Хилари Боннер - A Kind Of Wild Justice

He strode straight into the gathering of hacks. ‘For those who don’t know me, I’m Detective Sergeant Mike Fielding and this is DS Todd Mallett,’ he announced, waving his hand at his colleague, whose discomfiture seemed to increase. Then he made a brief statement. It was standard stuff, all about growing concern, no further development, a renewed appeal for anyone who might have witnessed anything suspicious to come forward. ‘Also, I would like to ask on behalf of the Phillips family that you respect their privacy at this difficult time,’ he finished predictably. ‘There’s no point in hanging around here, lads, really there isn’t. Nothing’s going to happen at the farm. We’re in the process of setting up an incident room in Blackstone village hall and I or one of the team will give a press briefing there tomorrow at 4 p.m. — and every day until we find Angela.’

As soon as he stopped talking the pack surged forward, surrounding him and Mallett, bombarding them with questions, almost all about Jeremy Thomas.

‘We do have a man helping us with our inquiries, but it really is just routine at this stage,’ said Fielding predictably. ‘There is no more I can tell you today, lads, I’ll see you tomorrow.’ As he spoke he was trying to force a way through the throng back to the squad car, the completely silent Todd Mallett at his shoulder. But the pack continued to harangue the two policemen, pushing and shouting.

Joanna was in the thick of it. That was what she was paid for, after all. ‘What about the car you found near the scene, Detective Sergeant?’ she called and felt she could hear her own voice clearly above the chorus, perhaps because her pitch was higher.

Maybe she was right, because Fielding swivelled round to face her, his surprisingly soft grey eyes seeking her out in the crowd. ‘And who are you?’ he asked.

‘Joanna Bartlett, the Comet .’

He flashed a lopsided grin at her. ‘Thought so. The first woman in the Scotland Yard corps, eh? Frank Manners has told me all about you.’

The bastard, thought Joanna. He’s even warned off his contacts. ‘I’ll bet he has,’ she said, half to herself.

Fielding heard her, though. ‘Don’t worry about it, darling, you can tell me all about Manners any time you like. And any place.’ He looked her up and down appreciatively.

There was loud laughter from the throng, particularly, not at all to Jo’s surprise, from Dewar and Hewitt. Another patronising sod, just like all the rest, thought Joanna, staring levelly back at the detective. She did not rise to him, choosing instead to remain silent.

‘Honestly, lads, that’s all for today,’ he said then.

He did not attempt to answer her question, although she didn’t blame him for that, but his eyes were fixed on hers. Suddenly his face broke into that lopsided grin again. It was actually quite an endearing grin, thought Joanna, and was instantly annoyed with herself.

Then the man winked.

Joanna felt an almost irresistible urge to slap his face. She was quite glad to be clutching a notebook and pencil in her hands. How could a policeman investigating a murder behave like that, she wondered.

Jeremy Thomas was detained at Okehampton police station all night. He claimed he had crashed his car driving home from Five Tors Farm after giving Rob Phillips a lift. He also claimed that the last time he saw Angela was when she had left the dance in a huff.

The previous afternoon Fielding, along with Todd Mallett, had conducted the first formal interview with Jeremy. There had been no solicitor present. The young man had turned down the offer of one. Fielding hoped that wasn’t going to cause problems in the future in view of Jeremy’s youth. But no policeman would turn down the chance of interviewing a suspect without the interference of lawyers.

The SOCOs had found strands of dark-brown hair, some attached to follicles of skin, in the Ford Escort and a small amount of fresh blood on the frame of the passenger seat.

Fair, crew-cut Jeremy had admitted at once that the dark hair could well have been Angela’s. ‘She’s always in my car and well, you know, she’s my girl and, well, we’ve only got the car...’

Fielding understood what the boy was trying to say clearly enough. If they’d been using the car for a kiss and a cuddle, and maybe more, you would expect some signs of that to remain. Hair, yes. But blood?

‘I don’t know,’ said Jeremy. ‘Maybe she knocked herself. Maybe somebody else did...’ Maybe, thought Fielding. Maybe not. ‘Lead you on, did she?’ he asked. ‘Was that the problem? Things got out of hand...’

‘No,’ insisted Jeremy Thomas tearfully. ‘Nothing like that happened, honestly. I’d never hurt Ange.’

The boy didn’t seem all that bright and he was scared rigid. But his story never changed. Fielding’s attention span was short. When it became apparent that there was going to be no quick confession from Jeremy Thomas he began to lose interest. He was always the same. He needed to be on the move, dealing with fresh information. Parsons understood his sergeant’s strengths and weaknesses. That was why they were such a good team. Parsons pulled him off after the first hour-long interview. Todd Mallett carried on, along with a hard-case DS up from Plymouth, a man who specialised in losing his temper, or at least appearing to.

Mallett was right for the job, Fielding had conceded reluctantly. He didn’t like Mallett, never had done, thought he was too slow and ponderous. A real plod. In many ways Fielding couldn’t understand why Mallett didn’t still have a pointy hat on. But the man was meticulous, no doubt about that. And he had a way of wearing witnesses down. Fielding liked to joke that people talked to Mallett in order to get him to go away. Actually, he was only half joking.

Nonetheless, Mallett’s attention to detail was well known — it was what was said to have secured his promotion — and it was often detail that caught people out. Fielding believed that if Jeremy Thomas was the man they were looking for, Todd Mallett and his bad-tempered partner would break him sooner or later — after all, Thomas was no hardened villain, just a nineteen-year-old kid who might have lost it for a fatal few moments. Fielding had been happy enough to leave the interviewing team to get on with the job. He didn’t like to get bogged down in any one area of a major investigation. He was better at the overview, the big picture.

While Charlie Parsons ran the show, directing the troops, controlling the policy, managing, Fielding would be his eyes and ears on the spot. That was the way they always worked.

And it suited Mike totally. He liked to be at the heart of a case. And the heart of this one was at Five Tors Farm. The press knew that, which is why they were staking out the place damn near twenty-four hours a day. Mike Fielding was one of the few policemen around who had a lot of time for newspapermen. They knew what they wanted and stuck at it till they got it. And most of them had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. They thought fast and knew how to follow their noses. Fielding only wished some of his fellow coppers were as quick on their feet.

He and Charlie Parsons, however, were very quick on their feet. They were already an acknowledged partnership and so far their results had been exceptional — so much so that Fielding reckoned he’d be an inspector even quicker than might be expected, certainly within weeks rather than months.

Eager as ever to get on with it, he had returned to Five Tors Farm immediately following his abandoned interview with Jeremy Thomas and from then on he shadowed the family. If the key wasn’t with Thomas, then it would be with them. It almost always was. He was, as ever, confident that he had the knack of seeing through the cotton wool that always seemed to clog up a major investigation. So he stayed at Five Tors Farm, watching, waiting, prodding and probing.