Blind Fury (34 page)

“I didn’t think that.”

“Of course you bloody did. Why don’t you admit it? To be so two-faced beggars belief.”

“I’m not two-faced.”

“Christ, you even admitted what you thought when you found the blue blanket—and what’s this about dog hairs? My best mate’s never going to have a life—what’s with you suspecting even him?”

Anna stood in front of him, crying. She knew what he was saying was partly true, and she didn’t know how she could rectify the damage to their relationship.

“I’ll go because I don’t see how I can make it up to you. All I can say is that . . .”

“Say what? Always on duty, are you?”

“Yes, if you must know. Yes, I am, or I used to be, but not with you.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t humorous, it was cold laughter, and his eyes were still intensely angry.

“Can I make a cup of coffee?” Anna asked.

“No, you can just leave me alone and go back to London. I mean it, Anna. I can’t deal with this.”

She went into his kitchen. She was shaking, and even though she didn’t want a coffee, she made one. She walked back to the bedroom; Ken was now in bed, leaving only a small bedside lamp on.

“Do you want one?” she asked.

He sighed and shook his head. She moved slowly into the room and then sat on the edge of the bed. She was hesitant at first, beginning to explain about her visits to Cameron Welsh, the ongoing interrogation of their only suspect, John Smiley, how they were attempting to build a case against him but how it continued to fall apart no matter what new developments implicated him.

“I was told that the blanket found wrapped around Dorota Pelagia had German shepherd hairs, and we are certain it was one of the blankets issued to prisons.”

He lay with his eyes closed.

“Are you listening to me? Look, what happens is the trail of clues sort of fire up inside your brain. We’ve thought that our killer might even be a police officer or someone that the victims were able to immediately trust. Something clicked inside my head when I saw your friend in his security uniform and with the same type of dog that would leave hairs on the blue blankets. For a second I was suspicious, or what it was more like was piecing together a jigsaw. Cameron Welsh has maintained that there was a witness, and he may have been right. He’s constantly mentioned that he knows more, that he seeks out small clues he wants us to follow. We’d reached a conclusion that he was lying, that he didn’t have anything more to tell us, but what if he knew all along about someone—possibly a security guard? It would make sense, and that’s what he has been holding back.”

Ken remained with his eyes closed.

“I hated having to sit with him. He was constantly giving me these sexual gloating looks. He repels me, but I had to meet with him because my boss insisted. After the last visit, I was certain that it had all been a ploy to get me there, that he was enjoying himself, that he might even have had some fantasy about me, but I only agreed to meet with him again because it meant that I could spend time with you.”

Still no reaction.

“For the first time in my life, I want to be with someone more than I want my career. Previously, I would be the first person to forgo leave, but I’ve taken more time off than I have on any other case because I wanted to be with you, and if you asked me, I would walk away from the entire career that to date has been the most important thing in my life.”

He said nothing. There was a long pause, and she stood up. “I’ll go now.”

He flipped open the duvet, inviting her in, and she crawled in beside him fully clothed. He lifted his arm for her to snuggle closer, holding her tightly.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said softly.

She remained beside him in her clothes all night. They fell asleep, exhausted. She was woken by him gently touching her face; he was already dressed for work.

“I have to go, but I can be back early afternoon. Can you wait for me?”

“You’ll never get rid of me.”

He straightened and headed for the door, then turned back. “You know, maybe I was so mad because I’d had a really bad day. Cameron Welsh is making life difficult at the unit. We had an unpleasant fight between inmates, and he was the one that sparked it off; we’ve even had him sedated, but he’s getting worse by the day. I think you were right—I think he does have this fantasy about you, and whether or not it’s my intuition or his, I think he knows about us.”

“How?”

“No idea, but he’s made a few snide remarks. I ignore them. If you think he does have more information, I doubt you’ll get any sense out of him.”

She sat up. “What did he say about us?”

