Okay, kids, this is another long one. Herein our gang of top-notch investigators actually investigates something. I am shameless, and your reviews make me post faster.

Chapter Four: Fortune Cookies II

Week Three: It Ain't Over 'til It's Over

1.

He has to wake her up to eat, so he brings their plates and salad bowls to the sofa and settles beside her.

"I wonder what Hartwright knows, or thinks he knows," she muses, taking her first bite of salad.

"He worked the Bracknell fraud job in the winter and early spring of '79," Gerry responds instantly, apparently channeling Brian. "He was a junior detective at the time, and I was his sergeant."

She drops her fork with a ringing clatter. "You weren't in the fraud squad."

"I was for my sins," he replies gloomily. "Six months, from November of '78 through the CredEx job. That's why I was seconded in as soon as they suspected Bracknell. Fraud squad," he sneers. "Worst six months of my career, with that lot of ponces. Hartwright's a complete prat; watch out for him."

Sandra has put her bowl down and is glaring at Gerry. She obviously thinks he's the complete prat, or something much worse. "And despite the fact that you spent six months investigating Bracknell for fraud, you saw no reason to mention this to me or Brian or Jack? Gerry, Christ!" She grabs her fork up and thrusts it at him. He's glad it's not a pitchfork. "Or did you tell Brian and Jack? Is this another one of those charming just-us-lads, don't-tell-the-gov –"

She jumps to her feet and he rescues the lasagna. "No. But it's not a state secret, Sandra. You already know what the fraud lads turned up: bugger all. Bracknell was dirty as hell, but his sodding hands were clean." He neatly places her plate on the coffee table and pours more wine into her glass. She's going to need it. "All we got was months of totally bleedin' useless surveillance and wire tape. Would you like to know the name of Bracknell's tailor, or how much he lost on a daily basis down the track? I can tell you. But as far as who planned the robbery, or who killed Ready Eddie, I know fuck all, just like I did thirty years ago."

"Then what the hell does Hartwright want? Have you talked with him?" she demands.

"No, Sandra, I haven't, because not only was I his superior at the time, so there's no way he knows anything more than I know, but he's a tosser, as you will discover for yourself tomorrow morning." He runs his fingers through his hair. This is not going well, and the worst is yet to come.

"I can't believe this." Hands on her hips, she slices into Gerry with the kind of totally infuriated glare he hasn't seen in quite a while. "Gerry, if there is anything else you've been keeping back, no matter how trivial, you'd better tell me right bloody now, or you'll never get within a hundred yards of UCOS ever again."

Shit. He's not even going to get his grace period until tomorrow morning. He'd hoped he could go with her to question SuSu Collins, and prove to Sandra that he was doing his damnedest to track down Claudia Bracknell, no matter how bad the result might make him look – before Sandra talked to Hartwright. That obviously isn't going to happen, because he's going to have to tell her himself.

"It's not on my record," he begins, and she swears so violently that he's sure the neighbours must hear.

"Just wait," he interrupts. "Did you stop to ask yourself why I would've been recruited to the fraud squad? Me?"

"Takes one to know one?" she retorts nastily.

"Thank you, Sandra." He runs his fingers through his hair again and seizes his own wine glass, taking an undignified gulp before continuing. "Carole's from Crouch End."

Sandra rubs at her forehead, straining for some degree of calm. "Carole knew Eddie Bracknell."

"Not Eddie; Claudia."

"You were put on the fraud squad because in '78 you were married to Carole, who knew Claudia Bracknell." Sandra considers this and nods once. "Mhmm. So shagging Claudia fell within your remit, did it?"

He stares at her, feeling as if he's aged ten years in fifteen seconds, but says nothing.

"God, you're disgusting – and predictable." She shoves her hands into her pockets and stalks around the room. Her skin is hot with anger, and her headache rushes back full force. "I don't suppose your D.I. actually told you to screw Bracknell's wife – but then, it was the Met in the seventies, so maybe you got lucky." She's so angry that her straining voice actually trembles a little. "Even luckier than my sainted father."

He winces, and Sandra realizes that the thought has occurred to him; that, indeed, it's at least part of the reason he has kept this information to himself. This should not have anything to do with her. "Shit," she snaps, just for good measure. "This is what Hartwright wants to tell me?"

