CHAPTER ONE #2
'I don't know how they're recruiting agents these days,' Kate said. 'But when I applied, they were mainly interested in my degree, my fitness, and my prior work experience.'
‘Yes, but I don’t have any right now.’
‘Well, you kind of got to,’ Marcus said. ‘Unless you’ve been in the armed forces.’
Tavone sighed and looked so defeated, Kate almost feared he was about to cry.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘I turned seventeen last month,’ he said, glumly.
'Well then, you've got plenty of time. The minimum entry age is 23. So that's time to finish High School, do your degree, and get a couple of years' work under your belt.'
'But that's years and years!' Tavone protested. Kate had to suppress a smile. She could remember thinking like that herself.
'It'll go very fast. And you need to vary your fitness routine as well. Work on upper body strength, build some mass. Skipping for boxers. Yes, I've seen you, Tavone, because surveillance is a two-way street. It’s not just about watching. It’s about not being seen by the person you’re watching.’
Tavone took this in for a moment. ‘Hey, do you think I could come out one time with you guys? On stakeout maybe? So I can learn how it all works.’
‘Sorry, fella,’ Marcus said. ‘The boss would shish-kabob us over hot coals.’
'But I do know that the Maine field office runs a couple of career open days each year,' Kate said. 'I can find out when the next one's due. How about it?'
Tavone nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, gruffly, zipping up his coat.
‘You want a ride back?’ Kate asked.
Tavone shook his head. ‘I’m feeling a little… kind of embarrassed now. Gonna just, y’know. Walk it off.’ He nodded formally to them both, then got out of the car. They watched him walk away, hands thrust deep in his pockets.
‘Sweet kid,’ Kate said. ‘Feeling a little embarrassed right now. Not what I’d imagined. Thank God.’
‘Sweet? The guy’s clearly not normal.’
‘Normal? Marcus, what does that even mean? He’s a bit… na?ve, that’s all. I think his heart’s in the right place. And when I think of all the reasons someone could be following me, I’m very glad he was doing it for his career.’
‘Hmm.’
Marcus’s famous grunt. It was a way of ending the argument, without admitting that the other person was right. It drove Kate crazy.
‘Marcus. What does Cynthia do when you make that grunt?’
Marcus stared down at his hands. ‘She used to get pissed off.’
‘Used to?’
‘Mm.’
That was another variety of grunt: Marcus’s way of saying that he didn’t want to say any more.
But rather than annoying Kate, this one worried her.
It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this.
Three, maybe four times, over just as many weeks, Marcus had said something about his fiancée that suggested all was not rosy in the garden.
And he clearly wanted to get something off his chest. Why mention it, otherwise?
‘Listen -’ she began. Then her phone rang. ‘Mom’ flashed up on the screen. Great timing.
‘Mom! How was Oxford?’
‘I’ve been burgled!’ hissed her mother, Dr Catherine Valentine, in a theatrical stage-whisper. ‘Someone seems to have slept on the sofa and they’ve gone through all of your clothes, it’s like a tornado.’
‘Mom, there’s no need to whisper, it was –’
'I meant to go fetch Sapir and Whorf straight from the airport, but now I'm thinking I should ring the police. I mean, it's a crime scene, isn't it?'
‘Mom the dogs are w -’
As her mother continued speaking, Kate put her hand over the microphone and mimed a kind of ‘catch you later’ message to Marcus, who gave a puzzled look. Now it was Kate’s turn to do some explaining.
+ + + + + +
‘I just took one look at the kennels, Mom, and they’ve gone seriously downhill,’ Kate said, through a mouthful of a sticky English delicacy called ‘parkin’.
Her mother, Dr Catherine Valentine, had returned from a linguistics conference in England, laden with souvenirs and sticky treats, some of which, like the delicious, treacly parkin, probably should have stayed where they were.
‘It’s dirty. They’ve got new staff, who are all very young and not particularly communicative.
And there was not one happy dog in the place.
When we came in, I swear they all started crying.
Literally. All of the dogs in that place thought we’d come to take them home. ’
'Oh, don't, I don’t want to hear it,’ said Professor Valentine, putting protective arms around her twin red setters, either side of her on the sofa. ‘So where were they today?’
