Too Charming (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

When he’d finished furnishing the toilet with his lunch, Scott rinsed out his mouth and walked bleakly back to his desk. His instinct was to get into his car, find his mother and drag her back home with him. But as his hand reached for the car key, he recalled the counsellor’s words. His mother hadn’t told him where she was because she was ashamed. Suffering the ignominy of having her son turn up and drag her away from the git wasn’t going to ease her humiliation. It was going to add to it. Still, it was one thing to protect her sensitivities. Another to protect her life. This was far worse than he’d imagined. Sex and drugs could be a lethal combination. His stomach turned once more at the thought of the type of lowlife she must be mixing with. How could she? This woman, who had loved his father with all her heart, was now giving herself to scum like Reg. It was beyond his powers of comprehension.

Frustrated, he balled up the loose paper on his desk and threw it into the bin. Sitting here and stewing about things wasn’t going to do either of them any good. Neither was grinding his teeth and clenching his fists. He needed to find a way out of this mess for her. It required him to think, hard. Up to now he’d been waiting for her to come to him. Now he had to manufacture a way for him to go to her. Perhaps he could use the case. He’d go and interview
Reg tomorrow. It was a legitimate way in. Nancy may have already done that, but he could no doubt find questions that she hadn’t asked. Slightly mollified that at least he had some sort of plan, Scott gathered up his files, deciding to finish working on the Rogers case at home. At least there, if he was feeling sick, the bathroom was close by. And private. As he headed for the car park he realised with grim humour that Nancy’s phone call had resulted in one positive outcome. It had taken his mind off his crappy love life.

It was late into the evening before Scott finally put his case files away. Sad, lonely man that he was now, he tossed up whether to watch something inane on the television or just go straight to bed. This is what his life had come to. Going to bed, alone, at ten o’clock. Two years ago he’d have laughed at the idea. Even two months ago. Tonight it was all he could summon up the energy to do. Tomorrow would be different, he promised himself. He’d make damn sure of it. Tomorrow he’d go and find a bar and get steaming drunk. To hell with his alcoholic mother and to hell with Megan. After today he was done moping after both of them.

A knock on the door caught
him as he was about to hike it up the stairs. It was late for a social call. Which meant it was either trouble or … could it possibly be Megan? She’d had a change of heart? Discovered that, even though it had only been a day, she couldn’t live without him? God, was it too much to ask that something good could come out of the day?

With a surge in his spirits, he rushed to open the door. The answer to his question was apparently a resounding, terrifying, bloodcurdling, yes. It was too much to ask for something good.
Far too much.

‘Christ, Mum.’

He practically pulled her into the house, kicking the door firmly shut behind her. In a daze he turned to look at her, hoping against hope that his initial impression had been wrong. She didn’t really have eyes that were glazed and unfocused, a pallor that was deathly pale. Her shaking hands weren’t really holding a knife, covered in blood. But shit. It didn’t matter how long he stared, how much he concentrated, he couldn’t change what he was seeing. His first impression had been right. She had all of those things. There was even blood on her jacket, and a smear of it across her shoes.

‘Scott.’ Her lips trembled as she struggled to get the words out. Then she dropped the knife with a clatter and buried her face in her hands.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Dread clutched at his heart. Dread mixed with a healthy dose of horror. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It was another vivid dream, only this time without a naked Megan. Without any joy.

She looked up from her hands. Some of the blood was now on her face, giving it a gruesome edge. She didn’t look like his mother. She was like some horror story caricature. A deathly pale, blood splattered ghost out of
Scooby Doo
. ‘Oh Scott … I think I’ve killed a woman,’ she finally stammered.

He wanted to collapse on the floor and howl, but adrenaline must have kicked in, because that wasn’t what he found himself doing. From somewhere deep inside him he dredged up some calm. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he replied with solid conviction. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll get you a drink. You can tell me what you remember.’

Meekly she went to sit down and Scott automatically went to the liquor cabinet to pull out the whiskey. Anything to rid her of the frozen terror on her face. But as he reached for the bottle, his hand stalled. Jesus, what was he doing? Swiftly he changed direction and walked to the kitchen. Waiting for the water to run cold, his eyes landed on the knife she’d dropped and he swore. He couldn’t deny the blood on it, or the blood on her clothes and hands. Whatever she might or might not have done, it was all evidence. Critical evidence. It could work for her or against her. Either way, much as he loved her, he knew he couldn’t tamper with it. He had to call in the professionals.

And that brought his mind straight back to Megan again. The only person in the police force he trusted with his life.
Or that of his mother’s. He was going to have to call her. And wasn’t that an ironically shitty twist of fate.

After giving his mother the glass of water, which she took wordlessly, Scott walked back to the kitchen to make the call.  The phone rang several times before Megan finally picked it up. For a moment he stood, shutting his eyes and just listening to her voice. When she’d said hello a third time, he managed to find his own.
‘Sorry to call you so late. It’s Scott.’

‘I guessed. Your name’s on my screen.’

She sounded hesitant. He couldn’t blame her. What woman wants a man she’s just dumped phoning her late at night? ‘Look, I’m not about to become your personal stalker, it’s just …’ God, was he really going to say the words out loud? ‘My mother’s here. She came to my door carrying a bloodstained knife.’ His voice was cracking and he swallowed to try and steady it. ‘She says she’s killed someone.’

There was an unnerving silence.
Just the sound of Megan, breathing. ‘Scott …’

‘Shit, no, I haven’t been drinking.’ He laughed harshly into the phone.
‘Not that I couldn’t do with a bloody stiff drink right now. What with my blood-splattered mother sitting glassy-eyed on my couch, telling me she’s a murderer.’

She must have
realised he wasn’t kidding. ‘God, okay, Scott, don’t move. I’m on my way.’

