Tamsyn felt strange being back at the police station. It was the first time she’d been there since everything had happened, since her world had fallen apart. It felt as if she’d been away for months, not just ten days.
Easter had come and gone, and her grandfather had been in hospital the whole time. It had been three worrying days before the doctor had brought him out of the coma, and another week until she had finally agreed that he was well enough to go home. A neighbour had driven Tamsyn and her grandmother to the hospital to bring him back to the cottage. His Rover and her old Fiat hadn’t yet been released from forensics.
Officially on sick leave, Tamsyn didn’t know when she’d be going back to work … or if she’d be going back at all.
But when she walked into Inspector Rego’s office and sat down in the chair opposite him, she didn’t feel nervous, just numb, as if nothing would ever matter again.
“Thank you for coming in, Tamsyn. I know this has been a difficult time for you.”
She didn’t even bother to reply, just watched him watching her, seeing the wariness in his normally warm brown eyes.
She wondered if any of them would ever trust her again, because if they didn’t, she had no future in the police force. Even though she wasn’t sure of anything else, she was sure of that.
“Tamsyn, a man’s body was found at Nanjizal beach two days ago. We have now positively identified that man as George Mason.”
She drew in a sharp breath, but kept her eyes on a spot somewhere above Rego’s left shoulder.
“He … the victim … died from a gunshot wound to the head.”
She nodded, but still didn’t look at him.
“Was he?” she said rhetorically. “Was he a victim?”
Rego chose not to answer that.
“It has also been confirmed that Besnik Domi has returned to Albania.”
Tamsyn gave a harsh laugh.
“So he’s got away with it – he’s literally got away with murder. Twice. Saemira Ruçi and George.” She shook her head. “Probably others, right?”
“An international arrest warrant has been issued, and an application for extradition has been made but it’s a long process. Governments don’t like extraditing their own nationals.”
“Like I said, he’s got away with it.”
Her mouth twisted in disgust.
“Kevin Moyle aka ‘Spider’ refused to talk, but he’s going to do time anyway,” Rego continued.
Tamsyn nodded without much interest.
“I also need to inform you that we found George Mason’s fingerprints on the tyre jack in your car’s boot, with more than a hundred tabs of Ecstasy hidden underneath.” He paused. “With a street value of approximately £3,500.”
“Bastard,” she said softly.
“We did not find any of your fingerprints on either of the packages. Neither did we find your fingerprints on the jack.”
“Did you find any prints at all?”
Rego shook his head.
“Not on the jack, no. We suspect that Mason attempted to wipe his fingerprints from everything he touched when he hid the drugs. Do you know how he managed to get access to your car?”
“I needed two new tyres,” she said quietly. “My MOT was a month ago and two of the tyres wouldn’t have passed. George said he’d sort out a couple of re-treads for me and that he’d be cheaper than Kwik Fit. We were laughing about it. I was grateful.”
Rego sighed.
“It may have been what gave him the idea to plant drugs in your car and implicate you if he needed a quick getaway. Equally, he may have planned this much earlier. He was careful – just not careful enough.”
He saw her expression harden as she clenched her jaw, the struggle with her emotions as she learned the full extent of Mason’s betrayal.
Rego spoke carefully.
“It seems that Mason went out of his way to provide himself with an exit strategy that implicated you and your whole family. His fingerprints were found all over your grandfather’s boat, but also his car, including the steering wheel and gear stick – and your grandmother said that Ozzie would never have let him drive it, although he’d frequently been a passenger. More tellingly, all the drugs we’ve recovered so far have Mason’s fingerprints on the wrappers and on the Ziploc bags, but your grandfather’s fingerprints – and yours – are completely absent.” Rego looked up from his notes. “That was the one piece of false evidence that Mason wasn’t able to plant. We also have started looking at his financial records…”
“And I know you looked at Grandad’s bank account, too,” she said accusingly.
“Yes, we did, and we found no evidence of any unusual activity. But as for Mason, however, he wasn’t fully able to launder his illegal gains, although he did his best to mask the true extent of his wealth and his crimes. The NCA have been able to link him to at least two off-shore accounts and suspect there may be more.” He frowned. “We may never know the full extent of the network he established over the last ten years. But it was the mistakes he made at the beginning that enabled us to unravel part of the story.”
