Power on Her Own Read online

  ‘Mrs Hassan’s expecting us,’ she said.

  ‘Ah.’ The monosyllable spoke volumes.

  ‘Nice artwork,’ Colin ventured as they followed their guide.

  It was. The walls were bright with huge autumn leaves. There were photos of all the staff: they were following Mrs Williams, who was also photographed surrounded by her class. Four W. Kate caught Colin’s eye. And looked meaningfully at the other class photographs.

  ‘If you’ll sit down and wait,’ Mrs Williams said, ‘I’ll see when Mrs Hassan can see you.’

  ‘Wasted here,’ Colin whispered, as they watched her disappear into the Head’s office, closing the door ostentatiously behind her. ‘Ought to be a GP’s receptionist.’

  ‘She might not be the only thing that’s wasted. Our time might be, too. Notice the kids? I thought perhaps the white kids were being kept away or something.’

  He nodded. ‘Well, it is Newtown. Most of the kids’ll be African-Caribbean or Asian. Unusual to have an Asian Head, though.’

  But the woman who opened the door with a friendly smile was a middle-aged European, her blonde hair fading slightly to grey. She was three or four inches shorter than Kate, and was still slim. For some reason she’d chosen to wear a shapeless pinafore-dress in an unflattering grey-brown. The material looked horribly like crimplene. And why had she chosen those trainers to go with it? Surely a woman on her salary could do better than that – after all, she was a role model for all these children. A little make-up wouldn’t have hurt, either.

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Kate Power. And this is Detective Constable Colin Roper.’ Kate always liked to make it plain who was answerable to whom.

  Mrs Hassan nodded. Maybe she too had been taken for a colleague’s junior, simply because he was a man. ‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked. Her voice must once have been low and pleasant, but had been coarsened by all those years yelling across windy playgrounds. ‘I can’t start the day without my caffeine fix, so I don’t expect anyone else to either. But there’s herbal tea if you’d prefer.’

  They opted for coffee. Mrs Hassan put her head round another door and spoke.

  Then she came and sat opposite them. ‘Tell me how I can help.’

  Kate smiled. ‘As I said on the phone, we have no evidence at all that any of your children are at risk. But it’s better to be safe than sorry in these cases. And now there’s Danny.’

  Mrs Hassan nodded. ‘But Danny was run over. Wasn’t he?’ She looked sharply at Colin.

  Kate answered. ‘In absolute confidence, Mrs Hassan, there is evidence that Danny may have been assaulted, too.’

  She went so white that Kate was afraid she was going to keel over. But from somewhere – all those years in control of herself and others, perhaps – Mrs Hassan found some words. Her voice was so tight they had to struggle to hear what she said. ‘And was murdered to keep him quiet?’

  Kate kept her voice flat, normal. ‘I didn’t say that, Mrs Hassan. All we know is that he was run over. The lorry driver swears he was chasing a ball. But we’re taking the case very seriously, very seriously indeed.’

  Mrs Hassan raised a finger to silence her. ‘Come in! Ah, thanks, Parmjit. Just put it on the table here, please. Thanks.’ She waited till her secretary had left. ‘Now, is there any relevance in the fact that both Danny and Darren are blond, blue-eyed cherubs? Were. Oh, whatever.’ She seized a fistful of tissues from the box on her desk. ‘You get so fond of them. I’ve got to go and take assembly and I can’t stop crying. Been like this all weekend. Kept thinking if only I’d hammered road safety just one more time it might – But now you’re saying –?’

  Colin’s turn: ‘We’re not saying anything, Mrs Hassan. Like you, we’re just playing around with pieces of the puzzle. But if there’s anything we can humanly do to prevent another child suffering in any way –’

  ‘I think you’ll find life can devise any number of ways of making people suffer,’ she said drily. ‘Especially when their childhoods are as deprived as these children’s.’ She stood up, more stiffly than Kate would have expected of someone of her weight and build. ‘OK. Time for assembly. And you can look at all our records. But I can tell you both now, Sergeant, that you won’t find many other Darrens or Dannys in my school.’

  Nor did they. Colin watched the dark heads bobbing out of the room, like ducklings on a pond. ‘At least they should be safe from our bloke.’

