Harlan was woken by an insistent and ominously regular knocking at his door. It was a knock he recognised, a knock he’d fully expected. It sent a thrill down his back. Not rushing, he rose and went through to the toilet. By the time he was done in there, he’d composed his thoughts and appearance. “Mr Miller,” shouted a male voice, impatient but professional.
“Coming,” called Harlan, flushing the loo. He opened the door and found himself faced by the steely eyed DI Scott Greenwood and his po-faced partner DI Amy Sheridan. “Sorry about that. How can I help you?”
“We’d like you to accompany us down to the station,” said DI Greenwood.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“We’re just here to fetch you. The DCI wants a chat.”
“A chat?” Harlan frowned. “About what?”
DI Greenwood’s purse-lipped expression made it clear that whether or not he knew the answer, he wasn’t about to tell Harlan.
“Am I under arrest?” asked Harlan.
“No.”
“And what if I don’t feel like going down the station?”
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” put in DI Sheridan. “The choice is yours.”
“It doesn’t sound like I’ve got a choice.” Harlan pulled on his shoes and coat, and followed the detectives to their car. They rode to the station in silence, punctuated by brief spurts of gabble on the two-way radio.
DI Greenwood led Harlan to an interview room while DI Sheridan went to inform Garrett of their arrival. When the DCI entered the room, Harlan asked with feigned puzzlement, “What’s this about?”
A scowl creased Garrett’s pink, well-scrubbed face. “Don’t play games with me, Miller. You bloody well know what this is about.”
“Sorry, but I-”
Before Harlan could finish, Garrett brought his hand down on the table with a bang that reverberated around the room. “Where were you last night?”
“At my flat.”
“All night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Alone?”
Harlan nodded. He expelled an impatient breath through his nostrils. “Look, either you tell me what I’m doing here or I’m leaving.”
Garrett regarded him with narrowed, probing eyes. “William Jones. Recognise the name?”
“Of course. It was all over the newspapers.”
Garrett gave a small wince, as if the fact pained him. “Have you ever met him?”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, not a hundred percent. I’ve met a lot of scumbags in my time. You know how it is. After you’ve been on the job for a few years, the faces and names all start to blend together.”
“I’m not-” began Garrett, his voice rising. He stopped himself, took a breath and continued in a controlled voice, “I’m not talking about when you were on the job. I’m talking about since Ethan Reed’s abduction.”
Harlan gave a wry inward smile. Garrett was usually a calm, competent interviewer, but something about Harlan got under his skin. It wasn’t hard to guess what that something was — Harlan had been one of Garrett’s protegees, fast-tracked through the ranks. He was supposed to be part of a new breed of detectives, someone who was as likely to solve a crime using a computer as they were chasing down suspects on the streets. Garrett had once regarded him as one of his greatest successes. Now the exact opposite was true. “In that case, the answer’s a definite no. So what’s happened to Jones?”
“What makes you think something’s happened to him?”
“Well it’s obvious something’s happened, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
Garrett glanced at DI Greenwood. “Tell him.”
Flipping open his statement pad, the detective recited, “Sometime between one and two AM last night a masked intruder broke into William Jones’s house. The intruder bound Mr Jones’s hands and feet, before questioning him about Ethan Reed’s abduction. When Mr Jones said he knew nothing about it, the intruder threatened to torture him. Mr Jones said again that he knew nothing, at which point the intruder left. At approximately five AM, Mr Jones managed to free himself from his bonds and phone the police.”
“And you think I was the intruder.”
“I don’t think, I know,” stated Garrett.
“Really? How do you know? Where’s your evidence?”
Garrett shot Greenwood another look, and the DI said, “Certain phrases the intruder used, in particular the way he referred to forensic evidence relating to Mr Jones’s conviction made him suspect that the intruder was, or had once been, a policeman.”
With a look of incredulous surprise, Harlan’s gaze flicked between his interviewers. “Is that it? Is that you’re evidence?”
“That’s all we have right now,” said Garrett, bending in close to Harlan. “But soon we’ll have more evidence. Hard evidence.”
Harlan didn’t flinch from Garrett’s gaze. “I can see how embarrassing this must be for you. But what did you think would happen once the media got hold of Jones’s arrest? You might as well have painted a target on the guy’s back. Half this city’s out for his blood because of you. And now you want to make an example of someone, so that no one else dares touch him. I understand that. I’d do the same in your position. But I’m not the guy you’re after. Since we last talked, I’ve steered clear of everything to do with Ethan Reed’s abduction. I haven’t even followed the case on the TV.”
As Harlan spoke, Garrett’s pink complexion deepened into an angry flush. “You’re right. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to nail you up for everyone in this city to see. Then I’m going to bury you so deep you won’t see the light of day for years. You’ve made a fool of me for the last time, Miller.”
“Is that it? Are we done? Or are you going to arrest me?”
“We’re done. For now. I could have your property searched, but I don’t suppose you’d be stupid enough to have left anything for us to find.”
“I don’t suppose I would, if I had anything to do with this.”
As Harlan stood to leave, Garrett added with a note of genuine sadness in his voice, “Do you know what the real shame of all this is? You were the brightest and best DI I ever had. I had such high hopes for you, Miller. Such high expectations. I gave you the opportunity to go as far as your ability could take you, but you threw it away.” He shook his head. “Such a waste.”
A ripple disturbed the calm surface of Harlan’s face. “That’s what life is — a waste, a fucked up joke.”
“If that’s really what you think, why bother going on?”
“Sometimes I don’t know. I really don’t.”
The two men stared at each other a few seconds more, then Harlan turned away. DI Greenwood escorted him from the station. “Do you want a lift home?”
Harlan shook his head. He needed to walk and think about what he was going to say to Susan Reed. Besides which, he’d suddenly noticed how hungry he was. He set off in the direction of a nearby cafe he knew from his police days. As he rounded a corner, a hand touched his shoulder. He turned and saw that it belonged to Jim Monahan. “Christ, Harlan, tell me you didn’t do it,” he said.
Harlan answered with silence.
Jim’s face ruckled in dismay. “For fuck’s sake, have you lost your mind? Just what the hell were you trying to achieve? We questioned that nonce, Jones, for two days and got zip from him. What made you think you’d do any better?”
Because I can do things the police can’t, thought Harlan, but he remained silent.
“Jones is in hospital, you know.”
Harlan’s heart gave a quick thump. It flashed through his mind that Jones might’ve suffered a heart attack or something, but he dismissed the thought — if that’d been the case, Garrett would’ve used it to try and get him to
