Beneath the Bleeding

Pannal Castle had stood on its present site since the Wars of the Roses. A ruin by the mid-nineteenth century, it had been rebuilt by the 14th Baron. Although from the outside it looked like a substantial medieval pile, indoors it had central heating and modern plumbing, as well as a layout that conformed to modern rather than ancient needs.

Probably the best thing about it was its range of astonishing views, a gift appreciated only by the few, since Pannal Castle remained resolutely closed to the public. Wool, coal mining and, more recently, the Red Rose Fine Arts and Craft Village had allowed successive lords Pannal to hang on to their castle and lands without having to resort to day-trippers.

Lord Pannal himself had actually worked for a living. For a dozen years, he’d been a relatively undistinguished documentary film maker, which now fitted him to be a member of all sorts of boards and committees. He was, as far as Carol knew, a decent enough bloke in spite of having once had Tony Blair up to Pannal to open the new gallery at the craft village.

As they drove up the gentle rise of the private road that led to the castle, Chris looked around. ‘This must have been spot on as a defensive position way back when,’ she commented. ‘You’d have a hard job creeping up on them.’

‘I expect that’s why it’s still here,’ Carol said.

‘That and the poison garden, eh? If you don’t get them with the cannonballs, get them with the soup.’

‘No wonder English food got such a bad name.’

‘So what’s actually here?’

‘Lord Pannal got interested in poison gardens when he was making a documentary about the Medicis a dozen years ago, so he decided to make one of his own.’

‘And they say TV isn’t educational. So what’s he got there?’

‘I don’t know the full list, but he’s got the ones we’re interested in. Castor oil plant, belladonna, oleander. He says his poison garden is surrounded by eight-foot railings with razor wire along the top, which makes casual burglary unlikely. But he does have a deputy estate manager called John Anson.’

‘JA. I like it. I like it very much.’

A short man in a tweed cap and a Barbour jacket was waiting for them as they drove across the massive wooden drawbridge and into the courtyard. Three black Labradors mobbed them in leisurely fashion as they got out of the car. ‘Benson, Hedges, Silkie, come away,’ the man called, letting Carol and Chris come to him as the dogs slumped to the ground at his feet. ‘Lord Pannal,’ he said, holding out a hand as they approached. His pink face, blue eyes and bristling moustache gave him a bizarrely charming resemblance to a new piglet. ‘I’m a bit slow on the uptake first thing in the morning. After our call, it dawned on me. That footballer, and the chap who saved all those people after the bombing-they were poisoned.’ He bit his lower lip. ‘Awful thing. Terrible if the poisons came from Pannal. Did you want to look at the garden?’

‘I think we’ll leave the garden for now.’ Carol nodded to Chris, who took half a dozen photos from a folder and spread them across the bonnet of her car. ‘Lord Pannal, would you mind looking at these and telling me if you recognize anyone?’

He craned his head forward, like a big pink turtle emerging from its shell. He studied the pictures carefully then extended a plump finger. ‘That’s John Anson. Works for me. Deputy estate manager.’ He looked away, blinking crossly. ‘This is awfully hard to credit. Hard-working chap. Been with us a couple of years, very obliging.’

‘Do his responsibilities include the poison garden?’ Carol asked.

‘Comes under his remit. Not in a hands-on sort of way-that’s up to the gardeners. But it’s within his area, yes.’ He spoke in abrupt little jerks, clearly upset, though he would have been mortified had anyone offered him sympathy or support. A Scotch might have been acceptable, but Carol wasn’t even sure that would do.

‘Do you know where we can find him now?’ Chris said, scooping up the pictures.

‘In Bradfield.’ He bit his lip. ‘He’s interviewing prospective tenants for a vacant unit in the craft village.’

‘Where exactly in Bradfield?’ Carol asked gently.

‘I’ve got a bolthole there. We use it for business as well as a pied à terre in the city. In the Hart Tower.’

Chris and Carol exchanged a telling look. ‘On the edge of Temple Fields,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll need the address.’

Tony gave the smile all he had. ‘The thing is, I’m not supposed to ask you to do anything. Carol says, perfectly reasonably, that you don’t work for me, you work for her. Me, I think we’re all working for the cause of justice, but I’m not going to argue with her.’

