‘Long shot. I thought of routes away from the body, getaway routes.’
The steps lead from the edge of the station car park, up a tree-covered slope to the busy Brampton Road and above it, the thundering concrete hulk of the A14 flyover. The steps’ yellow paint has been trodden away so that it is only visible at the edges.
She says, ‘We need to get CCTV off this car park. I can see two cameras from here. That should show who was walking down these steps, leaving this blood trail.’ She’s breathless, heart thudding. ‘This is it, Mark. We’ve got him.’
‘Well, hang on a minute. Unless it isn’t Ross’s blood – might be a commuter having a nosebleed. And unless the person walking down these steps is Fly. You might need to prepare yourself for that possibility.’
‘It isn’t Fly,’ she says.
‘I would guess DS Walker didn’t even request car park CCTV.’
She smiles at him. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘This is good. This is how we knock down their shitty case.’
‘How was the scan?’ he asks. ‘Everything all right?’
‘My sister’s having an affair with Gary Stanton. Detective Chief Superintendent Gary Stanton.’
‘Good news,’ says Mark, in a flat monotone. ‘We can get the case thrown out on that. Perverting the course of justice. What evidence do you have?’
‘A text.’
‘Saying what – great shag, let’s do it again tomorrow?’
‘Well, no. Saying “talk about it later”. He was in for a hospital appointment.’
‘Not exactly incendiary, is it?’
‘No, but I saw the way he was leaning on the door frame over her – it was … pervy.’
Mark looks at her over his glasses.
‘They’re shagging,’ Manon says, ‘I’m telling you.’
‘I’m not going to court for a dismissal based on your dirty mind.’
She calls out to the hallway from the kitchen, hoping to reach Ellie who is upstairs. Manon is holding Ellie’s mobile phone.
‘I’ve deleted Angie’s number off my phone by accident,’ she yells, glad her face cannot be scrutinised as she says this. ‘What’s your passcode and I’ll re-send it to myself. Is it under childminder or …?’
Ellie is nearer than she suspected, and now she is entering the kitchen, taking her phone off Manon and eyeballing her crossly.
‘I’ll do it,’ she says.
‘Are you shagging Gary Stanton?’ Manon says.
‘What? No! Of course I’m not.’
‘Only he seemed quite, well, flirty at the hospital.’
‘You know him better than me.’
‘Because you do not want to mess with Pam Stanton, let me tell you now,’ Manon is saying as Ellie goes to the sink to drink a glass of water. She sets the glass down, then says, ‘Fuck,’ with a high-pitched squeak, as if she’s cut herself.
‘What’s wrong?’
Ellie turns. She is crying. Here we go, thinks Manon.
‘I’m just sick of … everything being so shit,’ Ellie says. ‘D’you know what happened at work yesterday? HR called me into a meeting and said they’ve overpaid me ￡5,000 because of an administrative error and I need to pay it back. I told them I haven’t got ￡5,000 but they said that’s irrelevant, I still need to pay it back. I told them it was their error, not mine.’ She has cut her hand and she turns, holding it at the wrist as further evidence of all the injustice stacked against her. ‘They said I could pay ￡50 per month for like, all eternity. Can you believe that? All the shifts where I don’t take a break, when we’re understaffed and the patients are furious because they’ve been sent for the wrong scan or they’ve come in without having had the right tests, and we suck it up.’
Manon looks at her, knowing there has been a cover-up. But she says, ‘Sorry. That’s rotten.’
Evening. She is looking at Mark beyond the French windows, his hand in a trouser pocket, smoking and hunched against the cold. He is brash-lit by the outside light.
He is working at her house because there is lots of evidence they need to look at together and it makes sense to sit at one computer. Not only that.
‘What about your office?’ she asked.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
He led her out to the kerb where a navy Vauxhall Astra, about fifteen years old and heavily rusting, was parked.
‘Do you show this to all the ladies?’ she asked. ‘Because I hate to burst your bubble, but it’s a Vauxhall Astra.’
He pointed to the back seat and she peered in through the window to see pale concertina box files in place of two children.
‘This is my office,’ he said.
‘Wow, this is filling me with confidence.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s impossible to make enough on legal aid work to rent an office, so I work out of my car. It’s either this, or I take on private driving offences and licensing.’
He went on to list the pittance he’ll make working through evidence, fifty quid for every hour of CCTV viewed. And nothing for secondary disclosure – the reams of material deemed by the police to be irrelevant. If a case doesn’t go to trial – as she hopes Fly’s won’t – because the CPS drops the charges, then he doesn’t get paid. ‘Not ideal,’ he said. ‘You want a jury to acquit, because then you get the trial fee. Even though that fee doesn’t begin to cover the hours of preparation that a trial requires, especially a murder trial.’
Looking at him now, she takes in the shirt that is hanging out of his suit trousers at the back. The loafers that have seen better days and have the hint of Cornish pasty about them. His hair sticking up at mad angles. His fingers are stubby. His suit jacket, draped over the chair beside her, has concertinaed into creases at the back, where he’s sat on it. He is self-absorbed. Dishevelled in the way of clever people. She wonders if he has ever noticed her, in that way.
There are cracks in the case against Fly, she can feel it. It must be this chink of hope making her giddy but she should not confuse Mark Talbot’s attractiveness – which is probably simply maleness in proximity to her hormones – with the fact that he is helping her. He is on her team, though his legal experience means he refuses to be drawn on Fly’s guilt. Perhaps he is a pessimist by nature, or perhaps dealing day in day out with criminals has worn him down.