Power Games Page 14

  ‘How can a woman possibly answer while you’re doing that? However much I might have wanted Rod the person, I certainly didn’t want Detective Superintendent Neville. Not while he had my future in his hands.’

  ‘I’d rather have in my hands what I’ve got now … Shit! My car’s still at the station and I’ve still got to brief you.’

  ‘Do you know enough about cars to prevent them starting? Well, maybe when I arrive tomorrow all I should see of you is your legs and bum as you try to repair the car – such a nuisance, and I’m sure the damned thing’s under guarantee. And as for filling me in on all I need to know …’ She meant to tell him that breakfast briefings were what all bright young managers had these days, but who cared when he was doing that?

  Chapter Nineteen

  So how did Kate feel about Rod using Robin’s razor? She might tell herself that it was simply a matter of practicality, but she still felt uneasy. Robin had been her partner in every sense, would have been with her for life but for that accident. Rod – well, he was a charming and exciting sexual partner, but she couldn’t imagine their relationship being more than that. Or either of them wanting more. Could she?

  She moved Rod’s neat piles of notes from the kitchen to the dining room and laid them on the newly French-polished table, one of the few pieces of Cassie’s furniture she’d wanted to keep. No, if either of them jotted anything down, the pressure would damage the table. Better use that heat-proof sheet to protect it. What was this, a new housewifely Kate? She pushed the thought to join Robin’s razor at the back of her mind.

  Breakfast was a perfunctory affair of toast and coffee. Seven on a Sunday was scarcely a romantic hour, and they both had work on their minds. Possibly. Kate told herself she needed Rod’s information, and that Rod needed to get away. Going back to bed was not an option.

  Meanwhile they both had to come up with some sort of goodbye and thank you line.

  ‘Now,’ Rod said, leaning over the dining table and checking his notes, ‘the bottle was found somewhere in this area. Right?’ He pointed to the sketch-map.

  ‘That’s right. The nearest court to the doors. The walkway goes across here. And at the far side of the walkway is another set of doors leading to the further four courts.’

  ‘As I recall, they have no cubby-holes, however interestingly named, but are attached to a new fitness suite.’

  ‘That’s right. So I’d have found the bottle behind the curtains at one end or other of that court – or just conceivably on the adjacent court, if one of the balls we’d been using had slipped past the netting between courts. What’s happened to the bottle, by the way? DNA testing?’

  ‘On what grounds?’ He was in cold, alert mode.

  ‘Well, sometimes people share a bottle. And I can’t see Rosemary as the sort of woman who’d ignore a litter bin. Perhaps her partner – I don’t know, I’m grasping at really thin straws here—’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I’d think the person she was playing with had a small swig, then pressed it on Rosemary. Oh, God, this is such guess-work! Perhaps Rosemary’s own bottle had – I don’t know – perhaps been “accidentally” knocked over. Or X had drunk from it “by mistake”.’

  ‘I’ll go for the former. According to SOCO there was a damp patch on one of the courts – yes, Court One – which couldn’t be attributed to the leaking roof. So you think there might be two lots of DNA to be found?’

  ‘Rosemary’s and X’s. I know it’s a long shot—’

  He nodded. ‘The acid from the juice would considerably reduce the chances of DNA surviving. But it’s worth a try. Yes, I’ll authorise a test for that. I’ll get it prioritised and hang the expense! All we’ve got to find is someone with whom to match up any DNA we find.’ He smiled encouragingly.

  ‘We can assume that – unless whoever disposed of the bottle – both bottles? – wiped them and ran on to another court to sling them away – Rosemary was playing Court One. How would that tie up with the witness statements?’

  ‘You know the answer already, don’t you, Kate? No one we’ve spoken to appears to have been on Courts One or Two. Everyone we’ve spoken to so far was playing on one of the other six.’

  She pushed back her hair, still, like his, damp from the shower. ‘Are we talking about a conspiracy here? You’d expect one person to remain steadfastly quiet. The one who laced the drink. But there might have been two more, if they were playing doubles, or even another four if doubles were in progress on the adjoining court.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I suppose the people on Court Three wouldn’t recollect how many there were next to them?’

