Chapter 26
Bradford
Gus’s investigation into Erica Smedley’s murder was going nowhere fast. Plenty of suspects – she hadn’t been liked – but nothing concrete. Nobody stood out as being angry enough with her to do this. Nobody had seen a damn thing. One security camera that might have picked up something had been disabled for a few hours. Compo said that was easily done. If someone had the correct equipment, they could disrupt the basic frequency that home security cameras ran on. Whoever was responsible for Erica Smedley’s death, they were keeping themselves well under the radar.
Every promising lead had been tracked down and every bloody alibi checked out. Gus was beginning to wonder if it was a random thing – a burglary gone wrong – but he knew that wasn’t the case – it didn’t look like anything had been taken. The killer had even left behind the expensive laptop they’d use to incapacitate Smedley. That indicated revenge or a personal issue, but Gus wasn’t convinced. He half expected to get a call about a similar home intrusion murder – which would make things a whole lot more complicated. God, he hoped not. They already had the press hounding them about Miranda Brookes’ death and although Alice and Nancy had kept all speculation away from ritual killings, Gus was well aware that Miranda’s killer wasn’t done yet. The last thing they needed was another killer on the loose breaking into single women’s homes and strangling them.
His phone buzzed with a text alert. Dad! Shit. He wanted to avoid his parents for now. That image of his mum, the expression on her face, the hatred on the other kids’ faces hit him hard. It filled his chest with burning embers that he needed to douse before he could face her again. She wasn’t the only one to blame for not sharing her childhood experiences. He’d made assumptions. Assumptions that as a mixed-race guy who’d faced his own share of racism over the years, he shouldn’t have made. Why would he have imagined his mother’s childhood would have been smooth and pain free? He was an idiot who, as Alice told him every so often, buried his head in the sand. He opened the text from his dad, imagining his chubby thumbs trying to type it out. He and Katie often teased him about his inability to text at speed and his propensity not to notice when auto correct changed the entire meaning of his message. Today it seemed he’d been extra careful.
Dad: Angus. Your mum needs you. She loves you and she needs you more than ever right now.
Gus hesitated, unsure how to reply. He wanted to reach out to his mum, but he was well aware that he needed to get his own anger under control if he was going to be of any use to her. He loved her so much it hurt and he needed to be able to squash his anger at her about the damn sketches – but more importantly, his anger at any one of those people who had hurt his mother when she was a child. It was easy to depersonalise things when it didn’t affect those you love. To have a self-righteous anger when it didn’t directly touch your life – Gus realised he’d been living in a cloak of denial. What was he thinking? How could he not have realised that his mum was probably a descendant of one of the Windrush generation. As far as he knew, she’d never had any contact with her biological father – why had he never asked her about his grandparents? Why? The word reverberated in his brain in much the same way as the current I Can’t Breathe chants echoed around the world in response to George Floyd’s treatment at the hands of the US police. Anger filled him. He’d watched the recordings, counted the minutes, sat shocked and disbelieving with Alice. He’d even attended the #BlackLivesMatter demo in City Park and felt a sense of the times changing. He couldn’t identify with the officers who murdered Floyd – his entire police career had been about fighting the injustices that left people vulnerable to racism, poverty, disadvantage, and more. He’d exposed corrupt misogynistic and racist officers, had tried his best not to perpetrate any prejudicial treatment on the people he came in contact with. But it seemed that the changes that had occurred over his fifteen years in policing, were merely the top of the iceberg. Blowing his anger out in a long slow exhale as his therapist had taught him, Gus looked at his phone screen for a long moment before responding to his father. His words inadequate to express the quagmire of emotions that roiled through his body.
Gus: I know, Dad. I’ll come over soon. Love you xx
Chapter 27
Bradford
Gus could see Alice’s frustration. It was evident in every stilted move she made, every clipped question she asked, every curt order she issued. The entire room seemed to palpate with it, and it was affecting both Taffy and Compo – Carlton as usual seemed oblivious. Their nervous glances, the way they – particularly Compo – seemed to duck their heads every time Alice, who paced the room with irritating regularity, came near.
They were well used to Gus being demanding and, he acknowledged, moody, but Alice was the one who usually lightened situations. The one who mediated between Gus and the other two. Her fearlessness meant she would call Gus out on unacceptable behaviour and the entire team benefitted from her abilities. Now, however, she was the boss – she was the one causing the strain and, Gus realised, although he wasn’t officially on the investigation, he’d have to play at being Alice for once. God how the mighty have fallen!
Mind you, his own investigation into the Erica Smedley murder had also stalled big time, so he knew exactly how frustrated Alice was.
