Power Shift Page 5

  ‘So the duty team currently on nights are really the ones to talk to?’ She’d have to hang on here till ten.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t have to do it in person. Hasn’t Tim shown you the e-mail system? Twiss used to brief by e-mail. After all, we’re only human beings. If you get in at seven you’re entitled to your evenings free; And if you’re in a new relationship—’

  ‘Free to do my homework for the next day’s meetings!’ Kate interrupted. ‘Now, was there anything you wanted to raise particularly?’

  ‘E-mailing seems a very good option to me,’ Rod said, as they sat over the risotto and salad he’d prepared.

  ‘All the same,’ Kate muttered, failing to stab a piece of chicken.

  ‘Who suggested it? An old hand? Because if they did, I’d take it as a sign they trusted you.’

  ‘No. A young hand. A very attractive woman called Jill Todd.’ Was his silence suspicious? Or was he simply too busily engaged in tearing bread to mop the last of the salad dressing? ‘Have you met her?’

  ‘Heavens, Kate, it’s an enormous force! Why should I?’

  ‘Well, you said you’d been to Scala House.’

  ‘Did I?’ He produced a puzzled frown.

  ‘You said their tea was awful, so I presume you’ve tasted it. And Jill’s not the sort of person you’d forget if you’d ever met her.’

  His frown deepened. ‘I met a female mountain. And the most waspish civilian clerk it’s ever, been my misfortune to encounter.’

  ‘That’s Kathleen Speed. She didn’t approve of those mugs, by the way. No, Jill’s a sort of slender and intelligent Marilyn Monroe.’

  ‘Didn’t my A-level teacher tell me that that was an oxymoron? A contradiction in terms?’

  ‘A sergeant. My age. No? But you might have met her at one of your superintendents’ balls—if you have such things.’

  ‘If she’s a sergeant—’

  ‘But she’s been seeing a senior officer. On and off. Now off, apparently. I just wondered—’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘Not all my colleagues are as indiscreet about their love lives as I am, Kate. Whereas I flaunt you for all to see, others hide their partners in holes and corners. Now if you really insist on going back in to brief the night duty team, may I suggest an admirable way of getting you poised and relaxed before you leave?’

  ‘I know just the thing,’ she said, only half-amused. ‘The paperwork for the local problems of law and disorder meeting at ten tomorrow.’

  Chapter 5

  The night shift, which, like the late relief, had a mercifully full complement, seemed quite pleased that she’d made the effort to come in, especially when she said she’d probably see them again as they left at seven. They took Mr Choi’s hint seriously, and agreed to step up their regular patrols of the wholesale market.

  ‘Go and get yourself back home, gaffer,’ Alan White, the sergeant, told her. He was a kindly looking man with a sagging chin and stomach who might have stepped from the set of Heartbeat. ‘It’s going to be a cold ‘un tonight.’

  It was. She huddled closely under her jacket as she scuttled back to the car park, and wasted valuable time scraping frost from the windows. Perhaps she should have a classier car to reflect her new status: Rod’s had all sorts of enviable gizmos, and both windscreen and rear screen could melt their own ice. It even told you the outside temperature. That was one thing she could manage without tonight: it must be minus 3 or 4 degrees Celsius. But the kids milling round the clubs and restaurants were in shirtsleeves, the girls showing as much bare flesh as they would on a beach in Ibiza. And, she observed to herself in a close approximation of Aunt Cassie’s shocked tones, at this time of night on a weekday, too. What sort of state would they be in at work the next morning?

  And they were still pouring into Smallbrook Ringway, parking wherever they could. Look at them! She managed at last to squeeze past bumpers and pedestrians straying on to the road and inch on to the Holloway Head island, heading for Rod’s Harborne home as fast as she safely could on newly gritted and salted roads. They wouldn’t have done the little cul-de-sac he lived in, so she took the corner at dictation speed.

  There was no sign of Rod’s car.

  Heart sinking, she let herself in, tapping in the alarm code. It was no surprise to find a note on the dining table.

  Sweetheart,

  Yes, there’s a problem. With luck it shouldn’t take me long to sort it. If not, don’t forget your porridge tomorrow morning.

  R XXXXX

  If only she’d gone back to Kings Heath: her own home always felt less empty than his.

