Backlash by Sally Spencer Page A

Perhaps, she sometimes thought, it was because she was capable of such single-minded concentration. Or maybe it was simply because she’d a stronger urge to win than almost all her opponents.
    â€˜I’ll play you one game of three-oh-one, straight in and a double to finish,’ Kershaw said. ‘If I win, you’ll let my lads work in tandem with yours. If I lose, I’ll stay clear of the investigation.’
    â€˜Seems a bit of a desperate gamble,’ Paniatowski said.
    â€˜That’s because I’m a bit of a desperate man,’ Kershaw told her.
    She nodded. ‘All right, you’re on. How many practice darts do we have before we start?’
    â€˜None,’ Kershaw replied. ‘Life isn’t about trying things out first – it’s about meeting problems head-on, and dealing with them straight away.’
    They bulled up, and she won the right to start.
    Her first three darts landed firmly in the treble twenty. One hundred and eighty – the maximum score, and enough to make most of the opponents she’d ever played against all but give up the ghost.
    But Kershaw was not about to give up, nor did he try to emulate her. Instead, he slammed three darts into the treble nineteen.
    She had 121 left. Kershaw had 130.
    She could finish it in the next three darts. Another treble twenty, a treble eleven and a double fourteen, and it was all over.
    She found the treble twenty and followed up with the treble eleven. Kershaw was completely silent and perfectly still, but she could sense his tension.
    She threw her third dart, and it landed just the wrong side of the double fourteen wire.
    She stepped aside, and Kershaw walked up to the line.
    For at least a minute, the chief superintendent stood staring at the board.
    It wasn’t that he was working out what he needed to win, Paniatowski thought. Any real darts player would know that automatically. No, what he was doing was putting off the moment when he might have to admit that he’d lost.
    Kershaw threw his first dart, and it landed inside the treble twenty by a hair’s breadth. He should have followed through with his second dart immediately, while he still had the momentum – every darts player knew that, too – but he didn’t.
    He’s scared, Paniatowski thought. He’s really frightened.
    Kershaw lifted his arm again – stiffly, and with effort, as if the dart in his hand weighed a ton. When it was finally at the right level, he threw carelessly – like a man already accepting defeat – but, despite that, the dart still found its treble ten target.
    He needed double fifteen to win.
    He turned to Paniatowski. ‘You’ll hold me to this agreement, will you?’
    â€˜I will.’
    â€˜Why, in God’s name?’
    â€˜Because I think you’ll be a liability to the investigation. Because I think I have more chance of finding your wife on my own.’
    Kershaw turned back to the board, and this time his hand rose quickly – this time he released the dart as if he were depending on the righteousness of his cause, or divine intervention – or something – rather than his own skill.
    The dart wobbled in mid-air, but landed in the double fifteen.
    â€˜You might not want me, but you’ve got me,’ Kershaw said.
    But there was no triumph in either his voice or his expression. There was only relief.

NINE
    T he two women seemed such an unlikely pair that it would have been difficult not to notice them under any circumstances, but the fact that they were standing squarely in the middle of the space in the police car park which said ‘Reserved for DCI Paniatowski’ made ignoring them a virtual impossibility.
    As she put the MGA into reverse, and began slowly to back towards her parking space, Paniatowski studied the women in her rear-view mirror.
    One of them – the younger of the two, who was probably twenty-two or twenty-three – was dressed