The Fall - By Claire McGowan

Hegarty

‘Get that down you, then. None of your soft London drinks here.’

Hegarty looked with distaste at the pint of ‘real ale’ his Uncle Sean had put down in front of him. ‘Er – ta.’

They were watching to see did he drink it or ask for a lager instead, or worse, a spritzer. A Smirnoff Ice. Nothing would surprise his Barrow family now about Matthew Hegarty and his southern city ways. He swallowed a big gulp and tried not to gag at the bitterness.

His uncles – Sean, Paddy, Seamus – let out big spews of laughter. Sean slapped him on the back. ‘You don’t get that down south, eh?’

‘Nope.’ There were lots of things he didn’t get down south. Like buffets of warm sausage rolls out of Tesco’s. Like three solid days talking about why immigration needs to end before there’s a mosque on every corner. Like bored off his tits as God-awful pop music played on a loop. The Vengaboys, for f*ck’s sake! As he watched from the bar, where the men of the family huddled for protection against dancing, his Auntie Sheila shimmied past, waving her arms in the air. ‘Come on, lads, doo-doo doo-doo do dooo-do . . .’

‘Pissed off her face,’ said Uncle Paddy, himself on his tenth pint.

‘Excuse us.’ Hegarty made a break for freedom, his uncles shouting, ‘Aye, goes through them southern bladders, lad,’ and avoided being dragged onto the dance-floor by his mother. ‘Come on, our Matty, dance with your mam!’

‘Need a slash,’ he shouted over the music – if you could call it that. A slash, Christ, he’d better get back to London soon before he started saying ‘asylumseekersbenefitsscroungers’ all in one word like his Uncle Seamus did.

He slipped out of the hotel’s French windows onto their ‘lakeview terrace’. The air was cool and clear out there; he gulped it in like water after the reek of perfume and BO inside. The lake glittered like spilled milk just yards away, the dark hills peaceful except for the din of the Hegartys and their crap taste in music. ‘Our Nicola’ was the first girl in the family to get hitched – although her five-year-old daughter was flower girl – and the Hegartys were making a big do of it. He hadn’t wanted to come, not just because it would be boring, with crap food and worse music (all so far true), but because his family had no problem asking, So, when’s it your turn? Nicola, the bride, was twenty-three. Hegarty had five years on her, and his two older brothers had been married for years, four kids between them. But for Matthew Hegarty, nothing, no one. He tried not to think about her again, wishing he had a cigarette.

‘Hiya, Matty.’ Matty. Oh no. Apart from his mother, only one person called him that. He turned away from the lake’s moonlit beauty. ‘Hiya, Danni.’

Danielle, his first girlfriend. Last girlfriend, if you didn’t count anything under a month. Her face was pasty in the dark. ‘All right?’

‘Yeah, how’re you?’ Crap, he’d better hug her. Her feathery hair thing tickled his face. She smelled the same, of Peach Schnapps and sweat. ‘You look nice.’ You had to say that to women at weddings, even if they were poured into a pink strapless dress a size too small for them.

Danielle smiled a bit. ‘Ta. You too. Hoped you’d be here.’

He said nothing.

‘Your mam said you was doing well for yourself, down there.’ She spoke of London like it was another country. ‘You don’t miss it here?’ Her nod took it all in, the glittering lake, the mountains, the stars in a dark, orange-free sky, and also the Girls Aloud and the recycled Sun opinions of his family.

‘Sometimes. The fresh air, at least.’

‘And your family? Your mates?’ She stepped closer. Crap.

‘How’re you, Danni? Any, er, romance on the scene?’

‘Was seeing Paul – you know, Paul Gregg from school. He had that Star Wars bag?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘But I finished it. Didn’t feel it, you know. The spark. Like in Sex and the City.’

‘Sure.’ He’d rather stick pins in his eyes than watch Sex and the City.

‘Hear you’re going out to Tom’s wedding in Australia.’

‘I am, yep. You?’

