‘Isn’t it? Really?’ She noticed how still the doctor was. And worst of all, she was right, and Hanlon knew it. She knew it only too well. The alley incident was far from isolated. In the past few days there had been a road-rage incident and a furious row with the woman in charge of line-ups at Lewisham. How many times had she said to herself, ‘Bring it on!’? She looked into the shrewd face of the therapist; she had no intention of bringing any of this recent history up.
Dr Morgan continued, inexorable.
‘From what you’ve told me, the heavily edited version, I assume, things are escalating. You deliberately put yourself in positions of extreme danger—’
‘That’s not true.’
‘You could have called for assistance at least three times that I know of, from what you’ve told me.’ Hanlon considered this; it was true. Even at the planning stage, she’d been offered another car, she’d turned that down. When the chase had started, she’d been adamant they could handle it. It had been her decision to pursue the suspect alone. She hadn’t wanted any help, maybe she hadn’t wanted any witnesses.
‘But I couldn’t trust…’ This wasn’t fair, Hanlon thought.
‘No, you don’t trust people, do you? Don’t you think that’s part of your problem, an inability to trust? And those you do trust, you seem to treat them in a very high-handed way. This man Enver, your former colleague, the man you claim is your best friend, he’s not talking to you.’
Hanlon shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
‘That’s because of his wife. She’s a bitch.’
‘Is she? Is she really?’ Dr Morgan raised an eloquent eyebrow. ‘Or is she just angry with you for exposing her husband to danger, not to mention morally blackmailing him into actions that would get him sacked if they had come to light?’
‘You’re twisting the facts,’ Hanlon complained.
‘When we discussed past relationships, you told me you had even managed to find a lover with a similar laissez-faire attitude to the law. Even though like calls to like, it’s quite an achievement.’
‘He’s Russian,’ Hanlon muttered. Whatever Serg got up to was no business of the Metropolitan Police in her view. There was no conflict of interest. Part of her thought, Well, I’m not sure that is true at all. She buried the thought. Another skeleton from the past.
Dr Morgan laughed. ‘So what? What difference does that make? I’m half Russian if it comes to that.’
In her life outside work, in the boxing ring and in triathlons, she had inevitably come across people better than she was and when she recognised it, when she knew she was beaten, sometimes it came as a huge relief. To stop pointlessly fighting. She knew she was beaten, she knew, deep down, that Dr Morgan was right. Hanlon was suddenly tired of herself. As with so many events in her life, she had managed to alienate someone who could help; she had managed to turn an appointment with a doctor who she wanted to assist her into a fight.
Maybe it was time to stop fighting everyone and everything.
‘What should I do?’ she asked quietly. She suddenly felt that what she really wanted was a set of easy-to-follow rules laid down by Dr Morgan.
‘Go on holiday,’ she said. ‘There, simple advice. Like you told me you had planned to do. Get out of London. Go on this holiday to Scotland. There is nothing you can achieve down here. Then when you feel calmer, call me and arrange for a follow-up appointment. Then we’ll talk about your future.’
Hanlon stood up and went to the door.
‘Oh, one more thing…’ Hanlon turned. Dr Morgan said, ‘You have a problem with life. You might have noticed this by now – I certainly have. Now, as you can’t avoid that, just avoid crime, OK. You’re going to a sparsely inhabited Scottish island. Don’t get into trouble.’ She looked hard at her. ‘That should be an achievable goal.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Hanlon said and walked out of Dr Morgan’s tasteful house into the expensive, manicured Hampstead street.
2
The woman’s body was lying on the shingle and stones of the beach. She was wearing a black one-piece swimming costume. Her skin was very pale against the dark material. There were tattoos on her upper arms and shoulders. Her head was on its side, her ear had multiple piercings. She had short, badly dyed blonde hair and her micro-bladed eyebrows were very dark on her forehead. She looked very young and terribly fragile against the hard black and grey rock of the foreshore.
DI Campbell shook his head sadly as he looked down at her.
He remembered the last time he had seen her. The party. She had been working the bar. He closed his eyes for a second; the cold grey rocky beach disappeared. He was back reliving the past.
‘Can I get you a drink, Mr…?’
‘Murray.’ He had smiled, he remembered doing that. She had smiled back. Women often did – he was good-looking and knew it. ‘You can call me Murray. Aye, I’ll have a Guinness.’
‘Certainly, one Guinness coming up…’
Murray had been the name he had used when he had seen her. Not his real name. The dark bar, its lights low. Then she had been in full party mode – the illumination might have been dim but her smile was bright, her blouse buttoned low, the music loud, the guests flushed with excitement and alcohol. He couldn’t remember her name, but he could remember her eyes, pupils dilated, she’d been high, her hands brushing his suggestively as she had handed him the pint. Some of the head from the Guinness had splashed on her forearm and she had licked it off, cat-like, provocatively. She had been so full of life and now… this.
He straightened up and pulled off his latex gloves. There were no red-flag indicators of foul play, no obvious external cuts or abrasions. There was nothing to indicate anything other
