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The uniformed team drives off, Professor Gregson’s profile just visible in the back seat of the first car, and Robbie watches with grim satisfaction. Another murderer who won’t get a chance to kill anyone else.
And this one, he’s sure, wouldn’t have stopped at the two she’d already murdered. They get a liking for it, some of them do. Getting away with it, standing around watching everyone trying to sort out the misery they’ve caused, the crime they’ve committed. Gregson’s one of those, the type who feel no remorse, who enjoy the fear and grief and havoc they’ve wreaked. No, she wouldn’t have stopped at Richard Scott and Amanda Costello. Phil Beaumont would have been next, Robbie’d swear to it. Maybe even Emma Golding, Gregson’s pet student – who knows?
It’s a good result. A murderer heading to where she belongs; police cells initially, and then hours of interviewing under caution, and eventually prison, a life sentence.
He turns away, back to where Hathaway’s hanging back, waiting patiently with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing down at the ground. Waiting for instructions.
The subservience – submissiveness – of his sergeant’s demeanour brings to the fore what he’s been trying to forget for the past few hours: Simon Monkford, the other killer they’ve got in custody. Hathaway’s role in his arrest.
And his reaction to Hathaway telling him that his wife’s murderer had been found at last, five years on.
“Come on,” he says, his voice rougher than he intends.
Hathaway’s head tilts upwards, and he walks towards Robbie, ready to follow wherever his governor leads. “Back to the station, sir?” he says once they’re in Robbie’s Vectra.
“She’ll keep till tomorrow.” The Trout, he thinks, but then wonders if it’s sensible to have this conversation in public, given how touchy he knows he can be – has already been – about it. If he’s going to shout at Hathaway again, though he’s not intending to, better that it’s in private. “Think we can knock off for the day. Innocent can hardly complain we’ve not put the hours in.”
“Right, sir.” Hathaway’s still guarding every word, every gesture. It’s obvious in the rigid way he’s holding himself, his fixed stare out the window. He’s not sulking, though. He’s gone into total mea culpa mode, as if he believes that he has to earn his boss’s forgiveness by showing that he knows his place and by behaving impeccably.
Robbie sighs, unable to help the exasperation that fills him. It seems that, whether or not he’s pissed off at Hathaway, he prefers his sergeant to be his usual irritating self, not this Stepford version of the bloke.
It’s down to him to sort this. He’s the one who keeps insisting that he considers Hathaway a friend, not just a partner and subordinate – yet he’s the one who flew off the handle, wouldn’t listen to Hathaway when he tried to explain, and never even acknowledged the enormity of what Hathaway’s accomplished, all for his benefit. No matter that James went about things wrongly, Robbie’s the one who’s really out of order here.
“Sir, have you forgotten that my car’s at Gregson’s house?” Hathaway points out diffidently as Robbie’s obviously heading in the opposite direction from Summertown.
“You can get it later. Or I’ll pick you up in the morning and we’ll get it.” This needs sorting now. If they start faffing around playing musical cars, he’ll lose his nerve.
“As you wish, sir.” There was more animation in Amanda Costello’s corpse as she lay in the cellars of the Grapevine. Normally, Robbie’d remind Hathaway of his off-duty names rule at this point, but James’s Stepford wife subservience’s pissing him off just enough that he doesn’t.
There’s silence for close to five minutes before Hathaway speaks again, still without shifting his gaze from the road ahead. “Might I ask where we’re going, sir?”
Robbie hesitates; stupidly, he didn’t prepare an answer for this question. “At the risk of sounding like some moron out of a soap opera, we need to talk,” he says at last.
James starts. “No, sir, we really don’t,” he objects.
“Don’t be any more of an idiot-” Robbie breaks off; getting irritated won’t help this situation. “Do you really want this to carry on to the point where one of us gets so pissed off that we ask for a transfer?”
Apparently, that’s shocked Hathaway enough to make him look at Robbie. “You want to have me transferred, sir?” His voice is almost toneless, but that’s enough to tell Robbie how upset his sergeant is at the prospect.
