Catching the Ice Queen Page 7

  ‘No. It can wait till the morning, and besides...’ And besides – what? she wondered. ‘Anyway. Come in for a briefing at 7 o’clock.’ He hung up. She put the phone back in her bag and realised the taxi driver was looking at her in the rear view mirror, obviously enjoying this unexpected late night drama. She ignored him.

  ‘Just up here on the left,’ she said. Whatever it was that Goode was doing right now, she was too wrung out to deal with it. She paid off the driver and walked slowly up to the front door. And the worst of all it was the recognition that, for a split second, she’d thought the blonde across the room was Lara Black and her heart had soared. Shit, she thought.

  Chapter 8

  Robin set her shoulders back and marched into the office. She felt terrible this morning, a hideous combination of hangover, embarrassment, guilt, and fear all roiling in her stomach in one big ball of stress. But she was determined that, today of all days, she was not going to let any of it show on her face. DCI Goode’s bald head swung her way and he immediately strode over.

  ‘Sullivan.’ He gave her a searching glare and she was thankful that she’d had the presence of mind this morning to dress carefully in one of her best (and last remaining) suits. ‘Come into the ACC’s office.’ He pushed the door open and to her dismay revealed that Paul Austin was already seated inside, his expression set. This looked more formal than she would have liked.

  ‘Hang on,’ to her relief she heard the familiar boom of DS Bolton. Was this his first day back? He shouldered his way into through the door before it shut. ‘I think she needs a colleague here.’ He turned to face her. ‘Is that alright with you, Robin?’ Her mouth dried at the implications clearly stated on his serious face. She nodded.

  Inside they sat side by side at the long table, her boss and his boss choosing seats opposite. To her dismay, a uniformed constable slipped in and took up a chair in the corner, notebook in hand. She tried her best to appear calm but was acutely aware of a line of sweat that had pricked out along her hairline. She tucked her trembling hands under the desk, pasted on a polite smile and then fixed her eyes on her boss. He wasn’t shouting, which was a bad sign.

  ‘Detective Constable Sullivan, this is a preliminary and informal meeting but I’d like to impress upon you the vital importance of being completely honest.’ She frowned. You’re expecting me to lie about this? ‘Depending on the outcome this morning, Assistant Chief Constable Austin and I may decide to involve Professional Standards for further investigation of this matter.’

  Dread slipped down Robin’s spine like a handful of dirty snow. What the hell do they think I’ve done? She shot a panicked look at Bolton.

  ‘Stay calm, Tweets,’ breathed Keith.

  DCI Goode watched their exchange with sympathy on his big face. ‘Right. Talk us through it, then,’ he said.

  For the next two hours they went over it and over it. Her initial statement about being approached by Sylvie Dean at Greenway’s funeral and then again at the club took about ten minutes, and she’d naively assumed that would be that, but the senior officers had other ideas. Relentlessly they asked the same questions again and again, rephrasing sometimes for variety’s sake, but mainly using the broken-record technique that she recognised with horror to be the hammer that cracked many a suspect’s story. The icy dismay that she’d felt on walking into the room solidified into the nausea-inducing realisation that they thought she was the mole.

  No, she hadn’t met the suspect in any other circumstances.

  No, she had had no contact with her or any of her operatives.

  No, she had not arranged to see the woman at the nightclub.

  No, she was not the mole.

  She was not the mole!

  Bolton put a gentle hand over hers and glared at the two men. ‘Time for a break, gentlemen.’ It was a statement and not a request. They nodded, and both left the room. Robin slumped down and rested her pounding head on the table.

  ‘Drink this,’ Keith jabbed her in the shoulder and she sat up and accepted a glass of water. ‘You’re bearing up well.’

  She drank off the water, grateful that the action of swallowing meant she couldn’t cry. ‘Thank you for being here,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  The big man shrugged. ‘Yeah, well. I’m your DS. I’m the only person who is allowed to give you shit,’ and he almost smiled.

  ‘I didn’t do this,’ she said, her voice threatening to break. ‘I don’t know why they don’t believe me.’

