Without Consent by Frances Fyfield Page A

into the world naked, Todd thought with some satisfaction. The DCI thought the same, albeit with greater sympathy. Ryan had been so indefatigably popular, a man’s man with a taste for women; the sort they admired. It was Bailey who arranged the car to take Ryan away; no one else had formed Bailey’s conclusion that if left unattended, Ryan’s departure from the station would demonstrate the shortest route between the back door and the nearest public house. Ryan looked at him wryly, each of them second-guessing the other.
    Bailey watched the car disappear, driven by a woman constable. He wondered what, if anything, the two of them would say to one another and reminded himself to ask her later, slightly ashamed of the subterfuge. The pursuit of truth was all, was it not? All legitimate means were allowed. Or perhaps the pursuit of some niggling ambition that Ryan would let slip in private to the driver, some definitive clue to his own innocence. Rape is a crime which calls for vengeance, Todd had said portentously, revealing a churchgoing tendency.
    Barring Bailey’s progress in the carpark stood a blonde girl, hands on hips, looking at him belligerently. He recognized her as a detective, one of Ryan’s sexual offences team. It occurred to him that, so far, the irony of Ryan’s current work taken in conjunction with the offence they would likely charge him with, had escaped him. Yesterday, Bailey had been giving Ryan advice on the diplomacy of dealing with incredulous parents; today, he was
en route
to see another set, the ones who belonged to Ryan’s own victim. It was all offensively circular.
    â€˜Sally Smythe, sir. What are we supposed to do with Ryan’s cases?’ It was an accusation, spat out with minimal pretence at politeness.
    â€˜I don’t know. Carry on. He won’t be back for some time.’
    The blonde looked at him as if he was solely responsible for the doubling of her workload, the demise of her life and the appearance of her first grey hairs. Bailey began to walk towards his car, away from Todd; there was an implicit invitation for her to fall into step beside him.
    â€˜Which was his biggest case?’
    â€˜They’re all big. Indecent assault, buggery, you name it. And he had an ongoing thing … Oh, shit.’ She was gabbling, on the verge of tears. ‘How could he do it, sir? How could he?’
    â€˜To you? To me? To the victim?’ Bailey asked lightly, touching her arm with the slightest gesture, enough to suggest commiseration, but not camaraderie.
    â€˜He was good,’ she said fiercely. ‘Really good. Getting better. I know none of us liked the appointment at first, but he had this case, eighteen months ago. Broke his heart. After that, he seemed, well, he seemed able to identify with the victims. If we can’t, he said, who can?’
    â€˜Tomorrow at ten,’ Bailey said, watching Todd catching up, ‘I’d like to look at all his casework. There might be a clue to his alleged behaviour. It is only alleged, you know.’
    She nodded dumbly, peeled away and left him to watch her plodding footsteps with regret. If Ryan’s career was blighted, then so, by infection, was hers.
    T he evening sun raised a pink haze as they drove north, Bailey at the wheel with no need to consult a map. Vague directions would do equally well; he had known these streets since childhood. They were in the no man’s land where Islington merges with King’s Cross in a series of used-car dealerships, traffic lights and treeless thoroughfares which hide from view the pleasanter, leafier roads of a mixed hinterland. They sat behind a belching bus, watching it shiver with fumes in the heat, Bailey longing for the privilege of a fast vehicle with a siren to move everything from their path. Traffic cried for vengeance, aswell as rape. He scorched past the bus and into the side-streets, put on a turn of speed through a series of