The station was subdued when Sam got back. Obviously the news had filtered through about the discovery of a child's body and everyone seemed in shock. Search teams were still being sent out, the phone lines were still open, but there was a sense of futility that she hated. The only reason she'd come back was to pick up her bag but she didn't get as far as her office. Instead, a recollection of what had happened to that poor dead girl flickered through her mind and she rushed for the bathroom. There was barely anything to come up, though she leaned against the door for endless minutes trying to clear her head enough to drive while tears threatened her eyelids.
When she unlocked the door, she went to the sink to wash her hands and face. Instead of grabbing a paper towel, though, she looked at her reflection in the mirror, wondered what she must've looked like to Eva an hour ago. The sort of woman you'd put your trust in to find your daughter? What a colossal mistake that had been.
The door opened but her brain didn't pick up on the noise right away. Finally blinking, she caught sight of Sheelagh Murphy, out of her uniform now and with her hair loose around her shoulders, stood there watching her. Although she'd only been in Sun Hill for two days, Sam seemed to have seen her in every corridor already – she'd thrown herself completely into her work, becoming like part of the furniture.
'Are you okay, Ma'am?' Sheelagh asked quietly.
The caring tone brought fresh tears to her eyes. To mask them, she ducked her face back down and saturated it in cold water. When she lifted her head again, Sheelagh was beside her, tugging a few paper towels loose and handing them over.
'Thanks,' Sam murmured, dabbing at her cheeks with her eyes averted. 'Sorry.'
'Don't apologise,' answered Sheelagh. 'You're only human, you know.'
She snorted. 'That's still up for debate. You ought to pay a bit more attention to the gossips, Sheelagh.'
'I like to make up my own mind,' was the response.
Sam glanced back to the blue eyes studying her in the mirror, still uncertain of the kindness there. 'Look at you,' she said, trying to inject a little more authority into her tone, 'we'll have to start charging you rent if you don't go home soon.'
Sheelagh's gaze was unwavering. 'Samantha –'
'Sam,' she interrupted, surprising herself. She hated people shortening her name sometimes, she hated the presumption of it, but 'Samantha' sounded far too formal for this moment with this woman she barely knew.
'Sam,' repeated Sheelagh with a small smile, placing a hand on her shoulder, 'I've been watching you hold it together. You've done a pretty good job but you can't keep it all in, you know. You have to let it out at some point. It'll be our little secret,' she added.
The words shivered through her. Scrunching the paper towels she was still holding up into a rigid ball, she turned from the mirror and settled with her back against the sink unit. Sheelagh did the same, still watching her, but discreetly.
'I couldn't tell her, Sheelagh,' Sam said finally. 'As FLO, Jim was the family contact, but that wasn't why I left it to... I bottled out, that's it.'
'There's no shame in that,' replied Sheelagh. 'There's nothing normal about this case. I've only spent a few hours with Eva but I wouldn't have been able to break that news to her professionally, without emotion. It couldn't be done.'
'No,' she said, shaking her head, 'I've let her down. I didn't tell her about the paedophile ring because –'
'It's only a line of inquiry,' Sheelagh cut in. 'You wouldn't share that information with the parent of a missing child unless you had a concrete connection.'
Sam swallowed and crushed the paper ball further into her palm. 'Maybe I was trying to protect me.'
Sheelagh squeezed her arm. 'Well, there's no shame in that either.'
For a few seconds the only sound was the water guzzling through the pipes. Then Sam asked, 'How many kids have you got, Sheelagh?'
'Three,' she replied. 'Teenagers, two boys and a girl.'
Sam shot her an incredulous glance. 'How do you manage? I can't cope with one.'
Chuckling, Sheelagh said, 'It's not easy. But nothing worth having is.'
