‘I don’t understand the urgency.’ He smiled. ‘It’s late. You may be working, but Bethany is resting. Why don’t you come back tomorrow?’
‘Because I need to speak to her now.’ Confrontation wasn’t getting me anywhere. Trickery might. I dropped my keys so they clattered on the hall floor, sliding behind Selhurst and Eleanor. They both looked down – it was a reflex; they couldn’t help it – and while they were distracted I ducked past the preacher, heading for the stairs. Georgia was right behind me. The door to Bethany’s room was closed but I pushed it open. Bethany was exactly where I’d left her, her eyes closed. Her breathing was uneven and I knew she wasn’t asleep. I switched on the light.
‘Look at me, Bethany.’
She didn’t move.
‘Look at me.’
Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.
‘We found Chloe, Bethany.’ I waited to see what her reaction might be: hope first, then fear. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not good news.’
‘Is she—’
‘She’s dead.’ That was Georgia, from the doorway.
‘It’s not true.’ Bethany looked up at me, her face pinched. ‘It’s not true.’
‘I’m afraid it is. Someone found her body earlier today in woodland near Heathrow Airport.’
She started to sob, her body shaking.
Oliver Norris slammed into the room, pushing past Georgia without so much as a sideways look. ‘You can’t do that. You can’t tell her that kind of thing.’
‘It’s the truth,’ I said quietly. ‘She deserves to know the truth.’
‘She deserves to know what happens when she doesn’t trust people who are trying to help her.’ There was that edge in Georgia’s voice again, and it was frustrating to know that Bethany could have helped us, and Chloe, but I couldn’t let her take it out on the girl.
‘I think you thought you were doing the right thing, Bethany. I think you thought you were doing what Chloe wanted you to do. But now we need to find out who did this to her. Who harmed her, Bethany? Who dumped her body as if it was nothing more than rubbish?’
‘Leave her alone. She can’t help you.’ Oliver Norris’s face was white. ‘You’re torturing her for no good reason. You want someone to blame because you didn’t find Chloe in time to save her, and you’re picking on Bethany.’
‘That’s not it,’ I said. ‘We never had a chance to find Chloe. I don’t feel like I need to blame anyone. But I do feel, very strongly, that we need to find the person who killed her.’
‘Bethany could be in danger,’ Georgia said and Oliver made a movement towards her as if he wanted to hurt her for even thinking such a thing. I wished she hadn’t said it out loud, even though I’d been thinking – and hinting – the same thing.
‘Georgia, can you go downstairs and wait for me there?’
I thought she was going to argue with me, but she went, her face mutinous. I waited until she was gone before I spoke again.
‘Bethany, you’re the only person who can help us work out what happened to Chloe. You need to talk to us. To your parents, even. Someone you trust. You can’t hide from this by keeping silent and hoping it goes away. Sooner or later you’re going to have to talk about what happened.’
‘Please. Leave.’ Oliver’s voice was brittle with tension. I didn’t want to go, but one look at Bethany’s face told me I hadn’t got through to her – that she wasn’t ready or able to talk yet.
I walked out past him and stood in the hall, waiting. He closed the door behind him and glared at me.
‘You shouldn’t have talked to her like that.’
‘I’ve spent the afternoon with Chloe’s dad. He had to identify her body.’ He had wailed in my arms, grief tearing at him like a wild animal.
Oliver flinched. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It was hard.’
‘I didn’t know,’ he said.
‘Know what?’
‘That you cared so much. I thought it was just a job.’
‘Sometimes it is.’ I looked down, embarrassed to have shown how much it got to me. ‘Sometimes it’s a lot more than that.’
Georgia was waiting for me on the doorstep and I didn’t blame her for avoiding any further conversation with Gareth Selhurst, who was brooding in the hall. She shook her head as she handed me my keys and anger made the blood sing in my ears. I waited until we were both in the car, the doors closed.
‘What’s the problem, Georgia?’
‘You sent me downstairs as if I was a child. That’s not how you treat a colleague. It’s disrespectful.’
‘You don’t get my respect as a right. You have to earn it,’ I said icily. ‘And you were completely unprofessional in there.’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me about professionalism. You of all people.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You disappear off with a suspect and take your time about getting him to hospital, and when he gets there, oh look, he’s eating out of your hand.’ She glared at me. ‘I don’t know what you did but I have some ideas about it.’
I shook my head. ‘You’re way off.’
‘Am I? DI Derwent didn’t think so.’
For a brief moment she was in real danger. I felt the anger surge up and it was only the fact that I knew she wanted me to lose my temper that enabled me to keep it. ‘I’ve talked to DI Derwent about it. And I’m glad you brought him up because I’ve been meaning to discuss him with you. You hung back when DI Derwent needed back-up. You were more worried about saving your own skin than helping a fellow officer.’
‘I was running comms.’
‘That is a very grand way of saying you called for help.’
‘Well, someone had to keep their head. The two of you were behaving like this was the Wild West. You don’t do that. You call for back-up. You wait. You don’t take stupid risks.’
‘No, you calculate the risks and you behave accordingly. You put yourself in harm’s way. That’s the job, Georgia, and if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t be trying to do it. And if you won’t do it properly, I don’t want to work with you.’
‘Standing between the monsters and the weak.’ It was a police officer’s saying, the job in a nutshell, and most cops didn’t say it with a sneer in their voice.
‘If you like,’ I said coldly. ‘It’s a lot better than bullying the weak because they didn’t do what you wanted them to do. Bethany is as much of a victim as Chloe and if she doesn’t trust us, she’ll tell us nothing.’
She pressed her lips together. ‘Did you mean what you said about getting rid of me?’
‘I—’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to work with you if I can’t rely on you.’
‘Give me a chance.’
‘I already did,’ I said softly.
‘Then I’m going to have to tell DCI Burt about what you did with Turner. About how you behaved.’
‘Is that it? That’s what you’ve got?’
‘She won’t be pleased with you.’