“Don’t be daft.” He shakes his head. “If I didn’t want you transferred over-” Again, he halts abruptly. Absolutely no good’s gonna come from dragging up the Will McEwan case all over again. Took Hathaway long enough to forgive himself for that the first time. “It’s cause I don’t want you decidin’ that’s what you want that I’m sayin’ we need to sort this now.”
“Me?” Now James’s tone is incredulous. “You are joking, sir.”
Robbie shrugs, staying silent as he turns into his street. They’ll be inside in a couple of minutes and can have this out without distraction.
James follows him into the flat, not saying a word, and with his gaze fixed on his feet. Robbie takes a deep breath and goes straight to the fridge instead of following his original intention of making coffee. This might be easier with beer.
The stunned expression on James’s face when he’s handed a bottle of pale ale would be worth photographing. He accepts it almost autonomically. “Would this be a good time for me to apologise properly, sir?” he asks before Robbie can get a word in.
“You’re not the one who needs to apologise.” Robbie leans against his kitchen counter, at right angles to James, who’s on the other side of the island – it’s easier not to have to look straight at his sergeant right now. “I’m the one in the wrong. I had no right to tear a strip off you the way I did-”
“You had every right, sir.” James interrupts, and how he manages to convey both insistence and deference in the same tone is beyond Robbie. “As you said-”
“No.” Robbie cuts across him. “Listen to me. I need to say this an’ I can’t see meself being able to talk about it more than this once. You didn’t tell me about Monkford as soon as you realised because the last time you mentioned Val to me I bit your head off for it, you said?”
He glances across at James. Hathaway’s picking at the label on his beer-bottle, his gaze angled away from Robbie. “Yes, sir. Although I shouldn’t have-”
Robbie sighs. He never should have left James feeling that he can’t even mention Val to him. “I don’t even remember doing it. Could’ve been anything, really. Even after all this time, just about anything can bring it all back. Wrong day, wrong cloud pattern, wrong colour on some woman we pass in the street. An’ you ask a question at the wrong moment and...” Robbie shrugs, mouth a perfect downward crescent. “It’s just the way it gets you sometimes.”
“I can understand that, sir,” James says. He’s so obviously doing his best to convey, through that familiar, non-judgemental tone that he uses so often when interviewing witnesses, that there’s no need to say any more.
But there is. “It doesn’t excuse it. I’m sorry I jumped down your throat, lad – both then an’ when you told me about Monkford.”
“No, no!” James jumps in, and this time he’s looking at Robbie, agitated. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for, sir. You were right – I should have known better. I should have come to you first, as soon as I knew. It was...” He seems to be searching for words. “Disrespectful of me not to. Insulting, too. As you quite rightly said, I know you better than that.”
Robbie takes a deep breath, finding a spot on the opposite wall fascinating. “I dunno. If I jumped down your throat without even remembering it... maybe you were right to be cautious.”
“No.” James is keeping his distance, still on the other side of the kitchen counter. “You’re doubting yourself, sir, and you shouldn’t. Look at the way you waited to see him until you knew you could handle yourself. And although you got angry – understandably – you were in complete control. You didn’t need me to get you out of the room. What you said to him – that was just for show. I was wrong, and I apologise. After everything... the way we’ve got to know each other over the last few months... of course I should have known better. You’ve got every right to be upset with me, especially over me going to Innocent first.”
That makes Robbie turn to look at James at last, frowning in puzzlement. “Yeah, that’s something else. Me, enigmatic? Where’s that come from?”
James rubs the back of his neck. “You... can be, sir. But I shouldn’t have said that. I’m-”
“Stop apologising.” Robbie moves closer to where James is standing. “It’s almost funny, anyway – or at least Innocent thought it was. Seems we both said more or less the same thing about each other.”
The ghost of a smile flickers across James’s face. “Perhaps we should agree on a few descriptions to use the next time Innocent decides to ask us our opinions of each other. Perspicacious?”
“That’ll do. Discreet?”
James almost smiles again. “Diplomatic?”
“Might be stretching it a bit. For you, anyway,” he adds with a smirk. “Me, I’m the prince of diplomacy.”
“If you say so, sir.” There’s a definite grin curving Hathaway’s lips now.
Robbie reaches over and touches his bottle to James’s. “I do, an’ we’re off-duty. No sir-ing me.”
