Poetic Justice Read online

  When Kay didn’t answer a second time, he tried her mobile. It went to her answer service.

  ‘What is the point of having a mobile, if …?’ he fumed, and then thought immediately about his own situation. She could be driving, he thought. He left a message, not knowing what else he could do. He hoped that she would be there to greet him off the train at Harrowfield train station at six-thirty. As he came out of the phone box, the announcement came over the tannoy: the Leeds train was boarding on platform 8.

  Striding onto the platform, he was more than grateful that his forward journey was above ground. Travelling on the Northern Line into the City earlier in the day had not been an experience he wished to repeat often. Strangers squashed in stale air, the only respite coming when the doors opened. And he’d nearly missed his station. Oh, how he admired those who used the underground daily as their mode of transport. His musing was broken by the announcement that his train was about to leave. Safely tucked away in a seat by the window, he was pleased to see there was no one sitting next to him and for this he was grateful too.

  The whistle blew and the train pulled out on schedule.

  With the end of winter near, the ground was wet and slushy, the sky grey and dismal. As the train chugged slowly out of the station the half-empty carriage clattered over uneven tracks and battered points. Dylan took in the graffiti and wondered what kind of person risked their life to display their art in that way. The industrial buildings, once a hive of activity, would now seem so dull and lifeless without it.

  Gradually the train picked up speed and the world whizzed past his window. He hardly noticed the time pass as the gentle rocking lulled him into a state of relaxation. He reflected, in a dreamlike state, on the hostage negotiators’ course at Hendon Police College. It had been by far the most intensive in his police service. There had been very little respite from the round-the-clock scenarios and constant, continual pressure. He knew the role of a negotiator required a high level of self-control: to be able to remain calm even under immense pressure, possess extraordinary interpersonal skills, be able to use active listening and be able to work well within a team. He had to admit to feeling a little bit terrified of holding what might be someone’s last moments in his hands when they were at their most vulnerable.

  In the past two weeks he had worked alongside strangers, some of whom had a very limited command of the English language and little knowledge of life in the UK. Negotiation, he had learnt, was not on the agenda everywhere. Should hostages be taken in some countries, the approach was lay siege to wherever they were held and plan an armed assault in which, hopefully, only the kidnappers would be killed. The course had, no doubt, given the police officers from those countries food for thought.

  Dylan was pretty certain he had been kept going by adrenalin in the last couple of days; his energy levels were truly drained. It was nice to sit quiet, still, and not be expected to talk continuously. Having passed the course, he would immediately be an ‘on-call’ negotiator, back in the Yorkshire force, for serious life-threatening incidents including kidnap, extortion, terrorism and suicide; the latter being undoubtedly the most common.

  ‘And, what do you get for it?’

  He heard Kay’s angry voice in his ear. It startled him. He opened his eyes and sat up. Looking to the seat next to him, he half expected her to be there. He turned and looked through the window and instinctively lifted his face up to the rays from the sun, that had emerged from between two clouds. ‘Nothing,’ he answered in his head.

  He imagined her scoffing, ‘So, you choose to spend time your time away from me for no extra money?’ He saw himself nodding at her, in the kitchen of their salubrious home, his eyes still resting on his newspaper.

  ‘I’m doing it because I think I can make a difference.’

  Kay’s wrinkled nose lifted her glasses. ‘Who do you think you are? God?’

  Dylan felt a little nostalgic when the train pulled into Penistone railway station, because it reminded him of his dad, who had worked on the railways. In his mind’s eye, he could see his father talking to a colleague on the platform, his mother looking hot and bothered and him and his siblings in the carriage in their Sunday best with their holiday trunk. Dylan’s stomach would have been jittery, feeling his mother’s anxiety that Dad might not make it on board to join them. But he always did.