"He doesn't have any proof," Gerry replies miserably. "That, and he thinks I took a backhander."

"Oh, well, fabulous!" She throws her hands up. "You tell me exactly what happened, and if you leave out the tiniest detail, I will personally run you out of the Met, and I'll make the send-off you got last time look like a ticker-tape parade." She stops in front of Gerry, looming over him, and brings her face so close to his that he can feel her hot breath. "And if this can be construed as having any bearing on our case, I'll do it anyway. So start talking." Sandra leans back on her heel, folds her arms, and stares him down.

"I'd only met Claudia once when fraud brought me in," he begins hollowly. "At mine and Carole's wedding, for about two minutes. But in the late seventies, everyone in the Met was gunning for Bracknell, and when Superintendent Nesbitt found out Carole and Claudia had been school friends, he thought I was somehow going to be able to crack the case wide open and punch his ticket to Chief Super."

Sandra is doing her best to listen dispassionately, but a muscle in her jaw refuses to stop twitching. "That sounds about right," she grinds out. "Go on. Impress me."

To his credit, he meets her eyes steadily. "Carole, Claudia, and Susan Collins were inseparable when they were girls, but Carole lost touch with both of them when Claudia hooked up with Bracknell. Our wedding was the first time they'd seen each other in something like seven years. But Nesbitt had the bright idea that she and I start dropping by, and that after I while I should pop in alone."

"Obviously they both knew you were Old Bill," Sandra says, and at least she's no longer a mottled crimson. "And every week there was a new story in all the dailies about police corruption. So Nesbitt wanted Bracknell to think he could buy you."

"Yeah, but Bracknell didn't want to know, did he? He was such a cocky bastard that he seemed to like havin' me around, though, and I thought I could get something out of Claudia."

Her smile is completely without humour. "Which you did."

"But nothing that helped with either investigation then, and nothing that helps with ours. Or at least that's what I thought, until I found Susan Collins." Gerry stands, tired of letting Sandra tower over him. "Twenty to one, Claudia Bracknell is very much alive, she knows what happened to Eddie, and her best friend knows what happened to her."

"Oh, that's a spot of good detective work," Sandra snarls, "and if you'd bothered to share this information a week ago, you could've saved us all a lot of wasted time – and yourself a lot of pain."

"I've been looking for Susan, Sandra. Brian can tell you that. It was no easy job of work – she changed her name and vanished without a trace."

She doesn't respond.

"I want to go with you to talk to her."

"You're damn lucky I'm not sacking you right now," she returns. "So I wouldn't press my bloody luck if I were you." She stalks toward the door. "Don't bother coming in tomorrow. In fact, I haven't decided yet if you'll ever need to bother coming in again."

Against his better judgment he follows her to the door – not to ask if she'd like a take-away container. He grabs her arm. "Sandra –"

"Don't touch me." Her fury has gone cold, icy. "You have really bottled this."

Gerry is certain she means both the investigation and their relationship. "I was a total shit back then," he says, his grip loosening, but not releasing her. "I'm not proud of it, but you already know what I was like. And no matter what that arsehole Hartwright tells you, I was never bent, and I never took a bung off anybody." His fingers unclench, and she has been exerting so much counter force that she staggers backward into the corridor. "You know that too."

"Maybe not," she retorts, "but you're still a total shit. Christ, I marked your cards eight years ago. I don't know why I thought you could grow up at this late stage."

"Sandra –"

"Just stay away," she says flatly, turning on her heel. "From UCOS and certainly from me."

2.

Brian is sitting at his desk eating a breakfast of cold lo-mein from a take-away container when his governor enters the office. It doesn't exactly tax her powers of deduction to conclude that he hasn't stirred all night.

"Morning, Sandra."

"Does Esther know where you are?" she replies, slipping off her coat.

He nods distractedly. "I've been going through the files. I went back to Claudia Bracknell again. If she's alive, she can't just have disappeared. If she's dead, ditto. I've been looking for some detail, some clue."

"Find anything?" She smoothes her long black sweater over her hips and begins to measure out the coffee.

He hesitates. "Probably not, but – there is something you should know."

The look on his face tells her what's coming, and she reflects that it's just as well. Jack will have to be told too. "Go on," he says.

