The Trail Killer

Five

The detective paused for a moment as if in reflection. There was the slightest of nods before wheeling away past her colleague. It was he who was left to offer a goodbye, a brief word of thanks.

After clicking the front door closed, Prisha slumped her back against the hallway wall as if drained not just physically and emotionally, but morally too. Her glare was sharp and piercing, that of a child who in a finger-click had been dumped into the shadowy realm of adulthood.

"You made me lie to the police! You and dad, you made me lie to them! Why, mum? Why?"

As those hushed, urgent instructions in the bedroom moments earlier, the answer to her daughter's inevitable question was something else Advika had mentally prepared. Not just the words themselves, but the calm, convincing tone with which she would deliver them.

"I don't know, Prisha. I... I'm not really sure right now. All I know is that it wasn't your father who followed Joanne out into the countryside on Tuesday morning. Oh, he's not perfect. Your father, the man I married - like all men, he's tainted by many faults. But he's not a murderer, Prisha. Whatever happens from here, whatever may be said about him, it is your duty as his daughter to never stop believing that."

*

The heart-pounding urgency of the call-out to the murder scene had negated the opportunity for any reasoned negotiation as to whose car they should take. Scampering out into the station car park, Shields had found herself following Bridcutt towards his Capri.

As the vehicle now careered over a roundabout, the centrifugal force tugging at her shoulders, she stomped an involuntary foot to the passenger-side foot mat in search of a non-existent brake pedal.

"Take it easy eh, constable."

"I am taking it easy."

The mental note had already been typed upon her brain: no matter the circumstances, never - repeat, never - would she get in the sod's car again. It came as an enormous relief that the road leading to Branstead onto which they'd now embarked was heavy enough with traffic in both directions to subdue her subordinate's inner-James Hunt.

"Must've been somewhere here along this stretch that he got stopped," she reasoned. A hand then gestured towards the car stereo. "Mind if we turn down the..." - she had to stop herself from using the word 'dirge' - "the music a little?"

That damn blasted band again. The Smiths. Aaargh!

"Might be a little more conducive to two detectives having a discussion about the current case they're working on, don't you think?"

Though the constable jerked his shoulders in grudging concession, Shields' lowering of the volume level to near silence was quickly countered by a raising back to loud-enough-to-still-be-annoying.

"What is there to actually discuss though, sarge? They were lying, clear as day. Didn't even ask us what it was all about, why we were there. Odds-on that as soon as Gupta got stopped this morning, he phoned up his wife, told her to expect a visit. He knew where Joanne was headed. He knows we know he knew where Joanne was headed. Had to make up some cock and bull story. Clutch at straws."

The constable shifted down a gear, then with a gut-lurching rev of the accelerator sped past a lorry before veering back into lane within a hair's width of an approaching vehicle.

Shields' admonishing squeal was ignored.

"Gupta obviously wasn't at work on Tuesday morning," he continued. "And almost undoubtedly wasn't home. So where the hell was he?"

All of which were the same conclusions Shields herself had arrived at. Had they got him, she wondered? So quickly, with no real effort? It seemed too good to be true.