Jack made himself a cup of coffee and laced it with brandy. He expected to find Maggie asleep, but she was sitting up in bed waiting for him. She knew just by looking at him that he was exhausted. He had a shower and scrubbed his body. He switched off the bathroom light and climbed into bed beside her.
‘Do you want to talk, or just crash out?’ she asked softly.
‘Dear God, Maggie... my brain feels as though I have a tight steel ring wrapped around it... I don’t honestly know where to begin. It was hell today.’
Maggie said nothing and didn’t complain that his hair was soaking wet as his head flopped back onto the pillow. Instead, she turned towards him and gently stroked his shoulder as he began to recount his day to her. He spoke quietly and unemotionally. Maggie just listened without interruption, sensing him gradually starting to relax.
‘Then he was just standing there, Mags, waiting at the front door. He was obviously expecting to be arrested, smiling and calmly asking me to check on his girlfriend. Amanda was out of it; I don’t know what she had taken, or maybe he had given her something in the hope of killing her. She’s going to be a vital witness. They pumped her stomach and she’s been sedated. There’s an officer protecting her, but we’ll need to find a safe place for her to go, if she isn’t arrested and charged as an accomplice. My gut tells me she’s a liar and a devious little bitch.’
Jack sighed deeply, then turned to face her.
‘I’m not sure if I can keep going, Mags. I feel completely worn out. I don’t know if I’m right for this job anymore. Sometimes I wish I could just keep toeing the line and not get so involved in cases. I feel as though I’ve lost my way. I still haven’t told you about what Ridley has got me into, because I could get right in the shit if it ever came out that I was digging into his case. As it is, I stupidly used one of the probationers to try and track down Sandra Raynor, the woman found murdered in the boot of his car; it was dumb, and he got no result, but it could come back and bite me on the arse.’ Maggie could feel him getting tense again.
‘So what did Ridley want you to do?’
‘I had to meet the contact he said would help me, because I’m stuck, Mags, and I can’t use the station’s computers.’
‘Yes, yes, you said that before.’
‘So I get there, a flat over in Fulham, and his contact turns out to be this drag queen, in full slap with a wig, false eyelashes and a velvet dressing gown, I mean, I dunno if it’s a he or she, or what the fuck I am doing there.’
‘Oh, come on, Jack, trans issues aren’t that complicated. Basically, we should all have one simple rule. If you were born male and want to live as a woman, go for it; same applies if you are woman and want to live as a man. But this person doesn’t actually sound like a trans woman; more like a male transvestite.’
Jack propped himself up on his elbow.
‘Jesus Christ, Maggie, what the hell are you talking about?’
‘It sounded as if you were being derogatory about this person just because of their lifestyle.’
He lay back closing his eyes.
‘Right, just forget it. I’m sorry I even brought it up. Now I feel even worse about what I’m getting into.’
It was Maggie’s turn to prop herself up on her elbow so she could look down at him.
‘You might feel that way tonight, Jack, but once you’ve had a good night’s sleep things will seem better. Just remember that if it wasn’t for you, they would never have uncovered these poor innocent girls’ monstrous murders.’
She looked at him and cupped his face in her hands. ‘Would you like me to give you something to help you sleep?’
‘Yeah, that would be good. I’m not due at the station until late tomorrow afternoon.’
Maggie got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She took out a packet of sleeping tablets from the cabinet and tipped two out into her hand. She then emptied the toothbrush mug and filled it with water, carrying it back into the bedroom. Jack was fast asleep, so she swallowed the two tablets herself and set the alarm for 6 a.m. as she was on duty the next morning.
She lay beside Jack, knowing how awful it must have been to see what he had seen today. But she also couldn’t help resenting his complete obliviousness to the horrors she had been dealing with on a daily basis. She had become reliant on sleeping tablets to knock herself out in order to be able to get up and face yet another horrific day. She also needed to discuss her concerns about Penny with him. Twice she had found the kettle boiling dry as well as the iron left on. Penny had also heated up some ready meals that were long past their use-by dates. Maggie was worried about Penny not checking that the freezer door was closed properly and concerned about how fresh the food was that she was giving Hannah.
Maggie sighed, turning on her side and tucking her shoulder under her pillow. She felt like having a good cry. She was carrying so much responsibility and Jack seemed to be losing his confidence just at the moment she needed him to be strong for her and their daughter. She decided that tomorrow she would have a long talk with him; if he felt as if it was all too much, he should try stepping into her shoes for a while.
Chapter Seventeen
Maggie had left for work and Penny was getting ready to take Hannah to nursery, having been instructed not to wake Jack.
Penny was preparing Hannah’s orange juice and packing a little ham sandwich and a biscuit for her mid-morning break. The smoke alarm suddenly went off and she ran to the toaster. She had forgotten that she had put a slice of bread in it earlier and hadn’t checked to see if it had got stuck, which it often did. The toast was now blackened, and smoke was billowing out into the kitchen. She opened the back door and swung it back and forth, then took a tea towel and wafted it around the smoke alarm. The alarm eventually stopped and she sighed with relief. Penny decided after she had dropped Hannah at school she would go and buy a new toaster. She listened for any movement upstairs, and was relieved that the alarm didn’t seem to have woken Jack.
Jack eventually woke feeling totally disorientated, then looked at the bedside clock. It was 10.30 a.m. and he was about to jump out of bed when he remembered that he was on a night shift at the station. He rarely, if ever, slept late and assumed it was down to the sleeping tablets Maggie had offered him, although he had no recollection of having taken them. He shaved and got dressed, then went down to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast. He was concerned to find the back door wide open, so closed and locked it. He made himself some fresh coffee and scrambled eggs and was about to put a slice of toast into the toaster when he saw the blackened piece left inside.
It was almost 11.30 a.m. when he went up to his home office, feeling energised. As he had some time, he thought he would do a bit of work on the Ridley investigation. He googled the top accountancy firms and scrolled through the results until he found the one Sandra Raynor had put on her CV. It was a big firm with an annual turnover of over a billion pounds. Their London headquarters were Cannon Street, but they also had offices in Brussels, Madrid, Paris and New York, employing over a thousand staff.
Jack was about to put in a call to the London office, but then changed his mind. Instead, he removed his t-shirt and joggers, putting on a fresh shirt and tie, and his good suit.
If Jack had been impressed by the company website, he was even more impressed as he approached the building after parking his car. The towering glass office block rose up between two older, less impressive, buildings, dwarfing them. The vast reception doors had polished gold handles and opened automatically as he approached. The reception was almost the size of an airport check-in area, with marble floors and huge sculptures. Three women sat behind a long, glass-topped reception desk and a gleaming corridor lead to polished steel elevators.