She nodded, still unable to look at him.
“The blood found at his house in Marazion is a match for Saemira Ruçi. We also found remains of women’s clothing that had been set alight in a dustbin. We might find some DNA, but we’re not hopeful about that. Neither have we found a match for the knife that killed Ruçi. We know that she was killed at Mason’s house – but proving who did it will be difficult if we don’t find the weapon.”
“She was killed in his house? I’ve been in that house! Loads of times.”
“I know. We found your fingerprints.”
She fell silent.
“It would seem that Mason began planning to disappear at least three years ago, and we think that’s when he started using your grandfather’s boat.”
“So you don’t think anymore that Grandad was involved?”
Her voice was still soft, but held a quiet fury that her rigid body and fisted hands transmitted loud and clear.
Rego cleared his throat.
“We have been able to establish that on at least three occasions this year, your grandfather’s boat was used when we have evidence that he was elsewhere: his GP’s surgery confirmed a back injury that left him with severe sciatica rendering him unable to walk, certainly not well enough to go fishing; he used his credit card to buy petrol at a supermarket at a time when his boat had left the harbour; and on a third occasion, he was seen in Cadgwith singing with other fishermen, I believe.”
“Is that enough to clear his name?” she asked fiercely.
“Yes, it is. All charges have been withdrawn. He’ll receive a letter saying that he’s been released from the investigation.”
“And an apology?”
“It was a legitimate line of inquiry,” Rego replied calmly, “so no, I’m not going to apologise for doing my job.”
Her jaw was still clenched but she didn’t challenge him on that.
“And what about me? Do you believe that I had anything to do with what Mason was up to?”
He suspected that it was easier for her to think of him as ‘Mason’ than ‘Uncle George’ – that was too painful.
“As you know, we’ve looked at your call data record and we can find no connection with Mason beyond what you had already told us. We believe that so far as Mason’s waterborne activities go, he was acting alone.”
“Does that clear me, sir?” she pressed.
He leaned back in his chair, frowning at her. It all depended on how serious he wanted to make it. The whole thing could leave a question mark over Tamsyn for the rest of her career. But he’d seen some potential in her, and he didn’t believe she was involved.
“I explicitly told you not to get involved in the investigation. And I know why you did what you did, but it wasn’t the right thing to do. I understand that you believed Mason’s life was in imminent danger and that you were doing your duty. But you chose not to call me or anyone else on the team. You sent me a text message instead – one that I didn’t receive for several, crucial hours. You could have called 999, you could have called the station, or called a colleague. You did none of those things. You should have let the investigation play out, and if you were worried about anyone’s safety, there were other choices you could have made. And in future, remember that your SIO probably won’t have shared all the information on a case anyway. As it turned out, you made the wrong choice and I don’t have to tell you how that was very nearly a fatal mistake. Tamsyn, it’s a learning curve for you – you acted like a civilian would do, but you’re a sworn officer and have a duty to work with the team.”
“Yeah, great choices on my part alright,” she said bitterly, meeting his eyes at last. “I got it so wrong, so wrong. How could I not see it? For years! My Grandad was shot in the head, I nearly drowned, Mo nearly drowned – and just because I thought I was saving my Uncle George.”
She spat out the last words, but then the fight seemed to go out of her.
“You believed that a man you thought of as your uncle was in serious danger,” Rego reminded her. “You believed there was an imminent threat to his life.”
She spoke softly, wearily, as if the last weeks had aged her prematurely.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be a police officer,” she whispered. “I’ve obviously got rubbish judgement.”
Rego tapped his finger against the desk. She was young and naïve and hadn’t thought through the process – she’d thought she was doing the right thing, but she’d panicked and made a bad mistake.
“Tamsyn, you’d been brought up to think of him as your uncle – he fooled everyone.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re all perfect with hindsight. In future, make sure you have all bases covered rather than just going down one track. You’re only twenty – you’re going to mistakes. We all do and we’ve all been there. Use this experience to make you a better copper.”
“In the future? You’re not firing me?”
“No.”
She met his gaze but was still frowning at him.
“Do I have a future as a police officer? Will anyone want to work with me; will they trust me?”
