Chapter Twenty-four

27 October

Brask was in the All Souls refectory, talking with a group of colleagues over cups of coffee and a plate of biscuits. He looked up at Rose’s approach. His face creased in anxiety, but he stood and gestured around the table.

‘Inspector Rose, please join us,’ he said. ‘This is Professor Kingston, visiting from Edinburgh, and this is Dr Lionel Jessop, who –’

Rose let fly with a string of expletives that made Dr Lionel Jessop spill his milky coffee on to the tabletop.

Into the stunned silence that followed she said: ‘We need to talk, Professor Brask. In private. Right now.’ Turned a bleak smile on Brask’s colleagues. ‘It won’t take long. I’ll let you have him back shortly.’

Though I can’t guarantee he’ll be in one piece.

She marched Brask wordlessly out of the refectory – he walked stiff-backed, as if being escorted at gunpoint – and turned sharply into the first vacant office they passed. She slammed the door behind them.

Brask turned, lifted his hands.

‘Lauren, I –’

‘You can stick with “Inspector Rose”, Professor. And you can start by telling me why I shouldn’t run you in for obstructing a police investigation.’

‘There’s –’

‘Have you any idea how irresponsible you’ve been?’

‘I’ve –’

‘You’ve made our job impossible. You’ve made the killer’s job a damn sight easier. You’ve put God knows how many innocent lives at risk. All for the sake of your precious bloody conscience. Well done. I hope you’re happy, Professor Brask.’

She threw down her coat, yanked out a chair, sat down.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Brask. ‘I called you. More than once. Left voicemails. The last thing I wanted to do was blindside you with this.’

She had got his messages, but too late for it to do her any good. Besides, when he’d left them it was clear he’d already made up his mind to go public with everything. He’d been calling to ask for her forgiveness, not her permission.

She couldn’t look at him. Checked her phone instead. Fourteen messages, nine voicemails. Every crime journo on every paper in Europe seemed to have her number. Time for yet another change – but that was the least of her worries.

‘You’re not sorry,’ she said. ‘Admit it. You’re not sorry at all. You think you did the right thing.’

‘You don’t have to say it with so much contempt,’ Brask said defensively. ‘Doing the right thing might be a dirty word on the police force, but –’

‘Don’t you dare.’ She stood, pushed her face close to Brask’s. ‘Don’t you even dare try and pull that on me. Are we perfect? No. Are you? Do we always get it right? No. Do you? Everyone on this force is busting a gut to catch this bastard. And now you not only go out of your way to undermine the biggest manhunt in Oxford’s history, you’ve got the fucking brass neck to lecture us on morality!’

Brask’s face was pale, his mouth a tense, hard line.

Eventually he said: ‘I got you in trouble with your boss, obviously.’

She had to turn away. The alternative was a right hook across Brask’s jaw.

‘As it happens,’ she said, through clenched teeth, ‘you did. You sold me out without a thought. But you know what? That’s nothing. That’s nothing beside the harm you’ve done to this investigation.’

‘People have a right to know,’ Brask insisted.

‘To know what? That you’ve got a theory? Every nutcase shouting on the street corner, every mad bastard sending me long letters in green ink has a bloody theory. They don’t all go on the bloody evening news and cause mass bloody hysteria!’

He looked at her grimly.

‘You know I’m right.’ Brask straightened his shoulders. The look on his face was withering. ‘You want me to say sorry? All right.’ He nodded stiffly. ‘I’m sorry I spoke the truth without running it by your press office first. I’m sorry I did the right thing without regard for office politics in the Thames Valley Major Crimes Unit. I’m sorry I put the safety of innocent people before your career prospects.’

‘Oh, you sanctimonious prick.’

‘I made a judgement call, Inspector.’

‘Based on what? Your extensive experience of murder investigations?’

‘Oh, please, tell me, how was this one going before I came along?’

‘Before you came along and lied to the police?’

‘You needed my help, Rose.’

‘I trusted you.’ She stopped, conscious of her reddening face, of her voice on the brink of breaking. She had to admit it to herself: she was more than angry. She was hurt. Drew a breath. Steady. ‘I trusted you,’ she said again, ‘and you betrayed me.’

Brask kept up his straight-backed poker-up-the-arse stance.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said, ‘that you feel that way.’

There was a noise at the door, behind Rose. She turned. A moon-faced woman, middle-aged with golden-brown hair knotted in an untidy bun, peered uncertainly around the door frame.

‘I, um, think I booked this room? For, um, the seminar on … on … on Images of the Visitation, and … and –’

Brask, recovering his temper with a visible effort, held up an apologetic hand.

‘Of course, Dr Helpmann,’ he said. ‘We’ll be done very soon. If you could just give us five minutes –’

‘No need,’ Rose interrupted him, snatching up her coat. ‘We’re done here.’

‘But Inspector –’

‘We’re done, Professor.’

She pushed past the worried-looking Dr Helpmann and out into the corridor. Brask called after her, something she didn’t hear, didn’t want to hear. She was conscious of being watched curiously as she hurried through the college: by two academics loitering by a water cooler, by a librarian wheeling a trolley of books down a corridor, by the fat porter, who looked up from his paper as she passed.

Well, that’s that, she thought, as she passed out into the college courtyard, pulling on her coat. You’re on your own again, Inspector Rose.