FM: Was it hard to grow up in his shadow?
JC: It made me want to be a detective, and to do well, if that’s what you mean.
FM: Was that a good thing?
JC: It was better than dossing, or pimping, or boozing, or raping old ladies for kicks, or getting so shitfaced that you think it’s OK to smash your wife’s head against a wall until she loses her teeth as well as her self-respect. What do you mean ‘Was that a good thing?’
FM: I’m interested that my question is making you feel angry.
JC: Because it’s a joke! It’s actually insulting.
FM: I think it might mean that being a successful detective was a matter of honour for you?
JC: Yes! Yes, it was, it is, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
He’s displaying a level of anger that I feel is excessive, though he’s trying to disguise it.
FM: Would it be fair to say that at this point in the case you were under almost intolerable personal pressure in addition to the pressure the case was putting on you?
JC: You’re totally missing the point.
FM: What was the point then? Tell me.
JC: Benedict Finch was the fucking point. Finding Benedict Finch. Giving him safely back to his mother. That was the only thing that mattered. Why can’t you see that?
His fists are clenched, his teeth gritted. I thank him for coming and say that I’ll see him next week. I don’t wish to be cold with him but he is challenging, and I need him to understand how important it is for him to open up completely during our discussions. Our time together is running out.
RACHEL
My cab driver on the way home didn’t want to talk any more than I did and I was grateful for that. I sat noiseless and motionless in a corner of the back seat, seeing John’s still body and his disfigured face, thinking about his new child.
The cabbie dropped me off around the front and a uniformed police officer clambered stiffly out of his squad car to ensure that I got in safely.
Inside the house, a silence deeper than any I’d ever experienced before. A void where everything that I’d ever lived for should have been.
A buzz from my phone was a pull back to reality. A text from Laura:
Love, I’m so sorry about being pissed yesterday when John called and I’m so so sorry about what I said to you. I’m not supporting you well and I’m being a shit friend, it’s just such a big thing and I’m frightened too, but I’m here now if you need me, I promise, and I hope you’re not too angry with me.
I deleted it, appalled by it, by her self-absorption.
There was another text, which I hadn’t seen earlier, from Nicky:
How are you doing today? Fine here, and I should be able to head back to you in a day or two, I’ll call later today. Thinking of you ALL the time xxx
How to reply? Faced with a decision about what to tell her, and how to tell her, I bottled. Trust is like that. Once you lose it, you begin to adjust your attitudes towards people, you put up guards, and filter the information you want them to know.
I wasn’t prepared to actively hide things from Nicky, or to be completely open with her, as I might have been three days ago. So I didn’t reply. She’d said she would call me, and I decided I would tell her everything then.
There was nothing from the police. Not a word. Part of me wanted to phone them, to ask what they’d thought of the schoolbooks, but the night’s events seemed to have raked out of me any last bits of fight that I might have had left.
They’ll phone me if there’s news, I thought, but as I thought it, it felt somehow defeatist, as if I was letting hope ebb away.
I went to Skittle, who was in his bed. I sank to the floor beside him and sat there, my hand in his fur. I shut my eyes, and let my head fall back against the wall behind me and I allowed myself to imagine a reunion with Ben. The feel of him in my arms, the expression in his eyes, the scent of his hair, the sound of his voice, the silky perfection of the moment I’d been longing for all week, and as I imagined it I wept quiet hot tears that felt as though they’d never stop.
JIM
We had the TA in an interview room at Kenneth Steele House.
His mother, her face drained of colour, had spoken to him quietly and fiercely in the hallway of their home, telling him that she’d call their family solicitor, while he shouted at her that she always thought the worst of him, that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that he wasn’t being arrested.
‘Not yet,’ Bennett had muttered under his breath. ‘But it won’t be long, sonny boy.’
He’d come with us voluntarily, but odds were that we weren’t going to let him leave. We knew that, but he didn’t yet. He sat slumped in a chair looking like a bad boy. His chin was at a defiant tilt, and his pupils were pinpricks swimming in irises that were the palest blue.
We had enough to arrest him, but we were debating when to do that, because, as soon as we did, the clock would start ticking until the deadline to release him, unless we could come up with evidence or a confession.
Fraser’s view was simple: ‘I think we should caution him now.’
‘He’s come in of his own volition.’
‘I don’t want him talking when he’s not under caution and us not being able to use it in court later.’
‘Solicitor will tell him to keep schtum.’
‘It’s a risk that I think we’re going to have to take. Otherwise he could walk out of here and do a disappearing act. What’s this I hear about an Anderson shelter in the garden?’
‘Empty, boss, apart from a lawnmower and some bags of compost.’
‘What do you reckon?’
‘He was near the scene, he’s lied to us, he knows Ben well, and we’ve got the schoolbooks.’
‘Motive?’
‘Don’t know enough about him yet.’
‘What’s the mother like?’
‘Angry with him.’
‘Get Bennett to caution him, and get her in for an interview while we’re waiting for his brief. And is somebody getting hold of his lying girlfriend?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Good work, Jim.’
I had a spring in my step as I went back to the incident room. It might have been adrenalin fuelled, but that was good enough for me. I wanted to be thoroughly prepared for the interview, not one little pebble left unturned. I knew the real work started now because we only had twenty-four hours to charge him.
I sat down at my desk and got on with reading all the background we had on Lucas Grantham. I thought back to when I’d first met him at the school, the way he’d seemed gormless, a bit pathetic. I’d had no inkling then that he’d been lying to us, though Woodley had thought he was a bit shifty. I didn’t want to think I’d missed something I should have noticed.
But I never got to finish my research, because we had another turn-up. Nicky Forbes’s husband arrived. Unexpectedly. Asking for me.
Simon Forbes was as posh as I might have expected. I’d Googled his wine company the day before. It was high end, the website slick and impressive, and he was obviously very well connected. He was a tall bear of a man, with very dark hair that was greying at the temples and red veins on his nose, which probably came from years of wine tasting. He was dressed in corduroy trousers, a checked shirt and a tweed jacket, the kind of thing that people wore at the country shows my mum used to take us to when we were growing up.
‘It’s very kind of you to come in,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t necessary.’
I’d found somewhere to take him and we’d just sat down opposite one another.
‘What I have to tell you might be best said face to face,’ he said. ‘It’s about my wife, but it’s a very delicate situation because I have four daughters to consider.’
There was a quality of warmth about him that I hadn’t anticipated. He had a kind, patient manner that was appealing, even under the circumstances.