Paul Grzegorzek - The Follow

I sighed, dreading telling him my news, not wanting to disappoint him. ‘I think you’d better sit down before I tell you this one, Dad, it’s a biggie.’

He looked at me over the top of his glasses, a warning expression on his face. ‘You can stop treating me like I’m made of glass; I can read the papers as well as the next man. Probably better, seeing as the next man is you.’

I ignored his jibe, swallowing the echo of guilt I felt from having dropped out of my English degree so many years before. Although it has never bothered Dad, I felt like I had let Mum down. She had been so proud when her little boy got into university. Suddenly the words he had used actually registered with my brain. ‘Read the papers? Oh shit!’

He passed a folded copy of The Argus over to me while he took over coffee duty. The headline read, in massive letters:

POLICE OFFICER ARRESTED IN SHOCK ATTEMPTED MURDER EVIDENCE SWITCH!

It went on to explain in the article about the court case and the fact that one of the officers ‘who couldn’t be named for legal reasons’ had been arrested and bailed pending further enquiries. All the other officers in the case were named, and the lack of mine in print was a glaring indication of who they were talking about, to me at least. So much for keeping this one quiet.

‘You could have phoned to see if I was okay,’ I accused my dad, feeling hurt.

‘I did bloody phone you, twice! If you ever looked at the damn thing then maybe you’d know I called!’ he threw back at me as he delivered a steaming mug of coffee that suddenly I didn’t fancy, my stomach heaving as I read the rest of the article.

In a nutshell, it said that the police had screwed up in a case where a police officer had been stabbed and that, because of an evidence blunder, a notorious criminal had walked free.

It’s a good job most of the local criminals can’t read much more than the health warning on a cigarette packet; there’d be an open season on police otherwise.

I walked through into the lounge and sat down on the creaky old leather sofa, looking around the room and enjoying the sense of familiarity that took some of the sting out of my situation. The room hasn’t changed for years, the leather sofa accompanied by an ancientlooking leather recliner stacked up with cushions just the way Dad likes them. Dark wooden bookshelves line every available wall and at one end stands a dining table with four chairs around it, used only at Christmas and for the occasional poker nights.

A word of warning here, never, ever, play poker with my dad if you don’t want to go home broke. I swear he has a sixth sense when it comes to cards.

At the other end of the room stands a TV that dwarfs the small table it sits on. Last year on his birthday I bought him a widescreen plasma, which I suspect still sits in its box somewhere in the loft. He doesn’t believe in getting rid of things until they wear out and even then only when they can’t be fixed anymore. The whole room smells slightly of dog and books, which is actually quite a pleasant combination if you’ve grown up with it, which I had.

My dad came into the room juggling a plate of ginger creams, a bowl of peanuts and his mug of coffee. I waited until he got comfortable before I started talking.

‘So, I assume you can guess that I got arrested last night?’

He nodded, slurping his coffee noisily.

‘Well, they think I might have had something to do with the knife being replaced. I hope that I don’t need to tell you that I had nothing to do with it?’

The look he gave me told me everything I needed to know on that front.

‘Okay,’ I continued hastily, ‘well I told them where to stick it, basically, but I’ve been suspended and bailed out until the middle of the week after next. I’m not fucking happy.’

I try not to swear in front of my dad; he doesn’t mind but old habits die hard. Up until the age of eighteen I would get a smack round the head for anything worse than ‘bloody’.

He finished the ginger cream he was eating and stared off into space thoughtfully before looking back at me. ‘Is there any way that they can link you to anything that’s happened? I assume that this Davey chap was the one who managed to get the evidence lost?’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s the one who must have done it. He was laughing at me in court before it came out but I’m the last person logged to have touched the knife.’

‘What about fingerprints, wouldn’t they have dusted the rubber knife?’

I’d already thought about that and came to a conclusion about it on the walk to the train station after my interview. ‘Well, PSD didn’t mention it, so I can only assume that they checked it for prints and didn’t find any. They probably neglected to disclose that so that there was more chance of me making an admission.’

Dad shook his head angrily. ‘They really are bastards, aren’t they? What did your sergeant, Kevin isn’t it, have to say about all of this?’

I finished my coffee just in time to avoid getting it spilled as Lily streaked into the room and threw herself on my lap. ‘I think he’s on my side,’ I said, fending the dog off, ‘but he has to try and stay as neutral as possible. The only link he has to the case is that he’s our supervisor. He wasn’t there that day until after the evidence had been bagged and Jimmy was en route to the hospital, so he’s in the clear, but if shit sticks to us it’ll stick to him as well by association, if he isn’t careful.’

Lily finally got the message and went off to hunt biscuits, leaving me brushing what looked like half her coat off my lap. Dad took pity and threw her one, which disappeared in a single gulp.

‘Well,’ he said, glancing at a picture of the family that hangs on the wall between bookcases, ‘I’m only glad your mother isn’t here or she’d be off down the PSD office dragging them around by the ear and shouting at them for being idiots!’

I smiled, knowing that he wasn’t far off the mark. ‘Yeah, well, in some ways I wish she was.’

We both lapsed into the awkward silence that springs up between us whenever Mum is mentioned. I’d been at university through the worst of it and carry a sense of guilt at not having been there that has never really faded, despite my dad’s best efforts to reassure me.

‘So what are you going to do?’ he asked, breaking the spell.

I sighed and shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Dad, I really don’t. All I can do is wait and see what happens, but I just feel so useless . I should be out hounding Davey’s every step but instead I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself. What would you do?’

‘Just sit it out, son. Keep your nose clean. Don’t give them an excuse to turn it into a witch-hunt.’

I nodded, knowing he was right, not daring to tell him about my encounter with the Budds. No matter how much he loved me, he would never approve, and the less he knew, the less he had to lie about if anyone came asking.

‘You’re right. I suppose I’d better get back and get in touch with Kev; he’ll want to make sure I’m okay. Thanks for the coffee, I’ll call you later.’

He waved as I left, stooping to fuss Lily on the way out.

Back at the car, I put the key in the lock, and then paused as my peripheral vision caught something that my copper’s nose told me was out of place. I glanced around, trying to look casual, and saw a silver Clio parked about fifty yards up the road, right on the bend, with a person sitting in it reading a newspaper. It struck me as strange behaviour for a side street, and I automatically looked around for anything else out of place, only to see the curtains twitch on a house across the road as my eyes swept across it.