Judas Horse

Chapter 4

It wasn’t long before Jack was desperate to go back to work. And it wasn’t as if he was even doing a third of the parenting, as Maggie and Penny had everything in hand, but, even so, Jack quickly found himself yearning for the peace and sanity of a murder investigation.

Quite how one tiny baby could run rings around three adults was beyond him. He was a smart man. He could manipulate the sharpest of criminals into a confession, so why the hell couldn’t he convince a clean, fed, winded baby to go to bloody sleep at three in the morning?

But lack of sleep wasn’t the real problem: the truth was he found the endless routine tasks mind-numbingly boring. Jack hadn’t been surprised by anything for as long as he could remember.

He’d been given the job of wheeling Hannah around the neighbourhood in her pushchair, because Penny insisted that she needed a ‘daily dose of fresh air.’ Jack knew this was probably just a ploy to get him out of the house, so that she could do all of the noisy chores such as vacuuming, but he didn’t mind as it was his opportunity to breathe too. He’d sit on a bench in the park and check his emails because even though he wasn’t involved in any active case, he sometimes got cc’d into the round robins. This at least gave him a welcome sense of the outside world he so desperately missed, but Jack didn’t dare say anything to Maggie about being bored, for fear of upsetting her. He would have been surprised to hear what she and Penny were saying back at the house.

‘Tell him!’ Penny giggled in her easy, matter-of-fact way. ‘If he’s getting under your feet, kick him back to work. He’s bored, Maggie. I never had this with Charlie, ’cos we got Jack once he was old enough to be interesting.’ Penny laughed. ‘Babies don’t do much, and the novelty quickly wears off.’

It was 9.30 p.m. and Ridley was in his office, arranging statements into chronological order for a court appearance later in the week. His obsessive nature came into its own when prepping for court and this showed in his track record. The very sight of Ridley taking the stand made defence lawyers tremble, because they knew they’d not be able to shake his testimony or him. He was rock solid.

Ridley’s satisfying evening of paperwork, however, was interrupted by a phone call from DI Joseph Gifford, from Chipping Norton. ‘Simon,’ Gifford boomed down the line. ‘Couple of minutes for me?’ Gifford didn’t introduce himself, nor did he need to. His deep, resonating voice had an upper-class tone, but his tendency to lengthen the last word of every sentence betrayed his Midlands roots which he was clearly ashamed of. ‘Got this bugger of a case, not unlike your Wimbledon Prowler and I’m after a bit of advice.’ Reluctantly putting his court case preparation aside with a sigh, Ridley listened.

‘Three years ago, there was a burglary in Kingham. Big house set back off the main through road, no CCTV.’ Gifford always used short, clipped sentences, leaving the listener to fill in the blanks. ‘These people, Simon... too much moolah. Losing the odd item of jewellery means nothing. Insured to the hilt. They just want to move on, you know. So, these bloody criminals are getting away with it. No one’s on my side, that’s the problem. Privacy, you see, that’s the currency here. The victims won’t even give statements half the time. Rentals as well, that’s another problem. Some bloody actor or singer or somesuch will hide away in a rental — top secret, like anyone gives a shit. They’ll tell me nothing, bring their own protection team, not let us do any security checks and then, when they get targeted, it’s my fault!’

‘This is still going on, then, is it?’

‘Every few months. And they’re just the ones we get to hear about. Could be more. It’s a political balancing act. Iron fist in a velvet glove was never more appropriate than right here, right now. But... things have just got more serious and something needs to be done. Fast.’ Ridley sipped his tea as Gifford described the scene at the last house that had been burgled.

Mick Arbrose needed just four hours sleep every night, starting at one and ending at five. He was a well-respected businessman living in the village of Churchill who, each morning, would walk his Labrador the twenty minutes into Chipping Norton to collect the morning paper before the newsagent’s had properly opened, and then walk back. Part of the walk had no footpath, forcing Mick onto the narrow road, but so early in the morning, he always felt perfectly safe. On this particular morning, however, when Mick walked down the oak staircase, his old Labrador, Jonty, was not sitting in the hallway waiting to greet him. Mick went straight into the kitchen and looked under the breakfast bar, where Jonty’s night-time bed lay empty. Jonty’s routine was as rigid as Mick’s, so now Mick was beginning to worry. The only other place the old Lab could possibly be was in his daytime bed, which was under Mick’s desk in the office.

As soon as Mick entered the office, his blood ran cold. The safe in the wall was open and had been emptied of around £100,000 in cash, a Hamilton watch and the keys to the never-used Bentley that sat under a tarp in the garage. But Mick wasn’t looking at the open safe. His attention was fixed on the golden paw draped over the edge of the lavish tartan dog bed. He knew Jonty had to be dead because he always, always got up to greet Mick when he walked into any room. As Mick crept round the side of his desk, he could see that the red and green tartan at the front of the dog bed was now no longer tartan, but solid red. Mick’s breathing became audible as he fought back tears. A few more steps forwards revealed that Jonty had been stabbed through the ear with Mick’s silver letter opener, the ornate handle still poking out of his skull. Mick began to gasp for breath as a panic attack dropped him to his knees. He reached out his hand, placed it on the ribcage of his beloved companion, and kneaded his fingers through the cold yellow fur. He knelt there for the twelve minutes it took for the police to arrive. And he knelt there for the further thirty-seven minutes it took for the family vet to arrive. Only when Jonty was safely in the care of someone he knew, did Mick allow the police to get on with their job.

‘Mick said that Jonty would have greeted the burglars,’ Gifford continued. ‘He wouldn’t have barked. He was a soppy companion, not a guard dog. So there was no need to kill him. They did it because they wanted to.’

