Broken Fall: A D.I. Harland novella (9 page)

She lowered her eyes, her shoulders rising and falling as she took a deep breath; easing out from under her burden, free at last to say whatever she wanted.

‘Why?’ She slowly lifted her chin and turned to face Richard. ‘Because I deserve something. After all these years,
tolerating
you, supporting your business failures, turning a blind eye to your grubby affair,
I
deserve something. I deserve to be happy.’

‘But …’ Richard shook his head. ‘But I’ve done everything I can to—’

‘Not with
you
,’ she snapped. ‘For pity’s sake, Richard, how could I
ever
be happy with you?’

Richard seemed to deflate.

‘What?’ he gasped.

‘I met someone else.’ The light in her eyes softened and she looked down, a different note in her voice now. ‘Someone who makes me feel … special.’ For a moment, she looked almost serene, the victim of a loveless marriage who’d been granted an unexpected opportunity for happiness.

But Harland remembered:
The heart wants what the heart wants.
And he knew what Amanda’s heart desired.

‘Pity your composer boyfriend didn’t have any money,’ he murmured.

Her head whipped round, a look of pure hatred on her face. ‘You—’

‘No,
you
!’ Harland exploded, jabbing an accusing finger at her, silencing her. ‘
You
pushed an old man down a flight of stairs. Not out of love, or in a fit of passion. You did it for
money
. For some bloody
money
.’

Had she gone there hoping to reason with Albie? Perhaps to beg for some cash so that she could finally be free of Richard and strike out on her own, or build something better with her tame composer? No, Amanda wasn’t the sort to beg. And the witness report had clearly mentioned a woman in a blue carer’s tunic. Why would she have got hold of something like that, been wearing something like that, unless she was planning to get rid of Albie?

He shook his head in disgust.

She’d gone there prepared, let herself in using the key-safe. She’d have spoken with Albie, maybe vented her frustration, said all those petty little things she’d been dying to say, getting herself worked up, gathering her courage. And then, somehow, she’d got him to the top of the stairs, probably gloating over what she was about to do.

Had he known? Had she actually
told
him?
Something
had certainly warned him of the danger he was in, and he’d had the presence of mind to press the help-line button he wore beneath his pyjamas. But it was too late. She’d pushed him, watched from the top of the stairs as he fell to his needless, undeserved death. She must have stepped over the body, pausing to make sure he was really gone, then let herself out and closed the door behind her. The witness report had her walking down Granby Hill a few moments later.

Harland frowned, wondering why there hadn’t been other sightings … unless she took the footbridges, crossed the water in the darkness at Brunel’s Locks. He pictured her, a small, determined figure, walking along the abandoned wharf, passing through the shadows beneath the busy road bridge, and returning unseen to Spike Island. It wasn’t the route you’d expect a lone woman to take at night, but she wasn’t worried about meeting someone dangerous. She
was
someone dangerous.

He stared across the coffee table at her, cold and silent, sitting at the opposite end of the sofa from Richard, her arms folded.

Had she guessed that walking that route, dressed in the blue tunic, would put Tracey under suspicion? Was that all part of her plan? She’d certainly known that her idiot husband was out cheating on her. Implicating Richard’s mistress would only have made her vengeance sweeter. Timing Albie’s death to coincide with their cosy little tryst, then smoothly providing her husband with an alibi – one that would spare him any embarrassment, one that he’d sieze on, even be
grateful
for …

Harland sighed. She’d played a dangerous game, extremely well. And she made him sick.

Getting to his feet, he beckoned Linwood to step forward as he looked down at Amanda.

‘Sergeant Linwood, please caution Mrs Errington.’ Noting, with some small satisfaction, her obvious irritation at the use of her husband’s name, he leaned over the table, bringing his face close to hers. ‘You
deserve
everything you get.’

Harland indicated and turned right on to Stackpool Road, his eyes already sweeping along the line of parked cars, looking for a space. He had plenty of time – he wasn’t due at the pub until eight – but it usually got busy around now; people coming back from work, glad to be home for the evening, reunited with their friends and loved ones.

Absently, he found himself wondering about Tracey, and what her future might hold. Would she continue seeing Richard? Or had too much happened for them to simply carry on as before?

Spotting a small gap on the left-hand side of the street, he slowed and began carefully manoeuvring the car in tight against the kerb.

How long had those two been seeing each other? Tracey had done contract nursing before joining Western Gold … maybe that’s where Richard had met her, back when his agency had been doing NHS work.

Harland frowned as he straightened the steering wheel. How could someone like Richard be juggling
two
women? Yes, one of them
had
turned out to be a killer, but Tracey seemed like a good person … perhaps she saw a different side of him. Perhaps there was something worthwhile beneath all that pompous bluster. After all, he
had
wanted someone good – someone he knew – to look after Albie. Maybe it was that compassion that had brought Richard and Tracey together. Maybe he was slowly trying to rebuild things with his father. As Amanda said, he cared about his family.

Pulling up the handbrake, Harland switched off the ignition and leaned back in his seat, rubbing his eyes.

