Tania Carver - The Creeper

‘Yeah.’

‘Why don’t you take a couple of hours off? Get your head together. Because you’re no use to me like this. And you’re no use to Julie Miller either.’

Rose didn’t get the chance to answer as two men came hurrying round the corner, up the drive. One of them trailing behind the other, weighed down by camera equipment.

‘Shit,’ said Phil, standing up.

Rose joined him. ‘You know them?’

‘Dave Terry and Adrian Macintyre. Freelancers. Both obnoxious twats.’

Rose smiled. ‘Is that your professional opinion?’

‘On every level. They’re local but they sell to the nationals. Trying to beat the competition to it. Wondered who’d be the first to work out where we were. Come on.’

Phil stepped in front of the two journalists, stopping their progress. The one with the camera, Adrian Macintyre, tried to dodge round him. Rose grabbed him.

‘Whoa there,’ she said.

‘Look, we’re just doing our jobs,’ said Dave Terry. ‘We’ve got as much right to be here as you two.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Phil. ‘We haven’t confirmed that the body is Julie Miller so the last thing the family needs is you two pestering them. There’s no story here.’

‘Yeah?’ said Terry, a snide grin appearing on his face, ‘then what are you two doin’ here?’

‘Stopping people like you harassing innocent citizens,’ said Rose. ‘Now back off.’

‘Sorry, darlin’.’ Macintyre slipped Rose’s grasp and was round her.

‘Hey…’ She turned, gave chase up the drive, grabbed him easily. She turned him to face her.

‘Get your hands off me or I’ll do you for assault…’ He slid the camera bag from his arm, struggled to free himself. His face twisted with anger.

‘Want to get arrested? Yeah?’ Rose’s voice was rising.

‘Get your fuckin’ hands off me!’ Camera down, his fists were raised to reply.

‘Rose…’ Phil turned, made to go to her, but didn’t get that far.

From out of her pocket she produced a small canister and sprayed it in Macintyre’s face. His hands went immediately to his eyes and he fell to his knees, screaming.

Phil stared. She looked at him, anger still dancing in her eyes. ‘You saw what happened,’ she shouted. ‘He assaulted me. I was within my limits and defending myself. Right?’

Terry was standing open-mouthed. A smile crept over his features, his eyes still glassy. Phil could see the journalist’s mind working. Terry knew as well as Phil that DS Rose Martin had been not only out of order but also out of control. And that meant money.

Phil had to take action. He couldn’t give Rose a bollocking in front of the two journalists but he couldn’t let them get away to tell what had happened. He turned to Terry. ‘There’s no story here, right?’

Terry looked at him as if he was breaking a spell.

‘Right?’

He gave an ugly laugh. ‘Really? You don’t think so?’

Phil’s eyes hardened, his body language became tense, threatening. ‘At the moment your little mate is looking at assaulting a police officer and trespassing. What about you? Want to join him?’

‘There was only one person doing any assaulting here.’ Terry’s eyes were lit by a nasty light. He had found an even better story. ‘That’s how it’s going to read.’

Phil sighed. ‘I’m warning you…’

Terry laughed. ‘What you gonna do, Officer? Hit me as well?’

Phil sighed. ‘Here we go…’ He grabbed hold of Terry, turning him round and thrusting his arm up his back, reading him his rights as he did so.

Terry cried out in pain. ‘What… what you doin’?’

‘Arresting you.’ He turned to Rose. ‘Get the other one.’

She didn’t need to be told. Macintyre had slipped to his knees, hands rubbing his eyes and whimpering, kicking out his legs in pain. She roughly pulled his hands behind him, cuffed him.

They had the two journalists in armlocks and were preparing to take them to Phil’s Audi when the front door opened. Brenda Miller stood there, Cheryl Bland behind her.

‘What… what’s happening?’ she said, her voice distant and small as if trying to wake from a stubborn dream.

‘Journalists,’ said Rose Martin. ‘Trying to make your life hell. We stopped them.’ She couldn’t keep the triumph from her voice.

‘My life is already hell…’ the words screamed, her voice cresting before breaking down into sobs. Cheryl Bland put her arm around her, led her away from the door.

But not before she had fixed Phil with a look that spoke of pain and disappointment. At everything and everyone. At him.

He didn’t blame her. Pushing Terry inside the back of the Audi he felt the same way himself.

He got behind the steering wheel, started the car. Rose got into the passenger seat, eyes blazing with righteous anger. She was smiling. There was no sense of victory inside Phil. Only a hollowness.

Not trusting himself to speak, Phil drove to the station in silence. He put a CD into the player, wanting something to fill the empty space.

Doves: Lost Souls .

It felt appropriate.

There was a knock at the door.

The tension was broken. Anthony Howe straightened up, looked at the door, frowning as if emerging from sleep. His features changed, his eyes no longer darkly lit.

‘Come in,’ he called.

The door opened. A young man, dark-haired, tall, dressed in regulation student-issue jeans and sloganed T-shirt, stood there. He was about to speak but saw Anni sitting there, stopped.

‘Yes, Jake,’ Anthony Howe said.

The student looked between the two of them, uneasily. ‘Um… we had a meeting?’

‘Did we? Thought I was…’ Howe looked at his watch. ‘Right. Sorry. Just a few more minutes. Not be long.’

Jake pointed towards the corridor. ‘Shall I…’

‘Please.’

He left, closing the door behind him. The silence in the room was like the inside of a human heart; Anni could hear, feel, the blood rushing round her body.

‘Right,’ said Howe, finding a pen on his desk suddenly fascinating enough to lift up and toy with in his fingers, ‘you mentioned Suzanne Perry?’ His voice had changed. Softer, reasoned. Back in control.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Why? That subject, as far as I’m concerned, is closed.’

‘Perhaps.’ Anni crossed her legs, looked down at her notepad, pen poised over the page. ‘Can I just ask you where you were last night?’

‘I was-’ He pulled his eyes off the pen, back to her. ‘Can I ask why you need to know that?’

‘If you could just answer the question, please.’

He sighed. Anni watched his eyes. He seemed to be deciding how best to answer the question, what tone to take, what information to give. ‘I… was at home.’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You live alone?’

‘I… we’re separated. My wife and I.’

‘And there was no one with you?’

‘Please tell me what this is concerning.’

His voice was rising. Anni kept hers steady, her gaze level.

‘In a moment. If you could just answer the question, please.’

‘As I said, I was at home.’

‘And what did you do there?’

‘I… made dinner. Then I read for a while. Watched some TV.’

‘What did you watch?’

He looked startled by the question. ‘Why do you need to know that? Are you making, making some kind of value judgements about me?’

‘No. I just wanted to know what you watched.’

‘A soap opera. Coronation Street . Then…’ He put his head back, thinking. Or, thought Anni, pretending to think. ‘I don’t know. Something on BBC4. A documentary.’

‘About what?’

‘Byzantine art.’