‘Colin?’ he heard Louise ask.
Silence. He stepped into the room and she held the phone out to him, her expression blank.
He took it from her. ‘Hello?’
‘Pete? Bob again. I’m afraid we need you, mate.’
Shit! Now, of all times?
‘A body’s been found, corner of Pennsylvania Road and Argyll Road.’
‘Eh?’ Pete frowned. ‘I was only up there an hour ago with Jim and the team. What happened?’
‘Dunno. Doesn’t look like it’s linked, though.’
Pete shook his head. He couldn’t believe it was merely coincidence. He stared at Louise. The expression on her face said more than a thousand words. How could he leave her here, now, with things as they were? OK, Annie would be with her, but… He felt as desperate as she was to hear back from Colin, to know what was happening with Tommy. She was fully aware that they wouldn’t be allowed to see him tonight, but they both – all, he thought, thinking of Annie – needed to know how he was faring, at least. And her emotional state was still delicate. It was barely any time at all since she’d got her head straight after Tommy’s disappearance. How would she cope on her own, now he’d been found?
‘Pete?’ Bob’s voice came over the phone. ‘You still there?’
Bob knew the score. If anyone else could have taken the call, he’d have gone to them first. And Pete was duty SIO tonight. He sighed. ‘Yes. OK, I’m on the way.’
Pete saw the flashing blue lights through the trees from a couple of hundred yards away. When he reached the junction, he could see the cluster of police cars, an ambulance and a couple of other vehicles, tape stretched across the end of the side road and a small cluster of onlookers standing around idly.
Hadn’t they got better places to be, at this time of night? He stopped the car and climbed out, making sure to lock it as he stepped forward, raising his warrant card to one of the uniformed officers guarding the tape.
The blue and white plastic ribbon was raised for him to step under. He headed for the lamps and the white protective windbreak across the grass to his left. He could see the shape of a car and more uniformed police. A generator rumbled close by. Pete passed the ambulance crew as they were leaving the scene. He nodded, drawing a response from one of them. Closer to the windbreak, which had been erected to mask the view from the public rather than for its nominal purpose, he could see a white-overalled figure working over a body which had been laid out on a tarp.
Having recognised the car back on Pennsylvania Road, he didn’t need to see the man’s face to know who it was.
‘Evening, Doc. How’s it going?’
Tony Chambers looked up from what he was doing. ‘Peter. You’ve drawn the short straw again?’
‘Apparently. What can you tell me so far?’
‘We have a quite vicious attack, clearly aimed at being fatal. The victim was killed with a short, sharp blade – possibly a scalpel or utility knife – and some considerable force. The carotid and the jugular were severed as well as the windpipe. There are traces of inflammation around the eyes and nose which suggest the use of pepper spray prior to the knife attack. You can still smell it when you get close enough. The victim’s ID is in the car.’
Pete grimaced. ‘Sounds messy.’ He looked up at the vehicle. No need to ask if the victim was the driver or the passenger. The blood sprayed across the inside of the glass made it obvious.
‘Any idea when?’
‘Rigor hasn’t set in yet, so less than four hours. Body temperature suggests closer to one or two.’
‘OK.’ He looked up and around. ‘Who found him?’
*
‘Where is he?’
It was past one in the morning. Pete had been out more than two hours. His eyes were sore, his head fuzzy. He was exhausted. How did Louise not look as knackered as he felt?
But she didn’t. She’d met him at the door, blocking his way with her body as if unwilling to let him in until he gave her the answers she wanted.
At least now they were in the hall, the front door closed behind him. Pete kept his voice low, not wanting to disturb Annie, who he hoped was asleep.
‘For now, he’s still in Plymouth. Colin’s arranging his transfer but they won’t do it until morning and, even then, he won’t be coming home for a while. He’ll have to go for assessment, be interviewed and so on. And the knife charge won’t just go away. He’d be bailed if he wasn’t a flight risk, but given his recent history…’ He shrugged, hands spreading.
Her gaze locked on his. ‘We’ll be able to visit him, though?’
He raised a hand, indicating she should go through to the sitting room. Following her in, he closed the door behind them.
Tommy would be transferred from the custody of Plymouth nick to that of Exeter, where someone other than Pete – probably Colin Underhill – would interview him. Then he would be transferred again, to a secure youth residential facility where he would be assessed before any further decisions were made about his future.
‘My guess is, the best we can hope is that he gets transferred to Archways from Heavitree Road. Once they’ve settled him in we’ll have visitation rights, the same as any other parents. Except, of course, I won’t. Not with the case outstanding.’
She rubbed at her forehead, eyes closing, then fixing intensely on Pete once more. ‘I need to see him, Pete. Talk to him. Know he’s going to be OK.’
‘I know. Me, too.’ But Pete knew how the system worked. Tommy was involved in a case that he’d worked – a case that was yet to go to trial, thought the date was fast approaching. He wouldn’t be allowed to see him, in case of a conflict of interest. ‘But at least you’ll be able to in a day or two. And he’ll be as safe there as he would be anywhere. Those places are designed for it.’
Archways was a secure children’s home which happened to be less than half a mile from where they were sitting, here in Exeter.
‘God! I feel so… mixed up. Happy he’s been found and desperate to see him but at the same time scared to death. I’ll tell you – if I’d be able to see him when I got there, I’d be halfway to Plymouth by now.’
‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Pete countered. ‘You’d be there. And so would I, because I’d have used the blues and twos to get us there and sod the consequences.’
*
Emma didn’t really sleep that night. Her mind kept playing back the attack, the moments leading up to it and those that followed. Over and over, she relived it. Could she have done anything different? Should she simply go down to the police station and report it?
Her instinct was to hide. The last thing she wanted was to have to go through it all again, even just verbally. But, was she thinking straight? She felt groggy, her eyes sore and gritty from lack of sleep. She didn’t know how many times she’d got up in the night to puke, though by three in the morning there was nothing left to bring up. Her stomach ached from trying. It heaved again now, but she knew there was no point rushing to the toilet. She rolled over, moaning, and grabbed a tissue, holding it over her mouth as she retched painfully.
If she went to the police now, her past, which she had tried so hard to leave behind, would all be brought out into the open. The press would get hold of it. Her colleagues would find out. The persona she’d built since she got here would come crashing down around her.