Hidden Power Read online

  ‘Hmm. Dartmoor’s not your average park, you know. In the north, you’ll have to walk two or three miles from your front door to the road. I’m talking remote, here, Kate. Really remote. So with the best will in the world, we can’t check to see that every greenhouse crop isn’t cannabis, every barn isn’t a lab. Tell you what, you keep your eyes open when you go swanning round on that bike of yours. And forget the tourist traps. Head north. That’s an order.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll get hold of a camera for you. Use it.’

  ‘Ma’am.’ Kate stared at the congealed mess that had once been coffee. If she tried to touch it she’d gag again. ‘Can I get you another? I—’

  ‘You sit down.’ Earnshaw eyed her closely. ‘You’re still looking pretty green. Must have been something you ate, yesterday. That crab, maybe.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘Can be dodgy, crab. You want to watch it.’ Earnshaw hauled herself to her feet and strode off to intimidate the women on the counter.

  So it was all right to be physically ill, was it? Well, of course it was. Better than what Cassie would have called ‘nerves’ and Earnshaw, with an ironic twist to her voice, ‘stress’. That was the police for you.

  But Earnshaw was back, plonking a fresh tray in front of her. ‘Shouldn’t be drinking coffee with a bad stomach: you should know better than that. Milk should be all right. And they tell me these scones are home-made.’

  The problem, they both agreed, was what Kate should do for the rest of the day. Not to mention the evening, when Craig would be round for his gear.

  As long as the sun shone, Kate wanted to be out and about, and Dartmoor was now an even more desirable target. But Earnshaw was now doing a fair impression of a mother hen trying to stop its duckling taking to the water: ‘I don’t want you putting yourself at risk, not with that bad stomach.’

  ‘I shall be fine. As for this evening, I’ll take myself to the pictures or something. Don’t worry, I shan’t stir things up any more.’

  ‘Let’s look at that arm of yours,’ Earnshaw said. ‘Go on, roll your sleeve up. ‘Tut… He shouldn’t be doing things like that. What do you think of these courses they keep trying to send us on: anger management, that sort of thing?’

  Resolutely not gasping, Kate asked, ‘Isn’t there a proverb about horses and water? I’m sure Craig needs some sort of help. Was he properly debriefed after his last assignment? Post traumatic stress can do all sorts of things to people.’

  ‘You mean he got frightened and upset then and that’s why he’s a vicious young bastard now? Don’t give me that psychobabble, Kate. Right: nearly lunch time. A baked potato shouldn’t hurt you. I’ll have one myself while you’re at it. Tuna and mayo. I’ve got a call to make.’

  Earnshaw was contemplating a luscious looking apple and blackberry crumble and lamenting that Kate shouldn’t really risk it, when a phone sounded. It was clear to everyone else in the refectory that it was Earnshaw’s—eventually the penny dropped, and, cursing that the pudding would soon be cold, she excavated in her bag and came up flourishing the offending phone, which had continued to play ‘Für Elise’ with unabated enthusiasm.

  ‘Yes,’ she bellowed, remembering not to give her name or rank. ‘Excellent. I’ll tell her now.’ But she demolished another couple of spoons of crumble before she said, ‘Two things. If you go for a walk round the shops and come back here for coffee at—say three—you’ll find a carrot-head of a man with a camera for you. Foolproof. Oh, and some binoculars.’

  ‘There’s this conference tomorrow. Any chance of Carrot-head coming up with some bugs?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. And then there’s your bike. The mechanic’ll be round four thirtyish. He’ll stay as long as it takes. So you won’t be on your own this evening. Off you go, then. And mind how you go.’

  Chapter 18

  In mufti, the mechanic might just have passed for a pretty but vacuous dentist’s receptionist. In overalls, the message was so clear that even Craig might have got it. The lip-piercing reinforced the general idea. She introduced herself as Ned, a name that defeated Kate till she realised it might be a variant of Edwina, not Ned’s sort of name at all. For the rest of the afternoon and early evening, Kate kept Ned supplied with coffee and biscuits, which she consumed having wiped only the excess of oil from her fingers.

