My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (7 page)

She also realized that, in their few case-specific meetings over the final days leading up to the attack, she and Vaughn hadn’t had anything you could call an informal chat. For a few moments they both fished for non-weather-related dialogue, as Hawkins sipped her drink. She congratulated Vaughn on his appointment, and he praised her composure in peril. But the atmosphere soon demanded focus.

Vaughn
led the way. ‘So, how’s the recovery going?’

‘Faster than expected, sir. The chair’s just a precaution; I’m pretty much back on my feet.’

‘That’s good, although I have to say I wasn’t expecting to see you this soon.’

She smiled. ‘I’m healing well.’

The DCS drew breath. ‘What about the psychological side of things?’

Hawkins felt herself hesitate. Several times, hospital doctors had mentioned her risk of developing psychological issues as a result of recent harrowing events but, repeatedly, she’d rushed to assure them that the Met provided excellent private support where such complications were concerned.

She spurred herself just before the pause became incriminating. ‘Trust me, sir, it’s in hand.’

‘Good.’ Vaughn nodded at her upright tone. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you?’

Hawkins paused, rephrasing the statement in her head three times before the direct approach came out. ‘Well, I’d like to resume my duties.’ She watched his brow knit. ‘Today.’

Suddenly the room provided familiarity, albeit in the form of a moment’s permeating soundlessness.

At last Vaughn answered, with visibly tapered demeanour. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t that simple.’

‘Why not?’

As the words left her mouth, Hawkins realized that she was testing untried mettle. Lawrence Kirby-Jones
had handed her a suspension for not much more, and then hijacked her subsequent success in order to catapult his own career skywards, leaving her with physical stab wounds to the chest and metaphorical equivalents in her back. But at least he’d been a known quantity. She had no idea what to expect from a riled Tristan Vaughn, who might be about to make his predecessor’s wrath look benign.

She held her breath as he responded.

‘Without wishing to state the obvious, Antonia, because you’re suspended.’

‘But,’ she ploughed on, ‘you agreed with my approach. We
got
him. Surely that still counts for something around here.’

‘He came to
you
, though, didn’t he, if we’re honest?’

‘Only thanks to tactics you and I implemented together.’ Hawkins felt herself redden, aware that she was making things worse. ‘Technically, it was
your
idea.’

‘True, but irrelevant. You were suspended for ignoring the chain of command.’

‘I didn’t ignore it …’ She shot for a more successful end to the sentence than she achieved. ‘ … entirely.’

Vaughn’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Is that like being
a bit pregnant
?’

‘No … I.’ Hawkins broke eye contact, realizing he wasn’t going to budge.

She sighed. ‘So what’s the procedure?’

After a few seconds of silence, she looked up to find him smiling. ‘Sir?’

‘Sorry.’
He almost laughed. ‘I can’t keep it going any longer.’

She stared at him. ‘You’re … winding me up?’

‘Lawrence was right; you go off like a rocket.’

‘You
are
winding me up.’

‘Of course. Look, Antonia, I like the way you handled the investigation. I’d have done much the same thing; I told you that. And he might not have said so at the time, but Lawrence agreed.’

‘So … why suspend me?’

‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but he was trying to protect you.’

‘
What?
’

‘It was clear you thought you had nothing to lose. You’d mislaid all sense of perspective, and you needed reining in. So he called me: an intermediary you could level with. But when you bypassed that command structure as well, he had no choice but to remove you, for everyone’s sake, mostly your own. Unfortunately, no one realized quite how critical your involvement was.’

Hawkins just sat, reassessing events. It all seemed so long ago.

‘Still,’ Vaughn continued, ‘you came through, and Lawrence put in a very good word for you with the commissioner before he went. Without that, I might have had a hard time convincing everyone you should retain acting DCI status, but not now. Your suspension’s been lifted.’

Hawkins didn’t respond. She’d misjudged the
situation, especially Lawrence Kirby-Jones’ position within it.

‘Anyway,’ Vaughn continued, ‘I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to thank him at some point. Welcome back.’

