Page 88 of Her Last Breath

He seemed to be sobbing.

‘They made up that stuff about me, back in Africa. All lies. The bosses know how tough it is out there, how we all had to operate in grey areas. But I know how money talks, how you can manipulate evidence and the system. Their bullshit case against me. They can make anything stick if they want to.’

‘Trust me, Colin, please,’ Jane pleaded. ‘I will make sure your side of this is heard.’

‘I wasn’t perfect, I admit that. And, yeah, sometimes I crossed lines. But I’m not a killer. I save lives …’

‘I believe you.’

‘I won’t be stitched up again,’ Colin continued. ‘So listen to me. It’s important you understand. That you really hear what I’m saying. My only motivation ever was to be good, to make people’s lives better. I was a decent person, only out there you see the worst of what we do to each other. So, you cross a line to make things better, then you cross another line. Then you realise you’re on the other side, but all the time the only thing I ever wanted to do was help people who had nothing. Who had no hope.’

He sank to his knees, sticking his head out through the metal bars; the structure creaked ominously,

‘I would never deliberately hurt anyone, and what you’re accusing me of?’ he said, his voice thick with tears. ‘I could never kill someone. It goes against everything I am. Please remember that.’

Frozen by his sincerity, Jane was confused. She’d heard criminals scream out their innocence on a regular basis before, but for a brief moment she suddenly felt doubt. What if they were wrong about him? She shook her head to dispel this fond notion. The case against him was strong.

‘Colin, come with me. We can sort this out.’

Jane felt her stomach lurch as she heard the sound of the wooden boards above her creaking: DS Johnson.

‘Stay back,’ Colin shouted, suddenly clocking Johnson’s approach. ‘You lying bitch!’

He spat those words down at Jane.

‘Colin!’ she shouted after him.

‘I won’t go to prison,’ she heard his voice ring out. ‘Not for another lie. They took one life from me. I won’t let you do this to me again.’

Jane saw Colin press himself against the side of the top rail, boxed in now. He started to shake the poles, causing the whole structure to move. Jane lost her footing, screaming as she tried to maintain her grip. She looked up and saw DS Johnson staring down at her. She darted her eyes to see where Colin was, watching in horror as DS Johnson made a leap towards him. He in turn jumped away from the detective sergeant but miscalculated his step, stumbling backwards off the platform, his screams filling the air as he fell.

Jane watched in horror as Colin’s body slammed first against the scaffolding, his arms cartwheeling wildly in the air, before plummeting to the concrete floor below.

Chapter 60

As uniformed officers helped Jane down from the scaffolding, she ignored the burning welts on her hands, running the moment she was down to where Colin’s body lay. Their suspect was angled as though a marionette’s strings had been cut, head facing upwards, eyes open and staring, arms at ninety degrees. Blood pooled in an arc around him, crawled down his chin from his twisted mouth. She knew the post-mortem would reveal multiple fractures. There was no need to check for proof of life.

DS Johnson was swiftly by her side, his expression one of pure desolation.

‘I thought you were in danger,’ he gasped. ‘I thought I could grab him, ma’am.’

He gestured with his hand, reaching out, clasping air.

‘Don’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.’

He bowed his head. Jane could sense his intense disappointment.

‘You did what you could,’ she said with as much conviction as she could manage. ‘If you hadn’t come after him, that might have been me instead.’

He nodded, but without emphasis, before replying: ‘I’ll go and rally the team, get everyone together so you can brief them, ma’am.’

Jane shared his frustration, the fact that there would be no real closure to this case. They would never get the answers they needed.

She looked one last time at Colin Wilson, replaying their final moments together. Her hands were stinging now, sore. She gladly took the dry icepack from the paramedics, knowing from experience that the real pain would begin much later.

Chapter 61

An hour later, Jane was back in her office, trying to push away recurring thoughts of how close she had come to death that night. Despite needing a stiff drink to calm her nerves, she knew a clear head was needed instead, forcing herself to resist.