The Half Truth (23 page)

The next two weeks dragged. Tina mentally crossed each day off in her mind. She was looking forward to John coming home so they could make a fresh start of their relationship. One that would be free of the past and free of secrets.

By the fifteenth day, she had still not heard anything from him. She had even taken to checking her phone by calling it from the house phone, just to make sure it was working properly.

‘How are you today, pet?’ asked Mr Cooper as she came into the living room with a plate of shepherd’s pie she had made earlier that day.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, raising her voice several decibels to be heard. She smiled in confirmation.

Mr Cooper looked over his glasses at her. ‘You look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Is it that young man of yours?’

‘Of course not,’ said Tina, secretly marvelling at the elderly gentleman’s perception. He might be deaf, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. He took the tray from her and placed it on his lap, looking up at her with an expression that clearly said he didn’t believe her. She sighed and sat down on the footstall. ‘Okay, I confess. It is John.’

‘I may be old, but I’m not stupid,’ said Mr Cooper, following his comment up with a chuckle. ‘I was young once myself, you know. Now, what’s the problem?’

‘He’s working away and I was hoping he would be back by now.’

‘Be patient, pet. He’ll call you as soon as he can. He hasn’t long been back into the country.’

‘What?’ Tina frowned. How would Mr Cooper know that John had been working abroad?

‘John Nightingale, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘On the news this morning, he was.’ Mr Cooper picked up his fork and turned his dinner plate around a fraction to a more desirable position.

‘John was on the news? I don’t understand.’ Tina swung round to look at Mr Cooper’s television, as if by some miracle the news programme would appear. Instead a BBC2 quiz show greeted her. She looked at her watch. It was six twenty-five. The news would be all but over now. She looked back at Mr Cooper for further explanation. He was just putting a forkful of mash potato into this mouth. She willed him to eat quickly. As soon as she saw him swallow, she launched her next question. ‘What did the news say?’

‘I don’t really know. I couldn’t hear everything. Something about an arrest and it being a big coup for the serious crime squad. Some Russian bloke.’ Mr Cooper returned to his dinner.

Tina rose to her feet, the need to get home and search through the news channels and trawl the internet for any scrap of information was overwhelming.

‘I’ve got to go now, Mr Cooper,’ she said. ‘Lock your back door.’

‘Bye, pet,’ said Mr Cooper without looking up. ‘Don’t fret. The news will be back on again at nine o’clock.’

Tina burst through the kitchen door, flinging it closed behind her.

‘Dimitri!’ she hurried through to the living room and grabbed the remote control. ‘Mummy quickly wants to check something, do you mind?’ She was already calling up the menu.

Dimitri protested, but his voice was somewhere in the background, her mind not focusing on his response. ‘I won’t be long,’ she muttered, immersed in searching the news channels.

The weather. A protest in London. Sports round-up. Fighting in the Middle East. A Royal official visit. Everything but an important arrest or even a sniff of John. She let out a long sigh. Flicked to the final channel available. More weather.

Admitting defeat, she reinstated Dimitri’s programme and picked up her laptop.

She should have made this her first port of call. There on the homepage was the story.

RUSSIAN ANGER AT ARREST OF MOORGATE COP KILLER

International relations with Russia have become strained in a war of words over the arrest of a Russian citizen, who the Met believe is responsible for the fatal shooting of Police Officer Neil Edwards during the fumbled Moorgate bank heist five years ago. Another police officer was shot and injured that day.

The Russian Embassy is accusing the British Government of launching a covert operation to enter Russia and kidnap one of their citizens. The Home Secretary has strenuously denied all allegations.

‘Our suspect was arrested on British ground under British law. The arrest has been carried out to the letter of the law, as I would expect it to be.’

Russia and the UK have no bilateral extradition treaty. Although Russia signed up to the European Convention on Extradition in 1996, it exempted itself from agreeing to send a Russian citizen to another country or state for prosecution. The Russian government has, in the past, stated that it would consider extradition of one of its citizens, but only in exchange for other Russian nationals held under arrest in the UK. The Home Office has always refused to trade nationals, stating that the Russians would be tried in their homeland for crimes against the government and could not, therefore, expect a fair trial.

Today’s arrest comes after a five-year-long investigation into the criminal activities of the Porboski gang, who were reportedly responsible for organised crime across the capital. The Met, however, are making no further comment on the arrest.