  But Rod was there to cook her porridge, not even bleary after his return at about midnight. The delight on his face at finding her curled up under his duvet was enough to silence any joking complaints she might have made about being woken by nasty bright lights (he’d used one bedside lamp), cold questing hands and icy feet. But she couldn’t settle to sleep, despite his best efforts. This time her mind was circling round Great Aunt Cassie. Dismissing. Kate’s parents as generally unsatisfactory, Cassie had made a point of providing a home for her during the school holidays. They were closer than Kate had ever been to a couple about whom she secretly tended to agree with the old lady. When, a couple of years ago, Kate, burdened by negative equity on her London house, had transferred to the West Mid.-lands CID, Cassie had opted for a retirement home, handing over her home to Kate, with enough money to turn it from a drably decayed terrace house into a bijou among other bijoux. She would be dreadfully hurt if Kate moved out. Or would she? She’d be profoundly irritated, more like. She had maintained for thirty-odd years a relationship with a wealthy jeweller, but she’d never given up her independence. Kate, however, was sure that the state Of the Worksop Road house—even basic maintenance had been neglected—was an indication of how little time Cassie had actually spent in it. She’d let the lover clothe her and give her jewels that Kate was convinced she later sold, hoarding every penny, not forgetting a small cache of diamonds under a floorboard, so she could enjoy an old age as comfortable as modern medicine and a luxurious room could make it. But the house had been there when she needed it, and there to pass on to Kate.

  Rod was happy to stay the night in Kings Heath occasionally, but there was no doubting which was the more pleasant home. If it was hard to find space to park all the residents’ cars, it was almost impossible to edge in visitors’, and Rod was only classed as a visitor; Then there was. noise from her neighbours either side: the Victorian artisans for whom the houses had been built might have been superior enough to have three bedrooms and an upstairs bathroom, but they hadn’t demanded soundproofing, and Kate’s nights had been disturbed by far less agreeable things than Rod’s chilly embrace. Neighbours’ nightmares, neighbours’ rows—and even neighbours’ lovemaking. Since Rod favoured an uninhibited approach to the last, his detached house, all other factors notwithstanding, was a better choice.

  And it was a lovely house, well considered. Whereas Kate had stuck with furniture and ornaments that fitted the period of her house, Rod had gone for an eclectic mix, risking modern pottery and sculpture on Georgian bookshelves. There were objets trouvés—even a heap of stones in one corner—and fine silver. But the house worked in a simple, uncluttered way that defied Kate’s analysis. Perhaps it had something to do with the cool colour scheme. Whatever it was, she always returned home with a feeling that she had tried hard and missed. But it was home, and she wouldn’t want to give it up if that meant giving Aunt Cassie pain.

  On the other hand, Rod and she almost never spent nights apart, except when he was called out on a case, and enjoyed any spare time in each other’s company. People had started to invite them to meals as a couple; they indulged Rod’s taste for music by going to concerts at Symphony Hall, and were beginning to sort out his garden. Except that all that was about to change, wasn’t it? How would he react to the change in her hours to shifts, and irregular shifts at that? It was quite likely they’d not see
each other for a week at a time. How would they deal with that? Should she simply drop back into her Kings Heath life for a week? It would make sense. But she couldn’t bear not seeing him for so very long.

  Oh, she was behaving and thinking or not thinking—like a teenager with nothing to worry about except love. She had a new job to consider—and it irritated her that, despite a couple of hours’ pouring over glossy documents and making both marginal jottings and notes, she was still going to have to tap and acro her way through the morning’s meeting. Tap and acro—now that was a phrase that might interest Mr Choi. Something to do with the circus, perhaps, tap-dancing and acrobatics.

  Perhaps Rod sensed she was still awake. Still asleep himself, she thought, he rolled over and gathered her to him, her back against his chest and stomach. Lulled by his deep, steady breathing, she slowly drifted off.

  The meeting about local problems of law and disorder hadn’t gone badly. She had taken care not to push herself forward, but the few suggestions she’d made had been welcomed with surprising enthusiasm. All she had to do was persuade the powers-that—be that they should invest time and resources in them. And her own human resources were better that morning. She’d turned up at five to seven to find Neil Drew drinking weak tea and pecking at dry toast. He was very pale: perhaps it had really been he, not his kids, who’d had the stomach bug. He’d responded without special enthusiasm to her suggestion that she should shout him lunch at the end of his shift, merely pointing out that he had to be off by two forty-five or he wouldn’t be able to pick up his kids.

  ‘A quick lunch it is, then,’ she’d said. ‘At two. And, Neil, get the time right, will you? You really dropped me in it at Cherish House.’

