The Retribution by Val McDermid Page A

the gravity of Tony’s opinion. She wasn’t sure she agreed, though. ‘Makes sense. He couldn’t stand being crossed,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s why he killed Shaz. Even though she was no threat to him. Not really. He had all the power. But she had the bottle to go up against him and he couldn’t tolerate that.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘All the same … I can see why he thinks you and him might be in the firing line. But the rest of us? I don’t think we made it on to Vance’s radar. We were just the little people, and guys like Vance don’t have to pay attention to the little people. There’s no spectacle in the little people like us.’
    Carol gave a dry laugh. ‘Funny, I never think of you as one of the little people, Chris. I appreciate what you’re saying, but I still want to cover the bases. What I need you to do is to track down the other three who worked with us and warn them that Vance is on the loose and could be a risk to their safety.’
Chris looked up at the corner of the room and cast back into her memory. ‘Leon Jackson, Simon McNeill and Kay … what was Kay’s surname?’
    Sam Evans, on his way out of the room, overheard Chris’s last comment and couldn’t help himself. ‘Not like you to forget one of the laydeez, Chris,’ he teased.
    ‘Some people are just—’ she shrugged. ‘Forgettable, Bill.’
    ‘Ha, ha,’ he said sarcastically as he let the door swing closed behind him.
    ‘She was forgettable, though,’ Carol said. ‘I think she did it deliberately. Melting into the background so people would forget she was there and say something they didn’t intend to.’
    Chris nodded. ‘She was a good interviewer. Different to Paula, but maybe just as good. But what was her surname?’
    ‘Hallam. Kay Hallam.’
    ‘That’s it, now I remember. It’s funny, isn’t it? You’d think after an experience like that, we’d all have stayed in touch. Kept an eye on each other’s careers. But soon as the first court case was over, they all scattered to the four winds. It was like they didn’t want any contact to make it easier to erase the whole thing from the memory banks. Then when we all met up for the appeal and the second trial, it was like a bunch of embarrassed strangers.’
    Carol nodded. ‘Like when you run into people at a wedding or a funeral that you were once close to, but it’s been so long it’s too awkward. You can’t recover the way you were but you both know it used to be different and there’s something painful and sad about it.’
    It was hard to say who was more surprised by Carol’s comments. They had worked together for long enough for Chris to know just how rare it was to hear Carol Jordan speak so clearly from the heart. Both women guarded their privacy, deliberately avoiding intimacy. Close as this team was, they didn’t socialise together. Wherever they opened their hearts, it wasn’t in the office.
Carol cleared her throat. ‘Kay sent me Christmas cards for three or four years, but I think that had more to do with wanting to be sure I would give her a good reference than a desire to stay in touch. I’ve no idea where she is now, or even if she’s still a copper.’
    Chris tapped the names into her smartphone. ‘I’ll get on to it. Maybe the Federation can help. At least they should be able to tell me if they’re still serving officers.’
    ‘Will they give out information like that?’ Carol said.
    Chris shrugged. ‘They’re supposed to be our union. You’d think they’d want to protect us.’ She gave a wicked grin. ‘Besides, I have my little ways. They might not be as pretty as Paula’s, but they get results.’
    Carol threw up her hands in surrender as Chris swung round and started hammering the keys of her computer with the force of someone who had learned her skills on a typewriter. ‘I don’t want to know any more,’ she said. ‘Talk to me and Tony when you’re done. And Chris …?’
    Chris looked up from the screen.