‘Sean. It’s Superintendent Featherstone.’
‘Guv’nor.’
‘Any progress?’ Featherstone asked. ‘Everyone would like to put this one to bed early.’
‘Me too.’
‘I bet – especially with that trial coming up. When’s that kick off, by the way?’
‘This week,’ Sean told him. ‘Probably.’
‘Fuck me,’ Featherstone cursed. ‘All the more reason to get this wrapped up sharpish.’
‘I’m trying,’ Sean answered, hiding his frustration, ‘but it’s a little early to expect a breakthrough with what’s essentially a stranger killing. I have no obvious suspect.’
‘I understand,’ Featherstone said, ‘but as you know, not everyone’s as patient as I am.’
‘Meaning Assistant Commissioner Addis?’
‘No need to mention names. Just make it look like we’re making progress. Understand?’
‘I understand,’ Sean assured him.
‘Good,’ Featherstone said, sounding like he was about to hang up before Sean stopped him.
‘One thing you can do for me.’
‘Go on.’
‘Get the enhanced images of the room he used out to the media with an appeal to the public. Someone might recognize it.’
‘No problem,’ Featherstone agreed and hung up.
‘Everything all right?’ Anna asked.
‘Yeah, fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘You seem a little distant.’
Sean leaned back into his chair, puffed out his cheeks and decided just to come straight out with it. ‘I’m sorry. It’s having you around,’ he tried to explain. ‘It’s … distracting. I’m beginning to miss things. I can’t afford to miss things.’
‘Such as?’
‘The sailing knot and the river – I shouldn’t … wouldn’t have missed that.’
‘And you’re blaming me?’ Anna asked, though she didn’t sound accusing.
‘Not blaming you … it’s not your fault. It’s down to me, I know, but having you here all the time, seeing you all the time, is distracting. I try to not let it be, but I can’t.’
‘I thought we’d dealt with this,’ she told him.
‘Had we?’ he asked. ‘Really? We agreed it would have been the wrong thing to do, for both of us, but we didn’t … solve anything.’
‘I’m not a mystery to be solved, Sean, like one of your cases. Is that what’s distracting you – that I’m an unsolved case?’
He looked at her unsmilingly for a long while. ‘Yes,’ he answered honestly. ‘Yes it is. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us if we had, you know … got it out the way. We’re both grown-ups – we could have dealt with it.’
She moved closer so he could still hear her now quiet words. ‘No it wouldn’t. We both know it. We all need some things to anchor us in this life, otherwise we can begin to drift. Some of us would simply drift along until we hit land again, where we can rebuild, start over. But some of us would drift to dark places – places we might never find our way back from. You’re a danger junkie, Sean. You need it to stay alive, to be who you are. For you, living on the edge is a necessity, not a rarity. But you can’t live your private life like you live your professional one – it has to be stable or you might just fall off that edge you like to be on so much.’
His startling blue eyes sparkled and danced as he deciphered the meaning of her words and their implications, knowing that if she knew how deep into his past the darkness ran she might have even worked out that perhaps, secretly, for reasons even he didn’t understand, he wanted to destroy the only truly stable thing in his life. He carried the guilt that all the abused carried, making him doubt whether he even deserved to have a loving family. Maybe he did want to cast himself adrift, free from the responsibility of giving and receiving love – free to stop trying to control the darkness inside of him – to finally allow himself to spiral downwards until he crashed and burnt. If Anna truly knew his past, his childhood, then she might understand that for him every day he managed to appear normal was like another day for an alcoholic of not taking a drink. But the temptation, the thought of slipping into the warmth of who he perhaps really was, would never leave him.
‘You all right?’ Anna asked.
‘Yeah. Fine,’ he lied. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘We forget it ever happened and get on with our jobs.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘We have no other choice.’
‘No,’ he agreed, still troubled by his own thoughts. ‘I don’t suppose we do.’
‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps we can start with you telling me if you’ve had any new ideas, any insights as to what the killer may do next.’
‘Insights?’
‘Yes, Sean. Insights. It’s no secret between us that you have them. Remember?’
‘If you think I can tell you where and when he’s going to hit next then you’d be wrong.’
‘I know I would be. I don’t believe in psychics. Maybe you remember that too?’
‘Not really.’
‘But you must have some ideas. An imagination like yours doesn’t just stop working. It can’t.’
‘I know he’ll attack again,’ Sean admitted, ‘but so do you.’
‘In all probability, yes he will, for reasons we’ve already discussed, but perhaps there’s something else – something you haven’t told anybody else?’
‘Nothing solid,’ he told her. ‘Just loose ideas rattling around inside my head, nothing I can grasp hold of. Nothing that makes much sense.’
‘Try me.’
‘Look, I don’t want to overcomplicate something that’s already complicated enough. Last case we had I made my mind up too early and I was wrong. Evidence here says it’s a disgruntled member of the public getting some payback on the banks and that’s probably going to be exactly what he is, but …’
‘But what?’
‘But I want to keep an open mind. Just in case. I don’t want to get fooled again.’
‘You sure you don’t know something?’ Anna persisted. ‘I might be able to help. It is what I’m here for.’
‘Is it?’ Sean found himself asking, unsure of where his own suspicions had suddenly sprung from.
‘Of course,’ Anna told him. ‘Why else would I be here?’
He studied her hard before speaking, looking for the tiny telltale signs of a lie he’d seen thousands of times before. ‘Forget it,’ he finally answered. ‘I’m being an idiot. Forget everything. I’m glad you’re here. We’ll make it work.’
‘Good,’ she replied, ‘and thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he warned her, his friendly tone and slight smile hiding what his eyes had seen in her face. ‘Remember we’re only at the beginning. There’s plenty more to come from our boy yet. Of that, I’m certain.’
Georgina Vaughan pulled on her expensive training shoes, checked her iPhone was strapped to