  The train picked up more passengers. With hardly a spare seat to be had Dylan put his head down and thumbed his way through the pages of his newspaper. Having not had the opportunity to speak to anyone in the real world for two weeks, he was interested to see what had happened while he’d been locked in the Hendon bubble. He was distracted by a disturbance futher down the aisle. An elderly lady stumbled. She looked around as she swayed to and fro with the rhythm of the train, trying to find somewhere to sit. Dylan half stood, raised his hand and pointed to the seat next to him. Those behind her gratefully ushered her on. In silence she sat down and gathered her things around her. Turning her head away from him, she blotted her eye with a handkerchief from up her sleeve. She wore leather gloves and was dressed a little more finely than their carriage companions and she smelled of fresh roses. He turned to the window to allow her a moment and briefly closed his eyes. She reminded him of his mother.

  Dylan didn’t normally feel the need to converse with his fellow passengers, but for some reason he wanted to reassure the old lady. When he turned towards her, his eye was caught by an angry-looking man who was walking down the carriage in their direction. They eyeballed each other. Dylan knew that look; he knew that face; he knew that man – but where did he know him from? His mind searched frantically for a name, which would not come.

  Suddenly, the carriage was plunged into a darkness that seemed to go on for ever, before the train dramatically twisted and turned, to spill out into daylight on a high path surrounded by the gnarled roots of immense trees. The angry man had disappeared, Dylan guessed through the electric doors into the next carriage. The old lady turned and asked where Dylan was heading and told him she was going to church. Dylan was momentarily taken aback. She noted his surprise and went on to explain that she was going to a funeral. She lived near the train station; the train was easier, and more reliable, than the bus.

  He should go to church – he hadn’t been in a while.

  He was still curious about the man. He had to remember who he was. As much as he tried to remain focused on what the old lady was saying, his mind played games attempting to remember the man’s name.

  The next signpost announced that they were in ‘God’s Own Country’ – and boy, was he glad to be nearly home.

  Dylan stood in the gangway with his suit carrier and holdall, eagerly waiting for the train to halt and the doors to open. A short walk to the next platform and the waiting shuttle and in twenty minutes he’d be in Harrowfield.

  As he sat on the bone-shaker, he thought about the times he’d had to close this line, the times he’d walked the railway line to recover the limbs of those who had taken their own lives so that they could be laid to rest, whole again, for their family and friends to grieve and ask themselves why they hadn’t seen this coming.

  It felt good to stretch his legs as he walked the station platform, after having sat for so long. He carried his bags up the single flight of stairs from the platform to the concourse immediately outside the station. It was raining, the sky was scarred with dark clouds and a mist swirled towards him across the busy car park. Pedestrians jostled him. He listened to the sound their footwear made as they splashed in the running water. He stood just outside the cover of the station’s stairs and, in the downpour, stretched out his spine, bending down to place his bags on the floor at his feet while he waited. He breathed in the cool, fresh, clean air, and it felt good to be alive, to be free of the courses and the watchful eyes monitoring his every move. Dylan was looking forward to seeing his wife and hearing her news. A fortnight was far too long to be out of the loop.

  As he waited in the now li
ght rain, the clouds thinned to a pale grey and the sun peeped through, its rays glistening off the water as it slowly ran down the gutters. He waited, and he watched, but neither Kay nor the Saab were anywhere to be seen.

  Then a car horn sounded and he looked up hopefully. A taxi pulled up on double yellow lines beside him. He reached for the warrant card in his inside pocket. The driver was an Asian male of about twenty years old, he guessed, his passenger a young, white male, no more than sixteen. He didn’t see where they had come from, but two young girls aged around thirteen or fourteen were suddenly at the open passenger window. They giggled, they laughed, they both jumped in the back seat of the car and the taxi took off at speed. Dylan slid his warrant card back in his pocket and smiled to himself. He’d not been back on home turf for five minutes and he was in work mode. Or was it just an in-built instinct he’d developed for sensing trouble, he wondered?