That gave way to another pause and Sam dipped her eyes again. There was something about this situation that felt peculiar; maybe it was just that she didn't have these conversations with colleagues, or anyone at all really. She was self-sufficient to the point that she didn't know how to talk to people normally sometimes, and she certainly wasn't used to people taking the time to interrogate her mental state. If Sheelagh was trying this on day two at Sun Hill, Sam had no idea what she'd be like after a few weeks at the station. Oddly, though, that prospect didn't make her feel as uncomfortable as she assumed it might.
Finally, she inhaled deeply and looked up, meeting Sheelagh's eye. 'You should go home,' she said.
'So should you,' Sheelagh replied seriously.
'I will, I will,' she promised, straightening up. 'I've got a couple of things to check in on then I'll go.'
With a sigh, Sheelagh turned to her. 'Come on, let me have a look at you.'
For a moment she was bemused, frowning at Sheelagh's compassionate expression. Then she realised the intention was to help her put the mask back on and a wave of gratitude washed over her. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her head up, looking directly at the sergeant, focusing on her penetrating eyes. 'Well?'
'You'll do,' Sheelagh answered. 'Have you eaten by the way?'
Sam waved away the question as she headed for the door. 'Cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate – works every time.'
'Are you a Dairy Milk or a Galaxy kind of girl?' asked Sheelagh, reaching the door first and tugging it open for her.
'Galaxy,' Sam said firmly. 'There's no comparison.'
'Woman after my own heart,' Sheelagh said. Then, with them now fully exposed in the corridor, she nodded her head. 'Night, Ma'am.'
'Night, Sheelagh,' murmured Sam, watching her until she turned a corner.
The station hummed on around her but she felt a bit detached from it all. After a moment, she shook herself into remembering the way to her office and the closer she got the more like Acting Detective Inspector Nixon she felt. By the time she walked past the incident room she was ready to ruffle a few feathers and encourage the call-handlers to take any tip seriously. There was no evidence this body was Joanna's and she sure as hell wasn't going to accept that conclusion until it was written down in black and white in front of her.
Though she spent perhaps another hour at the station, she managed to talk herself into going home for some rest. There was nothing else she could do until daylight and it might be that she'd need every drop of energy the next day. She tried not to equate that with a positive identification on the child's body, instead just telling herself that, whoever this girl was, she deserved a thorough investigation and she was going to get one if Sam had anything to do with it.
When she got home the house was quiet. The whole place was tidier than she'd expected it to be, usually that would've sparked her suspicions but tonight it merely raised a tired smile. Dumping her bag in the living room, she wandered through to the kitchen, vaguely aware that she should follow Sheelagh's unspoken advice and have something decent to eat, though she couldn't really be bothered. Then she spotted a note on the table in Abi's familiar scrawl: Fridge.
Following the instruction, she found a salad wrapped up in foil and she chuckled to herself. As she settled at the table to eat it, she wondered where Abi got these little bursts of sympathetic maturity from. They were in the middle of one of their periodic truces, brought on by Joanna's disappearance, but she didn't kid herself it'd last for long. Not for the first time, she realised that she needed to have another go at building bridges with her daughter but, for now, she'd enjoy the lull in hostilities.
Sheer exhaustion took her into a deep sleep but she woke after a few hours, foul images from the combined Joanna and paedophile inquiries jabbing into her mind. Usually, she could separate it all into strands, or at least obscure it with a stiff drink or two. She couldn't resort to that, not tonight. She owed those two girls her full attention so, eventually, she gave it up and had a shower before writing Abi a note and going into work much earlier than she was needed.
By the time it came to raiding the house of paedophile Clive Inverdale, she was alert and more than ready for it. At least getting somebody in custody made her feel like they were doing something, though she still fervently hoped that the two investigations weren't linked. It was only when she was walking through the yard with Inverdale wrapped in a blanket that she realised Sheelagh Murphy was probably going to be behind the custody desk.
It gave her a moment's pause. Last night's chat in the bathroom had helped her more than she cared to admit, but she didn't often let colleagues see her in bits like that. Part of her wondered whether Sheelagh would think less of her in the cold light of day, whether she'd mention it or just be embarrassed about it. Sam certainly felt a bit of embarrassment herself, but there was something else that she couldn't put her finger on as well.
