Chapter 26 Ian
Ian
NOW
‘Sorry, mate. I was held up at work. Want another?’
Ian looks up. He has been so lost in thought he’s almost surprised to see Ash standing there. He eyes the two empty pint glasses on the table in front of him in disbelief, too. He’s been in a complete daze.
‘Yeah, go on, then,’ Ian replies, as Ash picks up the empties. ‘I’ll get a taxi home afterwards.’
As Ash makes his way to the bar, Ian replays the conversation he had with Detective Superintendent Nathan Hall.
Has he done the right thing? Could he have done this any differently?
Entering his superior’s office felt a lot like crossing the Rubicon.
The point of no return. He didn’t really have a choice, though, did he?
He decides to pop outside for a cigarette.
He ends up smoking two, lighting the second one with the embers of the first. He’s officially a chain smoker.
Then he pockets his pack of Embassy, making a mental note to buy another packet from the machine before he leaves.
He’s running low. Strange that you can’t smoke in pubs anymore (soon you might not even be allowed to smoke in pub gardens, if the Health Secretary gets his way), but you can still buy smokes in Ash’s local.
Ian doesn’t know if that’s the case everywhere.
The only pub he ever goes to is The Grove.
When Ian steps back inside the pub, Ash is sitting at the table, looking both worried and impatient.
Ian feels no qualms about making him wait.
Ash was late, as usual, and Ian had to wait for him, so.
He’s mad at Ash, but not because he was late – Ian’s used to Ash’s tardiness.
(Ash turned up late at the church for his own wedding, for Christ’s sake.
Carla and Ian were the only people not panicking.
The bride and the best man. They knew he’d get there eventually.) No, his irascibility is irrational, as if Ash himself is responsible for putting Ian in the position he found himself in.
Ian takes the seat opposite Ash that he vacated a few minutes ago.
He decides to get straight to the point.
‘Listen, I have to tell you something.’ Not very original, but this is the opening sentence he has plumped for.
He tried to run through the whole speech in his head before Ash got here, but he didn’t get beyond this bit.
‘I seem to be everyone’s confidant today,’ Ash comments wryly.
When Ash doesn’t elaborate, Ian hazards a guess. ‘Carla?’
‘Yeah. She … er … Dandruff’s left her.’
‘Oh,’ Ian says. What else is there to say?
‘Och, he’s not good enough for her anyway.
’ That’s the only thing he can think of.
It’s corny, but he happens to believe it.
He steers the conversation back on track.
‘So, as I was saying, er … this is in total confidence, you understand, between you and me.’ Ian points to Ash and then at himself as he says this, raising his eyebrows in expectation of some sort of assurance or promise that Ash will keep this to himself.
‘You got it,’ Ash says.
That will have to do, Ian supposes. ‘We found a hair on the vict … Joshua’s body.’ He notices Ash straighten in his seat. He ploughs on before Ash can interrupt him. ‘It came from the head of a young, blonde woman, who dyes her hair black.’ Ian pauses to let that sink in.
‘I see. You don’t think it’s Iris’s hair, do you?’
‘I don’t know what to think, to be honest.’
‘If it is hers, could it have been on Josh’s clothing or on a piece of furniture or something for a while and then transferred to his body? Is that possible?’
Ian is about to tell Ash they got a partial DNA profile from the hair, which means it was probably shed fairly recently.
But he catches himself on. He can’t keep giving Ash information about the investigation.
He could point out that Iris only started dyeing her hair after the video went viral, when she no longer frequented Josh’s place, but he drops it.
‘Aye, anything’s possible,’ he says instead.
Ash looks thoughtful, as if debating whether to say something. He appears to decide against it and takes a few gulps of his lager.
‘I … er … I went to see my manager,’ Ian says.
‘My superior. It got to the point where I felt I had to.’ He watches as the blood drains from Ash’s face and realizes what his friend is thinking.
‘Oh, no. Not to denounce Iris or anything like that,’ he adds hastily.
I’ve stepped down as senior investigating officer.
’ Ash’s eyebrows knit together into a stitch.
‘I’ve been removed from the inquiry,’ Ian clarifies. ‘Due to personal involvement.’
‘Because of Iris?’
‘Well, that wasn’t the reason I gave. I told the superintendent I’d known the victim and my wife had taught many of the teenagers we’re currently interviewing, some of whom were friends with my daughter, and I felt there might be a conflict of interest. They tend not to take any risks with that sort of thing nowadays. ’
‘I don’t know what to say, Roly,’ Ash says. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Ian didn’t tell the super he didn’t think he was doing his job properly, with integrity, and he doesn’t tell Ash this now either.
