Splinter the Silence (23 page)

Carol spotted Kevin immediately. His copper curls were a flaming beacon, advertising his presence fifty yards away. She stopped in the lee of a tree and watched him. He was turning over the soil in a trench, muscles working hard over his wiry frame. His washed-out green T-shirt had a broad stripe of sweat down the back. He was attacking the job as if it was personal. He paused and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead, then bent to his task again. She moved closer and when she drew level, she called his name.

He looked up, startled, swinging round, spade at the ready. Still the instincts of a front-line copper, she was pleased to see. When he clocked who it was, his flushed face displayed an almost comedy expression of astonishment. ‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. Surprised, not hostile.

‘Looking for you,’ she said. ‘Are you going to let me in?’ She gestured towards the padlocked gates.

He grinned. ‘I think I could manage that.’ He crossed to the gates and pulled a bunch of keys out of his dirt-stained cords. ‘It’s great to see you,’ he said, leading the way back to the shed on his lot. ‘Did Stella tell you where I was?’

‘No, Paula.’

He gestured to a rickety bench outside the shed. ‘Have a seat. I can’t do hot drinks, but I’ve got a couple of beers inside?’

Carol shook her head. ‘Not for me, thanks. But don’t let me hold you back.’

He sat next to her. ‘I usually wait till I’m done for the day.’

Carol gestured towards the vegetables. ‘A bit of a surprise, all this. I imagined you with your head under the bonnet of some vintage sports car, not up to your elbows in fruit and veg.’

Kevin stretched his arms along the back of the bench. ‘It kind of took me by surprise. I came down a couple of times to help out my Uncle Joe, and I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed it. It’s hard work, but you’ve got something to show for it.’ He shot her a sidelong look. ‘I don’t have to tell you that, from what I hear.’

‘There’s something in what you say,’ Carol admitted. ‘But for people like us, I think the shine wears off after a while. We miss what we used to do. Who we used to be.’

He straightened up and took a slightly squashed pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lighting up with the familiar metallic slide and click of his battered Zippo. ‘Do we?’ he said on an exhalation of smoke.

‘I’ve nearly finished the barn. I’d started wondering what I might do next. And then I got an offer I couldn’t refuse.’

Kevin shifted so he could see her better. ‘What kind of offer? You’re not talking cold cases, are you? Only, I had that slimeball Upcher on the phone a couple of weeks ago trying to get me on board for some cold case set-up.’

‘Detective Chief Superintendent Upcher? They’re letting him near some actual cases?’

Kevin smiled. ‘I think it’s a cosmetic exercise. It didn’t feel like something with much traction. I told him I’d rather concentrate on building an asparagus bed.’

They shared a conspiratorial smile. ‘But you might think about it if someone offered you a proper job?’

‘Someone like you, you mean?’

She nodded.

He smoked in silence for a minute. ‘I’m liking my life, Carol. I potter about down here, I’m rebuilding a vintage Frazer Nash with a couple of my pals, I go hill-walking on a Monday with the lads I used to play five-a-side with. I cook dinner three nights a week.’

Carol gave an exaggerated yawn. ‘Rather you than me, Kev. I could keep that up for about a month, max. Then I’d start climbing the walls. But if you’re happy –’ she threw her hands in the air – ‘who am I to drag you away from it?’ She could see the struggle going on in his head, curiosity fighting with contentment.

‘Drag me away to what, exactly?’ he asked.

And so she told him. But she knew that wouldn’t be enough. There had to be something extra, something that would be a counterweight to what he’d regretted and resented about his career. It was something she was uniquely placed to offer, because she’d been the one who had been the agent of his disgrace in the first place, the one who’d uncovered his betrayal and refused to bury it. Once, Carol and Kevin had worked side by side as equals, two detective inspectors on the same team. Then he’d fallen for a woman who wasn’t his wife. Worse, a woman who was a journalist, who wheedled his secrets out of him in exchange for excitement and lies.

He’d been lucky to escape with his job. What saved him was that their boss hated Carol even more than he hated what Kevin had done. He’d been busted down to sergeant and he’d never managed to claw his way back up to his old rank. Not only that, but he’d had to watch Carol climb even higher. Along the way, he’d lost his best friend to a cornered child killer. Another man would have grown bitter and twisted under such a weight. Another man would have done everything in his power to make Carol’s life harder. Instead, he’d swallowed his disgrace, absorbed his grief and turned into a loyal, dogged colleague. But she was banking on there being a knot of unfulfilled desire deep inside him.

