Still Waters Read online

  ‘Tell me about Moz,’ Fran said. One of her dictums was that wrong-footing was a useful interview technique. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Very quiet. Like me, I suppose. Some weekends we could go for a whole day without needing to speak.’

  ‘I suppose it’s hard to speak when you’re underwater.’

  He flashed a pallid smile. ‘Oh, my diving days are long past. I did it for a while after I’d left school. I’d really given up before I met Janine.’

  ‘But you kept your gear.’

  ‘For old time’s sake, to be honest. Like other people keep tiny little footie cups they won when they were ten, or photos of weddings of friends they never see any more.’

  ‘Did Moz go to your wedding?’

  ‘He was one of the witnesses. Ladies, he was a good…companion… And friend, of course. I’d trust him with my life.’ His eyes flew to hers in apparent horror at what he’d said. His voice taking on a defiant note, he added, ‘And with hers, too. With Janine’s. When she had her migraines he was much better with her than I was. They said they found her DNA on his pillow, as if that was a bad thing. Last time we were there, he had to pick her up bodily and tuck her up in his bed, she was so bad.’

  ‘He’s strong enough to carry a grown woman?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s not like me, Chief Superintendent. Not a seven-stone weakling who gets sand kicked in his face. He’s altogether stronger and fitter. I daresay while he’s banged up he spends all the time he can in the gym.’

  ‘And how do you spend your time, Ken?’

  She thought his flicker of a smile was ironic. ‘In the library. Yes, already. Shows you what a trusty I am. Or perhaps they don’t like my cooking.’

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘You don’t look to me like the sort of man who’d spit or piss in someone’s food.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m not the sort to kill his wife and throw her body in the sea, either. And if I were, I wouldn’t do it off that bit of coast – far too much risk of having her poor body washed up somewhere,’ he added with a sudden gleam.

  Sue asked swiftly, ‘Where would you dump it then?’

  He paused, as if trying to find a rational answer. ‘If I’d killed her – which I swear to God I haven’t, nor Moz neither, then I wouldn’t put her in the sea, Sergeant. Not knowing how she hated water. A nice quiet grave in a country churchyard, that’s where I’d want her to lie. And me next to her.’

  ‘And Moz?’ Fran asked softly.

  ‘He’d tend them for us – make sure there were always plenty of nice flowers.’

  ‘What a brilliant actor,’ Sue declared as soon as they were free from the prison environs.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’

  ‘He’s a very slight man,’ Fran said, as if considering the idea seriously.

  ‘You mean you believed him? You certainly went very gently on him.’ Sue sounded distinctly aggrieved.

  ‘Yes, and I missed a lot of leads I should have pursued, which I’m sure you’ll want to follow up next time.’ When Sue didn’t respond to the prompt, Fran said, ‘Her friends: I don’t recall a list in the file, do you? What sort of clothes she wore. Make-up.’

  ‘You’re right – there wasn’t any in her bedroom or the bathroom, was there? And nothing in the evidence store, either.’

  ‘Never mind. We can always pop round to see him again – he’s practically a neighbour, and it’ll break up his day a bit, won’t it? And if I wanted to go any harder, I think I’d have insisted that his solicitor be there, just in case.’

  Her mildness didn’t deceive Sue, who blushed. ‘Of course. Sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Especially when I have a strong suspicion we’ve had an innocent man sent down.’

  There didn’t seem much doubt of Dale Drury’s guilt, at least not in DCI Pearce’s eyes. Fran popped down to see her before she returned to her own office, just, she said, to see if there was any help she could offer.

  Pearce shook her head politely. ‘We’re certain he has a problem with women, guv.’

  So what would he make of Joanne’s plunging neckline? For herself, Fran had always found T-shirts adorned with the sort of lace she’d associated with slips and other underwear inappropriate for work. As for the high heels, Fran had some very similar for which she and Mark had an altogether different use.

