Page 13 of No Safe Place

Wednesday | Afternoon

Field

Riley and Wilson had run a full team briefing while she was at the hospital. By the time Field got back to the station, her DCs were talking in hushed voices, moving busily between desks – getting on with the job at hand, while Raynott’s bored officers looked on enviously.

Field went straight into her office, which had the same sterile, over-bright strip lighting as the hospital, and chucked her handbag under her desk.

She felt like she had jet lag, but there wasn’t time to go home and sleep. The first few days would be crucial, and she had plenty of ironed shirts ready on the back of her office door.

A quick knock, and Riley’s head appeared round the door. ‘Cup of tea, boss?’

‘Coffee,’ Field said, and then added as an afterthought, ‘Please.’

Riley left without needing to ask how she took it.

Field pulled her phone from her handbag, answered a few emails that couldn’t wait for her computer to warm up. Toby’s number flashed up on the screen, and she answered on the second ring.

‘Christ,’ Toby said, startled. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to pick up.’

‘Had the phone in my hand,’ Field said. ‘Everything okay?’

Her pulse quickened in the few seconds it took him to answer.

‘Yeah, everything’s fine, Mum. I just got off shift and saw your text. You were at that Plumstead stabbing?’

‘I’m the bloody SIO, and Young’s on it too. Do you know any of the paramedics who were there?’ she said, leaning over to power on her laptop. Nothing happened. The screen stayed black.

‘Nope, not our station. Word got round about it, though. Miracle they kept him alive, by the sounds of it.’

Her charging cable was curled innocently under the desk. She swore under her breath and plugged the laptop in.

Toby laughed. ‘You’re really not listening to me, are you?’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ Field leaned back into her desk chair. ‘There’s a lot on. How was your shift?’

‘Oh fine. Mostly dealing with old ladies. You know the type – early fifties, can’t operate an iPhone—’

Field grinned, and her laptop blinked into life. ‘You’re not too old for a smack, you know?’

‘Oh, I know. So, can I assume our dinner date is cancelled tonight?’

Her stomach sank. Toby’s boyfriend, Billy, was away for the weekend. She’d booked their favourite Italian for a catch-up, and to give Toby a break from revising.

He was only a few weeks away from sitting the final exams for his paramedicine degree, meaning he would go from being an ambulance technician to a fully fledged paramedic.

‘I’m sorry – I totally forgot. I was supposed to be off today—’

‘Don’t apologise, Mum,’ he said, gently.

Field stabbed in her password, her cheeks hot. ‘I shouldn’t have forgotten.’

Riley returned with two steaming black coffees, and took the seat opposite. She nodded her thanks and looked down at the mug, a beacon of syrupy hope amid the unfiled paperwork.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you later, okay?’

Riley tapped his fingers against his mug.

‘Sure,’ Toby said – and he sounded fine. ‘Love you, Mum.’

‘You too,’ she said, and hung up.

‘Everything okay, boss?’ Riley asked.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Where’s Wilson?’

‘I think—’ He spun in his chair and craned his neck to look out over the office. ‘She’s printing some shit off.’

‘Right, okay.’ Field took a large gulp of the coffee, and her laptop finally turned on.

‘Have you spoken to the super yet?’ Riley asked, his voice tight.

Field contemplated her answer. For Riley and Wilson, this case could be career-defining, but there was still every chance the super would allocate it to a DCI with a more senior team, and they’d end up working the fringes of it.

‘He hasn’t called in the last hour, so that’s a good sign,’ she answered, finally.

Wilson burst through the office door already speaking. ‘Boss – you’re going to want to see this. It’s about the document you found – oh.’

Wilson caught sight of Riley and stopped short in the middle of the room. He smiled up at her from his chair, and Wilson’s eyes flicked upwards. She’d clearly hoped to share her find without him.

Wilson laid a thick printout on Field’s desk. The title page matched the sheet found tangled in David’s clothes. The Disordered Approach to Diagnosis .

‘I thought I asked you to look into this?’ Field said to Riley, eyebrows raised.

‘I delegated.’ Riley shrugged, and behind him Wilson’s jaw clenched.