'Rosa over the street – she's home studying for exams, so I asked her if she wanted to make a few bucks. Honestly, I couldn't have left the dogs in that place a minute longer. And we wouldn't all fit into my apartment.'
Catherine gazed at her daughter. ‘You were so insistent that you were going back to work.’
‘I know. But once I had the dogs with me… Anyway, it was pretty clear they didn’t have anything for me to do in the office.’
‘It seems like you’ve been busy here,’ Catherine said, moving a folded sweater from the arm of the chair.
'I'm sorry the place is such a mess. Honestly, I thought I had all of today to get it done. I was sorting out clothes to take to the goodwill.'
‘Well, if you’ve topped up the gin with water, I’ll know.’
‘Mom. I was a total square. When would I ever have done that?’
'I know. That was your father when we were kids.
And it was worse. He topped up the anisette with tap water, and that turns it a kind of cloudy yellow.
So he thought the best option would be to drink it all.
He was sick as a dog. All over this couch, actually, I don't suppose you knew that. It belonged to my parents.'
'Euww.' Kate moved instinctively. Since as long as she could remember, the corduroy couch had smelled of dogs and cinnamon candles.
She didn't really want to think that her father's stomach contents were part of the mix.
But it was nice to be reminded that her parents were childhood sweethearts.
She realised, in the same instant, that she'd never be able to say that.
She'd spent more time with the choir and her textbooks than she had with boys. In that sense, what had changed?
'For the next four decades, your grandmother referred to your father as 'that Irish hooligan. I don't believe you, by the way, Kate.'
That was Catherine’s style: float like a butterfly, sting like a guided missile. Tack the killer point on the back of a joke or a story and fire it so fast, your target barely realises they’re hit.
'OK, I did, genuinely not want to leave the dogs at that place. But, also, I don't seem to get the nightmares here.'
Her mother looked at her with concern. ‘Why do you think that is?’
‘This house keeps me awake. I don’t mean in a scary way. I like it. It’s big and old, Ma. It settles down at the end of the day. Creaks and sighs. And I like that, it’s like a person. My apartment’s completely silent. And in the silence… it’s like everything bad comes back. Badder. And bigger.’
‘Stay then. Move back here. I won’t get in your way. I’ll go out if you… you know, want to have a boy over.’
‘Mom, seriously? A boy over?’ Kate cringed.
She took a deep breath. Her mom wasn’t trying to embarrass her.
She was actually being very kind. ‘Mom, I can’t,’ she said, gently.
‘I have to get over what Denton did to me. Denton and then his disciple, Cox. And there has to be a better solution to the nightmares than… insomnia.’
‘I think the only solution is time, but I understand why that might not sound very comforting. Take it from me, though, Kate, you grow stronger and more confident every day. I can see it.’
‘Thank you for saying that. I think I… I can feel that sometimes, then something happens. A reminder from a new case or I just get a sense of how far I’ve still got to travel. And then I just think – how can I? How can I keep on putting one foot in front of another?’
‘You’re forgetting, though, that you were doing a very good job of it, until Denton’s execution date came up. You can do it, because you know you have.’
‘Isn’t that an alternative way of saying: I can fake it for short periods of time, before something happens to make it abundantly clear that I can’t?’
Her phone rang. The screen said A.D. Winters. Boss. She answered the call.
‘Cox has just been moved to the State Prison in Sherborne.’
‘I was just discussing him with my mother.’
‘Not a nice topic, find another one.’ That wasn’t a joke on Assistant Director Victoria Winters’s part.
She just didn’t do small talk. She continued without further preamble, sounding as if she was running from one high level meeting to another, with her shoes in her hand, which she probably was.
‘Tomorrow a.m. he’s got pre-trial assessments with the psych team.
Might be helpful in terms of preparing for your turn in the witness box.
Equally sharing any psych-based insights with the prosecution team. ’
‘You want me to attend the assessment?’ Kate clarified. Winters tended to assume everyone was on the same page as her, although frequently, that was impossible. She was at least ten pages ahead.
‘Attend and observe,’ Winters replied. ‘Then brief me Tuesday afternoon. It’s good to have you back, Kate.’
Click.
‘Seems I’m not the only person who believes you can do it,’ said Catherine, quietly.