The Gemini Effect, page 9
“Absolutely fine,” she reported. “At this end, anyway.” Deborah hadn’t gone into any more details about what was going on with her, just asked to speak to the boys. As she’d expected, Izzy didn’t want to speak to her.
“When are you coming home?” they asked.
“Soon,” she said. “I’ve just got some stuff to do first.”
“What kind of ‘stuff’?” Jack had asked next and she hadn’t known how to answer that, so had just told them she loved them more than anything in this world – and that she would see the pair before too long.
Then she got dressed and headed down for breakfast, where she was now apparently having seconds. There were only a handful of other guests eating that morning: a man and woman in their fifties who weren’t talking to each other, either they’d had a row or were that kind of couple who never communicated or had simply run out of things to say; a bloke in a sharp suit, looked like a businessman of some kind, sipping his early morning coffee and tapping away on a tablet; a family, whose kids were tearing around the table instead of eating their toast; a middle-aged woman on crutches with her leg in a cast; and a young couple who looked like the opposite of the older one, gazing into each other’s eyes and speaking in whispered tones of love, smirking at each other and blowing kisses.
Deborah finished up her second plateful, drank some more of her tea, and headed back out into the lobby area. It was there that she saw a woman sitting on the end of a row of chairs, gazing into space rather than into someone’s eyes, then gazing out of the nearest window.
Like Ralph, she recognised that woman and went over. “Felicity?” The name was out before she realised, then she thought: Christ, no. Not Felicity…
Patricia Bailey. Her twin.
Who looked up and over in her direction, looked at Deborah through eyes that were red-raw, and frowned. “S-Sergeant Harrison?”
“I… I’m not…” She didn’t want to get into all that right now, just felt those waves of guilt again. Felt the overwhelming urge to say: “I’m so sorry. I thought… I didn’t expect…”
Patricia shook her head. “It’s okay. You were half-expecting to see my sister here, right?”
Deborah remained silent. Had she been? No. She hadn’t been expecting that, because she knew Felicity was dead, of course she did. Just hadn’t been expecting to see Patricia here instead. Had maybe thought that this was some kind of ghost, perhaps? It happened. She sat down next to the woman she’d last seen all those years ago, after Anton Craine’s attack. There hadn’t been a trial, because that man had killed himself, spurred on by the words of Mason – the real brother of The Gemini.
“What are you…?”
Patricia shook her head. “I thought perhaps Ralph might be around? He worked with Flick, y’know? To be honest, I think he kind of liked her. But she didn’t feel the… feel the same way.”
“He was in last night,” said Deborah absently. Now she thought about it, that was probably what had been wrong with him. His tired eyes, like he hadn’t slept. His look:
Kill me now.
What he’d said about Albert: He’s… he’s not dead.
Someone was, though, weren’t they. If Deborah hadn’t been so wrapped up in her evening with Clark, with getting to room 307, she’d have realised. Some bloody detective she was!
“I need to talk to… Flick was sorting out the wedding arrangements, she…” Tears were flooding Patricia’s eyes and she bent her head. “I’m sorry, I’m being stupid.”
Deborah placed a hand around her shoulders and rubbed them. “Not stupid at all. I can’t begin to understand what you might be going through.” Although she could, couldn’t she. She’d lost someone to this madness before. Not a sister, but—
“I just keep going over and over it in my mind. If there hadn’t been that bad feeling maybe… If we hadn’t… If she’d had someone like Ralph, perhaps all this would have been easier on her, the stuff with Danny.”
“You’re marrying Danny?”
“I was,” said Patricia. “I don’t know what’s happening now. And my folks are… I’ve… I’ve lost her, Sergeant Harrison. I’ve lost my only sister. And he can’t possibly—”
“I know,” said Deborah.
“Do you know what the last thing I said to her was? I told her to piss off. Can you even— My own sister!”
“You didn’t mean it, I’m sure.”
“I didn’t mean for her to… And now she has. Gone, and I’ll never see her again.” Only when you look in the mirror, mused Deborah, but it wasn’t a helpful notion. “I don’t really know what I’m doing, to be honest. I’m in a bit of a state.” She paused, suddenly switching to another subject. “Have you found anything out? I spoke to someone called Glover at the station, a colleague of yours, when I gave my statement, but I don’t really… Do you know what happened yet?”
“I…” Deborah shook her head. Patricia was still assuming she was with the police, like no time had passed at all, and Deborah still wasn’t correcting her. What was the penalty for impersonating a police officer these days?
“Then why— How did you know I’d be here?”
“I didn’t,” Deborah answered honestly, then said: “I’m just—”
“You’re talking to people from the hotel,” Patricia finished for her, nodding. Deborah was grateful that she didn’t have to lie. That she didn’t have to get into why she was staying here, why she was back. Patricia clearly didn’t know she’d even left, and it was better that way for now. “Oh my God, you don’t think someone here had something to do with it?”
