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51
IT’S QUIET IN the station when Adam arrives back; he takes solace in the peace.
He sits down at his desk, then looks out into the incident room where only two detectives remain, the others having gone home for the night.
They haven’t made much headway in his absence. Adam knows he has reports waiting in his inbox, updates from his detectives on lines of inquiry they’ve been following, but he also knows that nothing important has been found. If it had, someone would have called him.
His phone beeps, a message from Jamie: Going to bed. There’s dinner for you in the fridge. It says nothing and everything at the same time. That Jamie—who is grieving, who shouldn’t be alone, who is vulnerable—is looking after him. He knows he’s trying, but he still hears his words in his head. The betrayal. That Jamie had thought all those awful things about him all along.
He sits quietly and opens his inbox. His body feels empty—of food, of thought, of motivation—but he reads one report at a time, not taking in the information.
He frowns at the reports, then clicks through them again. He looks out into the incident room, where DC Lee is still working.
“Tim?” he shouts through the open door.
“Boss?”
“Have we had the DNA results back from the lab?”
A pause. “No.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Adam feels a flush of annoyance and picks up his phone. “Maggie,” he says, jumping down her throat as soon as she answers. “Where are my DNA results?”
“Nice to hear from you too, Bishop,” Maggie replies. A gap, while he hears talking; murmured voices on the other side of the receiver. Maggie comes back on: “We haven’t received them from the mortuary. You’re shouting at the wrong person.”
Adam swears loudly, then redials. The pathology technician who answers gets the full extent of his anger, and he shouts at her for a full minute before she calls out to Ross.
“DCI Bishop,” Dr. Ross says, his voice dripping with disdain. “Why are you yelling at my staff?”
“The samples from Wayne Oxford. The ones the lab are supposed to check for possible DNA from the killer? Where the fuck are they?”
“We sent them Tuesday. Straight after the PM.”
“The lab don’t have them.”
“Well, if someone’s fucked up, it’s not us. Shout at someone else.”
“So you’re saying they’re lost?” Adam feels his muscles tense, barely managing to sit still. “Valuable samples that mean we could potentially find the guy who’s killing all these people, and between you and Maggie Clarke they’ve disappeared?”
He hears Ross breathing loudly at the other end of the phone. “Fuck off, Bishop,” he says at last. He’s furious, his words clipped, his voice low. Adam can tell, but he doesn’t give a shit.
“If I find out you’ve done this deliberately—”
“You arrogant prick!” Ross bellows the words so loudly down the phone it makes the receiver buzz. “You fucking arsehole. You never stop to think, do you? That maybe these shitty things happen to you because of your actions. Your divorce. The death of Hoxton’s wife. The way this investigation is going down the pan. Who’s the common factor in this, Bishop?” Ross spits. “Perhaps you aren’t the nice guy you think you are.”
“I didn’t lose the samples—”
“No. But I bet Maggie Clarke isn’t going out of her way to find them.”
And with that, the line goes dead. Adam’s frozen, the receiver paused in his hand, then slowly he lowers it back to the phone. His initial anger has been replaced by something else. Dread. Fear. And bitter self-hate.
He knows his professional relationship with Maggie Clarke never quite recovered after their brief encounter. Last September, a work night out, too much to drink. Another woman in his long line of conquests. And nothing he was proud of.
But Mags hadn’t wanted more, she’d said so. Her life was full and busy, with work and the lab, weekends spent in the great outdoors on her time off. She is a hearty woman. Sturdy arms and legs from walking coastal paths; a deep tan from hours on the beach and in the sea; common sense and a no-nonsense attitude. She’d had no time for him, of that he was sure. And how did Ross know? Police station gossip has a lot to answer for.
Quick footsteps distract him; DC Tim Lee stands in the doorway.
“Boss,” he says. Adam looks up, still half in shock. He watches Lee swallow, then take a quick breath in. “You need to come now.”