  ‘If not from the problems of poor housing and poor diets. I wonder how many will make it to university, for instance. But we mustn’t let ourselves get blinkered, Colin. Just because two pretty white kids have been victims, that doesn’t mean the next can’t be a pretty black kid. So we do what we came here for: to look at photos.’ In the end they got together a list of possibilities. ‘I’ll pass this on to Family Protection as soon as I’ve bought a decent cup of coffee,’ Kate said. ‘And a cake.’

  ‘Eh?’ Colin pretended to faint with shock.

  ‘Coffee break. Nice day. Fresh air. Time to breathe.’

  ‘Why all this luxury?’

  ‘It occurred to me yesterday just how many lunch-times we’ve had to work. Do you realise, I didn’t get as far as the new city centre till yesterday.’

  ‘Hell! I was going to get tickets for Symphony Hall, wasn’t I? Forgot all about it. I’ll get a programme.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  Mrs Hassan’s head appeared. ‘If you’ve finished, can I have my office back? I’ve got a couple of confidential phone calls to make.’

  Kate got to her feet. ‘We shall need the names and addresses of these children.’ She picked up her list. ‘I’d rather not ask your secretary.’

  Mrs Hassan grimaced. ‘Parmjit’s safer than the Bank of England. But give it to me if you prefer. I’ll get them off the computer for you.’

  ‘But you don’t think he’ll be surveying that school again?’ Graham sat on the desk at the front of the Incident Room, his back to the photos of the two boys pinned to the wall.

  ‘In the first place, if he’s picked those two, he’s already had time to select any other victim he might fancy, and can simply wait for the hoo-ha to die down before he moves in. In the second, as the headmistress pointed out, if his taste’s for blue eyes and golden curls, there aren’t many that fit the bill. But there are some beautiful children there: African-Caribbeans with huge eyes and curls; Asians with huge eyes and little top-knots. If you want red heads, there are a tough-looking couple I wouldn’t want in my class if I had the misfortune to be a teacher. And there’s a cluster of loud Irish kids with hair that’s every colour except gold.’

  Graham slipped off the desk, crumpling a styrofoam cup. ‘I’m awash with water!’ He added more quietly, ‘Fancy a decent cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll phone these names and addresses through to Family Protection, shall I?’ She glanced quickly in the direction of Cope. He was flicking through a file, his shoulders hunched and his face drawn. Anyone else and she’d have described him as depressed. In a far corner, Selby was hard at work on a computer, moving and clicking his mouse with slow determination. He was so deeply engrossed he didn’t even look up when Graham left. She picked up a phone.

  And thought better of it. If the only witnesses to her conversation were that unholy duo, she’d rather use the phone in the main office.

  Colin was working through a file on an old case – he was due in court the following day, and Graham had threatened murder if anyone made a hash of their evidence.

  She made her call. As she left for Graham’s office, she stopped by the door. ‘I see Selby’s profited by that computer course,’ she said. ‘He can’t tear himself away from the bloody thing.’

  ‘Have to set a mouse-trap,’ he said idly. ‘He does seem quite hooked, though. Perhaps it’ll keep his mind off us for a bit. I mean, you and me separately, if you see what I mean.’ He flushed. ‘Hell, just wait till he decides that we’re an item. Kate – you don’t really mind being my beard, do you?’


  She stared blankly.

  He made a great show of donning false whiskers, hooking them behind his ears and smoothing them down.

  At last the penny dropped. ‘Ah! I’m your disguise!’

  ‘And maybe,’ he continued, smiling, ‘I’m yours.’

  Alf was still at work on her fence when she got back. She made a couple of mugs of tea, and took them through to the garden before doing anything else. Even before inspecting the front garden again.

  ‘Tea break,’ she announced, passing him a mug, handle first. ‘You’ve earned it twice over!’

  ‘That lot wasn’t me,’ he said, jerking his head towards the front. ‘That teacher. Paul. Said you’d asked him to do it, so I wasn’t going to argue. And it makes sense, like he said, for me to burn the privet when I have the bonfire for this lot.’ He gestured with his mug at the rotten fencing. ‘All that extra soil! He’s barrowed it all through here – see, that heap, over there.’

