Fragile Cord (33 page)

‘Whatever her reasons for doing
what she did,’ Angus reasoned, ‘she was their mother, and I’d
rather they had one of us with them.’ He said simply.

And so three coffins had been
carried from the back of three hearses along the aisle of the
church.

Three coffins buried in one
plot

Tracey’s father had been
persuaded not to attend.

Coupland looked up at the clear
blueness of the sky, the sun providing an almost vacation-like
backdrop to the proceedings. It was wrong that the sun was shining.
It should be hiding behind black clouds with rain lashing down and
lightning flashes and rolls of thunder, a hint that God was angry.
The sun symbolised everything that was good and happy. Hope, even.
And what hope could there be for anyone when a child wasn’t safe
with his mother?

Angus moved around the cemetery on
auto-pilot, nodding at well-wishers, allowing himself to be hugged
and patted. He hoped his memory would play silly beggars again and
wipe out today, move it to the same padlocked place in his
subconscious where his discovery of the bodies had been relegated.
He wanted to forget every little detail:

The sight of the small white
coffins;

The muffled whispers of the
mourners;

The smell of freshly dug earth.

A displacement of air by his side made
him turn. He found himself looking into the eyes of an horrifically
scarred stranger.

Joe introduced himself and stuck out his
hand.

‘What the hell is he saying?’ Alex
whispered to Coupland, frustrated they were out of earshot of the
solemn conversation.

‘I imagine he’s paying his respects,’
replied Coupland, pleased his idea was going according to plan.

‘But they don’t even know each
other.’

Alex turned to Coupland and not for the
first time thought how they operated on very different
wavelengths.

‘No,’ Coupland conceded, ‘but maybe
they can help each other. They have after all, suffered similar
loss.’

This seemed to silence Alex - but not
for long. ‘But I thought Joe was …homeless.’ What little she knew
of her sergeant’s friend she’d gleaned from Turnbull but she didn’t
want to drop him in it. She felt sorry for what Joe had suffered,
she really did, but wasn’t he a drunk? A loose cannon? Although by
the look of him he’d already exploded.

Instead she said: ‘He’s no job, no
money, he’s suffered from years of untreated depression – what kind
of example is that?’

Coupland pulled a face. She just didn’t
get it.

‘He’s not an example, Alex.’ he said
grimly,

‘He’s a warning.’

The news had spread. Word
travelled fast about Alex passing her sergeant’s exam and it was as
good an excuse as any to stay behind and get tanked up. Carl had
been subdued when she’d told him the good news the previous
evening, even more so when she called him now to say she’d be late
home again.

‘I can’t play truant from me
own do, love.’ She’d reasoned, and he’d accepted her logic, albeit
begrudgingly, telling her they’d have their own celebration at the
weekend. Grateful he hadn’t gone into a sulk she checked her
make-up in a compact mirror before heading across the road with a
couple of uniforms coming off shift.

There would be a time, a long
way from now, when Alex would stop trying to rationalise Tracey
Kavanagh’s actions. She’d accept that it was pointless trying to
fathom whether a young woman’s childhood could excuse the murder of
her son, whether it was an act of misplaced bravery rather than
selfishness, a willingness to sacrifice Tracey’s dreams for Kyle
and all he’d become, to protect him from a knowledge that would tar
him forever.

There would be a time when she
stopped comparing every little progress of Ben’s with Kyle,
wondering if he’d have been at the same stage, wondering if Tracey
understood just what she’d stolen from him. There would be a time
when she’d stop thinking about Kyle and his mother, push thoughts
of them into the corners of her mind, make way for other cases,
other victims. She would learn to accept the things she couldn’t
change.

But not yet.

The nature of
Alex’s job had shaped the type of mother she’d become. In
particular it gave her a stark awareness of physical peril. Ben was
a sturdy, rough and tumble,
physical
boy, but the injuries she
saw in her job made her realise just how delicate he was. At times
she felt nauseous just thinking about how easily his bones could
break, how easily his skin could tear. She felt nauseous now. She
lifted a hand to wave at DCI Curtis, looking speculatively from his
office window.