  The traffic flow had reduced significantly and would-be travellers strolled around the entrance with their cases on wheels in tow, no longer hurrying.

  It seemed strange, opening the door of the red, iconic telephone box, having had the use of his mobile for a while. He stopped short. The telephone had been ripped from the wall, the coin box smashed open and the vandals had cut through the wire that had once attached the handset.

  ‘Bastards,’ Dylan muttered under his breath.

  With heavy legs, he walked in the direction from which Kay would arrive, so familiar with the route that he barely paid any attention to it. Dylan stepped down onto the banking of the canal to avoid the town’s one-way system and headed towards the bridge that crossed the canal. Usually he’d take the time for a quiet, relaxing reverie. But this time he was agitated, and muttered to himself, angry with Kay. His thoughts were splintered by a sudden scurry of footsteps behind him and his heart skipped a beat just as a tree branch bounced off his shoulder and caught the side of his head. As he stumbled from the blow, he retained enough of his survival instinct to glimpse the tall, dark shadow of a man. Silently, he dropped to his knees. His hands hit cold mud that slipped through his fingers, which was the last thing he remembered before a blow to the back of his head saw him sprawled, face down, in a gritty puddle.

  Chapter Four

  She was late. For the past two weeks she’d been late. She hated being late and it was all Kenny Fisher’s fault. Kay also hated being home alone and with daughter Isla being a residential university student – something Kay had fought against from the day she had expressed a wish to spread her wings – what else was she supposed to have done to relieve her boredom but take part-time work? If Jack had worked nine-to-five, it would never have happened. Yes, it was Jack’s fault she had turned elsewhere for entertainment and the excitement she craved. How selfish to encourage Isla to pursue the university course and to abandon his wife too.

  Thinking about Kenny gave Kay a headache. A headache that promised to turn into more. She felt sick. Was it a migraine coming on?

  Jack would be upset if she was late, but in his own, quiet way. She sometimes wished he would scream and shout at her until he was blue in the face. The pin-drop silence was the worst. She knew him well enough though to know he’d be happy to see her when she did eventually get there. Being late was awful. Dylan was never late.

  Kay considered the truth. She hadn’t actually ended up hating being left alone as much as she’d thought she would. In fact, she’d revelled in the freedom as Kenny, her boss, had pursued her relentlessly, making her feel vibrant, sexy and young again. She’d loved the attention.

  Kay drummed her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. She disliked traffic congestion at the best of times. With nothing else to do but wait for the vehicles ahead to move, she tilted her head upwards to look in the mirror, examining the bruise Kenny had caused when he’d grabbed her face to make her look at him. ‘If you won’t tell him, I will,’ he’d growled through gritted teeth.

  She’d answered him back, guessing by his reaction that he wasn’t used to it, saying, ‘I can’t leave him and I won’t leave him, not for you or anyone else. This is just a bit of fun, right?’

  When she’d eventually got away, after promising him it wouldn’t be the last time, he had followed her to the isolated lay-by where she stopped to change out of her sexy clothing and slip into her ‘comfies’. He had followed her for a while … it made her feel uneasy. Was he going to follow her to the train station, to confront Dylan?

  She smoothed her hair back from her face and scraped it into a ponytail. Her make-up had been removed. She pinched her pale cheeks in an effort to make them rosy, biting her lips slightly to redden them. Turning her attention to the static traffic ahead, she felt the heat of anxiety run through her. Suddenly, spray from the adjacent car’s windscreen wiper hit hers; she turned and saw the young man in the car smiling at her. She smiled back flirtatiously.

  But it had to stop! She had managed to keep her furtive secret for long enough, but as quickly as she had tired of the affair, Kenny had become more obsessed with her. She was only late because she had been arguing with him. Did her lover want her husband to find out about them? In truth, she feared he probably did.

  ‘What if something happened to Dylan?’ Kenny had said.