She mumbled confused thanks.

‘There are conditions, of course.’ Vaughn opened a drawer and produced a printed document, sliding it across the desk towards her. ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with the Met’s “Code of Conduct”, but it’s probably a while since any of us saw a copy. Please reacquaint yourself, especially with the sections on command and disclosure.’

‘Sure.’ She took it, understanding the implication. ‘Anything else?’

‘Actually, there is. I don’t think you’d be in that chair if you had a choice, which means you aren’t quite as fixed as you’d like to be. So come back today by all means, but stay away from anything stressful. Find some paperwork or something to catch up on, until you’re properly back on your feet.’

Relieved, Hawkins excused herself and trundled back into the corridor. She could hear Amy typing away at her desk in the meeting room alcove, out of sight around the corner. Other than that, the hallway was empty in both directions. She sat for a moment, staring at the ‘Code of Conduct’ in her lap.

She was well aware that, upon her return to active duty, she’d be completely unable to resist getting involved in the meatiest case on offer. Vaughn was
right, too, about her not being fit; her armpits and torso were already singing from even today’s moderate exertion. Really, she should call her father and go home, thankful that her position was intact, and concentrate on getting out of the chair.

But the word ‘home’ meant different things depending on who you asked, and as she rolled into the lift and selected the top floor, for the first time in six weeks Hawkins felt a sense of worth.

Moments later she reached the doors of the serious incident suite, beyond which lay her office, her team, and Maguire. She was already locked in battle with the side of her brain that said it was a bad idea to tell Mike and the others about Vaughn’s instructions to take it easy. Her position was safe for now, but she also had a reputation to fix. If she turned up at a performance review in two months with nothing more exciting than alphabetized arrest reports, they’d probably demote her anyway. She needed a personal result in a big case, and the chances of that would only reduce if she lumbered herself with everyone else’s paperwork. She needed to get back on the front line. Did that constitute ignoring the chain of command?

Perhaps.

But as she entered the SIS, Hawkins remembered the Grace Hopper quote she first heard from her favourite secondary-school teacher.

‘It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission
.
’

16

‘Done?’ Jones asked, as Amanda Cain tucked the last medical journal into her plastic crate.

Cain turned back to stare at the room. ‘Yes.’ She lifted the box, wincing as its weight pressed against damaged ribs.

She certainly wouldn’t miss her cell. It might have been single occupancy, and the lightly padded mattress was more comfortable than it looked, but there was a reason people with a choice avoided sleeping four feet from their toilet.

The guard reached out, offering to take the crate.

‘I’m fine,’ Cain said.

Jones assumed her default expression, one that blended disapproval and concern, but she didn’t argue. She hadn’t been around earlier when things kicked off with Tor, although she’d arrived soon afterwards, to help carry Slater to the infirmary. She was one of the longest-serving screws on the wing. Quiet, but no shirker. No leader, but humane.

Yet, in contrast to most of the other guards, her reputation among the inmates wasn’t bad. She made occasional eye contact, for a start. And, beneath all the hardened layers of experience, it was clear that this
lithe woman in her late forties was here for more than a wage. Something behind those stoic eyes said she enjoyed her work.

Cain adjusted her grip, resting the container against her less painful side, and joined her escort beside the low doorway, nodding to indicate she was ready to go. The screw backed out on to the gantry.

The two women walked slowly along the first floor, skirting the tall atrium of B wing. Cain felt a dozen pairs of eyes burning into her back, but she stared ahead and moved on. Having solicited neither friendship nor affiliation during her time inside Holloway’s walls, she had no use for goodbyes.

They descended to ground level at the first intersection, turning right at the end of the block, and within a couple of minutes they had left the wing.

The corridors grew increasingly quiet, until nobody passed in the opposite direction and a lack of post guards meant Jones was opening security doors for herself. They moved on into the oldest part of the prison. The air grew colder. Dust sheets hung here and there from the battered gantries, denoting renovation work underway on the shabby fixtures. But there was no workforce to be seen.