  Paul had certainly been busy. Not a skeletal bush remained, and he’d levelled the bank from which the hedge had grown down to path height.

  ‘Lot of clay at the front,’ Alf said. ‘Needs double digging – put in a load of gravel for drainage. And compost, too, if you ever want anything to grow. What’ll you plant there?’

  Kate shook her head. It was one thing to get rid of something, another to know what to put in its place. And that applied to the back garden even more. Without its monster trees, all she had was a patch of inadequate grass – she could hardly dignify it by the title lawn.

  ‘Only I know this woman, see. Done some work for her, as a matter of fact. She does it for a living, designing gardens.’

  Kate laughed. ‘This is too small for a design, surely!’

  ‘Now that’s where you’re wrong. A big garden, there’s room for mistakes. One this size and you can’t hide it. Same as with your kitchen. Only now it’s a nice space, you could afford to put something in the wrong place. Except as far as I can see from your plan, you haven’t. Nice job there, Kate.’

  ‘Not me. Well, I suppose I had the ideas. But it’s all done by computer. They give you all these different views so you can see what it’ll look like. Absolute magic.’

  ‘Ah. The only thing they don’t give you is your working surface, of course. And until we get that, we’re stuck. You’re stuck. No sink, no hob. Good job your aunt had that tap fitted out here. So long as you remember to turn it off inside in the winter.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Tell you what, Alf. There is something else I should have thought of. A security light. Is it too late to rig one up now? Over the back door?’

  ‘No point in having one at the front, that’s for sure. Be on and off all night. Yes, I’ll sort something out for you. It’ll mean getting the floorboards up again, in that little back room of yours.’

  ‘Let’s hope you find another packet of diamonds!’ And she told him about Paul’s find. It was time she did something about selling the stones. No doubt Aunt Cassie would tell her who to approach. Perhaps she should call in for a few minutes this evening. Without Paul.

  ‘Not just one, but two young men in tow, eh?’ Cassie cackled.

  ‘Two?’ Kate repeated.

  ‘Well, there’s the handsome one you brought on Saturday. Paul, that’s him, isn’t it? And – hey presto! – who should interrupt Neighbours this tea time but another man claiming to be a friend of yours. Not a boyfriend, he didn’t use that word. But then, he wouldn’t, would he, since he’s hardly a boy.’

  Kate found herself blushing. If it was Graham, no, he was hardly a boy. Nor a boyfriend either, of course. Friend, that was how she’d describe Graham. And forget boyfriend for Paul, too. Better get some plain talking done: that would appeal to Cassie, who certainly didn’t consider herself too old for a spot of girls’ talk.

  ‘So this not young, not boyfriend, Cassie: did he have a name?’ She pulled a chair closer to the bed. She wouldn’t look at her watch: she knew without that that she was tired and hungry. But she’d neglected Cassie recently, and if she wanted a long talk, she deserved one. All that kindness needed repaying. And yes, however irritating Cassie might be, Kate was fond of her.

  Cassie twinkled. ‘I’d have thought you’d be telling me that! All these admirers –’

  ‘And Robin hardly cold in his grave,’ Kate cut in, trying to restore sense with a little brutality. ‘Paul seems to have a bit of a crush on me. He’s terribly Boy Scoutish – he’s just dug out that front hedge. Not a word beforehand. Just whipped it out. And he’s moved most of the earth to the back garden, just where I don’t want it. Still, Alf – he’s doing a spot of moonlighting for me – he’ll be able to bum the bushes.’

  ‘Alf? Not another one!’

  ‘Alf’s old enough to be my dad. He’s constituted himself my looker-after-in-chief. And he doesn’t like Paul at all. Neither does Graham.’

  ‘That’s the man that was here earlier. Must have been handsome when he was younger.’

  He still is! But she bit that back in time. ‘Always makes me think of a schoolteacher,’ she said instead. ‘What did he want, anyway?’