Robbie’s noticed it before, and it’s very visible again now: the release of tension from James, almost like shedding a heavy coat of armour. “Yeah, all right. But I mean it, Robbie: I am sorry I went to Innocent instead of talking to you.”
Robbie waves a hand, signalling that it’s over and done with, then drains his beer and heads to the fridge for more. “Told you, it’s all right,” he says, coming back. “An’ anyway, I know the real reason you didn’t tell me immediately. Should’ve thought about it before tearin’ a strip off you. Instead, I did just what I accused you of doing: jumping to conclusions instead of considering what I know about you. You weren’t worried about me havin’ a go at Monkford at all, were you?”
James shakes his head very faintly.
“You were trying to work out how to tell me without makin’ the grief worse,” Robbie concludes.
James drags a hand over his face. “I’m not very good at that sort of thing. Still almost have to write myself a script when I have to break bad news to a victim’s relative. Hate it. I just didn’t know the best way to tell you. I think I half-wanted Innocent to do it for me.”
“Gets easier with practice – or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. But it’s always worse when it’s someone you know.” He remembers vividly the familiar face at his office door that day in December five years earlier. Chief Superintendent Strange – a week or two away from retirement, and spending most of his time on handover duties – suddenly deigning to visit an inspector out of the blue. And then he’d seen the sympathy mingled with dread on Strange’s face, and he’d known before his boss had even said a word.
It was Strange, too, who’d phoned him to tell him Morse was dead. In both cases, some part of him that almost felt like an observer to his own grief was aware that Strange wished he could have delegated the job of delivering the news to anyone else. If he’d felt that way, Robbie can hardly fault James for having the same reaction.
He doesn’t, of course. Couldn’t.
“I’m glad it was you told me, not Innocent,” he adds now, and reaches out, wrapping his arm across James’s back, squeezing the lad’s shoulder briefly before letting go. “Anyway. Fancy a takeaway?”
“I’ve got a better idea.” James puts his beer on the counter. “I could see what’s in your fridge and cook something?”
“Erm...”
“That doesn’t inspire confidence.” James walks around to the fridge and crouches down in front of the open door. “Ah. Two eggs, almost-empty carton of milk, a tomato that’s past its best, couple of yogurts, chocolate biscuits, some cheese slices that look like they’re turning into cardboard... I could make an omelette, providing neither of us is very hungry and doesn’t mind near-mouldy cheese.” He straightens. “Takeaway it is – and maybe I should come with you next time you go to the supermarket. Make sure you stock up on fresh ingredients.”
“Lot of good it’ll do me, unless you’re intending on coming over an’ cooking for me.” Robbie shrugs. “Was never much cop in the kitchen. Beans on toast or sauce over pasta’s about my limit. Course, it didn’t help that I hardly ever got home in time for meals. You should think yourself lucky that your governor lets you keep decent hours most of the time.”
“I am entirely cognisant of how fortunate I am.” James smirks and goes in search of the takeaway menus.
***
They’ve been debating the worth of a ghost-written PhD over dinner, concluding – to James’s disgust – that neither the thesis itself nor the degree it’s supposed to earn is particularly valued by its purported or actual writer. But Robbie’s mind isn’t entirely on the topic; he’s focused on the unfinished conversation from earlier, and what he hasn’t said yet’s eating away at him. However much he’d like to leave the topic of Simon Monkford and their argument behind them, he can’t yet.
Eventually, he interrupts James’s scathing character assassination of Emma Golding. “James.”
His sergeant stops talking and quirks an eyebrow in his direction.
“I don’t want to talk about those bloody kids any more. Had more than enough of them as it is, thank you very much.”
“Fair enough.” James gestures towards the TV in the living area. “Want to watch the news?”
“No. Just... shut up an’ listen, will you? There’s something else I owe you an apology for. Never even thanked you, did I?” James starts to shake his head, his body language signalling clearly that he thinks this isn’t necessary, but Robbie ignores him. “All that work you put in, late nights, all that digging, putting clues together-”
“I didn’t know what I was going to find, not for a long time,” James objects. “It’s not like I only did it because-”
“Once you did suspect, though, you worked even harder at it. Finding out if your suspicions were right, and proving it. An old hit an’ run case the Met had written off years ago. And you did it for me. Don’t try to pretend you didn’t. I know you.”
