Chapter 1
There was a cheer from most of the Serial Crimes Unit as Anjelica Henley pressed through the crowd and approached the reserved table in the pub garden.
A few days ago, she’d been on a beach in Grenada with her family and avoiding text messages from her boss and her ex, Stephen Pellacia.
Now she was back in London, exhausted and trying to understand why the serial killer, Sian Fox-Carnell, was a leading news item.
‘You finally decided to grace us with your presence,’ said DS Paul Stanford, standing up and giving mock applause. ‘I thought you’d emigrated.’
‘I’m not here for you,’ Henley said as she handed Joanna, the office manager for the SCU, a blue gift bag and a bouquet of flowers.
‘I told you she would turn up.’ Joanna hugged Henley tightly. ‘Thank you, love.’
‘If it was anyone else, I would have stayed at home.’
‘You really know how to make someone feel wanted, don’t you,’ said Stanford, shuffling along the bench, making way for Henley.
‘Don’t start.’ Henley stifled a yawn as a wave of jetlag hit her.
‘It’s good to have you back boss,’ said DC Salim Ramouter. He held up his near-empty beer glass in salute.
‘Kiss arse,’ Joanna sniggered.
‘Because it’s your birthday, Jo, I’m not going to respond,’ said Ramouter.
‘Where’s Eastwood and Pellacia?’ Henley asked, scanning the crowd for her colleagues, as Joanna and Ramouter continued to banter. The unseasonably warm October weather meant the beer garden was filled to capacity with the post-work crowd, students and locals.
‘Getting a round in. I told them you were on your way, so you won’t be left out,’ Ezra, the unit’s forensic computer analyst, replied.
‘If I’d known I’d be coming back to this craziness with Sian Fox-Carnell, I wouldn’t have got on the bloody plane,’ said Henley, catching her boss, Pellacia’s eye as he and DS Roxanne Eastwood made their way towards their small group. She felt the unmistakable pang of longing and looked away.
‘It’s not the best news to come back home to.’ Stanford picked up a beer mat and tapped it repeatedly on the table, signalling his annoyance.
‘What are we talking about?’ asked Eastwood.
‘Fox-Carnell,’ Stanford answered.
Pellacia groaned, placed the tray on the table and handed out the rest of the drinks. ‘Do we have to talk about her?’
‘I would gladly not talk about her for the rest of my days but the fact that me and Henley have been summoned to court is going to make that a bit difficult,’ said Stanford.
‘What for?’ Henley asked as Eastwood handed her a glass of wine.
‘They’ve listed Fox-Carnell’s case first thing Monday morning and the judge has requested our presence. I was going to wait until you’d at least got two glasses of wine down you, but no time like the present.’
‘I tried to get you out of it, but the judge wasn’t having it,’ Pellacia said. He took a sip of his beer, holding Henley’s gaze for a second longer than was necessary.
‘I know Fox-Carnell was before my time at the SCU, but I thought she was bang to rights,’ said Eastwood.
‘She is,’ Pellacia responded vehemently. ‘Rhimes, Stanford, Henley and I worked that investigation to the ground. Left no stone unturned. We had evidence of Fox-Carnell tampering with medication, witness evidence—’
‘None of that matters though. Not when her legal team are saying that there was no direct evidence of Fox-Carnell injecting her patients with lethal doses of medication, and they’re not wrong,’ said Stanford.
‘But that wasn’t our case, was it?’ countered Henley.
‘The evidence showed that she either switched the medication or purposely gave the incorrect dosage directions to the patients’ family members who were looking after them.
She was the only person responsible for killing two people and nearly killing two more. ’
‘If the CPS hadn’t run scared, we could have charged her with more deaths,’ added Pellacia.
‘But from what Stanford told me, no one is saying that Rhimes and his team did anything wrong,’ said Ramouter as a barman placed two large bowls of nachos on the table.
‘Of course we didn’t do anything wrong. This is just the inevitable fallout of discovering that Dr Fry was one of the people responsible for putting an innocent man in prison for twenty-five years,’ said Henley. She checked her phone as it started ringing and motioned for Stanford to move.
Pellacia frowned ‘That man has blood on his hands. How many more people like Andrew Streeter are sitting inside for crimes they didn’t commit and how many have got away with literal murder?’
Joanna pulled the nachos towards her. ‘Fox-Carnell is chancing her arm, and she won’t be the only one. It won’t matter if you were charged with shoplifting a car tyre or a mass murder, they’re all going to lodge appeals if Dr Ian Fry even breathed near their forensic report.’
‘Everything all right?’ Pellacia asked, joining Henley outside the pub. He pulled out a box of cigarettes from his pocket and sighed when he saw it was empty.
‘Consider that a sign,’ Henley said, putting her phone away.
‘Yeah, I really should give up.’
They stood in silence that was somehow both comfortable and uncomfortable.
‘You didn’t answer me,’ Pellacia said.
Henley stepped away from the main door to let a couple pass. ‘Everything’s fine. That was Simon on the phone.’
‘How is your brother?’
‘Doing what he’s best at: being annoying,’ Henley said affectionately. ‘How are you?’
Pellacia blew out his cheeks and looked disappointingly at the empty cigarette box in his hand. ‘Everywhere I turn: stress. Fox-Carnell, and every other twat who’s ever crossed our path, protesting their innocence, the SCU being under review and then there’s been stuff with—’
Henley stiffened and chastised herself for having such a reaction to the name Pellacia had stopped himself from saying.
‘Sorry, you’ve just come back from holiday and that’s actually why I came out here. I wanted to apologise,’ Pellacia said.
‘You really don’t have to.’
‘No. I do. I was out of line. You told me where we stood, and I had a hard time accepting it. You asked for space, I should have respected that.’
‘It’s not all on you,’ Henley admitted, a wave of emotion and confusion sweeping over her. ‘I know what I’ve said but that doesn’t—’
Henley stopped when a figure in the distance waved and started making their way quickly towards them.
‘That doesn’t what?’ Pellacia asked earnestly, taking hold Henley’s arm. ‘What were you going to say?’
Henley gently pulled away. ‘It’s Linh,’ she said. ‘She’s coming this way.’
Pellacia turned around, his shoulders visibly rising and falling with disappointment.
‘Sometimes I think I’m imagining things,’ he said, facing Henley again. ‘That I’m holding onto something that doesn’t exist but right now, I know I’m wrong.’
‘Good evening,’ Linh said brightly, stepping in between Henley and Pellacia; an obvious intervention.
‘I’m going back inside. What can I get you, Linh?’ asked Pellacia.
‘A very large JD and Coke, thanks,’ Linh replied as she hugged Henley.
‘I didn’t know you were going to be here?’ Henley said.
Pellacia returned inside.
‘Ezra invited me.’
‘Of course he did. You know he’s got a thing for you?’
Linh laughed. ‘Who doesn’t have a thing for me? Anyway, what did I just interrupt?’
‘You didn’t interrupt anything,’ Henley replied, lowering her gaze.
‘Liar.’
‘It was about work.’
Linh smiled and slowly shook her head. ‘I can see straight through the pair of you but I’m going to let you off because you look like you’re about to cry.’
Henley rubbed underneath her eyes. ‘It’s jetlag,’ she protested.
‘That’s the trouble with holidays. It’s all well and good being in your Caribbean sun-soaked bubble for three weeks but then you have to come home and deal with reality.’ Linh placed her arm around Henley. ‘And whether you like it or not, Pellacia is very much reality.’
‘Can we not do this now, Linh? None of this is easy.’
‘Who said life was ever easy.’