‘No. Didn’t really keep up with him after you and me split.’

The music had changed. Robbie Williams, ‘Angels.’ Enough to make you vomit, but Danni’s face had softened. ‘You want to dance, Matty? For old times’ sake?’

Crap. This was what cigarettes were for. Why had he quit? ‘Sure, in a minute.’

She gave him sort of a half-smile over her shoulder. ‘Well, find me.’

He watched her walk away, remembering her slim back under her T-shirt, that first disco they went to at fifteen. What was wrong with him? Danielle was a lovely girl, if a bit heftier than she had been. There were lots of girls here, pals of Nicola’s, girls he’d known for years. But all he could think was how that one was too big, that one too skinny, that one’s blonde hair too fake. None of them were her. That was the problem.

It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d expected to happen. Normally the women he saw on arrests were rough as, stringy hair, missing teeth, shouting at him and sometimes throwing things. So when he burst into the flat that morning, and she was there with her silk nightie, all that hair round her bare shoulders, it was a shock. He’d tried not to look but it wasn’t easy. And then later, he’d interviewed her and seen her name written down in front of him: Charlotte Miller. Charlotte. Even in her jeans and her face tired and confused, she’d been lovely, just so lovely he had to force himself to look at his notes and remember it was her fiancé who’d most likely stuck the guy in the club like you might slice up a juicy steak. He remembered how she’d fiddled and twisted the diamond flashing on her thin finger, as if she’d lost weight and it was too big for her.

Inside, the families were making a circle round Nicola, her strapless dress falling down to show her tattoos, and her lumpish new husband busting out of his hired waistcoat. What would Charlotte’s wedding have been like? If he hadn’t turned up at her door, she’d have been married for a while now, and happy, most like.

The glass doors opened and it was his dad, smaller and wirier than Hegarty’s loud uncles. ‘Your mam’s looking for you. What you at out here, lad?’

He looked at his father, Mike Hegarty, aka Maverick Mike, ex of the Cumbrian Police Service. A suit that was too big for him and, underneath, muscles now softening with age.

‘Dad? Can I ask you something?’

‘Make it quick, lad, buffet’s out.’

‘Did you ever . . . Did you ever worry that you’d got the wrong guy for a case?’ It came out in a rush.

His dad peered at him. ‘You in some kind of trouble at work?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ At least, he hoped not. He’d tried to follow it up, hadn’t he? But the trail had gone cold, and anyway everything pointed to Stockbridge. Didn’t it?

‘Let me tell you something, lad. You will get the wrong fella. Even if it’s not now, you will. And you’ll wonder, did I bang up some innocent man? But it’s not your decision, is it? You just bring them in, son. Let the courts decide.’

But it was his life, Dan Stockbridge’s. And hers. ‘Dad? You met Mam on the job, didn’t you?’

‘I did that. Lifted her fella for drunk and disorderly, took your mam out the next night.’ ‘Oh.’

Hegarty Senior laughed a tobacco-stained rattle. ‘You’re only human, lad. Now come on in before the sausage rolls get cold.’

He could never tell his father anything, never tell anyone that he was out here thinking about a suspect’s girl. A man he’d put away, his biggest case, and he couldn’t stop thinking about his girlfriend’s hair and her mouth and the tears drying on her face.

He cleared his throat. ‘Coming, Dad.’

In his pocket was his phone and on it the message Charlotte had sent him earlier, five weeks to the day since he’d first seen her. Hi, it said. It’s Charlotte Miller. Wondering if I could call you when you’re free? I really need your help.

So there it was, her text.

All typed right, spelled right, none of that dat de u stuff from her. Hegarty didn’t write much. He spent hours on his police reports, using a dictionary, even a thesaurus sometimes, just trying to get the words right. ‘Rainman’, they called him, which was sort of unfair ’cos the point of Rainman was he was a natural genius. He wouldn’t need to use a dictionary, would he? But the only thing harder than stopping a nickname was trying to start your own.

