We Are the Hanged Man (17 page)

'A quick chat with the location producer…'

'That Morris woman?'

'No,' said Light. 'The other one. The Brazilian footballer.'

Jericho smiled.

'Then what?'

A small station, they were already at the top of the stairs, they would be downstairs and into the heart of the beast in a few seconds. She stopped.

'They're looking for you to give the three of them an introductory pep talk. Let them know the kind of things they're likely to be dealing with this week. Then they'll break off for a session where they interview you, get your thoughts on them… then they interview them and get their thoughts on you, and if they're lucky at least two of you will start crying.'

Jericho smiled again; she smiled with him.

'Then, you lucky thing,' she said, 'you'll get allocated one of the three, plus a cameraman and a soundman, and you get to go off into the great wild yonder of Wells and tackle crime head on.'

Jericho nodded; he dropped his eyes.

'Lead on,' he said.

Light walked out of the open plan. Jericho followed; the door closed behind them.

When they were gone, the two nearest constables who had been sitting at desks completing absurd amounts of paperwork, looked up at each other.

'Did she just call him you lucky thing?'

The other laughed.

'Watch this space,' he said.

*

Claudia was shaking her head. Jericho was sitting at his desk, looking typically phlegmatic, although there was the possibility of that tending towards outright annoyance.

'You want to give me a script?' he asked.

He was on the part of the day where he outlined how he felt about the potential new recruits. He had answered three questions, and so far had intimated that he had gleaned nothing from them so far, and so was not in a position to comment on whether or not he thought they were likely to make decent police officers.

'Have you acting experience?' asked Claudia.

'Of course not,' said Jericho.

'Well, we can't possibly give you a script. It would be a disaster. You just have to be yourself.'

'That's what I thought I was doing.'

She glanced at the cameraman, who was not playing the game. He well knew not to get involved in the fights between producers and show members.

'You're not giving us anything,' said Claudia. 'There's no point in saying, 'oh, they look OK', or, 'oh, not sure yet, we'll have to wait to find out.' That's not giving us anything.'

'What would you like me to give you?' he asked, his voice flat.

'This is television,' she said, 'so let's not have any secrets or bullshit…'

Jericho looked straight through her, presuming he was the only one in the room who would find that statement at all ironic.

'Go on,' he said.

'We're looking for a bit of drama or suspense. There's no point in hanging around in the middle ground. There's no drama in the middle. Jesus, there's no drama in room temperature. The drama comes at boiling point or when the ice freezes.'

'Ice is already frozen,' said Jericho. She ploughed on, regardless.

'Look at the fucking LibDems. Zero fucking drama for about five thousand years, then they jump into the sack with the Tories, start taking it up the arse and boom! People are shouting at them, people hate them, there's all kinds of shit. Drama.'

Jericho nodded.

'So what would you like me to give you?' he asked. Again.

She looked like she was holding in her temper, dealing with a simple child unable to grasp the simplest of concepts.

'There's no point in saying nothing. What we need is for you to talk them up, or, to be blunt, slag them off. We need them to start off looking really, really shit. Really shit. Then we can follow them on their journey as they build up. Or stay shit…'

Jericho gave her nothing in reply.

'Or,' she said, 'we need you to make out that you think they're going to absolutely kick ass. Kick ass. And then, they kick ass, or, hopefully, they're absolutely shit and we follow that journey too. The journey into oblivion. Now, Chief Inspector, you've seen our three finalists at close quarters over the last three days. Do any of them strike you as not up to the job, that you think might really struggle, emotionally and physically, over the next few days when they have to come face to face with drug dealers, murderers and the most extraordinary villains of the twenty-first century?'

Jericho looked at her for a few seconds.

'Where the fuck do you think you are?' he said eventually.

She never did get the take she wanted, so she got Light to do it instead.

*

DCI Shackleton, the officer in charge of the investigation into the disappearance of Lorraine Allison, had not been taking it too seriously thus far. He was saying all the right things, but was in something of an awkward position with the media. If he didn't spend every waking minute on it, then there would be those newspapers who would crucify him. (On that front, he had been quite pleased that it had been Jericho who had been crucified in the Sundays for daring to have a late night drink.) However, spend too much time and allocate too many resources, then there would be a mass of journalists, as well as parents and partners of other missing persons, forming a disorderly queue to heap opprobrium upon him for spending too much time on Lol because she'd been in the newspapers for the previous few weeks.

