Straight Back (3 page)

He placed his hand on her knee. “It won’t come to that. Okay? Now you’ve got to trust me and everything will be alright. I promise you.”

“Where are we going?”

“To somewhere I can take care of you until all this is over.”    

THREE

“Can you remind me how we got here?” Rebecca Stockton asked.

“Well, we walked, or rather ran up the stairs once the mood had struck us,” answered Joe Alexander.

Rebecca laughed. “No, you silly bugger, I know how we got up here and into your bed but how did we, you know, get here?”

“You came round for lunch but something else came up.”

Rebecca laughed again. “Am I going to get anything serious out of you this afternoon?”

“The way I’m feeling now, I’d say the answer is a definite ‘no’.”

DI Rebecca Stockton and DC Joe Alexander had been in very different emotional places when Joe joined DSI Jeff Barton’s team just a few weeks ago. Rebecca had thought she might be getting somewhere in her pursuit of Jeff Barton as a romantic as well as a working partner but her amorous intentions were thwarted once more by Jeff’s admission that he still couldn’t see past the death of his late wife, Lillie Mae. Joe was getting over being dumped by his ex-girlfriend whilst he was in hospital fighting for his life after an incident involving guns whilst on duty. Joe had taken the rejection hard. He’d never been that lucky in love and his adult life was sparsely populated by girlfriends.

Then, one night at the pub last week, something had happened. It was a kiss. A drunken kiss, but a kiss that was no less intended than if they’d been sober. They’d both felt that shiver when you suddenly really notice someone rather than just knowing that they were there. It had got all of them talking at the station, which neither of them wanted but accepted would be the case. Rebecca was relieved, however, that Jeff Barton hadn’t been there that night because he was still on his holidays in Hong Kong. She had finally accepted that there was no future for her and Jeff but she didn’t want to appear to rub his nose in it or stick two fingers up at him by moving so swiftly onto the next man, especially when he was on the same work team, which could lead to complications.

Nothing had happened that night of the kiss. They’d got into their cars and driven away in different directions. The next morning they didn’t go anywhere near it. They didn’t speak about it at all. There were lots of embarrassed silences and they both ran away from it all, not confronting it or acknowledging it in any way.

Until earlier this morning when they bumped into each other doing their Sunday morning weekly shop at a branch of
Tescos
. For a moment they’d looked at each other and wondered what on earth to say.
They were standing by the cheese counter.
A quick look at their respective trolleys gave the game away. They were carrying the essentials like bread, milk, a chicken to roast, packs of vegetables to microwave, bags of bananas and apples, a steak, a couple of lamb cutlets, a couple of frozen pizzas. And half a dozen bottles of wine. They were both advertising the fact that they were single and having to fend for themselves with no surprise additional mouths to feed but they weren’t planning to survive on junk food alone.

“What did you do yesterday?” asked Rebecca.

“Saturday? I slept in, I caught up on the week’s papers, I wished it was Sunday and a day closer to going back to work. And you?”

“Pretty much the same,” said Rebecca. “Managed to avoid going round to see my friend who is not only head-over-heels with her new man but also pregnant by him.”

“You can only take so much of other people’s happiness when you’ve no life of your own.”

“That is so true,” said Rebecca. “I’m happy for my friend. I’m happy for anyone who’s happy. I just wish some of it would come my way for a change.”

“Yep. I know.”

“I hate weekends when we haven’t got a case on,” said Rebecca. “I go to my parents and have Sunday dinner with them plus my sister and her family. It all goes fine until afterwards when my parents are sitting at the table with my sister and her husband and I’m in another room, playing with the children, as if I’m not worthy of sitting at the grown ups’ table because I’m not married and don’t have children. Don’t get me wrong, I love my nephews dearly and get so much joy out of being with them, but my life is stuck. It won’t move on. And I’m in danger of staying this way and watching my nephews one day overtaking me and starting to go out on dates.”            

“One of my nephews has overtaken me and is dating his first girlfriend,” said Joe.

“You see? It happens.”

Joe laughed. “And what sad bastards we are that we envy our nephews for their love lives!”

Rebecca decided it was time to take control. One of them had to and it may as well be her. It was okay for women to do this sort of thing now. At least, it was for some women. Rebecca had once got into a furious argument with a fellow woman police officer at a training day who was a strident feminist and felt that women hadn’t spent years fighting for their equality only to use it to make themselves what she called “easy” for men who are just wanting to score. She also hinted that it was unprofessional for a woman police officer to behave that way. Rebecca had countered by saying that her colleague was basically arguing for things to go back to when men who engaged in casual sex used it to enhance their reputation whilst women who engaged in it had their reputations destroyed by it. Well, Rebecca wasn’t going to stand for any of that nonsense. If she wanted a man who clearly wanted her but was too shy to say so, perhaps because she was his senior officer, then she just had to go for it.

“Joe, do you fancy going off to your place or mine and having sex? It could be the best alternative we can find to the whole family Sunday dinner thing?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

“Let’s go then.”

Rebecca hadn’t taken much notice of Joe when he first joined Jeff Barton’s team along with DC Adrian Bradshaw. Of the two, Adrian was the better looking and he kept himself in shape. But he was a widower and Rebecca had been through all that with Jeff. Trying to tell a widower how you feel, trying to work out how he feels about you, trying to work out when they’d decided it was time for them to move on and contemplate being ready for another relationship and then trying to work out if they were just using you to get back in the saddle. It was all a nightmare of heart shattering proportions. She was steering clear of widowers from now on. It just never ends well when you can’t match up to a ghost.

