Jo wondered, not for the first time, which business school taught that interspersing tinnitus-inducing hold music with ‘your call is important to us’ increased market share. She’d spent two hours last night listening to the same marching band tunes while she helped Darren research his article. There was no way she was staying with this excuse for a bank once she’d got her blocked cards sorted.
Thankfully Gary Hedges wasn’t in the office, so at least she was able to put it on speaker and crack on with some work. She was about to open the third directed surveillance application of the morning when Fiona, her PA, tapped on the open door. Jo looked up and smiled. Great personal assistants were hard to come by, so she’d landed on her feet when she inherited this one from Phil Cooke, her predecessor. She was a rare breed in that she always had Jo’s back, batting off more tripe than there were hours in the day to deal with, and rarely bringing bad news to her door, just solutions.
‘Jo, don’t you think you ought to be heading off?’ she said in her rich, soft Glaswegian accent. 129
‘Off? Where?’ Jo flipped her screen to her diary page. ‘Oh shit, I’d forgotten all about that. Yep, on my way. You’re a bloody saviour.’
‘No problem, see you later.’
Jo hung up on ‘The Bank That Cares’, grabbed her shoulder bag, slipped on a civvy jacket and headed for the door, just as Gary breezed in.
‘Had enough for the day?’ he said.
‘I forgot I’m meeting Nicola Merrion at the Lifechoices offices in ten minutes.’
Gary looked at his watch. ‘Good luck making that. Oh, try to avoid Amanda if you can.’
‘Why so?’ Amanda Short was the business manager, the most senior non-police officer on Jo’s Command Team. She’d been in that role for longer than anyone could remember and without her the division would be broken and the whole place would grind to a halt.
‘You not heard about the petrol deliveries?’
‘Still nothing?’ The station fuel tanks had been dry for three days and it was causing chaos. During the height of the cuts, some bright spark at HQ had removed all the fuel cards to save a few pence per litre by making officers fill up using their own cheaper supply rather than at public petrol stations. That was fine until theirs ran out.
‘Nope and she wants you to kick the chief officers’ arses.’
‘All at once?’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Consider me warned,’ she said as she deliberately took the long way down to the car park. As she passed the Street Community Team, Scotty looked up from his desk.
‘Ah, Sergeant Scott, are you busy?’
‘Always, ma’am.’
‘Good, how about a trip out to see Nicola Merrion with me? I could do with someone who knows what’s actually going on.’
Scotty looked around the office. ‘How about PC Bannerjee? I get all I know from her.’ 130
Saira’s look was one of someone whose plans for the day were about to explode in her face.
Jo picked up a photo from her desk which showed Saira being awarded her judo black belt. ‘She’s a trained killer. We don’t want to waste her talents at some boring meeting, do we now? No, get your jacket, it looks like you could do with some fresh air.’
Scotty shoved his chair back from his desk, grabbed his warrant card and coat, then sauntered to the door while both Jo and Saira stifled giggles.
‘We’ll take my car,’ said Jo.
As they made their way onto the Kings Road in front of the Palace Pier, Jo revealed the real reason she’d taken the opportunity to bring Scotty along. ‘How are you?’
‘How am I? I’m fine. Why do you ask, ma’am?’
‘Call me Jo. You know why I’m asking. You and Lizzie were the world’s worst-kept secret. I think only Bob Heaton didn’t know.’ She left a silence for him to fill. He didn’t disappoint.
‘And my wife.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ said Jo. ‘You must be devastated. Is there anyone you can talk to?’ She glanced across and caught Scotty wiping a tear away. ‘Want me to pull over?’
‘No, no, I’m fine, honestly. It’s just so hard. I have to put on a brave face at home and at work. My missus knew Lizzie – really liked her – and she was fine that we worked closely but I have to pretend she was just a colleague. Shit, it’s such a mess.’
They passed Oriental Place where bouquets of wilting supermarket flowers still bunched along the railings.
Scotty stared at them and then wiped his eyes again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be daft. Look, I can sort some time off for you if that helps. You need to find someone to unload on. Someone who’ll listen, hug you if you want, but won’t judge.’
‘No, please don’t. I need to be here. It gives me a purpose. I need to find Lizzie’s killer.’ 131
‘You’ve already done that.’
‘We both know he was just a patsy. I’m talking about the people behind her murder. And that undercover officer’s. I want to rain hell down on whoever’s pulling the strings and I won’t fucking stop until I do.’ He shouted the last sentence, then softly said, ‘Pardon my language.’
‘Swear all you fucking like,’ said Jo with a glint. ‘But talk to someone, promise me that.’
‘Promise.’
Darren couldn’t be sure that he’d pulled his marriage back from the brink, but the signs were more positive than they’d been twenty-four hours ago. He and Jo had talked long into the night and she’d done her best to reassure him that the chances of him being even interviewed, let alone arrested and charged, for his apparent involvement in the Ed Stark affair hovered millimetres above zero. Outwardly he accepted that, but his editor’s connections and raging psychopathy niggled away; he’d put nothing past that bastard.
Yesterday, while Jo’s phone had hummed the on-hold music on speaker, she’d talked him through how he could show how many lives Operation Eradicate had saved. She’d shown him online testimonials from erstwhile addicts who had found work, housing and love as a direct result of the operation. He was a journalist so didn’t need Jo to tell him how to contact them. He’d been on to that first thing and wondered why so many were desperate to tell their story.
Then it was just a case of researching the data, triangulating everything and juxtaposing the macro with the micro. Readers loved human stories, but equally they’d be all too quick to dismiss them as convenient anecdotes if the bigger picture didn’t prove otherwise.
What the hell was he worried about that for? No one would ever read this.
As he sat on the breakfast bar stool re-reading the draft, doubt surged through him. He’d worked for the Daily Journal for around fifteen years 132and he was under no illusion that the moment he pressed send, his tenure, and probably his journalistic career, would be snuffed out like a candle at the Easter Vigil. This was the polar opposite of what he’d been told to write. He was not only handing Parkin the gun, he was loading it, cocking the hammer and shoving it in his own mouth.
What then? Just resign and hope the threat was as empty as Jo said? That would be the coward’s way out. Write the article Parkin wanted and lie to Jo that it had been sabotaged by the subeditors? She’d rumble him straight away.
He re-read the piece. So far as investigative journalism went, it wasn’t his most impactive effort, but it was OK. True? For sure. Balanced? Tick. Yes, this was the article he wanted to write. This was the one that, whatever the consequences, would allow him to sleep at night, save his marriage and keep him true to his journalistic values.
He scanned it one more time, opened an email, typed Parkin’s address, attached it and pressed send.