  Kate hadn’t given much thought to how much work the upgrade would involve: she’d vaguely thought of a couple of different valves or whatever. But it seemed that suspension and braking systems were involved too. She wilted under Ned’s scorn and withdrew to pither with the binoculars and especially the new camera: the bugs would come through the following day. As Earnshaw had said, the camera was pretty foolproof. But not, she suspected, unsophisticated. No, it wasn’t digital: no point in having a photographic record if the computer could change it at will. An SLR: compact, light—yes, it fitted well into the hands. In a separate bag were several spare films. Robin would have approved. He’d always had a camera in his hand: his kids must have been the most photographed children in the western world. Well, he’d missed them when he’d moved in with her. She shivered. She’d forgotten how much she’d missed them. Not to mention missing him, going round with an ache so physical it could double her up. Not since Graham. And now Rod.

  She straightened. There was work to do in the back garden. A nice bit of physical work. That should stop her thinking. But as she pulled weeds, still growing vigorously despite the lateness of the season, she started to agonise about Rod again. Should she phone him to apologise? She was quite sure that however Earnshaw had phrased any enquiries after his health, her tone had conveyed much the same message as the one she’d fired at Kate. Love was something that might occur, if at all, out of working hours. And since CID didn’t have such formalised things as working hours, love had no place in CID. If anywhere in the Force.

  No, Earnshaw would never consider the police a service: for her and the other Earnshaws of this world it would always be The Force.

  Or should she wait for Rod to make contact? She had to, didn’t she? How would he do it? She no longer had Earnshaw’s phone at her disposal. And she couldn’t risk any other sort of call, except from a payphone. However sure she might be that Vernon liked and trusted her, she knew better than to suppose that his employers did. Their security, vetting was likely to be as stringent as any legitimate commercial organisation’s. Well, it was a legitimate commercial organisation. Possibly. In which case it wouldn’t bother with people as low down the food chain as her.

  Except throughout the assumption had been made that they would. It had to be. Just in case.

  Just in case, they were souping up her bike. Just in case, they were making her live this silly life. Never again. Never. She had to be in control. She had to be herself.

  ‘Oy! Kate! Are you deaf?’ It was Ned. ‘They’ve been ringing and hollering!’

  Kate hammered round to the front, to be greeted by a bunch of flowers. Not huge. Not excessive. Lovely, all the same.

  No need to ask who’d sent them. The card declared: From your mates old and new at the Hare and Hounds. Sorry you’ve been feeling rough. Come up and see us again soon as you can. Love ‘n’ hugs. She beamed; she grinned; she laughed aloud in delight. Rod would have enjoyed the last phrase: love ‘n’ hugs, indeed.

  All she lacked, of course, was a vase to put them in. Except she’d never quite got round to retrieving the precious one for Rod from her pannier, for all she’d meant to leave it safe at Earnshaw’s. She really was losing it, wasn’t she?

  Ned sniffed audibly at the contents of the pannier: vases were clearly not her thing. But she managed a grin. ‘They flowers have put a bit of a smile on your face,’ she observed. Weird: a soft Devon burr coming from someone cultivating such hardness. ‘Tell you what, this is nearly ready for you. The boss says I’ve got to stay till Craig’s been and gone, but all the same I’ve got to road test this. While I’m doing i
t, shall I pop into the chippie?’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘Cod and chips? Plaice and chips?’ She’d only been about to ask for what she’d have had in Birmingham: a huge portion of chicken tikka in a naan. ‘Oh, yes—please’ But poor Kate Potter was unlikely to have got hooked on such a delicacy, and maybe Kings Norton wouldn’t have the wondrous chippie that Kings Heath boasted. ‘Chicken, if you don’t mind. Had some crab that disagreed with me yesterday. I’m off things coming out of the sea.’

  Ned regarded her in disbelief. ‘But everyone knows fish is best if you’ve got a bad turn.’

  Kate shuddered. ‘Thanks all the same. Chicken.’

  ‘Any pop?’

  A glass or two of good white wine might go down a treat! ‘No, nothing fizzy, thanks. Let me get some cash.’

  ‘Leave it. I’ll put it on the bill. Nice round total.’

