The Hanging Club (DC Max Wolfe) by Tony Parsons

computer screen late at night when his mother Skyped him from our office. They talked of the domestic minutiae that fill a family’s life – homework, meals, triumphs and disappointments, the plans for tomorrow. It suddenly felt as if he would never be the same boy again.
    ‘Go to him,’ the Chief Super said. ‘Just go.’
    ‘But the press conference—’
    ‘Just go to your son,’ Swire said, and she physically escorted Whitestone to the door of MIR-1. ‘Go to him now. Nothing is more important.’
    When Whitestone was gone, the MLO stood before the Chief Super, shaking her head.
    ‘But who’s going to take the press conference?’ the MLO said.
    ‘The investigation’s senior officer,’ the Chief Super said, and she looked at me without enthusiasm.
     
    I stared out at the massed ranks of media who had crammed into the briefing room at West End Central. My mouth was dry and my palms were wet. My shirt stuck to my back and my mind was totally blank.
    ‘Good morning, everyone,’ I said. Nobody looked up.
    ‘Wait a minute,’ the MLO said. ‘Your microphone’s not on.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ I said, one second after she had turned it on. Now they were all looking at me. Some of them were smiling. Someone shook his head.
    ‘Ah,’ I said. ‘My name’s DC Wolfe and I’m going to give you a briefing on the two murders we are currently investigating.’
    I looked at my notes. But they were already shouting questions at me.
    I tried to remember the message. The message I had to hammer home. The message about the law not existing when someone takes it into their own hands. Feedback howled out of the microphone.
    ‘DC Wolfe?’ a tall, hard-looking redhead said. ‘Scarlet Bush.’
    ‘Scarlet,’ I said.
    ‘How do you feel that the online community sees these men as heroes?’
    ‘They’re not heroes,’ I said.
    My mouth twisted to show the absurdity of the very idea. It was bone dry although curiously my back was warm and wet with sweat.
    ‘What we have seen in these two films,’ I said. ‘That’s not the law – that is what happens when the law breaks down.’
    Scarlet Bush shook her head.
    ‘But the two men who died had both done unspeakable things. One was part of a grooming gang. The other crippled and killed a young boy. How can you stand there and say—’
    ‘It doesn’t matter what they’ve done,’ I said, and the room went wild.
    ‘ It doesn’t matter what they’ve done? ’
    ‘ It doesn’t matter what they’ve done? ’
    ‘ It doesn’t matter what they’ve done? ’
    I reached for my water just as I caught DCS Swire staring at me from the back of the room. Somehow I knocked the water over.
    ‘Oh, fuck my giddy aunt,’ said the Media Liaison Officer as water spread across the front of her dress.
    Scarlet Bush laughed.
    ‘The victims of both these evil men were children ,’ she said. ‘Blameless, innocent children who had their lives destroyed by wicked men. And you say it doesn’t matter what they’ve done?’
    ‘What I meant—’
    The MLO leaned across me.
    ‘No more questions!’ she shouted into the microphone.
    ‘One last question,’ said Scarlet Bush. ‘How do you sleep at night, Detective?’
     
    It was online news by the time I got to the hospital.
     
    ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT
THEY’VE DONE!’
Callous cop insults the innocent
By Scarlet Bush, Crime Correspondent
     
    Bad day at the office, I thought.
    Pat Whitestone was sleeping in the hospital waiting room.
    She was curled up on a row of plastic chairs that were fixed to the sticky carpet as if somebody might decide they were worth stealing. Without her glasses her face had an unguarded look that was so different to the woman I knew from work, she almost looked like someone else.
    I went to get myself a cup of coffee from a vending machine that I had passed on the way in. It came out black and boiling hot. I stood in the corridor, sipping it as it cooled down, watching the cancer patients in their