There was a picture of the iconic Scotland Yard sign, but that was all. Tina read the online article again. There was no direct mention of either John or Pavel. She wondered if Mr Cooper had got it wrong about John. She would have to make sure she watched the news this evening.

Tina was seated in front of the TV long before the ten o’clock news. She patiently watched the hands of the clock climb their way to the hour and the opening music sound out across the room. Gareth Hughes greeted viewers, and against the backdrop of music, short VT images announced the headlines.

A tornado in America. A NHS hospital scandal. A product release by Apple.

Tina fidgeted in her seat and her patience was rewarded.

‘Russia accuses Britain of kidnapping one of its citizens in the wake of the arrest of a suspect charged in connection with the killing of police officer Neil Edwards during the Moorgate bank robbery five years ago.’

Tina studied the news footage. It showed a car pulling into what looked like some sort of police compound in darkness, accompanied by two police outriders, their blue lights flashing. No sign of John.

She sat glued to the seat, willing the news reports to pass quickly, until they got to the Moorgate robbery item. The Welsh lilt of the news presenter seemed to dance across the room, repeating what Tina had already learned, really providing no more information. It showed a picture of Neil Edwards in his police uniform and a clip from five years ago of the scene cornered off after the shooting. Then it skipped back to the present day and the footage of the cars pulling into the compound. Tina sat on her knees in front of the screen, not unlike Dimitri did when he was watching something really exciting, and then she saw John. He was exiting the unmarked car and as he turned to open the rear door, she caught a good look of his face. She pressed the pause button. It was definitely John. Full marks to Mr Cooper for spotting him.

Tina watched the rest of the report and then spent the next ten minutes replaying it, purely to get a glimpse of John. The footage had cut back to the studio before the occupant in the rear of the car had been revealed. She didn’t need to see. She knew who it was. She was glad for John’s sake.

Maybe now he could forgive himself.

John looked through the two-way glass into the holding room where Pavel Bolotnikov sat on a plastic chair in the middle of the empty space.

John had been wrestling with his feelings ever since they had arrived at the high-security unit. They weren’t taking any risks with interviewing Pavel at a police station, there was too much of a chance that someone would want to either attempt to rescue him or, more likely, silence him.

John hadn’t had time to consider his own emotions when they picked Pavel up in Russia. Too much was at stake to take his eye off the job in hand. Entering the country covertly, without attracting the attention of the Russian authorities, was one thing – kidnapping and extracting one of its citizens from right under their noses was another. If they had been caught they were, to all intents and purposes, on their own. Imprisonment, interrogation and, possibly, even death the only thing to look forward to. The Home Office’s official line was that the British Government wasn’t sanctioning any extradition operations, a line they were maintaining after the successful bid to bring Pavel back to the UK for trial.

Now, in the cold light of day, John wasn’t experiencing the feelings of euphoria that he had anticipated. The past five years had been leading up to this moment and now that it was here, it wasn’t that it was an anti-climax, but more of accomplishment. A job well done. The anger no longer burned, the hatred had been quelled. It surprised him. He was also left with something else he couldn’t quite identify. Peace? Was that what he felt? Had he finally got justice for Neil? Maybe not justice, that would come when he saw Pavel sentenced. He hoped the courts wouldn’t be too easy on him in light of the deal now on the table.

The door behind John opened and he turned to see Martin coming in.

‘So, the bastard is going to deal, then?’ He stood beside John.

‘Looks that way.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘He’ll still be put away for a long time. There’s no way they’ll be too lenient with someone who has killed a police officer.’ John turned his back on the glass.

‘True. Plus you won’t have to go in the witness box and have your identity hidden and all that shit.

John gave a shrug. ‘Not that I’m particularly bothered having to do that. In fact, it would be my pleasure. But, as you so eloquently put it, it saves all that shit.’

‘Fancy a pint?’ said Martin, his hand resting on the door handle. ‘You can show off your war wound to the lads.’

John touched the cut above his eyebrow. A wound courtesy of Pavel expressing his disagreement at being bundled into a car.

‘Yeah, only the one, though,’ said John. ‘I’ve got someone to see.’

‘That wouldn’t be a certain Russian widow would it?’

‘Need-to-know basis, mate,’ said John, giving his friend a nudge in the back. There was also another widow he needed to speak to and Martin definitely didn’t need to know that.

