Tania Carver - The Surrogate

But he wasn’t ready for this.

The lights were on in here.

He screamed.

And screamed and screamed and screamed.

Clayton pulled deep on his Marlboro Light, held it and exhaled slowly, feeling his body relax against the side of his BMW as he did so. He was in the car park behind the police station. It was freezing. He was trying not to let the cold get to him. But his chattering teeth betrayed him.

What a balls-up. The whole thing. What a balls-up.

Sophie in the interview room, and then Brotherton. Phil hadn’t been able to break him. Even with all the circumstantial evidence, CCTV footage, everything, he still couldn’t do it. They were all coming to the conclusion that maybe Brotherton actually was innocent. And Clayton was off the case. Unable to influence it. His future in everyone else’s hands. He hated that most of all.

Another drag, and another exhale. Movement at the back of the police station caught his eye. Anni was striding out of the building, wearing her usual T-shirt and jeans but with no jacket, arms tightly wrapped around her body in a vain attempt to keep out the cold. She approached him, slowed. Stood opposite him as he smoked. Said nothing.

Clayton swallowed. Again. Took another drag. She was making him nervous. He was letting her. He had no choice. He looked at her. She was waiting for him to speak. He noticed that his stomach flipped and his breathing had quickened. His teeth were still chattering. He tried to stop them.

‘Thanks,’ he said.

Anni’s face remained impassive. ‘What for?’

‘You know.’The wall to the left of her shoulder was fascinating; he kept his eyes on it.

‘Yes,’ she said, a trace of angry emotion seeping into her voice, ‘I know. But I want to hear you say it.’

He took another drag of the cigarette, tried again to keep his teeth still in his mouth. Exhaled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For not grassin’ me up to Phil.’

She said nothing. Waiting once more.

Clayton felt that since it had now been acknowledged between them, he was expected to say something further. ‘I recognised her straight away,’ he said. ‘At the metal yard. And I thought…’ He sighed. ‘Maybe I could get something from her, something important that I could use for the investigation. Now, I know I was bein’ selfish, not thinkin’ of the team-’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Clayton, I saw what happened. ’

Another sigh. ‘It was just the once,’ he said. ‘Last night in the car.’

‘I don’t want to know. I don’t need to know.’ She still wouldn’t look at him.

‘Yeah… just the once. That’s all it was.’ He fell silent. Risked a glance at her. He was sure she had been looking at him when he had been looking elsewhere, sure her eyes had just darted away from his. ‘It was… I’ve never done anything like that before.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Whatever, but look-’

This time she looked at him. Directly at him. And her eyes were so fierce and strong, he wished she hadn’t. ‘Clayton, when I say I don’t care, I don’t care. It’s none of my business what you get up to in your own time.’

Clayton frowned. Wasn’t she angry because she had seen him with another woman? Wasn’t that it? ‘I just thought because of, you know, the other night, that you were-’

She gave a laugh, harsh and abrasive. ‘What? You think because we had a fumble that somehow we’re… what? Lovers? That I’ve caught you cheating on me? Is that it?’

‘Well, yeah…’

Another laugh, just as harsh but more disbelieving. She shook her head. ‘That’s what you think this is all about? Really? You arrogant bastard.’

‘So… why then?’

She gave him the pitying kind of look she would reserve for a backward child. ‘Think about it. Because, Clayton, you were spotted in a car with a witness who was, as the tabloids say, performing a sex act on you. While under surveillance. Doesn’t that scream unprofessional conduct to you? Conflict of interests, at the very least? Don’t you think it’s the kind of thing that could put a conviction in jeopardy? Not to mention this shining career you think you’re going to have.’

‘Well, yeah. When you put it like that, yeah.’

‘So?’

‘I know that. I just thought, you know. You were mad at me because of, you know. Us.’

Anni looked him directly in the eye. There were things she was about to say but she stopped herself. Instead she shook her head and walked off. ‘I’m going back inside.’

Clayton flicked his cigarette away, turned to follow her. ‘Me too.’

She turned to him as she kept walking, her arms still wrapped tightly round her body. ‘Piss off, Clayton. Leave me alone.’

She reached the door before he did. He ran towards her, stopped her from opening it with his palm against it. She turned and faced him, angry.

‘Let me go. Now.’

‘What you goin’ to do? About what you saw?’

‘Let me go.’ She struggled to open the door. He still wouldn’t let her.

‘Please, Anni, I need to know.’ Clayton’s voice had dropped to a begging, wheedling tone. ‘Look, it was just a one-off. I’ve never done it before, I’ll never do it again. Please.’

‘I don’t know… I don’t know what happened…’

She pulled the door again.

‘Please, Anni. You have to tell me. Are you goin’ to tell Phil?’

‘I should do.’

‘Yeah, I know.You goin’ to?’

She stopped struggling, looked at him. Sighed. She was still angry, he could tell. But her features had softened slightly. ‘I don’t know. I should do. But I don’t know.’

He took his hand off the door. She walked through it and strode away from him. Clayton looked back into the car park, saw his BMW sitting there, gleaming. He sighed, shook his head.

What a balls-up.

He followed her back in, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Marina sat in the canteen in the police station, notebook open before her, a cup of something at her lips. Someone had made a vague attempt to cheer the place up, make it appear welcoming by providing primary-coloured chairs and tables and non-institutional colours on the walls. But it still looked like what it was. A fuelling station for time-poor public employees.

She took a sip of her drink, not knowing whether it was coffee or tea, suspecting it was veering towards coffee because that was what she had ordered. But not really caring. She sighed, pen poised above her notebook, ready to write something. Process what had just happened, what she had just witnessed, find a way to move forward. She looked at the blank page. Willed the words to appear. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t think of anything to write. With a sigh she placed the pen back on the table, took another sip of coffee.

She had been right all along. Brotherton was not the killer. Phil had tried to break him down, kept going even after she had spoken to him, told him he wasn’t the killer. He’d repeated the evidence back to Brotherton, over and over again, like a mantra of guilt, asked him to confess, shouted at him to confess, even tried to cajole him into confessing. But he’d got nowhere. Nothing. Not because Brotherton couldn’t be broken down, but because, as Marina knew, he wasn’t guilty.

Eventually Phil had given up, terminated the interview. She hadn’t seen him since. Nor, for that matter, had she seen Fenwick, Anni, any of them. They had all gone straight down the hall once Phil had emerged from the interview room. She didn’t know whether she was supposed to follow them, but none of them had looked back, made any attempt to include her. So, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, she had come to the canteen, planned what to do next.