A Kind Of Wild Justice (16 page)

But on a whim she found herself making a detour to Heavitree Road police station. She swung the car into the car park, fairly empty at that time of night. There were still a couple of reporters and one photographer outside. Manners had been there
earlier, she knew, but he was no longer about. Jo wasn’t surprised. Not one to hang around on a doorstep, that man, but he never seemed to get caught out. He did have a way of covering his back, she had to admit that.

She walked straight past the reporters, both of whom she knew only by sight, and into the front office where she asked the clerk if she could speak to DS Fielding. She was never quite sure what made her do it. Did she really think he would give her an exclusive on a night like this or even talk to her about the case? Or did she, in the depths of her subconscious, have another reason even then for trying to contact the detective sergeant?

The clerk studied her without enthusiasm. ‘He’s not talking to the press and neither’s anybody else. You may as well join your friends out the front.’

‘Look, will you just ask him?’ She treated the man to what she hoped was her winning smile.

He looked uncertain.

‘Please. Just ask him. That’s all.’ Jo smiled again. She might draw the line at sleeping with guys for stories, in spite of what her husband thought, but would resort to feminine wiles at the drop of a hat. And she had the honesty to admit to herself that while Manners and the rest of the heavy mob wouldn’t have a hope of getting anywhere with Fielding, she at least was in with a chance.

Quite deliberately, she bit her bottom lip and did her best to look as if she might be about to burst into tears. That did it. The clerk picked up the phone on his desk. Strange how she had somehow not doubted that Fielding would still be in his office at almost 11 p.m.

‘… Joanna Bartlett, the
Comet
, yes, Mike, I told her you wouldn’t …’

There was a pause while the man listened. He looked mildly surprised. Then he turned away from Joanna and lowered his voice. She could still hear him clearly enough, though: ‘… Look, are you sure, mate? You don’t need any more bother, do you … OK, OK, whatever you say.’ With a sigh he replaced the receiver. ‘You can go up,’ he told her. ‘Second floor. He’ll meet you at the stairs.’

Fielding was waiting for her by the time she had climbed the two flights. If anything, he looked even worse than he had outside the court. He did not smile, just gave her a quick hello and escorted her to his office. She thought he had probably been drinking and it turned out she wasn’t wrong. There was a three-parts empty bottle of whisky on his desk. He offered her a drink, which she accepted. He found a paper cup and poured her a large measure, waved her into a chair, sat down himself behind the desk, put his feet up on it, and took a deep swig straight from the bottle. Then he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. She could feel the blackness of his mood. She felt pretty down herself. She had believed in O’Donnell’s guilt and had wanted to see him go down. And she had lost the bulk of her background. All that hard work for nothing. A huge chunk of it could not be printed now that he’d been acquitted, legally far too dodgy.

‘I’m sorry it went so wrong for you,’ she said eventually.

Mike opened his eyes, which she noticed then were bloodshot, and regarded her steadily. His skin still looked ashen. There was certainly none of his usual
God’s-gift-to-women smugness about him. His wits hadn’t completely deserted him, though. ‘Are we off the record?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she replied quickly. It was probably unprofessional not to have attempted, at least, to get something from him on the record, but her response had been quite automatic. The man must have got to her in some way for her to behave in such an out of character way. Joanna was usually just as hard-nosed in her approach to work as the normally tough policeman she was talking to.

He took her at her word, as she expected him to. And she sensed him relax a little.

He tipped the whisky to his lips once more. ‘What a fuck-up,’ he said. ‘What a bloody fuck-up.’

‘Yours wasn’t the only mistake,’ she told him, sensing that he was blaming himself. ‘You were a bit overeager, that’s all.’

‘Story of my life. The locket was the only really hard evidence. And I gave Jimbo a lifeline on it. Did that bloody jury really believe I planted it?’

She shrugged. They did, of course. They had to have believed that in order to acquit O’Donnell. She too had some doubts. Not about O’Donnell. Not really. But about Fielding, definitely. And so, presumably, did his superiors. Fielding was deeply in the mire and he knew it. She changed tack. ‘You still don’t have any doubts about O’Donnell, do you?’