“No. No, that’s not what we’re thinking at the moment.” For all she knew it might have been someone here; wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. But this conversation did at least tell her that nobody had spoken to Patricia or her family about The Gemini, or a possible link with that case. Wasn’t a bad thing, either.
‘Just’ that Felicity had been killed. ‘Just’ that someone had killed her. Because the next thing Patricia said was: “Promise me something, though. Promise me, Sergeant Harrison.”
“I-I will if I can, Patricia.”
“Promise you’ll get whoever did this.” She looked at her again with those red eyes, those pleading eyes. “Promise me that they’ll pay.”
Deborah hesitated for a moment. Then she answered. What else could she say in reply to that but:
“I promise.”
CHAPTER NINE
A car was dispatched for her that morning.
Couple of uniforms in a squad car, which she was told about via a text from Glover. Rosy had obviously given him her number, but the woman in question wasn’t answering her phone that morning. And she wasn’t at the station to greet Deborah either, so she was escorted upstairs to an interview room by the young officers who’d driven her – who actually reminded Deborah a little of Peel and Clark back at the start of their careers.
“Thanks,” she said to them, as she’d got into the habit early on during her time as a cop to always treat PCs with respect and courtesy. The backbone of any police force, who worked as hard as – often more so – than plain clothes.
Glover, she was rapidly deciding to show far less courtesy to.
After vowing to apologise the previous evening, she’d changed her mind completely today – not least because he hadn’t even bothered to show up. And because she’d basically been treated like some kind of suspect; several hours in that room, being asked questions by a minion of his called Fleming, a fussy little woman with the abrupt manners of an old-fashioned hospital matron.
“I’m not sure how all this is relevant,” Deborah had said at one point. There was stuff about why she went into the force, her time at other nicks – and every time she brought up perhaps taking a look at the reports and evidence about Felicity Bailey, Deborah was stonewalled. She thought that was why they’d sent for her in the first place?
“Everything is relevant, Miss Harrison. No small detail can be overlooked.” She expected Fleming to say next: “Besides, it’s good for you! Now take your medicine like a well-behaved little girl. Then you’ll get a treat!” Which turned out to be a limp sandwich and luke-warm coffee from the canteen. Good job she’d loaded up at breakfast.
By mid-afternoon, and by the time they were getting into more personal questions about her marriage, her family, about her relationship with Mason and Jack – with still no sign of Glover – she’d more than had enough. “That’s it, I’m done here.” Deborah had got up and begun walking out of the room. For a second she thought Fleming might try and stop her – good luck! – but all she did was rise with her, glance over to the mirror, and nod, stopping the recorder at the same time.
If this is the way the bloody SCI operates, you can stick it, thought Deborah. They’d asked her to come, for God’s sake! She told the woman she’d find her own way out, and when she couldn’t spot either Rosy or Clark around, she’d done just that, dumping her visitor’s pass on the desk downstairs.
It took several deep breaths once she was outside the station to calm down. Then she’d walked to the main road and hopped in a taxi. She’d considered just going back to The Imperial and packing, but she’d made a vow that morning. A vow she somehow intended to keep. So instead she found herself somewhere else entirely, somewhere she hadn’t expected.
Somewhere that had also changed quite a bit.
Fagin’s Row was no longer the cesspit it had once been, full of abandoned factories and buildings on their last legs. These days it was filled with industrial estates and new build houses. As she walked around the neighbourhood, Deborah was amazed at how things had turned around here. It was barely recognisable as the place they’d found a murder victim almost eight years ago, dumped, head lolling on its chest, legs out in a V shape – and with its right hand missing. Indeed, the building where the corpse had been discovered by some homeless people, just off Arndle Street, was no longer an old factory at all. It was an ‘activity hub’ whatever the hell that meant, complete with ‘rock climbing’, ‘go-carting’ and ‘paint-balling’. Deborah couldn’t think of anything worse, though the boys would probably love it in there. The neon letters on the outside alone were doing her head in, making her want to take another painkiller – but she resisted. Absently, she wondered if the folk in there shooting each other with paint, pretending, had any clue that a real dead body had once been found inside? There’d been some activity that night, definitely.
As she was staring at the building, lost in memories, she became aware of someone directly behind her. Someone who’d approached while she’d been wool-gathering, and was inching nearer by the second. She whirled, bringing up a fist.
“Hey, easy! Don’t shoot! I come in peace!” said the man with black hair, in the suit with a loose tie dangling, holding up his palms in mock surrender. “Friend, friend!”
Deborah almost punched Mike Glover anyway. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“Why not, I’ve been bloody well asked all the others today! Are you following me?”
“Not following, exactly.”
“Then what?”
“It’s not safe for you to be roaming around the city on your own, Miss Harrison. That’s why I sent a car for you in the first place this morning.”
“Not safe?” she spat. “I can take care of myself.”
“I can see that.” He lowered his hands slowly, and she finally unballed her fist. “But you’re also my responsibility. I was the one who requested you come.”
“And then sat me in a room and asked me ridiculous questions all morning.”
“They weren’t— All right, maybe some of them might seem a little pointless to you, and DS Fleming can come across as a little brusque.”
