SIXTY-FOUR

He hears things.

It’s that kind of place, after all, one of the things he likes best about being here. In a big city, people never get to know what anyone else is up to, not really, never get to care; minding their own business and suspicious about anyone who might be interested in theirs. They casually raise their newspaper or turn their music up while someone is getting attacked in the same train carriage. They slink away, mortified, when others start to argue or laugh too loudly.

They don’t want to get involved.

Admittedly, the business that gets talked about here is not always earth-shattering. Who’s shagging who, who’s fallen out, who got pissed and punched someone. Still, it helps you feel part of something. He also knows that what he’s hearing is rarely the unvarnished truth. That’s the nature of rumours when you get down to it. Things get exaggerated, the facts get twisted the more a story is repeated. A stupid row can become an impending divorce within the space of three conversations and a harmless bit of flirting in the pub yesterday is likely to become full-on sex in a toilet cubicle by the same time tomorrow.

He likes to hear it, all the same, to feel like he’s monitoring the heartbeat of the town. He doesn’t like what he’s been hearing about that policeman, though.

Thorne.

Even allowing for the exaggeration, it’s clear that the copper from London has been making a far better job of things than the coppers who are being paid for it. They all did exactly what he’d wanted them to do, went for all that lovely evidence like ferrets down a rathole, thank you very much. How the hell did Thorne and his skinhead boyfriend see something that the rest of those idiots couldn’t?

Good luck, bad luck. Whichever shade of it you were on the receiving end of, he’d always known that luck was something you could never guard against. He’d had his fair share of the good sort, after all.

Having someone like Bates around had been the biggest slice of it he could ever ask for.

He’d known what they were up to for a few days already. There had been some chatter about insects being important and then talk about the visit to Bob Patterson’s farm, so it was pretty obvious that they’d put a lot of it together. But thank God, he was also hearing how nobody else was very interested, telling Thorne and his mate they should mind their own business, which was pretty ironic, all things considered.

He’d told himself there was no need to panic just yet. He had to carry on as normal, that was all, sit tight and keep his ears open.

Now though, there were whispers that the case against Bates wasn’t quite as solid as anyone had thought. Now, so he’d heard more than once, people who actually mattered were starting to sit up and ask questions.

Cornish and his boss, the CPS, for heaven’s sake . . .

The plan had always been to let things die down a bit. To bide his time until there were a few less coppers knocking about, then go back to see Poppy and celebrate in style. He’d thought things would ease off a little once Bates had been arrested, that they might at least scale down the search and give him a chance to have some fun. The flooding hadn’t made things any easier.

He hadn’t thought things would get quite as stupid as they did, and it wasn’t like the police could be seen to ease off now, was it? Not with film crews everywhere you looked and half the country’s reporters still hanging around to watch. Hard as it was, he’d resigned himself to the terrible fact that by the time the coast was well and truly clear, there might not be a great deal of his lovely Poppy left to enjoy.

The very idea that she might not be there for him when all this was over enraged him. Just considering the unfairness of it for more than a few seconds left him feeling scalded, almost breathless. He’d put so much effort into it, so much thought.

Any more talk about arresting the wrong man though, he might have to take a risk by going back to make sure.