‘I was only three months gone when the attack happened. I wasn’t showing. Back then, you didn’t advertise that you were expecting. And as it turned out, it’s just as well. He’d have rushed me to the altar and I’d have been stuck with the pathetic little coward. I’d never have had all this,’ she added with absolute conviction, waving her arm proudly to encompass her offices. ‘Eddie did us a favour when he cleared off.’
This, thought Carol, was where self-belief teetered over into self-delusion. ‘You don’t think he was entitled to know his son?’
‘You get what you take in this world. Entitled’s got bugger all to do with it.’ With that brutal line, Vanessa got to her feet. ‘This time, we’re really done. I’ve nothing more to say to you. You can tell Tony or not. I couldn’t care less.’ She opened the door with a flourish. ‘You really could do better for yourself, you know.’
Carol smiled in her face as she walked out. ‘I almost feel sorry for you. You have no idea what you’re missing.’
CHAPTER 22
Friday was the best day of Pippa Thomas’s week. Since she’d cut her working week at the surgery to four days, she’d found a space in her life for her. One whole day when she didn’t have to poke and prod, drill and fill to improve other people’s smiles. One whole day when Huw was at work and the kids were at school and she was free. And she loved it.
But most of all, she loved the Friday Morning Club. There were five of them. Monica, who worked afternoons and evenings at the Citizens Advice Bureau; Pam who looked after her demented mother and chose to spend her limited respite budget to liberate her for Friday mornings; Denise, who was a Lady Who Lunched except on Fridays; and Aoife, who ran the front of house at the Bradfield Royal Theatre. Rain or shine, they met in the car park of the Shining Hour inn, high up on the moors between Bradfield and Rochdale. And rain or shine, they would run a dozen miles over some of the roughest terrain in the north of England. They’d first met on a Breast Cancer Fun Run one Sunday in Grattan Park. ‘Talk about oxy-moron, ‘ Denise had muttered as the five of them searched in vain for a toilet that was unlocked. ‘Fun and breast cancer. Yeah, right.’ They’d ended up acting as lookouts for each other as they squatted in the rhododendrons to empty their middle-aged bladders before they could run. By the end of the afternoon, the Friday Morning Club had been born.
That Friday it was a bright blue day with an exfoliating edge to the north-east wind that knifed its way across the Pennine moors. Pippa hugged herself inside her lightweight top. Soon she’d feel that delirious sense of her body moving freely through this amazing landscape. As soon as they set off Pippa assumed the lead. Denise took up position on her shoulder and they exchanged a few catch-up sentences. But soon they needed all their breath to feed oxygen to their muscles for the long slow climb up to the summit of Bickerslow.
Head down, Pippa felt her quads stretch and swell as they carried her onwards. No time for the view now. All her focus was on reaching the marker cairn, where they would wheel west and find the shelter of the hill’s shoulder and metalled surface, a brief respite from rough going. They’d barely started up the single-track road that dribbled across the moor top when Pippa stopped in her tracks. Denise cannoned into her, almost sending them both flying. ‘What the hell is it?’ Denise demanded.
Pippa said nothing. She just pointed at the soaking bundle lying in a gully by the road. In spite of the bag that covered one end of the filthy cloth, there was no doubting that it was the remains of a human being.
Friday would never be the same again.
Paula helped herself to a mug of the coffee someone had already brewed and parked herself behind her desk. Although it was only half past nine and the chief had rearranged the morning briefing for ten, the team were already here. At least, she thought Stacey was here. The battery of screens was so effective that she was almost invisible. But the faint tap and click of mouse and keys indicated her presence. As usual. Paula sometimes wondered if Stacey ever went home. Or even if she had a home to go to. Paula had never worked with anyone more secretive than Stacey. One way or another, she’d been in the home of everyone on the squad except for her. It wasn’t that she was unfriendly. Just from another planet. Though lately, Paula thought she’d seen signs of Stacey thawing a little where Sam was concerned. Nothing major. Just making him the occasional brew and actually volunteering information about where he was and what he might be doing. Which she never did about anyone else.
Paula reminded herself there were more important things to think about this morning than her colleagues’ personal lives. Every police station she had ever worked in had been a gossip factory. It was as if they had to make up for the unpleasantness of most of their work with an obsessive curiosity about the possible secrets of everyone else in the place. Overheated imaginations ran riot, perhaps because they were supposed to be bound so tight by fact in their professional lives.
She switched on her computer, but before she could check the overnights for any further progress, Sam Evans, freshly returned from the Lake District, perched on the corner of her desk. He was fractionally too close, just marginally in her personal space. It was a thing that men did unconsciously to diminish women, she thought. To put us on the back foot.
But with Sam, it never bothered her. He was one of those few men who were entirely relaxed around lesbians. There was nothing threatening in his closeness. If Paula was honest, she liked Sam. She knew he was nakedly ambitious, always out for number one. What amused her was that he thought nobody apart from the chief had sussed him. And if you knew what somebody’s weakness was, it was easy to circumvent it. She liked Sam’s quick mind. And, curiously, she liked his smell. His cologne was spicy, with a hint of lime, but it didn’t completely erase the maleness of his natural odour. Mostly it was the smell of individual women that pleased Paula, but Sam was a rare exception and she knew it made her more susceptible to his charm.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Ten o’clock briefing in the middle of a high-profile murder. What’s going on with the guv’nor?’
Paula pulled a face. ‘No idea. I assumed she was briefing the incident room at Northern about Daniel Morrison and talking to Central about the search for Seth Viner.’
Sam shook his head. ‘She was at Northern at half past eight. Sorted out the actions for the day and she was out the door by ten to nine. My spies tell me she’s not been at Central yet.’
Kevin was openly eavesdropping on their conversation. ‘And she was on the missing list yesterday morning. When you called in from the crime scene, she wasn’t here.’ He went to refill his coffee then joined Paula and Sam.
‘Where was she?’ Paula asked.
‘Don’t know. It took her a while to get there, though. So not anywhere in the immediate vicinity.’
‘And she wasn’t around yesterday evening,’ Sam said.
