Uncaged. Lucy Gordon
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and was leaning against it to regain her breath when Daniel appeared with breakfast. “Let me help you,” he said, setting down the tray and reaching for her.
Her eyes glittered at him. “Don’t...touch...me....” she said in an emphatic whisper.
Reluctantly he let his hands fall to his sides and watched edgily as she tottered back to bed. After that, she seemed to have no more fight in her, accepting the tablets he offered without protest, eating some of the breakfast, falling asleep and staying that way for the rest of the day.
That afternoon Daniel called Canvey. His old colleague greeted him with cautious warmth, until he heard what Daniel wanted. Then he exploded with outrage and apprehension. “Are you out of your mind, man? Do you want me to be thrown off the force, as well?”
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Daniel said urgently, “but nobody need suspect. Just for one night, and you can have them back in the morning.”
“Masters will have my head on a plate if he finds out.”
“He won’t find out. Please, Canvey, I’m desperate.”
In the end, Canvey gave in as he was bound to do, since he owed his life to Daniel. He arrived after work that evening with a parcel that he thrust into Daniel’s hands with the words, “Have these ready when I call tomorrow morning, or we’re both in big trouble.”
Daniel went into the back room where he kept his audio-video equipment, the one luxury he allowed himself. He opened the parcel and found that Canvey hadn’t let him down. Inside were cassettes, both audio and video, of his interviews with Megan, three years ago, plus all his own notebooks.
He spent the night duplicating everything, and had just managed to get the parcel packed up by the time Canvey called on his way to work the next day. After thanking Canvey, he made his way upstairs with Megan’s breakfast. He found her coughing and sneezing, and unable to do much more than nibble on some toast. He put fresh sheets on the bed and helped her back in. She made no protest. In fact, she hardly seemed aware of him, falling asleep almost at once.
Then Daniel was free to settle down with the videocassettes and papers. He wished he could remember more about what had happened. It wasn’t uncommon for policemen to forget details in time, as other cases took over, but he’d always been known in the force for his phenomenal memory. Not with this case, though. His mind seemed to have wiped it out.
He tried an old trick. Stop worrying about the thing you needed to remember. Go back to something that had happened earlier and work forward. But that meant reviving a memory he flinched from; of how a gentle, loving woman and a bright-faced little boy had been mowed down in a car driven by Carter Denroy, a lout with booze running in his veins, a man so drunk that he couldn’t afterward remember what had happened. And that led to another terrible memory—Denroy walking from court, a free man, smirking because his only punishment had been a fine. That smirk had burned itself into Daniel’s consciousness so deeply that it still tortured his dreams.
He wanted to shy away now, but he forced himself to relive the scene, and gradually another detail emerged. There had been a woman there, too. A glossy, expensive woman who’d looked bored and impatient with the whole business of coming to court, as though it was simply too ridiculous to make a man pay for the lives he destroyed. As Denroy and the woman had walked out together, Daniel had heard her say, “You see, I told you it would be all right.”
Daniel had stepped out quietly to stand in front of them, which had made the grin fade from Denroy’s face. He’d halted, saying nothing, looking nervous. But the woman hadn’t been nervous. She’d looked Daniel up and down before saying imperiously, “Kindly get out of our way.”
Daniel had neither moved nor spoken. He’d just stood looking at the man who’d killed his wife, his face possessed by a cold, silent hate that had made Denroy flinch. He’d been scared. Was that what had made him say such a stupid, fatuous thing? No hard feelings, eh? Just an accident. Then he’d fallen back at the menace in Daniel’s face.
Now Daniel remembered how Denroy had cast a nervous glance at the woman, and how her contempt had seemed to force some courage into him—enough courage to shoulder his way past. That look had told Daniel all he’d needed to know about their relationship. Denroy had been intimidated by her, had wanted to impress her. That was why he’d driven her home when he’d had no right to be behind the wheel of a car. He’d probably bragged, “Don’t worry. What’s a little booze? I can handle it.”
Daniel had thought of Denroy often, but the woman had faded from his mind—until now.
Another memory—Canvey, there with him in court, hovering beside him as he’d confronted his wife’s killers, hands at the ready to stop him from physically attacking Denroy. He was a good friend. He’d hauled Daniel away to the nearest pub and poured drink down him. “Take some time off,” he’d said. “Take as much as you need.”
“I can cope,” he’d insisted.
“You think you can, but you shouldn’t work in this state.”
“I tell you, I can cope.”
He’d prided himself on being a hard man, a strong man who could stand up to anything. He’d thrown himself into his job, working all hours, ignoring weariness, driving himself to the limit. It was the only way he could endure. Canvey had been concerned. “I see you staring into space sometimes,” he’d said, “and when I say your name, you don’t seem to hear.”
Daniel had responded by driving himself even harder. Whether he’d done his work well or not was something he didn’t know, because he could hardly recall a single detail of that time.
But he had to remember. He forced his mind back. Henry Grainger. Hang on to that name. Henry Grainger, the owner of a small block of apartments, had been found dead. Someone had hit him over the head with a blunt instrument. Daniel had been sent to investigate.
All the signs pointed to Mrs. Megan Anderson, one of Grainger’s tenants, who’d been heard quarreling with him the night he’d died. He hadn’t been found until the following evening, at which time Mrs. Anderson was out on an assignment for an escort agency. Daniel had waited until she’d returned late that night. She’d walked in, glossy, expensive, consciously alluring, dressed and made up for effect. He recalled that she’d made that impression on him, but strangely, he couldn’t conjure up her face. Instead he kept seeing the face of Denroy’s companion, who’d also been glossy and heavily made up. He tried hard to concentrate, but he couldn’t clear the confusion, and at last he gave up and put a cassette into the video machine.
For a moment he didn’t even recognize the woman who appeared on the screen. Surely she couldn’t be the same person as the tense, feverish invalid upstairs? The contrast shocked him. He stared at the screen, noting her defiance, almost arrogance, tinged with bafflement at finding herself in a police station under suspicion of murder.
He heard his own off-camera voice. “Let’s go back to your quarrel with Mr. Grainger, Mrs. Anderson.”
“It wasn’t a quarrel,” the woman on the screen said wearily. “I didn’t know him well enough to quarrel with. He tried to paw me about, I told him to push off.”
“That’s not what your neighbors say. According to them, the whole thing was very violent.”
“They weren’t there. I was.”
“They heard screaming and shouting.”
“I was angry. He disgusted me. He was a worm.”
“That’s how you saw him, was it? A worm?”
Such an obvious trap, he thought now, but she hadn’t seen it. “Yes, a worm,” she said with a shrug. “Or a sewer rat. Take your pick.”
Wouldn’t a woman have to be innocent to walk so blindly into danger? he wondered. He almost winced as he heard his own voice springing the trap. “In other words, vermin—to be destroyed? A worm to be trodden on. A rat to be hit on the head—like Henry