When they got Inverdale to the desk it was indeed Sheelagh on duty. For a minute, Sam stood watching as Sheelagh booked him in. She took care to ask questions about his health which, Sam supposed, someone needed to, just so he was breathing by the time they banged him up for a long stretch. It didn't seem, though, that Sheelagh was inclined to look in her direction. Shaking off the way that made her feel, and recognising she had a lot to do, she glanced to Jack.
'Guv,' she said, 'I'll leave you to it.'
As she skimmed her eyes once more in Sheelagh's direction, the sergeant briefly met her gaze. She didn't nod or smile, it was nothing more than the courteous respect of a colleague, but she was instantly relieved. Feeling a little lighter, she headed back up to CID, only to be brought back down with a bump by finding Eva waiting in her office.
Where was the line with this? Sam dearly wished she knew. It was hard to pace back and forth in her office but she found herself doing that as Eva talked about the unidentified body and how she'd expected news all night. Reiterating that they didn't know who the girl was didn't give Eva any peace – how could it? Then she changed tack.
'You arrested someone this morning,' Eva said.
She returned to her desk, facing away. 'Well, that was for something else,' she answered.
'You, Jack and the full works,' Eva persisted, 'all for one arrest. That's – that's some arrest.' When she paused, Sam waited, staring at the wall, willing her to leave the dots unconnected. 'The paedophile ring.'
Inwardly, she cursed Eva's insider knowledge then forced herself to turn around and look her in the eye again. 'I can't tell you anymore,' she said. 'Other than to say, it's nothing to do with Joanna.'
Eva stared her out. 'And would you tell me if it was?'
She nodded. 'Mmm, course I would,' she replied, feeling the words stick in her throat, just as the news of the body discovery had stuck fast last night.
'She's dead, isn't she?' Eva asked after a moment.
'We don't know,' Sam answered, opting for at least a little honesty.
'I know,' said Eva angrily, fresh tears congregating in her eyes. 'I'm her mother. Joanna's dead.'
The look on her face was too painful to bear. Sam felt wrung out all of a sudden, as though she'd actually broken some horrific news to Eva instead of just reiterating that they had none. 'Listen,' she said firmly, 'when I've got something to say you will be the first person I talk to.' To her dismay, her voice cracked but she held Eva's gaze. 'Okay?'
It took a few minutes for both of them to put themselves back together, and she still felt a little teary as they went downstairs. Bumping into the MIT officer assigned to the dead girl's case at least gave her something new to focus on. It wasn't until she was in Jack's office talking to the woman, though, that she realised she was subconsciously doing everything she could to convince herself this girl wasn't Joanna. So when the MIT officer made an offhand comment about the dead girl being the right size for Joanna she wobbled a bit before she managed to reassert her inner belief that Eva Sharpe's daughter wasn't the victim of this vile murderer.
That got her through the explanations at the crime scene too. Somehow, she managed to bury the possibility that she was talking about the death of a colleague's daughter and took refuge in her profiling skills. The more she concentrated on that, the less she could believe this was Joanna. It was as simple as that.
Back at the station, she assisted the DCI with the interview of Tim Bowman MP, another member of the paedophile ring who, conveniently enough, had just bought a new laptop and destroyed the old one. Seeing Jack perilously close to the edge with the pervert was understandable but it unbalanced her. Then again, before her chat with Sheelagh last night she'd been heading that way herself.
She was sat in her office with a cold cup of coffee when the call came through – the body wasn't Joanna. Whoever that poor girl was, she wasn't Eva's daughter and, right now, that was the only silver lining she could see. However, when she and Brandon went to talk to Eva, she was dismayed to hear her inner fears about a future body being Joanna's echoed in Eva's words. Pressing her hand to her forehead, she felt Brandon's unease across the room.
'Look at the two of you,' Eva muttered. 'I should offer you two a shoulder to cry on.'
