Trust No One

the right thing might be. ‘I really don’t know, Hugh. You were closer to him towards the end.’

Another thought struck her. If Salter was right about Welsby, that would explain why Welsby had wanted to keep Morton’s handling ‘in the family’.

Salter gazed at her over the top of the glass as though he were reading her mind. Well, good luck with that, she thought. At the moment, I can barely read my own. She swallowed the last of the Scotch and looked at her watch. Just gone ten. It felt a lot later.

‘I’m going to turn in, Hugh. I’m knackered.’

‘Sure you don’t want anything to eat?’

She shook her head, and it felt as if her brain was in danger of coming loose. ‘Should have had something earlier. Can hardly keep my eyes open now.’

She pushed herself slowly to her feet, finding it harder than she’d expected, the room swaying gently around her. ‘Christ. Must be getting old. Can’t take my drink.’

Salter rose to take her arm. ‘My fault,’ he said. ‘You’re exhausted. Shouldn’t have plied you with spirits on an empty stomach. Let’s get you to bed.’

She couldn’t work out whether there was any intended undertone to the last sentence, but barely had the energy to care. If he tried anything, she’d no doubt summon the will to knee him in the balls.

He led her across the hall and pointed to one of the bedrooms. ‘You take that one,’ he said. ‘Occurred to me that you’d have left your stuff back at the hotel, so I organized you a few bits and pieces. Washbag, dressing gown. Some basic clothes. Hope they’re more or less the right size. Guesswork.’

And observation, she thought. Salter wasn’t the only colleague who undressed her mentally, but he was probably the only one who’d make a note of her vital statistics in the process.

She paused at the bedroom door, taking in the neat double bed, the slightly garish duvet cover, the magnolia walls and beige carpet. The bed, at least, looked irresistibly inviting. She glanced over her shoulder.

‘Goodnight, Hugh,’ she said. ‘And thanks. Really.’

Chapter 28

She woke in pitch darkness, with a headache, a mouth that tasted like the wet sand where she’d struggled with Joe hours before, and an unaccountable sense of unease. It took her a moment to recognize where she was. After some blind searching, she found the curved shape of the bedside lamp. It took her another few seconds to find the switch, and then the room was flooded with light.

She lay back, her dazed mind piecing together the sequence of events that had brought her here. The police. The hotel. Joe. The beach. Salter. The sense of unease was mounting as her mind tracked through the incidents of the previous day.

Shit. Her handbag. She’d left it in the sitting room. She’d been too befuddled to think about it before going to bed, but it had been sitting by the side of her chair. With the data stick still tucked away in the lining. Shit.

She dragged herself slowly out of bed, trying to get her brain back into gear. She’d stripped off her clothes before climbing into bed and donned a fairly unflattering nightdress that had been left among a neat pile of clothes on the flat-pack dressing table. Now she caught sight of herself in the dressing table mirror. Nice taste, Hugh, she thought. But it could have been worse. She could imagine him contemplating some far more revealing outfit. She pulled the towelling dressing gown on over the top and turned to the door.

She’d been relieved to discover that there was a bolt on the inside. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t trust Salter. Whatever she might think of him, she couldn’t imagine that he would force his attentions on her against her will. But, after everything she’d been through, she needed the sense of security.

Now, she slid the bolt back, and as silently as she could, opened the door. She hadn’t been asleep for long. Across the hallway, a light was still burning in the sitting room.

She took a noiseless step along the hall and peered through the doorway. Salter was still sitting on the sofa, side on to her, head down. Her handbag was open on his knee, and he was systematically sorting through the contents.

She considered walking into the room and challenging him. Instead, she continued silently past the sitting room and into the kitchen. There, she turned on the cold water tap and began searching, deliberately noisy, through the cupboards in search of a glass.

‘You OK?’

She turned. Salter was standing in the doorway. ‘Just getting some water. Somebody filled my mouth with sawdust while I was asleep.’

‘Glasses in there.’ Salter gestured towards a cupboard in the corner. ‘There’s juice in the fridge if you want it.’

‘Water’s fine.’ She busied herself locating a glass, filling it with cold water. ‘Don’t suppose there’re any painkillers around?’

‘That drawer, I think. There’s a load of first-aid stuff.’

She pulled open the drawer. Sticking plasters. Rolls of bandages. A thermometer. An antiseptic spray. Boxes of paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin. She tore open a box of paracetamol and popped out two tablets.

Sipping the water, she made her way back into the sitting room, curling herself up in the corner of the sofa. Salter stood by the door, watching her.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Oh, I’ll be OK. Just too much of that stuff on an empty stomach.’ She gestured towards the Scotch bottle on the table. Its contents hadn’t noticeably reduced while she’d been in bed, which was interesting in itself. Salter had a nearly full glass in his hand, but it could have been the same one he’d been drinking when she’d retired. She held up her own glass of water. ‘Prevention’s better than cure, and all that. If I deal with it now, hope I’ll feel less crap in the morning.’

She was still feeling pretty awful. Not just the dry mouth, the headache, the incipient nausea, but something more. An odd light-headedness, a sense that she wasn’t fully in control of her thoughts and movements. The feeling that she’d been sedated.

Was it possible? Maybe. Salter could have slipped something into the tea he’d given her earlier. Perhaps he’d hoped that it would combine with the whisky to knock her cold. Get her out of the way so he could check through her things, as he’d apparently been doing with her handbag. Or maybe his aim had just been to relax her, get her disinhibited. Encourage her to talk.

‘Jesus, I must have been out of it,’ she said.

‘How d’ you mean?’ He was still standing motionless in the doorway.

‘When I went to bed. Left my handbag out here.’

‘Did you? Well, safe enough, I should think.’

‘Yeah, but I’m a woman, Hugh, in case you hadn’t noticed. Never like to be more than two feet from my handbag. Makes me feel insecure.’ She pushed herself to her feet and picked up the bag. ‘I’d better turn in again. What time do you want me up in the morning?’

‘Up to you. I’ve some business first thing.’

‘What sort of business?’

‘Shaking the cage. I reckon Kerridge is getting a bit rattled. He thought he’d got Boyle out of the way, but Boyle’s been more resourceful than he expected. Now Boyle’s slipping out of our net, and Morton might’ve had something up his sleeve that puts Kerridge in the frame. Squeaky bum time.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Just have a chat with a couple of people. Set some hares running. Increase Kerridge’s jitters a bit. If he’s rattled, he might start to make mistakes. He might also put a bit of pressure on Welsby to help him out. Maybe they’ll get careless and give us some of the harder evidence we need.’

‘Sounds a long shot.’

‘You know the game, sis. It’s all long shots. But you keep going, and once in a while something comes good.’