  ‘And we’ve had one or two outbursts his solicitor’s had to rein in. But we’re working away with the proposition that these days pleading guilty means his tariff is automatically reduced. And if he’s going to go down for one murder, it might as well be for all he’s committed.’

  ‘He hasn’t spotted that being a serial killer might carry a longer sentence than just doing your wife in?’ Fran stressed the word slightly and ironically.

  ‘So far he hasn’t. Of course his solicitor has, hence things are a bit quieter today. But we’ll get there, just you see.’

  ‘There’s one person you might mention. Janine Roper. She disappeared three years back, and her husband’s case is up for appeal.’

  Joanne Pearce digested the implications. ‘Wasn’t that one of QED Moreton’s cases? And you think—?’

  ‘Never mind what I think, Joanne. Just go digging.’

  Mark replaced the phone handset with what he considered quite admirable calm. Why Lloyd should have considered it a good idea to phone him at work, when he was up to his eyes in urgent paperwork, just to complain about his part in Sammie’s defection he didn’t know. To be fair – which he didn’t especially want to be – he conceded that Lloyd couldn’t have known he had spent the whole morning wrestling with intransigent words, which, try how he might, refused to convey the nuances and subtleties he needed for a report that eventually the chief would have to put his signature to.

  Perhaps the lad was right. Perhaps it would have been better all round if instead of offering his daughter a comfortable sanctuary, Mark had turned her round and sent her straight back home. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn’t offered to pay off all her credit card debts – the fact that Sammie was supposed to be paying her father week by week was irrelevant in her husband’s eyes.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her to come back here where she belongs? It’s my job to sort out all her problems,’ he’d insisted.

  The deadline for the report was getting steadily closer, and there was no time for a dialogue on the dynamics of modern marriage. ‘Look, Lloyd, why don’t you and I just have a drink together one night – tonight, if you like – and thrash this out. I’m far more on your side than you realise, you know.’

  There was something curiously flat about Lloyd’s response. Nonetheless, the date was made.

  Hell and damnation, what had he let himself in for? Why the hell wasn’t Tina here to help him sort it all out?

  God, what was he thinking of? How could he resent Tina’s death like that?

  And how would Fran react to finding him spending yet another evening on private family affairs? And why on earth should they be private? He and Fran were a unit now. If anyone doubted it, they should look at their joint financial commitment in the Rectory. Although they didn’t like to live in each other’s pockets, since they’d come together, there’d been very few evenings that they hadn’t chosen to spend in each other’s company. Even if they both had to deal with paperwork after dinner, they preferred to work in the same room. And now, willy-nilly, his family was shattering the pattern.

  If he felt resentful, what was Fran feeling?

  True to her brief to discover what divisional CIDs really needed – it seemed to be like posing the age-old question of what women wanted most – Fran spent the next half-hour emailing divisional CID colleagues whom she knew to be computer literate or on the phone to some of the others, reminding each one that on top of all their other work they still had to prepare wish lists for her, and that she needed them pretty well yesterday. One old-stager, whom she rather th
ought had mistaken her for some office junior, was more honest than most, and told her he could give his answer there and then. ‘And make sure you write down every word! I just wish HQ would stop asking sodding silly questions we’re too sodding busy to answer.’

  Instead of reminding him of the politeness due to senior officers, she said with mild innocence, ‘The idea is to help you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Well, help by finding me another fucking pair of hands, then. Three pairs for preference. Or, better still, four. I’ve got one officer on maternity leave, another on extended sick leave, two on bloody idiotic courses and one asking for a transfer to Devon. There’s talk of me reopening an investigation we all thought was absolutely sodding watertight. And that bugger Henson’s ticker is still supposed to be dicky, so I suppose we’ll end up with some eighteen-year-old kid on the accelerated promotion scheme telling me how to run the case.’ He paused, perhaps for breath.

  ‘Which case would that be, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘Roper and Barnes, of course.’

  ‘How come you got landed with that?’ Fran forgot she was a secretary.