  ‘They seemed singularly vague. Said they were so absorbed in their own game that they can’t remember. Though it might have been two women, they think. Certainly a woman had to retrieve a ball from their court. Very well-spoken, they said.’

  ‘It might be worth talking to them again, see if their memory improves.’

  ‘Two of the team will be doing that this morning, I would assume. But not you. I’ve advised DI Crowther that he should consider asking you to continue your conversation with the bereaved husband. Mark said he – Doctor Parsons – was quite anxious about you yesterday. And you know as well as I do a sympathetic approach can often produce excellent results.’

  ‘With respect, I don’t think he’d got anything to do with it. Whatever DI Crowther’s theory. The Parsons might have had rows, but I’m inclined to believe him when he says they were quick to flare, quick to subside.’

  ‘A decent man, stunned by his terrible bereavement?’

  She looked at him sideways. ‘You’ve got something up your sleeve.’

  ‘Only the information that when he was younger he was a star of the OUDS.’

  ‘That’s not a police acronym,’ she observed.

  ‘Oxford University Dramatic Society,’ he said.

  ‘You’re Oxford?’

  ‘Wadham. Which means,’ he said, with a smile that would have had the clothes off her back in ten seconds, had they had the time, ‘you got your Master’s the hard way, while I only had to pay for mine. But at least Doctor Parsons’ doctorate is the result of scholarship. We’ve not been able to find anything untoward in that. Not any political enemies, of whatever persuasion. So apart from his thespian abilities, I’m inclined to back you in your judgement.’

  ‘In that case, I think we should put pressure on my buttons man. Sue Rowley will have told you about his burglar.’

  He nodded. ‘A very unsubtle burglar compared with whoever stole all Rosemary’s files.’

  ‘So they were stolen!’

  ‘According to Doctor Parsons, there are unlikely empty spaces in her filing cabinets.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘So, there’s the list of tennis players. The list of what Stephen admits to having had stolen—’

  ‘“Admits”?’ Her eyes scanned the list: papers concerning the Lodge, headed paper, personal writing. Personal writing?

  ‘You and Sue thought he was hedging, didn’t you? So do the people talking to him. Crowther and Tony Mills, as it happens. It might be … awkward … to change that arrangement. Particularly since you know him socially.’

  ‘More professionally than socially. Which reminds me. Sarbut. Not-Sarbut.’ She grimaced.

  He produced a dry smile.

  ‘– may have something worth following up. Just for the sake of the Coroner.’

  ‘It’s something to take up with Harvey and Rowley this morning. Before you report back to Crowther.’

  Kate bit her lip. ‘This apology business … Can’t it just be taken as read? If we’re going to have to work together, the fewer grounds for mutual hostility the better.’ Damn, she was sounding like him again.

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’ He smiled. But then for the first time seemed much less assured. ‘Kate – last night. If it’s to happen again – and I hope it will’ – he reached to touch her cheek – ‘we have to be either terribly discreet or absolut
ely open. The problem with discretion is we could still be found out. The problem with openness is you may be taken out of the MIT. Which on strictly professional grounds I should dislike intensely.’

  ‘It’s put you in a very awkward position.’

  ‘It’s put us both in an awkward position. You more than me, I’d say. And for that, I’m sorry. But I don’t regret a minute of what passed between us. And I’d very much like to repeat it.’ He kissed her. She responded with more ardour than was sensible. ‘But everything has to be your decision,’ he added.

  ‘A mutual decision,’ she corrected him.

  ‘So long as you understand you have the casting vote.’ He looked down, grinning ruefully. ‘As you can see, I’d rather be heading back upstairs, but it had better be out through your front door. We’ll talk later?’

  ‘Later,’ she nodded.

  ‘Kate spent a lot of time at the hospital when Simon was recovering from a serious assault,’ Graham explained. ‘And she found him a place at this hostel. Dreadful place.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Sue said.

  ‘Every time I look at my spare bedroom I get these guilt pangs,’ Kate said. ‘You know, just me rattling round my house. And all these people homeless.’

