Page 108 of Maybe Tomorrow

So much for a starting point.

Freya climbed back into her Fiat and headed for Chris’s work.

After Chris Tyler had been drummed out of the police force, thanks to Henry Bishop’s underhand tactics, he’d sunk into a pit of depression. The only work he could get was mini-cabbing and he hated it. He and Freya kept in touch and grew closer. She helped him see that there was more he could do with his life. He may not like being a cab driver, but that didn’t mean to say he couldn’t start up his own business. They pooled their resources and bought a swanky BMW. Chris hired a suit and rented himself out as an executive chauffeur. Work was slow to begin with. Freya offered him her sofa so he could give up his flat and didn’t have to live off his savings. He could just give her a few pounds towards the heating. It wasn’t long before he gave up the sofa and they were sharing a bed.

Within a year, Chris bought a second car and hired a second driver. Within eighteen months, they drew up a business plan and got a loan from Midland Bank. He bought two more cars, employed two more drivers and expanded his range, covering East and North Yorkshire. Within another year, he had a fleet of five cars and he and Freya were engaged.

They’d now been married for a little over two years and were blissfully happy living in a two-bedroom flat overlooking the North Sea.

TS Executive Cars ran from the forecourt of an old petrol station. Freya pulled up and went into the former shop that was now a luxury office. Although today it felt far from luxury as it was freezing cold.

‘Problem?’ Freya asked. Chris was bent over the radiator. He gave it a kick. ‘I’m not sure you’re supposed to do that.’

‘You are when it’s decided to go on an unofficial strike.’

‘Have you tried bleeding it?’

‘I’ll bloody twat it if it doesn’t come on soon.’ He gave it another kick.

‘Don’t do that. Look, give Larry the lothario plumber a call. Ask him to come out. Tell him I still haven’t told his wife about where his car was parked last summer, if he mentions an extortionate call-out fee.’

‘You’ve become very dodgy since you got promoted.’

‘Just looking after my hubby,’ she said, kissing him on the forehead. ‘By the way, I’ve had some surprising news.’

She filled him in on what had happened overnight to Henry Bishop.

Chris winced at the thought of the horror. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m sad or anything, but that’s a hell of a way to go.’

‘I know. Also, I had Jennifer Ripley on the phone this morning; Anthony Winstanley’s in Leeds General Infirmary. He’s been beaten. And by beaten, I mean badly beaten. He’s been blinded in one eye.’

‘Jesus. You’ve had a fun morning, by the sound of it.’

‘Yes. It got the cogs turning in my head, though,’ she said, popping into the back room and flicking on the kettle. They needed something to warm them both up. ‘Cast your mind back to that rumour where Henry bribed Tania Dove to give a false statement. Now he’s not here, she can retract her statements and we can try and get a retrial.’

‘You think that’s possible?’ Chris asked, looking through his address book for the plumber’s number.

‘I know Pauline’s testimony didn’t help, but the prosecution made him out to be a disturbed sexual deviant based on the statements of the prostitutes. If we can prove one of them made it up, it’s a massive hole in their case.’

‘You really need to watch your back, Freya,’ Chris said. He walked towards her and lowered his voice despite there being only the two of them in the whole building. ‘I know Bishop was a bastard, but he had a lot of friends in the police, and they’re still there. They won’t like you trashing his name– even more so considering how he died. They’ll probably want to put a statue of him in the car park.’

Freya frowned as she thought. ‘I think a lot of them only went along with what he did because he was such a bully. He isn’t around anymore to intimidate anyone.’

‘No, but they’ll be seen as complicit in allowing witness statements to be falsified. Their careers will be screwed because of Bishop’s actions.’

‘But that’s their fault for not having the balls to stand up to him in the first place.’

‘When you see what happened to me, can you blame them? He fucking planted drugs in my locker, Freya. If I hadn’t resigned when I did, who knows what else he would have done. You can’t blame others for protecting themselves, their families.’

Freya made the tea in silence and handed her husband a mug bearing the slogan ‘I’m backing Britain’. ‘So, what do I do? Where do I go from here?’

He took a sip, worry lines appearing on his forehead as he racked his brain. ‘You need one of the prostitutes to come forward of her own accord and say she was coerced into making a false statement.’

‘What’s the likelihood of that happening?’

‘About as likely as me being asked to represent Great Britain in the next Miss Universe competition.’

‘I don’t know about that; you’ve got a good pair of legs on you.’