Valerie had followed Kate and Danny out of the office, slamming the door behind her. Matilda and James were left alone in the awkward silence.
‘You just played right into her hands,’ James said.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it, though. Did you see the way she kept grinning at me? Bitch.’
‘She’s a journalist. It’s what she does. Your job is to rise above it.’
Valerie came back in. Her face like thunder. She didn’t take her eyes off Matilda until she had sat back down. She was breathing heavily, fuming at the outcome of the meeting.
‘What the hell were you thinking of?’ she eventually said. ‘I think I’ve managed to persuade them not to print any of that. I’ve had to promise them exclusives if any further victims are discovered. I simply cannot conceive …’ she stopped when she saw the look on James’s face. She turned to Matilda, the broken DCI to her left. The anger she felt faded away. ‘Matilda, how are you feeling?’
‘Sick,’ she said quietly.
‘James, I notice you didn’t contribute to the meeting. I’m hoping you have drawn some conclusions,’ Valerie said.
James adjusted himself in his seat and smoothed down his tie. ‘It’s safe to say your team are in the clear when it comes to someone leaking information to the press. I can’t help thinking that the killer’s motives changed after his first victim.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Brian Appleby isn’t from Sheffield, so nobody within South Yorkshire Police worked on his case. Not one single officer, including Matilda, knew he was living here until he was killed. However, the killer is targeting Matilda now, but couldn’t have been at the time he murdered his first victim.’
Valerie looked perplexed as she thought. ‘Maybe he was waiting to see which detective was going to oversee the case.’
‘No. If the killer had knowledge of who Brian Appleby was, then he’s going to know who is working in South Yorkshire Police and who will be in charge of the investigation. He will have already known there was a high chance it would be Matilda.’
‘So you think that something happened after Brian Appleby was found to force him to switch his, anger, shall we say, towards Matilda?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘But what?’
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe Matilda has already met the killer and he’s become fixated on her for whatever reason.’
Both Valerie and James turned to look at Matilda who was still staring into the distance.
‘Matilda, I’m going to need a list of all the people you’ve come into contact with since all this began.’
Matilda shook her head. ‘That isn’t going to be a long list. It’s not me who interviews the suspects. It’s not me who goes knocking on doors. The only people I see are the members of my team, the scene of crime officers and the pathologists.’
‘If it’s not someone Matilda already knows, James, who could the killer be?’
James was uncomfortable. He looked briefly at Matilda before going back to Valerie. ‘If Matilda doesn’t know the killer, then she obviously has a stalker who is very good at what he does.’
Valerie asked James to leave them both. He offered a few words of comfort to Matilda, but they fell on deaf ears.
Valerie moved seats, so she was sitting next to the DCI.
‘Matilda, you spent more time with Philip and Sally Meagan than anyone else. Do you think one of them could be targeting you?’ Valerie asked, her tone was gentle.
Matilda shook her head.
‘They will need to be interviewed,’ Valerie said. ‘I’ll send Sian round. Matilda, I want you to go home.’
‘I can’t turn my back on this. It’s one of the biggest cases I’ve had in years.’
‘It’s also the most personal. I’m not asking you to turn your back on it, but you’ve had a shock. We all have. I want you to take a couple of days off, have a good long think about who, in your past, is capable of doing something like this.’
‘No. I need to be here.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Matilda started crying. ‘Shit!’ She tried to hide her tears, but it was too late. ‘I don’t want to be home on my own.’ She could barely control her emotions as the tears took over.
‘I’ll give Adele a ring, get her to come and collect you. I’m sure she won’t mind you spending more time at hers. I’ll also get someone to go over your house, check the security.’
Matilda smiled through the sniffles. ‘The security’s fine. James made sure of that before he died. He knew I was going to be on my own in that big house, so he had everything alarmed.’
‘It can’t hurt giving it an inspection, can it?’
Matilda wiped her eyes and composed herself. ‘Carl Meagan is going to haunt me forever, isn’t he?’
