Lucy Gordon - Uncaged

“That’s the spirit.”

* * *

“Frankly, I think you’ve been very lucky,” Detective Chief Inspector Masters said.

Daniel Keller stared at him. “Lucky? I’m being kicked off the force and you say I’m lucky? ”

“You’re lucky to have only been suspended on paid leave. You haven’t been kicked off the force, although if I had my way you would have been.”

“Oh, yes,” Daniel said. “It’s no secret that you’ve been looking for ways to get rid of me ever since you came here two years ago.”

“I don’t like mavericks, Keller. I don’t like loners. I don’t like officers who undermine my authority by tossing the book aside whenever it suits them, or officers who suppress evidence and then get caught. I don’t like seeing a murderess go free because one of my men fouled up. It’s a black mark against this station.”

It’s a black mark against your possible promotion, Daniel thought. That’s what’s really worrying you. But all he said was, “Who says she’s a murderess? The appeal court cleared her.”

“Oh, no, they didn’t. They very carefully stopped short of declaring her innocent, but because you cut corners they had to let her go. That makes me angry.”

Masters was a red-faced, choleric man who seemed to be angered by everything in sight. But in particular he was infuriated by the tall, rangily built man in the battered leather jacket and old jeans standing on the other side of his desk. Daniel Keller was in deep trouble, yet instead of looking chastened, he regarded his superior coolly, his lips twisted in an arrogant half smile that only just escaped being a jeer.

“It makes me angry,” Masters repeated. “So do these headlines.”

He waved an impatient hand at the newspapers on his desk. One headline read Suppression Of Evidence Leads To Release. Another, Why Did He Conceal Evidence? Witness Asks, Why Wasn’t I Called To Testify?

“It’s either incompetence or corruption, and I won’t tolerate either,” Masters snapped. “By rights you should be out of here for good, but I’ve had to listen to a lot of bleeding hearts stuff from your colleagues about how you were under strain from ‘personal problems’ at the time—although how that justifies fouling up, I don’t know.”

Daniel went rigid with distaste as his most painful wounds were casually flicked by this gross creature. “My problems were—and remain—my own affair,” he said stiffly. “I never asked for allowances to be made for me on that account.”

“So I should think. Clear your desk and go. And don’t come back until you’re sent for.”

“Which will be never if you have your way,” Daniel said ironically.

“As you say.”

When Daniel had gone, a genial, lazy-looking, middle-aged man pushed open a glass door to enter Masters’s office. “That was a bit rough, wasn’t it, Chief?” he asked. “They weren’t just any old personal problems. His wife and son—”

“We all have things to bear, Canvey,” Masters said without looking up. “Get back to your work.”

Canvey retreated, but instead of returning to work he slipped downstairs and waylaid Daniel as he was leaving. “You’ll be back,” he said reassuringly. “Probably do you good to have a rest. It’s a pity you didn’t have one back then.”

“Do you think she did it, Canvey?” Daniel asked slowly.

“‘Course she did. This was just a technicality.”

“I should hate to think I sent an innocent woman away. If only I could remember exactly what happened...but it’s all so blurred in my head.”

“You weren’t yourself in those days. You should have taken some time off. I told you so at the time.”

Daniel made his way out to his car, trying not to be conscious of the looks that followed him, some of them sympathetic, some full of barely concealed pleasure. His brusque manner, short fuse and unorthodox methods had made him many enemies, and not only among the criminal fraternity. Some of his so-called colleagues were glad to see him brought low. The thought made him lift his head still higher.

He groaned as he saw two men, one with a television camera, waiting for him. “I’ve got nothing to say,” he told them firmly.

They followed him to his car, the reporter constantly trying to shove a microphone in front of him. “How do you feel about Megan Anderson’s release?”

“I have no feelings about it one way or the other,” he snapped. It was partly true. His feelings were in such turmoil that he couldn’t sort them out.

“Is it true that the police are refusing to reopen the case?”

“Ask them.”

“Does that mean you’ve been dismissed?”

Now he knew how a fox felt when the hounds were after it. It was a horrible experience. He managed to keep hold of his temper until he got in the car, but when the reporter banged on the window, he wound the glass down and said “Get...out...of...my way” with such slow, emphatic menace that the man blanched and backed off.

He reached his house without further incident, and noted with relief that the crowds of press who’d made it a nightmare the day before had disappeared. But as he got out of his car, a man, who seemed to be mending the road, suddenly straightened and blocked his path. “Have you got any statement to make, Inspector?”

Daniel took hold of the reporter’s ear. “Yes, I have a statement,” he said with deceptive mildness. “It’s this. You have one second to get out before you feel my foot in your rear.” He let go, and the man scuttled away.

* * *

When Janice had asked where she’d wanted to go, Megan’s answer had been simple. “Somewhere I can hide.”

The result was an obscure boarding house in a shabby part of London. She had one room that doubled as a bedroom and living room, a tiny kitchen, and a bathroom the size of a postage stamp. The apartment wasn’t much bigger than her prison cell, which accorded with Megan’s mood. She was free only in the most limited sense. Everything that had once formed her life had been stripped from her, including her good name, but most of all, her son. For the moment she could see no way of getting them back.

She called her ex-husband repeatedly that afternoon, but he wouldn’t speak to her. His mother answered the phone at home, and at work his secretary had orders not to put her through. Between calls she sat and brooded in terrible bitterness.

Her thoughts were chaotic, but one thing stayed constant. The face of Daniel Keller was there all the time—hard, unyielding, judging her—so convinced that he was right that he’d twisted the case and destroyed her. His face was burned into her consciousness by her hatred of him. She watched the television news reports and caught the moment when the reporter asked how he felt about her release, and his reply. “I have no feelings about it one way or another.”

“Of course you haven’t,” she flung at his face on-screen. “What’s it to you?”

It was some slight comfort to learn that he’d been suspended, although she felt, cynically, that he would be allowed back when the dust had settled. It was her own future that had been blasted.

Her first night alone was tormented by nightmares and she awoke crying out. One of the other residents knocked on her door to ask if she was all right. After that she tried to catnap for short periods, fearful of rousing the house. So far no one seemed to have recognized her, and this was her only hope of peace.

It was early spring, not a green, enchanted spring promising hope and rebirth, but a sodden fag end of winter, where it rained and rained and rained. The endless cascades of water beat against her ill-fitting windows and seeped in through the cracks, making the room damp. And the noise sometimes made it hard to hear anything else.