Swinging on his chair, he said, ‘Suppose that’s right. Tell you the truth, I’d have done the same myself.’
He had this knack of taking her by surprise. ‘You reckon?’
‘What was there to lose?’
‘Vast amounts of public money.’ She hesitated. ‘Credibility. Career progression.’
Did she detect the glimmer of a smile? ‘So you think that this new job is all about keeping you out of harm’s way?’
‘The thought’s crossed my mind.’
‘Mine too.’ He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s still an opportunity.’
‘You’ll be telling me to think positive next.’
A bite of cynical laughter. ‘I don’t give a toss for all that motivational crap.’
‘Well, then.’
He jerked a thumb in the direction of his heart. ‘If you ask me, a detective’s either got it here or he hasn’t. You wanted Patel locked up. It didn’t work, but I’ll bet you had him wetting himself for a few months.’
‘That’s not the object of a prosecution.’
‘No, but it’s not a bad consolation prize.’
She laughed as she thought back. ‘You should have seen his face the day he was arrested. Sheer panic. That’s when I thought — yes, you’re guilty! For a while I believed, I actually believed, we were going to get the right verdict.’
‘You know what they say about the judicial process.’ He made a face, as if spitting something out. ‘A system designed to find out which is the better of two lawyers. Tell you this, though. I don’t see it as a game.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning, I don’t see this as a way of competing with the poor sods whose inquiries got nowhere in the past. Like your old boss and that murder up on the fells. We’ve not been put on this review team to see how clever we can look, thanks to all the modern forensic stuff. That’s not what I’m about.’
‘Nor me.’
He belched comfortably. ‘Thought not. You ask me, this is more like a chance for us to put things right. I’ve never been keen on loose ends. Let alone the thought of people getting away with murder.’
Chapter Eleven
Driving home through a spring storm, Hannah wondered about coincidences. First, Ben Kind’s son had moved into Barrie Gilpin’s old cottage; then a nameless woman had suggested that Barrie was innocent of murdering Gabrielle Anders. Hannah could not imagine what might connect the two events, could not conceive what had brought Daniel Kind to the Lake District now that his father was dead.
Rain pounded her windscreen. She swore and screwed up her eyes as the lights from an oncoming heavy goods vehicle dazzled her. As the lorry lumbered away into the distance, she pictured Daniel in her mind. Although she rarely watched television, she’d caught a couple of his programmes. She’d been curious about the boy she’d heard Ben speak of. The physical similarities between father and son were subtle, the resemblance more apparent in their quick, urgent movements than in physical build or shape of jaw. They shared a sharp sense of humour and she guessed that they would laugh at the same jokes. Daniel’s thesis that a historian was a sort of detective intrigued her. He must care as passionately about uncovering secrets of the past as Ben had about solving crimes.
Passion. Yes, that was the word that came to mind when she thought of Ben. He was a tough, demanding boss but fiercely loyal to his team. Hannah had been devoted to him. The drift of thought made her shiver, even though the inside of the car was warm. She and Ben had never had an affair. There had been times when she’d speculated about what it might be like, moments when he’d given the impression that he thought of her as a woman, rather than just as a loyal and industrious subordinate. Once or twice he’d touched her on the arm or back. Maybe it was accidental, but she’d found the frisson scary as well as exciting. He’d never gone further and she’d never given him any encouragement; Marc’s jealousy of the time she spent with Ben weighed her down enough without an additional burden of guilt to bear. Besides, Ben already had one broken marriage behind him, and Cheryl back at home. She had Marc. Why spoil everything for the sake of a quick fling?
Sometimes she wondered whether the careful way in which they avoided flirting with each other was in itself a sign that their relationship might easily trespass beyond the professional boundaries. But nothing ever happened; after he retired she kept in touch, but didn’t often find the time to see him. When she’d heard of Ben’s death, she’d sat cross-legged on the staircase at home and surrendered herself to a good old-fashioned cry. Thank God Marc had been out that day. He’d have been sure that he’d had good cause to suspect her of infidelity. Even now, in lonely moments she interrogated herself, wanting to know if it really would have hurt anyone, if she had just slept with Ben once or twice. She still wasn’t sure of the right answer.
She slowed to a crawl as the lane bent first one way and then another. In this downpour it would be so easy to skid and go through a hedge or smash into a stone wall. At last she could see lights in front of her and she knew that she was almost home. Marc would be absorbed in his catalogue; it was her turn to cook their meal. Not so many years ago, she’d ached to see him even after the shortest separation and to this day she loved to stroke his fine hair, to run her fingers along the smooth contours of his naked back. This evening, he was more likely to fall asleep in front of the television than to start kissing her all over as a prelude to making love. The trouble was that life kept getting in the way. Her job, his job, pointless arguments about who had more time to deal with a flooded washing machine or a blocked drain. Maybe every couple went through these phases, but it reminded her of being stuck in a traffic jam. No sign of movement on the road ahead.
* * *
Over coffee, she decided to tell Marc about the anonymous call. In their early years together, whenever she talked about her latest case, he’d been as rapt as if she’d been describing the discovery of a fabulously rare first edition. Sometimes she worried that she said too much to him, but a couple shouldn’t have taboos, and she had to trust the man she loved.