  ‘You know that would be different, but let’s not go there, eh?’ Kay had said. She’d closed her eyes, laid her head back on the leather seat, breathed in deeply through her nose, counted to six and breathed out slowly through her mouth.

  ‘I’m serious,’ he’d said. ‘You need to understand that. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

  The past two weeks had been idyllic, in a juvenile, furtive kind of way. But it had become obvious to Kay that, for her, happiness wasn’t about getting what she wanted all of the time, it was about knowing what she had and being grateful for it.

  When she’d got Jack’s message she had been in Kenny’s Mercedes, parked in a secluded spot on the Yorkshire moors, where the silver-tongued Kenny had taken her after a spot of lunch. Kenny didn’t need to be in the office any more. He’d demanded sex and as usual she had found him hard to resist. The wealthy, ruthless businessman, well connected in the community, always put her first. He could afford to dress stylishly and buy anything that his heart desired, or that he desired for her. His designer clothes, precision haircut and pampered body never had the lingering smell of the mortuary, in contrast to her husband. But leave Jack Dylan? Really?

  Kay’s car came to a screeching halt outside the railway station. She took some deep breaths to try to calm herself. Kenny had begged her to leave Jack, promising her she’d never want for anything. His parting comment had been, ‘Dylan doesn’t deserve you, yet I feel like I’m waiting for something that’s never going to happen.’

  Kay looked around, scanning the station car park, but Dylan was nowhere to be seen. She got out and ran the whole length of the platform, dodging the occasional passenger and stacks of luggage along the way. She peered through the windows of the waiting room. No joy. She rushed over the railway bridge, pausing once or twice to catch her breath. Eyeing the mountain of metal stairs in front of her she wished she was a bit fitter. Nevertheless, she ran up the steps two at a time. Kay stood at the top, blinking against the cold, damp air that blew in her face, so she could see if there were any trains waiting on the sidelines to pull into the station. There was another station exit at the far end of the platform which led onto the canal path, but she couldn’t see anyone at the opening. Could it be that the London train had been delayed and her mad rush had been for nothing? Had Dylan jumped into a taxi? Fumbling around in her pocket for her mobile to call home, she was approached by a station official.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked ‘You look a little, er … stressed.’

  Kay pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. ‘It’s only the wind,’ she said. ‘I’m not crying. It’s just that I was a bit late to collect my husband from the London train and now I’m trying to find him.’

  The ol
d man looked away towards the railway line. ‘The London train was on time,’ he said. His face looked drawn, as if troubled by some private thought. ‘I don’t wish to alarm you, but I’ve just been informed of an incident outside. Apparently, a man has been taken to hospital by ambulance. It may not be connected …’

  She didn’t wait for more before she started running. Kay knew one thing about her husband, if there had been an incident Dylan would definitely be involved. He wasn’t programmed to side-step issues, no matter how dangerous.

  The words she had just used to Kenny rang in her ears. ‘I don’t want to hurt him.’

  ‘Hurt him? And how are you going to avoid that when he finds out about us? Anyway, what sort of a detective is he if he doesn’t know his wife is being fucked by someone else, right under his nose?’

  Kenny’s words had stung. She’d never seen him so angry before. When had their meetings stopped being fun, passionate and exciting? He’d frightened her.

  ‘Don’t spoil things, Kenny,’ she’d begged. ‘I don’t like it when you talk like that. Dylan has done nothing wrong. I guess, like they say, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’

  Arriving at the hospital, she frantically sought a place to park and followed the signs to the emergency entrance. The automatic double doors opened as she neared. At the brightly lit reception desk she told a nurse that she needed to find the person who had been blue-lighted from the train station, ‘Because,’ Kay’s voice faltered, ‘it might be my husband.’

  Suddenly, she spotted Dylan slumped in a wheelchair down the corridor. He looked broken, his doubled-over figure couldn’t hide his blood-stained clothing and there was a gaping wound at the side of his head. A temporary gauze the size of a lady’s handkerchief had been placed over it.