Stop Dead (DI Geraldine Steel)

to face Geraldine, her eyes glistening with frenzied triumph. Geraldine saw that the blonde hair had slipped to one side of her head, revealing dark hair beneath.
    ‘You won’t get me this time,’ Ingrid hissed.
    She lunged forward, swinging the hammer above her head.

CHAPTER 68
     
    S am hurried from the detective chief inspector’s office, stabbing at her phone as she made her way along the quiet corridor back to her own office.
    ‘This is Geraldine Steel. Please leave a message. For urgent calls please contact…’
    Reg was a cold fish, as a rule, sitting at his desk working out strategies and calculating odds from the safety of his office. He rarely expressed emotion, but even he had seemed concerned about Geraldine.

     
    Sam nipped into her office and collected a couple of constables who scurried after her, like children eager for an outing.
    ‘Where to?’ one of them asked as they left the building.
    They were both smiling, pleased to be away from their desks, young and enthusiastic. At the sight of their grinning faces, Sam felt her tension dissipate. The sun was shining. Geraldine had gone to question a witness who might possibly turn out to be a suspect. There was no reason to suppose she might be in any more danger than any other officer out meeting the public. Besides, Ingrid was only a slip of a girl. Geraldine could take care of herself. Nevertheless, Sam ran to the car, urging her colleagues to hurry.

     
    ‘We’re going to Bounds Green,’ she told her companions as they set off. ‘Geraldine’s gone to question a suspect, and we’re going over there to check how things are going.’
    ‘Has she called for back up?’
    ‘No.’
    The two constables exchanged a glance.
    ‘She’s not answering her phone,’ Sam explained.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’
    ‘You don’t think anything’s happened to her, do you?’ one of the constables asked.
    ‘More likely her phone’s the problem, don’t you think?’ the other one pointed out.
    Sam didn’t answer.

     
    On the way she tried Geraldine’s phone again. There was still no answer.
    ‘Can’t we go any faster than this?’ she complained.
    The constable accelerated to catch up with a queue at the next red light.
    ‘Where the hell do all these people come from? It would have been quicker to take the tube,’ she grumbled, even though she was aware that would have involved travelling into central London and out again on a different line. ‘We’re hardly moving. At this rate it’s going to take us an hour to get there.’
    A lot could happen in an hour.

     
    Unable to contain her disquiet, she called Reg and told him they were stuck in traffic. She wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured or unnerved to hear that he had already notified the nearest station to send a patrol car to Ingrid’s flat. Evidently he too was worried that Geraldine wasn’t answering her phone.
    ‘I’m sure everything’s fine,’ he added, as though reading her mind, ‘but it does no harm to be cautious.’
    They crawled along until the constable who was driving darted into a side turning and they made their way through a maze of side streets, avoiding the congested main roads.
    ‘Where the hell are we?’ Sam wanted to know.
    ‘At least we’re moving,’ he pointed out cheerfully and she scowled at him.
    She tried Geraldine’s phone again. There was no answer.

     
    It was a comfort to know that a local patrol car had been alerted and help would arrive imminently. But that wasn’t enough. If Geraldine was in trouble, Sam wanted to be there. They worked together, partners on the same team. Geraldine had only been in London for a few months but Sam thought of her as a friend, and she hoped the feeling was reciprocated. Besides which, Sam had questioned Ingrid just over a week ago. If Ingrid was the killer, and harmed Geraldine in any way, Sam would feel responsible.
    ‘Get back to the main road and put the siren on for God’s sake,’ she snapped.
    ‘Righto, sarge.’

     
    Sam thought back to when she had first met Geraldine, and how distant her new colleague had seemed initially. It hadn’t taken Sam long to penetrate her diffidence and discover that Geraldine was lonely, living on her own in London where she knew no one. On the face of it her life was perfect. Having inherited family money she was buying her own flat in a select part of Islington, and she had a reputation on the murder squad for getting quick