Page 116 of The Shadow Carver
Pellacia held up his hand and shook his head. ‘Don’t. You don’t need to apologise. I didn’t handle things the right way with you. I should have done better and I’m sorry.’
Henley felt the muscles in her shoulders relax. She hated fighting with Pellacia. He had been on her side for so long both as a colleague and a friend that the thought of losing him filled her with an indescribable dread. ‘So, is that it or is there something else?’ she asked.
‘Ezra,’ Pellacia admitted, unbuttoning his top button and removing his tie. ‘I would have been with him if it wasn’t for this stupid meeting at the Yard, talking about fucking nothing. He shouldn’t have dealt with that on his own.’
‘If it helps, Ezra seems fine. He’s not shaken.’
‘It’s not the point though, is it? I don’t give a shit whether this Kaiden Longley has regrets or not. He came here and he came looking for Ezra.’
‘I’m not going to pretend that I’m pleased about it either. We were both at Soteria’s office, but Kaiden Longley chose Ezra specifically because he’s not a police officer.’
‘That doesn’t make me feel better. I’ve got a long history with Ezra – I was the one who arrested him, for God’s sake – and I was the one who brought him into the SCU. I’m responsible for him.’
Henley sat down next to Pellacia. ‘Come on,’ she said gently. ‘He’s not in danger.’
‘Even so, I’ll drive him home tonight and I’ll pick him up tomorrow morning.’
‘His own personal chauffeur service. You’ll never hear the end of it,’ Henley said as she squeezed Pellacia’s arm. ‘Look, I was thinking, we haven’t had a proper welcome drink for Copeland yet—’
Pellacia looked up at Henley with surprise. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he said.
‘I’m trying to do the mature thing and, also, I think this lot need it but not tonight, I’ve got to—’ she paused not wanting in that moment to let Pellacia into her date night plans with her husband. ‘How about tomorrow night?’
Pellacia reached up as though to touch Henley’s face but then pulled away. ‘Tomorrow will be fine,’ he replied.
43
Kaiden stepped out onto the balcony of his flat on the tenth floor of Primrose House in Little Portugal. This enviable view of London, with the neon pink lights that decorated the London Eye, the bright lights of the Shard, the cluster of geometrically shaped buildings that made up the finance sector of the city and every towering residential block that reached the black skies. It seemed as though everything was possible, but all Kaiden could feel was despair. That, like the disintegrating plaster on the balcony, his entire life was crumbling. Kaiden grunted with disgust as he pulled out the cheap bottle opener and prised the cap off the beer that had been sweating in his hand. All of his lies were unravelling. His wife was going to discover that he’d been using their flat for his illicit activities and had not put it on the market after the last tenants had left. He’d sneaked into his house earlier through the back door, taking the chance that the police weren’t staking out his home. He’d kissed his boys goodbye and had told his wife that he loved her. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife that, just like he had in Boston, he’d gone too far – but this time was worse. He’d barely raised the bottle to his lips when the intercom buzzed insistently. He checked his watch. 8.46 p.m.. They were early. Too early.
Kaiden put his eye to the spy hole and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Mika’s face and that she was alone. He pulled the chain off the hook and opened the door.
‘I know, I’m early,’ Mika said apologetically. She entered thehallway and walked through the flat as though she’d been there before. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just … you know what, never mind.’
‘No that’s—’ Kaiden gasped as his attempt to close the door was blocked by a black, mud-encrusted trainer. He looked up to see a gloved hand grip the door and push it back. Kaiden stepped back into the narrow hallway as Don, his face barely visible under a black hoodie, closed the door.
‘Sorry, I should have told you Don was coming,’ Mika said. She stopped at the open door that led to the balcony. ‘You’re extremely lucky to have a view like this. Stunning.’
‘Yeah, it is pretty spectacular,’ said Kaiden, joining Mika on the balcony, keen to get away from Don whose hot breath he could feel on his neck when he’d followed him into the living room. He picked up the bottle which he’d left on the patio table and drank quickly in an effort to settle his nerves.
Mika turned and faced Kaiden. ‘Ever since you called me this afternoon, I’ve been trying to work out why you want to see me,’ she said. ‘I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about leaving us, which would have been fine, but then I got a message from Don.’
Kaiden watched as Mika took her phone out of her jacket pocket. She tapped the screen a couple of times.
‘Take a look,’ she said, holding out her phone.
Kaiden cleared his throat, put down his beer and took the phone from Mika’s outstretched hand. The fermented liquid travelled back up his throat, making him gag when he saw the photograph. It was him, sitting on the bench opposite Greenwich police station, where the Serial Crimes Unit was based. He swiped right. A photograph of him walking towards the building with Ezra. He scrolled down and saw screenshots of his pinned location on Google Maps. The first taken at 13.02 on Wednesday afternoon after he’d left his office near Cannon Street station and taken the train to Greenwich and walked to the police station where the SCU was based. His finger had hovered on the bell for a few seconds before he’d chickened out and returned to work. The second pinned location was taken an hour before he met Ezra.
Kaiden shook his head vehemently. ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ he insisted.
Mika snatched her phone back. ‘Are you telling me that it doesn’t look like you went to the police twice?’ she asked with genuine curiosity. ‘Don saw you walk off with the black boy. What did you tell him?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t tell him anything.’
‘So, you gave him something?’ Mika asked, her words tripping over each other as she spoke more quickly and furiously. ‘Information about Iron Shadow. About our cause?’
‘No, the detective. She asked me to come in for a voluntary interview about the hacking of Soteria’s system. I thought it would be a good thing, I could see where they—’
‘Why on earth would they ask you?’ Don spat. ‘You told us that—’
