The Atkinsons’ farmyard pulsed with blues and twos.
Shots fired.
That was all Marsh had known.
Gardner threw herself from the vehicle and ran towards the flurry of activity, her feet joining the rhythmic dance of blue hues.
She passed a paramedic, who was shining a light into Jen Atkinson’s eyes, while a tall, suited female officer she didn’t recognise stood alongside her. Jen was cuffed.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked the small huddle.
‘I’m not too sure, ma’am,’ the officer said.
The paramedic remained focused on Jen, giving a slight shrug to show that he was with the officer in not having much of a clue.
Gardner sensed Rice coming up alongside her and felt the scar over her chest tingle; a wound in the line of duty from long ago, and an indication that things weren’t as they should be.
She tried to slow her breathing, knowing that a panic attack loomed, but this just made her aware of her thrashing heart, and the impending spiral into chaos.
‘Jen… what’s happened?’ Gardner asked.
Jen, pale faced and nonchalant, didn’t move her eyes, even when the paramedic switched her light off.
‘We know everything,’ Rice said, trying to rouse her. ‘We know about Clara.’
It didn’t work. Jen wasn’t with them. She seemed dead behind her eyes.
Gardner was still focusing on her breathing, trying not to confront any hideous possibilities as to what may have happened.
Still, simply by trying, she was acknowledging.
Shots fired.
She thought of Robert’s tearful reaction when he’d realised the game was up.
How had John and Jen Atkinson reacted to O’Brien and Barnett?
Shots fired.
She clutched the scar on her chest, and squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back a sudden need to vomit.
Then, she heard a familiar voice calling for her, and opened her eyes.
‘Boss!’ Barnett called as he exited the farmhouse, hand in the air.
‘Thank God… thank God…’ She turned and started to run in the direction of Barnett, who trudged out in the snow, head lowered, appearing in sharp contrast to the dynamic, kaleidoscopic effect of the lights being reflected on the frosted windows.
Almost slipping over, but refusing to slow her pace, Gardner drew close to Barnett. He raised his head. She immediately saw the sadness in his eyes, and she froze.
Lucy?
Oh no… no, no…
Lucy…
Images of O’Brien sliding cereal bars over a desk towards her, large smile on her face, a twinkling in her youthful eyes, made her lower her head.
Rice caught her up a second time. ‘Bloody hell, boss. Some of us don’t run every morning—’ He broke off, clearly seeing the terror on her face.
O’Brien: the first person who’d been there for her when Fairweather had paid her and Monika a sinister visit, leaving Gardner terrified for her children. The only person who really heard Gardner, who listened, in a world where no one paid the slightest attention.
‘Awful,’ Barnett said as he drew close. ‘Jen killed John…’
‘Lucy?’ Gardner asked.
But he didn’t hear her. Too preoccupied with his own train of thought. ‘Jen killed Mary Evans, Clara’s real mother… and—’
‘Lucy?’ Gardner exclaimed, raising her head.
She sighted O’Brien at the door of the farmhouse.
Her heart leapt as she scrambled forwards, swerving Barnett.
In case this was a cruel trick of her imagination, Gardner kept her eyes fixed on O’Brien, unwilling to risk even blinking. When she was close enough to conclude that her mind wasn’t deceiving her, she launched again and threw trembling arms around O’Brien. ‘Thank God,’ she said. Embracing Lucy at the door, she felt both happiness, and sadness over the fact that she’d never had chance to do this with her late colleague, Collette Willows.