“Better than I know you, apparently.” There’s no sarcasm in James’s voice, only self-criticism.
“Ah, don’t listen to what I say when I’m upset, James. I know what you were trying to do. Still wish you’d come to me first, but your intentions were good. Should’ve given you credit for that. I am now. And for proving it was Monkford.” He sighs. “You know, people talk about closure as if it’s this magical cure – wave a wand an’ it’s all better ‘cause you finally know the truth. It’s not like that. I’ll never stop-” He exhales. “Well, you know. But all those questions I had, never knowing who was responsible; it did make it worse. For so long, I thought that if I just knew that the bloke who killed her was locked up where he couldn’t do anyone else any harm, it’d be better.”
It’s several moments before James breaks the silence that falls. “And it’s not?”
Robbie shakes his head slowly. “Ask me again in a week. Or a month. I dunno, maybe a year.” Maybe never.
James just nods, but the silent understanding in his eyes is better than any words.
***
Robbie’s hands shake as he knots his tie, and his reflection in the mirror’s not one Val would recognise at all. All the same, this day’s for her: finally, justice is being done.
He glances back at the framed photo on his bedside cabinet, then leaves the bedroom. No breakfast today. He couldn’t keep food down to save his life.
The magistrates’ court hearing was three weeks ago, just a couple of days after he confronted Monkford in the interview room. It lasted all of four minutes, just enough for the magistrates to remand him in custody and send him for trial in the crown court. The trial begins this morning, abruptly brought forward from the original date, set for the end of the month. Lyn had taken time off work to come down, but with the rescheduled date she’s not able to come. No matter. He’ll be there and that’s what counts.
He told Innocent and Hathaway that he was taking a day’s holiday, with no explanation. Depending on how today goes, and how Monkford pleads and whether the bastard’s lawyers ask for an adjournment, he may need more time, but he’ll face that when it happens.
Time to go. He takes a deep breath, straightens and walks towards the door. And then a couple of sharp raps on the wood make him halt. There’s only one person knocks like that.
“What’re you doin’ here?” he asks Hathaway, rough impatience in his voice as he wrenches the door open.
James shrugs, expression bland. “You didn’t think I’d let you go alone, did you?”
Robbie can’t seem to move. “But how did you even know...?”
“You’re forgetting, sir. I’ll be giving evidence if it proceeds to full trial. They had to let me know it’d been brought forward. And I knew your daughter most likely wouldn’t be able to change her leave arrangements at such short notice.” Hathaway stands back to let him out of the flat.
Of course; he’d completely forgotten that. James is the Crown’s star witness in the case. He’s not only the one who put all the evidence together, but the one Monkford first admitted his guilt to.
“If you’re a witness, you can’t be in the courtroom,” he starts to object, but James is shaking his head.
“I can be there for the plea. I’ll only have to leave if he pleads not guilty – which I don’t think is likely to happen, by the way.”
Robbie nods. Given the amount of research James has done on Monkford, as well as the time he’s spent with the bloke, he most likely knows the bastard inside out by now. There’s every reason to believe he’s right.
“Hope so,” he says, getting into James’s Vectra. “I just want this over with.”
He’s been dreading today, right enough. But there’s no denying it’s going to be a lot easier to face with his partner and best mate at his side.
James glances in his direction just before starting the engine. “Dinner tonight, my place? I have a new recipe for lentil soup I want to try, and I seem to recall I still owe you a few home-cooked meals.”
And just how James found out that’s one of Robbie’s favourites he has no idea. But he’s not looking a gift horse in the mouth. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks, pe– man.”
He manages to correct himself just in time, and it looks like he’s got away with it; James didn’t notice. Slip of the tongue, that’s all it was, but it would’ve been embarrassing all the same. He must have been thinking of Lyn, that’s what it had to be – after all, there’s no way he’d intentionally call James an endearment. Not a chance.
James squeezes his arm briefly, then puts the car in gear. “It’s a date.”
So he didn’t get away with it after all. He gives James an exasperated glare, but the lad just smirks in response.
Bloody hell, he’s a cheeky sod. Yet he’s his cheeky sod, and Robbie wouldn’t have him any other way.
- end