Wendy and Luke Baxter had headed north to a village pub not far from county police HQ at Milton House. As the pub was not only fairly rural but also popular with the police, the owners were willing, more often than not, to stay open well beyond their usual hours.
They knew, too, that they were likely to get a call before too long to let them know that they’d either apprehended the killer or found another body, so this was going to be no early night for either of them.
This wasn’t the way Wendy wanted to spend her evening, but she’d been told by Culverhouse that she needed to clear the air with Luke. They’d been sat in near silence for a good few minutes, neither of them really knowing what to say to each other.
‘That Desmond Jordan’s up for the chop,’ Baxter said, taking a sip of his pint. ‘CPS are going to charge him over the assault in the pub, apparently.’
‘Good,’ Wendy replied. ‘He’s a slimy bastard. Deserves everything he gets coming to him.’ Jordan’s infidelities would undoubtedly prove to be the unraveling of his marriage, not to mention his career, but it had at least had the unintended consequence of clearing him of multiple murders.
The silence fell over Wendy and Luke once again, neither of them particularly wanting to be here or being especially interested in making small talk.
‘What’s the point in this?’ Wendy finally said. ‘I’m never going to like you and you’re never going to like me. Can we just leave it at that?’
‘Always the optimist, aren’t you?’ Luke replied. ‘Look, I know you’ve been through a lot of shit but why let the job suffer? I’m not saying we need to be best mates, but I think we can at least be civil.’
Wendy was stunned into silence. It certainly wasn’t like Luke Baxter to be the voice of reason and extend an olive branch. ‘Someone spiked your drink or something?’
Luke laughed. ‘The job stresses you out at times. I get it. It does with me, too. It does with all of us. And yeah, we’ve got different ways of doing things. But so what? You get on alright with the guv. He’s not that much different from me.’
‘It’s not the same,’ Wendy replied. ‘You’re a climber. He’s spent years doing the hard graft. You were parachuted in and fast-tracked because you spend all your time licking his arse.’
‘Is that really what you think?’ Luke said, leaning forward. ‘Let me tell you something. I always wanted to be a copper. Ever since I was young. You want to know why I never talk about my family life? When I was five, my parents were coming home from a weekend away. I’d been staying with my dad’s sister. They were driving back home when a car sideswiped them at a set of traffic lights. The people in the other car were being chased by the police. My mum and dad died instantly. My aunt and uncle took me in and brought me up, but all I ever wanted was to join the police and try and put things right. Try to make sure those mistakes didn’t happen to other people. But I could never get in. So yeah, I went to uni and they put me through the fast-track programme. You know yourself how little you can actually do on the streets. You’re always being shat on from up high, paperwork, bureaucratic procedure. There’s fuck all you can do as a bobby to put anything right. So yeah, I’m trying to get as far up the ladder as I can. Not to feather my own nest, but to make a difference.’
Wendy swallowed and looked down at her drink. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t know.’
‘No. No-one does. It’s not something I go broadcasting. But at the same time I don’t expect people to just make their own judgements based on nothing.’
‘It must be hard,’ Wendy said, not knowing what else to say.
‘Yeah. Course. But you just have to wear this disguise, don’t you? Pretend you’re a big brave boy and that you don’t give a shit about anything. Because, inside, I’m still that scared little five-year-old boy. That was the day everything stopped.’
‘You don’t have to wear a disguise, Luke. The world’s moved on. You don’t lose points for being sensitive and emotional any more. Besides, there are better disguises than the one you’ve been putting on since you’ve been working here.’
Luke laughed. ‘I’ll just nip down the fancy dress shop and grab myself a Batman outfit then, shall I? Wear that to work instead.’
‘More like Pratman,’ Wendy joked, feeling the tension and atmosphere lift as they shared a laugh for the first time since they’d met. No sooner had she registered her enjoyment of this feeling, she was hit like a bolt from the blue. ‘Fuck. Fancy dress shop.’
‘What?’ Luke said, taking a mouthful of beer.
‘Fancy dress shop! There’s one next door to Terri Kinsella’s salon, isn’t there?’
‘Uh, sort of. Not fancy dress, though. I think it does more theatrical costume hire. Proper professional stuff. I don’t think they’d have a Batman outfit.’
Wendy stood suddenly. ‘Don’t you remember? Queenie Kinsella said her son ran the shop next door. The costume hire shop! That’s how it was done! Old Queenie went blabbing to her son about the lives of her customers, and meanwhile Paul’s compiling his dossier of Mildenheath’s women, waiting for his perfect five!’ She grabbed her mobile phone from her pocket, walked quickly to leave the pub and phoned Frank Vine.
‘Frank? It’s Wendy,’ she said as she noticed Luke follow her out, carrying both coats. ‘Listen, can you check an address for me please? It’s for a Paul Kinsella. Owns the costume hire shop on Eastfield Road. Cheers.’
‘Shit, I’ve just had a thought,’ Luke said, while Wendy waited for Frank to check the address. ‘If he runs a costume hire shop—’
‘Yes, he’d have a policeman’s uniform,’ Wendy said, cutting him off. ‘That’s how he gets people’s trust and managed to avoid suspicion on the night Emma and Marla were killed.’ She spun on her feet as Frank Vine’s voice came back on the phone. ‘Seriously? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! We’re about twenty minutes away, but I’ll call her now.’
‘What is it?’ Luke asked, jogging to keep up with Wendy, who was now sprinting across the car park to her car.
‘Paul Kinsella’s address. 19 Mark Street. He lives next door to Suzanne Corrigan.’