  ‘Oh, it’s not official, not yet. But that smart-arsed new… Hang on, exactly who am I talking to?’

  ‘Fran Harman, Doug.’

  ‘Fucking hell, I took you for—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. What’s this about Gates asking you to take on Roper and Barnes?’

  ‘He just happened to mention it when he dropped by, that’s all.’

  Did Gates ever ‘just happen’ to do anything? ‘And when would that have been?’

  ‘This morning. That’s why I’m so pissed off.’

  ‘And you told him what you told me?’

  ‘Pretty well. Dressed it up a bit more polite, though – you know how it is.’

  ‘One of these days, Doug, I’ll get it into your thick skull that you should be as polite to the lowliest pen-pusher as to the chief. Understand? Meanwhile, I should stall as long as you can on the Roper case. I think they might find someone else.’

  Mark was just contemplating another fat, glossy Home Office document and wondering how much it had cost to produce at a time when all police forces across the country were being told to tighten their belts in all departments except those dealing with organised crime and terrorism, while simultaneously improving, of course, all their results, when there was a tap on the door. It was a bit early for Fran, so his invitation to enter was a little on the curt side.

  But Fran it was, carrying files and still wearing her reading-glasses; she looked, as she always did, very businesslike.

  ‘Oh, is it time to go already?’

  ‘I thought a cup of tea might be on offer.’

  That was tantamount to conceding that something or someone had defeated her and she needed cheering up. But he’d have said that she was awash with adrenalin. Had she had another fight with Gates? He hoped not. They both knew that however much she had right on her side it put him in an awkward position.

  ‘I’m sure it is. Do you want to take a pew while I brew up?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m on my feet – I’ll do it. Actually, if we did leave early, we could have another look at the Rectory – see what they’ve done to enhance security.’

  He thought of the reading he still had to get through. ‘Perhaps.’ To his own ears that sounded a bit offhand.

  ‘You know, you only ever say “perhaps” like that when you mean no and don’t want to say it out loud.’

  He’d risk a guilty smile. ‘Perhaps I do.’

  ‘No perhaps about it. The Rectory’s clearly off the menu tonight, then. But since you’re perhapsing, perhaps it was you who told Doug Kerr he’s got to re-examine the Roper and Barnes files for the CPS.’

  He looked at her sharply. ‘And perhaps it wasn’t! Doug’s hideously under strength. How’s he got that idea in his head?’

  ‘Three guesses?’ But she clearly wasn’t joking.

  He half stood in his anger. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘According to Doug, Gates just happened to drop by this morning and told him it was a possibility.’

  ‘Which pleased Doug no end, I should imagine.’

  ‘He was certainly lacking in tact and charm when we spoke on the phone ten minutes ago. But then, he didn’t realise who he was talking to, the rude old bastard. So who made the decision? Hardly the chief, not from his terrorist conference.’

  ‘I’d better find out. Officially, of course. Because whatever else is being rearranged in the interests of cost effectiveness, as far as I know, my job description isn’t.’

  She looked at him limpidly. ‘I suspect that as far as the chief knows, it isn’t.’

  He uttered a few epithets she’d probably not heard from him before, apart from in the vilest of murder or assault cases. ‘And what’s been happening between you two that you haven’t told me about?’ he added more sharply than he meant.

  He could see her efforts to relax. ‘I didn’t want to tell you quite everything – well, I wasn’t proud of all of it. Yesterday, when Gates gave me that trimming, he suggested I resign – no, not just from the committees, but altogether! – while the chief wasn’t here to talk me out of it.’

  He wanted to make all sorts of lucid comments about Gates’ lack of professionalism and especially lack of gratitude – after all, the man would never have reached his present position had it not been for Fran’s constant encouragement. ‘The fucking bastard.’

  ‘So I told him that in no circumstances would I do anything like that behind the chief’s back, and then we had an argument about something else. He was in the wrong that time, at least.’ She rubbed her face. ‘Actually, he’s right about my committee work, Mark. I’ve been a complete arsehole. My behaviour might be excusable in a bored schoolgirl, but not in a woman of my age.’

