Dixon had only just buried one colleague, and the idea of another funeral sent shivers down his spine. The bloody idiot, going off to search the barn like that. That said, it was difficult to be too cross with her because Dixon would have done exactly the same thing – probably gone on his own, come to think of it – and he could guarantee Jane would remind him of that just at the wrong moment, when he was giving Sarah a good ticking off.
That was quite something Cole had done. Pitching over backwards on to glass, both wrists exposed like that. It could so easily have gone the other way. And then firing the gun in the sure and certain knowledge Sarah would be hit as well; only four or five pellets as it turned out, but, God willing, she’d never let him forget it.
Dixon had spent ten minutes with Cole in the back of the ambulance and knew the enormity of what had happened was still to hit him. He’d be off work for a while, then there’d be counselling. Not to mention Dixon’s stag do.
‘I hope to God I’d have had the courage to do that, Nige.’
Cole had grinned, congealed blood between his teeth. ‘A good man to have by your side when the shit hits the fan.’
‘There’s nobody else, Nige,’ Dixon had replied. ‘Nobody.’
Dixon would return the favour, being by Cole’s side for the police conduct investigation.
Coincidences.
The case was riddled with them. He slid his phone out of his jacket pocket and googled the definition. He thought he knew what it meant – everybody thought they knew what it meant, but what did it really mean?
A remarkable concurrence of events without apparent causal connection.
It was hardly a coincidence that two teenagers living in the same area might meet at sixth form college. Hardly a coincidence that a brother and sister might feel some connection to each other too. It had happened before. But there were plenty of other coincidences.
He sat down on a piece of the old sea defences.
. . . apparent causal connection.
And there it was.
Assume nothing was a coincidence, and the whole sorry mess dropped into place; everything – every single thing – suddenly made sense.
Yes, Hudson had taken the chance for his revenge on Sean Rodwell, but it all boiled down to money in the end.
Sixty million quid.
Chapter Forty
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ said Jane, looking up. ‘I was going to get a taxi home.’
‘How is she?’ asked Dixon. He sat down next to her in the waiting room; empty chairs around the wall, a coffee table in the middle with a jumble of magazines.
‘I’m guessing she’s out of surgery,’ replied Jane, dropping a magazine back on the pile. ‘Someone came and got her parents, presumably to speak to the consultant.’
‘How are they doing?’ Dixon was eyeing the coffee machine, wondering whether he could face powdered crap.
‘Surprisingly’ – Jane hesitated, searching for the right word – ‘collected. She knew the risks, but was determined to be a police officer, come what may.’
‘I dropped Monty off with your parents. Rod’s looking better.’
‘He’s got to wear a thing that records his heartbeat for a couple of days, but he seems fine.’
‘You’ll be able to spend more time with him when you go on maternity leave,’ said Dixon, idly.
‘I know. I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘You said you’d go when this case finished.’
‘When’s that likely to be?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Jane knew better than to ask. She’d find out when he was good and ready. ‘Any news on Nige? Last I heard he was in surgery.’
‘He’s out now and doing fine, according to his wife. He’s going to need a bit of plastic surgery at some point, but that’s it. Should be home tomorrow or the next day.’
‘Counselling too, I expect.’
‘You know Nige,’ said Dixon, trying to make light of it. ‘It’s nothing a good game of rugby won’t fix.’
‘Yeah.’
Footsteps in the corridor outside, Dixon and Jane standing up as one when Sarah’s parents shuffled into the waiting room, her father holding her mother up by the looks of things, both sobbing uncontrollably.
Jane snatched the box of tissues off the window ledge.
‘You needn’t have come,’ said Sarah’s father, forcing a smile. ‘I know how busy you must be.’
‘It’s fine.’ Dixon was resisting the temptation to ask.
‘We’d like to meet Nigel Cole,’ said her mother. ‘Would that be possible?’