The flash of the old Eva made her smile briefly until she was manoeuvred into a conversation about the dead girl. Eva's desire to see the body was understandable but impossible, though Sam was forced to concede a trip to the bridge where the litle girl had been found. At the moment she was finding it difficult to deny Eva anything.
Standing, Sam said, 'The press are waiting.'
'What will you tell them?' Eva asked.
'Not as much as I've told you,' she answered.
Actually having something to tell the press made for an easier ride than usual, though she still had to stave off some ridiculous questions about Eva's state of mind from the reporter on the Canley Evening News. She was courteous enough, realising that these vultures were a necessary evil with Joanna still out there, but she still wasn't about to tell them anything they didn't need to know, and that included whether Eva and Paul were managing to sleep with their daughter missing for three days. Once she'd finished with the reporters she went in search of Jack and the MIT officer to clear Eva's visit to the bridge, though it fell to her and Brandon to actually drive her there an hour later.
Watching Eva's demeanour was painful. From the look on his face, Brandon was finding it equally as hard. They both seemed unable to tear their eyes away as she kneeled down to place some flowers on the spot where the body had been found.
'Do we have a name for her yet?' Eva questioned.
'We don't know where she came from,' Sam answered. 'We don't know who she belongs with. She's like a little girl who fell to earth.' A thought occurred to her and she murmured, 'Angel. Until we know, we'll call her Angel.'
As Eva placed the flowers down, Sam ducked her head, unable to dismiss the idea that they could be doing this for Joanna in a matter of hours. That wouldn't happen, she told herself firmly. They'd find her; they had to.
It was Eva herself who came up with their next lead, having checked her brother-in-law's alibi and found it wanting. They pulled Antony Sharpe in the next day, though he claimed he was actually having an affair and had only lied to cover it. Uniform were on their way to pick up Michelle Richards to confirm his story but, for now, he was a viable suspect, especially with a piece of Joanna's ribbon found in his house.
Until Michelle Richards arrived, Sam couldn't focus on anything else. She sat in her office for a while but the inactivity jarred so she prowled the station instead. She was lingering outside the canteen staring at the notice board when a hand touched her shoulder.
'Ma'am?' Sheelagh said softly.
Spinning around, she managed a decent half-smile. 'Morning, Sheelagh.'
Though there was a question in her eyes, she instead said, 'Michelle Richards didn't show up for work this morning. Gary and Des are trying her home address now.'
Sam massaged her neck. 'Thanks for letting me know.'
'How's Eva doing?' Sheelagh asked as she made to move.
Recognising the unspoken addition to that query, Sam replied, 'She's coping.'
'Good,' Sheelagh said. 'I'll keep you updated, Ma'am.'
Returning to her office, she managed to fire off some emails then Ken announced that Gary and Des had found Michelle and were bringing her in. That prospect fired her up again, so when it came to the interview she was already angry. Dealing with that obnoxious woman didn't do much to calm her down, nor did seeing a psychic in the corridor when she came out of the interview room. They were getting nowhere fast with the Joanna inquiry and it seemed MIT were having similar problems with identifying Angel's body. Another interview with Antony Sharpe did nothing to help, but it was when Ken interrupted that interview to give her the proof that Michelle Richards was lying that she finally exploded.
Charging back into to confront her, she was astounded by her excuses. As if anybody could be that self-absorbed. Despite the voice murmuring at the back of her head that she needed to calm down, she planted her hands on the table and glared at the woman.
'A little girl is missing,' she shouted. 'She's eight years old. Her parents are distraught and all you can think about is saving your own miserable skin.'
Shoulders heaving, she turned to Ken, aware that she was a breath away from losing it completely. He took over, telling Michelle Richards they'd let her get away with wasting police time and generally being a heartless bitch. Sam couldn't stomach one more minute looking at her selfish face and she stormed out of the interview room, unsure of where she was going but needing to put some distance between her and that woman.