‘Not the mood she’s been in this past week,’ Stacey agreed, not even glancing up from her screen. ‘Interesting that the boy ID’d the photo. No doubt in your mind?’

Tony shrugged. ‘No doubt in the kid’s mind. That’s what matters here. He was absolutely positive. Mummy’s friend who bought him an ice cream.’

That makes sense of everything that raised a question mark for us. What you said about it not profiling right for terrorism-well, that follows if it wasn’t terrorism. The two timers-Aziz thought he was getting away, but Rachel Diamond’s plan was different. She wanted him to die.’

‘But she didn’t want him to know that,’ Tony said thoughtfully. ‘If I were you, I’d be contacting airlines to see if Rachel Diamond and her son Lev are booked on a flight to Canada any time soon. And I’d be checking whether any of those rental cottages Kevin was checking out had a booking in her name.’

Stacey frowned. ‘You think she was planning to join him?’

Tony shook his head. ‘I think she wanted him to think she was planning to join him.’

Stacey gave him a look of respect. ‘Oh, that’s very clever,’ she said. ‘Very evil, but very clever.’ Her fingers were already flying. ‘I think I might also make some phone calls to Canada.’

‘Don’t mind me, I’ll just read the paper,’ Tony said, sitting back and relaxing.

The journey from Pannal back to Bradfield took significantly less time than getting there, but still it felt interminable. ‘Come on,’ Chris urged the traffic in front of her every time she had to slow.

‘I can’t believe nobody in the office had a list of the prospective tenants,’ Carol said for the third or fourth time. ‘You’d think there would be more than one copy of something like that.’

‘Yeah, we could have got Stacey on to it. Maybe figured out which one was his next victim. Move, you twat,’ Chris shouted at the dawdling people carrier in front of her.

‘Unless…’ Carol’s voice tailed off as another possibility dawned on her.

‘Unless what?’ Chris sounded impatient as she rounded the dawdler.

‘Unless there isn’t a list at all. Maybe that was just an excuse he made up for Lord Pannal to cover his back. Maybe his next victim has got nothing to do with the craft village at all.’

Chris stamped on the brakes and blasted the horn. A startled SUV driver swerved out of her way as she powered through. It doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? All that counts is getting to them before Jack or Jake or John or whoever fills them full of some untreatable poison.’

As they hit the outskirts of the city, Chris tried to work out the best way to the Hart Tower. ‘I wish we had Kevin with us,’ she said. ‘Nobody knows the back doubles like him.’

‘You’re doing just fine,’ Carol said. But she wasn’t at all sure she was telling the truth.

‘Beautiful dream come true. Beautiful dreamer.’ Kevin frowned. Had he just repeated himself? Every time he thought he’d said all there was to be said about his lovely car, he remembered something else he wanted to say. Then, when he said it, he felt as if he’d said it before. More than once.

He shifted in his chair, which seemed to have become treacherously slippery. His limbs weren’t doing what he wanted them to do; more than once he’d had to grab at the arm of the chair with its interesting texture to stop himself slithering to the floor. Where there was a really beautiful rug with colours like jewels that he wanted to embrace.

A strange blob kept crossing his field of vision. Pink with bristles, topped with thick brown fur like a bear. The fur was different, somehow. Before it had been like a flowing horse’s mane, but suddenly the mane had exploded into the air in a great spiral of silky strands. He had watched it whirl through the air in slow motion before it landed on the wooden floor.

Kevin turned his heavy head, heavy heady heavy head to look at it again. Like a pompom that somebody had steamrollered flat. Beautiful. Everything, really, was beautiful.

The next thing he knew was the blob was in front of him, making a noise. It all felt very sudden, as if he’d fallen asleep and woken in a different place. But no, he was in the same chair. At least, he thought he’d been in this chair once before. A long, long time ago.

And suddenly, he wasn’t. He was on his feet. Hands in his hands, leading him. Too hard. Too very strangely hard. Kevin collapsed to his knees and fell forward, My, how smooth the beautiful rug was. He kissed the rug and felt a giggle well up in his throat. As he laughed, he began to roll, aware of the hands on his body. A hundred hands, a million hands, a Brazilian hands, rolling him.

He felt he could roll across the planet for ever. And ever. And ever.

