Hard Time (32 page)

Yeah, right. Excommunicating Jack Pope had been a major boob, and the board didn’t even know about that. The reporter had twice tried to speak to her, to tell her about the likeness
between Jenny Page and a young woman on a TV programme,
Lost and Found
? By ignoring him, she’d not even looked.

A stone took the brunt of her frustration. It wasn’t as though the guv could put in a good word; he’d not be back at work for months, if at all. The teeth weren’t the only
things he’d lost: his memory and balance had taken a bashing. He’d come out of intensive care after a week, took three more coming out of the coma. Talk to him, they’d said. So
she had. She gave a wry smile. Very nearly talked him to death.

Only one thing she hadn’t told him. Hadn’t told anyone. Not even her mum.

She sat on a bench, lifted her face to the sun; didn’t want to arrive early. She’d mostly avoided mentioning work to the big man, just passed on the odd snippet from Mac. Daniel was
back with Jenny, pending her court appearance on the wounding. Richard Page was on remand, looking at a lengthy custodial. He was denying collusion but had clearly been involved for months. Page
was in it up to the neck he was now desperately trying to save.

Holly was unlikely ever to be released. Criminally insane and cunning as a box of foxes, her game plan had had a long smouldering fuse. Landing a job at Page’s ad agency was the first
carefully calculated step; seducing a besotted Page the next; kidnapping Daniel the final move.

The kidnap had played right into Grant Young’s hands, not to mention Operations Hawk and Phoenix. The police had been running round like headless poultry anyway; by fingering Maxwell,
Young had not only kept himself out of the frame but had muddied already murky waters. The child-porn rumours stemmed from only one source: Grant Young.

The media man had served time with Maxwell years back; knew about his hatred of cops, heard his boasts about the wreaths and the death threats. Who better to point the police at? Throw in a few
anonymous tip-offs and pay serious money to one of Maxwell’s heavies to film a funeral and the signposts were all there. Garden path, big time.

Holly had inadvertently helped Young’s anti-Maxwell campaign when she hired Dunston as post-boy. Dunston was just a loser who’d get sent down on the menacing charge. The crime boss
– at least in this instance – was innocent. Probably why he was still kicking up a stink about unlawful arrest.

Bev scowled: nasty taste in the mouth. Seeing what it had done to the guv, the job had seemed futile for a while: a load of fuckwits fouling up their lives, cops having to take the fall-out,
clear up the shit. Simon Wells’s funeral had added to her grief. Later, a chat with a five-year-old
Doctor Who
fan had gone a small way to a change of heart, if not mind. Helping
people, especially kids like Daniel, was why she’d become a cop in the first place.

Had to admire Powell in that respect. He was convinced gang masters had killed the Eastern European couple’s son as a warning to other illegals who wanted a life as opposed to slavery. The
DI was angling for a trip to Albania, hoping to cast a net with the authorities there. Powell saw it as his personal mission to track down the bastards. He’d also ditched the BM business. She
gave a wry smile. Mind, she did have a big mouth.

Couple more minutes. Delving for a ciggie, she was reminded she’d given up. Didn’t taste the same, anyway, without a pinot in the other hand. She hadn’t had a drink since her
birthday, the big three-O. Sick as a dog for days after. Oz’s guest appearance with a female DI on his arm might’ve had something to do with that. She sniffed. Frankie’s surprise
party had certainly lived up to its name. Yeah, well, get over it. Today was worth celebrating.

Two o’clock, he’d said. She rose, hoisted her bag. First day back from hospital, the guv had wanted a few hours to acclimatise. Her stomach was a butterfly farm as she rang the bell.
First time she’d seen him in a suit since the attack.

“Looking good, boss.” The smile lit her eyes.

“George Clooney good?” That was another thing she’d mentioned.

“Can’t have everything.” She winked.

They sat in the garden, drank tea, laughed a lot. She sensed his gaze on her; studied him when he wasn’t looking. The bruising and swelling had gone, the stitches were out, teeth were
temporary but they’d get fixed. That reminded her. She dug in her bag, brought out the pressies. The Laphroaig went down well. The box of straws was probably a tad tactless. Took it in good
spirit, though.

Everything was warm, relaxed, felt good. She didn’t want to leave, knew she couldn’t make a move. Not now. Not till she’d decided.

Byford sat forward, elbows on knees, suddenly serious. “So, Bev, what you going to do?”

She scrutinised his face again. The guy was a medicine man, not a detective. He couldn’t possibly know. “’Bout what, guv?” Dead casual.

“I can read the signs, Bev.”

She felt the blush rise. Oz’s last stand. Talk about a fucking mistake. Stupid, careless, life-changing, career-threatening, and yet...

“Dunno what you mean.” Hated lying to him. At the time she’d put the nausea and feeling rough down to a crap life-style. And she’d been right. But a month later the
sickness had returned – and hadn’t gone away.

Byford pointed at her bag. It wasn’t closed properly, and the pregnancy kit she’d bought, to double-check the positive result of the first test, was well visible. “If you are,
will you keep it?”

Oz Junior? Morriss minor? Would she? She hadn’t got a clue.

Author’s note:

At the end of
Baby Love
– the previous title in the series – I likened Bev to a cactus with tiny pink flowers. I wrote that passage four days before
Christmas, and later that afternoon, I happened to see a cactus, complete with tiny pink buds, languishing outside a florist’s near my home. I had to buy it, didn’t I? It flowered
brilliantly then nothing but leaves for twelve months. As I was writing the final chapters of
Hard Time,
I noticed pink shoots emerging. By the time I delivered the first draft, the cactus
was in full glorious bloom. No journalistic licence here: I captured it on camera.

The script went through several revisions and as time passed, not surprisingly, the flowers faded and fell. I thought that was it florally for at least a year. Several weeks later as I started
work on the final draft, I noticed two more tiny buds. As I finished the novel, they were in flower.

As Bev might say... Sentimental? Moi?