The Burning (37 page)

She called him from her office as soon as she arrived back from court. Ryan answered his phone against the sound of fast-moving traffic.

‘Jenny, hi.’ He sounded awkward.

‘Not a good moment?’

‘I’m at Gordano service station. Someone thought they spotted a white male with Robbie Morgan. It’s bullshit, but it doesn’t save us from having to trawl through hours of
CCTV footage.’

‘Any chance we could meet later? I’d like to sound you out over a couple of things.’

He lowered his voice. ‘I’m here with colleagues. Then I’ve a meeting with the Chief back at Gloucester. I’m tied up till mid-afternoon.’

Jenny looked at the files stacking up on her desk. There were ten or more awaiting her urgent attention, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on any of them until she had
shared her fears with Ryan.

‘What if I were to come over, meet you in Gloucester?’

‘Hold on a moment.’ Jenny heard him press his hand over the phone, while one of the others in his team talked about uploading camera footage to a laptop. ‘Sorry about
that,’ Ryan said after a lengthy exchange. She could hear that he was walking away from his colleagues now. ‘Do you know a place called Vinings at Gloucester docks? I can be there at
four.’

‘I’ll find it.’

‘I heard about Falco,’ Ryan said. ‘I can’t say I was surprised.’

‘I’m not sure I know what to believe.’

‘You can tell me all about it later,’ Ryan said. He paused. ‘Hey, it’ll all be fine. I promise.’

Jenny wished she could believe him.

She rang off and stared across the empty room at the closed door, feeling shocked at herself. Her exchange with Ryan had been so casual, so natural, so intimate. How had that happened? She
placed a hand instinctively over her belly, as if to remind herself there was another life in there, one that had nothing to do with him. Was she really so frightened of being alone that she
couldn’t even go days without the reassurance of there being a man somewhere close by she could lean on? She was forced to accept there was more than a grain of truth in that, and being
pregnant only made it worse. Whatever was happening with her hormones was making her feel permanently exposed and unnaturally sensitive. These were just the sort of feminine weaknesses she had
spent her entire career privately despising in other women – the kind who would sob in the Ladies’ after a difficult meeting – but here she was, feeling tearful and lonely and
wishing someone could make it all go away.

Pull out of it, Jenny. What are you thinking?
She tried, but it was no good. Her erratic emotions were winning. She brushed away angry tears and went to fetch some coffee.

Jenny arrived outside the restaurant at Gloucester docks to find it closed. A handwritten sign in the window said it wouldn’t open again until the evening. The slender
trade on a freezing January afternoon clearly wasn’t worth the candle. Jenny huddled into the doorway, sheltering from the cutting wind, and tried to stay warm by stamping her feet. Dim
lights flickered in the windows of several barges tethered in what until a fortnight ago would have been the still waters of the dock. Now it was an open expanse of snow-covered ice inches thick,
and the inhabitants of the boats were marooned. The unrelenting cold was beginning to feel like a curse that would never lift.

It was nearly a quarter past before Ryan jogged towards her along the narrow path cleared in the snow, a briefcase under his arm and breathing clouds of steam.

‘Sorry, Jenny – the meeting ran on.’ He caught his breath and looked at the unlit windows of the restaurant. ‘They’re closed? What’s wrong with
them?’

‘Looks like the whole place is,’ Jenny said. ‘I saw a pub around the corner that didn’t look too rough.’

‘It is. Trust me.’ He scanned up and down the docks but there was little sign of life. ‘My flat’s just across there. It’s not pretty, but it’s warm.’ He
pointed across to the far side of the docks at a modern apartment building.

‘Fine. Let’s go.’ She was desperate to get inside and out of the cold.

‘I heard your friend Mr Falco got bail this afternoon,’ Ryan said, as they set off across the cobbles, ‘but the Polish guy’s still in custody. Judge didn’t trust
him not to disappear.’

‘Is that canteen gossip or did you make a call?’

‘Jack Ballantyne’s an old friend. I did a favour for him once.’

‘Sounds mysterious.’

Ryan smiled. ‘Got to have a little mystery in this job. There’s not much glamour in it, that’s for sure.’