"Claudia was friends at school with a girl called Carole Montgomery, now –"

"Carole Standing," she supplies. "I know." She splashes milk into her mug, and at Brian's enquiring look explains, "Gerry told me last night. He's found Susan Collins, the other member of their merry trio. I have an appointment with her at half ten." Sandra crosses to Brian's desk and looks down at the top of his head. "Brian, where does Gerry's file say he was in the spring of '79?"

"Serious crime," he responds immediately, "Hampton Row; on attachment to the flight squad as of May third, to investigate the CredEx robbery."

Her hair shimmers under the fluorescent lights as she nods once and blows out a deep breath. "He was undercover with the fraud squad, actually."

Brian's eyebrows rise. "Eddie Bracknell."

"Eddie Bracknell," she confirms.

"What, his governor wanted him to use Carole's relationship with the wife to –"

"Exactly. Gerry got to know Claudia extremely well, being Gerry, but claims not to have extracted anything useful." She is pleased to hear the even tenor of her voice. "I have to make a call," she says, heading toward her own office. "For obvious reasons, Gerry won't be in today. Where's Jack?"

"On inquiries." Again Brian hesitates. "With Gerry. They've already been and gone."

3.

As she drives toward Acton, Sandra replays her conversation with Walter Hartwright.

"When I heard UCOS was re-investigating Bracknell and you had Gerry Standing on the job, I thought you were taking the piss," he said. "That's like having a fat kid investigate a robbery at a candy shop, innit?"

Hartwright's narrative amounted to what Gerry had led Sandra to expect, although he somewhat confusingly used the relationship Gerry had had with Claudia – "givin' 'er one on the quiet," he said – as iron-clad evidence that Gerry had accepted a bung from Ready Eddie, which Sandra failed to see unless the villain had been pimping out his wife in addition to his other civic-minded activities.

"I know Gerry Standing," Hartwright had said, and Sandra interrupted.

"No, I know Gerry Standing," she'd said coolly. "And he's many things, some of them not admirable. But he isn't bent."

She'd thanked Hartwright for his time and rung off, and wondered why the hell she felt obligated to defend Gerry, especially when she was also fantasizing about gruesome ways to off him.

From the passenger seat Brian informs her, "Lloyd Munson had a Swiss bank account. At the time of his death in 1981 it still contained nearly half a million pounds."

She smiles for the first time in what feels like days. "Definitely our third man," she says. "Tell me more."

"The account was opened in January of '79. On 3rd May Munroe deposited two million, three hundred thousand quid; on the tenth, he withdrew slightly more than half that amount."

Sandra looks in the rearview mirror as she passes an unbearably slow Vauxhall belching exhaust. "Splitting the take," she suggests. "With Claudia Bracknell, for instance."

"Over a million pounds would make it much easier for her to disappear."

"Let's just hope she shared her secret with her bosom buddy Susan Collins."

Detective Superintendent Pullman is all cool, polished politeness and even teeth as she and Brian sit in the study of a tremendously large house in Acton. It's a newish construction, too much marble, too many windows. Susan Hampton, nee Collins, is several years older than Sandra, big-boned and brassy. Her East End accent is marked. Questioning her is like speaking to a female Gerry. She has agreed to talk to the police, but obviously doesn't intend to say anything. No, luv, she 'asn't seen Claudia since 1979. No, she doesn't remember exactly what day, but it was April, not May. No, she 'asn't 'eard from 'er. The money she came into was an inheritance; it had nothing to do with her old school friend. If they want to know where Claudia is, why don't they just ask their friend Gerry? Et cetera, et cetera.

Sandra looks completely unruffled as she says, "I'm sure we'll be in touch, Ms Collins. Thank you for your time." Brian can read the irritation in her eyes, though.

"Bloody woman," she mutters as they cross the bricked drive to Sandra's car. "She didn't utter a single true word, did she? Maybe she was involved in the robbery instead of Claudia."

"She hardly struck me as a criminal mastermind."

"Fair point." As she opens the car door, her mobile goes. "Jack, where the hell are you? Is Gerry with you?" she demands.

In response the older many says, "We've found something you should see."