Gaining access to the building was easy. Lord Pannal had been desperate to help, as if, by hiring a bad apple, he had somehow been responsible for what had happened. So he’d given them the spare swipe card that would let them into the underground garage, the lift and the apartment itself, provided they had the right PIN code, which he’d also given them.

Everything worked perfectly till they got to the door of the apartment, where the LED display told them the PIN was incorrect. Carol tried it a couple of times before admitting defeat. ‘I bet he changes the PIN when he arrives and changes it back when he leaves,’ she said. ‘Bastard.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘Hasn’t Stacey got one of those gadgets you plug in that reads PIN codes?’

Chris snorted. ‘I think that was in a movie, guv. But even if she did, we haven’t got time for that sort of malarkey. What about building security? D’you think they’ll have some sort of override card, like a master key?’

‘Go and find out, Carol said. ‘I’ll wait here.’

It was a long eight minutes before Chris returned with an erect elderly man in the uniform of the Corps of Commissionaires. He looked sniffily at Carol from under the peak of his cap. ‘I’m going to need to see photo ID,’ he said.

‘Staff Sergeant Malory is in charge of security,’ Chris said, doing her level best to be ingratiating.

Silently, Carol produced her warrant card and her Bradfield Police HQ building pass. Malory scrutinized it carefully, tilting it against the light to make sure the holograph was authentic. ‘Shouldn’t you have a warrant?’ He gave her a stern look.

Carol bit her tongue. ‘Section Eighteen of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act,’ she ground out between her teeth. ‘I don’t need a warrant if I have grounds to suspect that I can prevent a serious criminal offence from taking place. Which I have. And which I am not going to share with you, Mr Malory.’

Behind his back, Chris rolled her eyes and mimed hanging herself. But contrary to her expectation, Malory folded. ‘That’s fine by me, ma’am,’ he said, swiping the card and tapping the number pad with a flourish.

A subdued buzz, and the door swung open at the pressure of fingertips. Signalling Chris to follow silently, Carol crept down the short hallway. She could see nothing through the open doorway at the far end, but she could hear the grunts and groans of exertion from the far side of the threshold. She had a moment to decide. Creep or rush?

With a quick flick of her hand to beckon Chris forward, Carol leapt through the doorway. She took it in like a snapshot. Kevin on his back on the floor, legs bent, trousers undone, arms above his head, ginger hair askew and a silly smile on his face. Beyond him on the floor, like a discarded soft toy, a wig resembling a starburst of hair. Bending over him, trying to roll him, was the man in the photograph. The man who had come a very long way from the starting point of Jack Anderson. His short hair was plastered to his head with sweat and he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, but there was no question of identity here.

Chris streaked past Carol and made for Anderson. But he was quicker than either of them expected. He jumped to his feet and used Chris’s momentum against her, straight-arming her in the face and twisting her over to his left so she’d have to trample Kevin or stumble over him. Blood blossomed across her face as she windmilled her arms, trying to stay upright.

Anderson kept going, shoulder-charging Carol. She snatched desperately at him, managing to grab his shirt as he passed. Buttons flew off as he wrestled away from her, shedding the shirt like a snake its skin, leaving her staggering backwards, away from him.

Then he was gone, past them both and racing for the door. ‘Fuck,’ Carol screamed in frustration as he disappeared.

She had forgotten Staff Sergeant Malory.

Tony was still working his way through the features section when Carol and Chris limped into the squad room. ‘Result,’ Carol said. ‘We’ve got Anderson, or Andrews or Anson, whatever you want to call him.’ Then she saw Tony. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘The subconscious. It’s a great tool. We got there just in time to save his next victim. Anderson had got him off his face, but we’re pretty sure he hadn’t delivered the poison yet.’

‘Tell me?’ Tony felt faintly sick.

‘You were right to warn Kevin. You just didn’t know who you should be warning him against,’ Carol said.

‘Is he OK?’ Tony demanded.

‘The medics seem to think he’ll be just fine. He’s still high as a kite but he’s not showing any symptoms of anything other than rohypnol or GHB or something like that.’

‘So, do we have any idea what happened?’

‘Anderson set up their encounter weeks ago, long before he killed Danny Wade.’

‘How do you know that? I mean, if Kevin’s still off his face?’

