Meanwhile, Cori adjusted to the realisation of new intel — Nash had lost his suspect. Was that was what this was all about?
‘Two nights ago,’ explained Nash. ‘Tuesday. The night Stephen Carman disappeared, and hasn’t been seen or heard of since. And there you have it, Sergeant, Inspector: the reason you are here, and the situation we hope you can begin to help us out of.’
There was an aggravation in Nash’s tone that Grey wasn’t sure was entirely warranted; as though the Southney officers were somehow responsible for the mess he was in? He tried though to process this sudden information — primarily the fact, as his mind began to grasp it, that Stephen Carman had been missing for as long as Thomas Long.
Beside him though, Cori was still transfixed by the image of suffering brought to her through the camera’s telephoto lens. ‘So how has Isobel been?’ she asked the room. ‘Have you kept watch of her?’
‘Rest assured,’ began Nash, ‘that if she had passed out or slumped over we would have been in there regardless of blowing our cover. But she’s holding it together; she’s strong. Trust me, Sergeant, when I say this is the very worst scenario we face, and we do not enjoy it one bit.’
‘She hasn’t been out of our sight,’ offered Sullivan. ‘She’s had the curtains open the whole time.’
Cori was reassured that Isobel had been under constant watch, but his statement niggled her,
‘But why would she close the curtains?’ she asked, it occurring to her that if Isobel kept them open all evening when most people had them closed, then she might not close them at all.
‘Because he doesn’t like too much daylight of a morning, does our Stephen,’ answered Nash. ‘Or that’s our best guess anyway. He’s not too keen on bright lights in general. Of course this may all be a part of his paranoid desire to stay unseen, unnoticed, which is at the core of his professional secrecy, and part of the reason why he’s so good at what he does. But,’ the Chief Inspector pondered, ‘I do wonder if he doesn’t have some form of epilepsy, a light-sensitivity? A lot of them do, you know, troublesome lads. Dyslexia too. They suffer frustration caused by learning difficulties, embarrassment over not being able to read, things like that. It’s half the reason why they can’t concentrate in the classroom or hold regular jobs…’
‘Fascinating though this is…’ Grey interjected, as eager to have answers as his Sergeant. But Nash continued,
‘She’s often on her own up there at night. She likes to sit at the window, just looking out over the city.’
Cori was becoming as exasperated as Grey, before Nash, as if reading her thoughts resumed,
‘I know what you’re thinking, Sergeant. And yes, it does seem contrary to our avowed duty to protect the public, and the countless police initiatives to crack down on domestic violence — it is a sad but all too common aspect of this couple’s relationship. But their… spats never last very long, which is I expect why she’s still with him… which was the next thing you were going to ask me, right? Why does she stay?’
Cori wasn’t sure it was, but he continued,
‘Well, life is never that simple; and believe me, Sergeant, she gives as good as she gets. See that huge TV on the glass stand? That’s his pride and joy, but not his first… a week ago she put his silver pistol right through the screen of its immediate predecessor.’
‘He’s got a gun up there?’ called Cori? This situation was going from bad to worse.
‘Not a real one, it’s a cigarette lighter, solid silver,’ explained Nash with a smile, Cori then remembering seeing the receipt earlier, from an up-market-sounding store in town. Nash continued, ‘He doesn’t ever use it though, doesn’t smoke even, just waves it about occasionally. He’s got a bit of an Al Capone fixation, or maybe Al Pacino? I don’t know who he thinks he is, but that screen’s big enough for us to make out most of the films he watches on it: and it’s a good job DVDs don’t wear out, or he’d be buying a new copy of Scarface every other week.’
‘But all this money they have to splash around,’ Grey was still struck by the evidence of their spending. ‘I thought he was just a kid selling amphetamines?’
‘He may have been when he worked in your town. He’s moved on now, moved up in the world, or so he thinks. We wouldn’t be here otherwise. He’s not selling sweets to school kids anymore. How do you think a major- league drug dealer operates?’
‘He smashes up expensive televisions,’ started Grey, lost in the fog of the conversation.
‘She smashes…’
‘Okay, but it doesn’t really matter. Forget about the televisions — they could put an ashtray through a dozen of them each for all I care. What about Isobel? Is that a head injury?’
‘Yes, there did seem to be a cut, but the redness has faded somewhat.’
‘How… how can you just say that?’ asked Cori. Despite the gloom, Grey just knew Cori was burning with indignation beside him.
‘You think I don’t care?’ Nash jumped to his own defence. ‘I’ve been watching her alone up there, nursing that wound, for two days now.’
‘No one ever died of delayed concussion, at least that I ever heard of,’ uttered the hidden Sullivan.
Cori sat there in the darkness feeling her concerns brushed aside; but before she could say anything, somewhere in the formless space of the dark room a radio crackled, prompting Sullivan to ask Nash, ‘Can you get them out of here, sir? I’ve got to speak to Central.’
Grey hardly noticed the insult, as, with an arm around his shoulder, Nash continued to talk to him as he led him back to the dimly lit landing. In the confusion Cori had been left at her nocturnal viewing post, her eyes focused on the languid frame of Isobel Semple sprawled across the leather sofa.
On the landing Nash continued, ‘Inspector, you think I’m being heartless. I get it, I really do. We’re sitting here watching a woman in acute distress, and doing nothing. I can see how that confuses you. Her suffering appeals to your innate humanity, and especially so with her being the woman you’ve been searching for so long. Now, I’ve shared a lot of our operation with you this evening, but I fear I also have to share a few home truths. You will not enjoy them.
‘One: Isobel is not an innocent in this. She knows exactly what her partner does. She doesn’t pack his lunch and think she’s waving him off to the office each morning.
‘Two: we are not their guardian angels. We are only here to stop them doing the bad things they are doing to other people; and if as a result of our operation we see bad being done to — or amongst — the criminals themselves, well, as I say, this viewing post isn’t here to jump to their aid the moment a perpetrator comes to harm. We play a long game, Inspector, and sometimes short term kindnesses must be forgone for the greater good of the exercise.
‘Now, I’ve seen Carman commit a hundred acts against a hundred people; and I have had to step back, let it happen, and know in my bones, that I will have enough after six months to put him and other much worse people behind bars for many, many years. Think of the thousands whose lives will be the better for that.
‘Now, is there one part of what I’ve said so far that you are not on board with?’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Grey. ‘Enough of the humanitarianism. I’m prepared to credit you with doing what you’re doing here with the best intentions. But please, tell me what happened on Tuesday.’
‘Very well,’ began Nash in reserved tones, as if resigned, Grey felt, to knowing things couldn’t move on until the story had been retold to the Inspector’s satisfaction. ‘Not long after receiving the phone call from the hotel on Tuesday morning, Isobel left the flat; we thought either just to go shopping or see friends or have a coffee in town as she often does…
‘And you lost her?’
‘As I said before, surveillance isn’t tailing someone all day and all night. We don’t have the manpower for a start, and it offers too many opportunities to give ourselves away and for the subject to get suspicious. Rather, it is about establishing patterns of behaviour, knowing where someone is likely to be going, and where they are likely to next appear, and what they are likely to be doing there. You would be surprised how effective this is, how routine even criminal lives become. Where the system falls down however, is when a canny person, perhaps knowing they are being trailed, makes a one-eighty degree turn, goes right off the expected route and vanishes from the radar screen.’
‘And this is what she did?’
‘Well, all I know is that we didn’t see her again until the same time on Wednesday. And that’s not all: later on Tuesday daytime, after she had left, Carman came home; and after five minutes stormed right out again.’
‘And that was the last you saw of him?’
