Kate returned to her seat and cold toast and began searching for the elusive better story.
In normal circumstances, she’d just ring Dawn or Bob Sparkes, but her options were vanishing fast. Dawn had decamped, and Bob had mysteriously disappeared off the radar for weeks. She’d heard from the crime man that there’d been a bit of row over interference in the Bella review, and Sparkes’s phone seemed to be permanently off.
She gave it another try and gave a silent cheer when it rang. “Hello, Bob,” she said when Sparkes finally answered. “How are you? Are you back at work yet? Guess you’ve seen the Herald.”
“Hi, Kate. Yes. Quite a bold step for them, given the verdict. Hope they’ve got good lawyers. Anyway, good to hear from you. I’m fine. Had a bit of a break but back at work. I’m in town, working with the Met. Tidying some loose ends. Up near you, actually.”
“Well, what are you doing for lunch today?”
He was sitting in the expensive, tiny French restaurant when she walked in, dark suit and black mood stark against the white tablecloths.
“Bob, you look well,” she lied. “Sorry if I’m late. Traffic.”
He rose and offered his hand across the table. “Just got here, myself.”
The small talk stopped and started as a waiter brought menus, offered suggestions and water, hovered for the order, and poured the wine. But finally, with matching plates of magret de canard in front of them, she began in earnest.
“I want to help, Bob,” she said, picking up her fork. “There must be some line of inquiry we can look at again.”
He didn’t speak but sawed at the rosy meat in front of him. She waited.
“Look, Kate, we made a mistake and can’t unmake it. Let’s see what the Herald’s campaign produces. Do you think he’ll sue?”
“It’s a dangerous game, suing for libel,” she said. “I’ve been there. If he does, he’s got to go in the witness box and give evidence. Will he really want to do that?”
“He’s a clever man, Kate. Slippery.” He was rolling the crumbs of the bread into beads of dough between his fingers. “I don’t know anymore.”
“For goodness’ sake, Bob. You’re a fantastic copper—why are you giving up?”
He raised his head and looked at her.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to nag. I just hate seeing you like this,” she said.
In the lull, while both sipped their wine, Kate cursed her haste. Leave the poor man alone, she thought.
But she couldn’t. It was not in her nature.
“So what’ve you been doing with the Met today?”
“Loose ends, like I said. Sorting through some stuff from a couple of joint investigations—car thefts, that sort of thing. Actually, there were also some bits and pieces left over from the Bella case. Early stuff, when we first picked up Glen Taylor.”
“Anything interesting?” she asked.
“No, not really. The Met went to make sure the other Qwik Delivery driver was at home while we drove up from Southampton.”
“What other driver?”
“There were two drivers in Hampshire that day—you know that.”
She didn’t, or she hadn’t remembered.
“The other one was a bloke called Mike Doonan. He was the one we went to see first. Perhaps his name didn’t come out at the time. Anyway, he’s crippled with a crumbling spine—could hardly walk—and we never found anything to pursue.”
“Did you question him?”
“Yes. He was the one who told us Taylor was also making a delivery in the area that day. Not sure we’d have found that out without him. Taylor did the drop as a favor, so there’s no official record of it. The case review team went to see him, too. Nothing added, apparently.”
Kate excused herself from the table and went to the ladies’, where she scribbled down the name and put a quick call in to a colleague to find an address for Doonan. For later.
When she got back to the table, the detective was putting his credit card back in his wallet. “Bob, I invited you,” she said.
He waved away her protest and smiled. “My pleasure. It’s been good to see you, Kate. Thanks for your pep talk.”
She deserved that, she thought as they walked out in single file. On the pavement, he shook her hand again, and they both went back to work.
Kate’s phone began vibrating as she hailed a taxi, and she waved away the cab to take the call. “There’s a Michael Doonan in Peckham, according to the electoral roll—I’ll text the address and the names of the neighbors,” the crime man said.
“You’re a star, thanks,” she said, raising her hand for another taxi. Her phone rang again almost immediately.
“Kate, where the hell are you? We’ve got an interview with the ex-wife of that footballer. It’s up near Leeds, so get on the next train and I’ll e-mail you the background. Ring when you’re at the station.”
THIRTY-TWO
The Widow
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2008
Someone put the Herald through the door today, the day they accused Glen all over again, and he put it straight in the bin. I got it out and hid it away behind the bleach under the sink for later. We’d known it was coming because the Herald had been banging on the door the day before, shouting questions and pushing notes through the letter box. They said they were campaigning for a retrial so that Bella would get justice. “What about justice for me?” Glen said.
It’s a blow, but Tom phoned to say the paper will have to have deep pockets to pay the costs and, most importantly, they have no evidence. He said to “batten down the hatches,” whatever that means. “The Herald are coming at us with all guns blazing, but it is all just sensationalism and tittle-tattle,” he told Glen, who repeated it line by line to me. “He talks like it is a war,” I say, and then shut up. The wait will be worse than the reality, Tom predicts, and I hope he’s right.
“We’ve got to keep quiet, Jeanie,” Glen explains. “Tom will start legal proceedings against the paper, but he thinks we should go on a bit of a holiday—‘remove ourselves from the picture’—until this all blows over. I’ll go online and book something this morning.”
He hasn’t asked where I want to go and, to be honest, I don’t care. My little helpers are beginning to have less effect, and I feel so tired I could cry.
In the end he picks somewhere in France. In my other life, I would’ve been thrilled, but I’m not sure what I feel when he tells me he’s found a cottage in the countryside that’s miles from anywhere. “Our flight leaves at seven tomorrow morning, so we need to leave here at four, Jeanie. Let’s get packed up, and we’ll take our car. Don’t want a taxi driver tipping off the press.”
He knows so much, my Glen. Thank God I’ve got him to look after me.
At the airport, we keep our heads down and sunglasses on, and we wait until the queue is almost down to the last person before we head to the desk. The woman checking us in barely looks at us and sends our suitcase onto the conveyor belt before she’s managed to say, “Did you pack this bag yourself?” let alone waited to hear the answer.
I’d forgotten how much queuing there was in airports, and we are so stressed by the time we get to the gate that I am ready to go home to the press pack. “Come on, love,” Glen says, holding my hand as we walk to the plane. “Nearly there.”