Read Online The Calling by Alison Bruce - Free Book Online

‘Gary, it’s me, I’m in the incident room. Can you phone back? It’s urgent.’
    ‘Sue?’
    She spun round. ‘Oh, hello, Michael.’ Kincaide grabbed a chair and pulled it alongside hers. ‘What have you got?’
    Gully followed Kincaide’s gaze, and saw he was looking at her monitor, probably already eyeing the play button.
    ‘An interesting call, I think. Hang on, I’ll play it for you.’
    She scooted the mouse across the desktop and hit the red triangle, then looked up at Kincaide, keen to see whether her excitement would be reflected in his own expression.
    ‘What’s so special about this one, then?’ he asked, glancing at his watch.
    ‘Wait till you hear it,’ Gully enthused. ‘She’s called twice now, she names a suspect, and she doesn’t sound like a crank.’ Gully played the message for a couple of seconds, then skipped forward to find the start. ‘She might have had a couple to drink, though, because she sounded nervous the first time and not the second.’
    Knowing she was talking too much, Gully felt herself redden.
    ‘Anonymous, I suppose?’ he asked, talking over the first few moments.
    ‘Yeah, unfortunately.’
    ‘Anonymous and drunk, then?’ was all he said, as he listened. He tilted his head, resting it on one hand in the pose of Rodin’s The Thinker .
    By the time Gully clicked the stop button, her enthusiasm hadevaporated. Kincaide made a dismissive sweep of the hand as he jumped to his feet.
    ‘Chase it up if you want. Sounds like a loony to me. Or is there some more I haven’t heard?’
    ‘No.’
    Kincaide scowled. ‘Get it checked out, along with the others.’ Then he shrugged and turned to go. ‘Don’t worry, Sue, we’ve all jumped to silly conclusions. It’s all part of learning.’
    ‘All part of learning,’ she mimicked with contempt, once he was out of earshot. She rested her elbows on the desk and pressed her forehead on to her fists. She stared down at the blue ink stain just an inch below her nose. Out of focus, it looked a bit like Australia, or next-door’s West Highland Terrier, depending how she viewed it.
    She didn’t hear Goodhew come in. ‘Sue?’
    ‘Hi. I thought you were seeing Mrs Kennedy?’
    ‘I was, but she’d already gone home, too upset to stay at work, apparently. She’s coming to see me first thing tomorrow.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘You said “urgent”.’
    She now raised her chin on to her left palm, clicked the rewind icon and pressed play. ‘I thought this was important.’
    As the recording replayed she watched a flicker of interest ignite in Gary’s eyes, and then felt her own first impressions rekindled.
    Intense concentration burnt between the pair of them and the recording. As it finished Goodhew leant over and clicked rewind . It skipped backwards by several seconds.
    The woman’s voice repeated: ‘Arrest Peter Walsh and the killings will stop.’
    Gary stretched across WPC Gully again, and clicked the stop button.
    ‘We’ve had plenty of calls so far, but this one stands out, Gary.’ She sat alert again, completely regalvanized.
    ‘And who’s heard it, so far?’
    ‘Kincaide did, but he thinks it was a crank call – just said I should check it out along with all the others. But I wanted you to hear it, because I thought you’d say something more than that. I’ve got a really strong feeling about this, even after hearing it several times over.’
    ‘Yes, I can see why.’
    Sue nodded in relief.
    They both fell silent. Goodhew was gazing in her direction, but his green eyes were slightly out of focus. She watched him thinking until she wondered if she seemed to be staring, then she reddened again.
    ‘She talks of … “killings” in the plural,’ she said finally, stumbling over words.
    His eyes readjusted and locked with hers. ‘Yes, I know.’ He hesitated, then straightened up, his tone suddenly becoming detached and efficient, ‘So let’s hope that wasn’t a threat.’

CHAPTER 11
TUESDAY, 29