Hegarty was back at his desk in London, still aching and hungover from the wedding and the nearly worse trip back on Virgin Trains. Now he was picking his way through a packet of Nurofen and drinking his fifth cup of rank station coffee, and in his head turning over and over Charlotte’s short text. What did it mean? What could he help her with?

‘Back from the north, Rainman?’ Susan was so close he could smell her cheesy breakfast roll.

He winced. ‘Shit, don’t sneak up on me like that.’

Not much put Susan off. ‘Gorra hangover?’ She leaned in. ‘You wanna try my supplements, you do.’

Susan believed firmly in the power of herbal healing – that and Jesus Christ. Hegarty wasn’t convinced about either.

‘Yeah, yeah. You want me for something?’

‘Boss wants to see you.’

That couldn’t be good. But there was no way the boss could know about Charlotte’s text, could he?

DI Bill Barton was rubbing his stomach when Hegarty went in, staring at the huge pile of paper in front of him. Hegarty noticed an open pack of Rennies on the desk.

‘You wanted me, sir?’ Although the boss did his best to be friendly and informal, it was still a sir and last name kind of place, and there was no changing that.

‘Matthew. Hi.’ Genuine warmth. ‘Everything ticking over, any problems?’

‘Nossir.’ Apart from a ranging hangover and a developing obsession with a suspect’s missus, that was.

‘There’s been another incident. Like the one at Kingston Town.’

Hegarty’s mouth fell open. ‘A bottle stabbing?’

‘No, a knife this time.’ The boss clutched his stomach and winced. ‘Same as before, guy in a bar, in the neck, though. Word is he owed money. But someone got to him in time, lucky sod.’

‘Not dead?’

‘No. Can’t make an ID though. Forensics is in.’

‘So – what’s it mean, sir?’

‘You never found that other witness, did you? The white guy in the photo?’

‘From Kingston Town? No. No, he scarpered.’ Hegarty sighed – he couldn’t explain he’d got an ID on the guy, working on the side, and then lost the trail. ‘You think . . . you think there’s maybe a chance it wasn’t Stockbridge?’ Saying out loud what he’d been thinking for so long almost made him gasp.

‘Now, I didn’t say that, Matthew. The evidence, as your report put it so well, was weighty and compelling.’ Hegarty blushed at this reference to his wordy flourishes. The boss spoke slowly. ‘There are, how can I say it . . . a lot of people who want this Kingston Town case wrapped up. Race relations, class struggle. Not good for London.’

‘Nossir. Did we ever get that other CCTV I mentioned? You know, from the dry-cleaner’s across from the Kingston Town club?’

The DI looked blank. ‘I’m sure we followed up every angle, Matthew. While always being mindful of resources.’

‘Yessir.’

‘But look into this other one, will you?’

‘You want me on it?’

‘Want you leading it, Matthew.’ The boss beamed like he’d just given Hegarty a Christmas present. And it was true, it was a good sign to be asked to lead an investigation.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Bloody hell. He was well on his way to that promotion. His own team! No more Susan and her Bible, her breath! Hegarty went back to his desk and dialled Charlotte’s number.

She looked like she was about to cry again, he thought, when he met her in the café on Mornington Crescent. He’d dodged buses to run across the road from the station, then ducked in to the greasy spoon looking for other officers; this was the place for them. ‘Charlotte?’ It was the first time he’d called her that and not Miss Miller.

She had a cup of soupy tea in front of her, and the plastic table was gritty and sparkling with sugar. ‘Was it bad to contact you? I didn’t know if I should.’

‘It’s OK.’ He’d decided it was a witness interview, nothing wrong in that. Even if the case was officially closed. ‘What was the problem?’

‘This.’ Sighing, she laid a thin piece of paper on the table. ‘It went to Dan’s parents, but they won’t help – they say they’re too far away to come. He didn’t even ask for me.’ She looked miserable.

Hegarty examined the paper, a letter from the prison. ‘He’s been ill, then.’