It was a bit of a shitty thing to do; keep watch on Hannah’s house until her boyfriend went out, but John didn’t want a confrontation with the guy. It would only upset Hannah and that was exactly what he wanted to avoid.

He waited a few minutes to make sure the boyfriend was well on his journey before knocking on the white UPVC door of the semi-detached house.

He could see Hannah’s figure approach the door through the glass. She opened the door and, on seeing John, closed it immediately. John resisted the urge to put his foot over the threshold. It wouldn’t be a smart move.

‘Go away, John. I don’t want to speak to you.’

‘Please, Hannah, give me a couple of minutes.’

‘If you don’t go away, I’ll get Ben. He’s in the back garden.’

John pressed his mouth close to the doorframe. ‘I’ve just watched him drive off to squash or badminton, or whatever it is he’s doing with a racquet and gym bag.’

The door opened a fraction. Hannah glared at him through the two-inch gap. ‘You have two minutes, starting now.’

‘Can I at least come in?’

‘Ten seconds gone already.’

She wasn’t budging. ‘Okay, here goes. Pavel Bolotnikov was arrested and charged with Neil’s murder last night. He wants to deal information to shorten his sentence. The powers that be have agreed, but we are still going to be pushing for a harsh jail term.’

‘Is that it? I saw it on the news last night. I’m not stupid, I worked it out myself.’ There was a slight wobble in her voice.

‘I also wanted to say sorry.’ John paused. ‘Sorry for creating a situation that put Neil in danger. Sorry for not being able to save him.’ He hesitated once more as he too heard his own voice crack a fraction. ‘And I’m sorry for giving you hassle about your new boyfriend. You deserve to be happy.’

Hannah opened the door wider. ‘He’s a good man, John,’ she said. ‘He loves me and adores Ella. We love him. He makes us happy. He makes us a family again.’ She reached out and put her hand on John’s arm. ‘It doesn’t mean that we don’t love Neil any more. I know you miss him and this thing has been eating you up. We all miss him too – every day – but we can’t live in limbo. And you shouldn’t either.’

John took Hannah’s hand in his. ‘I’m glad you’re happy. Really I am.’

‘I don’t suppose me telling you that you’re not to blame is something you haven’t been told before. Go easy on yourself.’

John returned the small smile she offered. ‘Yeah, thanks. You too.’ John let her hand fall away.

‘Goodbye, John.’

He turned away and heard the soft click of the door locking shut as he walked back down the path.

Standing in the park, watching Dimitri enjoy the challenges of balancing along a wooden log, Tina zipped up her jacket. The once-gentle breeze of autumn had defected over to winter, lacing its touch with icy-tipped fingers. She made a mental note to dig out their gloves and hats as she wiggled her fingers into her pockets to warm them up.

Dimitri didn’t seem to notice, his attention far too focused on the task, as he shuffled along the log, his arms outstretched.

‘Look at me, Mummy!’

‘Very good,’ she called back.

It was two days since she had seen the news item and still no word from John. Perhaps she hadn’t made it clear enough that she wanted to see him again. Maybe he had got cold feet. Or worse … perhaps now he had achieved his goal of arresting Pavel, he didn’t actually want her any more, despite what he had said when he left.

Something made her turn around; a sixth sense sort of feeling. She was alone in the park with Dimitri, the lateness of the afternoon, coupled with the cooler weather, deterring others from venturing out.

She shivered, aware that it wasn’t because of the cold. She turned a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Empty.

‘Mummy!’ Dimitri’s excited voice snapped her eyes directly onto her son.

He was waving at something behind him. Tina looked on. Her heart dive-bombed to her stomach and rebounded straight back up, taking her breath from her lungs.

‘John.’ Her voice a whisper that only she could hear. He’d come back.

He raised his hand and waved, before breaking into a jog and with a hand on the fence to the play area, hopped over the barrier. Dimitri ran towards him and John’s firm hands immediately lifted the boy up, spinning him around in the air.

‘Hey there, little fella,’ said John, putting him back down. ‘How are you?’

‘Can we play football?’

John gave an exaggerated look around the play area. ‘I’d love to, but I can’t see a football or a goal post.’

‘Come to our house. Play in our garden,’ said Dimitri, jumping up and down on the spot.

‘I’d love to come to your house.’ He looked over at Tina. ‘That’s if your mummy doesn’t mind.’

Tina knew the grin that had involuntarily plastered itself across her face already told John the answer to that one.

THE END