Scarred for Life (37 page)

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ve seen enough people who are scared of other people over the years. It gives off a scent. I can smell the fear in here. Constable?’

Archie joined in: ‘Aye – fear and bullshit. The room stinks.’

‘Who is it?’ Jessica asked.

Bob’s eyes flickered up at the camera again but he didn’t flinch, shaking his head instead. ‘Who have I got to be scared of?’

Jessica ended the interview and called the uniformed officer stationed outside to take Bob back to the cells. As the professor stood, Jessica slotted behind him as Archie moved in front. Archie apologised to the officer for messing up protocol but it gave Jessica the moment she wanted. She reached up and pulled down the collar of Bob’s shirt. He spun and tried to tug it back up but she had already seen the tattoo just above his shoulderblade embedded on his wrinkled skin: a black and white fleur-de-lis.

46

Jessica sat in the chair opposite DCI Cole’s desk, telling him everything that had happened with Robert Harper. He nodded, asked her if that was all, and then said he’d deal with the CPS. Jessica was already on her feet in the doorway when the red mist hit. It had been building for so long that she was pointing a finger and shouting before she knew what she was doing.

‘No, that’s not all. You
do
realise he almost got away with it because of you? Whether it was Pomeroy or whoever else, you let them do this and you almost let some kid get the blame for it.’

Cole peered past her along the length of glass where the corridor was empty. ‘If you’re going to raise your voice, can you at least do so when the door’s closed?’

Jessica slammed it. ‘That’s your answer?’

Cole remained sitting, voice calm. ‘I was asked to do something by a member of the command team. I did as I was told.’

‘You did as you were told without asking questions!’

‘Perhaps that’s something you need to learn? We got there in the end, didn’t we?’

Jessica couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Getting there in the end shouldn’t be the way they did things. She spat the reply. ‘I know what you did.’

Cole’s lip were sealed but he snorted ever so slightly through his nose, nodding. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes.’

Without a word, he dug into his pocket and took out a set of keys. He turned and unlocked a black metal filing cabinet behind him, reaching into the bottom drawer and taking out a shoebox. He locked everything back up before turning towards Jessica and offering her the box. ‘Go on.’

Jessica took it hesitantly, lifting the lid and pulling out tightly packed folded newspapers. At the bottom was something she recognised. Something she hadn’t seen since a cold evening in a cobbled alleyway.

‘These are my glasses,’ she whispered, barely believing they were there.

‘I know.’

She glanced up. ‘Where did you find them?’

‘I think you know.’

Suddenly, the fact that Cole had been cold with her for months made sense. ‘I—’

‘I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I’m still a police officer. Sometimes it’s better not to know.’

‘But—’

Cole spun and grabbed her wrist. ‘
Stop
, Jessica. They were found at a crime scene where someone was shot dead. No witnesses and a gunman that apparently had no connection to him. I don’t want to know the rest.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘
STOP!
’

Cole’s voice thundered around the room and he gripped Jessica’s wrist so tightly that she dropped the box.

‘I don’t want to know,’ he added, still shouting. ‘Just take those and do whatever you want with them – but if you want to lecture anyone else about what they get up to, then perhaps you should look at yourself.’

Jessica picked the box up and began to put the newspaper back in.

Cole’s voice was almost back to normal when he spoke again: ‘You should know that I’ve already put my notice in. I finish officially on December the thirty-first. There’s going to be an announcement soon. Pratley’s review is due on January the second but Greater Manchester Police’s past behaviour is going to be branded “institutionally corrupt”. It won’t affect anything from the past ten years or so – but it will still recommend a top-down reshuffle. It’s going to be a very different place to work from next year.’

‘How do you know that?’

He snorted again. ‘Because when you mix with others and don’t spend all your time working against them, believe it or not, some people are more willing to talk to you.’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. We’ve got a few more weeks and then we go our separate ways – but if you think I’m such a bad guy after everything that’s happened, then perhaps you should ask yourself who put that letter through your door.’

