stepped forward and stroked John’s cheek with her fingers. She leaned into him and kissed him softly. ‘We don’t need to talk about that night,’ she whispered.
John’s misgivings about Billy Privett seemed to dissolve as he tasted her lips on his. He wanted to feel her body under his, the soft feel of her skin under his fingers. He closed his eyes. ‘I just don’t want to lose you.’
‘If you stick with us and trust Henry, you won’t lose me.’
He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
‘You do still trust him? And me?’
John looked at Gemma, and her eyes were wide, appealing to him, and he felt that pull, a need to hold her, almost as if it didn’t matter what she might have done. What any of them had done.
‘I’m falling in love with you,’ he said.
Gemma started to laugh.
‘Stop it,’ he said, feeling embarrassed.
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ she said, and kissed him on his cheek. ‘I’m loving you. Stay with us, babe. We’ll get through this.’
John flushed. He wanted to hold her, for them both to run away and leave Henry behind, but he knew one thing; he wasn’t going to leave Gemma there.
‘Stay strong,’ she said, and hugged him. He pulled her in close, inhaled the scent of her hair, felt her ribs under his fingers.
They stood there together, Gemma in the crook of his arm. Watching. Waiting.
Chapter Forty-One
Charlie went back to the computer. There was more information on there, and so he wanted to read as much as he could before he left the office. He glanced out of the window, towards the alley at the back, where Patrick’s car was parked, expecting to see shadows moving, or perhaps blue flashing lights, but it looked quiet.
Amelia’s note had been typed on the computer and so Charlie looked again at what she had written. He knew there had to be something that he was supposed to see. It was a niggle pricking at his subconscious. As he read it again, he saw it. The exact words were Videotaped interview with Billy Privett. It had been recorded on tape, not on disc or a memory stick. Had the intruders realised that?
Charlie started pulling out drawers in Amelia’s desk. They were tidy, pens and staples stacked neatly together, but when he pulled out the bottom drawer, he saw a small video camera, still with the leads attached that connect it to the computer. Amelia had downloaded the footage and made the discs.
He lifted out the camera. There was no tape in it. He banged the desk in frustration. Where was it?
He went to log off from Billy’s file and click off the computer when he saw another entry. It was the time that stood out. Amelia had made three calls just after she had written the attendance note about the video. He leaned into the screen, curious, and clicked on one. The entry contained little detail. It stated that Amelia had made a phone call and cross-referenced it with a different file with the reference ABB003/1. Everything Amelia had done in the office, she had billed for it. The reference meant that he was the third client with those three letters at the start of his surname, but that it was the first file for him. A new client. There was no more activity that day, and now Billy was dead, along with Amelia.
Charlie went back to Amelia’s shelves. It was the first file he got to, right at the start of the alphabet. He pulled the lamp a bit closer so that he could see it properly.
The file was a criminal file, from one court appearance. Charlie looked at the instruction sheet. John Abbott. An arrest for criminal damage, some graffiti on the side of a building in the town centre. I am a free man and My rule: no rules. Another one was Smash the world.
It stirred a memory in him.
Charlie read on.
John was a loner. He lived on his own after his mother died. He’d been left money and property, but his life seemed empty. He was angry at the world, because it had left him with no one to care for. He had wanted to find answers and started to read on the internet how governments were colluding together to create one world power, with the so-called free world’s power concentrated in a small number of families. It made John angry, he didn’t want any part of society anymore, but he didn’t know what to do. He had told Amelia that he scrawled on the building through frustration. He wasn’t sorry though, and he was going to carry on finding the answers and fighting.
Charlie closed the file and threw it onto the desk. Something clattered onto the desk but Charlie ignored it. Abbott was just some local crackpot who was unhappy with the direction of his life, and so he was making it someone else’s fault. He had caused some damage and had wanted Amelia to turn the court speech into a protest. But why was Amelia making calls about Billy Privett using that file reference? The case was four months old. It should have been closed and billed.
Charlie reached for the file again, knowing that the answer was in there somewhere.
He went to the call logs on John Abbott’s file. All they said was that Amelia had spoken to M at NPOIU. Nothing more. Three times. Charlie didn’t know what they meant and so he pulled out the bill, hoping it would explain more. When he read it, he was shocked.
He leaned back in his chair, just quietly nodding to himself. He picked up the bill again, confused, to make sure that he had read it right. He had.
The bill was made out to the police. But why would the police pay the legal costs for a defendant in a criminal case?
He realised that there was only one thing to do, despite what he had said to Julie. He did need to speak to the police. But on his terms.
He called Julie. She answered on the third ring.
‘What’s going on, Charlie?’ she said, her voice in a whisper. ‘Andy doesn’t like me being worried about you, but I am.’
‘It’s been an eventful day, and I don’t think it’s going to lay off just yet,’ he said. ‘I need you to get Sheldon Brown to call me.’
‘I can’t just go calling inspectors.’
‘I thought you wanted me to come in.’
‘I do, but only to make it easier for yourself. And anyway, the rumours are that Sheldon Brown has been taken off the case. DI Williams from FMIT is running the show now. He’s walking round the station like it’s beneath him.’
‘No, it has to be Sheldon Brown,’ Charlie said. ‘We haven’t always got on, but he’s straight and I trust him. I don’t know Williams.’
She sighed and then said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Charlie was about to hang up when she said, ‘Look after yourself, Charlie. I don’t know what’s gone wrong today, but I still care about you.’
He would have laughed on a different day. Instead, he thanked her and put the phone down.
As he went to grab his car keys, he saw something on the desk. He was sure it hadn’t been there