‘Because I’m the one they have to ask for time off, and Kevin booked this morning off at least a month ago. Anderson was impersonating a freelance motoring journalist who wanted to write about Kevin and his car.’

‘I knew he was planning ahead. But this is gob-smacking. Is he talking?’ Tony asked.

‘Doh,’ said Chris through a red-stained cloth she was holding to her nose. ‘Dot a word.’

‘He doesn’t want a lawyer, refuses to speak. He won’t even admit to being Anderson.’ Carol slumped into a chair and turned to Tony. ‘We found a pessary and a bottle of anti-retroviral drugs in his jacket. We’ve got witnesses that can put him alongside the victims and we’ve got access to the poison garden. But I would like a confession. Any bright ideas?’

‘Let me talk to him.’

‘You know that’s not how it works,’ Carol said.

‘We’ve done it before.’

‘But not with the eyes of the world on us the way they will be for Robbie Bishop’s killer.’

‘He’s not talking, Carol. What have you got to lose?’

She looked away, struggling with her need to do this by the book versus her need to get a confession. She knew her team was watching her, willing her to do what was necessary to get this boxed off and put away. They needed a proper result, not a partial one. ‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘But only if we do it under caution and he agrees to have the tapes running.’

‘Deal,’ Tony said.

He pushed himself on to his crutches and began to move towards the door. ‘Where is Paula?’ Carol said. ‘And Sam? I could do with them out at Kirkby Pannal with the forensics crew searching Anderson’s cottage.’

Stacey and Tony exchanged a look. They both knew answering Carol’s question might well demolish Tony’s chances of getting to talk to Jack Anderson. ‘Off on some lead about Aziz,’ Stacey said.

Tony hid his amazement. Stacey didn’t dig people out of holes. Then he remembered who was out on the street with Paula and it began to make a kind of sense. He gave her a quick nod when Carol’s eyes were elsewhere, then headed for the custody suite.

News of a major arrest always spreads fast in a police station. By the time Tony and Carol emerged from the MIT squad room, people were standing in doorways, calling out congratulations, applauding as they passed. Even the doorway to the CTC’s base was crowded with men in black offering taciturn support. As they waited in the hallway, the lift disgorged David and Johnny. ‘Nice one,’ David said, passing Tony and Carol on their way into the lift.

‘I hear he’s not talking, though,’ Johnny added. ‘Let’s hope the lads in the white suits come up with something solid for you.’

The doors closed before Carol could answer. Tony said, ‘You’ll be glad to get them out of your hair.’

Carol snorted. ‘That’s not going to happen any time soon.’

‘Ah. Well, the thing is-’ The lift stopped and two civilian staff got on. Not the time to tell her about Rachel Diamond.

Walking from the lift to the custody suite didn’t offer much of an opportunity either, given how much concentration it took. And besides, he wanted to get his head straight before he confronted Stalky at last. Sufficient unto the day, he thought. At the custody desk, a technician fitted the tiny earpiece that would allow Carol to communicate with him, then they were off again down the hallway.

Carol stopped before one of the interview room doors. ‘As soon as I hear anything from the CSIs searching his cottage I’ll let you know. Good luck.’ She held the door open for him.

The time it took to get across the room gave Tony the opportunity to take a look at Jack Anderson. Seated, it was hard to gauge his height, but judging by his frame, Tony thought he was probably a little under six feet. He was twenty-six, the same age as Robbie Bishop, and he looked in good shape. Designer stubble, well barbered, no visible tattoos, a single diamond stud earring. He was wearing the jacket to his suit over his bare chest. On him, it looked like a fashion statement. And he was handsome, even with the swollen lump on his jaw where Malory had felled him. He looked good on his photograph, but in the flesh he was even more attractive. It was easy to see that he’d had no trouble attracting girls. The young Robert Redford, only with dark hair and better skin, Tony thought. And cool as Paul Newman at any age.

Anderson’s face didn’t show a flicker of expression as Tony struggled across the room and into a chair. ‘I’m Tony Hill,’ he said as soon as he was settled. ‘I work with the police. I’m a profiler.’

One corner of his mouth twitched in a crooked smile. ‘Like Cracker, only skinny.’

Tony suppressed a smile. Once the silence was broken, it was that much harder to go back there. ‘No problems with drink or gambling either,’ Tony said cheerfully. ‘You’ve been advised of your rights?’ Anderson nodded. ‘You don’t want a lawyer?’ He shook his head. ‘And you know that this interview is being recorded?’