  ‘They do believe you.’ She stared at him. ‘That’s why they’re trying so hard to break your story. If they can’t do it, then you’re in the clear, but if they leave any whisper that they didn’t look into this thoroughly then you’ve had it, and so have they.’

  ‘Christ, what a mess. I wish I hadn’t gone to that bloody club last night.’

  He laughed. ‘Yeah, well, that’ll teach you to go out on the pull on a school night.’

  Right, so my attempts to gloss over the exact type of nightclub I was at haven’t worked, then. She glanced at the DS over the top of her water glass. For once he doesn’t seem about to go into a homophobic tirade, though. Small mercies. Suddenly into her mind shot a mental image of Lara Black’s face. It wouldn’t be long before the station gossip-machine relayed the news about Robin’s gay club encounter to all and sundry. And I said the other day that I was in the closet! Her mood sank to even greater depths. Now she won’t come within twenty feet of me.

  The door swung open again and the two officers returned. Austin sighed, and looked at his notes.

  ‘Right. Tell me again about the message that Sylvie Dean got while she was at the nightclub.’

  Despite Keith’s optimism that the interview would soon be over, it continued for the rest of the morning. Any thought that Robin might be able to keep further details of her private life to herself were swept away under the barrage of questions, and in the end she’d had to give the names of both Mickey and Katie as witnesses who had been with her when Sylvie Dean had approached. By twelve o’clock Robin was shaking with fatigue, her brain shutting down, and only just able to endure each new question and answer.

  ‘OK.’ DCI Goode nodded. ‘We’re going to speak to your friends Michela and Katherine now. This informal interview is at an end, and you’re welcome to go home.’ He smiled at her sadly. ‘But don’t disappear anywhere, ok, Robin?’ He and Austin exchanged a look and left the room.

  She shook her head, barely registering the comment. Keith Bolton took her arm and practically hauled her out of her chair, her legs rubbery.

  ‘Come on, Tweets, you can do it,’ he said and then looked her in the eye. ‘Outside that door are a hundred coppers, all wondering whether you’re the mole. You need to walk out of here like you don’t have a care in the world.’

  ‘What?’ she stared, ‘I can’t –‘

  He shook her. ‘You can, and you bloody well will.’ He glared at her with something of his usual expression. ‘We’re going to leave this room and stroll calmly out into the corridor. That’s all you have to do. Think James Bond: never let them see you bleed.’

  She took a deep breath and swallowed, willing her head to stop spinning. ‘Ok.’

  He shoved the office door open and they stepped through, his arm dropping back to his side. For a second Robin thought she was going to wobble but she grit her teeth and marched boldly into the CID room. Practically every detective in the station was at their desk, making a pretence at investigating while really waiting to see her come out. She felt their eyes burning towards her, wondering. I am not the fucking mole. I can do this. With a hiss of indrawn breath she straightened her back and walked slowly through their midst, Bolton at her side. The door to the corridor was a million miles away, and then a thousand, and then a hundred, and suddenly she was through and Keith was whisking her along one passageway and another until she blinked and realised they were at the other end of the station.

  ‘Well done, Robin.’ The big man gestured at a closed
door beside them, which she was surprised to see bore the symbol for the Ladies. ‘You go in and catch your breath a bit. I’ll make sure nobody bothers you.’ His craggy face cracked into a faint smile. ‘You’ve done well today.’

  She whispered her thanks and pushed through into the cool, tiled space beyond. It was blissfully empty. No stares or loud thoughts about her innocence or guilt. No questions. In a step she was leaning over a hand basin with her own ragged face staring back from the mirror, then the tension of the last few hours burst out in a wave of shaking that doubled her up. She sank slowly to the floor, arms around her knees, and hid her face. What am I going to do? What am I going to do if they don’t believe me? It won’t be just my career I’ll lose, I’ll be prosecuted as well. She lost the next few minutes to a surge of panic which raced up from her stomach, hammered her vision until it started to go black, and crashed her heart against her ribs so fast she wondered if she was having a cardiac arrest.