So she leaned her elbows on her knees and gazed across the allotments. ‘I need a DI, Kevin. Paula’s not ready. But you? You know what’s needed. You lost the chance to show what you could do. If you come back for me, I’ll make you an inspector. You’ll get the rank, the salary and the pension. And when you’ve had enough, this place will still be here. The Frazer what’s-its-name will still be there. The hills’ll still be there. Stella will let you back in the kitchen. I’m not asking you to give anything up. Only postpone it.’

He looked as if he might burst into tears. ‘Why me? What’s so special about me? Why couldn’t you leave me in peace without waving temptation in my face?’

‘Because I’m a selfish cow. Because this is a hard thing, Kev. And I need all the help I can get.’ Her smile was a tired, sad thing.

He flicked his smouldering cigarette butt across the allotment and watched it arc over green shoots into a thicket of twisted yellowing stalks. His sigh came from a long way down. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling I’m going to regret this. But I’m afraid I’ll regret it even more if I refuse you. I’ll do it, Carol. But only for as long as you need me. Soon as it’s secure and running like clockwork, I’m off. Is that a deal?’

She stuck out a hand and they shook on it. Then they clapped each other on the shoulder with their free hands. ‘I’m very happy about this, Kev,’ she said, getting to her feet and walking towards the gate. She turned back to face him and grinned. ‘Better get digging. Did I mention we’re starting tomorrow?’

30

T
ony was surprised to see how unfazed Flash was by the clamour of the city. She trotted round the perimeter of the busy Minster Canal Basin a couple of yards ahead of Carol, pausing occasionally to check out an interesting smell, but always casting quick looks over her shoulder to check the whereabouts of her mistress. Tony sat on the roof of his narrowboat, feet dangling through the hatch, hands clasped round a cup of tea, watching Carol giving the dog a break from her confinement in the Land Rover. When he’d called to suggest meeting, she’d been the one to propose
Steeler
as the venue. He’d been taken aback; these days, she usually suggested neutral ground. Then she’d explained she needed to exercise the dog and the canal towpath was as good a place as any. That was how it was these days – a moment of elation quickly deflated.

By the time they returned, Paula had called to apologise that she couldn’t make it; the news of her imminent departure had arrived and DCI Fielding was leaning on her to get all her paperwork in order so nothing would fall through the cracks of the handover. But as he explained to Carol, at this point he knew all Paula did, so he could bring her up to speed.

As they clattered down the steps to the galley and saloon below, the dog’s claws scrabbling on the hard surfaces, Tony said, ‘It’s starting to look like we might have stumbled over something real.’ He flattened himself against the stove to let Carol pass, then put the kettle back on the gas.

‘Well, the cyber-bullying is obviously real,’ she said, sliding on to the buttoned leather banquette that ran around the table. ‘And so are the suicides.’

‘But I think the connection might be real too.’ He put a teabag in a mug for Carol. ‘You remember I said there was something bugging me about Jasmine Burton? And I couldn’t put my finger on it?’

‘That’s where all this started from.’

‘Before I come back to that… you know Paula was talking to Shakila Bain this morning? British Asian fashion designer who got trolled and harassed for saying the demonisation of young Asian men in the media was a recruiting sergeant for jihad?’

Carol nodded. ‘She said she was going to use that as a smokescreen for getting the officers running the other cases to pass on their information.’

Tony poured boiling water into the mug and stirred it vigorously. ‘What happened to Shakila was nasty and brutish, no getting away from that. But at least it was Hobbesian.’

Carol groaned. ‘Stop showing off. What do you mean, Hobbesian?’

‘Thomas Hobbes, the man who established many of the principles of European liberal thought. Human rights and that sort of thing. He described life without them as “nasty, brutish and short”.’

‘So, let me get this right. You’re saying that what happened to Shakila didn’t last very long?’

‘Exactly. See? You’re catching on. And that’s quite interesting, because in many ways she’s very similar to the dead women we’re looking at. And what does that tell us?’