They arrived at the brightly lit entrance to an apartment building on the far side of the frozen dock. Ryan punched in an access code and the door clicked open. Stepping through into a stark
white hallway that still smelt of paint and fresh plaster, Jenny abandoned any fantasies she had harboured about leaving her home in the country. Even the potted palm was plastic. The building had
all the charm of a shopping mall. They travelled up four floors in a shiny, slow-moving lift that felt as if it wasn’t moving at all. In the confined space, Jenny became acutely aware of the
scent of Ryan’s clothes, his hair, his skin; being pregnant was sharpening her sense of smell to an almost painful degree. Her senses, like her emotions, felt overloaded.

‘Are you claustrophobic?’ Ryan said as they crept upwards.

‘Horribly.’

‘Me, too. Any second now.’

They came to a gentle halt. The doors opened, bringing more smells: new carpet and varnished skirting boards. Jenny followed Ryan along the passage to a door at the end of the corridor. He
unlocked it and stepped inside. The lights came on without him having to flick a switch, revealing a spacious studio room with floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened onto a balcony overlooking
the docks. It was minimalist, but pleasant: two large tan sofas and a TV at one end, and a fitted kitchen in light-coloured wood at the other. An open staircase led up to a mezzanine, shielded from
view by panels of smoked glass, that served as a bedroom.

Ryan shrugged off his coat and took Jenny’s to hang in the closet behind the door. ‘More of a hotel room than a home, but it does me. Can I get you something to drink?’

‘Tea, if you’ve got it.’

‘You’re in luck.’

Jenny went to look at the view over the city while Ryan fetched their drinks. The illuminated spire of Gloucester Cathedral rose over the rooftops. In the far distance, traffic wound up the hill
to the Birdlip Ridge and the Cotswolds beyond. The street-level Gloucester she knew was one of scuffed and neglected Victorian buildings interspersed with 1960s concrete; rustic accents alongside
Punjabi, Latvian and Jamaican patois; a once-charming place that was losing the war against becoming another down-at-heel provincial city. But viewed from this vantage point it came close to being
beautiful, the streets melding together into something that made coherent sense.

‘I spend hours doing that,’ Ryan said. ‘I call it my eagle’s nest. Milk?’

‘Just a drop.’

He came alongside and handed her a cup.

‘How did you get on at the service station?’ Jenny asked.

‘Didn’t amount to anything,’ Ryan said dismissively. ‘A small blond boy with a man in the corner of the car park – could have been anyone. Picked something up on
one of the cameras, but Kelly was adamant it wasn’t her boy.’

‘Mind if I have a look?’

‘If you like.’ From his briefcase Ryan pulled a laptop, which he proceeded to set up on the coffee table between the two sofas. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s on your
mind?’

‘Falco’s story was all about two undercover detectives. He said they were originally from Poland, drafted in to penetrate the Polish criminal gangs in Bristol. Does that sound
far-fetched to you?’

‘I remember the Met tried something similar with the Jamaican Yardies back in the nineties. As I recall, it all went swimmingly, until they forgot whose side they were on and started to
kill people.’

‘Do you think it could have happened again, or was it just where Falco got the idea?’

‘I’ve not heard anything along those lines.’

‘And if you had?’ Jenny challenged.

‘Good question. Would I tell you?’ He gave her a playfully enigmatic look. ‘I shouldn’t, but I probably would. Off the record, of course.’

‘Can these sorts of operations remain entirely confidential, even within the police?’

‘All sorts of things remain confidential inside the police. Detectives aren’t even allowed their own informers any more – they’re all handled by the source
unit.’

‘And those kind of secrets really hold?’

‘We’re detectives. We like secrets. They make us feel powerful.’

‘I can’t tell if you’re joking.’

‘Tell you what – give me these guys’ names and I’ll check them out for you.’

‘How?’

Ryan smiled. ‘You’ll have to trust me.’

Jenny sighed. His flippancy wasn’t helping. ‘Tomasz Zaleski said he thought the bodies of the criminals who’ve disappeared might have ended up at Fairmeadows Farm. He was
hinting that Ed Morgan had witnessed something, or even got involved. Look, I’ll admit it – what he said frightened me. What if it’s true? What if Ed was murdered by these people
and they were the ones who dumped a pig’s head outside my house?’ Her voice rose half an octave. ‘What then? Are they going to stop there? How crazy are they? And if any of this
is true, why the hell would the police protect them?’

