ROXANNE: A Kings Lake Investigation by Grainger Peter

Author:Grainger, Peter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The north-easterly was still blowing but against the ebbing tide in the river now, and there was a great swell, enough to capsize a small canoe. Sometimes the swell became a proper wave and then the wind whipped the crest of it into a muddy-coloured foam before tearing it off in handfuls and sending it upstream and into the air, like dirty April snow. On the beach last Saturday, the wind had made their eyes run as much with laughter as with the cold, but now, standing at the wall on the riverside, Waters couldn’t imagine a bleaker-looking scene.

Stone walls do not a prison make, someone had said, nor iron bars a cage, but he could not stay in the flat and brood about what had happened in Central that morning. He had his phone and it had a signal – he knew this part of the town well enough and didn’t need to check. If anyone wanted to speak to him, they would be able to do so.

It was a familiar walk to him, and he had stood here plenty of times. This was the place where he had first seriously confronted his feelings about Miriam, and made the decision. And now, would he soon be telling her something quite different, that he had been suspended? And later, that he had been dismissed from the police service? If that happened, would she believe him rather than the authorities who had taken such a decision? Would anyone believe him? His colleagues? His own parents? In these me-too days, there seems to be a certain presumption at play, but it isn’t new, really. People have been saying there’s no smoke without fire for a long time.

Obviously, he had analysed it to pieces already. There would be no evidence against him as such because he had done nothing wrong, but people can be convicted with surprisingly little hard evidence – he was in the right job to know that, wasn’t he? Police disciplinary proceedings are rigorous but are no more free from errors than those of the criminal justice system. Mistakes are made in both. And looming large, every time he thought this through, was the fact that Maya Kumar was from an influential family. Her mother was the Police and Crime Commissioner in a neighbouring county, and the first female Asian one in the country. This should count for nothing, of course, but we all know the reality in these situations. Smith had a phrase for it, when events took an unexpected turn thanks to some unseen hand – ‘Someone,’ he used to say, accompanied by the knowing look, ‘Someone has had a word…’

Waters turned right and began to follow the riverside path down towards the docks. Self-pity is pointless but he had to wonder why this was happening again. The last time, he had been seconds away from telling Freeman about his secret interview with Michael Wortley, and effectively ending his time in her squad if not in the police.

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