Chapter Ten
“Thirteen!” Harry bellows across the Holmes Room on Monday morning. “Thirteen Denver-bloody-Bradys. The custody suite is full of them. We’ve had news crews lining the street outside all weekend and there’s more of them arriving by the hour!”
Sam’s head rattles inside her skull. She’s spent the entire weekend trying to banish the memory of her panic attack and the associated migraine and sickness. She’s only just feeling human again and now Harry’s yelling brings her out in a cold sweat.
“Earth to Sam?” Harry yells.
“Sorry, sir,” she says, looking up from her half-written email response to HR. “What was that?”
“I said,” Harry says through gritted teeth, “I want you and Edris in my office. Now.”
She glances across the fourth floor at Taylor. She really shouldn’t have persuaded him to head to a Newcastle pub on Friday afternoon. She’d become the cliché she hates so much: a detective who washes away their mental health issues with a bottle of wine.
First, she’d vomited all over the cobblestones the moment she regained consciousness, then she’d told him she couldn’t go back inside the police station and she needed a drink, and they’d walked to the nearest pub—which, in Newcastle, took thirty seconds.
The Dog and Parrot was everything Sam had thought a Tyneside pub would be: worn wooden bar, sticky damask carpets, old men sitting around playing dominoes, the clacking sound of snooker balls colliding.
She ordered a glass of Pinot, then a bottle.
Taylor had been unable to drink his bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, his delicate Home Counties palate wincing at the authentic bitter.
She’d bought him a Smirnoff Ice with a pink straw instead, much to the bartender’s amusement.
Sam can’t remember if he drank the alcopop or not.
Come to think of it, she can’t remember much of anything after she’d dragged him on to the pub’s tiny dance floor and sang “Teenage Dirtbag” at the top of her lungs.
She can’t remember the train journey home or the taxi ride from King’s Cross.
She can’t remember feeding the dog when she got home, but there were fresh puppy pads and kibble in his bowl the next morning.
She herself woke up on her sofa under a blanket, with a large bucket and a glass of water left beside her.
No wonder he won’t meet her eye now.
The women follow their DCI into his corner office and close the door.
“Sir—” Tina begins, but he cuts her off.
“This is on you, Edris!” he barks. “You’re SIO. You put a drugged-up father in front of a room full of journalists and didn’t think to frisk him or brief him about what not to say? Take a look out there!”
Harry points to the office beyond his glass window, where the floor is a hive of activity. The civilians are all typing furiously and talking into headsets. The police officers are huddled around the lift, waiting their turn to ride down to the custody suite.
Tina looks at the chaos as directed, her back straight, hands clasped neatly in the front.
“We’re buried in phone calls, emails and confessions,” Harry continues. “I warned you both about what a shit show this would become if the existence of that bloody book leaked to the press.”
“Sir, Nigel Mathers concealed the book from both of us at the press conference. How could I have known he’d jeopardize the investigation like that?
” Edris tries. Sam can see light sweat forming along her colleague’s hairline, but her voice is controlled.
Sam wonders if Nigel Mathers realizes how much his actions will take away precious time and effort from solving his daughter’s murder; work now diverted to managing the thousands of phone calls from the public and following up on dozens of leads, most of which will meet a dead end.
Sam begins, “It’s clear that Nigel Mathers—”
“Nigel Mathers is almost as much of a corpse as his daughter is,” Harry says, coldly.
Sam’s mouth drops open at her godfather’s callousness.
“I mean, Nigel Mathers is a grief-stricken father,” Harry corrects himself.
“You were supposed to manage him, Edris. You failed. For the love of God, tell me that you’ve found Denver, Sam. ”
“Sir, we’ve not got anything solid to connect Denver to Charlotte yet,” she replies, determined to stick to the facts.
“However, there is a strong probability that Denver does exist and he definitely has unique knowledge of the Betty Brown murder and perhaps others. Either Denver is a serial killer and he murdered Charlotte, or we could be looking at two killers: Denver and a copycat.”
“DI Hansen,” Tina chimes in. “Did you follow the money trail, as I suggested?”
“The money from the website is landing in a Glaswegian student account in the name of Drew Mackay, then moving into a Welsh account in Cardiff. Details pending, but I suspect Denver is using money mules. We do have one good lead: the printer’s where the book was pressed was subjected to an arson attack.