She nodded. ‘More blackouts, they said. He’s been moved to solitary.’ She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘That means he’s been in trouble, doesn’t it? People have been hurting him.’

She was staring at her hands like she might cry any minute. He was shocked at the change in her. She’d put on some weight, and her clothes were drab, her hair dull. But still. Didn’t make a blind bit of difference. He put his hand under the table to stop from touching hers. ‘He’ll be OK. It’s not like you see on telly, prison. They look after them.’

‘But I don’t know that! That’s what’s so hard – I haven’t seen him in weeks. I’ve no idea how he is . . . I can’t get through to him at all. I suppose you’ve seen the papers. All that Banker Butcher stuff, it’s awful.’

Hegarty didn’t know what to say. ‘Must be hard, and you on your own.’

‘I’m not really on my own. That’s the other thing.’

For a second he thought, oh crap, she has a new man. But why’d she be here, then, trying not to cry?

‘Long story. A friend sort of moved in. She – well, it doesn’t really matter how. But she knows stuff. Keisha? I think you interviewed her once. After the court.’

Hegarty stared at her. The angry girl from the hearing, Chris Dean’s missus! All this time she’d been up in Hampstead with Charlotte? ‘Didn’t know you knew her.’

‘No, I didn’t. It’s kind of a long story, like I said. But I do now, and she knows stuff. That’s what I wanted to tell you. She really knows, but she won’t come forward.’

Hegarty sat back. He’d heard of this happening before, a family member or spouse of someone you arrested would come to you weeks or months or even years later with some ‘new’ evidence showing that the person they loved could never have done this terrible thing. They’d set up websites, they’d send huge packets of documents without enough postage and you’d have to pay the difference. He should walk away, he should take his manky tea and leave. ‘What is it you want from me?’ He said it as kindly as he could.

‘I thought – would you come and see her? She thinks you’re all out to get her. But I promise you, she really does know things.’

Hegarty was leaving. He really was. But he thought of the new stabbing, and the picture of Chris Dean he still had in his desk. ‘You think there’s new evidence?’

She nodded earnestly. ‘I honestly wouldn’t waste your time if I didn’t.’ She paused. ‘After you came round that day, I just felt . . . Well, I knew you would help me. I just sort of felt it.’ She stared down at her tea, embarrassed.

So somehow he found himself agreeing to go to her house the next night. He didn’t tell anyone at the station, they’d only laugh.

Hegarty’d had a bad day. First he had to go and interview the cleaner who’d found his boss gurgling blood all over the floor of a pub in Hammersmith. This one also had predictable gang connections, and money owed. The boss himself was still in hospital and too weak to talk, and Hegarty got nowhere with the cleaner, who didn’t know much English and was clearly terrified of the police.

‘I no see,’ he kept saying, swivelling his eyes back and forth. One of those ‘asylumseekersbenefitsscroungers’ as his uncles would have said.

Hegarty tried again. ‘You found the owner on the office floor, bleeding. What happened then?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened? Did you see anyone else come out?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

Hegarty sighed. ‘Listen to me, Mr, er . . .’ Crap, he could see the surname written down but it had too many letters in it. ‘Er, Mr. Did you see anyone?’

‘Bloods. Much bloods.’

‘Yes, blood, but was there a person? Did you see the assailant – eh, the person who did it?’

‘Yes, bloods. Yes.’

So he gave that up as a bad job. It would take them ages to find a translator who could speak whatever African language it was, even if they could scrape up the funds, and it turned out the bar CCTV was just for show and hadn’t worked in months. Typical. He looked at his watch; time to follow up the other angles. Was that even what he was doing? Hegarty wondered about these little side trips of his – the club, Charlotte’s house. Why do that when he had his suspect nicely locked up on remand? He told himself it was the legendary policeman’s hunch his dad had always talked about, and not just because Charlotte Miller had asked him for help. With that he headed up to leafier Belsize Park, and Charlotte herself.

