SIX – Ancient History

Grace isn't generally given to such fanciful notions, but there is something very definitely feline about Jess Worrall. Something cat-like not just in the way she looks or in the way she moves, but in the intelligent, predatory intensity of her gaze. Bold, feline and just a touch unsettling. It's not difficult to understand Boyd's past interest in her – there is undeniably something about Jess, a bold fearlessness and an abrasive sort of sparkiness, that Grace knows without question would have piqued his interest from the very first meeting. Her age, too, no doubt; the significant age-gap is more than evident, but that doesn't surprise her – after all, Erin Jackson was just thirty-six when she died. The jarring thought brings Grace's attention firmly back to the matter in hand, brings her gaze back to the large unopened envelope lying on the kitchen counter.

Jess puts down the mug of coffee she has been indifferently sipping from. "Do you want my opinion?"

"Of course," Grace says, surprised by the question. "A fresh perspective can sometimes make all the difference, you know that."

"There's something… off… about Fuller's statement. It says everything it needs to say, but absolutely nothing else. It reads exactly like a layman would expect a statement given to the police to read. Take a look."

Grace picks up the envelope. Its weight immediately tells her that it contains far more than just Mark Fuller's statement. She doesn't bother asking for details, merely tears it open and empties the contents onto the tired work surface where so many meals have been prepared. Amongst the blurrily-photocopied pages she finds extracts from the original crime scene report, a grim précis of Erin's post mortem and a raft of miscellaneous associated forms, statements and emails. She looks up questioningly. Jess raises her eyebrows and says nothing. Locating Fuller's statement amongst the disordered papers, Grace puts on her glasses and starts to read. It doesn't take her long to conclude that Jess is right – the statement is clear and informative, but it noticeably lacks both colour and context. There are none of the small, irrelevant details she would usually expect to find in such an account.

"Surprise, surprise," she says dryly when she reaches the end of the second page, "everything he says fits seamlessly with all the evidence."

"Astonishing, isn't it?" Jess responds with undisguised derision. "Kevin's been remarkably lucky. In all the years I spent conducting interviews and taking statements I don't think I ever encountered someone with such an astonishingly clear and concise recall of every single useful detail of what should have been a completely ordinary and uneventful morning. He even conveniently remembers checking his watch just before going into the newsagents."

Grace sighs heavily. "But the fact that it's all a little too perfect doesn't prove anything, does it?"

"Not a damn thing." Jess picks up her coffee again, moves to sit at the small kitchen table. "Suspicious, though, isn't it?"

"Highly." Grace nods soberly. "And if there wasn't clear corroborating evidence, I'd be asking myself whether he religiously learnt the whole thing off by heart or merely rehearsed it in his head until Grant's team came knocking at the door."

"Take a look at the witness statement from the girl who was serving behind the counter in the newsagents."

Frowning, Grace locates the relevant page and does so. It's brief, but in its irrelevant details and slightly meandering tone it reads far more believably than Fuller's precise and near-flawless statement. She looks at Jess, wondering if there is something specific she should have noticed. "And?"

"She doesn't usually work there, she's just filling in for the owner's daughter who's on holiday," Jess informs her. "She'd never seen Fuller in the shop before – as far as she can remember – but she was immediately able to identify him from a photograph because she clearly remembered how angry and indignant he was about nearly being hit by a delivery van that had jumped the lights up the road."

"So…?"

The tone employed for the reply is heavily sardonic. "It's funny, isn't it, how he can distinctly recall glancing at his watch as he reached the newsagents – but apparently doesn't remember almost being run down while trying to cross the road just moments before?"

Grace stares at the younger woman for a moment, her mind racing. The glaring omission is a clear oddity given the detail and clarity of the rest of Fuller's statement about his movements on the morning Erin was murdered. She asks the obvious question: "It was definitely Fuller the girl identified? She was shown the right photograph by Grant's team?"

Jess nods. "Oh yeah. Kevin confirmed that as I was driving over to see you. Besides, he's a good copper – a very good copper – and he wouldn't have allowed anyone to make such an elementary mistake. No, she definitely identified Mark Fuller as the man who came into the shop ranting and raving just after seven."

A heavy pall of despondency is settling over Grace. "So if she's telling the truth – "

"Which I think we can safely say that she is."

" – then our forensics expert is right: the CCTV footage is right and hasn't been tampered with. Fuller was in Dagenham when Erin was murdered."