‘Well, I got someone to look this up, like you asked, and it wasn’t something Moore was working on recently.’ Wilson leaned over and tapped the date at the bottom of the sheet. ‘The paper is fifteen years old.’

‘So why would he be carrying it round with him on a Tuesday night?’ Riley said, through a yawn.

‘I’ve given it a quick glance,’ Wilson said, breathless. ‘The paper was published in 2010, after a pilot study with five teenagers, all sectioned.’ Wilson turned to a patient list and tapped it. ‘Five kids, all let down by the system, all hospitalised at the Maudsley between 2008 and 2009.’

Unbidden, an image of Toby flashed into Field’s mind. Fifteen and unable to get out of bed. Barely saying ten words per day, refusing to eat.

‘Oh God, we’re going to be looking for some schizo, aren’t we?’ Riley muttered.

The look Field gave Riley would have withered even her most senior colleagues, and he looked cowed.

‘Is it relevant though?’ Riley asked. ‘What does this have to do with the stabbing?’

‘Well, it was in his pocket, or under the body or whatever,’ Wilson snapped. ‘That makes it pretty relevant.’

Field thought back to that morning, the moment she found the sheet in the torn-away clothing. She woke her computer screen up, flicked through the crime scene photographs.

David had been clutching it to his chest, the paramedic had said. There was nothing to hint at whether the sheet of paper had been deliberately placed on the body by the attacker.

Riley and Wilson were still bickering.

‘Maybe Moore has some sort of saviour complex. Carries it round to show off to people.’

‘He’s done much more impressive work since then.’ Wilson’s voice rose. ‘Why would he be showing people page one of a paper from fifteen years ago?’

Field was scanning the witness statements of the residents who found Moore.

‘Fifteen years. That’s the point, Wilson. It’s good background but it’s hardly motive for murder, is it?’

‘How do you know?’ Wilson scoffed. ‘You haven’t read it.’

‘Enough,’ Field said, and they both snapped their mouths shut.

Wilson had her arms folded. Riley feigned nonchalance.

‘I want us to assume that this wasn’t something David dropped. It may be a long shot, but if the attacker left it for us to find, then it’s our first real lead.’

Wilson’s mouth twitched at the corners.

‘So—’ Field sighed. ‘This study will have been totally anonymous, and it’s old. Is there anything in here we can identify the five kids with?’

‘Well,’ Wilson said slowly, picking up the stack of paper again. ‘They all had different presentations of OCD. Like, there was one who was scared of noise, one who had the germs kind. There are details in that sense.’

‘Write up a summary, and Riley – speak to the Maudsley and see if there’s any record of who these kids were.’ He went to speak, and she cut him off. ‘I know, I know they won’t tell us anything – but just try, okay?’

He nodded.

‘How are we getting on with tracking down Moore’s current patients?’ Field asked.

‘Precisely nowhere.’ Riley huffed, flicking his notebook open.

‘Someone told me that all therapists have something called a “clinical will” – which means Moore had a plan for all his current patients, in case he got ill or – well, died. I’ve asked to see it – but without a court order no one will send me anything.

Reckon it’ll be next week, earliest. Patient confidentiality—’

‘Right, okay,’ Field interrupted. ‘Stay on it, anyway.’

The two of them sat forward in their seats, anticipating her next instruction.

Field geared herself up for one of her mentoring monologues.

‘We need to be sensitive,’ she said firmly. ‘There will be press coverage in a case like this – and I don’t want to be accused of jumping to conclusions. OCD is not an illness that usually presents with delusions or violence.’

Field delivered this fact with more confidence than her conversation with Dr Dawes actually afforded her.

‘If anyone we identify as a person of interest does suffer from a mental illness, I still want us to look for a motive.’

Wilson glanced down at the academic paper.

Field leaned forward, directing her next comments to Riley.

‘The whole team – not just us three, everyone – I want us to be mindful that we might not be conducting run-of-the-mill witness interviews. We are dealing with potentially vulnerable people, who may be deeply affected by what’s happened to their therapist.’

Nods all round. It felt like enough arse covering, and enough of a warning.