‘I know,’ she replied, comforting him. They’d both spent the vast majority of their lives as Londoners, tied to the city. Families, friends, jobs. His mum had been their only major link with London. There was no denying it was the end of an era in so many ways. ‘I’m presuming you haven’t told the boys?’
Mark shook his head. ‘No. I couldn’t. I just needed to… I dunno. I needed a bit of time to myself. I needed to process it all first.’
She’d been about to say he should’ve called her when he found out, when she remembered he’d called her twice while she’d been at Fineshade Wood. She’d silenced the calls, purely because she didn’t want to spook Tom, but with the presumption at the back of her mind that Mark was only calling to whinge that she wasn’t home and hadn’t let him know she’d be late. The guilt set in hard this time, and she began to feel overwhelmed with emotion. She embraced her husband, the two of them crying together, closer than they had been in many months.
54
Sleep had been hard to come by. After having sat up with Mark and getting to bed late, Caroline spent most of the rest of the night worrying about the boys, and how she was going to explain their grandmother’s death to them.
When Mark’s dad and brother had died, it had been expected. They’d been ill for quite some time, and the family had all had time to prepare — not that it made things any easier. In many ways, it had been harder watching them suffer for so long, going through treatment after treatment, hope after hope, then knowing the end was coming no matter what.
She couldn’t imagine what that last stage must feel like. She’d been through the others, of course, but had thankfully never had to come to terms with the knowledge — the absolute certainty — that the end was near. She didn’t know how she’d deal with that acceptance, if she could accept it at all. There had been a great many times when it had crossed her mind. More than she cared to remember. But it had always been a worry, a possibility; never the definite outcome.
She felt guilty at equating her illness with what had happened to Mark’s dad and brother, but it was unavoidable. If anything, it had helped her to convince herself that the same wouldn’t happen to her. Her assumption — her hope — was that lightning couldn’t strike thrice.
There was a dull ache at the back of her head — and an increasingly sharp one at the front — as she arrived at work that morning, ready for her meeting with Chief Superintendent Derek Arnold. She’d be pulled up for approaching Tom Mackintosh on her own, without the backup of armed response. There was no doubt about that. But she was comfortable and confident that she could explain her reasoning and certainty that doing things any other way would’ve resulted in a vastly different outcome. Whether she could put that across succinctly and delicately after so little sleep, though, was another matter.
She knocked on the door of Arnold’s office and waited for him to call her in. She stepped inside and sat down.
‘Well, good morning,’ the Chief Superintendent said, a smile crossing his face. ‘Did you get much sleep?’
‘Not as much as I would’ve liked, but then again, when is that not the answer?’
‘Indeed. Still, marginally better than a night shift, eh?’
‘Marginally,’ Caroline replied with a smile. Conversations with Arnold always seemed to feel slightly stilted. She could never quite work him out, and there was often an air of something approaching awkwardness.
‘So, how’s everything going otherwise? You seem to be recovering well.’
‘I am, I think. Still not fully there yet, but I don’t think I’m far off.’
‘Good, good. Have you had the... you know... the all clear?’
‘Not quite. In remission, hopefully. I should find out any day now if the operation got everything or if it’s grown back since. Then they’re talking about scans and checkups every few months before they’re happy to sign me off completely.’
Arnold raised his eyebrows and murmured to himself. ‘Blimey. Quite the journey, eh? Still, fingers crossed we’re on the home straight now.’
‘Fingers crossed, sir.’
‘And a good result on Operation Cruickshank. In the end.’
Caroline forced a smile. She understood the not-so-hidden meaning of those last three words. ‘Yes, in the end,’ she said, feeling an immediate need to justify herself but trying to find the words to do so diplomatically. ‘It wasn’t a conventional case, by any means. Far from straightforward and with a number of complicating factors, so I think the whole team can be very proud of what we’ve managed to achieve in a relatively short space of time.’
Arnold nodded as he looked at her. ‘Indeed. Indeed. And while we’re on the subject of unconventionality... I think you know what I’m going to say.’
‘Fineshade Wood?’
‘Fineshade Wood.’
‘I know,’ Caroline replied. ‘To be honest, it was one of those situations where a judgment call had to be made. Knowing what we knew of Mackintosh and the circumstances as a whole, we judged it would be far less risky to go in and talk to him rather than having an armed mob turn up.’
‘Or a selection of highly-trained officers, as most people would call them.’
‘I appreciate that, sir. And I agree. But I’m looking at this through the eyes of the man with the kidnap victim and the weapon. From what we knew of him, and of Amie Tanner, we came to the conclusion that it was the best way of resolving things without further injury or loss of life.’
‘We?’ Arnold asked.
‘Sorry. Me. The decision was entirely mine.’
‘Okay. We’ve got trained negotiators for that, you know. It’s no good risking your own safety.’
‘I know. But we had an existing relationship with him. I judged that would be a big advantage, considering the circumstances. And I think that
