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With that, he walks quickly away, head down. What he’s told Adam, it’s not surprising, but doesn’t bode well for getting that information out of the prison any time soon. He watches until the guard goes out of sight, then pulls his phone from his pocket, dialing Marsh. His boss answers immediately.
“Bishop, where the hell are you?”
“Sorry, guv. I’ve …” Adam catches his breath, opening his car door and throwing himself inside. “I went to see Elijah Cole.”
“You …” The detective chief superintendent’s voice trails off as he realizes what Adam’s saying. “We talked about this. I gave permission to get the visitor logs, but I didn’t say you could fuck off in the middle of a murder investigation to go and see the one person we know couldn’t have done it.”
“But he’s linked, guv. To it all. We know he is.”
“Because he knows a few details about the case he shouldn’t?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
Adam tells him everything Cole said. His description of what had happened to Pippa, his intimate knowledge of the case. His conversation with the guard and the altercation with the other one inside, and—last of all—Cole’s final confession that there are three more victims.
At the other end of the line, Marsh is silent.
“So, Bishop, you’re telling me that you’ve been expertly controlled by one of the most infamously manipulative serial killers this country has ever known?”
“It’s not that, guv. I know—”
“One who also happens to be the father of your ex-wife?”
“Guv—”
“Stop it, Adam!” Marsh shouts. Adam feels the full weight of his boss’s disapproval. “We searched that house, ran dogs over the entire garden. We found all the victims. You want Cole to be linked, you want Romilly Cole to be involved, so … so you can hang out with your ex-wife in a misguided attempt to get her back? Fuck it, I knew I shouldn’t have invited her yesterday. But that’s enough, Bishop. Get back to the nick. To the current investigation. To the murder of Hoxton’s wife.”
Adam is silent.
“Do you hear me, Bishop?”
“Yes, guv.”
Marsh hangs up the phone, and Adam puts his hand on the ignition of his car. But he doesn’t start the engine. Instead, he makes another call. To a retired detective. DS David Shepherd.
CHAPTER
48
ALL MORNING, JAMIE wanders the house, alone, thinking about Adam. Adam’s still not been home. He walks to the kitchen, head thumping, legs wobbly. He pours a pint of water, then carries it to the sofa.
He looks at the debris in the room: at the empty bottles, the glasses with a few centimeters of liquid at the bottom, the ashtray. He feels his sore throat and picks up the nearly empty packet of Adam’s Marlboros lying on the table. He remembers smoking a few, half enjoying the rebellious act, accepting the stinging lungs as some sort of penance. He coughs now and winces. He takes a long pull from the pint of water.
In the light of day, sober, his words from last night haunt him. He’d meant them then, but now he knows he was expecting something superhuman from his friend. Nobody could have found Pippa sooner; nobody could have worked harder, pushed themselves to the limit more than Adam. And all he’d done was thrown his efforts back in his face.
Where had he gone? Where had he spent the night? That thought is worse—that he had been wandering the streets. Alone. That he is out there, still, somewhere. In the same way that Pippa had been.
But before his thoughts can turn to panic, he hears a key in the door and footsteps in the hallway. Jamie pushes himself up from the sofa and stops as Adam walks into the room.
His friend looks awful. Three days’ worth of stubble, skin gray, dark rings under his half-closed eyes. Adam stops, his gaze pushed down, away from Jamie.
“Adam, I’m sorry,” Jamie blurts out before Adam can walk away from him. “I didn’t mean what I said.”
Adam doesn’t move, eyes cast to the floor. “I need a shower,” he mutters. “I have work to do.”
Jamie reaches out and grabs his arm; Adam stares at it numbly.