‘It makes no odds, since I don’t plan to say anything of consequence.’ Anderson leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. To embarrass myself by quoting Billy Joel, “I am an innocent man.”’

Tony nodded. ‘I think at one level you genuinely believe that. But I also think you know that’s going to be hard to sustain in practical terms. The police already have some evidence, and there’s going to be a lot more. However justified you believe your killings may have been, the hard truth is that in a day or two you’re going to be charged with three murders. And that would be because you killed three men.’

Anderson said nothing. His face had returned to its former immobility.

‘I’m going to call you Jack,’ Tony said. ‘I know that whatever happened three years ago makes you feel Jack is dead, but he’s the one I know most about, so Jack it’s going to be. I think of that boy Jack, and my heart goes out to him. Lots of kids grow up without dads. I’m one of them, so I understand a bit about what that means. But my dad wasn’t killed. I always had the possibility of him coming back into my life, no matter how remote a chance that was. But you didn’t, did you? Your dad was gone for ever. No hope to hang on to for you. And worse than that, he died a hero. A soldier’s death, dying for queen and country. That’s far too much for a teenager to live up to.

‘And then there’s all the things he lost, dying when he did. All the things he never saw, never did. The internet. iPods. Digital cameras. Cheap air fares. Google. You growing up. I suppose that’s why you got so greedy for experience. Women. Drink. Drugs. Men. Snorting, shooting up, shagging, getting shit-faced. All of it, there to be grabbed-’

‘What do you mean, men? I’m not a poof.’ His arms had unfolded, his hands gripping the side of his chair.

Bingo. The anti-retrovirals had been the clue, but even so, Tony hadn’t expected a crack in the armour so early. ‘I never said you were.’ Tony’s voice remained calm and relaxed. Hypnotic, almost. ‘I was talking about the desire for experience. I thought you wanted to experience everything? To feel it for yourself. Fearless and receptive to everything, every sensation. To take everything the world had to offer and grab it, to miss out on nothing. Am I wrong, then?’

‘Your words, not mine, Doctor.’ Anderson was doing his best to be the tough guy, but Tony could sense the anger and anguish underneath. All that pain, and nowhere to put it.

‘But I’m right. We both know that,’ he said. ‘I’m not a poof either, if that helps. It doesn’t mean I’ve not thought about what it would be like. I mean, when you’ve gone through every other experience, you do have to wonder. Would it be more of the same or would it be different?’ Time for a shift of tempo. ‘Then when your mum died-that was one experience you didn’t want to have. Didn’t want her to kill herself, didn’t want to know about that kind of despair. Didn’t want her to die, did you? How hard it must have been for her, hanging on till she thought you were sorted, and then going for it. For that one experience that nobody gets to share. She did what she could and then she clocked off. Left you to it. I’d guess if there was anything you’d missed out on before that, you went for it after she took herself off.’

Anderson shifted in his seat. ‘Have I got to listen to this amateur psychology all day?’ he burst out.

‘Nothing amateur about it, Jack. I get paid for this. So, what else was on the list? Play premiership football. Buy a house on Dunelm Drive. Make a million by the time you hit thirty. Drive a Ferrari.’ Tony could see it working. Every sentence provoked a tiny flutter of reaction. Time to step up the pressure. ‘How am I doing, Jack? How many more on the list? How many more were you planning to poison? Poison their lives like he poisoned yours?’

He drew in a ragged breath. ‘You’re talking bollocks. What does that mean? Poisoned lives? You think whoever killed these guys was using murder as a metaphor? How can you trivialize death like that? You’re sicker than the killers you’re supposed to be hunting.’

Tony shrugged. ‘You’re not the first to suggest that. But the bottom line is that I’m not a killer. You are. And the only reason you interest me or anybody else right now is because we want to know why. I think I know why, but it would be good to hear I’m right.’

‘You’re so full of shit,’ Anderson said. ‘People like you, thinking you know what drives people-you don’t have a clue.’

‘Smokescreen, Jack. It might put some people off, but not me. I’m not interested in your attempts to set up a diversion. Let’s get back to what this is really about. Your attempts to extract revenge for having your dreams stolen from you by the man who poisoned your life.’