"Was he." The words are not delivered as a question.

Grace begins to leaf absently through the papers, but she is barely seeing them. Once again, she is running everything that is known about that morning through her mind, searching for something – anything – that they may all have missed. It's as fruitless a task now as it's ever been. However much she wants the truth to be different, the facts remain immutable. Musing aloud, she says, "So, at around seven the neighbours hear a disturbance, at half-past the cleaning woman goes in – why so early?"

The answer is prompt. "She's a foreign student. Does a couple of hours cleaning every morning before college. She'd been doing an hour twice a week at Erin's for the last six months. She was going straight to another flat as soon as she finished there."

Makes sense. "All right. So at seven-thirty she finds Erin dead on the bed and immediately calls the police. At almost exactly the same time Boyd is calling me from Camden Lock and Fuller is in Dagenham."

"It all fits together very neatly, doesn't it?"

It does – but Grace isn't ready to concede. Not to Jess Worrall, not to anyone. Finally joining her at the table she stubbornly says, "But we know Boyd didn't kill her."

"Yes we do," Jess replies. Her gaze is steady and intense. "Why?"

Grace considers the question carefully but eventually has to simply say, "Because we know him. He could no more rape and murder a defenceless young woman than he could fly to the moon. He just doesn't have it in him."

"Good luck trying to sell that to a barrister as a viable defence." The younger woman is silent for several long moments before abruptly asking, "So how is he?"

It's the first time Jess has shown any personal interest in her ex-partner. Grace doubts it's an accidental oversight. She is beginning to suspect that whatever happened between Boyd and Jess all those years ago might not have been as fully resolved during the latter half of the Katherine Reed re-investigation as Boyd has always implied. Not that he's ever had very much to say on the matter, despite some deliberate needling that, in hindsight, Grace isn't particularly proud of. She deliberately keeps her reply neutral. "Boyd? Bearing up, I suppose. I don't think he quite believes any of this is actually happening to him."

"Seems rather… uncharacteristic. The whole one-night-stand thing." It sounds casual, but the cat-like eyes are sharp as they search for answers.

Grace is more than a little surprised by the assessment. "Really?"

"Serial monogamist," Jess says laconically, but she must read something a little sceptical in Grace's expression because she laughs softly. "Oh, I see. He's the arch-philanderer and I'm the Wicked Witch of the West who broke up the happy home, am I right? Except that it was nothing like that."

"None of my business," Grace tells her stoically. It's an effort not to betray her burning curiosity by leaning fractionally towards the younger woman. There's so much she wants to know about Boyd's life prior to their first meeting but she's well-aware that her reasons are far from professional. She won't ask all the questions that are tumbling restlessly through her mind, however much she wants to.

"No?" Jess regards her intently. "I was a DS at Hammersmith. My DI was injured on duty and since we were in the middle of a murder investigation Boyd was hurriedly brought in as a temporary replacement. We got on. Rather well, as it happens."

"You don't have to explain anything to me," Grace tells her. But she wants to know. Oh, yes, she wants to know.

Jess regards her impassively, but there's a telling shrewdness in her gaze that suggests she sees more than Grace is entirely comfortable with. She says, "What tends to get omitted from the story is that Mary had walked out on him months before – just after their son was sent to Feltham on a DTO, in fact." She chuckles briefly and bitterly. "I say 'walked out' but a more accurate description might be 'ran off to Harlow with another man'. But, hey, salacious gossip is always far more fun and much more interesting than the boring truth, eh?"

There's more than a touch of defensive hostility in the other woman's voice. Entirely understandable if her version of the story is the truth and for years she has been unfairly cast in the role of heartless home-wrecker by repeated rumour and exaggeration amongst fellow officers. Grace shakes her head slowly. It's not her place to judge, whatever the true facts. "I prefer not to give too much credence to gossip."

"Good for you." Again, the intent, intelligent gaze seems to look straight into her, searching for answers. "They say you're a very good psychologist, Doctor Foley. One of the very best offender profilers the Home Office currently has at its disposal. Let me give you an imaginary scenario. A man turns up at his girlfriend's flat unexpectedly – maybe he's hoping to surprise her – but as he arrives he sees another man leaving. Understandably angry, he confronts her. They have a row and perhaps she taunts him. He loses his temper and he strangles her. When he realises what's happened, he panics and flees the scene."

