11

As soon as she heard of the attack on the officer, Sarah drove to the hospital. She was directed to a ward on the sixth floor, and the nurse on the desk pointed her to a bay in a room containing four beds, each with the screens pulled round them. There had been a mix-up on the report. It wasn’t the male DC she had expected but a female in her twenties, who was lying in the bed pale-faced, eyes closed. In that instant of stepping past the curtain, Sarah knew the sleeping face but couldn’t for a moment place it. Then, glancing to her left, she recognized immediately the man sitting by the bed: Inspector Kieran Shaw, not in uniform. She looked back to the sleeping woman. PC Lizzie Griffiths, of course it was.

Shaw looked up. Recognizing Sarah too, he got up quietly and signalled for her to join him outside. Standing in the hushed recovery ward, with the nurses passing them on their many rounds, he talked at her in a hushed but furious voice.

‘What the bloody hell were you thinking?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did you even do a risk assessment?’

His eyes were hard with contempt and she remembered how, when she was investigating him and Lizzie Griffiths, he had mocked her. She had executed a warrant on his home address and he had brought her out a cup of coffee and asked her what on earth they had taught her at ‘detective school’. The man was a bully, among other things.

‘I tasked it out to the borough and the intelligence bureau . . .’

Even as she spoke, she realized she was a fool to respond to him.

‘Were you aware that the victim’s mother had an injunction against the suspect? Did you even stop for one moment to consider whether you were putting your fellow officers at risk?’ He raised his voice. ‘You’re bloody incompetent!’

A nurse, walking past, slowed her steps and looked at them, obviously concerned.

Sarah smiled apologetically. ‘I’m sorry for any disturbance.’

Kieran said nothing. He didn’t need to: his face perfectly expressed the contempt he felt.

The nurse’s eyes flicked between the two of them. Then she moved on towards the further rooms.

Sarah said quietly, ‘I know you’re upset, but this isn’t the time or place.’

‘She could have died! You aren’t fit to lead the response to serious incidents. I’m going to do everything I can to get you a misconduct finding for this!’ He stopped suddenly and looked to his left. Lizzie, in a hospital gown and with bare feet, was standing in the doorway. Her arm and shoulder were bandaged.

‘Lizzie,’ Kieran said, immediately softened.

Lizzie blinked, turned to Sarah. ‘Detective Sergeant Collins, isn’t it?’

In spite of herself, Sarah smiled. It was hard to see in this pale, shaky young woman the officer she had so recently wanted to charge with misconduct. ‘Yes, it is. Are you all right?’

Kieran interrupted. ‘Leave her alone.’ He moved towards Lizzie. ‘Come on, let me get you back to bed.’

Lizzie took a step backwards. ‘Wait.’ She turned to Sarah. ‘Have you got him yet?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘I need to lie down again. But come and talk to me. I told them in the ambulance about someone who might assist him in evading police. Did that get through?’

Thankfully there was no time to stay and argue with Kieran Shaw. Lizzie’s information needed acting on at once. Sarah stood on the hospital stairs and called up Lee. She waited while he put together an intelligence search on Marley, the young woman who Lizzie said had persuaded Georgina not to give evidence against Brannon. Lee called back within fifteen minutes. Lizzie’s suspicions had been corroborated by historic reports to social services that showed, after a bit of digging, that Marley and Brannon were in fact cousins who had lived together as children.

It was a familiar horror story: a big family under a too-small roof, a succession of boyfriends and births, a chain of incidents before the family was finally dispersed by child protection orders. Marley and Brannon had been placed together in the same local authority care before being moved into separate foster homes.

Lee had an address for Marley. The team was putting an emergency response together: Sarah should make her way over to the rendezvous point.

She left the hospital, running down the stairs and through the corridors of people moving slowly under the hospital’s fluorescent light. The RVP was very close – just a short blue-lights run through the congested clearway towards the outskirts of the city.

Sarah was the nearest and arrived at the petrol station first. She waited, parked up by the darkened car wash, watching the traffic streaming past, the drivers pulling in and filling their cars in the illuminated forecourt, then moving towards the cashier, lit up behind his pay window. Soon the firearm BMWs pulled in. There was a dog van too, with an Alsatian moving around in the back.

Then the homicide car, with Lee and Fedden. The officers stood in a loose circle, Fedden at the head, his feet planted solidly and widely on the tarmac. Lee kicked off, briefing on the intelligence.

‘Marley herself doesn’t seem much of a risk. Her own convictions are all for dishonesty offences rather than violence – she seems to be a bit of an expert in catalogue fraud. But her criminal credentials are top-notch – links to the Young family and an ex-boyfriend in the Tottenham Bloods.’

Fedden wound up the decision-making. They couldn’t access the CCTV around Marley’s flat because the council offices were shut. Basic surveillance of the building had yielded nothing. The lights were off, the curtains drawn. What they had was only slightly more than a hunch. Still, intelligence suggested there was no one closer to Brannon than Marley. Fedden had weighed the options and gone for rapid entry. They couldn’t risk talking at the door if Brannon was inside, desperate and violent, with Skye and a knife.

