Karen’s heart sank. She felt ice forming in the very pit of her belly. She recognized that feeling, too. She was in the process of getting hurt again. She clenched her fists, forced herself to hold her head high and walk briskly. Had she not built an emotional wall around herself all these years? Did she not know how to deal with letdowns like this?
It seemed pretty darned certain that their liaison had not been at all special for Phil Cooper. She cursed herself for behaving like a fool yet again. Just because he was not known in the station as a womanizer did not mean that Cooper didn’t have a lively private life which he had somehow contrived to keep exactly that. More than likely she had been just another conquest for him. He had shagged the boss and that was that. The look he had given her, the way he had turned away from her, left Karen in little doubt that he wanted no more to do with her.
She sighed. Would she never learn? Phil Cooper was a married man. A bit on the side was one thing, but no fleeting episode of extramarital sex would be allowed in any way to threaten his domestic tranquility. Phil had already, with his body language alone, made that perfectly clear.
Karen felt a tear or two rising. She reminded herself that she was a senior police officer, a top detective. It made no difference to the way she felt. Inside the brittle wall of professionalism she had created around herself, she remained a woman. Inside, she was a human being. She longed for love and affection. She longed for a relationship with someone which made life worth all its battles, made every minute of work, worry and pain, one hundred percent worthwhile because of this one person you would do anything for.
Karen had seen a film once, starring Helen Mirren, a film about the IRA, the kind of movie she usually disliked intensely. There had been one line in it, uttered by the then-young Jon Lynch, which had moved her intensely.
“Would you die for me?” he asked.
That’s what she had wanted all her life. She wanted somebody she would die for. Somebody so close that there was really no point whatsoever in living without them. Somebody who would die for her, too. Maybe it was what everybody wanted. Karen didn’t know.
She bit her lip and clenched her fists, so tightly that she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She did it deliberately. She much preferred physical pain to the dull ache she was beginning to get in her heart. Particularly when she was about to start a day’s work amid a load of chauvinistic policemen, the vast majority of whom, she was sure, regardless of their surface camaraderie, would like nothing better than to detect signs of weakness in her.
For most of her life she had kidded herself that she neither needed nor wanted a long-term relationship, that one-night stands and occasional romps with past lovers were quite sufficient. It was, of course, a lie. A lie to herself. None of that had ever been, nor would ever be, enough.
She was, however, Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows. Successful, popular, competent, in charge of herself and others. She forced a bounce into her stride as she marched into the building, slamming the door behind her, and called a cheery greeting to the two uniformed constables standing by the custody suite.
“This is it,” she told herself. “This is all there is, and all there’s ever going to be for you, Karen Meadows. So you may as well make the best of it.”
By the time she reached her office no casual observer would have suspected that there was anything wrong with her at all, nor suspected for one moment that she was anything but utterly content with the life she had built for herself. Nobody would ever have guessed the misery which that day lay like a lump of ice-cold stone somewhere in the depths of her belly. Nor would they ever have guessed just how easily this tall, tough, together woman could be hurt.
She had, after all, spent very many years cultivating her own personality, building it into a pretty darned impressive act. And she remained absolutely terrified of what might happen if she ever let that act drop.
Chapter Twelve
The bombshell dropped just after midday. Karen no longer had to put on an act. All thoughts of anything except the crisis she was suddenly presented with were completely wiped out of her head.
Phil Cooper, usually in and out of her office all the time, had somehow avoided coming near her all morning. It was Tompkins, his somewhat morose appearance most appropriate on this occasion, who gave her the news which was to add the final absolutely disastrous touch to an already grim day.
“Marshall’s bird is in the front office asking for you, boss,” he said. “She won’t talk to anyone else, won’t even say what it’s about.”
“Jennifer Roth?” Karen queried, unnecessarily perhaps, but she was almost hoping it might be somebody else, maybe an old girlfriend. There was something about Jennifer Roth and her blind faith in Richard Marshall that had made Karen uneasy from the moment she first met the young woman, and she was immediately anxious about what had brought Jennifer to the police station.
“The same, boss,” said Tompkins.
“Well, you’d better show her up then, hadn’t you?” Karen spoke in a level voice and hoped that she appeared cool and in control. As seemed to be her wont, Karen was desperately trying not to display her true feelings.
But the moment the veteran detective constable had left the room Karen rose from her desk and began to pace around, like a wild animal in its cage. Logic told her that there was nothing Jennifer Roth could say or do which could change the events of the last few days at Exeter Crown Court which had led to Marshall finally being brought to justice for the murder of his wife and sentenced to life imprisonment. But she couldn’t help worrying. And although less than five minutes passed before Tompkins led Jennifer Roth into her office, it seemed far longer.
Karen looked her up and down. Jennifer’s long hair was no longer held back in a ponytail, but instead hung in greasy unkempt strands. She was wearing grubby denim jeans, stained trainers and a sweater with holes in the sleeves. She had certainly made no effort with her appearance, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She looked rather as if she had not stopped crying since the court case had ended the previous day.
Her face was still very pale. There were dark smudges below her eyes, partly shadows etched in her rather fine skin and partly the remains of yesterday’s eye make-up, Karen thought.
She let Jennifer stand uncertainly just inside the door for a few seconds before ushering her to a chair. She then sat in her own big black-leather job behind the desk. Under normal circumstances Karen would have taken one of the low chairs on the other side of her desk, right next to Jennifer. But these were not normal circumstances. Until minutes earlier the detective superintendent had believed that the Richard Marshall case was, at last, over. The man was never now likely to stand trial for the murder of his children, but he had at least finally been brought to justice for killing his wife, and the end result would in any case be just the same. With a bit of luck Marshall would spend the rest of his life in jail, and he only had one life, however many murders he was convicted of. But now, suddenly, Karen was no longer sure it was over after all. So she preferred to sit behind her big mahogany-finished desk and on a chair which was slightly higher than the one she had offered the other woman. If she had thought it would have done any good, she would have refused to see Jennifer Roth at all. But that course of action could only ever have resulted in more trouble. And trouble, she was somehow quite certain, was going to be the only outcome of this visit.
“Well, Miss Roth, what can I do for you this morning?” Karen began briskly.