Sins of the Fathers (17 page)

‘Some of us are going to the pub for a quickie. Do you want to come?’ asked Jane Archer, one of the younger reporters in the newsroom to whom Laura had dispensed good advice and an occasional shoulder to cry on after Ted Grant’s fiercer assaults over the years.

Laura shrugged. ‘Why not?’

The group in the Lamb started off in its usual large and convivial, end-of-the-week mode and, as an irregular participant, Laura found herself provided with drinks at
regular intervals. She bought herself a sandwich in an attempt to mitigate the effects of the succession of vodka and tonics, but by mid-evening she knew very well she was not in any fit state to drive home. She also realised with something of a shock that Vince Newsom had joined the party and was watching her from the other side of the now thinning group.

‘All right, babe?’ he asked, as he caught her eye, and when Jane got up from her stool next to Laura to go home herself, Vince moved closer and was quickly joined by the
Gazette
’s crime reporter, Bob Baker.

‘On your own tonight, sweetie?’ Bob asked. ‘I heard your copper was away. Funny that, in the middle of a murder case. He’s okay, is he? Or are you sitting on a story there?’

‘He’s fine,’ Laura mumbled, knowing she would not be believed and how quickly Thackeray’s ‘holiday’ would become public knowledge and the sort of speculation that would spark. ‘He just needed a break.’ Even in her fuzzy state Laura could see that neither man believed her. She picked up her glass, which she thought she had emptied, but which now seemed unaccountably full again, and took another swig. The merest reference to Thackeray filled her with an irrational dread, which only the alcohol seemed to deaden. She was aware of Vince and Bob, one on each side of her, continuing a long and involved conversation about the murder case, which she was only hazily able to grasp and to which, as far as she was aware, she contributed little.

‘D’you fancy a curry, darling?’ Vince asked, so insistently that the question penetrated Laura’s fuddled brain. But she shook her head fiercely.

‘I must get home,’ she said. ‘I want to go home.’ She missed the quick glance between Vince Newsom and Bob
but took on board the fact that it was Vince who had volunteered to drive her back to the flat. She recalled later being in a car and someone searching in her bag for her front door keys, but that was all she remembered of the rest of that evening until she woke up next morning under the duvet wearing only her bra and pants and with a crashing hangover that had her rushing to the bathroom to be sick as soon as she found the strength to stand on her feet.

‘Oh, damn, damn, damn,’ she cursed as she splashed water on her face and inspected her reddened eyes and furred tongue in the bathroom mirror. ‘Oh, how could I be such a fool.’

DS Kevin Mower was out and about early that Saturday morning. His first port of call was a utilitarian block of flats a mile and a half out of the centre of Bradfield, halfway up one of the town’s seven hills. He found the main entrance unlocked and hurried up the stairs to a flat on the second floor, where he leaned on the doorbell for some time without arousing any response. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was alone on the narrow landing, which gave access to four front doors, he pulled a credit card out of his pocket and slipped it between the lock and the door jamb and, to his relief, felt the door give under the pressure of his hand very quickly. He slipped inside and closed the door behind him.

The flat smelt musty and cold, and even without opening any of the doors he knew that there was no one there, and had not been for some time. Even so he checked carefully in every room, glanced in the fridge and kitchen cupboards and ran an eye along largely empty shelves in the living room, without finding any evidence of what he feared. He stood at the window for a moment feeling frustrated and even more anxious than when he had started. He was not concerned so much about where Michael Thackeray had gone as about what he might be doing when he got there. But so far he had found no evidence that his boss might be
drinking again, and for that at least he was grateful.

He left the flat as he had found it, made his way to police HQ, cautiously using Michael Thackeray’s empty office to make some phone calls that he did not want anyone else to hear. It took half an hour to dredge up the information he wanted, although when he had got it he wondered what he could do with it. Discovering where Thackeray had flown to two nights earlier narrowed the search to one country, but offered no easy route to pinning down his quarry more clearly. He sat thinking about his next move, until his mobile shrilled and made him jump. He looked at the display and felt a shiver of anxiety. Superintendent Longley calling him when they were both off-duty did not bode well.

‘Sir?’ he said.

‘Mower? That you? Have you seen that wretched rag this morning? The
Globe
? Have you seen what that bastard Newsom’s got hold of now?’

‘No, sir, I’ve not seen any papers…’

‘He’s only got hold of chapter and verse about what the Christie child has been saying, everything Val Ridley told us yesterday. What the hell is going on here? Has Val gone bleating to the newspapers? And if not her, then who? Whoever this leak’s come from, I’ll string them up, and if it’s a member of the force, they’ll be out on their ear, I promise you. The division’ll have no credibility left if it goes on like this. Can you start looking into it right away? There’s no time to lose on this.’

‘I’ll talk to Val, sir,’ Mower said. ‘I can’t imagine this is her fault, though. There’ve been leaks from the hospital already. It’s much more likely to be Newsom suborning someone on the hospital staff…’

‘Find out, Sergeant,’ Longley said. ‘Just find out. Do
some bloody detecting and call me back the moment you’ve got a name.’