‘I’d be lying if I said no,’ Valerie said. She pulled her chair closer to Matilda and sat down. ‘When I was first made a DI, I was in Brighton. There was a young girl called Charlotte Knowles. She was only seventeen and so beautiful. Tall, slim, long blonde hair. She was found murdered on Boxing Day, strangled and dumped in woodland. Her parents were inconsolable. We interviewed her boyfriend, an ex-boyfriend, both of whom had alibis. We spoke to friends, tutors at her college, neighbours, family members, but nobody stood out as a suspect. We tested over a thousand volunteers for the DNA, but we came up with nothing. To this day, I have no idea who killed Charlotte Knowles, and she is constantly on my mind. I remember her birthday, the day she went missing, the day she was found, the day of the funeral. Even now, twenty-six years later, I still think of her, and her family. I have an excellent record for the cases I worked on, but I can never, and will never, forget Charlotte. Charlotte Knowles is my Carl Meagan. You’ll never forget him, and for that, I’m sorry.’
Matilda had stopped crying. She looked at her boss. She had never seen her so thoughtful, so human, before. ‘We can’t find them all, can we?’
‘Unfortunately, no, we can’t.’
The ACC and the DCI sat in silent contemplation for a while. People often thought about the families of the victims who didn’t have justice, but nobody thought of the police officers, the detectives investigating and doing everything in their power, and more, to find those responsible. They too carried the burden for the rest of their lives, but nobody gave them a second thought. They’re supposed to be above emotional involvement, but a good detective cares. Valerie cared about Charlotte Knowles, and still does. Matilda cared about Carl Meagan and will do until the day she dies.
‘Help yourself to another coffee. I’ll give Adele a ring,’ Valerie said, breaking the silence.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind me staying?’ Matilda asked again, standing in Adele’s hallway.
‘For the eight hundredth time, no, I do not mind. Matilda, you’re my friend. My house is your house. Now, make yourself comfortable in the living room while I get us a drink. Not there, that’s my spot,’ she said as Matilda was about to sit on the sofa. ‘I’m joking, sit where you like.’
Matilda perched on the edge of the sofa and looked around. Adele’s house was lived-in. It was a proper cosy family home full of gifts and items bought from holidays, with photos on the wall of Chris growing up. Matilda smiled at a framed one on the mantelpiece that she remembered taking at Halloween about ten years ago. Adele was dressed as Morticia Addams with Chris as Pugsley. Everything in Matilda’s home was sterile. There was the odd photograph of her and James, but she wanted to keep the majority of her memories private to her bedroom.
‘Here you go.’ Adele entered carrying two empty glasses in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. ‘Now, tell me everything that’s going on.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can. You know I’m not going to tell anyone.’
‘No. I mean, I can’t tell you because I’ve no idea myself.’
‘Oh, Mat.’
‘Someone is targeting me. Someone hates me so much that they’ve killed two people so far, and I know there are going to be more, I know it. Why would anyone do something like this? If they hate me then just come for me.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not? What kind of an egotistical power trip are they on?’
‘I don’t know, Mat, but if this person is on some kind of a power trip then that makes them incredibly dangerous. I don’t like the thought of them just coming for you. I don’t want you to end up dead.’
‘So what do I do? Go into hiding?’
‘No. You fight. You fight hard. Whoever he is, he’s a coward. He doesn’t have the balls to face what he thinks is so important, so he’s committing his murders to make up for his own shortcomings. But you do have the balls. You need to find him and show him you’re not going away.’
‘He’s killed two people, Adele, he’s got balls.’
‘But he doesn’t have them where it counts. Say he is targeting you, why doesn’t he just come up to you? Because he’s scared. He’s hiding behind some kind of macho bravado he’s invented to make himself look good. Beneath it all, he’s nothing more than a schoolyard bully.’
Adele’s words seemed to make sense. Why hadn’t James Dalziel come up with this?
‘Do you think so?’
‘I do. Don’t hide and don’t be on your own. Stand up, rally your army, and come out fighting.’
‘I’m not much of a fighter,’ Matilda said.
‘You don’t have to be. You have people on your side – Christian, Aaron, Sian, Rory, Scott, Faith, me and Chris. We’re your army.’
Adele noticed Matilda’s face soften. She had got through to her. She put her arms around her and pulled her into a friendly hug.