But now he was there and talking to this Keisha girl was like pulling teeth. She was flashing him evils, as his girl cousins would have said, and when he sat down at the table she got up and went to the sofa, flicking channels on the muted TV.

He was a little shocked at the flat too. A lot dirtier than when he’d made the arrest. It looked like his place, unwashed dishes, pizza boxes in the recycling. And where was the Eames chair, and that nice painting from the wall?

Charlotte looked back and forth between them, tea slopping out of the cups in her shaking hands. ‘Keesh, are you sure you don’t want tea? It’s Tetley.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘There’s biscuits, nice ones . . .’ She trailed off. Hegarty took a biscuit, chocolate chip with a chocolate coating, very nice. Could have done with those at the station.

Charlotte cleared her throat. ‘So, DC – er, sorry, what should I call you?’

‘So long as it’s not Matty, I don’t mind.’ She looked confused. ‘Matthew, Matt, whatever you like.’ They were about the same age, him and her.

She looked up at him from under her lashes. ‘Like I told you the other day, Keisha came round to see me a bit after – everything. It was really kind of her, because she sort of like came to warn me.’

He thought he heard the other girl snort.

‘Warn you?’

‘Basically Keisha was there that night, in the club, with her boyfriend.’

‘Wait.’ He fumbled in his satchel for the picture printout. ‘That him?’

Charlotte stared at it for a while, her brow furrowed. She shook her head. ‘I never saw him, not really. Keesh, is that Chris?’

Keisha ignored her as long as she could, then got up with a sigh. ‘Give us it.’ She peered at the grainy print for a long time.

Charlotte was gripping the table. ‘Well?’

‘Course it’s him. So? It’s just some picture.’

Hegarty folded it away. ‘I asked you before if you knew him, didn’t I?’

She scowled. ‘Dunno. Still with him then, wasn’t I? Anyway, you’d arrested your fella – or that’s what you told the court.’

He decided to play nice. ‘You’re right, Keisha. We thought all the evidence pointed to Dan, but maybe we missed something, and you spotted it.’

‘All right,’ she said, after a pause. And she told her convoluted story about this boyfriend, this Chris, and how he’d left the club and her ‘freezing my arse off at the bus stop, I was’ – so she’d gone home and there he was in bed, his clothes in a bag and shoes all covered in something sticky and red.

‘Blood?’ he asked, pen hovering.

‘I dunno, not on bloody CSI, am I?’

Charlotte sighed. Hegarty shut his book. ‘What you’ve told me is a bit shaky, to be honest. It was weeks ago, and you didn’t come forward at the time.’

‘He was my fella! I’m not lying.’

‘He knows you’re not lying, Keesh, but is there anything else, anything at all?’ Charlotte leaned forward but Keisha shook her away.

‘I said everything I know. What else am I meant to tell you? You can’t come after me, it’s not fair.’

Hegarty raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m not coming after you, miss. You’re just a possible witness. You haven’t seen Chris since?’

Was it his imagination, or did she hesitate before shaking her head?

Charlotte tried again. ‘You didn’t say Chris was after me, for some reason. That’s why she came, DC, er, Matthew. She saw this friend of Chris’s and he said he was after me, and the reason she left in the first place was because he beat her up when he found out she had my purse. With my address, you see?’

‘Leave it, Char,’ said Keisha, full of steel.

Hegarty looked between the two, the one earnest girl with her fair hair falling into her eyes, the other sulky, arms folded. He could almost hear his dad in his head, the voice of the copper forty years on the job: Walk off, son. Walk off. He opened his notebook again. ‘Any reason this Chris’d be after you?’

Charlotte frowned. ‘I don’t know, but I do seem to have this memory where someone pushed past me at the club – maybe outside, maybe inside, I don’t know. I can’t really remember, it’s so frustrating.’

When Charlotte said this, the Keisha girl stiffened. He caught her eye and she looked away. He sighed. ‘And how would Chris have got home before you, Keisha, if he went back to the club? You got the bus?’

