Flawed (33 page)

‘Nothing at all,’ agreed Deacon. ‘Until it becomes the reason for doing the job.
This
job – I've never done any other so I can't speak for them all. But I know this job. I know what it needs. It needs Charlie Voss. It needs Charlie Voss a lot more than it needs you.’

She laughed at that. But the look in her eyes said the nonchalance wasn't entirely genuine. ‘That's a touching vote of confidence in a young man who's still wet behind the ears. Have you told him you see him heading up the Met some day?

‘No, of course not,’ she answered herself, the smile broadening. ‘If he knew you had that sort of faith in him he'd have a bit more in you. Wouldn't, for instance, worry that one day he'll open a door and find you in bed with a con.’

She couldn't have come closer to flooring him without using a baton-round. Among the things Deacon had known were going wrong and those he'd suspected were going wrong, it had never occurred to him that the trust between himself and
his sergeant had been under strain. He'd thought, because he was happy with the relationship, the relationship was fine. One reason he'd offered Voss's services to the visiting fireman was that he trusted the dog to come home.

Jack Deacon wasn't a man who trusted easily. It had taken time for him to feel sufficient confidence in Voss to relax with him, to acknowledge – if only to himself – Voss's strengths and to make the most of them. And no, he hadn't told Voss he was the best DS he'd had, even better than no DS at all. He'd thought Voss knew. He'd assumed the young detective was capable of drawing the correct inference from the fact that he did less shouting these days. In truth, he'd made an assumption that generations of men had made before him, if in different circumstances: that if it was good for him it was good enough.

So it came as a blinding shock that Voss trusted him less than he trusted Voss. Of course, Hyde could be lying. It would take almost no effort of will for Deacon to believe she was lying. But Deacon held the truth in almost as high regard as Daniel did. He didn't confuse what was true with what was convenient, and he didn't tinker with it for his own comfort. In spite of which, Hyde had somehow stumbled on a truth he himself had not suspected. That Charlie Voss was unsure whether, if push came to shove, Deacon would do his job or help his friend.

Another man would have staggered under the blow. But Deacon had spent nigh-on thirty years showing people what he wanted them to see and no more. And he didn't want Alix Hyde to know she'd bloodied him. He hid the wound behind a slow, cold smile. ‘Worry is good,’ he said. ‘Worry keeps you
on your toes. Worry stops you taking things for granted. I
want
my officers to worry that one day I might cross the line – that any of us could. That in the right circumstances, any of us is capable of betrayal. I don't want them to think that carrying a warrant card makes us superheroes.

‘I don't want them ever to think that some DI they don't know from Adam – or Eve – has to be honest, decent and trustworthy because she wouldn't be a police officer if she wasn't. I want them to use the same critical faculties, the same standards, to judge their senior officers as they use every day in their work. I
want
them to be aware that I could cross the line. Knowing that keeps them safe.’

Deacon's lip curled with contempt. ‘You knew Vernon was dodgy from the start. You came here knowing it – knowing what he was prepared to say, but also knowing it wouldn't stand up to thorough scrutiny. But it
would
serve as a framework on which to hang other evidence. Only, if it came out that was what you were doing, you wanted to be able to show it wasn't you doing it. You steered Voss onto Leslie Vernon like lining up a jet fighter for mid-air refuelling. You knew what Vernon would say when he was asked – all you needed was someone to ask him.

‘Which raises an interesting question, Detective Inspector Hyde.
How
did you know what Leslie Vernon would say? If this plot to dispose of his rival was hatched by Joe Loomis, how did you know what to ask? Unless you've been ignoring guidelines and best practice and all that crap and conspiring with one villain to take down another.’

If he hadn't known it before, the way Hyde's expression clamped down told him he was right. ‘Say that in front of
anyone else,’ she said quietly, ‘and I'll take it all the way to the top. And it'll be your word against mine – you won't find any evidence. There
isn't
any evidence. But there are people up there waiting for a chance to push the last of the dinosaurs over the cliff and have a fresh start. You're not the face of policing for the 21s t century, Superintendent Deacon – 1 am. You have rank on your side. I have time. And a lot more friends.’