Sussex Police are investigating. If they find the arsonist—”
“We find Denver,” Harry finishes. “I’ll call the right people at Sussex and speed that up. But it’s not enough. We’ll have to respond tangibly here. It’s not just about what we do, it’s about what we are seen to do.”
“We can’t let media pressure dictate our—” Tina begins, but Harry cuts her off again.
“Sam, I’m making you joint SIO,” he declares, and Tina gasps.
“We’ll have to quadruple the size of the team on the Brady side of the investigation and you’ll need to work more closely with Edris to understand all the details of Charlotte’s case, to speed up the search for further connections.
It’ll be a joint taskforce, with you two leading together.
Sam, you’ll remain focused on finding Denver and I’m sorry, but I need you on that full-time.
I can’t bring someone else in now—you’re already well on your way to finding him and Edris can’t handle both sides of the case. ”
“Sir, no!” Edris raises her voice. “Detective Chief Inspector Blakelaw, this is my case. I am Senior Investigating Officer. I have progressed the case well, under the circumstances. We have no physical evidence, no witnesses. I simply need a little more time—”
“Time?” Harry yells. “The word ‘serial killer’ is on the front page of every newspaper from here to John O’Groats, and you’re asking for time?”
“Sir,” Tina tries again, her voice now containing a small tremor. “Detective Inspector Hansen is on phased return. More pressure and workload could be really damaging for her. We need to speak to HR about—”
“Sam will handle it,” Harry says, staring out of his window as another news van pulls up. “I’ll handle HR. Can’t you see that all our careers, our reputations, are on the line here?” he says, not looking at either woman.
Sam stares at him, her mind whirring. His decision baffles her—why on earth would he make her joint SIO? But she tells herself there’s no way Harry would risk her health unless he believed she could manage it. He’s always done what’s best for her, ever since she was a kid. Even when—
A new sound pulls Sam from her thoughts, and she moves to stand behind Harry at the window.
Crossing the road is a small group with placards.
They come to a stop beneath the iconic rotating New Scotland Yard sign.
Muffled chants rise and a woman pulls out a megaphone.
Sam pinches the top of her nose. She’s already struggling to keep it together, as the trip to Newcastle showed.
How can Harry think she is ready for this amount of pressure and responsibility?
Sam sighs, torn. She wants to tell Harry about Friday’s panic attack. About needing time to catch up with Dr. Thomson. That she hasn’t yet been able to bring herself to look at the crime scene photographs. But she doesn’t want to let him down. She doesn’t want to let Charlotte down …
“Sir,” Tina Edris says, “I must object in the strongest terms—”
“Noted, Edris,” Harry says, then waves them out as he picks up the ringing phone. “Ah, Commissioner, I was just about to call you.”
Sam walks out of Harry’s office feeling light-headed.
She tries to catch Tina’s eye, but DC Chen is hovering and insists he has something Tina needs to look at urgently.
Sam makes her way through the hubbub, toward the communal TV and seating area.
She’s desperate for a cup of tea and sits on the sofa as the kettle boils.
Joint SIO. Harry has made her joint SIO.
That means she is now in shared command of investigating a child’s murder and a potential serial killer.
It was what she thought she wanted, but now she knows it’s just too much.
Sam sucks in a deep breath. The TV screen next to the sofa is filled with news headlines, the words FEAR MOUNTS OVER UK SERIAL KILLER ALLEGATIONS scrolling across it.
Sam switches the channel, but it’s worse: MET DENIES SERIAL KILLER INVESTIGATION. Sam closes her eyes.
When she opens them a few moments later, a steaming mug of tea is on the table in front of her.
Sam looks around and sees Adam Taylor across the room.
She smiles at him and mouths “Thank you.” He nods gravely, holding her gaze until she looks away.
It’s progress. Not an hour ago she thought he was avoiding her.
The relief it brings, knowing Taylor’s still got her back, is stronger than she cares to acknowledge.
“DI Hansen,” a civilian colleague says, making her start. “Your brother called for you. He said it was urgent.” The woman holds out a Post-it note with a telephone number on it.
“I don’t have a brother,” Sam says and the woman looks at her blankly.
“Are you sure?” The woman shakes her head at her own silly question. “I’m certain he said he’s your brother. I’m sorry, I’m new here.”
“It’ll be a journalist,” Sam says. “They do it all the time. Claim to be family.”