On the way to meet Jack and Gerry, Sandra drops Brian off. He's eager to dive into the type of detective work he loves most, as Sandra wants him to learn anything he can about Susan Hampton. "After you've figured out how she really made her fortune, find out if she has any –"

"Children? Particularly, say, an adopted daughter now aged forty?"

She blinks. "Yeah, Sherlock," she says. "Go to it."

Gerry is standing outside the Victorian terrace house, smoking a cigarette. If she can judge by the pile of fag ends around his loafers, it isn't his first.

"Where's Jack?"

"Inside."

"I'm tempted to suspend you without pay right now for disobeying a direct order, so I hope you've turned up something good."

"Look, I'm sorry, gov. But you can't shut me out of this investigation. If you do, I can't prove myself, and you and Brian and Jack won't ever trust me again."

Sandra's first impulse is to tell him to sod off, but that's anger. She huffs out a shallow breath. "What are we doing here?"

"Carole lives on the first floor. She has something to show you."

As they plod up the stairs Gerry mutters, "I know I deserve whatever I've got coming to me, but she's got the piss scared out of her, yeah?" He steps aside to let Sandra precede him into the flat, and she shoots him a hostile look that he has no trouble reading. You think I'd take pleasure in torturing your ex-wife? As if she didn't suffer enough whilst she was married to you.

Carole and Jack are sitting on the plush blue sofa, but she jumps up the instant Sandra appears. "Am I going to be arrested?" she demands, her eyes huge.

Sandra manages a very slight smile. "I highly doubt that, Carole, but you do need to tell me everything you know about Eddie and Claudia Bracknell."

"I don't know anything about Eddie, except what I read in the papers." She links her long, thin fingers together and gestures for Sandra to sit in an overstuffed armchair opposite her.

"Claudia, then."

Carole darts an anxious look at her ex-husband, who nods encouragingly. "I knew Claudia at school. There were three of us who went about together: Claudia, SuSu Collins, and me. Just after we finished Claudia met Eddie and, well, everyone knew he was a villain, even then. He was a little too flash, you know? A lot too flash, actually. So we lost touch, the way you do."

"She came to your wedding," Sandra puts in, her voice a low, neutral murmur.

Carole frowns. "We were friends for fifteen years," she says, a hostile edge creeping into her voice. "She and Eddie came, yes. So a few years later, when the CID were investigating Eddie –" She breaks off and darts a sidelong look at Gerry.

"She knows that bit," he mutters, looking ashamed of himself, but at least able to spare Carole the need to recite the gory details of his infidelity.

"How many times did you see the Bracknells during that period?"

The other woman considers. "About four, I guess? The first was around Christmas. Then Claudia invited us round for dinner toward the end of January, I think, and we saw them a couple of times in the spring for drinks." Carole's expression tightens and grows increasingly grim, and Sandra knows she's remembering a series of painful episodes.

"All right," she says softly. Unfortunately sparing people's feelings is not part of the detective superintendent's job description. "Carole, I have to ask you: after you found out about Claudia and Gerry, did you confront her?"

Carole bites her lower lip and carefully avoids looking in her ex-husband's direction. "I didn't want to go to the house," she says quietly, "because of the surveillance, so I rang up and asked her to meet me in Hyde Park. Claudia was – very calm. She didn't bother denying it, but…"

Sandra leans forward. "But?"

Carole's expression is searching, as if she hopes Sandra, as a woman, will understand. "She said she was truly sorry, but she'd had her reasons, and I shouldn't worry. She seemed so sincere. She just kept telling me over and over not to worry, because she cared too much about me and Gerry to hurt us. It was strange. And then before she left she hugged me and told me I'd always been a true friend. So when the robbery took place just a couple of weeks later, and both she and Eddie went missing…"

"You assumed, like everyone else, that they'd been planning to disappear." Sandra leans back. "And you didn't tell Gerry. Technically you withheld information, but at the distance of this many years I don't –"

"Show her the postcard," Jack interrupts.

Carole rises, walks over to the floor to ceiling bookshelves lining the entire wall, and extracts a discoloured envelope. From it she removes a postcard, which she hands to Sandra. The photograph, which has the washed-out colorization characteristic of mass-produced images from the early 80s, depicts a seaside Spanish resort town. Sandra flips it over quickly. The card is addressed to both Carole and Gerry, and contains only a brief scrawled message:

We're safe. I'm sorry for everything.