‘Musta got a taxi. Wouldn’t get one for me, tight bastard.’

He clicked on his pen and scribbled it down. ‘Might be able to find the driver. I’ll look into it, no guarantees though.’

‘Oh, thank you.’ Charlotte nearly knocked over her tea. ‘Oh God, I can’t tell you, it means so much, just to think maybe it wasn’t Dan.’

‘Keisha, you’ll need to make a sworn statement on this.’

‘What?’ Her head shot up. ‘I’m not swearing nothing.’

‘He can’t admit it as evidence if you don’t make a statement, duh!’ Charlotte seemed to be losing patience.

‘Yeah, yeah, who died and made you Legally Blonde? Chris’ll kill me if he finds out, like actually kill me.’

‘But they’ll arrest him, for God’s sake!’

‘And you believe that, same coppers what came round here and lifted Dan?’

That shut Charlotte up. ‘I have to trust them.’ She turned her big blue eyes to Hegarty. ‘Can she have a bit of time to think?’

‘I can arrest you, you know,’ said Hegarty, just to rattle the grumpy girl. She had enough attitude to bury a small building.

‘I can plead the fifth.’ Keisha crossed her arms.

Hegarty stood up. ‘Think you’ll find that’s America, miss, and sadly for you there’s no such thing in the UK. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1984.’

Keisha muttered something that sounded like wanker. Giving the other girl a dirty look, Charlotte got up to see him to the door. ‘I’m sorry to spring all this on you. You must think I’m an idiot, trying to be all Murder She Wrote.’

He shrugged his jacket on. ‘Nah. Although I did have a thing for Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.’

Her face lit up. ‘I love that film, I’ve got it on DVD.’

Of course she did. He looked at her for a second too long, her hands wringing together.

‘And the other thing, the letter about Dan? Will you . . .?’ She dropped her voice and he saw she didn’t want Keisha to know she’d asked him to help Stockbridge. Maybe she didn’t totally trust the other girl.

‘I’ll see what I can do. No promises.’

Hegarty’s dad, Maverick Mike, knew a lot of people. Before he married and settled in Cumbria, he’d been all round the country, and it was getting to be a bit of a joke how often a court clerk or officer or even a judge would say, ‘Oh, you’re Maverick Mike’s lad?’

As it happened, Hegarty Senior also knew one of the POs at Pentonville, where Daniel Stockbridge was currently being held awaiting trial. Hegarty’d already decided, even apart from his earlier impressions of a cold bastard, that Stockbridge was a twat. Imagine being stuck in there with three hundred men and turning down a visit from the lovely Charlotte. But when he got into the interview room and smelled the stale air, he understood better. Maybe it was just too much, to be in here and see her or smell the outside rising off her hair.

The door opened and Stockbridge was brought in. Although he was a remand prisoner he was wearing the same grey prison tracksuit as the other men. There was a healing cut over his eye, yellowing on the edges. He looked awful, Hegarty thought, pale and blinking in the orange light of the interview room. The man must have lost two stone since his arrest.

Stockbridge sat down slowly. ‘You want to arrest me for anything else?’

‘How are you, Daniel?’

Stockbridge gave him a dirty look. ‘How do you think? Waiting for a trial date.’

‘Shouldn’t be long now. I hear you might be pleading Guilty.’ That was the advantage of being Maverick Mike’s boy – you heard things, you knew ways to wind them up.

‘What’s it to you? That’s what you think, isn’t it?’

‘But when we first met, you didn’t exactly agree, did you?’

Stockbridge looked angry. ‘You had all that evidence, showing I’m a racist, my prints on the bottle. You found it all.’

Hegarty leaned forward. ‘Do you remember what happened, Dan? Do you remember that night?’

A long pause. Hegarty saw the man was shaking. ‘Well?’

‘No.’ His voice was a whisper.

‘So, why would you plead Guilty?’

