We Are the Hanged Man (32 page)

He recognised the look on the guard's face as one of mockery so did not hesitate for long. He walked to the lift, pressed the button for the fourth floor, stood alone in the confined stillness.

Someone he didn't know was laughing at him. He had seen heads turn as he'd walked here from the hotel. He thought about the photographer outside Sergeant Light's bedroom, and he knew why someone he didn't know was smiling.

When the door to the lift opened he was therefore not surprised to see the front page of the Sun stuck to the wall opposite. It showed the picture of Jericho and Light together, in which it appeared they were holding hands, under the headline LOL COPS MIDNIGHT BONKING SESH.

Jericho stared at it for a moment. Washington appeared beside him and immediately placed a hand on his shoulder.

'I know what you're thinking,' he said.

Jericho didn't look at him, although he did cast a glance the way of his shoulder. The words
I doubt it
were in his head, but if he could go through his life never speaking to Washington again he would have been quite happy.

'You're thinking, should there be an apostrophe? We've been talking about that. Obviously if you're implying that the midnight bonking session is owned by the cops, then there should. But if they meant that the midnight bonking session is something that the cops did, and let's say for the sake of space they missed out the 'in' from
Lol Cops In Midnight Bonking Sesh
, then you know...'

He glanced at Jericho, the dead eyes. Smiled.

'Or, of course, it could be that Lol herself has copped the midnight bonking session. You see? Someone might see that and think, ah, Lol's back and she's already done a bit of shagging.'

The two men stood and looked at the front page for another few seconds and then Jericho turned away, just as Washington gave him another shoulder squeeze.

'Every little helps,' said Washington mundanely.

Jericho walked off down the short corridor, deciding that he would go to the canteen for a coffee before submitting himself to the ridicule of the situation room, and all the time he was thinking that Washington had at least been right about one thing: he had been wondering whether or not the headline ought to have had an apostrophe.

*

Superintendent Dylan had four newspapers laid out in front of her, a two-way split between the photo of the police lovers hand in hand, and the photo of Jericho emerging guiltily, half-dressed from Light's bedroom.

The Star joined the Sun with the hand in hand picture, above the headline NOW LOL'S NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S F**KED! They had initially gone to press with
whose
instead of
who's
, an error which had been spotted before too much damage had been done. Washington had been particularly pleased with this one, since as far as he knew no mainstream British newspaper had ever led with the word fuck before and was therefore guaranteed to cause a bit of a stir. Even if they hadn't had the courage of their convictions, and had asterisked the expletive.

The Mirror, under the picture of Jericho outside Light's room, led with OUTRAGE AT COPPER'S SEX ANTICS, one of those headlines that implied that a large section of society were actually annoyed at the thought that police officers might have sex, when in fact no one was annoyed, not even the newspaper, until that certain section of society read the newspaper, discovered that they were annoyed, and so consequently got angry about it, and tutted loudly while reading the front of the paper in queues and in supermarkets.

Surprisingly the Independent also led with the story. It had, naturally, taken a more highbrow approach, and was attempting to view the show from an intellectual standpoint, discussing what it said about Britain and the relationship between the media, journalism and crime. Nevertheless they had illustrated the article with the picture of Jericho outside Light's room, under the headline ANOTHER FINE BRITISH MESS.

'A source close to the show,' read Dylan, 'reports that Jericho and Light have been seen canoodling around the TV studio.
"It's disgusting," said the source, who did not wish to be named. "They're supposed to be searching for Lol, and all they're interested in is each other. His hands are all over her."'

She threw the paper down on the desk and stared across at Sergeant Haynes.

'Fucking hell,' she said. 'Did you know about this?'

'You know it's not true,' said Haynes.

'Look at them,' she said. 'There are pictures.'

'Of what? A photo of him coming out a hotel room? That could be any hotel room, ma'am. The picture could be three years old.'

'Holding hands?'

Haynes shrugged. 'Photoshop,' he said.

'And all this stuff about them acting up in front of everyone. For God's sake, they're supposed to be undertaking a police investigation.'

'It's made up.'

'What?'

Haynes took a deep breath. Dylan was an intelligent woman. If she was getting annoyed, it was because she wanted to be. He didn't really have to explain this stuff to her.

'There is no disgusted source,' said Haynes. 'They make that stuff up. It's Jericho we're talking about. Can you really see him and Sergeant Light all over each other in public? You know they make stuff up, everyone knows they make stuff up, yet people believe what they read.'

Dylan was unimpressed with Haynes. She didn't want to have sense talked at her, and especially not by a Detective Sergeant.

'You know he has a reputation,' she said. 'How many women has he slept with in the last year?'

'He doesn't tell me,' replied Haynes.

'Well,' she said, 'I don't suppose he tells me either, but we all know, we all know what he's like. He has a certain celebrity as a police officer, and he uses it. Plays it out for everything it's worth. Yes, yes he does, you know that. Sergeant Light may not be so young, but she does at least appear to be very impressionable. It is not outwith the bounds of probability that the two of them
are
sleeping together.'