“He never says anything directly; it’s mumbled when he passes me. He said something about redheads being the devil. Another time he said I’d pay for betraying him, just crazy stuff. But we’ve had to make him give up a lot of his privileges, so that enrages him, and like I told you, he’s refusing to wash and eat.”

“Will he be transferred?”

“I’ve suggested it. If he acts any crazier, he should be shipped out to Broadmoor. So that’s why I flew off the handle so easily.”

“You should have told me.”

“It wasn’t the right time. And then, well, you know what happened next.”

Anna jumped on top of the bed and held out her arms. He moved away. “There was something else I intended to do and . . . I don’t know if this is the right time even now.” He went to the dresser and opened a drawer. He took out a small box and then returned to the bed. “It’s secondhand—Victorian, I don’t know if you’ll like it—and maybe you will want to spend time thinking about it. You don’t have to give me an answer straightaway.”

She could feel her heart thudding. He moved closer and opened the box. It was a ring, a thin gold shaft with flat rose diamonds and pearls.

“Is it what I think it is?” She had to catch her breath.

“Like I said, you don’t have to make any decision now. It might not even fit.”

“Is it an engagement ring?” She could hardly get the words out.

“Yes.”

She hurled herself at him, almost making him drop it, hugging him and kissing his face.

“Do you want to try it on?”

She held out her left hand, and he took the ring from the box and slipped it onto her ring finger. It was not a perfect fit, but she didn’t care; she felt as if she would explode with happiness.

“Do you want me to ask you properly?”

“Yes.”

He flushed and licked his lips.

“Okay . . . Will you marry me, Anna Travis?”

“YES, YES, YES, YES, YES!”

After Ken had left for work, Anna took a long bath, constantly holding up her hand to look at the ring. She found some Bandaids in the bathroom cabinet and wrapped one around her finger so the gold shaft would fit tightly. She then did something that she had never done before; she put a call in to the incident room, but it was still early, and Mike wasn’t available. Barolli, Joan, and Barbara were also not at work, so she left a message with the duty sergeant that she would be unable to be present today. She was going to say she had food poisoning or the flu, but instead said it was a personal matter and she would make contact later in the morning.

•  •  •

She was dressed and sipping a mug of coffee when her mobile rang. It was Barbara.

“Hi. Good morning to you,” Anna said.

“You sound perky. We thought you were sick or something,” Barbara said.

“Just feeling a bit under the weather. I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Well, it’s all right for some. We’re in the incident room. Mike asked me to contact you, as we’re a bit nonplused about your late-night text message.”

Anna straightened out fast and agreed to speak to him. She explained what her message was about, that it was a possibility their killer could have been a security guard, a dog handler, maybe. This would explain the dog hairs found on the blue blanket.

“I’m not quite following why or how you’ve come to this conclusion,” Mike said.

“Cameron Welsh has maintained that he had information, and he’s led us along by the nose, but at one stage he suggested that our killer could be a police officer. I think he said someone of authority who would look completely trustworthy. We went down the police officers’ route but got nothing. What if the killer is a security guard? They have spare uniforms, they even pay for them, so even if our man was no longer working for a security company, he could have retained a uniform. Also, dog handlers have a van . . .”

“You think he works in Barfield Prison?”

“No, he’d be in London, maybe transporting prisoners to and from court. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s something we should look into. Go back five years to Cameron Welsh’s arrest and trial and see if we can get a result.”

Mike said he would look into it, but he didn’t sound that interested, possibly because it would be yet another long round of tedious clerical work. Anna asked if they had had any new developments, and he rather curtly said it had been only twenty-four hours.

“What about Smiley’s bank accounts?”

“Being checked out. If it’s not a rude question, where the hell are you?”

“Just with relatives. Something’s cropped up, but I’ll be back as soon as possible. Did you get my messages to trace Margaret Potts’s foster parents?”

“In the pipeline.”

“If we do get a contact, I’d very much like to take the interview.”

“Right, I’ll make a note of it. Is everything all right with you?”

“Fine. Like I said, it’s a personal matter, but I’ll be there first thing in the morning.”

