Series 26, Episode 12: Respect: Part 1
Date: Saturday 14th May 2016
Investigating Officers: Superintendent Jack Meadows, DI Neil Manson, Inspector Dale Smith, DS Max Carter, DS Hannah McKay, DC Mickey Webb
"Babe!" Hannah complained, clamping her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she pushed her way though the double doors into CID. "I don't know what you want me to say." She caught Stevie's eye and shook her head. "No, I'm aware of that, my love, but there is literally nothing I can actually do about it."
"Jo?" Stevie mouthed, earning herself a nod and an eye roll in return.
"He's twenty-one, love. I can't physically stop him going on holiday, can I? Yes and its just as important to him as it is to–" Breaking off and huffing quietly, Hannah dropped into her chair. "Right, OK. Yes, I am willing to be responsible for– right. I'll see you in a bit. Love you."
Laughing at the expression on her friend's face, the blonde arched an eyebrow. "What's happened?"
"Max is going on a post-final exams holiday the week before the wedding and Jo is convinced something will go wrong."
"Maybe she has a point?" Stevie said, shrugging. "I mean, you lot attract disaster, don't you? It wouldn't surprise me if Max had a run in with foreign police and–"
"Do not even finish that sentence, Stephanie!" Hannah ordered, pointing her finger at her. "Seriously, don't. And don't you dare say anything to Jo, unless it's to reassure her that it will all be fine."
"Alright, alright!"
"Stevie."
"Where is Jo, anyway?"
"Downstairs." Hannah shot her a look. "This is a new thing she's started doing… she rings me from her office to talk wedding details."
The blonde laughed loudly, loving the expression on her friend's face as she scowled at her. "Never had Jo down as one of those women who goes mad over wedding planning."
"What, like you, you mean?"
"I wasn't that bad."
"You were horrendous."
"Stevie, Hannah?" Jack caught their attention and motioned towards the briefing room. "You ready?"
"Sir." They agreed, exchanging a look as they followed him through the door.
He quickly outlined the case, the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy on the Parkway estate. Hannah stiffened as they spoke about gangs and the possibility that it was linked to a disagreement over girlfriends. When Jasmine Harris' name was mentioned, she glanced quickly towards Mickey and saw his eyebrows furrowing.
As everyone left the briefing, Hannah hesitated beside the board for a moment. Her eyes lingered on the information there as she chewed her lip, deep in thought. A weight had settled heavily in her chest and she considered her next move carefully.
Making a decision before she changed her mind again, Hannah made her way out of CID and along to the Superintendent's office. She knocked and waited until she heard him calling her in before opening the door and leaning hesitantly against the doorframe.
"Sir… I… I can't be involved in this case."
Jack furrowed his eyes at Hannah's statement, watching her hovering in the doorway of his office with bemusement. He wasn't used to seeing his DS acting in such a manner and had never expected to hear that she didn't want to get involved in a case, however hard. As he considered her carefully, he leant back in his chair and motioned for her to enter the office properly and close the door behind her.
"Hannah, I know this is a tough case, but–"
"It's not because it's tough, Sir. You know I don't back down from… it's not about that." She exhaled sharply, perching on the chair in front of his desk. "I can't… you know I've been for counselling? Before all the stuff with Dr Lindewood and then afterwards… Dr Barker helped me to understand, process and deal with certain things in my past."
"We all know how hard you've worked to get to where you are, Hannah." Jack assured her gently, wondering where the conversation was heading.
"I did things… but…" Looking down, Hannah twisted her hands together in her lap, feeling burning tears springing to her eyes. "Jasmine Harris… she's me, Jack. She's exactly where I was twenty-one years ago. She even looks a bit like me, for god's sake! It's just… it's too close for comfort and, I'm really sorry, Jack, but I'm not strong enough."
"Well that's bollocks." He told her with a snort of amusement. "Hannah McKay not strong enough for something? What would you say to Jasmine Harris about all this, if you spoke to her?"
She shrugged. "I really don't know, Guv."
"Well I do. You'd tell her that she needs to stay strong, that none of this defines her in any way and that she needs to do whatever it takes to get justice."