In Ian’s mind, it boiled down to a simple choice: his friendship with Ash or his career.
A no-brainer. Anyway, his career’s not over.
He may get another chance one day, although a murder case is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing, especially out here in the sticks.
‘Thank you, Roly,’ Ash says. Unless Ian’s mistaken, Ash has teared up.
‘Sure, it’s no bother. No bother at all.’ He drains his pint and waves the glass in Ash’s face. ‘One more for the road?’
‘Why not? I’ll get these.’
It’s Ian’s round, but he lets Ash get the pints in and goes outside for another smoke.
*
He’s standing in front of his house, about to smoke his last cigarette of the evening, when Jo opens the door and hands him his phone.
‘I answered it,’ she says. ‘Thought it might be important.’
‘Hello?’ he says into the mobile.
‘Good evening, sir. It’s Gail.’
Gail? He pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at the screen. His brain gets there at the same time as he reads the caller ID. DC Ward. ‘Ah, good evening, er … Gail.’
‘Sir, I know you’ve stepped down as SIO, but I thought you’d like to know we’ve made an arrest.’
Ian’s heart skips several beats, then races as if to make up for it. Have they arrested Iris? ‘Who?’ he manages.
‘Harry Tomlinson, sir.’
Ian is so relieved he can’t place the suspect, even though the name rings a bell. Clearly, he has drunk too much, although it was – what? – four pints. He’s such a lightweight. ‘Who?’ he asks again.
‘Harry Tomlinson, sir. The physics teacher at South Lydacombe School?’
‘Ah, yes. The newly qualified teacher who was stalking Sasha Spencer-Lyles.’
‘I think the correct term now is “early career teacher”, sir. The Spencer-Lyles made a formal complaint against him. We found scrapbooks with photos of underage girls – mostly his pupils – clearly taken without their knowledge and a sort of diary in which he wrote down his thoughts and fantasies. Some of it shows unequivocally how envious he was of Joshua Knoll.’
Ian’s brain has gone into overdrive. ‘Where did you find this?’
‘Under the mattress of all places, would you believe it?’
‘Did you have a section 8 PACE warrant?’
‘No, his girlfriend recently kicked him out because she’d found out about his obsession with Sasha Spencer-Lyles. She allowed us to search her house. That’s where we found the scrapbook, diary and photos.’
‘Great work, er … Gail. Well done!’
Ian thanks her for letting him know and ends the call.
He smiles to himself, briefly. He’s genuinely pleased to hear the progress his colleagues have made on the case.
And it looks as though Iris is off the hook.
At the same time, it also looks as though he didn’t need to step down from the case after all.
Sighing, he opens his pack of Embassy. ‘Shit!’ he says.
He forgot to buy another packet at the pub and he’s down to his last fag.
His lucky cigarette. When he opens a fresh pack, he always takes out one of the cigarettes and pushes it back into the pack upside down.
He smokes this one last, making a wish before he lights up.
(Nothing too unrealistic. No point in wasting his wish on world peace or a lifelong supply of Black Bush.
He usually wishes for something for Millie or Jo or himself.)
Someone once told him this tradition of the upside-down lucky cigarette had something to do with the brand Lucky Strikes and American soldiers during the Second World War.
He tries now – and fails – to remember the details.
Jo often jokes that perhaps his last cigarette, if it really is lucky, isn’t the one that will kill him. It wasn’t even funny the first time.
His head is all over the place. It’s the lager. He knows the investigation is crouching in a recess of his mind, ready to pounce on him. He’ll have to sift through his thoughts at some stage. The case, the arrest, his removal from it.
He puts the cigarette in his mouth with one hand and crunches up the empty packet in the other.
What should he wish for? That Iris will be OK?
That he’ll be OK – perhaps he could wish for a juicy murder case further down the line so he can have another shot at being an SIO?
He hasn’t told Jo yet that he’s been taken off the inquiry.
He went to see Superintendent Hall two days ago.
He has told his best mate, but he still hasn’t told his wife, even though he usually tells her everything.
He sighs. He’ll do it in a minute when he goes inside.
He lights up. He knows what to wish for. That they’ve got the right man in custody. Because something about this doesn’t sit right with him. He should know better by now than to trust his intuition, but Ian can’t shake the feeling that Harry Tomlinson isn’t Joshua Knoll’s murderer.