“Everyone at this station, everyone in this force knows the truth about what happened here: no one will blame you.”
She gave a cynical smile.
“But no smoke without fire, right, sir?”
He thought she was probably correct about that and only time, lots of time, would make people forget.
“One other thing, we found a spray can with Ollie Garrett’s fingerprints on it near your cottage. He admitted to vandalising your car.”
“So, it was Ollie.”
“I’ll need you to make a formal statement and then I’ll pass it up to CPS for them to make a decision.”
She was still frowning.
“You said I should use this experience to be a better police officer. How? How do I do that?”
“I guess I’m saying, don’t take things at face value. Look for patterns of behaviour, look for things that don’t quite make sense: analyse, understand, report. But most of all, look after yourself. Your own safety and your colleagues’ safety comes before anything else, trust me on this. Catching a suspect may make you look good but don’t forget that these things can also usually be solved in slow-time. It is never worth risking lives – especially your own.” He paused. “You’ll make a good officer, Tamsyn, but it’s not a race – you don’t have to know it all in one week or one month or even one year.”
“I don’t feel like I’ll ever know it.” She looked up at him, her expression so raw. “How can you trust anyone? How can I trust anyone ever again?”
Her words held all the pain of someone whose loyalty had been abused, whose trust had been destroyed, whose heart and soul would never fully recover from the damage done by George Mason.
“Few people are all good or all bad,” Rego said at last. “For what it’s worth, I do think that Mason cared about you and your family … he just cared about himself more. And as for trusting someone, it will take a while but eventually you’ll find someone who deserves your trust,” he said, feeling the painful inadequacy of his answer.
“I don’t know if I can do this … the job,” and she shuddered. “All this … this darkness. How do you do it, sir?”
“Because I have a family,” he said quietly. “I have two children: Max is twelve and Maisie is eight. I have a wife and a mum. And when I get scum off the streets, I’d like to think I make the world a better place for the people I care about.” Rego smiled self-consciously. “And it’s a good career with a great team behind you.”
She was silent, as if processing everything he’d said. Finally, she looked up.
“I’m not going to tell Gran and Grandad what Mason said, about my dad, I mean.”
“It’s your call,” Rego replied carefully. “There’s no evidence and it’s unlikely there ever will be after all this time. But,” and he waited until she met his gaze, “but he did confess his crime to a sworn officer – that carries a lot of weight.”
She gave a bleak smile. “Yeah, right.”
Rego continued to study her.
“And you’ve told me, so I’ll have to include it in my report,” he said, after a short pause. “The end of investigation report won’t be made public, but now that we’ve had a chance to search Mason’s house, we may come up with evidence that could re-open the case into your father’s death.”
He didn’t think it was possible for her to become paler, but he was wrong.
“A cold case review would decide if the original inquiry had missed anything. Tamsyn, you’ll have to decide what you tell your grandparents, but I’d encourage you to be open with them – secrets like Mason’s, they only have power when they’re a secret.”
“Is that everything, sir?” Tamsyn asked, her face smooth, a blank mask of indifference.
Rego leaned back in his chair.
“Sergeant Terwillis will be speaking to you formally, but you’ll be back on E-team next Monday.”
She nodded again and looked as if she wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there.
A random thought occurred to Rego.
“Tamsyn, do you know when George Mason’s birthday was?”
She looked startled.
“His birthday? June 29th. Why?”
“What star sign is that?” he asked, although he’d already guessed.
“Cancer. Why do you want to know that?”
“That’s the sign of the crab, isn’t it?”
She gave him a weird look.
“Yes?”
He shook his head.
“Idle curiosity.” Then he leaned towards her. “Just take the bollocking for disobeying orders … and you owe me a beer. It’s forgotten about – none of this will be mentioned again, not by me. You’ll be alright, Blackpool.”
“Sir.”
She didn’t meet his eyes or acknowledge his nickname for her, leaving his office in silence.
Rego slumped in his chair. Seeing an eager young copper get the stuffing kicked out of her, well, it was just shit.
This time tomorrow, he’d be with his family again. He needed to see his wife, he needed to spend time with his kids – he needed to be around people, around life – not all this ugliness, not all this death.
He sent a few emails, squared the papers on his desk, and got ready to get the hell out of Cornwall.