Chapter Forty-Nine

Mike Dobson smiled as he lay back in his bed and looked out of his window, the curtains open, the sky blue, broken only by the occasional wisp of cloud. It felt like it had been a long time coming, this feeling of contentment, of belonging. It was another sunny day, but he hadn’t heard the knocking, or been disturbed by the feeling of someone watching him, just at the edge of his vision. Mary was cleaning downstairs, as always.

He checked his watch. He had an hour before his first appointment. He could take some time to enjoy the morning.

He looked at the ceiling, noticing that the paint looked faded, perhaps in need of a touch-up. He thought of how often he had looked at the ceiling with Mary alongside him. Years, he knew that. He knew that Mary was proud of their house, from the way that she cleaned it constantly. It was tidy, contemporary, her imprint on the world.

No, it was more than that. It was their home. He should do more to make it feel that way.

His thoughts were interrupted by the roar of the vacuum cleaner. He would make it right by Mary.

Laura was shown into the Chief Inspector’s office. It had the same view as most of the rooms in the station, a balcony and then a drop into the atrium below, but his office had been lined with oak panelling along one wall, with water-colours of Pendle Hill hung on it, and a red leather chair dominated one corner. There seemed to be a hush here that wasn’t present anywhere else, and Laura’s stomach fluttered with nerves as she sat down.

He smiled, his teeth bright white against the depth of his summer tan. Capped, would be Laura’s guess.

‘I’m Chief Inspector Roach,’ he said, his voice calm, reassuring.

Laura’s mind raced as she tried to recall where she had heard the name before, and then it came to her. Paul Roach. He had found Nancy Gilbert. She reddened. She knew what the talk was going to be about: Claude Gilbert. Or, more likely, Jack’s story about Claude.

She smiled and said nothing.

‘Has your boyfriend mentioned me?’ he said.

‘Jack?’

‘Have you got more than one boyfriend, McGanity?’ he said, a growl to his voice. When Laura flushed, he said, ‘Defendants who lie in court do that, meet a direct question with one of their own. Gives them thinking time. Don’t try it with me.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, flustered. ‘I’m just confused, that’s all.’ Laura looked the Chief Inspector in the eye. ‘We have an understanding. I tell him nothing. He tells me nothing.’ When he raised his eyebrows, she elaborated. ‘It can’t be any other way, not in this job.’

He nodded for a few seconds, and then said, ‘He’s looking for Claude Gilbert. He came to see me the other day.’

Laura thought about Joe Kinsella and his admonishment that no one else was to know why he was in Blackley, that there were leaks higher up. So she said nothing.

‘If he thinks he’s found Claude, you must come to see me,’ Roach said.

‘Why is that?’ she asked, her eyes filled with innocence.

‘I found Nancy Gilbert,’ he said. ‘I’d like to complete the story.’

Laura thought that there ought to be a ‘we’ in the story, that he hadn’t been alone, but it wasn’t the time to pick fault.

‘I will, sir.’

He watched her for a few seconds, and then he nodded his head, as if that was enough to dismiss her.

As she stood to go, he said, ‘Don’t let me find out that you’ve been holding out on me. You didn’t look surprised when I said Claude Gilbert’s name.’

Laura gave a respectful nod and then left the office. Back on the balcony, the hush of Roach’s office replaced by the hubbub of the atrium below, she closed her eyes. She could hear laughter and, as she opened her eyes and looked down, she saw something being handed round, sheets of paper, a picture on them. Thomas was trying to take them from people, but they were being passed between tables faster than he could keep up.

He must have sensed that she was there because he looked up and stopped what he was doing. The people around him looked up in turn and then went quiet, the laughter in the atrium dying down into an embarrassed hush.

Laura turned and went quickly down the stairs. Rushing into the atrium, she grabbed one of the pictures and felt her cheeks flush: it was her, getting changed in her house, naked.

Laura looked around, her jaw set, tears of anger in her eyes, but no one met her gaze.

‘I tried to get them all,’ Thomas said.

Laura looked up and saw Rachel Mason looking down at her, a smile on her face. Rachel gave Laura a nod and then stepped back out of sight.

‘We need to get down to the murder scene,’ she said to Thomas. But as she turned and walked away, aware of the murmurs growing behind her, Laura knew there was somewhere else she had to go first.