"Jack…"
"So no, Hannah, I don't agree with you. You're more than strong enough to be involved in this case." Jack eyed her carefully. With a sigh he relented. "But if you really feel like it would be detrimental to your well-being than I won't force you to be involved."
"Thank you, Sir."
"See what else needs attention; maybe Stevie could use a hand on whatever she's working on?"
Sending him a sharp nod and a small, grateful smile, Hannah left the office. She knew that Jack had a point, that it was undeniably out of character for her to back down over a case, but she couldn't find it in herself to get involved. She'd been trying so hard to put the past behind her and the current case felt like it might just be a step too far.
The blonde DS had looked a little confused as her friend perched on the tiny amount of free surface on her desk and asked what they were working on. Stevie frowned, telling Hannah that she'd thought she was already assigned. When the redhead just shrugged and repeated her question, Stevie sighed and started telling her about a mugging on the other side of Canley.
They worked through the evidence for a while, before the blonde's attention wandered and she turned to fix her best friend with a determined expression. Seeing the look on her face, Hannah sighed and prepared herself for whatever was about to be thrown in her direction.
"So… someone's turning forty next week." Stevie looked slyly at her best friend. "How are we celebrating?"
"Mmm… someone is also getting married in two weeks." Hannah pointed out distractedly. "I've got too much on my plate to even remember it's my birthday."
"We've gotta do something."
"We can do something joint in August."
"You're not hijacking my fortieth birthday!" Stevie complained.
"Right… we can go to the pub, then."
"We go to the pub at least once a week."
"Dinner?"
"Boring."
"Seriously, Ste, I haven't got time for this." Hannah told her irritably.
Stevie opened her mouth to continue pressing her for an answer on what they were going to do for Hannah's birthday when they were interrupted by a familiar voice from the doorway. Hannah jumped, almost as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't be, glancing up quickly.
"DS McKay? Can I have a quick word, please?"
Stevie chuckled softly, looking down at her keyboard as Jo's voice carried across CID. "Oh, look out… someone's in trouble!"
"Shut up." Hannah muttered, standing up and making her way towards her fiancée. She shot Jo a quick smile, confusion appearing on her face as the older woman led the way into the toilets and checked they were alone. "Not that I'm complaining at all, but is this what I think it is?"
"No, almost definitely not." Jo arched an eyebrow at her.
"Shame…"
"Hannah… Jack told me you requested to be taken off the Jasmine Harris case." The brunette said softly. "He said you told him you didn't think you could handle it."
"What? Has Jack sent you to talk me round?" Her partner muttered defensively.
"Not exactly, but I'm pretty sure he was hoping I might be able to. That's not why I'm here, though. I'm here because it's not like you to ask to be taken off a case – whatever it is – and that's worried me."
Exhaling sharply, the redhead turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. "I don't know if I would be able to approach this case objectively. It's too close to home and I don't know… I don't know if I can handle it."
"Hannah?"
"You go back a couple of years and Jasmine Harris and I could have been the same person; the gangs, the attitude, the complete lack of anything resembling a future."
"Twenty-odd years ago, yeah." Jo nodded in agreement, shrugging. "That's not you anymore, is it? You've worked so hard to–"
"That's my point." Her fiancée turned and fixed her with a hard look. "I have worked hard to leave all that behind. I don't want to jeopardise–"
"You're not going to jeopardise anything. Hannah, love, please listen to me." Moving closer, the brunette put one hand on the redhead's waist and the other under her chin, gently urging her to look up and meet her eyes. "Do you realise how strong you've got to be to get to where you are from where you're from? Have any of our colleagues – myself included – gone through everything you've faced?" Jo smiled at her, pride and affection in her eyes. "You're so quick to put yourself down, to talk about the things that you've done wrong, to think you can't… but you're the only one who truly understands the situation that girl is in."
"Maybe I'm being selfish, but I don't want to put myself in a situation where I have to remember what it was like back then. I don't want to remind myself of how it felt or what I had to do. I don't think I can…"
"You don't need to, babe." Jo assured her gently. "No one is asking you to. None of us would ever want to do that. But you're the only one with any insight into this. You're more than strong enough to be involved with this case, Han."
