‘No, I know it isn’t. I’m not making light of it. It’s just – well, it doesn’t help just to look on the black side, does it? Not before we know there’s anything to worry about.’
‘I should just cheer up, then? That what you’re saying? Jesus, Marie, you weren’t here. You didn’t see what happened.’
It sounded like a reproach now, she thought. And she couldn’t argue with him. He was right. At the moment he’d really needed her, she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t even been able to come as soon as she’d known. It had taken her three or four days to get everything sorted. They hadn’t allowed her to leave, to come back here. They’d wanted her on the spot, while they went through everything. Endlessly, repetitively, exhaustingly. After all, as they’d pointed out, she was still a suspect in a murder enquiry.
She’d been phoning Liam’s mobile incessantly over those days, wondering where he was, but it was turned off. She’d left messages at the house, but there was no response. On top of all her own troubles, she’d been climbing the walls with worry about Liam – when push came to shove, her thoughts always went back to Liam. It was only on the fourth day, when they’d finally allowed her to return to her own flat, that she was able to dig out Jean’s number and been able to phone the old woman.
‘He was rushed into hospital,’ Jean had said, in a voice that remained only just this side of condemnatory. She had always made it clear that she neither understood nor approved of the younger couple’s long-distance relationship. ‘You need to come down.’
Marie had had to clear it with the powers that be in the Agency. In the end, that hadn’t proved too difficult, though the inevitable bureaucracy ensured that it wasn’t a swift process. No one believed now that she was responsible for Jones’ death. The evidence had only ever been circumstantial, and as she’d expected, wasn’t supported by the forensics. They had DNA evidence linking Jones to Morton’s death, with traces of Morton’s blood found on Jones’ clothing. The assumption was that Jones had had some secondary involvement in Morton’s death, and that he’d been eliminated as a potential weak link in an otherwise highly professional killing.
The line they were now pursuing, largely at Salter’s instigation, was that the whole sequence had been designed to remove potential witnesses against Boyle. Morton, as the key prosecution figure, had been killed directly. The murder of Jones and the attempted murder of Marie were attempts to tie up two remaining loose ends. If that was the intention, it hadn’t worked perfectly, but it had worked well enough for Boyle’s purposes. The exposure of Welsby’s corruption and links to Kerridge had been the last straw. What little evidence they had was tainted, and the prosecution case had been dropped. Boyle was a free man, contemplating the possibility of suing for wrongful arrest.
And the worst thing, for Marie, was that she hadn’t felt able to share any of this with Liam. The Agency hadn’t managed to contact him about Marie’s disappearance, just because he’d been in no state to answer the phone. They’d asked the local police to check up on him in case he’d absconded with Marie, but that had been overtaken by events.
So he knew nothing. When she’d discovered how serious things were, how much his condition had deteriorated in the short time since she’d last seen him, she decided that she couldn’t burden him with everything she’d been through. She couldn’t tell him about Jones, about her near arrest. About what had happened with Joe or at the bungalow. None of it.
‘Jesus, Liam. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. It’s the job. You know that.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, turning away from her on the bed. ‘Yeah, it’s always the fucking job. But you could change the job, you know? We’ve been through this.’
They had, countless times. And that was another thing. She really could change the job. She had the perfect opportunity. She just didn’t know what to do about it.
She was on back-room duties for the moment. They’d pulled her out of the field. They’d even offered her counselling, for all the good that that was likely to do. As she’d expected, the business had just been closed down – no warning, no reason given. Not even to Darren. She could imagine the poor little bugger turning up, day after day, wondering why the doors were locked, why the mail was piling up below the letterbox. Only gradually realizing that the place was finished, that she and Joe must have done a runner. They’d got an accountant sorting out the liquidation of the assets. She checked with him to make sure that Darren would at least get the pay that was owed to him, and she’d lobbied hard for him to be given a bit more besides. But she’d no confidence that it would happen. That wasn’t the way bureaucracies worked.
So she was back at HQ, doing desk-based intelligence work. For the moment, she was living in what she was relearning to call home, commuting daily into the office in central London. It was a routine. It was calming. It meant she could be close to Liam while he was in hospital. But she knew that the job itself would drive her slowly crazy.
Nobody intended to keep her there, of course. It was a short-term measure, to allow her to regain her equilibrium. They’d want her in an operational role again before long. And that was the thing.
She’d been sitting at her desk that morning, working her way painstakingly through a pile of largely uninformative files, when she’d grown aware of someone standing a few feet away, watching her.
‘How you doing, sis?’
‘Not so bad, Hugh. Considering. You?’
She hadn’t needed to ask. Salter was thriving. His star was definitely in the ascendant. There’d been a formal enquiry into the whole affair, in the light of Kerridge’s shooting. But Salter had emerged as a hero – the man who’d single-handedly taken on corruption in the Agency and brought down a major villain in the process. Although Kerridge’s wife had tried to kick up a stink about the circumstances of her husband’s death, her lawyers could make nothing stick. Everyone had witnessed Salter’s injuries, and once Marie had handed over the data stick, the emerging evidence against Kerridge was enough to torpedo any defence. Salter’s position was further eased by the fact that, in vainly trying to save some portion of his own backside, Welsby had sought to shift as much blame as possible in Kerridge’s direction. No one had challenged Salter’s claim that he’d pursued Welsby solo because he hadn’t known who else to trust, and Marie had confirmed Salter’s version of what had happened over those last few days. All this just made Salter appear more heroic. He’d exposed the bad apple in their midst. Set things right. Because no one wanted to believe that Welsby might not be the only one.
‘Yeah, I’m doing all right,’ he said. ‘You heard about Welsby?’
She shook her head. For all his wriggling, Welsby had been charged with corruption. Bail had been refused and he was being held in custody in Wakefield prison, pending his trial.
‘They found him this morning.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t happen in prison. Supposed to be on suicide watch. What do you reckon? They just turn a blind eye? Or is it more than that?’
‘I don’t know, Hugh,’ she said coldly. ‘Christ, you’re a heartless bastard, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘Didn’t notice the fat bastard showing much compassion when he was kicking seven shades of shit out of me.’ He paused. ‘Just got what was coming, if you ask me.’
There was something about the way he said it that chilled her. It felt, just for a moment, like a threat.
She didn’t trust him. She still didn’t fucking trust him. She thought back to what Welsby had said in the bungalow, and realized that she didn’t know the answer. She didn’t know whether Salter was just a ruthless careerist bastard. Or whether there was something more than that.
He’d been the first to urge them to consider what Boyle had gained from Morton’s and Jones’ deaths. He argued that the case against Boyle shouldn’t be dropped, that the CPS should try to gain them more time. He’d insisted that they could still succeed in building a case against Boyle. He’d stormed out in righteous anger when it was confirmed that the case was being dropped.
And the result was that the case was neatly passed into his hands. If you’re so smart, they’d said in not quite so many words, you land Boyle.
And maybe that was the way he’d wanted it all along. Maybe he’d wanted to take control of the case. So that, over time, he could quietly bury it. She thought back to what Kerridge had said in the bungalow. Someone had told Boyle who she was. Not Welsby, obviously. So who else?
‘Got some good news, sis,’ he’d said that morning. There were times when he had the air of an overenthusiastic teenager. Someone not quite house-trained.
‘That so, Hugh?’
‘Got my promotion. Finally got my own section.’
