Left for Dead: A Maeve Kerrigan Novella (Maeve Kerrigan Novels) (8 page)

And then Gary’s mobile rang.

‘Fuck.’ He dropped me and turned to pick it up, his face grim as he checked the screen. ‘I have to take it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Shh.’ He turned and held one finger up as he answered it. ‘Hi.’

I crossed my arms and waited, trying not to look as if I was listening. He was silent, his expression unchanged.

‘Yeah. I know. I know. Look, I’ll be back soon.’

The person on the other end talked, and talked, and talked. Gary mouthed
sorry
at me and I shrugged.

‘Okay. So you said. I know. About half an hour.’ He checked his watch. ‘Maybe a bit longer, but not much. See you then.’ He hung up, staring at the screen for a second or two afterwards.

Playing for time
, I thought. Then he looked at me, his eyebrows knotted with worry.

‘Would you hate me if I left now?’

‘Of course not.’ I watched him check himself out in the mirror. ‘But why do you have to go?’

‘I need to get back to my house. Builder trouble from next door. They’ve damaged our roof.’

‘
Our
roof?’ I repeated.

‘Yeah. I’ve got housemates. That was one of them on the phone. She’s all right. A bit griefy now and then. She’d moan your ear off.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘She wants me to go back and sort them out.’ He shrugged. ‘What can I do? The landlord will kill us if we don’t pull them up on it. I don’t want them to naff off before I get the chance to have a word.’

‘Don’t worry. I understand. I’ll come down so you can get your stuff out of the car.’ I pulled my keys out of my pocket.

‘Actually,’ he said slowly, ‘I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind driving me a bit of the way to Isleworth. If you don’t mind. It’s just that it’ll be a pain to get there on public transport and I don’t want to take too long.’

‘Oh, sure. Fine.’

‘Thanks, Maeve.’ He crossed the room and held me for a moment, nuzzling my neck. ‘This is just going to make it even better, you know. The anticipation, I mean.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

He pulled a face. ‘I’m going to have to get going, though.’

‘Ready when you are,’ I said sweetly, as if it had been my life’s ambition to act as his chauffeur. As if I didn’t mind at all.

I was late getting to work the next night, this time because I’d slept in. Driving across London and back again at Gary’s bidding, on an intensely hot day, had left me as weak as a newborn kitten and just as sleepy. I ate half a piece of toast, showered and fell into bed, only to wake in the dark, completely disoriented. The whole day, gone. I missed it. Shift work was breaking my spirit.

When I hurried into the briefing room I was aware straightaway that something was off. I sat down beside Sam Walters, who gave me a smirk I couldn’t interpret. There was a rumble of conversation too low for me to hear, and I told myself that it was pure arrogance, not to mention paranoia, to assume it was about me. Gary was in the back row, laughing at something one of the other officers had said. He gave me a wave when he noticed me looking at him, and I blushed. Everyone seemed to be watching us and although Gary didn’t look too bothered, I wasn’t pleased to be the centre of attention.

It didn’t last long. Inspector Saunders hurried in. She seemed to be suppressing her excitement about something, and she hurried through the crewings at top speed. Chris was back at work and the two of us were crewed together. I should have been disappointed not to have a whole night ahead of me with Gary, alone, but I was relieved. Gary made it hard to concentrate on the job.

The inspector had reached the end of her admin. ‘Just a quick update first. The victim in the sexual assault on Tuesday night is awake and talking, which is obviously a help. She’s given us a description of the attacker that matches the e-fit we’ve been circulating, luckily. She’s going to do one for us when she’s well enough but Mr Godley is proceeding on the basis that it’s the same guy. She’s told us about what she was wearing and carrying on the
night she was attacked, so keep your eyes peeled for the following: one black bra. She said he cut it off her, so you’re looking for scraps of material, basically. Black lace knickers, size ten. An Omega watch with a gold face and a brown leather wristband. The victim was also wearing a small red enamel heart on a gold chain and we haven’t found it, or her phone, which was a pink Motorola Razr. The detectives have checked to see if it’s active on the network but as far as we can tell it’s powered off. He might have discarded all of these things or he might have kept them, or our victim might be mistaken. But be aware that if you come across any of these items you should contact the control room immediately.’