  And then a cool pair of hands pressed against her hot face and a voice said: ‘It’s ok, Robin, it’s ok.’ She was pulled gently into a hug and held while she sobbed frightened tears, and the arms didn’t let go until the worst of the shaking had stopped. Robin leaned back and wiped her eyes, blinking up at the beautiful face of Lara Black.

  ‘I’m sorry –‘ she began.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for.’ She smiled that wonderful smile and for a nanosecond Robin was distracted from the car crash of her situation. ‘Most people would be nervous wrecks after the morning you’ve had. And by the sound of it you handled yourself really well. It’s hardly surprising that there’d be a bit of fallout.’

  Her eyes were the bluest Robin had ever seen, and they beamed now with warmth and compassion and – was there something else? She became acutely aware of the woman’s arms around her waist, her face so close that Robin could feel the dance of her breath on her own hot skin.

  ‘How are you here?’ she managed to ask.

  Lara’s smile slid into a rueful grin. ‘DS Bolton. He came and found me and explained what had been going on. I’d only just got back from re-interviewing the foundry workers about the gun consignment.’ She placed a cool palm against Robin’s cheek. ‘I am so sorry that I wasn’t here when they began to question you. I could have helped.’

  Guilt jolted Robin and she said: ‘I had to tell them that Sylvie had tried to pick me up at a gay club.’ She cringed. ‘I am so sorry. I really was telling the truth when I said I wasn’t out. I hope this doesn’t embarrass you.’

  Those huge eyes softened and a sadness crept across Lara’s face. ‘No, I am sorry that I upset you at the funeral. I was scared and it made me cruel.’

  ‘No, ma’am, it’s ok –‘

  ‘It’s not ok.’ She hesitated. ‘And I’m sorry I rushed off yesterday when you were…’ her eyes flicked around the dingy lavatory. ‘… er, last in the station bathroom.’

  ‘I seem to be making a habit of it,’ Robin managed a half-laugh.

  ‘I seem to be making a habit of running away.’ Those eyes burned. ‘And of making you feel bad about yourself, made you feel that you aren’t beau-‘. She stopped, and a faint blush coloured her ivory skin. Was she about to say ‘beautiful’? Robin held her breath, but then the woman went on in a different tone. ‘And it’s Lara, right? I mean, I think that sharing the floor of a toilet with someone puts you on first name terms, don’t you?’

  Robin laughed, and the moment popped like a soap bubble. They scrambled awkwardly to their feet, hands automatically reaching out to grab each other for mutual support.

  ‘I think Keith is outside with a cup of tea for you,’ said Lara, brushing off the dark skirt of her uniform. Robin’s eyes slipped across and took in the trim shape before she could reign them back. She hoped the other woman hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Thank you, again, for coming to help,’ she said instead. ‘I really appreciate it.’

  DCC Black was smoothing her blonde hair in the mirror and looked at Robin’s reflection. ‘My pleasure. And, as I said, it was the least I could do.’ She turned and her serious expression arrested Robin’s efforts to rescue her own appearance. ‘I will make it up to you.’ And she straightened her jacket, smiled, and walked calmly out of the door.

  Robin let out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding and shook her head. Then she, too, pushed open the door. Outside she saw DS Bolton with two cardboard cups of tea and two greasy bacon butties balanced on a handy windowsill. Her stomach growled.

  ‘Hurry up, Tweets,’ he said, ‘I was about to eat all this myself and the missus would have given me hell for it.’ She smiled and then surprised them both by kissing him on the cheek. ‘Oi! That’s sexual harassment, that is.’

  ‘Shut up, Keith,’ she said, reaching for a sandwich.

  Fortified by tea and grease, Robin felt her brain kick into gear. As they walked back through the station she turned to Keith and asked: ‘Why was it important that Sylvie Dean spoke to me last night? What’s happened?’

  He shook his craggy head. ‘I forgot you missed it all. Right. It all kicked off yesterday, after you’d buggered off to get dolled up for your big night out.’ Welcome back, Detective Sergeant. ‘We got a call from a woman whose car had broken down on Turnbull Road last Tuesday at 8.40pm.’