Amanda. He’d enjoyed a grim surge of pleasure as he’d watched her being led away, having her head bowed beneath the hand of a uniformed officer as she was put into the back of the police car. Standing there, with the adrenalin still pumping, he’d felt good about things, good about himself … but the satisfaction had evaporated as he drove home at the end of his shift.

Climbing out of the car, he locked it, tugging on the handle to make sure, then trudged back down the pavement towards his house.

His empty house.

He sighed. At least he’d been right about Jenny. He wondered if he should have called her, but no doubt Richard would already have been in touch, and her husband would be back now anyway. Still, he really hadn’t wanted to believe that she was involved in her father’s death and, thankfully, she hadn’t been. He was pleased about that, at least.

Pausing at the gate, he fumbled in his pocket and drew out the bunch of keys, hefting them in his hand as he approached his front door.

He was glad he’d been able to exact some justice for Albie. Poor old Albie, living all alone in that empty house, surrounded by reminders of his late wife …

Harland hesitated, the key in his hand. Standing on the doorstep, he checked his watch. It was only ten past seven, but he could always take the long way round, maybe stop and look at the boats on his way to the pub …

Jamming the house keys down deep into his pocket, he turned away and strode back out to the pavement, his mood already lifting. After all, it was a nice enough evening. And the walk would do him good.

Thanks to my editor Francesca Best, who suggested I write this story, to everyone at Hodder, and to my excellent agent Eve White.

Kate Ranger and Chris Wild deserve special mentions for their helpful comments on those early drafts.

Finally, I’m indebted to friends and family for their support and encouragement, but most of all to Anna and Cameron. Thank you.

A D.I. Harland Investigation

What if someone wished their life was more like yours?

Exactly
like yours.

And what if they lived upstairs?

Nigel never meant for it to happen. At first, he just wanted to be Matt’s friend. But quickly his fascination with his new neighbour drifts into obsession.

Rearranging his furniture to recreate the layout of the rooms downstairs. Buying the same clothes, going through Matt’s post, his things. Becoming Matt without him ever knowing.

And it would have been all right – no harm done – if Matt hadn’t brought the girl home.

When things spiral out of control and the young woman goes missing, Detective Inspector Harland has to unravel the disturbing truth. But there’s far more to the case than meets the eye …

Out now

Detective Inspector Graham Harland nosed the car into a cobbled alleyway and bumped the passenger-side wheels up over the kerb. Switching off the engine, he leaned forward, gazing up through the windscreen at the old, industrial building – three storeys of sturdy Victorian brickwork, illuminated against the darkness by the steady flash of blue lights. The arched windows were bricked up and sealed beneath decades of masonry paint, while spiked iron railings and aluminium-cased security cameras crowned the upper floors. But it was the murals that held his attention.

Burning bright against the grime-blackened walls, a host of nightmarish images reared up – sinister, subjective, suggestive. Stencilled creatures stood ten feet tall above the cracked pavement, wreathed in slogans, while aerosol figures twisted themselves around the architecture of the upper storeys, leering down out of the gloom – different styles and colours, yet somehow the characters danced together to form an unbroken skin, stretched out across the nightclub’s walls.

Ahead of him, Harland could see a small crowd of ghouls – shuffling silhouettes pressed up against the gently twisting police tape, all eagerly staring towards the lights of the ambulance and the patrol cars.

Waiting for the body to be brought out to them.

He sighed and sank back into the seat, his watchful gaze flickering up to the reflection in the rear-view mirror. He looked tired. The strobing blue lights glinted cold in his eyes, casting shadows beneath the high cheekbones, picking out flecks of silver grey in his short, dark hair and in the stubble on his angular jaw.

‘Shall we?’

Beside him, Detective Sergeant Russell Pope stared at him with small, expectant eyes, one pudgy hand on the door handle, inquisitive and eager to poke around the scene.

Just like the bloody ghouls.

‘Might as well,’ Harland said. It was a narrow alley, and he watched Pope struggle to clamber out without banging the passenger door on the adjacent brick wall, then turned away and got out himself. Standing up and stretching his tall, lean frame, he briefly thought of lighting a cigarette, but the chill touch of a breeze that blew across the cobbles dissuaded him. Not now. He’d have one later. Afterwards, when he’d really need it.

Pope was staring up at the building, head back, his lips slightly parted as they always seemed to be when he was thinking.

‘Know anything about this place?’ Harland asked, slamming his door and walking over to his colleague. He’d heard of the Jahanna club but had never been in.

‘Not much,’ Pope said with a shrug, turning back towards him. ‘A few drugs busts, the odd fight. Nothing out of the ordinary. Locals and students, I suppose.’

Harland glanced up at the mural, noting the eerie, psychedelic nature of the figures. Above him, a painted octopus held two giant pills marked
Truth
and
Freedom
.

‘Not my sort of place,’ he mused.

They made their way along the alley, pushing between the milling onlookers, and the snatches of murmured speculation. A tall, uniformed officer stepped forward briskly to intercept them as Pope went to duck under the blue and white cordon tape, but relaxed as the shorter man flourished his warrant card.

‘DS Pope and DI Harland, CID.’ A little pompous, but Harland was too weary to make anything of it tonight.