‘Do you want something stronger? Wine? A beer? Top shelf? It’s on me.’ He shuffles his chair a little closer until your knees touch. ‘Am I making you nervous?’ Your knee trembles against his.
You grab your bag as you stand, knocking lemonade into his lap as you run off into the rain without so much as a quick glance back. I can’t lose you. You left with luggage earlier. I know you won’t be home tonight.
I keep back and watch as you hurry along the high street, heading to the zebra crossing and away from the centre. The tiny heel of your boot cracks an icy puddle and splashes the hem of your jeans.
I follow you all the way to The Cleevesford Cleaver, a bit of a sinister name for a B&B, but it had once been a butcher’s shop, going back eighty years. I know where you’re staying and I’m coming back for you. Keep safe, my darling. Oh look at the time, Susan will need tending to again.
Forty-Eight
‘Any updates?’ Gina hurried into the incident room and caught up with the new additions to the board. Photos of Dale Blair’s injuries stood out a mile. He bore barely any resemblance to the photos on the Blair’s wall as he lay on the stainless slab. Close-ups of the scratches and bruises were stuck around the main photo, along with one of his neck.
‘Here you go.’ Briggs threw a tea towel at her.
She wiped the rain from her face with the coffee-splattered towel and patted her hair down. She caught her reflection in the window. Straggly wet hair stuck to her forehead and tangled over her shoulders. Dark, burgundy-tinged circles under her eyes. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and almost winced as they flared up.
‘Better?’ Briggs smiled and joined her at the incident board.
‘I need a hot drink. Want one?’ They nodded and Jacob left the room.
Everyone else on the case had gone home. She glanced at the ticking clock above the boards. With the din that normally filled the room, she couldn’t hear it but now, it was all she could hear as she waited for Briggs to break the silence. ‘You don’t look so good, Gina. Remember you said you’d tell me if anything was wrong. I know you love the job but I need to know you’re loving yourself too.’
Not this again. She wished he’d just leave it out. She’d been on top of things for a while now but seeing Mary had brought back her nightmares. She was nothing more than tired after a bad night’s sleep. The nightmares were stupid, really stupid and she hated her stupid self. She wished she could control her mind but it constantly controlled her. ‘Not this again, sir.’ She pretended to look at the other board.
‘You know I care, Gina. It hurts me to see you looking so… I don’t know, tired, unkempt and stressed, shall we say.’
‘I’m not stressed, really. The hours, no problem. The job in all its horror and gore, no problem. Being asked if I’m okay all the time, still annoying.’ She found herself glaring at him. The only expression he returned was one of sincerity and suddenly a pang of guilt washed over her. ‘I’m sorry. I know you care. If you want to know what’s bugging me, then fine. I went to visit my mother’s grave this week and I guess I just miss her, and yes, I do feel a bit sad about it, but I’ll get over it. It’s just a short moment in time and I need to be allowed to simply be sad. Is that okay?’ She finished the sentence with a warm smile, hoping that he would see she was being open with him, it was the truth. She wouldn’t mention Mary though, the woman that triggered her into yearning so badly for her mother. That may make her seem a little too crazy. She wouldn’t mention that Mary was almost a carbon copy of her own mother, even sharing many of her mannerisms.
‘If you need to talk, have pizza or share a bottle of wine, you know where I am.’
Jacob walked back in with a tray containing three hot drinks. Gina pointed at the board and pretended to be discussing something with Briggs. ‘I just caught up with uniform. Someone popped over to Lawrence’s house but he wasn’t in,’ Jacob said.
‘We’ll go to see him first thing, if that’s okay with you.’
Jacob rubbed the side of his cheek, flinching. ‘I’ve got an emergency appointment with the dentist first thing but it shouldn’t take long. Damn appointment is going to cost a fortune but I can’t wait until Monday.’ His phone beeped and he pulled it from his pocket and smiled.
‘Who’s the lucky lady?’
‘How do you know these things?’
Briggs laughed. ‘She’s a detective, don’t you know.’ He gave her a friendly nudge in the ribs.
His shoulders slumped. ‘I suppose secrets don’t stay secrets for long around here. It’s Jennifer. We’re just arranging a night out.’
‘Jennifer.’ Gina picked a marker pen up and drew a line from Dale to Lawrence with a question mark on the board. She daren’t look at Briggs, not wanting news of their past affair to be revealed by her own expressions. Her secrets were staying secrets, no matter what Jacob said.
‘CSI Jennifer.’ Jacob smiled. ‘I’ll see you in the morning then.’ He grabbed his drink and headed out of the room, towards his office.
‘You need to learn to chill out, Harte. You should see yourself, standing rigidly, drawing a shaky line with the pen. If only your acting skills were as good as your detective skills.’
She gave him a friendly nudge back, enjoying the warmth of his body on her goosebumped arm. ‘Any news from the appeals?’
‘Nothing of any help. O’Connor, Wyre and Smith were following up on all the tall-short, black-white, men-women that were seen at the time. Uniform have been stationed by the bridge and on the path where Dale’s body was found. We have all the details of the regular walkers that use the path and have caught up with some. Nothing useful as yet. I’m sure they’ll fill you in at the next briefing.’ Briggs stared at the pathologist’s photos. ‘He’s taken one hell of a beating.’
‘We were speaking about it being two people.’
‘I get that. He’s a large man and there was no evidence of a trolley or anything else that would have assisted the killer in getting the body to where it was found. This would have been a struggle for two strong people. Do you have any theories as yet?’
‘Only that Ryan was so jealous of Susan talking to anyone he went and punched Dale in the Angel Arms a few months earlier. I don’t have any evidence of his involvement in Susan’s disappearance, all I know is a painful divorce is going through. Who could he be working with? I worry about Clare Collins, Susan’s sister. When I left the house after talking to Mary, her mother, I noticed her watching me out of the window. I also heard someone watching me leave the other night, lurking at the side of the house. When I went around to investigate, they were gone. I think this was Clare as I heard Mary calling her from inside the house but she wasn’t answering. I don’t trust her. Then, I have a witness, a woman called Alicia who lives on the road where Susan’s car was found. She saw a bald man hanging around by the car on the evening when Susan disappeared. And we found the tracker. This keeps coming back to one person.’
