‘She’s got us schlepping round the high-rises delivering bloody leaflets. Everyone is pissed off. DCI Clarke seems to support her strategy for breaking up the gangs — but I’m not the only one who thinks it’s getting out of hand.’
Jack gave Laura a quick nod as DI Armani walked in. Laura turned.
‘Just filling DS Warr in on the leaflet distribution, Ma’am.’
Jack stood up as Armani gestured for him to follow her into DCI Clarke’s office.
‘What the hell have you been doing? Why didn’t you contact me?’ she said angrily as soon as he’d closed the door behind him.
‘I’m sorry, but I have been waiting at the ICU unit for Mrs Barras to get out of surgery, but then I was told she was not in a state to be interviewed. And you can’t use mobile phones in the unit.’
She waved his excuses away. ‘Just tell me how she is.’
‘They wouldn’t give me any details, only that she was in the recovery ward heavily sedated, and it could be some time before we can speak to her.’
‘So, you don’t know her condition?’
‘It’s serious, I know that much. I presume by now you must have the details of her husband’s arrest unless, of course, you were delivering leaflets and unable to...’
She pursed her lips in anger. ‘That’s enough, Detective Warr.’
Jack ignored her. ‘If you’d allowed me to revisit Mrs Barras, I know I could have persuaded her to make a statement so her husband couldn’t have...’
She glared at him angrily. ‘I won’t discuss this now.’
‘I am aware, Ma’am, that as a DS, your name was attached to the report when George Barras was previously arrested.’
Armani suddenly seemed to stumble forward, grabbing hold of the desk chair as though she was about to faint.
‘Ma’am?’ Jack caught her and helped her to sit. She was shaking, then she put her head in her hands and started sobbing. ‘Are you all right... do you want me to get some water?’
She sat up straight, wiping her face with the back of her hand, and remained silent. Jack didn’t really know what to say next.
‘If you want to speak freely with me, please know that you can. Nothing will leave this room.’
Armani took a series of deep breaths as the tension left her body. ‘Dear God, how one wrong move can turn round and bite you.’ She looked into Jack’s eyes and somehow, she knew she could trust him. ‘George is my sister’s son,’ she said quietly. ‘As a family, we have tried to deal with his mental health problems, but he has suffered severe PTS after serving in Afghanistan. It’s not an excuse, not anymore, but I am asking you to let me handle the situation. Maria will bring charges against him, and I will take care of her and ensure he remains in custody.’
Jack thought quickly about how he should react. ‘I’ll leave you to handle the situation, Ma’am. And perhaps after he’s sentenced, he’ll get the medical help he needs.’
‘Thank you,’ she said simply. Armani walked out of DCI Clarke’s office and Jack followed. As she collected her coat and briefcase, she gave Jack a small nod. ‘I’m going to the hospital if anyone wants to know where I am. I’ll be back at the station in the morning.’
Jack watched her as she walked out. She’d made a mistake — a terrible one — but he trusted her to make things right, as she trusted him to keep her secret.
Laura’s gossip sensors were twitching. ‘What happened? You were ages.’
‘You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you, which I am not going to. Instead, I am going to be a very diligent officer and wade through all of this crap.’
Jack arrived home and spent time playing with Hannah and Charlie.
Maggie didn’t get home until almost eight, and she was tired out, having had another rough day. Penny had made a shepherd’s pie for dinner, and Jack helped her put the kids to bed before he sat down with Maggie to eat.
He told her briefly about the situation with DI Armani. He could see that she was doing her best to be interested, but at the same time, her eyes were drooping.
‘Why don’t you go to bed, love,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll clear up down here and then I’ve got a bit of work to do. I’ll come up in a little while.’ She gave him a kiss, then went upstairs.
Shutting himself in his office with a large glass of wine, Jack began making notes. He wrote down as much as he could recall of his conversation with Helga, then everything he could remember about the description of the victim. Next he opened a drawer in his desk to remove the photographs he had cut from magazines after finding the invitation to the art gallery showing. He laid out all the pictures of Detmar Steinburg, the art dealer. Could he be missing and no one had reported it? That had to be doubtful, so he jotted down the gallery phone number from the invitation to call the following morning.
Jack then remembered the well-dressed black man he had seen at the framer’s. He had to skim through his mobile to find the exact date when he and Marius had been at the market, the day he had taken one of the invitations. He also noted that he had seen the wooden cross. Lastly, he searched around in his desk drawers to find an old burner phone, which he could use to contact the art gallery.
Maggie was fast asleep when Jack got into bed beside her. As his brain would not stop ticking over, he took one of her sleeping tablets. He had a lot to do the next day and needed a good night’s sleep.
The next day, Jack dressed in jeans and a sweater and his old leather bomber jacket, putting the now fully charged burner phone in his briefcase. Gladys could be heard hoovering the stairs, yanking the hoover cable after her and talking to someone on her phone. She gave him a beaming smile as he eased past her to collect the car keys and hurry out of the house just before nine thirty. He reckoned it might still be too early to call the art gallery, so he decided to get to the station and call from the car park.
By the time Jack was parked up, it was almost ten. He took the invitation out of the glove compartment along with his burner phone. Dialling the number, he waited as it rang three times before a posh-sounding woman answered.
‘Steinburg gallery.’
‘Good morning. I am just calling to confirm the gallery event is on this Saturday.’
‘Of course, the doors open at six thirty. We will be showing a new collection.’
‘Ah good, and I presume by black tie, that will be evening dress?’
‘Yes, as usual. May I ask who is calling?’
Jack picked up an empty bag of crisps and crinkled it near the phone, simultaneously saying he was flying in from Zurich, before cutting off the call. He sat thinking for a minute. So he must have been wrong about the victim being Detmar Steinburg. But he still wanted to check out the gallery. He was trying to think if his old dinner jacket and dress shirt would pass muster because there was no way he could afford to hire a monkey suit. Someone rapped on his window, and he whipped around to see Laura holding a takeaway coffee and wrapped toasted sandwich.
‘Get a move on. It’s after ten.’
He stashed the invitation and burner phone in the glove compartment and they headed into the station.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Josh?’ Laura asked.
Jack stopped in his tracks. ‘I thought we had both agreed to let this go.’
She held up her hands. ‘OK, yeah, you’re right. If it makes you feel better, I’ve already got rid of all the files on Middleton. And so far there’s been hardly anything in the press.’
Laura and Jack were the last to enter the boardroom to hear DCI Armani issuing instructions about the YMCA event, insisting officers record the attendees’ details and their relationship to the gang members. They did their best to look attentive.