Читать книгу Scared to Death: A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down - Kate Medina, Kate Medina - Страница 22

She obviously hadn’t turned James Blunt up loud enough, because she heard her phone on the first ring, caught its jittering progress across the smooth black leather of her passenger seat out of the corner of her eye. Easing her foot on to the brake, pulling her Mini to the side of the lane until the dogwood hedge fingered her passenger window, Jessie reached over, checked the name flashing on the phone’s face.

Gideon Duursema.

She was tempted to toss it back on the seat, wind down the windows and turn up the volume, step on the accelerator, plead ignorance to her boss in the morning. But she couldn’t start off on the wrong foot with him so soon after her return. She was good at her job, intuitive and dedicated – most of the time – so he cut her slack, but even he had limits.

‘Gideon.’

‘Jessie.’

Silence, which she let hang.

‘How was DI Simmons?’

A diversionary tactic, from his tone.

‘Rough, as always.’

‘How was the baby?’

‘Small. Fat. Baby-like.’

His deep laugh echoed down the line. ‘So maternal.’

‘Well, at least you’re not going to have to worry about me getting knocked up and taking months off work.’

‘Small mercies, Doctor Flynn.’

Doctor Flynn. Ominous. Echoes of the occasions when her mother called for ‘Jessica’, as a child. Nothing good ever came out of those occasions.

‘You’re on your way home, I presume?’

‘Yes,’ she replied in a cautious voice.

‘Then, I’m sorry.’

‘You’re apologizing before you’ve even asked me to do anything. Now that really makes me nervous.’

‘You weren’t also feeling tired were you? Jet-lagged?’

Jessie glanced quickly at the washed-out oval segment of her face in the rear-view mirror. ‘Knackered. Why?’

‘I’ve had another request.’

‘Don’t tell me. From your dry cleaner. Your suit is ready for collection. Of course, yes, no problem, give me the address.’

Another laugh, this one a cynical bark, cut off before it was finished. ‘I was hoping that your stint on a boat might have made you more respectful of authority, but I seem to be sadly deluded.’

‘Type 45 Destroyer.’

She heard his exasperated sigh down the phone, remained stubbornly silent.

‘There’s been a suspicious death at Blackdown. Early this morning. A sixteen-year-old.’

‘Sounds like a PR disaster in the making.’

Headlights suddenly, even though it was still daylight, high up, lighting the interior of her Mini operating-theatre bright. She held her breath, hoping her Mini was doing the same, while a huge metallic black Range Rover Sport squeezed past on the narrow lane, the woman driving, a slim blonde, mobile clamped to her ear, the nose of a chubby-faced, blonde toddler pressed to the back window, her breath clouding the glass.

‘So the Branch need to clear this one up quickly before the press get hold of it and turn it into a public relations nightmare for the Army. Holden-Hough has requested our help.’

‘Why?’

‘The victim, all the key suspects and witnesses are trainees. Sixteen-year-olds. They’re young, vulnerable and frightened.’

‘More babies. Sounds like a nightmare brief.’

‘I’m sure that you can handle it, Doctor Poppins, after this morning’s practice and the Sami Scott case.’

Her mind cast back to this morning, skirting around the baby boy playing on the floor-mat as if he was an explosive device; four months earlier to four-year-old Sami Scott. The death of Sami’s mother, a bitter pill that she hadn’t yet managed to swallow. Still believing that she could, should, have done something to predict and alter that outcome.

‘It’s a bit less Mary Poppins and a bit more Doctor Doolittle with new recruits.’

‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’

‘I haven’t said yes, yet.’ She paused, heard nothing but Gideon’s measured breathing. ‘Who’s the Senior Investigating Officer?’ Her own breath caught in her throat as she waited for Gideon’s answer, waited to hear if it was Callan.

‘Holden-Hough didn’t say.’

And you didn’t ask. But, of course, why would you?

‘Is the SIO on board with the idea of a psychologist’s help?’

‘In the Special Investigation Branch what Holden-Hough says, goes.’

‘I’ll take that as a “no” then.’

‘You can handle it.’

Jessie didn’t answer, because her answer was irrelevant. She was going anyway, no choice. She glanced at her watch: 5 p.m. Relatively early, but she felt wiped out, knew that it wasn’t jet lag. Something about today – Joan Lawson, Malcolm, baby Harry playing happily, unaware that his world was shattering, Ryan Jones, suicide, madness – had sucked her dry. The tingle from the electric suit that she had felt first at the hospital, a tingle that had intensified during her session with Ryan, refused to subside, a background itch coating her whole body, barely there, but omnipresent all the same.

‘Can you go straight to Blackdown?’

‘Is there no one else?’

‘No one who has acres of time in their diary because they’ve come back from three months away.’

‘Working. Away, working.’

A heavy sigh. ‘You know what the government has done to our funding.’

She did – all too well. It was one of his hobby horses.

‘We’re all stretched to breaking, and you have experience of working with the Branch. What was that officer’s name? Cooper?’

‘Callan,’ Jessie murmured. ‘Captain Callan.’

‘Right, Callan. He seemed like a good guy. It might be him.’ The clink of metal stiletto heels on a wooden floor suddenly, echoing down the line, and a woman’s voice Jessie recognized as Jenny, the service’s secretary. ‘I need to go,’ Gideon said.

A click. Silence. Only the sound of her own heartbeat, slightly elevated, beating in the hollow car.