“A little?”
“But they’re standard SCI operating procedure. Getting to know a person’s character to begin with and—”
“Fuck the SCI,” she told him. Then she looked at him sideways. “You were in that other room, weren’t you. Observing, through the two-way?”
Glover didn’t answer.
“I’m not a lab-rat, Inspector.”
“I never said that you were. Look, we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here. I’m just trying to figure out what happened all those years ago, and what bearing it has on the incident that occurred the other day.”
“You won’t find out by asking me crap about me and—”
“Roy Mason? Jack Foley?” asked Glover. “Are you quite sure about that? The way Foley kept showing up at The Gemini crime scenes, what he was doing in those cells when you confronted the killer.”
Her number wasn’t the only thing Rosy had divulged then, chatting to her new friends. And she had to wonder whether that Blondie titbit hadn’t been something else Rosy’d let slip. Something Glover had said on purpose, to gauge her reaction. Deborah started to walk away. The DI just trailed her, as he’d apparently been doing since the station. So she turned and faced him again. “You said you needed my help.”
“We do. You were there, throughout the whole thing. There are… gaps. Things we don’t know.”
“And I just bet you couldn’t wait to get me here to plug those gaps, right? Events other people weren’t around for.”
“I realise this is hard but—”
She jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t know a fucking thing about me!”
“So tell me.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“I’m serious. I want to know all about you… It. The case. Everything. No formal interviewing, no questioning by Fleming, just you and me. The whole story.”
“After… You think that…” Deborah was actually lost for words.
“You’ve got to trust someone at some point, Miss Harrison.”
“If I do, it won’t be you, pal. The bloke who let the remains of The Gemini slip through his fingers.” She paused for a second, wondering if she’d said too much. Whether that comment would cost Rosy professionally. Wondering if she even cared now.
Glover cocked his head. “Actually, that wasn’t technically me, but I take your point.”
Deborah gaped at him. “Are you for real?”
“Very,” said Glover. “Miss Harrison… Deborah, can I call you Deborah?”
“No.”
He sighed loudly. “We’ve got to work together here. I want to stop whatever this is as much as you do.”
“I doubt that.” It crossed her mind to tell him about her promise to Patricia Bailey then, but she held her tongue. “And it works both ways, Inspector. Trust that is, wanting to know about a person’s character.”
Glover stayed silent once more.
“Like I said to Fleming, I want to know what you guys know. Especially about what happened last weekend.”
“Some of it is highly sensitive material, and you’re just a civilian, Miss Harrison.”
“Just? Piss off!”
“I didn’t mean… I can’t do right for doing wrong, can I?”
She prodded his chest now with that finger she had up. “I’m a civilian whose assistance you desperately need, apparently. That you specifically requested. So think about that.”
Glover nodded. “You’re right. But there are protocols, there’s red tape. I can’t just—”
“Goodbye again, Inspector Glover.”
She began walking off a second time, turning and holding that finger up in case he dared to follow once more. He didn’t. Instead he called after her: “You never answered my question. Why you were here?”
“Okay, all right. But you should already know. This is where it all started. For me, anyway.” Deborah called back over her shoulder. “I was hoping to see a ghost or two.”
“Right, right,” Glover said. And something else she only just caught because she was heading away from him, but it sounded like: “We’ve had some experience with those ourselves.”
Then he was out of earshot, and she was flagging down another cab.
This time she’d ended up back in the city centre.
Thought maybe a little retail therapy might help take her mind off things, calm her down a bit. Deborah couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out shopping in a city, as opposed to just ordering something online or popping into the pitiful selection of shops they had down in Armitage Bay.
She’d ended up wandering around a few clothes stores, picking up some tops, looking at dresses for special occasions she definitely didn’t have coming up. Standing staring into mirrors and holding up lengths of sequins or satin against herself, catching how tired she looked in her reflections.
There were plenty of other shoppers around, and she said to herself: There you go, Glover – I’m not wandering around on my own. But she’d be lying if she said it didn’t make her feel better to be around other people, chatting to each other, getting on with their ordinary lives. Not knowing a thing about what else was going on around them.
Deborah had also gravitated, inevitably, towards the bookstores. In one, probably the biggest they had in Norchester, she was delighted to see a display of her crime novels. She even looked over her shoulder, and stealth-signed a few. It wasn’t something you were supposed to do as an author, but Deborah always thought to herself it would be a nice surprise for anyone picking up a copy to see a message from the author inside hoping they’d enjoy it. She’d also be screwed if anyone saw her, the cat about who she was would be firmly out of the bag then – probably much to her agent and editor’s delight.
After wandering around a bit more, she drifted past another place from her past – which was also coincidentally filled to the rafters with books. Norchester central library had been one of the last places she’d visited with Jack towards the end. Though they’d both been separately before, they’d headed there again together after that night they’d spent in Room 307 at The Imperial. It had been closed then, too early for actual punters, but they’d been let inside and made a startling discovery when they were taken down to the archives section.
