Page 43 of No Safe Place

Thursday | Evening

Field

At nine, Field packed up her stuff and dropped her car home, then walked to the Volunteer pub.

Tonight, it was full of football fans, packed at the front of the bar in front of the screen. They exploded with screams of fury as she ordered a gin.

A lot of police officers used the Volly. It was loud enough that you could have a discreet conversation, and Field had a favourite booth that was usually free. She found it helped to get out of the station, and talking things over in a different setting.

Her booth was in the corner near the toilets, at the edge of the bar. She liked having no one sat behind her. From her premium vantage point, Field saw Riley and Wilson enter through a side door.

It was always weird, seeing them in their civvies. Wilson was bare-legged in a short dark dress, and Riley wore blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt.

‘All right, boss?’ Riley said, nodding at her half-empty glass. ‘Another G you’ll be fine to drive by 11 p.m. if you have another.’

Riley gave her a bemused smile. ‘DS Wilson, are you actually fun when you’re not in work?’

She ignored him. ‘I’ll have a white wine spritzer. You can go to the bar, since you’ve been sat at a desk all day.’

Wilson threw her phone, keys and warrant card onto the table and dropped into the booth, while Riley went to get the drinks.

‘Do you think I’ve been too harsh on him?’ Field asked.

‘No.’ Wilson shrugged. ‘He knows he fucked up. I caught him watching the bodycam footage earlier.’

‘Really?’ Field said, in surprise.

Wilson nodded. ‘He seemed pretty stressed out by it.’

‘This case—’ Field sighed. ‘We’re going round in circles.’

‘Yeah,’ Wilson said, sympathetically. ‘It’s a headfuck.’

Field watched Riley navigating football fans with their drinks. Another gin, Wilson’s wine, and a vodka soda for him.

‘How did it go with her parents?’ he asked, as soon as he was sat down.

‘It was horrible,’ Field said, with feeling.

Wilson turned to her, surprised. She didn’t usually let on if she was affected by something.

‘Her mum was in bits,’ Field went on. ‘Sam didn’t even have OCD anymore, apparently. She’d put all that behind her, after the trial.’

‘I didn’t think that was a thing,’ Wilson said. ‘So she was like, cured?’

‘Yeah. They think David is a hero,’ Field added.

Riley drew patterns in the condensation on his glass.

Field was so relieved to have got the meeting with Mr and Mrs Hughes out of the way, she was practically melting into the cushions.

They tried, for a while, to talk about something other than the case. Once Riley realised Field wasn’t here to bollock him again, he relaxed.

One of the recently retired DCIs had been working on a crime novel, starring himself. He’d asked everyone to read it, and to Field’s surprise, Riley had said yes.

‘I thought it’d be shit and I could post bits of it on the fridge in the tearoom.’ He grinned. ‘But it’s actually pretty good.’

They laughed easily, swapping stories and upcoming holiday plans.

Wilson and Riley were more at ease with each other in the informal setting, shoulders almost touching in the booth. Field was full of warmth for her two imperfect detective sergeants, already ruing the day they’d fly the nest, when all three phones on the table pinged in unison.

Wilson got to it first.

‘The super wants an update.’

Field rubbed her temples. ‘I’ll call him on the walk home.’

A loud groan from the football crowd. Field glanced up at the clock in the corner of the screen. The ninety minutes were almost up. The clock made her think of Callum, on the ward – trying to sleep away from home for the first time in years.

‘So – do we think there’ll be another attack later?’ Wilson asked, setting her glass down. ‘If he’s escalating, our man, there’ll be a third victim come one o’clock this morning.’

‘Depends,’ Riley said, turning back from the football. ‘Whether they’re planning to do one a night, or they just got lucky, jumping out on them on their way home.’

‘Although we don’t know how they got Sam to walk down Callum’s road,’ Field countered. ‘That would take planning. They wanted Callum to find her, because they knocked on his door.’

‘So Callum says,’ Riley said, darkly.

Wilson rolled her eyes.

‘I’m telling you,’ Riley said, leaning back into his booth. ‘There’ll be no attack tonight – nothing until he’s out of the loony bin.’

‘Riley—’ she snapped.

‘Sorry, boss.’ He held his hands up. ‘Shouldn’t have said that. But the point stands.’

‘It wasn’t him,’ Field said, matter-of-fact. ‘You’re missing the obvious.’

Riley turned his head, and Field noticed his neck was pink above the collar of his T-shirt.

Wilson was frowning in thought.

‘The attacker was bleeding. Callum wasn’t injured, was he? Not a scratch on him.’

They sat in ominous silence for a few minutes. The football ended, and people hurried to the bar, jostling to be served first.

‘I still think there’s something off about the wife,’ Wilson said, eventually. ‘You haven’t seen her yet, Riley. She went weird after we told her about Sam. Couldn’t get a straight answer out of her.’

It gave Field a thought, and she checked her phone. No response from Dawes, when she asked him to stay with Penny tonight. If there was another attack, she wanted Penny alibied.

She put the phone back down. ‘We’ll speak to Penny tomorrow, even if we have to go to her.’

‘I’d caution her for obstruction, if she refuses to come in.’ Wilson folded her arms. ‘It’s weird. She didn’t want to go to the hospital yesterday, but as soon as we have questions about Sam, she’s desperate to be by his bedside?’

‘Maybe the second attack brought home how close she came to losing David,’ Field reasoned.

‘Can we just go back to Mulligan?’ Riley broke in. ‘That blood, couldn’t it have been a nosebleed, or something? It could have been Sam’s blood. It’s not one hundred per cent certain.’

‘If you want to argue with Young tomorrow, Riley, be my guest.’ Field finished her drink. ‘And whether he’s a witness or a suspect, Mulligan isn’t going anywhere tonight.’

Riley looked mollified.

‘So, what’re the odds that we get another phone call at two o’clock in the morning?’ Wilson said darkly.

No one answered her.

‘I know we’re focusing on the five patients,’ Wilson reasoned. ‘And that does make sense. But they went for David first, didn’t they? We need the names of the staff too. The cleaners, the social workers – God knows. They could all be targets.’

‘They specifically left that sheet, at the scene,’ Field countered. ‘It’s about that paper, isn’t it? The people involved?’

‘Or it could just be about Sam and David—’ Riley’s eyes were on the melting ice cubes in his glass. ‘An affair maybe?’

Field exhaled.

They were all exhausted, and they needed to be with it tomorrow. Talking around the possibilities would get them nowhere.

Either there would be an attack tonight, or there wouldn’t.