‘I am not a poof,’ Anderson said, more loudly this time.

‘Who said anything about a poof?’ Tony said, all innocence, hands spread. ‘I was asking about your little list. About what else was on it. Three down. How many more to go? I know there’s at least one. Kevin, the Ferrari guy. Did you really think they’d sit back and let you take another one of theirs? You got Tom Cross, because we weren’t looking in the right place.’ Tony leaned forward, getting in his face, still calm but inescapable. ‘But no way were you getting Kevin Matthews.’

For the first time, Anderson looked shaken, his face startled and alert. ‘I do a bit of freelance journalism. I was interviewing him.’

‘How long did it take you to find a journalist with the right initials? Or was it seeing the real Justin Adams’s by-line that gave you the idea of how to get to Kevin?’ Tony cocked his head and appraised Anderson. ‘I’m curious, you know. Are you relieved that we’ve stopped you? Or are you pissed off because you didn’t get to finish what you started? Just out of curiosity, what was your endgame? Were you going to do the list and then stop? Live out whatever life you’ve got left? Or were you going to bottle it like your mother did?’

A muscle bunched in Anderson’s jaw. ‘I told you. It was an interview. I do some freelance journalism, OK? Then he started to freak out. I have no idea why. You should be asking where he was before he arrived at my place. Whatever he took, he must have taken it there. I don’t know what you’re on about. Poison, gay sex? That’s not my world.’

Tony was about to speak, but Carol’s voice in his ear made him pause. ‘Tony, I’ve just had a message from the CSIs. They’ve found his list, taped underneath the keyboard of his computer. The two you don’t have are, “Make a chart CD” and “Date a top model”. You got that?’

He nodded. ‘Oh yes it is, Jack. Kevin and his Ferrari. Also on your little list. So who was going to be next? Which of Bradfield’s charting artistes were you going to take down? Or were you going for the guy with the model girlfriend? Let me think, who do we have from Bradfield who’s got a top catwalk chick? That would have to be Deepak, wouldn’t it? Our homegrown fashion designer. Was he on the list too?’

Anderson’s eyebrows had drawn closer, creating a shallow vertical crease between them. Anxiety, that’s what Tony was going for now. Make him anxious. Make him uneasy. Shift the ground beneath his feet. And then offer him comfort.

‘They’re very upset about Kevin, you know? He’s popular around here. What was it going to be this time? Monksbane? Foxglove? Strychnine? I tell you, you hit on an elegant idea there. Poison. Poison their lives the way he poisoned yours.’ And suddenly, he knew. The repetition, designed to unsettle Anderson, had opened the door for Tony. It was a leap, he knew. But it was a leap that made perfect sense.

He folded his hands together on the table and let the pity he felt flow out. ‘Just one time. That’s all it took. You wanted to taste everything, wanted to know everything. But it wasn’t like all the other times when you pushed the boundaries and had fun, was it? You hated it. Because you’re right. You’re not a poof. You thought it would be OK, but you hated it. Hated it so much it made you hate yourself. That’s when you stopped being Jack, wasn’t it? Jack was ruined, fucked up. So you left Jack behind. You knew that being dead meant saying goodbye to the past, so you did. Jack became John and sometimes Jake. You still had your dreams, though. Still had the list. Still believed you could make the climb.’

Anderson gripped his chair more tightly, his shoulder muscles bunched and taut. He shook his head violently, as if he were trying to shake off something sticky and disgusting.

Tony spoke softly now. ‘And then you found out. Just one time, that’s all it took. That infection in the blood, poisoning you. Killing you. It doesn’t matter that these days you can take the drugs and live longer. Who wants to live longer without their dreams? What’s the point in existing? You had the world at your feet, you were going to be somebody. And one bad night took it all away.’

The silence between them stretched out, tight and dramatic. Anderson looked as if something was going to snap inside him. Tony decided to try and make it.

His tone was silky, sweet. ‘So you decided if you couldn’t have your dreams, then the men who had walked the same path as you weren’t going to have them either. You could have been them, but you weren’t, so they weren’t going to be allowed to be them either.’ Then his voice changed abruptly. Harsh and loud, Tony said, ‘Well, here’s the news, Jack. You don’t get to take away anybody else’s dreams. You’re going to jail, where they’ll take good care of you and make sure every day you have left is filled with misery. You’re going to live long and prosper behind bars. Where everybody else inside with you will know all the juicy details from your trial.’