Rounding a corner, she nearly slammed into someone. She was about to walk straight past when an arm came out in front of her. Blinking, she focused on the face gazing at her – it was Sheelagh Murphy, of course it was. She wasn't surprised for a second.
'Are you okay?' Sheelagh murmured. Then, when Sam let out a small chuckle, she asked, 'What?'
She shook her head, leaning against the wall. 'You're about the only person who would've dared stop me to ask me that.'
A smile flitted across Sheelagh's lips. 'I have been known to be a little blasé about my own safety,' she replied. 'Has something happened?'
Sam glanced along the corridor to make sure no one was listening before saying, 'I can't understand how somebody's sordid little affair trumps a missing eight year-old girl.' As comprehension dawned on Sheelagh's face, she continued, 'Antony Sharpe's alibi checks out and Michelle Richards has just spent hours wasting our time. Best of all, we're no closer to finding Joanna,' she concluded with a wobble in her voice.
Sighing, Sheelagh stretched her hand over then let it drop. 'Don't give up hope, Sam.'
She swallowed and tapped her head back against the wall. 'I'm trying not to,' she said. 'It's not easy.'
'I know,' answered Sheelagh. 'But, from what I've heard, you're not one to let that stand in your way.'
'You have been listening to the gossips then,' Sam said. As a couple of uniforms came in sight, she stood up straighter and pursed her lips, the anger she felt with Michelle Richards draining away.
'There's nothing wrong with listening to the good bits, you know.' Sheelagh paused. 'Is there anything I can do?'
'I wish. Thanks though.' Reaching out, Sam squeezed her arm then added, 'I'd better get back to work.'
Sheelagh nodded before carrying on around the corner without another word. Sam took a long, steadying breath then went to tell Eva that her brother-in-law was no longer a suspect and they were back to square one.
Everything blew up later that afternoon when Clive Inverdale was shot whilst in the dock at court. Sam rushed down there to survey the scene but she found herself distracted by a call from Gina, garbled for a change and explaining that a bit of purple ribbon had been found by Gemma and Reg in a derelict building. Heart hammering, she ordered the necessaries then left the DCI dealing with the shooting as she tried to get down to Gunner Street. Every light was against her and the traffic was a nightmare. By the time she arrived, Joanna was being carried off on a stretcher with no obvious signs of life. Aghast, she turned to Eva.
'Samantha...' Eva murmured. 'She's breathing, she's breathing. She's breathing.'
Pulling her into a hug, Sam felt the dam inside her break and her tears spill out at the same time as Eva's. She couldn't put into words her relief and that didn't even compare to Eva's. Whatever happened next, they'd found Joanna. They'd found her.
When she'd deposited Eva in the ambulance with her daughter, Sam returned to the building site and ordered a full search by SOCO before phoning in the good news to Jack. He wanted an immediate meeting about the Inverdale shooting so, though drained, she dragged herself back to the station, still buoyed by the fact that Joanna Sharpe was alive.
The news had certainly got around the nick. She came in through the yard, greeted by grins and compliments, though she sure as hell hadn't done anything to deserve them. Walking towards the stairs, she caught sight of Sheelagh talking to Ruby Buxton. Hearing her coming, Sheelagh glanced over and shot her a wide smile then Sam felt Jack tap her on the shoulder and she accompanied him upstairs, filling him in about Joanna before he told her about the problems with the shooting.
They ended up in her office talking about Phil Hunter's corruption. That was the next problem to be dealt with, she supposed, but for now she needed five minutes to herself. As Jack moved to leave, she crumpled into her chair and looked over her desk. Something was amiss, but she couldn't put her finger on it straight away. Then she spotted it nestled in front of the computer screen.
'Guv, did you...' She trailed off when he turned back and shook her head. 'Never mind.'
With a puzzled expression on his face, he left. Once the door clicked closed, Sam picked up the Galaxy bar and turned it over in her hands, unable to keep the grin from her face. Then she rested back in her chair and closed her eyes.