  ‘Advice. He said you’d told him I’d investigated all the places he was considering for his mother-in-law, and could I tell him what he should be looking out for. I gave him the file I’d kept. See that he lets you have it back. Or better still, send him with it. I like a bit of male company, especially when it comes with eyes as blue as that.’ Cassie leaned back. Kate thought her laugh sounded forced. Perhaps the pain was bad. Cassie opened her eyes again. ‘Though why he didn’t get his wife to sort things out I don’t know. Her mother, after all. Not his. And it doesn’t sound as if there’s much love lost between them, him and the mother-in-law, that is. How does he get on with his wife?’

  ‘I don’t know – I’ve never met her.’

  ‘Come, now – there must be office gossip. They say bread’s the staff of life, but believe me, at my age, it’s other people. I like a little foible or two.’ She closed her eyes again, and fidgeted with the bedcover. ‘But men like that never leave their wives. Yes, I know about your Robin. But this Graham’s been with her too long – he’ll stay for comfort and convenience. A young woman like you wants a husband and children. You stick to young Paul. Good-looking, fit, healthy. You can convert that – what did you call it, boy-scoutishness to being good at do-it-yourself. Save you a fortune on decorating bills. And shoulders like those would be useful about the garden. Nice little bottom, too. We weren’t supposed to say such things when I was a girl, but I’ve been reading all those magazines in the library downstairs. A real education, some of them. Not the things they tell you to do – there’s nothing new under the sun – but writing about them. In books that aren’t literature with a capital L. Some of these Mills and Boon novels. I’d never read one until last week. But they’re light in your hands compared with some of these heavy tomes. Now, get me a gin, Kate, and tell me how things are going.’

  ‘Gin!’

  ‘In that bureau. The only problem is keeping the ice, but little Zeena fills up that Thermos after tea every night. And she’s bought me tonic that’s supposed to taste of lemon. Go on, a stiff one. And one for yourself.’

  And why not? Cassie was paying well for her accommodation, and with it the facilities. And if there wasn’t a bar – now, that was an idea for someone building sheltered accommodation! – why shouldn’t she have her own supply? Her own TV was accepted, and the music centre, not to mention the filing cabinet with all her life neatly docketed.

  Kate poured one stiff, one very weak gin. ‘I keep forgetting,’ she said, helping Cassie into a more upright position, ‘about your diamonds. They’re still in the Manse safe. But they’re not earning you interest or adding to your capital there. What would you like me to do about them?’

  ‘They haven’t gone rusty, have they? Well, leave them there. Or if the minister – what’s his name, Giles? – finds the responsibility too much, pop them into a bank. No, they’ll charge you f
or looking after them. Ridiculous. You could always pop them back under the floorboards.’

  ‘Could, but won’t. I prefer proper safety. I was hoping you might tell me where I could sell them.’ Kate looked at her sideways. ‘You must have some contacts?’

  Cassie returned the look. ‘I might be able to make some telephone calls. Twenty, we’ll sell twenty. The rest you’ll have for an engagement ring. And a pair of ear studs. Time you had your ears pierced. What have I said?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Don’t fancy that. I’m happy with clip-ons.’

  ‘You couldn’t trust diamonds on clip-ons! One yank and –’

  ‘Better that than torn ears. When I was on the beat, the yobs had this great game – tear the earrings from Asian women. And it spread – to African-Caribbean and then to white women. That’s when I decided. OK, I’ve lost one or two I treasured. But no blood. And believe me, you can lose a lot from a torn lobe.’

  ‘Humph. You wouldn’t have to wear them on duty. Just sleepers. No one would want those. There’s a hairdresser just off the High Street who’ll do them very cheap. Let me see – what are they called?’

  Kate sipped her gin. All she had to do was change the subject.

  ‘I’m hoping to move in properly in the next couple of days.’

  ‘In? Properly? Where are you now, then?’ Cassie fixed her coldly.

  ‘I thought I’d told you. At the Manse. The work on the double-glazing made such a mess. And the kitchen’s not quite ready. But Graham’s promised me an hour off to get some curtains –’

  ‘Is he going to help choose them?’ The eyes were several degrees warmer again.

  ‘That’d be nice,’ she said unthinking. ‘But I dare say I shall ask Colin – he’s a detective constable – to help. He’s got brilliant taste.’

  Cassie’s grin was predatory. But then her mouth turned down. ‘Only a constable?’

  Kate nodded. ‘Only a constable. And very, very gay.’

  Chapter Seventeen