All the Rage

Adam Fawley
9 April 2018
08.25

Alex is still asleep when I get to the hospital. But she stirs a little when I take a seat next to the bed, and opens her eyes. She smiles, that delicious slow first-thing-in-the-morning smile of hers that makes my heart turn over.

`˜Shouldn't you be at work by now, Detective Inspector Fawley?'

`˜I think community outreach can do without me for a while.'

Yesterday it was a talk to the local Deaf Club about how the police deal with vulnerable witnesses; today it's a Careers session at Cuttleslowe Secondary. It's important stuff and someone should be doing it. I'd just rather it wasn't me.

Alex sits up now, slowly, pulling the bedclothes around her. Instinctively, without thinking. As if she's protecting the baby, even from me. Outside, in the corridor, I can hear the rattling trundle of the breakfast trolley.

I reach across and take her hand. `˜I can't stay too long but I'll come back later, as soon as I can get away.'

She smiles, but this time it's a sad thin affair. `˜Ironic, isn't it. All those years I wanted you not to work so late and now you're home early all the time, and it's all my fault.'

`˜It's not your fault, and with luck it won't be for much longer. I heard on the grapevine that Ruth Gallagher may be near an arrest for Sasha Blake. One of her teachers. And if it was him, he was in north Wales in the late nineties, so there's no way he's a Parrie suspect we just failed to find. So try to put it out of your mind, OK?'

`˜You like her, don't you?' she says. `˜This Ruth Gallagher.'

`˜Yes, I do. She's good at the job but she doesn't make a show of it. And she's managed to get the team doing what she wants without forcing them to work a whole different way. That's not easy.'

`˜Even Quinn?' says Alex.

`˜Even Quinn. Probably because she's got a teenage boy at home and she's just transferred the technique.'

We exchange a smile. I'm telling myself I can see a little more colour in her cheeks now, and perhaps I can.

I get up and give her hand a last squeeze.

`˜Adam?' she says as I get to the door. But when I turn again she seems to have changed her mind.

`˜It's nothing,' she says. `˜It'll keep.'

* * *

`˜So that's as far as we've got,' says Ruth Gallagher. `˜Full marks to Everett, but until we can speak to Ashley himself, it's all still supposition.'

It's the morning meeting and the room is full. The sense of anticipation is now as palpable as the smell of office-machine coffee. Perhaps they really are going to finally crack this bloody case.

`˜What's Nadine saying?' says Gislingham.

`˜Nothing,' replies Gallagher. `˜No surprises there. Though her mother claims a) she's never heard of anyone called Ashley Brotherton, and b) Nadine doesn't have a boyfriend. Which, as any parent of a teenager will know, has no evidentiary value whatsoever. But that being the case, and with nothing else to fall back on, I had no option but to bail Nadine and send her home.'

Quinn gets up and goes to the whiteboard. He's the only one with a proper shop-bought coffee; no surprises there either. He stares at the photos for a moment then turns to the group. `˜Well, if you ask me, we're barking up totally the wrong tree on this one.'

No one was asking you, thinks Everett, her hackles rising. Typical bloody Quinn to stick a spoke in.

`˜Why do you say that?' asks Gallagher evenly.

`˜Well, you only have to look at her `“ Nadine, I mean. Ashley Brotherton's way out of her league. He wouldn't look at her twice.'

There's a ripple round the room at that. Some of them may have been thinking it, but only Quinn would actually come right out and say it.

Gallagher raises an eyebrow. `˜One thing I've learned in this job, DC Quinn, is that if you base an investigation on your own personal assumptions, you're likely to land yourself well in the shit.'

Somer and Everett exchange a glance: neither have worked for a female DI before, but it clearly has its upsides.

`˜So are we clear?' she continues, looking round the room. `˜Regardless of DC Quinn's misgivings, we're going to assume there is a connection between Nadine and Ashley Brotherton, until such time as we prove there isn't. And while we're doing that, we're also going to work out if it was physically possible for that girl to get to Blackbird Leys and back on April 1st and still be in school for double Geography. Extra brownie points on offer for anyone who volunteers to do the buses, otherwise I just pick a victim.'

* * *