Being first to tell Jo’s sons what had happened to their mother seemed the very least Daniels could do. Thomas and James sat motionless in Jo’s living room, unable to take it all in. There were tears, expressions of disbelief, outpourings of anger.
And sarcasm from James. ‘This is a wind up, right?’
There was an awful silence as Daniels shook her head, not quite knowing what to say. A million questions followed: Is she all right? Where is she now? Can we see her? How often can we visit if she’s remanded? How do you go about it? Can we take her stuff? What’s Oliver doing? What the fuck is going on?
Daniels leaned forward and spoke gently. ‘I’m going to stick my neck out here. But I must warn you, I’ll deny ever having said anything if what I’m about to tell you is repeated. Understood?’
Responding to the gravity in her voice, Tom and James both nodded.
‘I do not believe that your mother killed your father . . .’ Daniels wondered if she was digging her own grave. ‘And I will do everything in my power to prove it. You have my absolute word on that.’
‘Then why?’ It was almost a wail from Tom.
Daniels sighed heavily. ‘Most of the evidence against her is circumstantial and I’m not at liberty to discuss it with you. You’ll have to speak to her solicitor about that. All I can say is that it amounts to enough to sustain a charge of unlawful killing. She’ll appear at the magistrates’ court later today.’
When she got home, Daniels had a shower, put on a robe and went back downstairs to the living room. She poured herself a large gin and decided to put on some music. Her index finger trailed along her CD collection, each disc a reminder of a specific point in her life: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, her mother’s favourites she’d listened to from an early age. James Morrison, James Blunt and David Gray, whose lyrics and voice had moved her to tears the first time she’d heard him sing. And, last but not least, the Dixie Chicks Jo loved so much.
A little grin appeared on Daniels’ lips, reminded of Jo’s reaction to her music collection the first time she’d visited the house. ‘All your taste is in your mouth,’ she’d said, making them both laugh out loud. She glanced around at her books, her art, much of it influenced by Jo. In pride of place were three limited-edition prints; deeply atmospheric images captured by French photographer, Marc Riboud, Jo had bought as a birthday surprise – misty mountain landscapes she would treasure for the rest of her days. They were beautiful, sensual, much like the woman who’d bought them.
Daniels felt a pang in her chest.
They’d met at a mutual friend’s party, a casual introduction like any other. Except right from the off it was obvious they might become close friends. Always the detective, she’d spent the evening keeping her ear to the ground, listening in to other people’s exchanges, picking up snippets of gossip here and there, while giving little away of herself. In her experience, people – partygoers in particular – were often fascinated to find that she was a DCI on a murder investigation team. And so it proved when some of the guys began pulling her leg, begging to have their collars felt should they misbehave under the influence. She’d taken it on the chin and smiled politely, even though she’d heard it all before. And afterwards, when she’d turned around to speak to Jo, she’d disappeared without a trace – like Cinderella before the clock struck midnight. Daniels supposed that she’d returned to the bosom of a family living close by because, during the evening, there’d been talk of sons, an ex-husband, baggage.
With no way of knowing if they’d ever meet again, a curious disappointment had gnawed away at her subconscious for weeks afterwards. And then she’d arrived at work one morning to find Bright in a foul mood, spouting off about the police service moving in the wrong direction, specifically about the drift from methodical, intelligence-led detection to more modern methods of catching criminals. He’d promptly put her on standby to meet a new recruit, some academic being forced upon the department by top brass, who, he said, didn’t know their arses from their elbows.
When Jo Soulsby walked through the door of the crime unit and introduced herself as Northumbria’s new criminal profiler, Daniels’ heart had inexplicably leapt. For a few tense moments, she’d been unable to formulate speech. They were an item within weeks, working together, living separately, but soul mates all the same.
And since they had split up . . .?
The truth was, Jo’s departure from her life meant she’d had lost something very precious. And now she wanted it back. The moment the door had closed on their relationship, her whole future had vanished into thin air. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since, never went to parties – hardly ever ate out. What would be the point? Without Jo to share in that special intimacy there was, well, nothing. And so she’d thrown herself into work and resigned herself to life as a single person.
Maybe that was to be her destiny.
Daniels finished her gin. Deciding that music would only make her weepy, she turned off the lights, went back upstairs and curled up on her bed with the TV on. The next few hours were a blur. She must’ve dozed off, because she woke with a start when she heard a man’s voice. It turned out to be a BBC News 24 presenter outlining government plans for yet another wind farm development for the Northumberland countryside – an environmental protection initiative that had drawn a raft of objections across the county. Ordinarily she would have paid attention, but at three twenty-five in the morning, she had no energy to care.
She was about to kill the set when the piece ended and Jo’s picture appeared on screen. Her arrest and remand in custody had made the national news. Daniels listened intently to the voice-over as the studio cut away to an outside broadcast showing Tom and James Stephens emerging from Newcastle Magistrates’ Court with William Oliver, straight into the path of the waiting media. Riveted to the TV, salty tears welled up in Daniels’ eyes as her personal nightmare was transmitted to the nation. In all her life, she’d never known such loneliness.
On the screen, Oliver held up a hand to quieten a jost ling crowd of photographers and journalists, then gave a brief statement: ‘Ms Soulsby has been remanded in custody pending her trial at the Crown Court on a date to be fixed. She will be contesting this matter and we have no further comment to make at this stage.’
Blinded by flashbulbs, the three men then fought their way to a waiting car.
As they were driven away at speed, the anchor man reappeared in the studio. Daniels turned off the set and threw the remote across the room. It smashed against the bedroom wall disintegrating as it hit the floor, the shattered pieces symbolizing her life and her career. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be back walking the streets quicker than she could say ‘uniform’.