  ‘I can’t see that offering Sarbut a roof over his head would do much for your social life,’ Sue observed.

  Despite herself, Kate shot her a glance.

  ‘It’s not as though it could be a house-share on equal terms, is it? Ask yourself if you’d want him to lodge with you if he wasn’t homeless. If it’s just the guilt of privilege talking – no, keep out of it, Kate.’

  ‘After all,’ Graham added, to her astonishment, ‘you never know when Colin will need it. He and his partner were having a hell of a row over the phone the other day. He told me you’d once offered him a bolt-hole.’

  ‘Poor bugger,’ Sue said, shaking her head. ‘Oh, God. Oh, sorry. Sorry.’

  None of them laughed. There was a silence that threatened to grow. At last, Graham seemed to realise that it was his meeting and he ought to move it along. ‘Sarbut problems apart, I really could do with you back in our squad. And moving you back immediately would paper over any awkwardness with Crowther.’

  It would solve a lot of problems, wouldn’t it, not least the Rod Neville situation. If they weren’t working together, they could bonk each other brainless and no one would have any grounds for concern. By the time he returned to the squad, they’d have had time to sort out the way their relationship was going.

  ‘It’s not as if we haven’t enough work,’ he added. ‘You’ve probably heard that Fatima was assaulted. She’s likely to be off all this week.’

  ‘She’s so conscientious she’ll be in the moment she can,’ Kate said. ‘You know, when she was on that course of hers she even took the trouble to e-mail about information she’d picked up. Hell!’ She smacked the side of her head. ‘I asked her to check on something – I bet she never had time!’

  ‘What was that?’ Sue asked.

  ‘Someone was admitted to Selly Oak Burns Unit late one night, remember?’

  Sue nodded. ‘Fatima was going to find out—’

  ‘Who it was and why. It turned out to be an art-dealer – I’m sorry, I don’t think I ever heard the name – a middle-aged man. Who seemed to be having a bonfire in the small hours. I asked her to find where the ambulance had collected him from.’

  ‘OK, I’ll get on to her. And if she didn’t manage to – fancy a kid that size wading into a pub brawl!’ Graham broke off, shaking his head.

  Sue and Kate exchanged ironic glances. Would a male officer have evoked such sympathy?

  ‘If she didn’t manage to, then the MIT can sort that today.’

  ‘And there’s another thing too.’ Kate had e-mailed Masters about the fires and had never checked for a reply. OK, another MIT was busy on that case. But that one fragment— ‘You don’t suppose DI Crowther would mind if I used his computer, do you?’

  Graham looked alarmed. ‘What on earth for? Surely – the situation between you … He wouldn’t want you sifting through his files.’

  ‘I just want to get at my e-mail,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m happy for either of you to do it.’

  He overrode something Sue was about to say. ‘If it’s that important, just get on with it.’

  She sat down and switched on.

  ‘You cunt – what the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’

  Three heads whipped round as if caught conspiring.

  Kate had only ever seen Graham do it once before. He didn’t even bother to pull himself to his full height: simply asked, very quietly, ‘Do you have a problem with DS Power accessing her e-mail under my supervision, Inspector?’

  The man had presence of mind, she had to admit it. ‘Not at all, sir.’ He produced a natural-looking smile. ‘It was just rather a surprise to see her at my desk, that was all. Can I help, Kate? Oh, are you feeling better?’

  If he could play a part, so could she. ‘I’m fine, thanks, sir. And here’s my e-mail coming up now. Do you mind if I just print it all off?’

  ‘Go ahead. Do I take it you’ll be going back to DCI Harvey’s squad, then?’

  Graham spoke across her. ‘I’m afraid a decision hasn’t been made yet, Crowther. And I’m aware Superintendent Neville would prefer her to stay here. Perhaps you could give us another couple of minutes?’

  It was tantamount to an order. Crowther, however, seemed too interested in what his printer was producing to respond.

  Graham repeated, very quietly, ‘Just another couple of minutes on our own, if you don’t mind.’