  Out of overalls, Ned affected the sort of grungy gear in-your-face lesbians had worn when Kate was younger: thick-soled boots, ugly trousers, a man’s shirt and a severe and ill-fitting man’s waistcoat. She tugged wayward hair behind her ears, and sat with her left ankle resting on her right knee. Pity she wasn’t into lesbian chic—she could have looked gorgeous. She produced a couple of bottles of Stella Artois, eschewing, as Craig had done, a glass.

  ‘Bike’s going like a dream, though I says it as shouldn’t,’ she said ‘Handling’ll be a bit different, though. You’ll need to watch it.’

  ‘Don’t worry: I shall take it gently past my granny’s for a bit.’

  ‘Have you got family down here, then? Though they said you were a grockle—’

  Grockle? Ah, yes: Devon for outsider. That was Kate, all right. ‘Yes, I am. It’s just an expression they use up my neck of the Woods.’ Except, of course, it wasn’t. It wasn’t even Brummie. She must have picked it up from Colin, a reliable source of Black Country idioms no one else used or quite understood. Oh, if only it could have been Colin watching suspiciously as she tipped the chips onto plates she’d put to warm. Yes, she missed his company deeply—as much as Rod’s, if in a different way.

  ‘You’re still working with Craig, then?’ Ned asked, generous with extra salt and vinegar. How much did the woman know? Wasn’t it all supposed to be top secret?

  ‘Working?’ she began.

  ‘Wasn’t the idea that you were supposed to be having rows? And then you did, a big one, good and proper. That’s what he’s saying, anyway.’

  ‘Saying to whom? I thought he wasn’t supposed to be seeing any of his mates.’

  ‘Oh, no one worries about that, do they?’

  ‘I’ve an idea they do.’ Or bloody well should. ‘That’s what we were told, anyway,’ she added trying not to sound like a goody-goody, but anxious to give the message that even Ned should be careful what she was saying.

  ‘Oh, you never could tell him anything.’

  Message clearly not received. Try a different tack. ‘Have you known him long?’

  ‘Not as such. His wife—ex-wife now—was in my women’s group for a bit.’

  Did they still have women’s groups? But Kate must not get diverted by that. ‘Wife? I didn’t know he was married.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t expect him to talk about it, not to you. Loathed you on sight, apparently. Which we took to mean he fancies you.’

  ‘Eh? What’s the logic behind that?’ Kate hacked at some chicken. Her favourite Kings Heath chippie wouldn’t have allowed such undernourished, overcooked meat to cross its counter. Elbows on table, she did the obvious thing: she picked it up and gnawed at it. On the other hand, the chips were so good she suspected they might have been cooked in dripping.

  ‘Well, you know… Anyway, he and this Helen got married ever so young. Real childhood sweetheart stuff,’ Ned sneered. She shoved the remains of her fish to one side and concentrated on her chips, which she picked up one at a time at ferocious speed.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, one thing young Helen can do is spend money. She got them into debt, then she fancied going to college, so they got deeper in debt. And police pay being so crap, things got worse.’

  Police pay crap? That was the first Kate knew about it. Of course, in London, with property prices so crazy, it didn’t buy much. But then, neither did teachers’ or nurses’ pay. And surely by Devon standards, where the average wage was so far below the national average, and unemployment so much higher, a detective sergeant’s pay was pretty good.

  ‘Are you in the police yourself?’ Kate enquired, twisting the drumstick from the thigh.

  ‘No. Just attached to them. You know, like civilian in-putters. Only I work on cars and bikes.’

  And almost certainly wasn’t earning much in comparison with Kate or Craig. Which implied someone had been whingeing. ‘So they broke up because of her debts?’

  ‘That’s what he says. She says different, of course. She says he—well, her version’s a bit different.’ And, judging by the way she opened the second bottle of Stella, it was this version Ned was longing to tell, as much as Kate was longing to hear it. ‘Well, he hit her, of course. Not much—certainly not as badly as I’ve seen people hit. You know, in the group. But enough to bruise her a bit.’

  ‘In places where people couldn’t see?’ For a moment Kate was tempted to roll up her sleeve, but she resisted. Those who needed to know knew. And she had no special reason to confide in Ned.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Some of my mates work in a Domestic Violence unit—God, some of the tales they tell make your stomach heave.’