Alex coughed as she passed
through the haze of smoke at the entrance to the bar. Not for the
first time she wondered why smokers were fussy where they drank
when they spent most of their time outside.

‘About bleedin’ time,’ Turnbull
called out to her, ‘What’re you having?’

A pint glass was already welded firmly
into his hand. He’d spent the morning at the Magistrate’s court;
the gang responsible for Ricky Wilson’s murder were now on remand.
She’d watched them be escorted handcuffed from the holding cells at
the station before being led into the waiting police van positioned
at the side door.

She’d seen
killers before, in the dock at the crown court and once, up close,
with his victim still warm. Even now every nerve ending recoiled at
the memory. Yet despite having met her fair share of bad people she
still needed to look at these men and their stupid
accomplices,
really
look at the thugs who’d robbed an innocent man of his future
and tipped a young mother over the edge.

Four pairs of
eyes stared ahead, shallow, devoid of emotion. The girls, Dawson
and Healey, were focussed on some point in the middle distance, but
Brooks and Horrocks, sensing Alex’s attention, turned in unison to
stare at her defiantly, meeting then holding her gaze. They were
hard looking men, the type you’d feel uneasy near unless they
called you
Mum.
The thought of them being someone’s sons made her shudder,
and for the thousandth time she wondered what the trigger was, what
had happened in their lives to turn them from mischievous little
boys to killing machines.

She’d found herself thinking of
Ben, prayed to God she’d never know.

The sound of thumping from the
pub’s jukebox jolted Alex back to the present. ‘I’ll get ‘em.’ She
insisted, reaching into her bag for her purse, ‘tonight’s my
shout.’

‘No need.’ Coupland called out
as he moved across the room to greet her. ‘Boss’s left money behind
the bar.’

That
silenced her.

‘Jesus.’

‘Close enough.’ Coupland
replied. He saw the look on her face and laughed,

‘Turn up for the books, eh?
Always thought Curtis had a soft spot for you.’

‘Don’t start,’ She warned him,
smiling. She’d been worried Coupland would see his backside over
her passing her sergeant’s exam. He’d been known to be touchy when
peers overtook him and she’d wondered how he’d react with someone
junior catching him up. She sighed happily. He’d made a point of
coming over; taking the piss was his way of reassuring her
everything was all right between them.

Someone placed a drink in her
hand and when she tasted it realised the orange she’d ordered
contained a double vodka too. She sipped at it slowly, already
looking for a space on the bar where she could discreetly leave it.
Robinson came over to join the group assembled round her, reunited
now both the Wilson and Kavanagh cases had come to a close.

‘They told you where you’re
going?’ he asked, already planning to swap desks. He didn’t like
being situated so close to the CID Room door; you got treated like
the messaging service for the rest of the team.

‘Staying where I am for the
moment.’ Alex replied. Her eye caught Coupland’s but gave nothing
away. Coupland wasn’t sure whether HR had explained the reason for
his leave, or if they’d even told her it was his job she’d be
covering. From a selfish perspective it suited him just fine, if
someone was going to step in his shoes, he’d rather it be someone
whose judgement he trusted.

Alex excused herself and headed
towards the Ladies’ Toilet, passing small cliques who turned to
congratulate her, slapping her back and ruffling her hair like she
was back at school. She basked in the good cheer of her colleagues,
conscious that those around her were getting more and more
pissed.

‘What you drinkin’ Sarge?’
someone called out, and it was only after a dig in the ribs that
she realised the off-duty PC was talking to her.

‘I’m ok, thanks.’ She replied,
her answer overshadowed by shouts of ‘bollocks, get her a brandy.’
And ‘Is there still a tab on?’

Alex ducked into the toilets
and stared in the mirror while she caught her breath. She’d not
been there an hour yet she felt exhausted, realised that a quiet
night with Carl was much more appealing. She looked at her watch,
she had time to slip away, stop at the off licence at the bottom of
their road and buy a bottle of something fizzy to take home. Still,
there was something she had to do first, and now was as good a time
as any.