‘For Christ’s sake, none at all. Bastard’s as guilty as sin. Just that the might of the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary combined with the Crown Prosecution Service didn’t have the wit to get him convicted, that’s all. A major fuck-up to which I contributed …’ He paused as if seeking a word.
‘Majestically,’ he concluded with a bit of dramatic flourish.

‘What’ll happen to you?’ she asked.

‘Probably fuck all. Which is what I deserve. I won’t make DI for years, now, that’s for certain. Maybe not ever. There’ll be an inquiry, of course. If it goes against me I could get chucked out. I doubt it, though. Whatever they believe privately, the bastards will prefer to sweep it under the carpet. At best I behaved like a bloody fool, at worst I tried to plant evidence. Sod’s choice, isn’t it?’

She didn’t say anything. She could think of nothing to say.

He took another slug of whisky, got up from his chair and walked over to the window. He continued to talk as he stood with his back to her, looking down on the street below. ‘I wake up at night and I see Angela, you know, lying there, mutilated, in all that filth.’ There was a catch in his voice.

She was momentarily surprised. All she had really expected from him was self-pity. He was a professional detective. As hard-nosed as any of the villains he pursued. It took one to catch one. That’s what they always said about the CID, wasn’t it?

‘I can’t get it out of my head,’ he went on. ‘I’ve never been on a case that’s got to me like this one. I thought, if we can send the bastard down, then that would finish it. But we’ve failed. And there’s no second chances in this game.’ She saw his elbow rise as he took yet another drink from the bottle. ‘So that’s it. I’ve let myself down and I’ve let Angela down.’

There was no doubt about it. There was definitely a catch in his voice now. Perhaps, after all, there really was more to this man than just another ambitious
cop, she thought. She got up from her chair and walked over to join him at the window, gazing in silence for a moment at a lone car travelling along the road outside, its headlights picking up for a moment the two reporters still standing together, chatting, on the pavement. It was a beautiful night, the sky clear and star-studded. That didn’t seem right, somehow. It should have been raining or, better still, there should have been a storm raging, something dark and moody to mark what had happened that day. ‘You are not single-handedly responsible for it all, you know,’ she told him. ‘You did your best.’

He turned towards her then. She saw to her amazement that his cheeks were wet. ‘Don’t they say that’s actually the worst epitaph you can give anybody?’ he asked, attempting a smile, which didn’t really work. It stretched his lips but failed to reach his eyes.

‘No epitaph – you’re not dead yet, Mike Fielding,’ she said quietly and surprised herself somewhat by reaching out a hand to touch a tear-stained cheek. She knew it was probably the whisky as much as anything that was doing this to him. Nonetheless …

He took her hand and kissed it gently. Suddenly, awkwardly, she was in his arms and their lips had met. He tasted of whisky and tobacco but the sensation was wonderful from the beginning. He felt so good. Rough round the edges. Soft in the centre. Afterwards she was never quite sure how it happened, the two of them in the middle of a police station embroiled in a clinch. His tongue pushed her lips apart. She gave him hers. His grip tightened round her. She felt him hard against her. He pushed her back against the wall, his hands sought her breasts
and she heard his little gasp when he touched a hard nipple. His hands pushed her legs open and simultaneously somehow pulled her skirt up round her waist. The fingers of one of his hands sought for her. She knew that she had become ready, couldn’t believe it. She also knew that with his other hand he was starting to unzip his flies.

Then a moment of sanity gripped her. She managed to prise his mouth from hers and, pushing his hand away from her, said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mike. No.’

He stopped at once, pulling back from her, breathing heavily. ‘God, I’m sorry, Joanna,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what came over me. I’m really sorry. It was just that …’ He paused, as if not knowing quite how to go on.

She shook her head. ‘It’s all right, I know what you’re trying to say, I feel exactly the same.’

He had one hand on his trousers. He was trying to cover the bulge in his crotch, she realised suddenly with some amusement. He glanced at her in surprise. ‘You do?’ he enquired.