  ‘I don’t think Craig’s that bad. Though she said he got much worse later. Apparently they moved him out of CID at one point. Helen seemed to think that was a bad thing.’

  Now was not the moment for Kate to get on her high horse about police disciplinary policies. She merely nodded.

  ‘They moved him to a different force, too. He was in Traffic for a bit. Up in Bristol. And this is the bit Helen worried about. End of the month time, when it’s touch and go till the next pay packet, he always comes up flush. Gives her a bunch of notes. He’d never done anything like it before, not when he was in CID.’

  ‘Bunches of notes?’

  ‘Yes. Great wads. When she asked how he’d got hold of them, he’d either laugh or clock her one, depending on his mood.’

  ‘Did she ever find out where it came from?’

  ‘She reckons he took bribes from motorists he’d threatened to nick. Big ones.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘She reckons he didn’t so much ask as take.’

  ‘Bloody hell. But there was never any evidence?’

  ‘You cops and your evidence! She couldn’t grass up her own husband, could she? Marriage!’ She mimed a spit. ‘Imagine being married to Craig, for God’s sake.’

  ‘It’s bad enough living with him.’

  ‘You don’t fuck him?’

  Was this a general question or had he boasted that they shared a bed? ‘God, no! Strictly separate bedrooms, whatever he says.’ She must maintain the comradely grin, but make it more puzzled. ‘Hang on: how much do you know about this setup? Like I said, isn’t it all supposed to be top secret? Do you mean Knowles…?’

  ‘Knowles gave me the order. But I knew about it anyway from Craig.’

  ‘Fucking big mouth! No, Ned, not you. It’s Craig. We’re supposed to be sworn to absolute secrecy. That’s why I was so cagey earlier.’

  ‘You mean, it’s life and death and that?’

  ‘I’m not saying it is. But it could be.’

  ‘So why’s he telling all his mates? And saying he’ll give you a right good seeing to before you go back to Brum?’

  Kate tried to keep her voice amused, not outraged. ‘Is he now! We’ll see about that!’

  ‘If he tries tonight,’ Ned snorted, ‘I reckon I will, too.’

  ‘But you’re not in the police—why should you take any risks?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever heard of girl power, u
p there in Birmingham? Part of this here women’s group, aren’t I?’

  ‘So your help is purely unofficial?

  ‘Course it is. But Craig knows me well enough not to try anything on. Unless you want a WPC? You’d be entitled, wouldn’t you?’

  Kate got up, and tipped the remains on the plates into one of the chip bags. ‘The fewer people that know about this the better. I’d much rather have your support than anyone else Knowles might care to bring in.’

  Ned rubbed her fingers on her jeans and tipped back her chair. ‘Something’s really pissed you off, hasn’t it?’

  Kate faced her, arms akimbo ‘Of course something has. But not you. Look, Ned, when I was undercover before, my police mates thought I’d gone on a course; so did my family and friends. I had one contact only in the police. My part in the operation was kept so quiet that when I got hauled in for questioning as a possible witness, I maintained, my role even then. Now Craig seems to be telling all and sundry, and even Knowles seems to be blabbing. The only one keeping schtum is me, the only one kept away from family and friends is me; the only one at risk is me. And the risk is all the greater if other people know.’

  ‘Well, I’m not blabbing. And I’m just staying here to keep you company because Knowles asked me to. He didn’t say why. And I didn’t tell him I knew Craig.’

  ‘Thanks, Ned. Honestly, it’s not you I’m getting at. Honestly.’

  ‘Well, if you want to get at Craig, here’s your moment. Reckon that’s his car now.’ She cocked her head to one side, for all the world like a scruffy starling casing a lawn for leatherjackets. To Kate it was just any car, but she’d take Ned’s word for it.

  ‘OK, then. He comes and collects his gear. And then what? You know more than I do!’

  ‘I stay and change the locks, of course.’ She laughed. ‘Course I specialise in cars and bikes. But I can turn my hand to most things. Back at Tech they called it “multi-skilling”.’