  ‘Right in the middle of the murder window!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Yeah. She had been coming back from visiting her aged mother in a nursing home and was sitting in her car, feeling nervous and watching out for the AA man. She said that she remembered seeing a black BMW drive past. And –‘ he held up a meaty finger to forestall Robin’s next question. ‘She particularly noticed the quote beautiful blonde woman in the back seat unquote as the car went past her.’

  ‘And why has she only just come forward?’ She tried to ignore the mixture of curious stares and evasive manoeuvres that greeted her as she walked through the main corridors. She switched her attention back to the DS.

  ‘Been on holiday. Got back from the airport last night and switched on the news, and found herself watching footage of the Estate from pretty much the same angle as she had seen it from her car. She picked up the phone right away.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘When we took the call the DCI got her into the station pronto to make a statement. It was cut and dried: the Dean woman was placed right at the scene, at the right time. He spoke to the Chief Constable, and started organising a warrant to search her house.’ He shot her a look. ‘All systems go, we were getting suited and booted to head out and arrest her when somebody else walks into the station and confesses to Greenway’s murder.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yeah, you couldn’t make it up. Some bugger had tipped her off. While we were running around filling in forms in triplicate so she didn’t sue us she was ‘persuading’ a fall-guy to come and confess. Her solicitor has already rung in this morning to offer a voluntary statement that she was in fact driving past the estate on the night in question,’ he made sarcastic air quotes, ‘on an innocent and unrelated errand.’

  Robin digested this. They’d cut through the holding area and she saw Mac Mackenzie step away from his desk. He was looking back over his shoulder at his panel of station CCTV feeds and before she had a chance to get out of the way he barged straight into her.

  ‘Sorry –‘ she said automatically, and then stopped when she saw him flinch away as if she were infectious. Disappointment stung her. I thought we actually got on. My mistake. Mac went pale and then beet red, and opened and closed his mouth without managing to get a word out. I guess you know who your friends are. Without another word she moved past him and began to climb the stairs back up to the CID room.

  Bolton, huffing and puffing beside her, said: ‘Slow down, I’m an old man.’ She waited for him to catch up and he looked keenly at her stormy face. ‘You doing ok?’

  ‘Yep.’ No point in talking about it, everyone was bound to see her as potentially contaminated. She tried to get her mind ba
ck on the job. ‘So who was it.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Who confessed?’

  ‘Ricky Pruitt.’ She stopped and stared at him. ‘I know. It’s almost funny.’

  Ricky Pruitt was the kind of wannabe gangster that most police forces have coming in and out of their station with depressing regularity. He was a hopeless little man who’d hung around with Greenway through endless cycles of rehabilitation and re-offending, and had been the nearest thing he’d had to a best friend. Robin shook her head in disbelief. Ricky shooting Gary was so implausible he may as well have confessed to the Great Train Robbery.

  ‘Is it just a confession?’ she asked. ‘Can we disprove Ricky’s statement?’

  Goode shook his head gloomily. ‘Not a chance. He offered –in fact, he insisted – we search his flat and sure enough we found ammunition identical to that used in the murder weapon with his fingerprints all over it. She’s thought of everything.’

  ‘And his supposed motive?’

  ‘Some nonsense about Gary threatening him with violence so he decided to get his retaliation in first.’ They stopped outside the CID room door. ‘Ready?’ asked the DS and she nodded. They each pushed open a door and, under the watchful gaze of the entire team, she walked back to her desk and sat down. A few people smiled, and she was grateful that she had some vague friends, at least. Silence had fallen at her entrance but gradually this faded, and for the next couple of hours she sat, cocooned, in the gentle hubbub of the busy office. She opened emails, and read documents, and not a word of it was retained by her mind. Instead her attention bounced between the extreme anxiety of the investigation, the impossibility of Ricky Pruitt being done for murder, and the strange conversation she’d had with DCC Lara Black. Every so often someone would laugh, and then they’d all look across at her and go quiet again. Welcome to Pariah, population one.

  It was nearly the end of the afternoon when a ripple of attention made her look up from yet another boring report and she realised that DCI Goode was marching across to her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Austin and Black step out of his office and look her way. The big inspector stopped at her desk and handed her back her phone.