‘Are they any closer to finding him?’ I asked.

‘They’ve got a couple of leads. Nothing all that useful at the moment, I’m afraid. Mr Godley thinks he lives in Croydon and works near here or lives near here and works in Croydon. His team have been going back through the records to find anything that could be related and everything they can connect with him seems to be somewhere between here and there.’

‘That’s a pretty sizeable area,’ Chris commented. ‘Narrows it down to about a million people.’

‘I did say it wasn’t that useful,’ the inspector said mildly. ‘But if I know Charles Godley, he’ll get him in the end.’

I listened to the rest of the briefing, making notes, pretty much on autopilot. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sally-Ann. Afterwards I was slow to get up, writing a last couple of notes about stolen cars. As a result, I was one of the last out of the room, getting stuck behind two officers who were having an argument about which daytime television presenter they would shag if they could only shag one. I headed out of the briefing room with nothing on my mind except where I could find Chris and whether Gary would be there too.

‘Can I have a word?’ Andy Styles was right beside me, his face too close to mine. His skin was pale, his freckles standing out like flecks of copper. He’d been waiting beside the door for me to come out.

I wanted to say no, but I nodded. He looked up and down the corridor, then opened the nearest door, which led to an empty office.

‘In here.’

‘Can’t we talk here?’

‘It won’t take long.’

I went in, cursing my inability to be rude. For that, I had to wait until I was actually annoyed with him, which shouldn’t take long. Whatever he had to say, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. And I didn’t. But I hadn’t anticipated it in the least.

‘Don’t sleep with Gary.’ The words burst out of him, as if he’d been holding them back for too long.

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘He’s got a bet on with a few of the others. He says he’ll have shagged you by the end of the month. He said he nearly managed it today.’

Andy paused, presumably waiting for me to deny it. I stared at him dumbly.

‘He waited until Chris was off because he knew Chris would stop him if he tried it on when he was around. Chris has been looking out for you, but Gary’s not bothered. He likes the challenge, he says.’

‘That’s just talk,’ I said firmly. ‘You know what it’s like. He’s not going to tell you lot how he really feels because you’d rip the piss out of him.’

‘Do you think he’s told his girlfriend how he really feels then?’

‘His …’

‘Girlfriend.’ He nodded. ‘That’s right, he’s got a girlfriend. Leila. She’s seven months pregnant. He lives with her.’

In the house that was on such a busy road, he’d insisted I stop around the corner. And then he’d kissed me and told me he was aching to see me again, and then he’d checked himself out in the little mirror in the sun-visor and he’d left.

I was
such
an idiot.

Now that Andy had started talking about Gary, there was a chance he might never stop. The words were tumbling out of him. ‘He’s slept around on her ever since they moved in together. He said it was as if he had something to prove to himself.’

‘That he’s an arsehole?’ I suggested.

‘That, definitely.’

‘I thought the two of you were mates.’

He looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘I thought he was all right, you know. I thought he was a laugh.’

‘And you’ve changed your mind.’

Andy frowned. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

‘I don’t …’
want to believe you
, was what I wanted to say. ‘I don’t know what to believe. Tell me the truth. Are you in on the betting?’

I knew from his face that he was. ‘I didn’t think he was serious. It was ages ago. I didn’t even know you then.’

‘You don’t know me now.’ I let that hang in the air for a second, then followed it up with, ‘What are you trying to do? What do you get out of this?’

He rocked back on his heels, surprised, and then his expression darkened. ‘I’m not trying to do anything except warn you. I didn’t think it was fair if he tricked you into
shagging him. If you still want to do him, that’s your business. I don’t know. Maybe you can forget about his girlfriend and their baby.’

‘If they even exist.’

His face had gone red, the freckles almost disappearing. ‘Ask him.’

‘I’ll certainly tell him we had this chat.’

‘I’m trying to help you out and you’re dropping me in the shit? Next time, remind me not to bother.’

‘You’re telling me to be suspicious of him. It just makes sense for me to be wary of you, doesn’t it? Especially if you’ve got something to lose if I
do
sleep with him.’