Anderson jumped up and lunged for Tony, who swung one of his crutches hard through the air, smacking it into Anderson’s ribs and catching him off balance enough to make him fall to the floor. ‘You see? They’re not rushing in to help me, are they?’ Tony said. ‘That’s because they know you’re not up to giving me a proper beating. You don’t like violence. Chris Devine just got unlucky in the heat of the moment. If you’d had to think about it, you’d never have hit her. That’s another reason why you chose the poison. So you could kill at arm’s length.’ He shook his head. ‘I started out feeling sympathy for you, Jack. Now, I just feel pity.’

Anderson scrambled to his feet and slunk back to his chair. ‘I don’t want your pity.’

‘So earn my respect. Tell me how it was. If I’m wrong, tell me now. I’ll take it back.’

Anderson slumped in the chair, defeated. ‘I’m not going to talk about it. Whatever evidence they find, I’m not going to talk about it. I’ll plead guilty. But I’m not going to talk about the stuff you were saying. There won’t be any trial to taint me. It’ll always be a mystery, why I did it.’ His eyes blazed anger. ‘I killed them. That’s what you need me to say, right? I did what I had to do. I killed them.’

After they took Anderson away, Tony found he really didn’t want to move. Drained and in pain, he was unwilling to do anything that might make either of those states worse. So he sat there. The custody sergeant brought him a cup of coffee that must have come from his private stash because it tasted of something. Other than that, they left him in peace. He drank most of the coffee, then let the last inch cool so he could use it to swallow some codeine. What kind of a job was it where the high point of success meant feeling so shit?

He wasn’t certain how much time had passed when Carol came back. She sat down opposite him and reached across the table to put her hand over his. ‘Kevin’s doing fine. He’s going to be all right. And we’ve charged Anderson,’ she said. ‘If the CSIs come through, we’ll be home and dry. We can tie him to Tom Cross for sure, and there’s circumstantial evidence with Danny Wade. And the attempt on Kevin. And if he sticks to the guilty plea, we’ll get Robbie as well.’

‘He’ll change his mind as soon as a brief gets to work on him,’ Tony said. It was the way of the world. Whoever ended up representing him would see the potential for headlines as well as the need for justice to be seen to be done. ‘Let’s just pray it’s not Bronwen Scott.’

‘Is there anything else you’d like to talk to me about?’ Carol said, taking her hand back.

His eyelids flickered with tiredness. ‘Oh,’ he said slowly. ‘Now you come to mention it…’

‘Tony,’ John Brandon’s voice boomed from the doorway. ‘Congratulations. Fresh out of hospital and you’re doing our job for us. Well done.’ He shook Tony’s hand and pulled up a chair. ‘Now, Carol tells me we have something of a delicate situation on our hands. It might be helpful to have your input here. Carol?’

‘It seems we have an alternative scenario for Saturday’s bombing,’ she said. ‘Tony and DC McIntyre went to see Rachel Diamond yesterday. The widow of Benjamin Diamond, one of the stadium bomb victims. It had emerged that Mr Diamond’s company had links to Yousef Aziz’s family business. Tony had already raised doubts with me about whether this might be something other than a straightforward terrorist outrage, so when he asked if he could talk to Mrs Diamond about any possible connection between her husband and Yousef Aziz, I thought it would be worth pursuing. Tony?’

‘Rachel Diamond claimed she hadn’t been following the media coverage, and it occurred to me afterwards she might not have seen a photo of Aziz, and so she might not have realized something she’d seen and written off as completely innocent was in fact something quite different. So I went back to her house today with a photo of Aziz. She wasn’t there, but her son Lev was. He caught sight of the photo of Aziz and said, “Why have you got a photo of Mummy’s friend?” I didn’t press him in any way, I know the rules about juvenile witnesses. And he said that they’d met Aziz in the park and he’d bought him an ice cream. It dawned on me that there was a different explanation from either of the ones we’d been considering.’

Brandon looked worried. ‘CTC are not going to like this.’ he said.

‘Tough,’ Carol said. She hadn’t forgiven Brandon for what she still saw as spinelessness in the face of the enemy. ‘Tony?’