Jessica stared at him, searching for the truth, even though his eyes were still fixed on his desk. ‘
You?
’ She paused, still not believing it. ‘Why wouldn’t you just tell me?’

‘You forget that we’ve worked together for a long time.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Since when did you listen to me? Or anyone? You were happy to go away thinking I was whoever you wanted me to be. I told you that I had to listen to – and obey – what I was being told by other people. I could hardly endorse you running around poking your nose into things officially.’

Jessica almost whispered the word ‘Pomeroy’ again but Cole had confirmed it without needing to say the name. He was far better at this game than she was.

‘How did you know about the logo?’ she asked.

‘How did you find out about the connections between everyone in your photograph?’

‘They were all the same age.’

‘Do you know how old I am?’

‘You’re not—?’

‘I wasn’t in their year – I’m a little older. It was my school crest.’

Jessica stopped to consider it. Asking someone which school they went to thirty or so years ago was not something people did. ‘So you knew about them?’

‘Not really – there were a couple of lads in my year who called themselves Florians. No one thought anything of it but they used the symbol. When the pressure was being put on me from above, it was mentioned that perhaps I should remember where I came from.’

‘Pomeroy knew that about you?’

Cole nodded but wouldn’t say the name. ‘It didn’t take much to put two and two together once I knew that,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t know anything about Damon Potter getting it tattooed – that was news to me – I just thought I’d give you enough of a nudge to figure it out yourself.’

‘Freddy Bunce’s van?’

‘I have no idea – you found that.’

Jessica still hadn’t worked it all out but she had a few theories. She wasn’t going to find out any more from sitting around with a shoebox in her lap.

‘I should go,’ she said.

Cole didn’t reply but then he’d already said it – she needed to look at herself.

47

Jessica sat in the supermarket cafe nursing a cup of tea. It wasn’t so long ago that she would have been drowning her sorrows in a pub but this felt more appropriate.

Dave had piled through lasagne and chips, while Garry had eaten a salad, saying that he had to look after himself. Jessica had simply drunk her tea. It was dark outside, time for them all to go home, time for the staff to start thinking about closing.

After telling the pair of them about Bob’s confession, which would be common knowledge soon enough anyway, they still had the same questions she did. All Jessica could offer was speculation.

‘I checked the name of the solicitor Bob was in with on our sign-in sheet,’ she told them. ‘He’s a junior partner at a practice in the city centre.’ Jessica pointed at a figure in the middle row of the class photo which Garry had placed on the table. ‘Guess who owns the firm.’

It was one more person from the picture to add to the assistant chief constable Graham Pomeroy, builder Freddy Bunce, golf club owner Logan Walkden, council planning officer Declan Grainger, professor Robert ‘Call Me Bob’ Harper – and possibly Olympic medallist James Jefferies.

‘Why would Bob take the fall?’ Dave asked.

‘In many ways, he didn’t. I think he was pretty much telling the truth. Either he’d invited Damon to his house to recruit him to the Florians, or—’

Gary interrupted: ‘Where did that name come from?’

Jessica hadn’t told them about DCI Cole’s role. She cursed herself for being careless and quickly moved on. ‘I think it’s some sort of old school nickname. Anyway, either that was the reason Damon was at the house, or it was because Bob was trying it on as Archie thinks. He won’t tell us either way, so it’s almost irrelevant. I suppose he took the blame because it was his fault. If you assume there are powerful people in the group, would you rather admit to perverting the course of justice and risk a manslaughter charge, or would you rather face them? Even if he goes down for the greater charge, Bob will probably be out in three or four years. His career’s over but that would’ve happened just from us finding the drugs.’

The two men nodded before Dave replied. ‘Do you think he acted alone?’

‘I doubt it – Damon would have been heavy. Archie hammered Bob on it in the interview but he kept denying everything. There’s only so much you can do. We looked at phone records but there was nothing. He could have used a payphone or a different mobile if he called someone to ask for help.’

‘What about Holden?’ Garry asked.

‘He’s still on remand for the assault charges.’

