WEDNESDAY
Dr Forster kept a box of tissues on the table, and for the last five weeks Detective Jo Masters had managed not to reach for a single one. It had become a point of principle during their sessions, a way of telling herself she was above all this. So she’d remained stubbornly dry-eyed through all five sixty-minute meetings, even though they’d touched on plenty of painful subjects, personal and professional – her relationships with her parents, her brother, her colleagues, her aspirations, and her fears. And Ben, of course. Lots of Ben. The psychologist was surgical at times, probing with questions that slipped almost unfelt, like a scalpel blade into the deepest recesses of her past, exposing places, incidents, and people she hadn’t thought about for years.
People like Frank Tyndle. It was just another anecdote, an incident early in her relationship with Ben – and she’d managed to deflect the conversation the first time he’d come up. She wasn’t sure why Dr Forster was returning to it now, so near the end of their allotted time together. It was almost like she knew there was a weakness there, something to be excised.
‘I thought we’d covered Tyndle already,’ said Jo, nonchalantly.
‘Not really,’ said Dr Forster. She checked back through the pad of notes on her lap. ‘You mentioned him, in our first session, when we were discussing your miscarriage. You said something about karma, but we ran out of time. Do you believe in karma?’
The counsellor looked up, her expression quizzical. Jo was ninety per cent sure Dr Forster’s brown frizzy hair was a wig, maybe as a result of cancer treatment. What was certain was that she’d drawn her eyebrows on a fraction too high, making her look perpetually curious.
‘It’s just something people say, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Dr Forster. ‘Is it?’
Jo sneaked a look at the minimalist clock-face on the wall. Twelve-forty. They had twenty minutes left, and so far Dr Forster had shown herself to be assiduous with her time-keeping.
‘Tyndle was a nasty piece of work,’ she began. A wrong’un from the start, as her friend Harry Ferman would have said. ‘He ran the largest drug gang in Kent, and he was untouchable. The investigating team had bugs on all his known locations, but he was careful. Mostly. Had a temper, though. We got a break when one of his lieutenants, a guy called Jon Ruffell, nicknamed Rusty, tried to take over and failed. Tyndle went ballistic, and the listening device picked up that he was going to shoot the kneecaps off Rusty’s sister. We knew he had access to firearms, so it was credible.’
‘Go on,’ said Forster.
Jo took a sip of water. ‘The problem was the investigating team didn’t have an address for Jon Ruffell’s sister. The tribunal later said that was a failure of intelligence, but that’s easy with hindsight. Ben and I were just back-up, so the plan was for us to follow Tyndle and direct the firearms to come to us. We knew it was going to be a close call.’ Christ, she’d been scared. She’d thought Ben was too, but he hadn’t shown it and would never admit it. He could be like that in an argument too. Just switch off. ‘Our orders from the co-ordinating officer were clear. We were observing and tracking only. Now there was a gun in the equation, anything more was deemed an unnecessary risk. Ben knew it too. He didn’t believe in heroes.’
It came back to her in spikes of adrenalin that made her skin tingle. From the moment they’d been in pursuit, she’d been thinking about the end game. What would they do if the firearms didn’t get there in time? If Tyndle reached Joanne Ruffell’s address first? How could they stop him?
‘Tyndle must’ve made us for police, even in plain clothes, because suddenly he detoured. Pulled a U-turn through traffic, and sped off the other way. We followed. I was all for calling it off, discontinuing pursuit, but Ben had that look in his eyes. He said Tyndle was armed and that now he knew he was busted, he was too dangerous to leave on the street.’
‘And did you agree?’ Dr Forster’s interruption made Jo focus on her.
‘Ben was my superior.’
‘That isn’t what I asked,’ said Dr Forster. Jo had noticed the counsellor liked to have her questions answered. She could be steely like that.
‘I tossed it up the chain,’ said Jo. ‘And it came back in the affirmative. We were to stay in pursuit, blues on, in the hope Tyndle would think again. They just didn’t want that gun on the streets, in Tyndle’s hands, under any circumstances. They’d found the sister’s address, but the armed response was re-routing to us. Parameters hadn’t changed. We weren’t to engage directly with Tyndle.’
Jo wondered if the doctor actually had access to the hearing papers and this was some sort of test. It was all in there, in the transcripts and statements. They only told half the story though. Such operational tactics looked fine on paper, but on the ground it could get … complicated. There were split-second decisions