Lynda Plante - Blind Fury

“Will you come round and see the boys again?”

Anna nodded, but she knew she wouldn’t keep in touch. She wanted the past behind her.

Lizzie walked her to the front door, and Anna thanked her for the tea, apologizing for not eating, then hurried out to her car. Lizzie felt that she was unemotional, almost aloof; she said to her husband that night that she had found Anna almost a different person. Lizzie hadn’t even been able to put her arms around Anna, as she had wanted.

Ken’s parents wrote a sad letter back and apologized for not wanting her to be at their son’s funeral. Anna presumed that it was Roy Hudson who had written the letter. He said they were coming to terms with the loss of Ken but found it very difficult, as he was such a wonderful son. She found herself having to force back tears when he added that he also would have made a good husband.

Anna folded the letter and then tore it to shreds. It was another chapter closed, and she would not contact them again.

The trial had front-page coverage, and the team held up well throughout. Anna took her hours of cross-questioning by Smiley’s defense team with a cool authority. She was never rattled but in total control in an impressive performance that did not go unnoticed. Smiley was found guilty and sentenced to whole-life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

As soon as the trial was completed, Anna went before the promotional board and this time had no emotional attachments to worry about, as the three high-ranking officers were none she had ever met. She was touched that one of them mentioned that Detective Chief Superintendent James Langton had recommended her highly. She also handled the lengthy interview with the psychologist far better than she had previously. She was confident that she could not have done better, but she would have to wait three months for the results.

The next case Anna was assigned to was the suspected murder of an elderly woman whose body was discovered mummified in her basement. It was a case that Mike Lewis was allocated to oversee, and they worked well together with a new team. Barolli was also up for promotion to detective inspector, but he wasn’t confident, as he felt he had done badly on the written tests. Anna didn’t like to say how confident she felt but kept busy with the case in hand, which turned out to be a sad situation rather than a brutal killing.

The elderly woman had been dependent on her son for twenty years due to a heart condition; he had waited on her lovingly, and when she had died, he couldn’t bear to part with her. He had wrapped her in the sheets and kept her in the basement for five years. He had somehow managed to keep her death a secret, talking about her health and neighbors, but also claiming her pension every month.

Anna had found the tragedy less affecting than Mike, who felt that the man shouldn’t be charged. Anna had surprised him with her detachment, saying that “filial love” had not stopped him from illegally claiming his mother’s pension and living off it. Mike noticed then how much she had changed; she was more brusque than she had ever been, always businesslike, and yet the team respected her as much as Mike, if not more so. She was in many ways unapproachable on any kind of social level, though her ambition had not diminished. On the contrary, at times he felt as if she were nudging him out of the inquiry.

No sooner had Anna closed the case of the mummified woman than she received confirmation that her promotion was accepted. Anna was now detective chief inspector. DCI Travis was one of the youngest women to gain that rank, and Mike was relieved that from now on, she would be handling her own inquiries. Poor Paul Barolli yet again failed his promotional exams, so it was possible he would work for Anna, but after the pressure she had put on him during the Smiley inquiry, he didn’t fancy being under her command.

Langton had taken a bottle of congratulatory champagne to her flat, and she had opened it, admitting only to him how proud she was. He’d been there a short time before she announced that she had a previous arrangement. He’d been hoping to take her out to dinner but downed the remainder of his glass. As he left, he cupped her face in his hand and kissed her forehead. He felt her body tense away from him.

“You’ve grown up, Travis. Sometimes I look at you and hardly recognize that girl I lived with. I have always reckoned you were special in every way, but now you have a big career ahead of you.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

He hesitated. “Don’t make your whole life your career, darlin’. You’ll get over this and you’ll—”

She smiled and put a finger to his lips. She said she didn’t intend to; she was going out for dinner with some friends.

“Good. Well, onward and upward.”

She closed the door behind him and breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t have any dinner date, she didn’t have any other friends but him, and she fully intended to make her career the focus of her life. Nothing was going to stop her. DCI was just the beginning, and she had no intention of ever allowing anything or anyone to muddy the waters.

She carried her half-filled glass of champagne into the bedroom, lit a cigarette, and let the smoke drift from her mouth, forming a perfect ring. She placed the champagne flute between the photographs of her father and Ken. She had decided that she would not be able to form a relationship with anyone. Ken would be enough. Losing him had been as painful as losing her father. She picked up the glass and lifted it in a toast.

“I made it, Daddy. You never got further than detective inspector. I’m DCI Travis now, and I am going to make you so proud of me.”

She sipped the champagne and then looked at the funny photograph of Ken as a little boy in his clown’s outfit. No, there would not be time for anyone else now. The ambitious streak that had always been inside her was now full-blown — and she would allow nothing to stand in her way.