‘Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, boss,’ Lee agreed, and Sarah noticed two of the firearms officers glance at each other with the hint of a smile at the cliché.

Lee spoke up again. ‘After the entry, do you want me to handle talking to Marley?’

Fedden smiled. ‘Thanks, but I think a female officer would be best. You grab some sleep and be back in early. Sarah will handle Marley. That’s if you don’t mind, Sarah?’

‘Of course not.’

‘OK, boss. I’ll take a job car home, if that’s all right?’

‘Yeah, sure. Back for six a.m. if you can manage it.’

‘No probs.’

Lee pulled out of the garage and headed west. Sarah grabbed her stab vest out of the boot of her car and pulled it on. Fedden was her passenger now and they drove into the estate after the firearms cars, stopping a few hundred yards away from the property and out of view. They waited, leaning into the shadow of a wall, for the firearms team to do their job.

Sarah wished she was better at making small talk.

Fedden said, ‘He’s a good lad, Lee.’

‘Yep, he is.’

He expanded on it. It was a subject he was comfortable with. ‘He wanted to stay but I had to send him home. We’ll need fresh legs tomorrow.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Still, I like that about him. Doesn’t look at his watch. Doesn’t want to know what time he’s getting home.’

Sarah thought of Fat Elaine, who had no choice but to look at her watch and who had been home hours ago. She thought too of her own camp bed, hidden away in one of the storerooms in Hendon, and of Daisy with the dog walker.

They heard the bangs and shouting of the rapid entry. The update came quickly: the flat was secure. Only one occupant: Marley Davies. She’d been allowed to call her solicitor.

Sarah entered the flat with Fedden. Marley, wearing purple silk pyjamas, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hunched over her smartphone, leaving an angry voicemail. ‘Call me as soon as you get this!’ Her slim brown feet were bare, with bracelets round one ankle and toe rings on both feet. Two uniformed constables – a small Asian woman and a hefty white bloke with a big beard – who’d been deployed as back-up by the borough to assist with securing the scene were hanging back, waiting in the doorway to the kitchen. Fedden nodded at the two officers and stood with them. ‘Thanks for helping us out.’ He wanted Sarah to lead the conversation with Marley so he could observe.

Sarah stood adjacent to the table, letting Marley finish her call. Looking around the room, she could see the proceeds of the catalogue fraud – a huge TV, a dryer, a washing machine, a juicer.

On the coffee table in front of her was an open Apple laptop, cigarettes and an ashtray, a can of Diet Coke, a white porcelain hand with lots of rings and necklaces on the long fingers. Marley closed the call, put the white Samsung on the table.

‘Right then. Mark’s not here, so you can all FUCK OFF. You’ll get the complaint first thing.’

Sarah tried for a smile.

‘Hi, I’m Sarah Collins. I’m a detective inspector on the murder team.’ She gestured towards Fedden. ‘Jim Fedden . . .’

Marley looked at her with the blankness of someone who hates police from the depths of her heart.

‘The neighbours have seen all this! What are they going to think?’

‘I’m sorry about that. But can I just talk to you for a moment?’

Marley drew her finger across the laptop’s tracker pad and started typing with two fingers. Without looking away from the screen she muttered, ‘I s’pose so.’

‘Thank you. Has Mark been here?’

‘No.’

Marley hadn’t looked away from the computer. Sarah moved cautiously round behind her. On the screen was a photograph of the improvised shrine of flowers, teddy bears and candles that she had seen being built earlier outside Georgina and Mark’s flat. Marley was scrolling down, reading the newspaper account of the investigation. The tips of the four fingers of her left hand were pressed against her mouth. She went back to her search. Tapped in Skye Brannon. A collection of images came up and Marley clicked on one of them. It was a bunch of school kids horsing around outside Wagamama. Skye’s head had been ringed by the newspaper. Frantic search for missing girl. Marley swore quietly.

Sarah moved away.

‘We’ll check the estate CCTV in the morning. If he was here, we’ll find out. You can see from the news reports that you don’t want to lie.’

Marley stared at Sarah for a moment. She was clearly thinking it through. Then she said, ‘Yes, OK, whatever! OK. He was here. He turned up with Skye and the dog. But I didn’t know about . . . all that.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘That they’d fallen out. He was going to stay somewhere else, just needed to leave Skye with me while he sorted something out.’ She looked back at her laptop screen. ‘I can’t believe it. I don’t believe he killed her.’ She looked back at Sarah with some sort of desperate accusation in her eyes, as if it were she, not Brannon, who was responsible for what had happened.

Sarah said, ‘He left you with Skye? What happened next?’

But Marley had turned back to her laptop, was clicking and staring.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘Georgie’s Facebook page. Everyone’s posting on there, saying how much they miss her.’

‘You’re shocked.’

‘Of course I’m fucking shocked!’

