“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Annie checked her watch. “Look, I hate to rush you, but if you’ve finished…” There was no way she would be able to get back to her meditation now, not after this disruption, not to mention the wine, but at least she could watch TV or something and veg out. Almost anything would be better than this.
“I’m sorry,” said Nerys, her lower lip quivering. “I didn’t mean to spoil your evening…I mean, I just wanted to know if I could count on you, if you’re on my side. I’m sorry to waste your time. I’m just worried, that’s all.”
Then Annie saw tears in her eyes and softened. She hated herself for it, but she was a sucker for tears. Worse than any man she’d ever met. “Come on,” she said, pouring more wine. It was going down quickly; the bottle was almost empty. “Pull yourself together, Nerys. Look, Chambers isn’t going to crucify you. After all, it wasn’t you who fired the Taser. He’s an arsehole, yes, and a bully and a male chauvinist pig, but as far as I know he plays straight. At worst, he’ll play up to the media and give them what they want. He’s a PR man at heart, not a copper. But he’s not going to fit you up, for crying out loud. He’ll discover the facts and play it by the book, obnoxious bastard as he is.”
“But that’s just it, isn’t it? That’s the problem. The facts. What are they? And doesn’t it all depend on how someone else interprets them? What version will the media want? There could be as many different stories of what happened on Monday morning as there were people present.”
Annie knew that was true. She had once seen a film called Rashomon, one of her father’s favorites, which told the same story from several different viewpoints. Same facts. Different stories. “Perhaps,” she admitted. “But there’s nothing you can do about that. And he’s got his team from Greater Manchester to keep him on the straight and narrow. He’s not a law unto himself, much as he might like to think so.”
“I just need to know what to expect, so I can be prepared. What did he do to you when you worked with him?”
“Didn’t your friend in Human Resources tell you?”
“Nobody really knows but you.”
Annie took a deep breath and followed it with a draft of wine. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Seven, eight years or thereabouts.” And why does it keep coming back to haunt me? she wondered. She thought she had finally seen the end of Janet Taylor, Lucy Payne and the Chameleon case over a year ago, when it had come into her life again with a vengeance. Now Chambers was back. “Chambers himself didn’t do anything to me,” she went on. “Back then he was simply a lazy, lecherous, time-serving arsewipe who got others to do his dirty work for him while he got all the glory. Whatever glory there is in a job like that. Mostly he got his jollies from what he saw as his vindication in the gutter press. He always swayed with the wind of public opinion.”
“Why didn’t he retire when he’d put in his twenty-five? I heard he was practically living on the golf course.”
“The reorganization gave him a new lease on life, a renewed purpose. More power. Now he just seems to want to put as many coppers away as he can before he retires. But it’s not as if some of them don’t deserve it, and like I said, he’s not bent. He plays by the book.”
“But he has an agenda?”
“Oh, yes. With Chambers, you’re always guilty until you’re proven guilty. Especially if the newspapers say so.”
“So I’m right to be worried?”
“The two cases are very different,” said Annie. “PC Janet Taylor, the one I was working on, killed a notorious serial killer who had just hacked her partner to pieces in front of her eyes and was about to do the same to her. Unfortunately, a civilian called John Hadleigh, who had shot a burglar in his home about three hundred miles away, was convicted of murder around the same time. It would have appeared bad if a police officer had simply walked away scot-free after killing someone. End of story.”
“Even a serial killer? The Chameleon? I know about that case. I’ve studied it.”
“Then you’ll know what I’m talking about,” said Annie. “But you had to be there to understand the political climate and the media circus. Anyway, I convinced the CPS to lower the charge against Janet Taylor to manslaughter. You know the rest.”
“So it was politics? This woman, Janet Taylor, was a sacrificial lamb?”
“Hardly a lamb, but yes. Partly. It always is politics where the Chamberses of the world are concerned. You should know that. The higher you climb up the greasy pole, the more desperate you are to keep your grip.”
Nerys swallowed and sat for a moment, apparently contemplating what Annie had told her. “Can I count on your support?” she asked finally in a small voice.
Annie spluttered on a mouthful of wine and patted her chest as she coughed. “Christ, what on earth do you mean by that?” she said when she could talk again.
“I told you. I feel so alone. So isolated. I’ve got nobody to talk to.”
“You’re not alone. You’ve got your team beside you, your boss behind you. Besides, it’s not you Chambers is after, is it? It’s PC Warburton. He fired the Taser.”
“Don’t kid yourself. It’s all of us. If Warby hadn’t Tasered the bastard, I’d have shot him. Or one of the lads coming through the back would have.”
“Was it that bad?”
“Uh-huh. It was dark. The hall lightbulb blew when Warby turned it on. You don’t expect something like that. We knew there was a loaded gun in the house. We were already on high-tension alert.”
“Nobody even thought you’d have to go in that way,” said Annie. “And nobody could have known the lightbulb would choose that particular moment to blow.”
“We have to be prepared for eventualities like that. Act as if we are going in.” Annie topped up their wine. The bottle was empty now. “It was dark,” Nerys went on. “You could cut the tension with a knife. Like Warby said at the meeting, we didn’t know what might have happened since we were called in. They weren’t talking to us. The girl could have lost it, grabbed the gun. Anything. When he came out of the kitchen, Patrick Doyle, he was just a silhouette with what could’ve been a raised sword or baseball bat in his hand, even a shotgun. Warby just reacted first, that’s all. I might be the best marksman, but Warby’s got the fastest reaction time of us all.” She smiled to herself. “Would’ve made a great gunslinger in the old West. Fastest draw in the Wiske, we call him.”
“Why was the walking stick raised?”
“He was angry. Doyle. I think he’d already been having a row with his daughter. They’d been absorbed in their own little drama-and when we broke his door down and he heard that bloody almighty racket, well, people don’t take kindly to things like that, do they? He was just mad at us, that’s all, waving his stick about. Understandable. I don’t suppose he knew we were armed. He was just expecting an old mate to drop by-DCI Banks-not armed officers in full protective gear. He couldn’t see us, either. The light was on in the kitchen, so his eyes wouldn’t have adjusted that quickly. We probably looked like Martians in the darkness of the hall. It’s not something you expect, is it?”
“It certainly isn’t,” said Annie.
“So you know whose side public opinion is going to be on?”
“I can take a guess.”
Nerys shook her head slowly, then finished her wine. “It’s not fair. You can do all the training scenarios you want,” she said. “Just like Dirty Harry walking through a movie set shooting at cardboard cutouts. But when it’s real, it’s different. In training you know you can’t get shot or cut. But when it’s real…You don’t aim for an arm or a leg. Warby did the right thing. I’ll stick by him. I just want it to go down that way. I want them to see it for what it really was, mistakes and all, not set out to crucify one of us or sacrifice us to the press or public opinion. We do a necessary job and a damn good one, but it’s messy sometimes, and for better or for worse, people need us. But that doesn’t mean they want to acknowledge us or give us medals. They certainly don’t have to like us. Mostly they want to forget we exist, or to bury us.”
“I can’t control that,” Annie said. “But there are enough checks and balances. I’m still sure they’ll do a good job, remain impartial.”
“I wish I had your faith. I’d better go.”
Annie stood up, but not so fast that she seemed as eager to get rid of Nerys as she really was. The thought crossed her mind that Nerys had drunk the lion’s share of the wine. Was she going to drive? Perhaps Annie should offer her a bed for the night? But she didn’t want to do that. Best just leave the subject alone entirely and not even ask about driving. Maybe it was irresponsible of her, but the alternative was a minefield of complications. “Okay,”