  Perhaps she was right. But he would never have loved a yes-woman. ‘When did you ever suffer fools and their folly gladly? It’s part of your charm. And God knows ninety per cent of those meetings – any meetings, I suspect – are a waste of everyone’s time.’

  ‘But I should have had the decency to take him on one side and tell him he was pissing us all off. It’s not just me, you see.’ She told him about the round robin she’d scotched.

  He took her in his arms and gave a companionable hug. ‘If I can shoehorn Lloyd and Sammie back together, we’ll sell the Loose house and then you can tell him where to put his job.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’d get under his fingernails far worse if I signed an extended contract. But that apart, the sooner the youngsters are talking to each other, and not at you, the better for all concerned.’

  ‘Which reminds me – I had a phone call from Lloyd earlier.’ He felt like a schoolboy asking for the return of the ball that had just broken a greenhouse window. ‘He and I are meeting up at a pub in Tonbridge at six-thirty. Just a drink, I said.’

  She pushed him away and looked at him over her glasses. ‘And you’d forgotten we’d only got one car here so either you need a lift and for me to wait for you in the car or you want me to hang on here for you.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And, of course, if you wanted to drink, you’d only be able to sniff the barmaid’s apron if you wanted to stay within the limit.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And if I were sitting outside in the car, it would curtail the time you had to spend with him.’

  ‘With luck,’ he said fervently. ‘From what he said on the phone he wants to spend an evening bollocking me for breaking up his marriage.’

  She made a show of cupping her ear. ‘I beg your pardon? On the contrary, I’d have thought that Sammie was trying to break up ours. Well, our relationship,’ she added, biting back something and turning away slightly.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Despite himself, he fired up. She wasn’t going to raise their unmarried status yet again, was she? He told himself that she had pulled back from whatever brink she’d seen herself on and that he must too.
Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘She’s certainly grabbing as many hours of my time as she can. And now he’s joining in.’ He tried for a joke, which sounded off-key even as he made it. ‘You don’t think it’s something deeply Freudian, do you?’ What if it was?

  She spread her hands, without much apparent amusement. ‘What are you going to tell him?’

  ‘That depends what he asks. But I shall certainly say that our not being able to use my house doesn’t help our domestic situation. And that the sooner they resolve their differences the better.’

  ‘Do you think he could actually afford to pay all her debts?’ she asked. ‘I know he’s got a good job, but the mortgage on that house of theirs must be astronomical. A four-bedroom detached in Tunbridge Wells, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘You don’t suppose you could come along too?’ How supine was that? But if he’d miss Tina’s advice this evening, her control of the emotional ebb and flow, he’d also miss Fran’s astringent common sense and pertinent questions.

  ‘In your dreams, Mark. I shall sit in the car park and catch up with my reading. But you’ll owe me.’ At least she grinned as she sat back, folding her arms.

  ‘Another trip to France?’

  ‘Sorry I’ve been so long,’ he said, kissing her as he shifted the files she’d been working through from the passenger seat and settling down.

  ‘No problem.’ She permitted herself a glance at the clock – had he really been gone well over an hour?

  ‘At least I phoned Sammie and persuaded her to let Lloyd go and talk to her over in Loose. He’s on his way now, in fact. But he’s very opaque, Fran. Will you join us next time? Please? I know there’s something going on I can’t understand and you don’t miss much, do you?’

  ‘Only my supper! What does the food look like in there?’ She gestured to the pub, unwilling to commit herself one way or the other to a family meeting.

  ‘No idea. Is there anything in the freezer?’

  She snorted. ‘Enough for an army at your place – remember that wet weekend and the new Kenwood?’

  ‘Hell! I’d forgotten Sammie’s taken possession of that too. Not that she’d ever use it. And all the meals you prepared, of course. Let’s go and get them now.’