Little Boy Blue

48

From her viewpoint across the road, Charlie watched the horrible soap opera unfold. Charlie remained to be convinced that Paul Jackson was innocent, but she still felt for him and his family. Like her, they must have got up this morning with no inkling of what was about to befall them. They might even have been looking forward to the day. But in the time it takes the sun to rise and set again, secrets had been revealed, accusations made and a family’s happiness shattered.

Thanks to her job, Charlie came into contact with many unsavoury characters, but few were as unpleasant and pitiless as the journalists now camped outside the Jackson house. In time, they would drift away, as new developments emerged, but the next forty-eight hours would be Hell. The family could take legal steps to protect themselves from intrusion, but these things took time and in the interim press hounds, radio and TV journalists, bloggers and more would be beating a path to their door.

They would claim that they were only doing their job – ‘it’s a free country’ was the common refrain – but Charlie knew they enjoyed it. It was bullying pure and simple, the pack descending on whomsoever they deemed fair game. They would climb walls, scale lampposts, shout through letter boxes, bribe, threaten, cajole – all in the hope of getting a few words with the accused or a photo of his weeping wife. Many people out there thought the same of coppers – that they were only on God’s earth to cause grief and upset – but in Charlie’s mind, at least, the two professions were very different indeed.

The biting wind whistled round Charlie and, cursing her luck, she retreated to her car. Helen had sent her here as a punishment, knowing full well it would be a wasted journey. It was easy enough to blend in with the journalists and gawpers, but with such a crowd outside what were the chances that Jackson would actually do anything incriminating? If he was smart, he would stay exactly where he was, until the interest in him waned.

Charlie had the disquieting feeling that Helen had turned against her. They had exchanged some harsh words earlier – words that had shaken Charlie to the core – and even though she knew she deserved to be sent to purdah for rowing with Sanderson, she never expected to be publicly dressed down like that. Helen’s behaviour was out of character – impulsive and erratic – and it unnerved her. Especially when she still felt she had so much to prove.

Charlie hoped her exile would be brief. She missed her family, hated the tedium of a stakeout and desperately wanted to be back in the heart of things. But this case was doing strange things to people – to Helen, Sanderson, even Charlie herself – and she wondered if she had permanently blotted her copybook with her boss. Truth be told, she had never felt so uncertain of her position as she did tonight.