The Follow

I try not to swear in front of my dad; he doesn’t mind but old habits die hard. Up until the age of eighteen I would get a smack round the head for anything worse than ‘bloody’.

He finished the ginger cream he was eating and stared off into space thoughtfully before looking back at me. ‘Is there any way that they can link you to anything that’s happened? I assume that this Davey chap was the one who managed to get the evidence lost?’

I nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s the one who must have done it. He was laughing at me in court before it came out but I’m the last person logged to have touched the knife.’

‘What about fingerprints, wouldn’t they have dusted the rubber knife?’

I’d already thought about that and came to a conclusion about it on the walk to the train station after my interview. ‘Well, PSD didn’t mention it, so I can only assume that they checked it for prints and didn’t find any. They probably neglected to disclose that so that there was more chance of me making an admission.’

Dad shook his head angrily. ‘They really are bastards, aren’t they? What did your sergeant, Kevin isn’t it, have to say about all of this?’

I finished my coffee just in time to avoid getting it spilled as Lily streaked into the room and threw herself on my lap. ‘I think he’s on my side,’ I said, fending the dog off, ‘but he has to try and stay as neutral as possible. The only link he has to the case is that he’s our supervisor. He wasn’t there that day until after the evidence had been bagged and Jimmy was en route to the hospital, so he’s in the clear, but if shit sticks to us it’ll stick to him as well by association, if he isn’t careful.’

Lily finally got the message and went off to hunt biscuits, leaving me brushing what looked like half her coat off my lap. Dad took pity and threw her one, which disappeared in a single gulp.

‘Well,’ he said, glancing at a picture of the family that hangs on the wall between bookcases, ‘I’m only glad your mother isn’t here or she’d be off down the PSD office dragging them around by the ear and shouting at them for being idiots!’

I smiled, knowing that he wasn’t far off the mark. ‘Yeah, well, in some ways I wish she was.’

We both lapsed into the awkward silence that springs up between us whenever Mum is mentioned. I’d been at university through the worst of it and carry a sense of guilt at not having been there that has never really faded, despite my dad’s best efforts to reassure me.

‘So what are you going to do?’ he asked, breaking the spell.

I sighed and shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Dad, I really don’t. All I can do is wait and see what happens, but I just feel so useless. I should be out hounding Davey’s every step but instead I’m sitting around feeling sorry for myself. What would you do?’

‘Just sit it out, son. Keep your nose clean. Don’t give them an excuse to turn it into a witch-hunt.’

I nodded, knowing he was right, not daring to tell him about my encounter with the Budds. No matter how much he loved me, he would never approve, and the less he knew, the less he had to lie about if anyone came asking.

‘You’re right. I suppose I’d better get back and get in touch with Kev; he’ll want to make sure I’m okay. Thanks for the coffee, I’ll call you later.’

He waved as I left, stooping to fuss Lily on the way out.

Back at the car, I put the key in the lock, and then paused as my peripheral vision caught something that my copper’s nose told me was out of place. I glanced around, trying to look casual, and saw a silver Clio parked about fifty yards up the road, right on the bend, with a person sitting in it reading a newspaper. It struck me as strange behaviour for a side street, and I automatically looked around for anything else out of place, only to see the curtains twitch on a house across the road as my eyes swept across it.

So PSD were having me followed. It didn’t surprise me; if they thought I had something to do with the evidence, it made sense that they would have a surveillance team on me, hoping that I would run to Davey.

Being an SV officer, and pretty good at it, I knew they should have been better than that. The first thing they teach you on the surveillance course is not to stand out. Had the person up the road in the car been on the phone or just sitting there with the engine running it wouldn’t have looked out of place, but reading a newspaper just screamed that they were prepared for a long wait. Add to that the fact that I would never have noticed the officer in the house opposite if they hadn’t jerked back when I looked in their direction, and you had an SV team that were either poorly trained or wanted me to know they were there.

Shaking my head, I gave the guy hidden behind the curtains a cheery wave as I drove away slowly, making sure that they didn’t lose me. If they wanted to know what I was up to I was equally keen to show them that I had nothing to hide. So long as they didn’t start looking in next door’s garden.

10 (#ulink_c6cd32d8-eb73-50cf-9bf7-207fa3362a43)

My situation hadn’t improved by the next day, and I was still followed everywhere I went. That morning I had taken my gaggle of followers on a walk over the downs and returned home feeling marginally better than I had since I’d been arrested. I parked up just around the corner from the house and was more than a little surprised to see a uniformed police officer standing on my front step as I trudged up the road.

I didn’t recognize him but, as he looked about twelve, I assumed that he was from the tutor unit. He looked at me with worry written all over his face as I approached and came up the steps towards him. He put out a hand that hovered hesitantly in front of my chest.

‘Uh, I’m sorry, sir, you can’t come in. This is a crime scene.’

I looked at him in amazement. ‘Crime scene? This is my bloody house!’

His cherubic face took on a look of anger as I swore. ‘Sir, I’m warning you under Section Five of the Public Order Act, if you swear again I will be forced to arrest you!’

I looked around ostentatiously. ‘Do you see anyone here who is likely to be harassed, alarmed or distressed by my swearing?’ I asked, seeing the doubt blossom on his face as I quoted the act right back at him. ‘I don’t – and, as you can’t be the one to feel any of that, I suggest you stop being a pillock and get someone who knows their job.’

I wasn’t making a friend here, I knew, but I wasn’t going to stand around and be dictated to by a kid who hadn’t even handcuffed someone on his own yet. We were saved by an officer I knew sticking his head out of the door, presumably to see what the commotion was about. Andy Coucher is a top-rate officer and, about a year before, had moved on to the tutor unit to pass on some of his hard-gained street knowledge.