The answer I got was a dirty look before he flung open the door and stormed out. I stayed where I was and bit the edge of my thumbnail, thinking about what he’d said and how he’d said it. Then I thought about how Gary had behaved with me earlier. His single-minded pursuit of me that I’d thought was passion now looked rather like opportunism. Then I thought about what Chris had said: that Andy liked me.

I still thought he had a funny way of showing it.

* * *

Going through the motions – that was about all you could say I was managing at the start of the shift. We were busy, which was a blessing. A further blessing was that Gary had already been deployed by the time I got to the car park to find Chris inspecting our car for the night. I didn’t want to have to talk to Gary yet. I was veering between trying to persuade myself that Andy had misunderstood about Andy’s flatmate (obviously not girlfriend) and cold horror that he might have been right.

I sleepwalked through two vehicle checks and three stop-and-searches, mildly gratified that the one I’d decided to pick up had a pocket full of pills and a fat roll of cash down his pants. I arrested him and we ended up back at the nick, shepherding him through
the procedure that admitted him to custody. It wasn’t his first time to be arrested, by any means and he was cooperative. Still, it took a couple of hours to deal with him and we weren’t back out on the streets until after one. I sat in silence while Chris drove, lost in my own thoughts.

‘Everything all right?’

I looked at Chris, surprised. ‘Yeah. Why?’

‘You’re quiet.’

‘Just thinking.’ I hesitated for a second. ‘Do you know what happened with Gary yesterday?’

He rubbed his chin, not looking at me. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Someone told me it was common knowledge that he’d gone home with me.’

‘Who said that?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘It was the first thing I heard when I came in to work,’ Chris admitted.

‘I didn’t sleep with him,’ I said. ‘Did you hear that too?’

‘I—’ He broke off and grimaced. ‘I heard it was a done deal until he had to leave.’

‘There’s no such thing.’ I’d have stopped him, I was fairly sure. The more I thought about it the more I imagined myself pulling my shirt together, saying
no, not yet
. Taking charge of a situation that had been far out of my control.

Actually, I had no idea what would have happened.

‘Chris, is it true that Gary bet he could sleep with me?’

‘Ah. You heard about that too.’

So that was a yes. Score another for Andy. ‘And is it true he has a girlfriend?’ I asked in a small voice.

‘I don’t know the ins and outs of Gary’s love life,’ Chris said. ‘But it wouldn’t surprise me if that was true.’

‘Why didn’t you warn me?’ I could hear the hurt in my voice, and Chris probably didn’t miss it either.

‘Not my place to get in the way, love.’

‘That’s a crap excuse.’

Chris’s head whipped around at that. ‘Look, I’ve worked with Gary for a long time. I know what he’s like. It’s a bit of fun for him and it might have been a bit of fun for you too – I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing you have to learn to deal with, either way.’

‘Why do I have to learn to deal with it? I bet this kind of thing didn’t happen to you when you were starting out.’

‘No, it didn’t, but I wasn’t a pretty young girl.’

‘Which doesn’t make me a legitimate target for all my colleagues,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m entitled to expect a bit of respect.’

‘No, you have to earn that respect.’ Chris sighed. ‘I’m not your dad. I’m not going to look after you, Maeve. You have to stand on your own two feet. Now, I told Gary I didn’t like the idea of him trying to sleep with you and he told me to mind my own business. He told me it would only happen if you wanted him to sleep with you, and that was your choice, so I should keep out of it.’

‘How convenient. So you didn’t have to feel guilty about it.’

‘I did anyway.’ Chris shifted in his seat. ‘I know why you’re angry with me, and I’m sorry if I let you down, but it’s not about me, is it? It’s about you and him, and what you’re going to do about it.’

‘Everyone must think I’m a total idiot.’ I felt the tears sting the back of my nose. ‘I’ve behaved like a bimbo. No wonder they see me that way.’

‘Women like Gary. He knows how to turn on the charm. You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last.’ Chris peered out at a young man walking along on his own, shambling a little. ‘He’s had a few.’

I didn’t care about a drunk pedestrian; he could look after himself. ‘What do I do now?’

‘I can’t tell you. You’ve got to be careful, though. The only way to make this a better story is if you make a fuss. It’ll be gossip for years.’