Mike hung up before saying anything else. Anna felt a bit guilty but then shrugged it off. She’d never taken a day off before, and she knew she must have a number of days, if not weeks, due to her.

After the call, she decided to go out and do a grocery shop to cook a meal for when Ken returned home, since he’d given her his front-door key. As she left, she saw his neighbor and smiled, apologizing again for making such a disturbance. She couldn’t take the smile off her face, and as she walked to her Mini, she had a real desire to do a cartwheel like the one in the photograph. She also had a real urge to call someone to announce that she was engaged, and it saddened her that there wasn’t anyone close who would want to know. But she couldn’t feel down for long, constantly looking at the ring on her finger as she drove to the shops. She was not alone anymore, and just thinking about what the future held made her beam with joy.

She was happier than she had ever known it was possible to be.

“Security guard?” queried Barolli as Mike Lewis wrote Anna’s message on the incident board. “Where is she going with this? Do we move off John Smiley?”

“I dunno, but there’s not a lot we can do until tomorrow.”

“They have a van to move the dogs around in, don’t they?”

“Yep.”

“So the blue blanket could have been in the back of the van for the guard dog?”

“Yep.”

“I suppose their uniforms are sort of similar to coppers’ . . . it’d be a way of getting the victims to trust him.”

“We’ll get moving on it first thing tomorrow, but we should maybe arrange another visit to Cameron Welsh. I’ll run it by the gov—see what he thinks.”

“Just thinking—Travis never stops, does she?” Barolli said.

Mike tossed the felt-tip marker aside.

“How come she didn’t work this weekend, and now she’s taken today off?” Barolli nagged. “That’s not like her.”

Mike sighed. “I don’t know. She said it was a personal matter. There’s not a lot for her to do here anyway. Okay get started on the Smiley bank accounts.”

Barbara was given the job of tracing Margaret Potts’s children’s foster parents, and it took almost all morning, as she was transferred to one department after another at Camden Council. She was told that details could not be disclosed unless someone from the station contacted them directly and explained in detail the reason for wanting to talk to them.

Barbara was almost pulling out her hair. Mike said that she should pay them a visit in person and tell them it was a murder inquiry.

Barolli, having been assigned to get the details of John Smiley’s bank accounts, had to contact Arnold Rodgers yet again. The police needed to find out how Smiley’s wages were paid and then get a court order for the bank to release the information they wanted.

As Barbara prepared to leave, she moaned, “It’s all the way over to bloody Camden! What’s up with Travis today? Why isn’t
she
in?”

“I dunno. Mike said it was something personal, but she’s been texting us all like a ferret.”

Anna’s prior commitment was a candlelit dinner. She’d cooked fresh pasta with homemade Bolognese sauce, and there were fresh strawberries with cream for dessert. Ken had looked tired out when he got in from work, but after his usual shower and change of clothes, he started to relax.

“Okay, rule one,” he said. “Neither one of us is allowed to discuss work.”

He sat down at the table as Anna served. It was not exactly the most romantic setting, but they could have been on a moonlit beach in the Caribbean, as they were so in tune with each other. They didn’t discuss how soon they would get married, but when Anna told him about Lizzie asking if she would like to have children, he growled.

“I don’t believe she asked you that!”

“Well, she did.”

“Cheeky cow. And God help me when I tell my mother—she’s been waiting for me to get married. Don’t say
she
asked you about children as well.”

“No, she didn’t, just your sister, and I will have to phone your mother and tell her we’ve made up, because she was concerned when we had that row. I hope it hasn’t put her off me.”

“So what did you reply?”

“To what?”

“Kids or not?”

Anna was teasing him as she told him how Lizzie had said that he would make a wonderful dad, and he covered his head with his napkin. “My family! Aargh!”

“So do you want to know what I said?”

He pulled off the napkin and looked at her.

“I do want children, Ken, and you
will
make a fabulous dad.”

He reached for her hand, kissing it, then blew out the candles. “Then we’d better get hitched as soon as possible. In the meantime, we should put some practice in.”