‘Anything?’
‘Didn’t need to watch much to find what we needed,’ Dan said. ‘Lola didn’t leave alone.’
Chapter Thirty-One
The desk sergeant raised an eyebrow at the man lingering in reception. He appeared to be sweating, despite the fact that it was bitterly cold outside, and even inside the station’s barely capable heating system was doing little to stave off the chill. The man had long hair that was pulled back into a messy ponytail. He was wearing leathers and carrying a helmet under his arm.
‘Can I help you?’
Stuart generally didn’t like helping anyone. His front of house position at the station was something of an ongoing source of ridicule amongst his colleagues who often claimed he would have been better suited to a role in a prison: his mardy expression and surly attitude were enough to put anyone off reoffending. On the plus side, his general apathy was a deterrent against time-wasters and that was something that was always needed.
‘I want to put in a complaint.’
If Stuart could have got away with sighing, he would have. As things stood, he had already been spoken to in recent months about his lack of customer service skills and was subsequently feigning best behaviour. He was supposed to make people feel safe and reassured. As far as he was concerned, it was this kind of soft-soaping that was turning the country to shit. Back in his day, the police had demanded authority and respect. They didn’t sit behind desks and offer politeness to people who had the gall to make complaints about the way they chose to run things.
His lips spread into a thin, meaningless smile. ‘Against?’
‘Against Detective Constable Chloe Lane.’
Despite the blast of heat from the radiator on the wall behind them, the air in Harry Blake’s office felt colder than it was on the street outside. Chloe stood beside Alex, her face pale and her eyes cast to the floor as though she had been summoned to the head teacher’s office. Alex knew she didn’t have to be there, but she felt a loyalty to Chloe and was aware of the pressure the young woman was under, something no one else at the station knew of. She had asked Harry if he would consider allowing her to return to a closed case – it wouldn’t take him long to work out which closed case that happened to be.
Superintendent Blake shoved a pile of papers aside. Alex watched him pointlessly move things around his desk, feigning productivity in an attempt to delay the real reason they were all there. She didn’t think it fair that Chloe should bear the brunt of his disgruntlement. She wasn’t yet sure of the details of what Chloe was supposed to have done. She had imagined the worst, but had optimistically decided to hope for the best.
No one else knew of Chloe’s connection to either the Emily Phillips or the Luke Griffiths case, and as far as Alex was concerned that was how it should stay. There was no getting away from the super finding out now, but Alex was determined to do everything she could to keep Chloe’s secret just that. She and Harry Blake had worked together for years. He had been responsible for her relatively quick promotion to detective inspector. She knew that beneath his cool exterior and his off-puttingly stern demeanour, Harry liked her. He respected her. She was confident she could persuade him, if needed, to keep Chloe’s secret between the three of them, if only in the short-term. And besides, there was plenty more going on. There was no way he would want any negative attention drawn to anyone on the team.
‘You’re aware of the complaint that’s been made?’ Harry asked, not inviting either Chloe or her to take a seat. Alex hoped that was an indication they wouldn’t be kept too long.
Chloe nodded.
‘Do you want to explain it?’
‘Not really,’ she mumbled. She looked up, caught his expression and gave a brief and barely audible apology. ‘It’s not quite as he said, sir. I never accused him of anything.’
‘Mr Sibley claims you accused him of murdering your late brother’s girlfriend. He says it’s not the first time you’ve done so.’
Though they weren’t within touching distance of one another, Alex felt Chloe’s body stiffen beside her. She shot the young woman a look.
What the hell had she been thinking?
‘Why have you never told anyone about your links to these two cases?’ Harry asked. ‘Well, except you,’ he gestured to Alex. ‘You obviously knew all about it.’
‘Only recently.’
The superintendent sat back in his seat and pushed his fingertips to his temple as though forcing back a headache. The fingertips of his other hand beat rhythmically on the wooden desk. Chloe braced herself for the verbal onslaught, but it didn’t come.
‘I didn’t want to be judged, sir. It’s never affected my work.’
‘Until now?’ Harry surmised. He sat forward and put his elbows on the desk in front of him. ‘I’m familiar with both cases. You weren’t with the police then, were you?’
‘I was still a teenager.’
Harry nodded. Alex watched him deliberating over his words, carefully sidestepping the things he really wanted to say. She almost felt sorry for him. What was he supposed to say to this young woman whose brother had been accused of murder and subsequently taken his own life? No police training could ever prepare a person for circumstances as unlikely and unpredictable as this. Everyone believed Luke Griffiths guilty. There had been no real reason not to.
‘Cases can only be revisited if new evidence has come to light; neither of you needs me to tell you that. Do you have any new evidence?’
Chloe shook her head, her top teeth clamped on to her bottom lip as though blocking all the things she wanted to say. She knew she was fighting a battle she couldn’t win. The case was closed. Guilty.
She was starting to wish she had never confided in Alex. She’d managed on her own for this long; why had she thought she needed anyone else now? All she’d done was open up to other people a past she’d kept a lid on for years.
Those bloody emails were to blame. She had responded spontaneously, her heart ruling her head. Someone seemed to be pulling her strings, as though knowing that the mere suggestion another person might know something of Emily’s death would be enough to send her plummeting back into the past. Had she reacted as they had hoped?
By her side, Alex cast Harry a pleading glance, but it went either unnoticed or ignored. She assumed the latter. She thought of the post-mortem report she had returned that morning and felt the same surge of guilt she had experienced when sitting at her kitchen table to read it.
‘All right then, I don’t want to hear any more about this until Lola Evans’s murderer has been found. I need you both on task, no distractions.’