  In case Crowther hadn’t understood, Sue opened the door.

  She shut it firmly behind him.

  ‘Well?’ Graham asked.

  ‘Nothing much. Just confirmation that the outbreak of warehouse fires seems to be over. Which I’m sure the appropriate MIT will know anyway. The funny thing is – which again I’m sure they’ll know – is that the arson seemed to stop the night that highly respectable art dealer ended up in Selly Oak Hospital Burns Unit.’ She passed Graham the print-out.

  ‘Just to make sure, I’ll put it in their Super’s hands myself,’ he said. ‘And Kate, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you should stay on this team as long as Neville wants you. Don’t you?’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Bent! Crowther bent!’ Rod Neville sat heavily in the chair Kate had vacated behind Crowther’s desk. ‘No. No, surely not. Inexperienced. Rattled. Making bad moves. But not bent – no!’

  Graham leaned forward, enumerating on his fingers. ‘He doesn’t want to believe there’s a case. He asks no questions at all of the man who identifies Rosemary – shuts him up, rather. And when Sue repeated Stephen Abbott’s allegations yesterday, he tried to shut her up too.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Despite the burglary at Abbott’s flat. Well,’ Sue said, spreading her hands, ‘you saw. Didn’t you?’

  Graham waited, as if for Rod’s response. There was none. He continued: ‘He gets himself on to the MIT. He changes people’s assignments at a moment’s notice so they can’t work at their most efficient. He tries to get DS Power off the team. And this morning he explodes like a young volcano when he sees her at his computer.’

  Sue Rowley nodded home each of his points. ‘You should have seen his face, sir.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be such a fool as to leave anything incriminating on his computer,’ Neville said. ‘Even if he were bent.’

  Kate said quietly. ‘If you don’t want to make an issue of it, sir, would you like me to make his computer impossible to use so it has to be sent to the geeks? Who could take the opportunity to check it over thoroughly.’

  Neville frowned. ‘Could you?’

  ‘Someone once showed me how to change the password. That should be irritating enough for him to ask for it to be repaired.’

  ‘But not immediately. He’s not officially using his room. He’s one of the team, mucking in with the rest of you.
Us.’

  ‘It’d be even more interesting if he did notice it straight away, wouldn’t it?’ Sue observed.

  Neville looked at each one in turn. ‘You’re convinced that something is – shall we say, at this juncture, amiss?’

  Graham and Sue nodded.

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘I don’t want this to seem like – like some sort of revenge on my part.’

  Neville nodded. ‘Easily prevented. Would you be kind enough to work on the computer? And then leave us to finish the discussion without you. I think we would have had to do so anyway. Otherwise working with him would become untenable for you.’

  Mark, resplendent this morning in a gold shirt and clashing khaki jeans, greeted her with a huge grin and an affable hug. ‘Welcome back. Migraine better?’ he asked, very clearly. So he didn’t quite buy the sick-leave business, and there might be others who didn’t, either.

  ‘Much better, thank you. Until I saw your outfit, at least. You know, I was out cold for about twelve hours. Never had anything like that before. Now, what’s on the agenda?’

  ‘The DI and Tony are talking to that archaeologist chap.’

  ‘Stephen Abbott? Right.’

  ‘Now, I suggested that all the tennis players we’ve got so far should be invited on court tomorrow evening for a reconstruction. We could get a Rosemary lookalike to play with a tennis machine – don’t want to put any ideas of age or gender into people’s heads. They get to play for an hour for free, then we’d give them tea and biscuits and the third degree.’

  ‘Sounds the obvious thing. But do I sense a “but” hanging in the air?’

  ‘You do,’ he said grimly. ‘A “but” from on high.’

  ‘How high?’

  ‘DI Crowther high.’

  ‘Well I’m blowed. What a surprise.’

  ‘Quite. Meanwhile today we’re back on Parsons, again. Though I for one am convinced it’s a complete waste of time.’

  ‘In what way?’ She slung her bag on to the desk and helped herself to water from the chiller.

  ‘If he did it, I’m a Dutchman.’