Carol rolled her eyes as he put her tea in front of her then gingerly sat down opposite, trying not to disturb Flash who was sprawled below the table. ‘I don’t know, Tony, what does it tell us?’

‘If there is someone – or a group of someones, because when it comes to the net, you can’t rule out a bunch of lowlifes egging each other on, upping the ante all the time – but let’s say it is “someone” for the sake of argument. So if he’s deliberately pushing these women in one direction, his area of concern is quite precise. It’s not simply gobby women in general. Because let’s face it, there’s no shortage of what internet trolls regard as gobby women who need to shut the fuck up. But what’s interesting about our women is that they sounded off quite specifically about men behaving badly in relation to women. He wasn’t interested in Shakila because he’s not Islamophobic or racist. Well, he might be, but that doesn’t push his buttons in the way that women having a go at men does.’

Carol sipped her tea. From the look of faint disgust on her face, he guessed what she actually wanted was a vodka and tonic. Late afternoon, the time of day when it was almost normal to need a drink. Almost but not quite. ‘That’s very interesting,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure where it takes us, but knowing you we’ll end up somewhere we didn’t expect to be. Hobbesian, for fuck’s sake. So what’s all this got to do with what was doing your head in about Jasmine Burton’s suicide?’

‘Well, nothing, yet. But something did occur to me. You know how it goes. Anyway, here’s the thing: Kate Rawlins had a book of poetry in the car with her when she killed herself –
The Death Notebooks
by Anne Sexton. There were pages of a poetry book all over Daisy Morton’s front garden –
Ariel
by Sylvia Plath. Both poets killed themselves, and in pretty much the same way as our victims. And then the light bulb went on in my head. Virginia Woolf.’ He grinned triumphantly.

Carol looked blank.

‘Remember the film,
The Hours
? The one where all the writers went mad and killed themselves?’

‘Vaguely. Meryl Streep, and Nicole Kidman’s fake nose.’

‘You don’t remember how it opens? Virginia Woolf walking into the river with her pockets full of stones. Pockets full of stones, Carol. Just like Jasmine. That was the echo I wasn’t hearing.’

‘But there’s no book.’

Tony threw his hands up in frustration. ‘We don’t know that. The cops down in Devon think there’s nothing suspicious about Jasmine Burton’s death. They don’t even know where she went into the water. For all I know, the entire east bank of the Exe is strewn with the pages of
Mrs Dalloway.
’

‘I think they might have noticed that. But you do have a point.’ He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a finger to silence him while she thought. Then she looked at her watch. ‘More than an hour,’ she said, taking her phone out. She tapped the screen and put it to her ear. ‘Bear with me,’ she said to Tony.

He knew when it was answered because her face lit up in a smile. The warmth, he knew, would transmit down the line. ‘So, what’s it to be?’ she said without any preamble. She bit her lip as she waited for the answer. He could hear the rumble of a voice, then her face lit up. ‘That’s great news. Now, I’ve got a job for you. Never mind coming to Bradfield tomorrow. I want you to go down to Exeter…’ A pause. ‘Yes, Exeter. A woman called Jasmine Burton committed suicide last week. She walked into the River Exe with a pocketful of stones. She’d been trolled on the web. You can google her, and I’ll get Paula to email you more info overnight. I need you to find out or figure out where she went into the river. What you’re looking for – and I know it sounds bizarre – is a copy of a book by Virginia Woolf somewhere nearby… No, I’ve no idea which book. I don’t know whether it matters. Just go and look, Alvin.’ A pause, more rumbling. Then she chuckled. ‘No, we’re not hanging about. This might be a figment of our imagination. Or it might not be. There’s only one way to find out. Talk to me tomorrow.’ She ended the call and let the smile spread across her face.

‘Alvin says yes?’

She nodded. ‘Alvin says yes. This is starting to look like it might be a team.’ She turned back to her phone and started composing a text. ‘I need to get Paula to do him a brief.’

‘Fielding won’t like that.’

‘Good. The day hasn’t been wasted, then.’ She glanced up. ‘I will never forgive Fielding for the way she treated you.’

He shrugged. ‘You sorted it out in the end.’

‘It should never have needed sorting in the first place.’

Tony gave a little shrug. ‘So, Chinese or Indian for our celebratory dinner?’