In an instant, Marley had taken the computer and thrown it across the room. In the process she knocked over the can of Coke that was on the coffee table. Coke was spilling everywhere, fizzing on the floor. Fedden turned to one of the constables. ‘Get a cloth.’

But Marley was already on her feet. ‘No! Leave it to me. It’s my flat.’ She moved to push past the officers and Sarah saw the hand of the male officer go swiftly to his cuffs. She didn’t blame him. She was wondering too whether it was safe to let Marley go into the kitchen, where there was a fancy wooden knife block with a set of black-handled knives.

The female officer stepped in front of Marley. ‘Just tell me exactly what you want and where it is and I’ll get it for you.’

‘This is fucking ridiculous!’ Marley looked at Sarah and then back at the officer. ‘For fuck’s sake. Top drawer. Tea towel.’

The officer passed a towel. Marley was speaking as she mopped up the Coke angrily. ‘He was out about an hour. Came back, took them both away. I had no idea.’

‘OK,’ Sarah said. ‘And how was Skye?’

‘Fine. Didn’t say much, watched TV. She did seem quiet, but Skye’s always quiet.’

‘No injuries?’

‘Injuries? What do you fucking think? Of course there weren’t injuries. If there were injuries I’d have fucking said something, wouldn’t I?’ She left the wet towel on the floor, lit a cigarette, inhaled, the smoke going into her eyes.

‘Any idea where he might be? Who’s he close to?’

‘He didn’t tell me nothing. Said he’d ring me in the morning when he’d got himself straight.’

‘Did he have a car?’

Marley took a long, deep drag of her cigarette. ‘I don’t know. Expect so. How else did he get them all here?’

‘What sort of car?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t know what he drives. He’s always changing cars.’

Marley put her cigarette in the ashtray. She clutched the fingers of her right hand tightly in her left as though in some sort of spasm. The smoke was curling up slowly from the table.

‘I know this is difficult. I want you to think—’

‘I am thinking!’ Marley stood up, picked up her phone. ‘I don’t know what’s happened. But he’s not a monster. I’ll try calling him for you.’

Sarah stepped over, reached out and put her hand over the keypad. ‘Please don’t do that.’

Marley snatched the phone away. ‘What do you mean, don’t?

It’s my phone! It’s my flat!’ She clutched the phone in a tight fist. ‘I know you lot. You’ll kill him if you get the chance. I can get him to hand himself in.’

She looked at her phone again, relaxed, began to touch the screen and Sarah took hold of it with one swift movement. The female constable had moved forward just in case, but the speed of Sarah’s action had surprised Marley. There was no tussle. Sarah was already producing an evidence bag from the pocket of her stab vest and popping the Samsung inside. The temperature in the room was going up.

‘What the fuck. That’s illegal . . .’

‘I’m sorry. We might ask you to call Mark. But not right now.’

‘That’s fucking illegal. Give me my phone NOW.’

‘It’s not illegal. I’m lawfully on the premises and it may contain evidence of a crime. Let’s try to work together on finding Skye.’

‘Well, you’re not lawfully on the premises any more because I’m telling you to FUCK OFF.’

Sarah glanced at Fedden to see how he wanted to handle it. She’d tried to keep it friendly, but they’d been asked to leave. They were exceeding their powers now, it was true. Fedden took over, turned to the male officer. ‘Can you arrest Miss Davies, please, for assisting an offender.’

Marley spat at Sarah. It hit her jacket.

‘You fucking PIGS!’

The male officer was ready. He moved in swiftly with the cuffs. He was a big bloke and Marley knew better than to fight him. She was shouting as Sarah and Fedden moved out of the flat.

‘I want my phone! I need to call my solicitor!’

They stood outside. Fedden produced a tissue and passed it to Sarah to wipe her jacket. ‘Bad skills, letting her get you.’

‘You’re right there.’

‘You want her nicking for it?’

‘Course not.’

Most of the lights were out in the flats, but one woman was looking down at them from her open window. The police dog was sitting patiently next to his handler while the firearms officers gathered up their kit. The sergeant handed out Cadbury’s chocolate éclairs. Sarah accepted one; the sergeant told her to take two. She popped another in her pocket.

Fedden said, ‘No option but to nick her. She admits he left Skye with her while he went out to try and kill the grandmother. We need to spin the flat, seize any phones, computers.’

‘Do you want me to try to talk to her again? Try to persuade her to help us voluntarily. We could de-arrest. We might get more out of her.’

‘No point. She’s as mad as a bag of snakes. I can’t see her giving anything up, and I don’t trust a damn word she says. That girl can’t lie straight in bed.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘What time were you on duty this morning?’

Briefly Sarah recalled her visit to Hatchett’s in the morning. It felt a world away now. ‘Eight.’

‘Organize the search team and go home. It’s stupid o’clock already, and by the time we’ve completed the search, downloaded the phone and booked her in, it’ll be morning. I’ll get Steve and Lee to interview her first thing. Can you drop me at Hendon?’