‘I could come and bounce some ideas around with you?’ Ridley suggested, but Gifford didn’t want that.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Simon, but... well, you might get me wrong when I say this, actually... but the locals will spot you a mile away. You look like Met. It’ll panic everyone. I was thinking about your boy. The one you lent to Wimbledon. He’s used to rural policing, isn’t he?’

‘He’s just become a new dad, Joe. He won’t want to be assigned to a potentially lengthy job out of region.’

Jack snuggled behind Maggie and nuzzled her neck. The faint smell of sick filled his nostrils and he rolled over to face away from her. She’d changed her top, but it was still in her hair. Never before, in all their years of being together, could Jack recall sleeping next to Maggie facing outwards. It was one of the recent changes he hated most.

‘You should go back to work, Jack,’ Maggie whispered. ‘We’re OK, me and Penny.’ Jack felt the bed move as Maggie rolled towards him and curled her arm around his waist. ‘If we snuggle this way round, you don’t have to inhale the smell of second-hand breast milk.’

Jack hesitated, unsure whether Maggie really meant it. ‘Are you...?’

‘Jack, I love you, but if you don’t go back to work soon, Ridley will be arresting me for murder.’

Ridley wasn’t surprised to see Jack walk through the squad room door, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and raring to go; although he was surprised when he volunteered for the Cotswolds consultancy job. Jack had been sitting at his desk like a spare part when he overheard Ridley briefing Anik on the job. Ridley even gave Anik the name of Mike Haskin and instructed him to liaise remotely as the Met hadn’t cleared any official funds for outside help. Jack had quickly interjected, ‘You won’t need funding for Mike if I’m assigned to the Cotswolds, sir. In fact, you won’t need Mike at all.’ And that’s all Jack had needed to say: his experience with rural policing, together with his time in Wimbledon and his knowledge learnt from Mike made him the perfect choice. Ridley sent a disgruntled Anik back to his desk.

Anik was bored of being a policeman. He constantly looked to the future, rather than focussing on the case in front of him. He was impatient for the big, decisive moment when he’d shine and get all of the kudos he thought he richly deserved. His youthful ambition had not waned with experience, it had simply become more desperate. Anik had recently started to make mistakes and was now a hair’s breadth away from being transferred out of the most prestigious team in the station. Ridley could clearly see that he’d offended Anik, but was in no mood for temper tantrums. He shut his office door firmly, leaving Anik to sulk on his own.

‘Your senior officer will be DI Joseph Gifford,’ Ridley told Jack. ‘He’s based in Gloucestershire, but he and his team are working this case from Chipping Norton. Over the past three years, there have been thirty-four known burglaries, but, in the past six months, there have been eleven. So, they’re either getting cocky, or they’re blitzing the place before moving on. And Gifford knows they’re not cocky, so he’s potentially on the brink of losing them.’

Jack sat with the Cotswolds file open on his lap. It was clear that he’d already got a good steer on the case. ‘DI Gifford has got some big names to deal with around here,’ he mused. With ex-prime ministers, famous authors, actors and half of the Top Gear presenters all owning homes inside the target area, kid gloves would be needed if he was to successfully help a community that demanded solutions whilst also insisting on privacy. ‘His biggest problem is surveillance,’ Jack surmised. ‘The Wimbledon Prowler used the Common as cover; DI Gifford’s crew have got half of the Cotswolds to hide in. No CCTV, houses several miles apart, long driveways that aren’t overlooked on any side for at least half a mile. This will be all about thinking like them and making them come to us.’

‘How’s Maggie?’ Ridley’s question had another, unspoken question attached, and that was the one Jack heard and chose to answer.

‘She’ll be glad to get rid of me for a while, sir. I’m best out of the way whilst they establish a routine for Hannah.’ Jack stood. ‘I’ll discuss it with Maggie, of course, but she won’t say no.’ Ridley remained silent as he sensed that Jack had something more to say. ‘Hannah’s not going to be christened exactly, ’cos we’re not religious, but there’ll be a naming ceremony of some kind to celebrate her birth...’

Ridley misunderstood, quickly saying, ‘I’ll make sure you’re back in time. What’s the date?’

‘Oh, nothing’s arranged yet, sir. I was actually mentioning it because Maggie and I would like you to be Hannah’s guardian. Her godfather, really.’ Ridley was visibly shocked; he never imagined in a million years that he’d be asked to do anything so personal by a member of his team, especially not Jack — they’d butted heads numerous times and been firmly on opposing sides in many cases. But their working relationship had always proved fruitful, so perhaps being each other’s biggest critic actually made for a closeness that Ridley had overlooked. He sounded nervous as he asked what being a guardian actually meant.

‘It means, if you kill me in the line of duty, you have to pay Hannah’s school fees,’ Jack replied with a grin. Ridley appreciated the glibness of Jack’s response. It lightened the moment. ‘I guess, sir,’ Jack added more seriously, ‘it means that if Hannah’s ever in trouble and feels that she can’t come to her parents, we know that there’s a safe pair of hands waiting for her in the wings.’

Ridley cleared his throat. ‘I’d be honoured, Jack.’

Jack headed home to discuss the Cotswolds assignment with Maggie. Once Jack had gone, Ridley took out his mobile and opened his photo album. It was clear to see that he only had around ten photos stored, showing no private moments or special memories. But the last photo was from Maggie. It was an image of Hannah, fast asleep, on the day she was born. There was text accompanying the picture:

The corner of Ridley’s mouth curled with a pride he’d never felt before. This precious baby was being entrusted to him, in the unlikely absence of her parents. Adrenaline started coursing around his body as he experienced a sensation that had been alien to him for years: he felt nervous.