‘Sir,’ Mower said as Longley cut off the call. ‘Three bags full, sir,’ he muttered angrily, putting his phone away and making his way quickly downstairs and out into the busy town centre, where he bought a copy of the
Globe
at the first newsagent’s shop he came to.

‘Jesus wept,’ he eventually said to himself, as he sat in a coffee shop with a latte taking in the full magnitude of Vince Newsom’s scoop, which repeated, almost word for word, what Val Ridley had reported back on the day before. Then another thought struck him and he pulled out his phone again, and calling the infirmary and asking to be put through to security.

‘You need to keep an extra close eye on Emma Christie,’ he said sharply to the officer who picked up the call. ‘The fact that she’s awake and talking is all over the front page of the
Globe
this morning.’

‘Oh, aye, I saw that,’ the officer said. ‘I didn’t think…’

‘Don’t think. Just watch her,’ Mower snapped. ‘And put me through to the ward.’ But when he was finally transferred, he discovered to his horror that he and security were both already too late.

‘We’ve had to transfer her back to intensive care,’ the ward sister said. ‘She’s had a relapse. She’s very ill.’

‘Natural causes?’ Mower asked. The nurse was silent for a moment.

‘Oh, my God,’ she said at last. ‘I think we’d better check.’ But Mower thought he knew the answer already.

Laura Ackroyd might not have seen the front page of the
Globe
that Saturday morning at all if it had not been for Vince Newsom. Even after several cups of coffee she still
felt limp and muddle-headed and by mid-morning was seriously considering crawling back under her duvet to see if more sleep would dispel the consequences of the previous night’s indulgence. Still in her dressing gown, she had almost decided to ignore the insistent ring on the doorbell when a faint sense of panic convinced her that it heralded bad news about Michael Thackeray. She pressed the intercom and was not pleased to hear Newsom asking to be let in.

‘Go away, Vince,’ she said, her voice thick. ‘I’m not feeling good.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ Vince said. ‘But I’ve got something of yours here. You really wouldn’t want to lose it.’

Confused, she opened the main door for him and unlatched her own front door. When he came in he glanced at her and smiled broadly.

‘You didn’t need to undress,’ he said.

‘Shut up, Vince,’ Laura snarled. ‘I feel like death this morning. So what do you want?’

‘Well, I thought you’d want your notes back to do a follow-up on Monday. Ted Grant’ll be pretty miffed to be scooped again, but that’s the way it goes.’ He handed a her a folded sheet of paper which she immediately recognised as Val Ridley’s notes.

‘Where the hell did you get this?’ Laura asked, her brain clearing suddenly.

‘You could say it just fell into my lap, sweetheart. You did tell me to look in your bag for your keys when we got back here last night.’

‘You didn’t use it, did you?’ Laura asked, knowing how stupid a question that was. Vince Newsom would sell his own grandmother for a story.

‘Da-da-a-a!’ Vince said in triumph, waving the
Globe
’s
front page, where the photograph of Emma in her hospital bed took pride of place, in front of her. ‘Good stuff, though I can’t imagine where you got all those quotes, you naughty girl. My little nurse got cold feet after the police warned her off. You must have been very persuasive.’

‘You stole those notes,’ Laura said, her face flushed. ‘You’d no right to do that. I’ll have you for that, Vince. Your editor, the Press complaints people, the police – I don’t know, but I’ll have you. I promise.’

‘There’s no harm done, sweetie, except to your pride. You can still follow it up in Monday’s
Gazette
. You got pissed last night and you told me all about it. You showed me your precious notes. Don’t you remember?’

‘You’re a liar,’ Laura said. ‘What you’ve done could put that child at risk, and there’s no way I would have told you anything about it however drunk I was. No one will believe that. I’ll hang you out to dry.’

Newsom’s eyes suddenly went very chilly and his mouth hardened into something approaching a sneer.

‘Well, honey, I really wouldn’t get into any sort of slanging match with me about it, if I were you. Just put it down to experience, hey? You were too pissed to really know what was going on when we got back here last night, weren’t you? Pissed and surprisingly friendly, as it turned out.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Laura asked, suddenly feeling very cold.

‘You really don’t remember?’ Newsom came back, his voice full of an incredulity which Laura knew was as false as all the promises he had once made her. ‘Let’s just say your tight-arsed boyfriend might not be too pleased to hear the full unexpurgated details of how I put you to bed and kept his place warm, darling. Know what I mean?’

‘You’re joking,’ Laura whispered, her mouth dry, but she knew he wasn’t. And she could dredge up nothing from the haze that the previous evening had become with which she could contradict him.

‘You’re a bastard, Vince,’ she said.

‘That’s not what you said last night,’ Newsom said complacently. ‘So let’s call it quits shall we? I got my scoop, you got your notes back, and the rest, as they say, is a blank slate. Best thing all round, I’d say.’