‘They wouldn’t,’ Ryan replied calmly. ‘If these two have anything to do with CID, they won’t be walking the streets any longer than it takes to pick them up.’
He started tapping on the computer as he logged on to the police intranet. ‘What are their names?’

‘Aron Janick and Danek Mazur.’ She spelled them out letter by letter as he typed.

Ryan waited a moment for results to scroll up. He shook his head. ‘No sign of them on our database, but that’s not saying a lot. I’ll dig a bit deeper in the morning for you.
But if you want my opinion, undercover detectives, even stupid ones, would have more nous than to intimidate a coroner. Think about it, Jenny – you’re undercover, you’ve gone
rogue, you’ve killed a man. You’re going to make damn sure someone else takes the blame and you keep a low profile. You do nothing to draw attention to yourself.’

‘You’re assuming rationality,’ Jenny said.

‘Even psychopaths have a certain amount.’

Jenny was still far from convinced.

Ryan remained patient. ‘It’s not a convincing story, Jenny. It sounds like something a lawyer would make up. They’re so proud of their own supposed intelligence, they never
credit criminals with any. It takes real brains to make a living breaking the law, believe me.’

Jenny sat on the corner of the sofa, deep feelings of unease refusing to leave her.

‘You let yourself get frightened, Jenny. I’m not surprised.’

‘With good reason. My officer’s been suspended. There were inappropriate messages on her Facebook account. She claims it was hacked.’

‘Now you’re looking for evidence to fuel your irrational fears. You’re letting yourself get trapped inside it – you’ve got to step back.’

Jenny looked at him, hardly noticing that he had his hand on her arm.

‘I spent yesterday evening being told to be rational. I’m trying, but my problem is there is a rational explanation that sits with Falco’s story: Janick and Mazur did exactly
what he said; the police figured that out, and they’re working like crazy to cover their tracks.’

‘And that would make me part of it. I don’t enjoy seeing you like this. To be honest, it’s painful.’ He squeezed her arm, then took his hand away. ‘Do you want to
see this footage?’

Jenny nodded and moved a little closer to him so that she could see the screen.

Ryan opened a video file. The picture was in colour but low resolution. The field of view covered an area of car park away from the service-station building, close to an area with picnic tables
that in normal weather would have been grass.

‘This is it now.’ He pointed to a vehicle that partially entered the frame and pulled into a space at the lower-left corner of the screen. A man dressed in a black ski jacket and
baseball cap climbed out of the driver’s door and took a small child dressed in a red coat from the back seat. He carried the child to the gutter and leant over from the waist. It
wasn’t altogether clear what was happening, but Jenny assumed the child was having a pee. The man stood for a long moment, gazing away from the camera, then leant over again, before helping
the child back into the car.

‘Looks like the kid was taking a leak,’ Ryan said.

Jenny kept watching as the car reversed out of the space. It was blue and only the rear half of it was visible, but something about it – or was it something about the man? – troubled
her.

‘I want to see it again,’ Jenny said.

Ryan played the footage a second time. The man’s face remained frustratingly obscured beneath the rim of his cap. Jenny briefly convinced herself that nevertheless there was something
familiar about him – the motion of his arm as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth while he waited for the boy, perhaps – but just as quickly she told herself she was
imagining things. Seeing ghosts again.

‘It’s a phenomenon,’ Ryan said. ‘People will be sighting him up and down the country for the next six months, then they’ll forget about it. If it was female child,
it would last twelve months, or so the experts tell me.’

He brought down the lid of his laptop and slowly pressed it shut. ‘So, is that what you needed – reassurance that Polish undercover cops aren’t going to murder you in your
bed?’

‘Something like that.’

She was quiet for a moment, and aware of Ryan’s body only inches from hers. Close enough that she could feel his heat. Both of them responded to the same instinct to let the silence
continue; to see what might emerge from it. As five seconds moved towards ten, Jenny felt the tension rise; neither making a move, both staring straight ahead, both of them old and self-aware
enough to be thinking of consequences. Ryan broke the spell and touched his leg against hers.

‘Are you all right? You’re quiet.’