Chapter 41
‘It’s just not something I can hand over to a member of the public,’ says the desk sergeant at Lymington Police Station. To his credit, he says it very patiently and very politely.
‘I would only need about ten minutes of it,’ says Felicity. She is nothing if not a born negotiator. ‘If it helps, I used to have a client who was on The Bill.’
‘Did you report the attack, madam?’ asks the desk sergeant. ‘When it happened?’
‘I didn’t,’ says Felicity. Tony had been adamant. No one was to know. Steve would sort it. ‘Male ego, you must see it a fair bit?’
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ says the sergeant. ‘Would you like to report it now?’
‘No,’ says Felicity. ‘I work for a detective agency. I think they would find it emasculating.’
‘Then, I fear,’ says the desk sergeant, ‘that we are at an impasse.’
It is absolutely fair enough. Her request for any CCTV around Lymington Harbour on the night she and Tony had bumped into Jakob Eriksson’s thug had been a long shot. The police like to keep things to themselves unless they’re absolutely forced not to.
‘I understand,’ says Felicity. ‘Worth a try.’
‘Who was your client on The Bill?’ the desk sergeant asks. ‘My favourite was WPC Martella.’
‘Oh, that’s amazing,’ says Felicity. ‘My client was one of the armed robbers who murdered her!’
‘Small world,’ says the desk sergeant. ‘I shouldn’t really tell you this, but ninety per cent of everything we solve these days is through video doorbells. That or people admitting to things on Facebook.’
‘Thank you,’ says Felicity. ‘I shall check both.’
‘Good luck with your search,’ says the desk sergeant. ‘Don’t forget we’re always here if you want to actually report a crime. Although we are closed Wednesdays and Fridays.’
Felicity leaves the station and heads down towards the harbour.
She reaches the top end of the alley where Tony was attacked.
She hasn’t been back since that night. Looking down the steep passage, Felicity feels her fear rise again, and then she feels her anger rise, which overcomes the fear very nicely.
To think that Tony might have been taken away from her.
The damage that violent men can inflict on the world.
Perhaps it might be fun to be a violent woman?
At first Felicity had told Tony he had to report the attack. Steve is all well and good, but you must let the police find the man with the blond hair. There was no persuading him, however, and Felicity is now glad of that.
Felicity is glad because, now she really thinks about it, she doesn’t want the police to catch the man with the blond hair. She doesn’t even want Steve to catch the man with the blond hair. Felicity wants to catch the man herself.
What she might do if she does catch him she couldn’t yet say. But she knows it will be worse than whatever the police would do. By the time Felicity is finished with him, the man will be praying for a nice, cosy prison cell.
She finds, however, that thought only makes her happy for a few seconds at a time.
A young mother pushing a pram walks by. Felicity looks into the pram, ready to smile, ready to let a rare ray of innocence brighten her day a little. The pram is full of cigarettes, still with their security tags on. Shoplifting is becoming a real problem in Lymington.
Felicity knows that the response to violence shouldn’t be more violence. That’s the type of thinking that tips the whole world into the abyss. But she will never forget the image of Tony slumped against the wall of this alley, blood dripping on to his torn shirt.
Opposite the entrance of the alley there is a small cottage, and Felicity notes that this small cottage has a video doorbell. Anyone who entered at the top of the alleyway that night would have to have walked past this door. The man with the blond hair would have been captured on that very camera.
As for Jakob Eriksson, the man behind it all, Felicity will have to rely on Steve, Amy and Rosie to catch him.
That’s going to take more than a Ring doorbell on a Lymington cottage.
But Felicity hopes she will get the chance to meet him too, and to see what her response is.
She has decided it is probably best to keep that information from Steve, Amy and Rosie for now.
She’s paid to be an office manager, not a vigilante.
Felicity rings the doorbell.