Love, Claudia

The postmark is Barcelona, dated from the summer of 1982.

"Do you recognize the handwriting?"

Carole nods quickly. "Oh, it's Claudia's. By the time this arrived, Gerry had already moved out, and I – I didn't want to rake up the past, so I never told him." She bites her lip again. "Am I in trouble?"

Sandra sighs.

"No," Jack reassures softly. "But this may help us determine what really happened to Claudia Bracknell."

"We should get it to forensics," says Gerry. "Have them check the saliva on the stamp for DNA."

"Get that postmark analysed, too," Sandra adds quietly, getting to her feet. Suddenly she feels extremely tired – maybe because she was too tired to sleep last night, despite her exhaustion. Her eyes meet Carole's. "Did you ever meet, or did Claudia mention, Lloyd Munson?"

Carole shakes her head and absently reaches up to touch her curls. "Is Gerry in trouble?" she whispers after checking that he and Jack are out of earshot.

Sandra's eyes narrow. What is it with women he's screwed over rushing to Gerry's defense? "Leave Gerry to me."

Sandra gets into her car and drives away without a word to the other two. She's royally pissed off, yes, but she's also perplexed. UCOS has had this sodding case for nearly three weeks. Why didn't Gerry just tell them about Carole and Claudia? They could've talked to Carole and gotten confirmation that Claudia was alive, or had at least outlived her husband, long before this point. Sandra could cheerfully throttle him.

At least you didn't spend the night last night, she thinks, and then her forehead crinkles with her scowl. That has nothing to do with this.

Jack is alone in the office, and begins speaking to her the instant she walks through the door, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. "Gerry had no reason to think Carole might've heard from Claudia," he says, fixing her with the firm, no-nonsense gaze that always worked when he was her boss. "Quite the contrary, considering he never knew until today that Carole had learned about their affair. Like everyone else, Gerry's spent thirty years thinking Claudia was living a life of luxury with her dear husband."

"He still dropped a bullock," Sandra replies tightly, hanging up her black coat. "He should've told us everything at the beginning of this investigation."

"Quite," Jack agrees calmly, folding his hands together. "But without him we wouldn't have Susan Collins and we wouldn't have the postcard."

"I should bloody sack him, Jack," she grinds out, slamming her mug down next to the kettle.

"So sack him." Jack's voice contains a hint of challenge. "Then what?"

Speak of the devil. Gerry enters, looks apprehensively at Sandra, and crosses to his desk. "I put a rush on the postcard, so with luck we should have it back by the end of the week." He cautiously meets the gov's eyes. "I didn't know, all right? I screwed up, but I didn't know Carole had found out about me and Claudia, and I had no idea about the postcard."

"Oh, and you just didn't think it warranted a mention that at the time they both disappeared, you were getting a leg over our murder victim's wife, did you?" she returns frigidly. "Christ, Gerry, what is wrong with you? You're well too old still to have your brain in your dick."

"Sandra," Jack cuts in quietly, but she and Gerry ignore his attempt to intercede.

Gerry's jaw is rigid. "You're right," he says evenly. "And you were right before, too: Nesbitt never told me to shag Claudia, but yeah, he knew what I was like, and he definitely didn't discourage me. You think it was top secret if Hartwright knew? So when the whole thing went tits up, Nesbitt and I looked like a pair of pillocks, and we kept it quiet. Claudia lettin' me give 'er one looked to us like it fit right in with Bracknell's plan. It was vintage Ready Eddy: let the filth think they're putting one over him, and all the time he's laughin' in his sleeve." The more upset he becomes, the further east his pronunciation creeps. "You'll 'ave my resignation by the end of the day."

Sandra closes her eyes, fighting for calm. "No," she says. "Enough with the adolescent dramatics. Just go home, Gerry, and bloody well stay there this time –" He begins to protest, but she holds her hand up, palm out. "At least until we get the postcard back from forensics. Then we'll reevaluate the situation."

Gerry looks at her and she looks back, so for a moment they're engaged in a silent staring contest.

"Go home," Sandra repeats in a lower voice. "And don't let me see or hear from you until next week."