Earlier in the day she’d bought
a pregnancy testing kit and ever since it had burned a hole in her
bag. She slipped into a cubicle and took the white stick out of its
packaging to read the instructions. The world wouldn’t change
because of a second blue line, she told herself. There’d still be
robbers and rapists and murdering mothers and she’d still want to
put them away. Maybe she’d have to do it differently for a while,
but so what? What were plans anyway, except God’s way of reminding
us there was no such thing as a sure bet.

She undid her trousers and
pulled down her underwear, crouching over the toilet seat so she
could be sure the stream hit the predictor stick. When she finished
she placed the stick on the cistern behind her. She heard a door
open and unsteady footsteps followed by the sound of someone
throwing up. Whoever it was hadn’t made it to the lavatory. She
wrinkled her nose and got to her feet, adjusting her clothes. Can’t
even spend four minutes contemplating in silence, she thought
wryly. She flushed the toilet and opened the cubicle door, only to
be met by a woman wearing a sparkly cowboy hat and t-shirt that
announced she was on Astrid’s Hen Nite.

‘Christ I thought you’d got
flushed down the loo,’ she slurred, ‘I’m dying to splash me
boots.’

Alex stood by to let her enter,
noticed she didn’t even lock the cubicle door before lifting her
skirt. Trying not to look she washed her hands and shook them under
the dryer before stopping dead in her tracks when she realised
she’d left the predictor stick behind.

She approached the toilet door
cautiously.

‘Er, will you be long….?’ she
enquired self-consciously, keeping her eyes fixed on the broken
Tampax machine by the mirror. The silence was punctuated by a
series of small farts.

‘Won’t be long luv.’ Came the
chirpy reply.

‘...Only I left something in
there.’ Alex persisted. The cubicle door widened and she found
herself staring at the over-made up woman as she strained to empty
her bowels.

‘Nothing a good curry won’t
fix, eh luv?’ the woman informed her before holding out her hand.
Alex held her breath as she took the stick from her, nodding her
thanks.

‘By the way,’ the woman called
out to her just as a couple of young WPCs swayed in,
‘Congratulations, luv.’

The decibel level in the bar
had exploded. Those still there were now on a bender, the excuse
they’d needed to get a pass out for the night forgotten.

Lewisham, sat in the corner
with a couple of colleagues, raised his glass to her as she caught
his eye. Coupland was deep in conversation with the DCI, who’d been
lured across the road by a pretty WPC when it emerged the bar tab
was becoming dangerously low. No one would notice if Alex slipped
out now.

It was quiet enough for a
midweek evening. The shoppers and shoplifters had called it a
night, would be home by now, showing off their respective haul. The
streets were empty bar groups of young men and women on the pull,
cheap cologne choking the airways of passers-by.

It was a night of closure and
new beginnings. Coupland’s report on the deaths of Tracey and Kyle
Kavanagh – and that of her infant – had been submitted to the
coroner. Ricky Wilson’s killers were at the start of a judicial
process that would see them behind bars once more. Dawson and
Healey, the girls who’d turned bag snatching into a local
enterprise, would soon be getting their first taste of life in a
young offender’s institute.

Alex doubted it would be their
last.

It was a fine line, Alex knew
that much, between aiming high and suffering disappointment or
settling for what you’ve got and feeling you’ve been
short-changed.

She was calmer than she thought
she’d be. Happier too. A thin blue line had altered her future but
she was certain she would cope.

Well, as certain as you ever
can be.

The luminous fingers on the
bedside clock pointed to twelve and six, although with the curtains
shut tight and the room in darkness Coupland couldn’t be sure it
was half past midnight or six am. His mouth tasted foul, as though
he’d been sick several times in succession. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ he
croaked, sleepily reaching an arm out to Lynn’s side of the bed but
it was cold and empty. His eyes snapped open and he pushed himself
into a sitting position. As he tried to make sense of it his brain
began to shift in shape, flitting from one scenario to the next,
images changing before he’d had time to register them like a
kaleidoscope in the hands of a toddler. For a moment he feared time
was playing tricks on him, that Lynn was already in the hospital
but that couldn’t be right, her overnight bag was still by the
bedroom door, a pile of magazines Amy had bought her balancing on
the top.