In the carnal sense, Rebecca had been pleasantly surprised by Joe. He wasn’t exactly ugly. and she didn’t have to force herself to enjoy being in bed with him. She hadn’t had to drink him handsome and she’d been surprised at his stamina and sensitivity - very pleasantly surprised.  

“So what happens now, DC Alexander?”

“I go downstairs and bring us some wine up?”

“Yes, that will work,” said Rebecca as she stroked his shoulder with her fingertip.

“Have you enjoyed yourself?”

“So far, so good.”

“You mean, you expect me to do all that again?”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere soon.”

“So demanding,” said Joe, who couldn’t believe his luck. He’d woken up expecting another same old Sunday and ended up having wonderful sex with his senior officer. 

“Get used to it.”

“You mean, we’re going to do this again?”

“Well, I don’t see why not. Do you?”

They embraced and kissed and Joe was getting hard again. They were positioning their bodies in order to seek further pleasure from each other when Rebecca’s mobile began to ring.

“I’d better get that,” said Rebecca.

Joe groaned and reluctantly pushed himself off her. Rebecca pressed ‘
answer
’ on her phone and Joe watched her expression change from one of flushed and unbridled pleasure to one of business and the job they both did. 

“I’ll be right there,” said Rebecca, who was acting up as head of the team whilst Jeff Barton was on holiday. She slid out from under Joe’s duvet and began gathering her clothes together. “Your further intentions are going to have to wait, young man. We’ve got a spot of murder to deal with.”

The pathologist, June Hawkins, had begun her work on the murder site and her team were diligently going about their business in the way that scientific types do.

“The act of killing is fairly straight forward here, darlings,” said June, who was in her full cover up suit all the way down to and including her footwear. “He was stabbed.”

“No kidding,” said Joe. He’d accompanied Rebecca to the scene.

“How are you Joe darling?” June enquired. “I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“I’m good, June, thanks,” Joe replied with a sideways glance at Rebecca. Could it really be that they’d come straight from his bed to this crime scene? Well, yes, that’s exactly what they’d done. He felt like a naughty schoolboy who’d been caught by the headmistress watching porn even though June didn’t know about that day’s coupling. They had to stay discreet. It would be impossible otherwise.

“There was only one stab wound but it was close enough to the poor bugger’s heart to kill him fairly quickly,” June went on. “She must’ve either been lucky or she knew just where to go with her knife.”

“So it was a girl who did this?” Rebecca questioned.

“Oh, yes,” said June. “They’re getting worse than the boys. Speak to your WPC. She’ll tell you.”

WPC Josie Fletcher came up to Rebecca and Joe and, after introductions had been made, she explained what she knew so far.

“The shop’s CCTV has captured the whole thing, ma’am,” said Josie. “Sunil Kumar was on duty here, behind the counter. He said the man had been sticking up for him after the girl had been abusive towards him and that’s when the girl pulled out the knife. They’d been arguing but the attack looks like it was unprovoked. Sunil says he recognises the girl as having been into the shop before but doesn’t know her name.”

“How old was this girl?” Joe asked.

“I’d say she was no more than about fourteen or fifteen, sir. Apparently she went running out of here and was picked up by a car which then sped off. But there was no CCTV outside because the machine had broken and was waiting to be fixed.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes up. “Typical,” she said. She was desperate to get a grip on the case. She wanted to show the hierarchy that they’d been justified in placing her in charge of the team whilst Jeff Barton was on holiday. “Do we have identification of our victim?”

“Sam Jackson, ma’am,” said Josie. “Thirty-six years old. It looks like he just stopped to get some petrol and this happened to him.”

“Where does he live?”

“In a flat in Salford Trinity, ma’am,” said WPC Fletcher. “In his wallet were a number of his business cards. It looks like he worked as a rep selling farm equipment.”

“Employer?”

“They’re being informed now, ma’am. I’m also making further enquiries about his background.”

“Okay,” said Rebecca. “Thank you, WPC Fletcher that was very thorough considering you can’t have been on the scene long.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Not like you to praise uniform so enthusiastically,” said Joe, after Fletcher had stepped away.

“Well, let’s just say I’m in a good mood,” Rebecca replied. “Can’t imagine why. Any ideas?”

“Must’ve been the Sunday lunch you had.”

“Yes, well, the portions were very satisfying.”

Joe blushed. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Right,” said Rebecca, bringing herself back to focus on the job. “Let’s look at that CCTV.”

After they’d watched the footage, Rebecca ordered stills showing the face of the young girl attacker which she planned to release to the press. “We’ll need to get DS Ollie Wright and DC Adrian Bradshaw up to speed but before we do let’s talk to our friend Sunil. He’s sitting outside looking bloody terrified. Poor bugger.”

“He’s no doubt afraid of what his boss might say about all this too,” said Joe. “You know how caring some employers can be. And he might be wondering if the girl might come back and target him. If not the girl, then whoever drove her away. Right now, she’s clearly getting support from someone.”

“Exactly,” said Rebecca. “And the question is who and why?”       

FOUR

“Okay then people, so let’s see what we have here,” said DI Rebecca Stockton as she opened her first briefing in charge of the team. She hadn’t bargained on her mouth suddenly going dry but used the opportunity to hand over to DS Oliver Ollie Wright.

Ollie stepped up and addressed the squad. “Our victim is Samuel Arthur Jackson,” he said as he pointed at the photograph of the victim on the whiteboard. “Thirty-six years old. Divorced. His ex-wife lives in Hazel Grove and he was on his way back from her house to his flat in Salford Trinity when he stopped to fill up with petrol.”