ladder to becoming a QC and eventually, perhaps, a judge. And the case of Gary Harker was one of the first squalid, slippery rungs.
She began thinking about the case in the car and resumed, guiltily, during the school concert. She had no ear for music and although she was proud that Emily had passed so many flute exams she couldn’t concentrate on it for long. Tomorrow’s questions began to replay themselves in her mind, and she imagined the responses Sharon would make. There were a couple of awkward points, she realised, which she would have to work on when she got home.
Emily stood up to play the flute solo she had been practising, and her mother smiled encouragingly. But Emily wondered, not for the first time, whether the mind behind her mother’s smile was really concentrating on her at all.
Chapter Five
A T BREAKFAST that morning Terry’s youngest daughter Esther let her pet hamster out of its cage, and by the time Terry had retrieved it from behind the sofa the rush hour traffic was gridlocked across the city, so that he was late for the team meeting which he was due to lead. When he arrived at the incident room his new boss, DCI Will Churchill, was striding back and forth at the head of his new troops, some of whom were looking distinctly resentful.
‘And when it comes to police work, what I’m looking for is commitment, ’ he barked in his sharp Essex accent. ‘That’s what will finally nail the killer of Maria Clayton and the rapist who attacked Karen Whitaker.’ He waved at the photographs, maps, and articles about the Hooded Rapist displayed around then incident room walls. ‘I may be new here, but that has its own advantages. An outsider can often see more clearly.’
And annoy people more deeply, Terry thought bitterly. Before Mary died, I was in line for this job. And it would have been enough for me, I didn’t want to rise higher. But Churchill, a man ten years younger and six inches shorter than himself, had been fast-tracked within the service from the moment he joined. He would be with them for a few years, no more, trampling on everyone in this room as he scrambled to the next rung of the ladder. Seeing Terry sliding into a back seat he broke off his tirade.
‘Ah, DI Bateson, I presume. Good of you to join us. Forgive me, I have used the general’s absence from his post for a little pep talk. One serious crime solved, two more to go. Or three, if your visit to the farm girl proved anything yesterday.’
Terry signed, registering the implied criticism, and rose from his back seat.
‘Shall I brief the team about it now, sir?’
‘Of course, old son, you carry on.’
Churchill parked himself in a front seat to judge the performance of his second in command, and began picking his teeth with a match.
Terry looked around the room, feeling grateful for the moral support he detected in several faces. Unlike Churchill he knew these people, he had worked with them for years. Briefly, he outlined what he learned at the Steersby farm yesterday. All of them knew the details of the Clayton and Whitaker cases; most still believed, with Terry, that Gary Harker was the likeliest suspect for both. But clearly, he could have had nothing to do with this Steersby girl.
‘Most likely, then, it’s a copycat,’ he concluded. ‘But no hood this time, so at least we’ll get a photofit. In the meantime,’ he said, staring straight at Churchill as he spoke, ‘I know the amount of dedicated police work that has gone into the these investigations, and today we have our chief suspect up in court, thanks to the efforts of this team. But he’s only facing one charge. If Gary Harker is convicted this week - as we all hope and expect he will be - we need to go over the Clayton evidence especially with a fine-tooth comb. He’s still not ruled out of that. And if someone else attacked Whitaker then we need to find that person too. It’s our job to ensure that the women of York can sleep easy in their
She began thinking about the case in the car and resumed, guiltily, during the school concert. She had no ear for music and although she was proud that Emily had passed so many flute exams she couldn’t concentrate on it for long. Tomorrow’s questions began to replay themselves in her mind, and she imagined the responses Sharon would make. There were a couple of awkward points, she realised, which she would have to work on when she got home.
Emily stood up to play the flute solo she had been practising, and her mother smiled encouragingly. But Emily wondered, not for the first time, whether the mind behind her mother’s smile was really concentrating on her at all.
Chapter Five
A T BREAKFAST that morning Terry’s youngest daughter Esther let her pet hamster out of its cage, and by the time Terry had retrieved it from behind the sofa the rush hour traffic was gridlocked across the city, so that he was late for the team meeting which he was due to lead. When he arrived at the incident room his new boss, DCI Will Churchill, was striding back and forth at the head of his new troops, some of whom were looking distinctly resentful.
‘And when it comes to police work, what I’m looking for is commitment, ’ he barked in his sharp Essex accent. ‘That’s what will finally nail the killer of Maria Clayton and the rapist who attacked Karen Whitaker.’ He waved at the photographs, maps, and articles about the Hooded Rapist displayed around then incident room walls. ‘I may be new here, but that has its own advantages. An outsider can often see more clearly.’
And annoy people more deeply, Terry thought bitterly. Before Mary died, I was in line for this job. And it would have been enough for me, I didn’t want to rise higher. But Churchill, a man ten years younger and six inches shorter than himself, had been fast-tracked within the service from the moment he joined. He would be with them for a few years, no more, trampling on everyone in this room as he scrambled to the next rung of the ladder. Seeing Terry sliding into a back seat he broke off his tirade.
‘Ah, DI Bateson, I presume. Good of you to join us. Forgive me, I have used the general’s absence from his post for a little pep talk. One serious crime solved, two more to go. Or three, if your visit to the farm girl proved anything yesterday.’
Terry signed, registering the implied criticism, and rose from his back seat.
‘Shall I brief the team about it now, sir?’
‘Of course, old son, you carry on.’
Churchill parked himself in a front seat to judge the performance of his second in command, and began picking his teeth with a match.
Terry looked around the room, feeling grateful for the moral support he detected in several faces. Unlike Churchill he knew these people, he had worked with them for years. Briefly, he outlined what he learned at the Steersby farm yesterday. All of them knew the details of the Clayton and Whitaker cases; most still believed, with Terry, that Gary Harker was the likeliest suspect for both. But clearly, he could have had nothing to do with this Steersby girl.
‘Most likely, then, it’s a copycat,’ he concluded. ‘But no hood this time, so at least we’ll get a photofit. In the meantime,’ he said, staring straight at Churchill as he spoke, ‘I know the amount of dedicated police work that has gone into the these investigations, and today we have our chief suspect up in court, thanks to the efforts of this team. But he’s only facing one charge. If Gary Harker is convicted this week - as we all hope and expect he will be - we need to go over the Clayton evidence especially with a fine-tooth comb. He’s still not ruled out of that. And if someone else attacked Whitaker then we need to find that person too. It’s our job to ensure that the women of York can sleep easy in their
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