‘Yes. I must be barking, but I want you like crazy. Only not here, you daft bugger. This is your office, remember. It’s in Heavitree Road police station and the place is crawling with cops. Didn’t you know?’

He grinned the disarming grin and started to laugh. His face was still tear-stained and his hand was still covering the bulge in his trousers.

In spite of the absurdity of it she wanted him more than ever. She reached out, pulled his hand away and replaced it with her own. She felt his whole body tense. He was very hard. She realised she could hardly
wait. It was madness but she felt as if she had no choice. ‘I do have a hotel room,’ she began.

‘So what are we waiting for?’ he asked in a very low, husky voice.

On the way out Jo noticed a photograph on his desk of a pretty, red-haired young woman holding a baby in her arms. She assumed that was Mike Fielding’s wife with one of their children. She didn’t really want to think about his wife, any more than she wanted to think about her husband.

She left the station first, having arranged that he would follow her a few minutes later and make his way separately to her hotel. There was, after all, no need to advertise their intentions. Once they were in her room it was as if suddenly they had both made time to do the thing properly.

Without any of the desperate urgency he had displayed earlier Fielding sat beside her on the edge of the bed and kissed her face, her eyes, her cheeks, her neck before their lips met again. And that too was more gentle, more lingering. ‘Will you undress for me?’ he asked.

She nodded, stood up and took her clothes off. Just like that. She had no sense of embarrassment, she didn’t play around, turn it into a striptease, simply took off her clothes and stood before him naked.

‘You have a beautiful body,’ he said in that same low voice.

‘It’s a miracle,’ she said. And it was, too, the way she lived.

‘My miracle,’ he told her.

She hadn’t expected him to be soppy at all about sex.

‘Lie down, now,’ he instructed.

Again she did as she was told, the excitement rising in her.

She lay down beside him and immediately he pushed her legs apart and buried his face in her. He didn’t touch her with his hands at all. It was immensely exciting. And he carried on and on, until she began desperately to want him inside her and told him so. She needed that in order to reach a climax. She nearly always did the first time.

After what seemed like for ever he pulled his face away from her. She braced herself for what she expected to come next. Instead he wriggled up the bed and lay beside her. His lips brushed hers lightly. She could smell and taste her own sex.

She reached for him. He pulled slightly away.

‘I’m afraid I’ve lost it,’ he said. He was still wearing his trousers, which was fairly ridiculous. She realised there was no hardness there at all now.

‘Do I put you off that much?’ she asked lightly.

‘The opposite,’ he said. ‘Maybe it was the whisky. I can’t understand it. I’m like a fucking machine usually.’

She giggled.

So did he. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘Can I stay with you? In the morning it will be different, I promise.’

‘Shouldn’t you go home? What about your wife?’

He shook his head. ‘She’s used to me,’ he said.

I’ll bet she is, poor cow, thought Joanna. But she wasn’t really in a position to be moralistic. And she certainly didn’t want him to leave.

He undressed and she saw that he had a good body
too, long and rangy, and covered with a down of sandy hair just a little darker than the hair on his head. He kept his underpants on, which made her smile, crawled into the bed beside her and wrapped his arms round her. Within minutes she could hear his breathing slow and become more shallow and even. He was asleep. It took her longer. She was too excited to fall asleep easily. She needed sexual release quite badly, but it appeared that she was going to have to be patient.

Ultimately, though, she did not have to wait until morning after all. Having fallen eventually into a fitful sleep lying on her back, some time during the night she was woken by the weight of him on top of her. She opened her eyes. His face was inches away from hers and he was smiling at her. They had left the curtains open and there was a full moon. She could see him quite clearly.

He looked very happy, suddenly, and very intent on what he was doing. ‘God, you’re wet down there,’ he muttered appreciatively. In the next second he was inside her.

She came almost at once and he muttered encouragement to her. She managed another orgasm before he reached his own climax and she had never felt quite so fulfilled. He did things to her that were entirely new to her. He had no inhibitions and neither did she. Not with him. In the past there had always been something holding her back from complete sexual abandon. Not with him, there wasn’t. With him she just felt so at ease. They lay together afterwards, limbs entangled, at peace. They barely spoke. They did not need to.