‘I meant do you think they were trying to recruit him?’

‘No chance – he didn’t have the academic side to him, or the big money. Holden wanted to be the student president at the rowing club because it was the only thing he had in his life. He was convenient. I suspect our Olympian friend knew a little more about the hazing and initiations than he ever let on. When word came around that one of his old school friends could be in trouble, he put a call into Holden knowing that the kid looked up to him. He encouraged him to tell the police what he knew, knowing full well he’d tell us about the initiation rituals. Meanwhile, he called the other club members and asked them if they could
really
remember seeing Holden later in the evening when Damon died. He would have said that Holden was looking at implicating them all in the hazing and suddenly the stories started changing. It’s funny what people can and can’t remember when there’s a chance they could be dragged into something. We’ll check James’ phone records – but it won’t prove anything. He’ll say he was phoning them all to urge them to go forward with what they knew. Holden’s already told us that.’

Dave wanted to finish the thought process, so Jessica let him: ‘Holden thought he was doing the best thing by confessing to us, where really he was doing exactly what James and the rest of the Florians wanted him to. He didn’t expect the other club members to turn on him or change their stories, but when they did, it was already too late.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What about the logo?’ Garry asked.

Jessica paused for a drink. She wasn’t entirely sure. ‘I guess the tattoos are some sort of badge of honour, like a secret handshake. Perhaps they all have them, perhaps only a few. I remembered that when we went to see Freddy that he kept scratching his shoulderblade—’

‘I noticed that too,’ Dave said.

‘It was the same with Bob in his office, like a subconscious thing. Bones told us that Damon had been looking for a tattoo and I tried Bob’s collar on a whim in the interview room. It was a bit stupid really.’

Garry didn’t seem convinced. ‘If it’s such a secret – a nod and a wink, the odd phone call, don’t be seen together, that kind of thing – then why would Freddy Bunce set up a building company with that as its logo?’

Jessica puffed a breath through her teeth. ‘Who knows? We were at his house and it was this huge extravagant place, then he was wearing a T-shirt in the cold just to show that it didn’t affect him. He’s probably a bit of a show-off, but I guess the other thing is that you can hide in plain sight. If anyone questions anything, it’s an innocent builder’s logo – or an old school badge.’

Dave seemed nervous. ‘
You
questioned him about it.’

‘I think that’s what started the chain – he called Porky Pomeroy to complain, he told Cole to shut me down.’

‘But you got there anyway?’

‘Yes . . .’ Dave and Garry exchanged a nervy look.

‘What?’ Jessica asked, confused.

‘What do you think they’re going to do?’ Dave said.

‘About what?’

‘About
you
.’

Her eyes narrowed. For whatever reason, it hadn’t crossed her mind. ‘All I did was my job – they’ll be more annoyed at Call Me Bob for being careless.’ Jessica looked at the clock high on the wall. The assistants had cleared the other tables and were leaning on the counter at the front glaring at them. ‘We should go.’

Garry started packing his papers away, as Dave downed the rest of his drink. ‘There’s only one thing we don’t have a clue about,’ Garry said.

‘What?’

‘Who sent you that letter?’

Jessica shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll never know.’

ONE WEEK LATER

Jessica sat on the sofa with Adam’s arm draped around her. In comparison to all too many that had gone before, it had been a quiet week.

‘Ready to talk about it yet?’ he asked.

On the television, the adverts came on, so Jessica switched it off. Anything was better than watching some shiny-faced dick try to sell you a loan on daytime television. The mornings were the worst. ‘Our DCI is leaving at the end of the year. They announced it yesterday.’

Jessica hadn’t spoken to Cole since he’d told her, but with everyone else knowing, it now seemed real.

‘What does that mean for you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Promotion?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘More time off?’

Jessica laughed and wedged herself further into his shoulder. She’d just watched him eat two bowls overflowing with Coco Pops – yet he was still desperately skinny. What with Bex upstairs, it meant she was the fat one of the house. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about time off recently.’