the last thing they’d want would be to draw attention to themselves. Wouldn’t they try to make it look like an accident?’
Sam yawned. ‘Maybe that’s what they thought they were doing.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carol pushed herself upright and held her hand out. ‘I’ll do the first hour’s driving.’
‘From what I can gather, most doctors wouldn’t have picked up that this was ricin poisoning,’ Sam said, walking round to the passenger side. ‘If it hadn’t been for Elinor Blessing’s little hunch, they’d probably have put it down to some sort of virus. That’s what they were treating him for before she had her brainwave.’
Carol started the car and eased it forward. ‘Good point, Sam. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we were never supposed to suss out that it was murder.’
4:27, according to the clock in the bottom right corner of the laptop screen. Sound sleep had never been one of Tony’s accomplishments, but general anaesthesia seemed to have buggered it up completely. He’d slipped easily enough into slumber around ten, but it hadn’t lasted. Sleep seemed to be coming in fifty-minute chunks, punctuated with varying intervals of wakefulness. While the fifty-minute hours did seem ironically apposite for a clinical psychologist, he could have wished for more therapeutic effects.
He’d last shimmered into consciousness just after four. This time, he knew instinctively that there was no going back in the immediate future. At first, he lay still, his thoughts circling the re-emergence of his mother in his life in spite of his best intentions to move on to something else. It didn’t matter that there was nothing there but frustration and regret, a tightening gyre of pain and bitterness that kept him from sleep. It seemed impossible to ignore.
With an effort of will, he wrenched his thoughts round to the death of Robbie Bishop. He’d moved on from his memories of Robbie’s grace and glories to those elements that had more to do with his own expertise.
‘You’re not a novice,’ Tony said, his voice soft but distinct. ‘Even with beginner’s luck, you’d never have got away with this if it was your first outing. Not with someone as high-profile as Robbie. Whether you did this for personal reasons or because somebody paid you, you’ve done it before.’
He rolled his head against the pillows, trying to ease the stiffness in his neck. ‘Let’s call you Stalky. It’s as good a name as any, and you know I always like to make it a little bit personal. The question is, were you really an old school friend, Stalky? Maybe you were just pretending. Maybe Robbie was too polite to say he didn’t remember you. Or maybe he was conscious of the fact that his fame made him memorable compared to the other kids who were at school with him. Maybe he didn’t want to seem like an arsehole, acting like he’d never seen you before. Even so, even with Robbie’s reputation for being a nice guy, you’d still be taking a hell of a risk.
‘But if you were genuinely an old school friend, you were taking an even bigger risk. This is Bradfield, after all. Chances are that a fair chunk of the people in Amatis that night had also been at Harriestown High. They’d have recognized Robbie, for sure. But they might also have recognized you, unless you’ve changed a lot since schooldays. Very high-risk strategy.’
He found the bed controls and raised himself to a sitting position, wincing as his joints shifted. He pulled the bed-table across and flipped the laptop open, hitting the power switch. ‘You took a lot of risks, either way. And you took them with confidence. You got right alongside Robbie and nobody noticed you. You have definitely done this before. So let’s find your previous victims, Stalky.’
The light from the screen morphed in colour and intensity as Tony began his search, casting light and shade on his features, creating movement where none existed. ‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Show yourself. You know you want to.’
Carol opened the blinds that cut her off from the rest of the team. She’d called the case conference for nine, but although it was only ten past eight, they were all there. Even Sam, who hadn’t dropped her off till five to four. She wondered whether his sleep had been more refreshing than hers. She’d been conscious of him watching and waiting till she was safe inside the basement flat she rented from Tony. Then it had been her turn to watch and wait. As Carol fed the complaining Nelson, she kept an eye out until Sam’s lights swept across her kitchen window and the hedge that demarcated next door’s drive from theirs. Once she was sure he was really gone, she’d poured herself a resort-sized brandy and headed upstairs.
Picking up the mail from the doormat was a reasonable thing to do and it provided a pretext for her to climb the stairs to Tony’s first-floor office. She laid the letters on the desk, then subsided into the armchair opposite the one he habitually chose. She loved this chair-its depth, its width, its enveloping cushions that seemed to hold her close. In scale, it felt like a cave, as adult armchairs feel to children. In this seat, she’d discussed her cases, talked through her feelings about her team members, explored the need for justice that drove her to do this job in the teeth of all the dangers and disappointments. He’d talked about his theories of offender behaviour, his frustrations with the mental health system, his burning desire to make people better. She couldn’t even hazard a guess at the number of hours they’d spent at ease with each other in this room.
Carol curled her legs under her and snuggled, glugging half of the brandy without a shudder. Five minutes, then she’d head back downstairs. ‘I wish you were here,’ she said out loud. ‘I feel like we’re getting nowhere. Normally, nobody would be expecting much progress at this stage in a case like this. But this is Robbie Bishop and the eyes of the world are watching. So getting nowhere isn’t going to be an option.’ She yawned, then finished the drink.
‘You scared me, you know,’ she said, burrowing more deeply into the squashy cushions. ‘When Chris told me you’d run into the mad axeman, I felt like my heart stopped, like the world went into slow motion. Don’t you ever do that to me again, you bastard.’ She shifted her head, butting a cushion into a more comfortable shape, closing her eyes and feeling her body unwind as the alcohol hit. ‘Wish you’d warned me about your mother, though. She’s something else. No wonder you’re as weird as you are.’
The next thing Carol had known was the blare of the radio alarm from the bedroom across the hallway. Stiff and disorientated, she’d stumbled to her feet and checked her watch. Seven o’clock. Less than three hours’ kip. Time to start all over again.
And here she was, showered, in fresh clothes, caffeine levels already jitterbug high. Carol combed her thick blonde hair with her fingers and started skimming the pile of Robbie Bishop news stories Paula had already clipped for her. Focusing hard, because the last thing she wanted to do was examine how she had spent her night. She only looked up when Chris Devine knocked and entered, a brown paper bag in her hand. ‘Bacon and egg roll,’ she said succinctly, dropping it on the desk. ‘We’re ready when you are.’ Carol smiled at her retreating back. Chris had a knack for the gesture of solidarity, the little touches that made her colleagues feel supported. Carol wondered how they had managed before she’d joined them. The plan had been for Chris to be there from the off, but her mother’s terminal cancer had kept her in her old job with the Met for three months longer than she’d anticipated. Carol