Deacon didn't doubt she was right. He'd always been better at doing the job than working the room. He should probably have put more effort into the politics. If he had…

…It still wouldn't have been a good use of his time exchanging insults with Detective Inspector Hyde in front of a board at Division. Once she left here, his only abiding regret would be the damage done to Voss's career.

He said, ‘I don't need to tell anyone anything. Charlie's going to figure it out all by himself. You put on a good act -smart, glamorous. But he's pretty smart too, and he's not going to be dazzled by glamour for long. He'll work out what you did and how you did it, and he won't need my help.

‘In a way it's a shame. It's like seeing a child realise that Father Christmas is actually their dad in their mum's dressing-gown. It's a loss of innocence. But hell, he's a Detective Sergeant, innocence isn't necessarily a survival strategy. Next time he meets someone like you, all the alarms will go off at once and he won't end up paying for someone else's promotion. Maybe, all in all, that lesson has been worth what it cost him.’

Deacon lifted the cardboard box off the desk. ‘Let me help you down to your car,’ he said. ‘I wouldn't like you to have to come back.’

They headed down through the building in silence. And the
building was silent around them. It's impossible to say how -Deacon hadn't been shouting – but something of what had passed between them had leached out through the walls or through the floor, and men and women who had time for DS Voss, and even a certain amount for Superintendent Deacon, registered their disapproval of DI Hyde with three minutes of wintry silence. None of those they passed in the corridors or on the stairs wished her well, or even a safe journey home. Those three minutes were among the longest of her life. There was never any danger of her bursting into tears, but she had to clench her jaw to keep from saying something that might come back to haunt her.

When she pushed through the back door that opened onto the car park the fresh air cooled her blazing cheeks, and also her head. She could make a gesture without conceding much. She turned at the top of the steps.

Deacon put the cardboard box into her arms, turned himself and went back inside without another word.

In times of stress the brain acts like a camera, taking shots and filing them for scrutiny at a better moment. When the door closed between him and Alix Hyde, and Deacon was congratulating himself on the extent to which he'd managed to bridle his anger and say everything he wanted to and nothing more, by degrees he grew aware that one of those he'd passed in the corridor had no obvious reason for being there. He looked round. ‘Daniel?’

He had one arm in a sling and he looked pale; otherwise there was little to show for his adventure. ‘Have you got five minutes, Jack?’

Deacon glowered. This was the perfect end to a perfect day. The fact that he'd managed to get rid of DI Hyde without resorting to violence could not be taken to guarantee Daniel's safety. ‘I suppose,’ he said ungraciously.

There was an empty interview room: they went in there. ‘Well?’

Daniel didn't want to do this with both of them standing in a grubby little room with a video camera and a tape-recorder. But it was important to get it done. He took a deep breath and came straight to the point. ‘Brodie's had the baby. It's a boy. You have a son, Jack.’

It was the end of a busy day. Busy for him; busier for her. Deacon wasn't sure what protocol demanded. Which would have troubled him not at all if he'd known what he wanted to do, or what Brodie would welcome. He drove out to the ring road, then twice round the roundabout before heading back into town and going home. He thought he'd sleep on it. But he didn't.

Exhausted as she was, Brodie didn't sleep much either. She drowsed, going over events in her mind, waking with a start at each unfamiliar sound. She was caught in a kind of limbo. None of it seemed entirely real.

They'd told Daniel before they told her, so he wouldn't be too stunned to offer the support she was going to need. Then, in the privacy of her room, with Daniel holding her hand, the doctor explained the nature of the problem. Once very simply, and then again with more detail. She gripped Daniel's left hand so tightly her nails drew blood, but he never complained.

‘Don't think you have to take all this in right now,’ said the doctor. ‘We'll go through it again as many times as you need to when you're feeling a bit stronger. For now, all you need to
focus on is that your son's in no immediate danger – he's a bit premature but he's doing well and I've no doubt you'll be taking him home before long. There'll be plenty of time to discuss what we do next. You have a lovely baby, Mrs Farrell – enjoy him.’