And underpinning it all there was his sure belief that it was all a set-up. He had been blunt with Washington right from the off; if it was discovered to be all part of the show's shtick, he would make sure they were prosecuted. Washington had displayed high levels of moral indignation at the suggestion.

Ultimately, however, it didn't seem to matter what he thought. No one seemed to know anything, and if anyone was lying, they were making a superb job of covering it up.

Lol was gone, leaving not a trace of herself in the process. And while Shackleton resented utterly the possible presence of Jericho in the investigation, he couldn't escape the fact that he might have to bring him into it, to establish whether his suspicions had been aroused over the course of the weekend.

Initially excited about being given the job, Shackleton had quickly come to acknowledge that it really was the most bloody awful millstone.

Jericho and Haynes were sitting on a park bench, eating sandwiches, the bowling green behind them, looking over the city recreation ground. A cold afternoon in January. There were a couple of people walking dogs, and at the far side there were two women, one of whom was giving the other instructions in Nordic walking.

Jericho bit into his Thai chicken, while watching curiously as the two women walked up and down, the instructor with the most exaggerated of movements. They had barely spoken since sitting down, as Haynes recognised that Jericho had escaped from the station and needed the time to decompress.

'What the fuck are they doing?' said Jericho eventually, indicating the two women.

'Nordic walking,' said Haynes. 'That's what they call it.'

'What's that? Nordic walking?'

'Walking with sticks.'

They watched as the instructor laid down her sticks and started illustrating the process stick-less. A dry run.

'There's a name for walking with sticks?'

'Yes. Nordic walking.'

'I feel old, and yet it's obviously something that old people do. Why does everything have to have a name?'

'So they can sell stuff.'

'Is there a name for walking while eating a sandwich?'

'Not sure.'

'It's like watching an episode of Monty Python.'

Haynes laughed, but then said, 'I've never seen it.'

Jericho glanced sharply to his side.

'What?'

Haynes shrugged.

'Seriously?'

'It's so old,' he said.

'Yes, but…'

'The last series of Python was almost forty years ago. The last movie, thirty years ago. I wasn't born then. Shit, we have our own comedy, we don't need those guys, with their history shows and their endless travelogues and their TV adverts for middle age products. Fuck…'

Jericho looked curiously at Haynes for a while, then took a bite out of his sandwich and turned back to the entertainment across the park.

'Listen mate, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government…' he said.

'Sure, I know that,' said Haynes.

'That's Python.'

'Is it?'

Haynes shrugged. Jericho looked at him, was aware that the very thought of Haynes being dismissive of Monty Python because of its age utterly depressed him, and then looked back across the field, as the women marched on.

'Do you really need instruction in how to walk with sticks?'

Haynes shook his head.

'Probably not.'

'Fuck,' said Jericho. 'Right, enough of this depressing shit. What did you find?'

Haynes took a drink of 100% berry juice, one of his five a day.

'No sign of forced entry. Found a few things, hairs, prints. You and a couple of women I'd say. There was evidence of the women in the bathroom too. You've had a couple of women there since you cleaned the bathroom last?'

Jericho nodded.

'And since you changed the sheets?'

Haynes felt uncomfortable the second the question was out there. Jericho stared at the grass, feeling untidy, unclean.

'Yes, Sergeant,' he said eventually.

'OK. Sorry. I took some samples, various things, I'll try to get some tests done on them.'

'Don't bother,' said Jericho.

Haynes had been expecting that. They would have to go to Yeovil, and there was no way Jericho was going to want another station brought in.

'You should be careful. I know you don't want to flag it up, but someone broke into your house, very expertly. They could do it again, when you're there. Someone's setting you up for something. Might be time to talk to Dylan.'

Jericho took the last bite of his sandwich. The women were marching across the park towards them, arms, legs and sticks moving in perfect unison, as if they were members of the Royal Marine Nordic Walking Band.

'Fuck me,' said Jericho, shaking his head.

*

They walked back into the station an hour and fifteen minutes after having left. Jericho had agreed that he would be gone for no more than forty-five minutes. Consequently, his arrival was not greeted warmly.

'Where the fuck have you been?' snapped Claudia when he walked back into his office. She was sitting behind his desk, tapping furiously at an iPad.

'Notice how no one has any respect for the police anymore?' said Jericho, glancing at Haynes who was at his side.