Martin Edwards - The Frozen Shroud

‘The great Lauren Self isn’t afraid of me.’

‘You don’t think so? She’s not stupid, she knows better than anyone that she’s been over-promoted. So she’s determined to shore up her position, and that includes pushing potential rivals overboard.’

Hannah savoured her lager. He was right, the taste was dangerously addictive. ‘And I gave her the perfect excuse by messing up on the Rao trial?’

‘Precisely. Putting you in charge of Cold Cases must have seemed like a masterstroke. And then you go and ruin it by making such a success of the job that her only option left is to cut you, and your team, down to size.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘I don’t do flattery, Hannah.’ He wiped his fleshy lips. ‘Trust me.’

One quick drink turned into three slow ones, and when they were ready to leave, Greg suggested they call at Fryer Tuck’s chippy on the way back. Hannah had planned to dig a ready meal out of the fridge, but he suggested they share a cab to Ambleside before he made his way to Kendal, where he had a flat. It was only good manners to suggest in turn that they eat the chips at Undercrag.

After lighting the fire, she left him in the living room while she made coffee. It wouldn’t be a good plan to offer the option of alcohol. Or share the sofa with him. No way did she intend to send out any wrong signals.

Over the simple supper, she discovered a new side to Greg Wharf. The revelation that he liked cats wasn’t the last shock disclosure. He played and watched tennis, and during his annual pilgrimage to Wimbledon, he made a point of taking in a West End musical. Not just Les Mis or the latest Lloyd Webber, but edgier stuff like Spring Awakening.

‘You kept that quiet.’

‘Do you blame me? I’d never hear the end of it if the lads got to know.’

The horrible thought struck her that she’d written him off as a brawny hunk whose brains were in his pants. A Flash Harry who wasn’t that much different from the villains he’d hunted when he worked in Vice.

‘I still can’t get over the musicals.’

‘Hey, I love music. As a kid, I sang in the school choir, and got as far as Grade 7 with the piano.’

Greg Wharf, a choir boy? What next, Les Bryant as a teenage Romeo, Lauren Self a tireless worker for the underprivileged?

‘So what happened?’

‘My dad died, and I needed to earn a living. Also, I discovered girls and beer.’ He grinned. ‘Downhill all the way from there.’

‘Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.’

‘What about you, Hannah, what are your secrets?’

‘Me? I’m an open book.’

‘Yeah, written in Sanskrit.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Sorry. I meant to say, you’re admirably discreet.’ He watched as she threw another log on the fire. ‘And you have a lovely house to be discreet in.’

‘Only half of it is mine. Much less once you factor in the mortgage. And soon none of it will be mine. We’re selling up.’

He nodded. The break-up with Marc was common knowledge; the disastrous betrayal leading up to it was the stuff of legend back at HQ.

‘When Zanny and I split up, I didn’t know what had hit me. In the space of a weekend, I lost a wife, the woman I’d been seeing behind her back, and the roof over my head. And my job went west, quite literally. Within a week, I was kicked over to the other side of the Pennines.’ Greg’s matrimonial catastrophe was equally celebrated; he’d been married to a high flyer in Northumbria Police before getting far too close to a girl from Community Support. ‘Everyone said I reaped what I sowed. Fair enough, but when you shoot yourself in the foot, it still hurts like hell.’

Hannah watched the fire. The flames writhed like exotic dancers. ‘I’ll get over it.’

‘Of course you will. You’re strong. Where are you looking to move to? Closer to HQ?’

‘Not sure. I did wonder …’

‘What?’

‘If the time was right to make a fresh start. All this shit at work is hard to take, day in, day out. Perhaps I ought to try something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, I dunno.’ She tasted the coffee. Too bitter. ‘I’d just … like to feel I’m getting somewhere, instead of just running faster and faster to stay in the same place.’

‘You’ve achieved a lot.’

She put down her mug. ‘Sorry, I’m rambling. I shouldn’t have had that last glass of lager.’

‘Even DCIs are allowed to unwind sometimes.’ He stretched in his chair. The fire was blazing, the room felt warm at last. ‘Now you know the worst about me, when you’re ready to look at staffing cuts.’

‘You reckon that’s the worst?’

‘Well, your face was a picture.’

‘It’s not the image you’ve cultivated.’

‘Fair comment. I’ve always liked being one of the lads.’ He dunked his one remaining chip in a puddle of brown sauce. ‘Blokes who like musicals are usually as camp as a row of tents, aren’t they?’

‘Marc once made me sit all the way through South Pacific . And he might be many things, but he isn’t camp.’

‘What’s he up to now? Still licking his wounds after you kicked him out?’

She pushed her plate to one side. Half the fish and most of the chips and mushy peas lay untouched, but she’d had enough. That empty feeling inside was nothing to do with hunger.

‘He wants another chance.’

‘Who could blame him?’

‘It isn’t going to happen.’

She was talking to herself as much as to Greg, eyes fixed, not on him, but on the brooding screes of Wasdale in the watercolour on the opposite wall. Marc loved the picture, and she couldn’t wait for him to take it away. The dark hues reminded her of a long ago afternoon they’d spent on the slopes above Wastwater, slipping and sliding as the treacherous black rocks shifted beneath their feet. She’d seldom felt as scared in her life; they’d taken a wrong turning at Marc’s insistence — he always knew best — and came close to becoming cragfast in the wilds of Great Gully.

‘It isn’t going to happen,’ she said again.

She hadn’t drunk that much, yet her head was in a whirl. So much was changing, all around. Her lover gone, her house going, her team slashed to ribbons. What next?

‘Hey,’ Greg said softly, ‘are you okay?’

‘Sorry. It’s not been the best of weeks so far.’

He swallowed the last of his coffee, and stood up. ‘I’d better go.’

Tears pricked her eyes. Oh shit, she’d allowed him to see how feeble she could be. This was so fucking pathetic, she was acting like an emotional teenager, not a head-screwed-on DCI. All those years, she’d worked at painting a portrait of herself in people’s minds, and now she was ripping up her own picture. And why? Because she couldn’t handle this strength-sapping sense that everything she touched fell apart.

She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll get your jacket.’

As she stepped past him, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. She kept looking straight ahead. It would be a mistake to turn to face him. Any moment now, those tears would start running down her cheeks, and she didn’t want to allow him a glimpse of her flimsiness.

‘You don’t have anything to prove,’ he said. ‘Not to me, not to the team, not to Lauren Only-Thinks-Of-Her-Fucking-Self.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’ve got nothing to thank me for. It’s the other way round. They dumped me on you, which must have been a total pain, but you just got on with the job. And with me.’

She couldn’t avoid looking at him any longer. ‘Someone had to keep you in order.’

He smiled. ‘You do it well.’

Her mind was a useless blur, no longer in control. Her body seemed disconnected from it. She moved closer to Greg, drawn by his sheer physical presence. Afterwards, she could never quite get the sequence of events clear in her head, but within moments they were on the sofa. His arms were tight around her, as he kissed with a tenderness she’d never have imagined. She smelt beer and a musky aftershave, felt his bristles against her cheek. His hand slid over her jersey. She didn’t stop its progress, didn’t want to. It had been a long time since she’d been touched like this.