The Trawlerman, стр. 36
She had a proper job, thought Alex. Her duties were not at all light. Afterwards, Alex, alone in her office, laid her head down on her empty desk and stayed like that for some time as minutes passed, and was still like that when one of the bearded men entered her office. He coughed several times, politely, before she lifted her head.
Tomorrow she was scheduled to attend a meeting in the Deputy Chief Constable’s office. The DCC was concerned that the proposed new methodology might lead to violent incidents of domestic abuse being under-reported by officers because of the complexity of the proposed reporting methodology. The non-bearded member of the team had already spelled out the answer in broad terms. ‘Yes. The probability is that there would be some under-reporting, but a more robust system might also identify incidents which had been ignored in the past.’
This was going to be her life. She raised her head from the table, stood and went to the next room. ‘Coffee, anyone?’
They turned from their screens and looked at her, puzzled, as if no one had ever asked them this question before. When she returned to the office having dished out drinks to her team, she closed the door and opened up Google. She started with the search term ‘ex-military ptsd’.
Twenty-six
Violence was a virus. It infected all the stories she found. One ex-Afghanistan soldier had joined G4S security and shot two colleagues dead for no apparent reason. Another ex-army man who had been a victim of a roadside bomb on active service had beaten a friend to death with a scaffolding pole, simply after hearing a loud bang. Afterwards, he told investigators, he had no memory at all of committing the murder. When he was released from jail after nine years he killed another man with a lump hammer. His family said he had been a quiet child before his time in the army. There were ex-servicemen and -women who had left their families, become alcohol and drug dependent, creating havoc around them. The strange make-up of the brain allowed violence to self-replicate. Misery could be passed from parents on to children. Abuse and brutality rippled outwards. She descended into a dark hole, reading these accounts, taking notes in a pad on her desk.
At one point, one of the men knocked on her door, looking apprehensive.
‘What?’
‘Coffee? You made one for us, so we thought we’d offer to make one for you.’
‘I think we’ve found common ground,’ she said. ‘Flat white please.’
He smiled nervously back.
At ten to five, Jill cancelled:
Sorry. Stuck in meetings all day. Tomorrow morning? Promise xxxxx
These were meetings she would have been in. The urgency of life in Serious Crime seemed very appealing.
That evening she went for a long bike ride out into the marshes, up Midley Wall to the flat road that ran along White Kemp Sewer. It was almost dark by the time she got back. She knocked on Bill’s door to check up on him but Arum Cottage was dark. The curtains were all still open. She carried on home.
When she got out of the shower, she switched on the news. ‘It’s understood,’ said the young, fair-haired woman on the local news, dropping her perky smile for this item, ‘that the accused, Robert Glass, is a former army officer who had been living in the New Romney area for over a year.’
Zoë looked up from the computer on her lap. When Alex caught her eye, she realised that it was her she was looking at, not the TV screen.
Alex pretended not to look interested. The item changed to a dispute over farm waste that was polluting a local watercourse.
The next morning the police canteen was quiet. She found Jill alone at a table with a cup of herb tea, looking through a pile of papers. ‘Can’t stay long,’ she said, looking up as Alex put down her coffee cup. ‘Got an evidence assessment meeting in fifteen minutes. It’s doing my head in.’
‘You look tired.’
‘Miss you on the team. There’s a load of shit to get through, you know?’
‘God, yes. Sounds absolutely bloody great.’
Jill laughed, then stopped. ‘I know what you want to say. You’re sure it’s not Bob Glass as well, aren’t you? Because frankly, I’m nervous about this.’
‘Absolutely sure.’
‘I know. I can’t see it. It was a murder that was planned to look chaotic, rather than a chaotic murder, you’re bang on there. But McAdam is convinced of it right now. He thinks the Ocado order was just a coincidence. He’s going to be charging him this afternoon.’
‘I think you’re walking into something you’ll regret.’
‘You’re best out of it, Alex. It’s wrong.’
‘So they think he was the man the postman heard arguing with Ayman Younis?’
‘He denies it.’
‘They ever find the gun?’
‘Nope.’
‘Or the knife?’
‘Maybe. I mean, the man had a whole bunch of knives. His tent was like Freddie Krueger. He was, like, preparing for the End Times or something. They’re all being tested for matches now.’
Alex picked up the salt cellar and poured a little onto the table.
‘What about the fraud investigation? They any nearer finding out where the money went?’
Jill picked a pinch of the salt and threw it backwards over her shoulder. ‘Alex. Leave this alone.’
Alex said, ‘Oh, go on.’
‘It’s going nowhere, Alex. They’ll never get that money back. We’ve pretty much been told that now. It’s layers within layers.’ She leaned forward and kissed Alex on the forehead. ‘I have to run,’ said Jill, standing. ‘It’s bonkers right now.’
Alex scowled. She sat on her own, finishing her coffee, then stood, and was about to return to her office on the other side of the wide car park when she paused, returned to the countertop, and ordered three cups of take-out coffee to take to her team.
That afternoon she came out of the meeting with the DCC with a headache and a sense that she had prepared for completely different questions from the