After they were alone Daniel prised his hand out of Brodie's grip and put it round her shoulders, drawing her to him. She wept, and then she slept.

Or dozed more than slept, waking every hour or so as her body told her to check the baby, to check that he was warm and safe. Awake, though, she knew that while he was both of those things, he wasn't here with her: he was in an incubator in the nursery. But the reproductive process was hammered out millions of years before the maternity ward was ever thought of, and her hormones wouldn't be convinced that right now the baby was better off with the experts caring for him.

It left her without much of a function here now. Apart from feeling sore, and shell-shocked, she was fine. She wanted to be at home. She wanted Paddy more than the baby. Perhaps that wouldn't last. Perhaps when she was able to hold him and feed him, and spend time with him away from the necessarily intrusive trappings of high-tech perinatals, she would feel differently.

The baby. She'd have to give him a name now – he'd earned it. He'd beaten massive odds just getting conceived. Then he'd hung on in there for seven and a half months, and when he couldn't hold on any longer his mother had been busy with the needs of somebody else's child. It wasn't the best start in life. He hadn't been wanted, he hadn't been
expected, and his mother had been so ill-prepared for his arrival that he'd had second thoughts about being born at all.

But he was his father's son: the mere fact of not being welcome was never going to stop him going anywhere. He was here now and the world had better get used to the idea. And it would need something to call him.

Brodie drowsed again, and the next time she woke there was someone standing in the doorway. She only knew one person who eclipsed light like that. ‘Jack?’

He neither came forward nor retreated, nor even acknowledged his name, just went on standing there, watching her from across the room. With his back to the light she couldn't see his expression. She waited for him to say something. But the slow seconds mounted into minutes and the silence set like concrete.

Finally Brodie decided life was too short to watch any more of it pass away like this. ‘Well,’ she said briskly, ‘it was nice of you to call in for a chat.’

Deacon gave a gruff little snort of the kind usually associated with retired colonels and written as ‘Harrumph!’ It was half a laugh. It was impossible to say what the other half was.

What it wasn't was the sound of a man delirious with joy over the birth of his son. Brodie nodded slowly. ‘Who told you? Daniel?’

Deacon shrugged massively. ‘Who else?’ It wasn't much of a conversation, but at least he'd graduated to words.

‘I was going to call you this morning. I was too zonked last night.’

For a moment she saw something of the old regard in his eyes. ‘You're all right?’

‘I'm fine,’ she assured him. ‘For someone who's just had a baby. It was a perfectly normal birth. Early, but normal.’

Deacon was looking round the little room uncertainly, as if embarrassed to ask. ‘Er – where…?’

Brodie gestured with her head. ‘Down the corridor. I'll take you in a minute. Jack – did Daniel tell you there's a problem?’ She knew he would have done. She knew he wouldn't have left it to her.

‘I didn't understand most of it,’ he said, and his deep voice was soft and rough at the same time.

‘Join the club,’ said Brodie, heartfelt. ‘I think the doctor was a bit taken aback as well – it's a rare condition, and even rarer when it's present at birth.

‘Jack, we always knew something like this was a possibility. Before I even knew I was pregnant I was exposed to enough veterinary tranquilliser to kill me and two other people – and a developing baby's at its most vulnerable around eight weeks’ gestation. When all the tests they did failed to show a problem I started hoping maybe everything would be all right. But I never counted on it. I'm sorry it's worked out this way, but I can't honestly say I'm surprised. I think, deep down, I knew there was something wrong.’

‘You never said.’

‘I said something to Marta. She said it was pregnancy neurosis.’

‘You never said anything to me!’ His eyes kindled at her with a characteristic touch of anger. It was getting to be a
while since she'd seen that. They hadn't been close enough recently to make one another angry.

‘We haven't talked much about anything,’ she reminded him. ‘If I'd known there was a problem I'd have told you. I
didn't
know – it was just something I felt.’

Deacon's anger subsided as quickly as it had flared. Finally he came into the room, pulled up the chair and sat down. He breathed out a gusty sigh. ‘And how do you feel now?’