Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,136

you got to feel guilty about?’

‘I should have called in a professional instead of going it alone. I made a half-arsed attempt to talk a woman out of suicide and she chucked herself off a roof. Whatever I said, it didn’t work.’

‘Your job isn’t to talk people out of suicide.’

‘Sometimes it is, Tom,’ said Bradshaw firmly, ‘I have colleagues who’ve managed it, but I couldn’t.’

‘Maybe Annie Bell just didn’t see any way back, Ian? I don’t think it would have made any difference what you said – a woman like that wasn’t going to accept prison and I should have seen it. I was too busy trying to get her husband out of jail to realise she was never going to take his place.’

‘An innocent man was rotting in jail before you stepped in. It’s not your fault she couldn’t accept the consequences of her actions.’

Tom wouldn’t let it go. ‘But Annie thought killing Rebecca Holt was fair. Someone had stolen her toys and she wanted them back, so Rebecca had to go, but whose fault was it? Certainly not Annie’s, I’m betting. She wouldn’t blame herself.’

‘No, she didn’t. The woman was crazy though, wasn’t she; at least enough to smash someone’s skull in, so what difference does it make what she said?’

‘Because I need to know!’ Tom thumped his fist down on the table, hard. ‘So would you please stop stalling and give me a straight answer for once?’

Bradshaw straightened. ‘She did apportion blame.’ He saw how intently Tom Carney was watching him then. ‘To her husband,’ he said. ‘It was all his fault apparently, for cheating on her, I assume. Richard was the reason she was up there on that roof, according to Annie.’ And that was exactly what Bradshaw had put in his statement. He hadn’t lied about that exactly, just omitted Annie Bell’s mention of Tom. He had been the only one to hear it and now Annie was dead, so what good could possibly come from including it? What purpose would it serve to blame the young reporter for her death?

‘Was that all?’ asked Tom. ‘What about me?’

Bradshaw realised Tom Carney needed to know the truth. He wanted to hear that Annie Bell blamed him for everything so he could satisfy his own suspicions. Only then could he hope to try and take some sense of responsibility for her actions; for the pressure he had placed Annie under in an effort to exonerate her husband, who may have been guilty of many things, but was innocent of murder. He needed to hear it was his fault, so he could add this to the list of things he’d pretend not to give a shit about; even though he was half drunk already. A suicidal woman had blamed him for making her children motherless. He wanted to argue with the ghost of Annie Bell in his head, tell her he was only doing his job and that it was her fault for killing Rebecca.

Bradshaw knew it wasn’t that simple. He had once been exonerated for an act he blamed himself for but, deep down, he still wondered every day what would have happened if only he had done things differently. That thought still tortured him and would until his dying day. But Tom Carney was his friend. He wanted to hear the unvarnished truth and there was no disputing he had the right to it.

‘Well?’ asked Tom.

‘I’m sorry to be the one to break the news to you, mate,’ Bradshaw said, ‘but you didn’t even get a mention.’

Chapter Forty-Eight

You only get one life. That was what he told Annie Bell before she jumped, but she wouldn’t listen. He believed it though. Ian Bradshaw was not a religious man. He didn’t expect to come out the other side and be ushered up to the pearly gates. He was more pragmatic than that. When it was over it was over, so you had better have made the most of it in the meantime.

Watching Annie Bell go off the side of that building affected him deeply. What must have been going through that woman’s mind to compel her to go over the edge like that? Every time he thought about it made him feel physically sick. Though he had not had as many drinks as Tom, he’d sunk enough. He was drunk and knew it, but also somehow clear-headed.

He was sitting at home on the couch when he heard the key turn in the lock. It was Karen back from