‘Get out,’ Laura said. ‘You’re disgusting.’

Newsom shrugged, put the page of notes and that morning’s
Globe
on the coffee table and turned to the door.

‘
Ciao
, baby,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes on a London paper, you know that? Best settle down up here in the third world and have babies. It’s the only thing you’re good for.’

When the front door finally slammed Laura rushed to the bathroom, tears streaming down her face, and tried vainly to be sick over the basin. When the nausea eventually passed she turned the shower full on and stood under the stream of hot water for a long time, her mind blank. When she had dried herself and slipped into jeans and a sweatshirt she sat gazing at herself in the dressing table mirror, as if searching her own pale face for a truth she could not find, before summoning up the energy to dry her cloud of copper hair, and tie it back severely. She felt drained and empty inside as she contemplated the full extent of Vince Newsom’s betrayal, what she knew he had done to her and, worse, what he might have done. She had no way of knowing, and that, she thought, was perhaps even more devastating than knowing for sure. She could not imagine how she could face Michael Thackeray again.

It was an hour or more before she was disturbed again and she let Kevin Mower into the flat without question. He glanced at her, his eyes full of anxiety, his usually impassive features slightly haggard in the grey light of a wet and windy day.

‘You look rough,’ he said, taking in her still red-rimmed eyes and ashen pallor.

‘Not enough sleep,’ Laura lied. Her problem, she thought, had been too much oblivion, not too little. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I need to contact the boss,’ Mower said. ‘All hell’s breaking loose with this case and he needs to know about it, whatever the super says. I see you’ve seen the bloody
Globe
.’

Laura nodded dumbly, not wanting to go down that road.

‘Is Emma Christie all right?’ she asked.

‘No, not really,’ Mower said. ‘That’s another thing the boss needs to know. She’s back in intensive care. The doctors say they can’t explain what’s happened. Privately, I reckon someone’s seen the
Globe
, is scared that she’s talking and has tried to shut her up. We’ll have to see what the medics say when they’ve checked her out to be sure. But at the moment, that’s much too close to a conspiracy theory to impress Jack Longley in his present mood. And of course he’s the one who decided to leave her security to the hospital instead of keeping our own people in there. I knew that would be a disaster.’

‘Oh God,’ Laura said.

‘Laura?’ Mower was sharp enough to realise that Laura’s stricken expression was more than an outsider’s token response. ‘You don’t know where that bastard Newsom got his facts from, do you?’

‘He got them from me,’ Laura said. ‘He wasn’t intended to, but he did. We were all out drinking together after work last night and things got a bit out of hand…’

‘And you got them from?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that,’ Laura said, her expression tragic and her voice dull.

‘You mean you won’t tell me that,’ Mower said angrily. ‘Are you and that snake Newsom in this thing together? I can’t believe that. What were you thinking about?’

‘We go back a long way,’ Laura said. ‘Michael knows all about me and Vince Newsom.’

‘Does he know all about you and Vince Newsom yesterday?’ Mower flung back and was astonished when Laura sank onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands. He sat beside her and put a tentative arm around her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t implying anything.’

‘The trouble is, Kevin, I don’t even know whether there’s anything to imply. I was so drunk I can’t even dispute what he says about last night. Someone put me to bed…’ She shrugged helplessly. He looked at her, horrified.

‘Are you saying he raped you?’ he asked.

‘I can’t remember anything,’ Laura said, feeling as helpless as she had ever felt in her life.

‘But he says he slept with you?’

‘I think he was just winding me up. He wanted to shut me up, stop me making a fuss about the notes. He says I showed them to him but I’m sure he just helped himself. They were in my handbag and he must have opened it to get my keys. I was out of it but I’m sure I wouldn’t have shared those notes with him however drunk I was. Or let him into my bed.’

‘I’ll kill him, the bastard,’ Mower said. ‘And if I don’t get him, you can be damn sure Michael will.’

‘No!’ Laura said. ‘I don’t want Michael to know any of this. It was my fault. I was drinking on an empty stomach. I was off my head when Vince brought me back here. I don’t want Michael to know anything about it, nothing at all. Please, Kevin. It would wreck him, us, everything.’

Mower groaned.

‘What a mess,’ he said. ‘But I still need to talk to him. He flew to Dublin, I did track him that far, but no one I’ve spoken to has the faintest idea where he might be staying. Do you have a clue?’

Laura shook her head helplessly.

‘He has relatives in Ireland. His mother was Irish and he used to go and visit family over there before she got sick, I know that much. But I don’t think he’s had any contact with them for years.’

‘It’s a lead,’ Mower said doubtfully. ‘I can’t raise him on his mobile. Would his father know where these relatives are, do you think? It’s a long shot, but the mood he was in he might just go back somewhere he spent time on holiday as a child. Do you think?’

‘I don’t know, Kevin. I really don’t.’

‘Would you ask Joe Thackeray? It’s more than my job’s worth to use official channels.’