After a moment, Grace shakes her head. "No. He doesn't panic."

"Because…?" Jess encourages.

"It wasn't a crime of passion," Grace says slowly. Fragments of thoughts are coalescing, creating a vivid portrait of what could possibly have happened that terrible morning. "Oh, he might have lost his temper for just a moment, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he strangled her. At some point he made a deliberate choice to kill her. It was… punishment. Revenge."

"And once she's dead?"

She can almost picture it. "He quickly tidies up after himself and leaves the flat calmly and quietly. He isn't regretting anything, but killing her wasn't premeditated. He's had no time to prepare so now he's concentrating solely on how best to alibi himself."

"So that…?"

It seems so obvious. Yet Grace knows it's nothing more than supposition. "So that the other man will take the blame for her murder. It's not just about evading arrest himself, it's punishment and revenge again."

Jess nods. For several seconds she remains silent. Just as Grace prepares to speak, she abruptly says, "Peter told you he didn't know she had a partner, didn't he?"

Grace instantly notices the sudden switch from surname to first name, but she wonders if Jess does. "He did. I assume that's more than a lucky guess?"

"He's a percentage player." Jess shrugs almost nonchalantly. "Always has been. By nature he's ruled by his heart not by his head, but he's smart enough to know he can't fight on every front simultaneously so he picks his battles and he does his best to avoid pointless shit where he can. Most notably in his personal life." A pause. "If she'd turned him down, if she'd pissed him off by suddenly saying no, he wouldn't have lost his temper over it; he would've simply quietly walked away licked his wounds in private. Plenty more fish in the sea."

"That was my first thought, too," Grace confirms.

"Fuller's guilty as sin." Jess stands up. "All you really need to do to convince Kevin of that is satisfactorily explain how a man can apparently be in two places at once."

Grace raises her eyebrows. "I do?"

"You, Boyd's team. Whatever."

"While you…?"

Jess smiles grimly and gestures at the contents of the envelope still spread across the counter. "Oh, I think I've done my bit, Doctor. Archaeology really doesn't interest me, and Boyd and I were ancient history a long time ago."

-oOo-

Once again Grace sleeps badly, jagged dreams that are too vivid twisting through her mind only to be replaced by racing thoughts whenever she stirs. She sleeps and she wakes and she sleeps again, a choppy cycle that lasts until the alarm clock by her bed starts to buzz impatiently. Rapidly silencing the unpleasant noise, she turns over onto her back and stares up at the shadowy ceiling. Another day of grinding uncertainty and intense frustration awaits her and she finds herself wondering if she can actually bear it. It's been a long time – a very long time – since Grace found herself facing the working day ahead with such a strong sense of gloomy dread. Even Boyd at his most prickly and intolerant has never left her struggling on a daily basis to summon the energy and willpower required to get on with everything that she is paid extremely well to do.

Fuller killed Erin Jackson. Of course he did. He killed her and he lied not only to cover his tracks but to ensure another man took the blame for her murder. It doesn't matter how difficult it is, or long it takes for Grace to prove it, prove it she damn well will. Because at heart she is just as stubborn as Boyd, and every bit as fierce and tenacious when it comes to defending the people she cares about. It's exactly the incentive she needs to force her from her warm, comfortable bed.

Less than an hour later she is on the verge of leaving the house when the telephone in the hall starts to ring. Early-morning weekday calls are rarely unimportant. She answers quickly. "Grace Foley."

Stella's hushed voice says, "Marshall knows you've been talking to DI Grant."

She frowns. "Of course he does, he knows I went to Camden yesterday to make a formal statement."

"No," Stella insists, "I mean, he knows you've been talking to Grant."

In her sleep-deprived state it takes a moment for comprehension to fully dawn. When it does, it's the very last thing Grace wants to deal with. "How the hell…?"

"No idea, but he's already given Spence a bollocking for getting involved. I thought I'd better warn you."

"Thanks, Stella. I'll be there in half an hour or so." Ending the call, Grace leaves the house briskly, a renewed energy and resilience coursing through her. If years of working with Peter Boyd have taught her anything, it's that conflict isn't only potentially addictive – it can be intensely therapeutic, too. But while conflict with Boyd might have largely become something of a traditional and entertaining sport, with Marshall she's quite happy for it to develop into open warfare.

-oOo-