‘What is? I will not massage it to make it look pretty. I simply cannot do that, Del. Sir.’
‘I expected that from you. But tone it down. Don’t go public just yet.’
‘The press is all over it, sir. The media department is going crazy.’
‘I know. That’s why you’re here. Just tone it down. It’s no different to dealing with any other high-profile case; certain parameters need to be in place.’
‘Gagging restraints?’
He grinned. ‘We don’t have the resources for you to go charging all over the world to investigate this. And there is no will from above.’
‘I know. Justice is expensive.’
She walked to the door, and this time she didn’t look back.
‘Sometimes politicians make decisions that we don’t like,’ he said to her back.
She stopped with her hand on the door handle. ‘And sometimes they get away with it because money matters more than people. I’ll send you the autopsy photos and you can look at them before bed tonight.’
She opened the door and closed it gently behind her and left the building. When she got back into her car she hit the steering wheel several times and swore loudly until her throat hurt. After she’d finished her tantrum, she saw a female officer who’d been smoking behind the carpark staring at her with concern. She smiled and waved and started the engine.
Chapter 43
By the time they finished up for the day, Lee Lovett still hadn’t emailed Kelly the CCTV footage from the back stairs at Heron Hall and she’d called him seven times, each time not being answered.
Saturday evening should be the best of the week. For most normal people with nine-to-five jobs, it was. But for Kelly’s team, it was just another evening. Lab results were non-existent at the weekend and Kelly insisted they leave at a sensible hour to go to their respective homes. Jamie’s toxicology results were being reviewed and might possibly be ready for Monday.
Kelly drove home and picked up a bottle of red wine from a local merchant’s and a bunch of fresh flowers to cheer the house up. The last thing she wanted was for Lizzie to grow up conscious of what she did for a living and how it affected her. She wanted the house to be a place of tranquillity and stability, no matter what she was dealing with at work.
When she pulled up, Johnny’s car was in the driveway. It was his turn to have Lizzie, and she found she was looking forward to seeing him. It had been three weeks. She opened her front door and went in to the sound ofIn the Night Garden. Lizzie was bathed and dressed in a fresh all-in-one and sucking happily on a cup of milk. Johnny held her on his lap and smiled widely. He was tanned. Her stomach lurched but she told herself it was just the pull of familiarity at a tough time. Sometimes all she wanted was somebody who understood her to hold her and listen to the shitty week she’d had, and Johnny had always done that. The wounds left from his lies still smarted, but they were healing. He’d finalised his divorce from Carrie and they’d split theirassets, but the secrecy regarding the whole thing was something that she didn’t need in her life at the time.
‘Hey,’ she said. She went to kiss her daughter and Lizzie held out her hand to stroke her face.
‘Mama,’ she gurgled. ‘Dada,’ she added.
Johnny was thrilled.
‘Clever girl!’ Kelly praised her. Lizzie’s favourite words were ‘Nana’, short for banana, ‘nee-nor’, chorused whenever they played with vehicles, ‘Gang’, for Ted, and ‘Lee-lee’, for Millie.
Her repertoire was growing.
‘How was Scotland?’ Kelly asked.
‘Epic,’ he said. ‘The weather was perfect.’
‘I heard a climber died on Stob Dearg.’
‘Yeah. He fell. He was sixty years old, with his family. It was horrendous. It was across the valley from us.’
‘Good, I’m glad you didn’t get involved; you need time off too.’
Johnny was an experienced mountain rescue volunteer and had worked with the Lake District teams for seven years. Now he split his time between here and Glencoe.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘I was thinking about going to the van for fish and chips, fancy joining me?’ he asked.
‘Sounds wonderful, let me change and put these flowers in a vase.’