‘You said – you had all that evidence. The bottle, the CCTV. No one else could have done it. That’s what you said. And the lawyer said, maybe they’d go easier on me if I admitted it.’

‘Are you sure no one else could have done it?’ Hegarty pushed his chair back.

‘What the hell is this? You said no one else went in, but he was dead. And I don’t remember, you know that? I don’t remember a f*cking thing. So what am I supposed to . . . ? F*ck.’

Hegarty let the echoes of the man’s voice fade away. ‘So you’re pleading Guilty because you don’t remember?’

‘I don’t know. The man’s dead, isn’t he? Someone has to be punished for it.’

Christ, the man was in a bad way. ‘You had another blackout, I hear.’ He nodded at the cut over Stockbridge’s eye.

The man clammed up. ‘Accident.’

‘Someone lamped you, I hear tell. Think you’re a racist, don’t they?’

‘And who the f*ck did that come from? You were the one who dug up all that old stuff.’

Another pause. ‘Dan,’ Hegarty said quietly. ‘You didn’t say anything racist to Anthony Johnson, did you? She was lying, wasn’t she, that girl?’

Stockbridge hung his head. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know any more.’

‘You had a blackout.’

‘Yes.’

‘Wasn’t the first time.’

‘No. I’ve had them a few times. I didn’t know what was happening to me.’ Stockbridge was whispering, staring at his restless hands. ‘I was so stressed. All that stuff at work – God, you wouldn’t believe what was going on there. I could tell you some things . . .’

‘Yeah? Tell me then.’

He slumped. ‘What’s the point? It’s me that’s in prison, not them.’

‘If you spot an irregularity, you have to report it. Isn’t that the law on banking?’

Stockbridge laughed. ‘And if I don’t – what? You’ll arrest me again? I think that ship has sailed, Officer.’

‘Who gave you the coke, Dan?’

‘Why, you want him in here too?’

‘What if I do? Did any of that banking lot stand by you when you needed them? You know how much stuff they gave me on you, Dan? Mountains of it. Handed it over on a plate. Why’d they do that, eh?’

The man shook his head. ‘There’s no point in saying.’ His voice was dead.

‘Did you know something? Was that it? You had something on them?’

Daniel Stockbridge’s face was shining with tears. Had he even noticed? Hegarty relented, sat back. ‘Someone called Alex, wasn’t it, who had the coke? Charlotte remembered the name.’

A whisper. ‘Carter. Alex Carter. He’s head of my division. He’s my boss. Was my boss.’

Hegarty scribbled it down. ‘Thanks, Dan.’

‘Don’t call me Dan.’ He rubbed at his face with the back of his hands, like a kid.

Hegarty cleared his throat. ‘So it says here you’ve been diagnosed with epileptic blackouts, Mr Stockbridge. You know what that means?’

‘That I’m totally f*cked?’

‘Means you can’t remember what happened. You’re an unreliable witness.’

Stockbridge looked up. His eyes were red and haunted. ‘What?’

‘Dan, you’re not a reliable judge of what happened.’

‘But – no one else could have killed him. You said.’

Hegarty got up. ‘We’ll let the jury decide that, shall we? In the meantime there’s someone waiting to hear from you, and she wishes you’d at least make an effort.’

Dan said quietly, ‘I don’t want her to see me like this. She’s better off without me.’

Hegarty turned away in impatience. ‘She’s waiting for you – you realise that? She’s out there, every day, waiting for you to start fighting.’

Stockbridge stared at his hands again, still trembling. ‘You seem to know a lot about my fiancée, Officer.’

Hegarty signalled to the PO that he’d finished. ‘Get a lawyer, Stockbridge, will you? Make her see she’s got a reason to wait for you.’

The other man thought about it for a moment. ‘And what if I don’t want her to?’

There’s plenty who’ll pick up the pieces. Hegarty bit down the thought. ‘See you in court, Dan.’

The door clanged shut as he left Stockbridge in the small, windowless room.