‘Don’t run off and escape, you mean?’ he asked harshly, but she’d already put down the phone.

It was twenty minutes later when he heard the knock on the door. Grimly, Scott went to answer it. Megan was standing on his doorstep tonight, after all. If only it had been her earlier, instead of the poor, broken woman currently slumped on his sofa.

‘Scott?’ Megan stared up at him. Saw how ashen he looked. How distressed. All her previous hopes that this was just some giant ruse to see her deflated in an instant. This was really happening. ‘Where is she?’

He pointed over to the sofa in the living room. ‘She’s fallen asleep.’

‘What did she say, before she went to sleep?’

Taking her arm Scott pulled her into the kitchen, neatly side-stepping the knife in the middle of the floor. ‘She was holding that,’ he told her, eyeing up the implement as if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. ‘Then she dropped it and told me she thought she’d killed someone.’ He turned away, slamming a hand on the granite worktop, his whole bearing that of a man teetering on the edge of control. ‘I told her to sit down, gave her a drink.’ His lips twisted. ‘Water, in case you’re wondering. Then, after I’d finished on the phone to you, I found her asleep. I thought it best to leave her until you arrived.’

She stared at the knife. ‘Scott, you know I have to call this in, don’t you?’

He closed his eyes, took in a deep breath,
then nodded. ‘I know.’

Though it cut her to the quick to say it, she knew she had to. ‘If we find a body, we might have to arrest her.’

‘She didn’t do it,’ he countered fiercely, his face looking panicked. ‘I’m telling you, whatever this looks like, she didn’t do it.’

‘Scott.’ She ached for him, but she was an officer of the law and had to uphold it. ‘I’m just warning you what might happen. Right now, the evidence is saying that she might have.’

‘For Christ’s sake, she’s my mother.’ He was lashing out at her. Megan told herself that it wasn’t necessarily directed at her, personally, but the situation. ‘I think I’d know if she was capable of murder or not.’

‘I’m not going to get into an argument about this now.’ With her heart feeling painfully heavy, Megan turned away and punched the numbers on her mobile. The sooner she called it in, the sooner the others arrived, the better all round.

When she came off the phone she looked round to find Scott hunched down in front of his mother, stroking her hair. The scene was so poignant, she had to look away before she gave into the temptation to wrap her arms around him. She’d relinquished that right. She was no longer here as Scott’s girlfriend but as a police officer. It was her job to remain detached and professional. Quietly she walked over to the hallway and waited there until the cavalry arrived.

First thing the following morning, Megan went to talk to her superintendent. Talk was a euphemism. Actually she trying to walk the tight line between demanding she be allowed to stay on the Armstrong case, and not getting fired. 

‘You’re dating her son, Sergeant. I hardly think you can claim you’re impartial.’

‘Scott and I are no longer in a relationship, Sir. My judgement won’t be compromised.’

‘No?’

‘No,’ she replied firmly. ‘The fact of the matter is, I know Scott is a damned good lawyer. If this isn’t done absolutely by the book, then if it gets to court he’ll murder us,’ she winced at her poor phrasing, ‘so to speak.’

‘And you think you’re the only detective I have who can follow correct procedures, do you?’

Inwardly she groaned. The man wasn’t a superintendent for nothing. He was notoriously difficult to argue with. ‘No, of course I don’t, Sir.’ She figured a liberal amount of Sirs would win her a few favours. ‘But I will make sure mistakes aren’t made.’ God forbid the police mucked up again and another Armstrong went down without compelling evidence. She was determined that wasn’t going to happen. Even if it meant going head-to-head with her superiors.

‘Okay. It’s yours. But you take one step out of line …’

He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew exactly what her punishment would be: loss of the career that meant so much to her. At the moment however, her career wasn’t foremost in her thoughts. Scott was. She knew she couldn’t let someone else take over this case. If Scott was going to lose another parent to the justice system, she had to make sure it was for the right reasons this time.

Keeping the case was one thing – working on it something else entirely. The woman who might have committed a murder was Scott’s mother, for crying out loud. They might no longer be together, but it didn’t mean she didn’t desperately hope that Cathy had simply suffered a breakdown.
That they wouldn’t find a body. Because if they did, and she had to end up charging his mother for murder … she shuddered violently and went off to get herself a strong cup of coffee.

An hour later and her worst fears
materialised. A body had been discovered. Lucille, a female prostitute. She’d been found stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in the house she worked from, only yards from where Cathy was living with Reg Blake. As Megan viewed the bloody crime scene, it was easy to come to a quick conclusion. She understood from her preliminary enquiries that Reg ran the group of prostitutes who worked down that street. It didn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to believe that
e also
Cathy had seen Reg with the victim. Perhaps ripping more off her than simply money. In a fit of jealousy, fuelled by excessive drink and probably drugs, she’d stabbed the girl to death.

Frankly, much as Megan wanted to keep an open mind, it was very difficult to see any other interpretation. Cathy had turned up at Scott’s house around half an hour after the estimated time of death, with the murder weapon. Forensics had confirmed that the victim’s blood matched that on the knife and on Cathy’s shoes. Cathy herself, when she’d spoken to Scott, had admitted that she thought she’d killed the woman.

‘Are you going to charge her?’

She glanced up to see Scott bearing down on her, looking nothing like the distinguished lawyer. After leaving the hospital where his mother had been kept in overnight, he’d obviously gone home, thrown on his oldest jeans and a worn sweatshirt, and come straight out again. His hair was a mess, his face unshaven. Red-rimmed eyes told of a night without sleep.

The combination of his scruffy appearance, the fierce expression on his face and the proud way he carried himself made her want to hug him so much it hurt. 

The cool look in his eyes reminded her that he didn’t want comfort from her any more.