"You think I should, don't you?"
The brunette sighed, raising both hands to cup her face. "I can't tell you what to do and I know how hard this will be. But I honestly think you should at least consider getting involved in this case, love. Think about Jasmine… forget everything else and we're left with a teenage girl with nothing and no one who, if Max gets his way, is going to be thrown to the lions so that we can get a result."
"I'll think about it." Hannah conceded, sighing deeply. She smiled weakly, nuzzling her nose against Jo's. "I love you."
"I love you." Her fiancée repeated, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips.
Hannah did her best to tune out the conversation going on around her. She couldn't quite manage it, though, hearing the answerphone message Jasmine Harris had left the murdered boy and Max and Mickey sniping at each other as they discussed the best way to play the situation. She scoffed silently as DS Carter suggested nicking Jasmine Harris again, knowing that Mickey was completely right in his view that the teenage girl would still keep her mouth shut about who was behind the attack, whatever they threw at her.
"Jasmine said that this was all over a girl." Smithy reminded them, cutting in as the argument became heated.
"This is not about just another girl." Mickey argued dismissively.
"How d'you know?"
"Because them girls have sod all value in their world. They get passed about like free newspapers."
"Mickey's right." Hannah agreed suddenly, standing up and moving to lean against the desk beside her partner. She folded her arms and shook her head. "This isn't about a girl and you're not going to get anything out of Jasmine Harris like this."
"Right and you're the expert in these matters, I forgot." Max snapped sarcastically.
"Yeah, I am." She reminded him quietly. "I've been where Jasmine is. I've got the record and the scars and the daughter to prove it." Jo shifted slightly beside her, placing her hand comfortingly on the small of her fiancée's back as she spoke, her thumb rubbing soothingly backwards and forwards over the small strip of exposed skin beneath the bottom of her t-shirt. "You try and force Jasmine to give you the names and she'll shut down. Charging her with something won't have any effect because she's just collateral damage… there won't be any shockwave effect or sudden desire to tell us what really happened. No one out there will care what happens to her because she's just a link. All you'll be doing is punishing a vulnerable, damaged young girl who already thinks she doesn't have any sort of future worth fighting for."
"So, is that where we think Jasmine's at now? She's a link?" Neil asked, sending Hannah a quick nod.
"Probably," Mickey agreed, "it looks like they've used Jasmine to get to Liam."
"So you think it's business?" Banksy asked, looking between his colleagues. "Liam messed up or he nicked money?"
The DI turned back to the board, pointing at the mug shots. "Well that would take us right back to Wilson and Miller."
"Well the only piece of evidence we've got to connect them is the CCTV of somebody giving a bag to Liam." Jack pointed out.
"Yeah, Carlos Miller."
"Well, it'd be good to have something more positive, but I think we've waited long enough." The Superintendent told them, looking around and nodding determinedly. "Let's get out a warrant and turn his place over."
"We've got the housing list; Carlos Miller lives with his mother and his grandmother."
"I don't think we can discount the idea that Jasmine's in this way deeper than she's letting on." Max announced, pushing the point and glancing between the others with something like contempt in his expression. "I know Mickey and Hannah have their thoughts, but this whole thing could be about Jasmine."
"So you think we should have another crack at Jasmine?" Neil asked, looking to Jack for his feelings on the matter.
He glanced briefly at Hannah before nodding. "Yeah."
As Max, Jack and Neil left the room, Hannah and Mickey exchanged a look. Jo leant into her fiancée's side, nudging her gently with her shoulder. Hannah couldn't deny that she'd been grateful for the reassuring warmth of the brunette's hand on her back throughout the conversation, drawing strength from the contact.
"Well done."
"It had no effect though, did it?" Hannah muttered. "They're still going after Jasmine."
"We can't rule anything out at this stage, Han. You both know that."
Mickey shrugged. "I still don't buy it."
"No, maybe not." Jo shrugged. "But even if there is something she's hiding it doesn't mean she's done anything wrong, does it?"