‘Yousef Aziz wasn’t a terrorist. He wasn’t a hit man either. He was a lover. He was snarled up in…forgive me for sounding like a bad tabloid headline, but there’s no other way to describe it than forbidden love. The son of a devout Muslim falls in love with a married Jewish woman. It’s not going to play well at home, is it? They’re both going to be cast out of their families and the businesses they’ve worked so hard to build.

‘I think Rachel was the brains behind it.’ He shook his head. ‘Actually, having spent some time with Rachel, I have a creepy suspicion that she went after Aziz with the sole intention of setting up what finally happened-killing two birds with one stone. But I’m getting ahead of myself.’ Brandon looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but with them. Undaunted, Tony carried on.

‘They’re having an affair. Aziz is head over heels in love, he’d do anything for her. And Rachel hits on a great idea. They fake a terrorist bombing. They’ll get rid of Benjamin without anyone suspecting the motive. Aziz also gets to strike a blow against the system that oppresses his people, because the people they’re blowing up are the rich bastards who despise the likes of him and his family.

‘What Aziz thinks is going to happen is this. He’s going to set the manual timer, get out of there before it blows, drive to the airport and be gone before anybody even starts to look for him. He’s going to go to Canada, which is a clever choice, because there are quite a lot of Asians there. Rachel is supposedly going to join him there-’

‘I hate to interrupt,’ Carol said, ‘but I have some information on that front. Stacey has traced a booking on a flight to Toronto next Friday for Rachel Diamond and her son Lev. And we’ve found a holiday rental company who leased a cottage for a month, starting on Saturday, to Rachel Diamond. Yousef Aziz had previously viewed the cottage on his computer. Both flight and cottage were paid for on her personal credit card. So Tony’s right. Whether she was planning to join Aziz or not, she had the bookings to demonstrate her intent.’

‘It’s very thin,’ Brandon said.

‘There’s more to be found,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll be able to trace the call to the remote-control timer. If she used her landline, it’ll be on her phone records. If she used a mobile, we’ll be able to find what mast it went through. I’m betting Stacey will be able to find some evidence on one of the Diamonds’ several computers. We’ll be talking to all the Diamonds’ friends. There must be someone who knew the marriage was in trouble. There always is. And now we know what we’re looking for, we’ll find witnesses who saw them together. And Tony will give evidence of what Lev said.’

‘Hearsay,’ Brandon said.

‘Actually, sir, I think this comes under one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule,’ Carol said politely.

Brandon shook his head. ‘I don’t like it, Carol. You think a jury’s going to buy the idea of a Jewish woman setting up her Muslim lover to kill himself and thirty-five other people, just to get rid of her husband? Why didn’t she just divorce him, like the rest of us do?’

‘Because she’s greedy,’ Tony said. And I know all about greedy women.

‘I want to arrest her, sir,’ Carol said. ‘On thirty-six counts of murder. Because if we don’t, as soon as her mother tells her what Lev said to Tony, she’ll be on the next plane out of here. And if you think what we’ve got is thin for an arrest, it won’t even get to first base on an extradition warrant.’

Brandon groaned, ‘I don’t like this, Carol. It feels like a fishing expedition.’ There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Brandon shouted.

Stacey walked in looking very pleased with herself. ‘I thought you’d want to see this,’ she said, laying the folder she carried on the table.

‘What’s this?’ Brandon asked.

The CSIs who turned over Aziz’s flat found a receipt for a Coke and a cake at the City Art Gallery on Friday morning. So we took the initiative and seized the CCTV footage from the café and the gallery. We’ve got the whole thing upstairs, but I thought you’d like to see the edited highlights now.’

Brandon flipped the file open and they all stared at the contents. The first photo showed Yousef Aziz sitting at a table reading the paper, Coke and cake in front of him. In the next shot, Rachel Diamond was approaching from behind carrying a newspaper. The next shot showed her putting the paper on the table in front of Yousef. In the final shot, she was beyond him, no longer carrying the paper. ‘Three points of contact between them,’ Carol said. ‘I say it’s definitely time to go fishing.’ Brandon still looked dubious, but he nodded his assent.

‘Look on the bright side, John,’ said Tony. This way you get to tell CTC to piss off.’