Jones walked a pace or two behind, steering Cain with occasional grunts of ‘Left’ or ‘Right’, her directions the only dialogue to pass between them. There was something spooky about the way two pairs of prison-issue boots echoed off unfinished walls.

At
last they stopped beside a row of renovated cells at the far end of the wing. Three doors stood ajar. Jones glanced up and down the deserted annexe before turning back. She nodded at the rooms. ‘Take your pick.’

Cain hesitated. After months of incarceration, being offered a choice of any kind was unfamiliar. She moved along the line, eventually choosing the corner cell, which seemed to let the most light in through its lattice-barred windowpane.

Jones stepped aside as Cain limped in to find a familiar six-by-eight space. Stark white walls, pine laminate fixtures, plus a combined steel basin and loo. Except this room smelled of plywood and sawdust, which definitely beat stagnant water and damp.

She’d heard about the newer Ofsted-approved layouts; the other cons had been anticipating their arrival for months.

Cain placed her box of possessions on the shallow desk, hearing the door close behind her. She straightened and looked round, waiting for the sound of a lock being turned.

Suddenly she was shoved backwards on to the bed and pinned down, an elbow digging painfully into her neck. Jones’ face was in hers, their foreheads almost touching. Tears burst in Cain’s eyes.

Jones pressed harder. ‘You’re fucking lucky you kept your mouth shut in front of the old man.’

She meant the prison manager, and her concealing the fact that the guards stood by while Slater took a
beating, when Cain had drawn Tor away, taking the fight beyond a reasonable amount of time for the screws not to intervene.

She tried to swallow.

‘Don’t go thinking you’ve saved your friend, though.’ Jones didn’t ease up, ‘Slater’s marked. That bitch is on her way to permanent damage, and next time there’ll be no one to step in. Just count yourself lucky the old man put you in here, and keep your scummy trap closed for another week – got it?’

Cain didn’t respond; she was starting to choke. Her vision began to blur.

Please.

Jones gave one final shove and released her hold, straightening to tidy her uniform as Cain stayed down, coughing between ragged breaths.

The screw paused at the door. ‘And don’t think we can’t get to you on the outside. Blab about this and you’ll end up making Slater look like a fucking beauty queen.’

17

The young sergeant leapt off his chair to help her with the door.

Hawkins thanked him and rolled through into the operations room, a decent-sized square area with offices along the left-hand side, two large desk clusters in the centre and windows across the back. Aside from laminated wood desks, everything from the walls to the light switches was grey or white. And, despite the area’s three occupants, all of whose volition was to detect, Hawkins’ arrival went completely unnoticed, amid a level of intensity that could mean only one thing.

A big case had just broken.

The majority of Hawkins’ core team were engaged in the recognizable early stages of a murder investigation. Frank Todd, her most experienced DI, and DS Amala Yasir, a twenty-something fast-riser, hunched together over a monitor. They faced away from Hawkins, who could see the screen past Yasir’s shoulder. They were trawling the HOLMES 2 database, probably looking for individuals previously convicted of crimes similar to the current case, and for historical links to the deceased.

Beyond
them, Aaron Sharpe held a phone handset to his ear with one hand and scribbled in a notepad with the other, probably piecing together a timeline of the victim’s last known movements. Since his recent arrival on the team, Hawkins had yet to find anything about him that made sense. His first name suggested a younger man; his second someone more intelligent. His poorly chosen clothes neither suited him nor fit. And, on the rare occasion he’d seemed to make a joke, nobody had understood sufficiently to know if it was funny or not.

In truth, she would much rather have hung on to Pete Walker, the six foot seven sergeant who had been seconded to her team just before Christmas. But Walker’s imposing physicality and strong work ethic meant he was in demand elsewhere, too. According to Mike, Vaughn had been forced to let him go to another investigation soon after the case had been closed.

For a moment her mind drifted back to their most recent investigation. She glanced at the two empty desks and shuddered. She had never lost a team member, let alone two on one case. Heat ran up the back of her neck, and her scars burned as she remembered that she’d almost joined them.