Haynes stared at the newspapers. Now it was his turn to make an argument that he knew would be easily rebutted.

'They're not going to be investigating anything at eleven in the evening anyway, are they? What difference does it make if they choose to have sex?'

'Jesus, Sergeant, don't be so naïve. Yes, yes, fine, have sex! But not up there, not now. They think the press wouldn't pick up on it, find out about it? Even if all the stuff from sources is made up, all those quotes and all that shit, it doesn't matter. They've left themselves open for it by starting some sort of relationship. Jesus, it's a fucking mess.'

She leaned forward and rested her head in her hands, rubbed her eyes.

'You're just going to have to go up there. Bloody hell.'

She looked at him. He returned her stare, expressionless.

'Can I trust you not to have sex with the DCI?'

Haynes did not reply.

'Go. Go now. Pack a bag. You might as well use Light's room when you get up there, because she's coming home. Soon as we can get hold of her. If you see her, and she's not already on her way to the station, tell her to get a fucking move on. I'll deal with her in person this afternoon.'

'Can we assume that Sergeant Light is too embarrassed to show her face?'

The noise of the canteen went on around them. Jericho had come to get a coffee with the aim of avoiding the situation room for as long as possible, only to find that the production company had just completed the job of relocating the situation room to a corner of the canteen. The committee had decided late at night that the small room was too drab and they needed a change of venue. Outdoors had been considered, but a check of the weather forecast had finally seen the idea off, and they'd elected for the canteen, with the added hope that occasionally a well-known face might walk past in the background.

The fact that it would be the first show to be filmed live in the canteen would be used as a selling point, as if it was a fact of any significance.

Jericho did not reply. He had started to wonder about Light, if not exactly worry about her. She had seemed to have her own agenda at the show, and he assumed that at those moments when she wasn't sitting in on the investigation, she was off in meetings with the show's producers, fighting the police corner against evermore preposterous requests.

However, he was now getting a nagging sense of worry, and was reminded of the fact that he hadn't been able to get hold of her the previous evening, only minutes after he'd left her room. Didn't like the fact that Claudia did not know where she was either. It didn't feel right.

Maybe Light
was
embarrassed. It wasn't as if she'd slept with George Clooney the previous evening and could walk proudly through the television offices with her head held high.

'What do we deduce from your silence, Chief Inspector?'

Jericho stared glumly across the table.

'Cher?' said Claudia, turning to her promptly, changing the course of the discussion with a snap of her fingers. Letting Jericho know that he was in her thrall. The heat would be on him when she wanted it to be. 'I feel it would be best for you to take the lead this morning. You did some solid work yesterday afternoon. Did you watch the show, Chief Inspector?'

Jericho continued to stare at her, but today Claudia felt that she had the upper hand and was not so intimidated by the black holes through which he viewed the world with such disdain.

'Of course not,' she said. 'Other things to do. Never mind. We had a long discussion, something else during which you found yourself pre-occupied, which Cher led with the kind of dynamism that we're looking for here… I'm also not saying that Ando and Xav didn't contribute, because they did, they were fantastic… it was decided that the likelihood of Lol having been abducted by one of the previous contestants really is more than likely. More than likely. We had a long talk, and decided that the probable candidate would be Elroy. So, Cher, you can take it from there.'

Claudia smiled sweetly across the table, having pretty much said everything that had to be said.

Cher's explanation, which she had been practicing in order to plead her justification to Jericho, had disappeared in an instant, Claudia taking the words from her mouth. She returned the smile, but was as yet more confused than angry.

'So, yes…' Cher began, a little uncertainly, 'he's being brought in this afternoon, and then we're going to interview him later.' She paused, waiting to see the look on Jericho's face. There was nothing to see. 'We're going to take it in turns to speak to him, you know, like the three of us, on our own. It's part of the process. You'll, you know, you will sit and watch and, you know, like judge. Award marks and shit.'

'Of course, this isn't the kind of thing that can be left just to you,' said Claudia, 'it'll be the judges who will be judging. This time, though, since it's directly related to police work, you'll be judging too. You'll have a voice, so it would be nice if you could use it.'

'Who's bringing him in?' asked Jericho. 'The police?'

'Hah!' barked Claudia. 'If we could ever find any of you. He's coming voluntarily, by train. He should be here in plenty of time for tonight.'

'And does he know he's going to be accused of kidnapping, or does he think he's being asked to contribute to the show in some more conventional manner?'

Claudia answered only with a withering look across the table and another check of the watch.

'Right, people. Let's take fifteen to twenty. A short break, cup of coffee, whatever. No drugs, no running off to some quiet room to have a quick fuck.'

She smiled sweetly at Jericho as she said it, then pushed her chair back.