  ‘Sorry, gaffer.’ He looked, genuinely apologetic.

  In the same café as the one she’d begun her meal with Ronnie Hale, she bought another salad baguette for herself and a bowl of soup for Neil. ‘Time for ten minutes’ peace and quiet,’ she said, sighing as she sat opposite him. ‘And the bonus for you is that you can mark it down as unpaid overtime so you can take it off later as time off in lieu.’

  He looked at her with swift suspicion. She kept her face bland. After all, it was a perfectly good way for officers to accrue time to go to the dentist, for family responsibilities, and so on. She’d earned an enormous amount of time while she’d been undercover: one of these days she’d have to think about using it. But there was an unspoken code that it should be used in small bursts, not put together to enable you to take a week on the piste. And how much time could she spend having her teeth whitened, even if the thought had remotely appealed to her? She suspected her TOIL would lapse.

  He toyed with the soup as if it were poison.

  ‘You’re still not well, are you? Why did you come in?’

  He snorted. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. You were down to three yesterday, and no doubt Ronnie Hale was strutting round as if she was officially acting sergeant.’

  ‘Someone had to take charge of things,’. Kate said mildly, and I’m certainly not up to speed yet. Not Kathleen’s speed, anyway.’

  Ignoring the pallid quip, he picked at the roll that came with the soup, pushing the butter pat to one side. ‘I don’t eat butter at the best of times,’ he said. ‘Have to watch the cholesterol, my age. I’m not a health freak,’ he added quickly, as if that would be a matter of shame, ‘don’t get me wrong. Not like young Steve Timms. Raw bean sprouts and all those supplements. Tablets for this, pills for that. Shake him and he’d bloody rattle.’

  ‘He doesn’t just know his onions., he knows what’s in them?’

  ‘Right. Now, I know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. What was it you wanted? Mind, I’ve only got twenty minutes before I hit the road.’

  ‘No ulterior motive, Neil. I just want to get to know everyone. Have some idea of what makes them tick, and find out for myself, not just from hearsay.’

  ‘There’s plenty of that in this nick.’

  She looked at him with cool amusement. ‘We’re none of us above a bit of gossip, though, are we, Neil?’

  He dropped his eyes. ‘Well, you know how it is. Your last case—that bloke you asked about the drug-dealer, Earle Grey. He’s a mate of mine.’

  ‘I hope you can put him right about what happened. Craig—the man I was supposed to live with, not just work with—wasn’t your ideal partner, Neil. Dead prickly and as cocky as a farmyard full of roosters.’ Another for Mr Choi’s collection. ‘Like I said, I’m convinced he had post-traumatic stress disorders I never found out what caused it.’

  He swallowed more soup. ‘Must be a bit of a culture shock for you, being your own woman undercover, and now back in uniform.’

  ‘I was in uniform then.’ She laughed. ‘A cleaner’s uniform. Which reminds me, I must do something about the loos. I take it the men’s are as uninspired as the women’s? I asked young Zayn to chaperon me, but he was too embarrassed for me to have a real poke round.’

  ‘You women and your clean bogs!’

  ‘Hygiene, Neil. Helps prevent the transmission of tummy bugs. And there are few things more satisfying than really clean bogs, in my book at least.’

  ‘As one who’s seen enough of them in the last thirty hours, I can’t disagree.’ He managed a dry laugh.

  ‘What about your kids? Have they steered clear so far?’

  He half stood. ‘Is that what this is all about? My kids and their single dad? God, those bastards—got to bloody grass up a mate, haven’t they?’

  ‘Get off your high horse, Neil. I told you, I’m trying to get a bit of time with everyone. Ronnie and Steve, so far. You’re third. I thought there might be things you could tell me that’d make me more efficient—a better gaffer.’

  ‘You mean, grassing like they did? I bet they told you all about Helen.’ He scowled furiously and shut up as Kate laughed.

  ‘We all do it, don’t we? Come on, Neil. You’re an experienced sergeant, which is more than I ever was, come to think of it. That’s the trouble with the accelerated-promotion scheme—you’re only in the job five minutes before you’re doing something else.’

  ‘Ah. Police Constable CV. Or Detective Constable CV in Your case, I suppose.’

  She smiled obligingly. It was a standard joke, after all—people resented high-flyers like herself apparently cherry-picking jobs and flitting off to the next. ‘I could do with guff, not gossip—though there’s a fine line, I admit. Mr Choi, is he the Godfather that Sergeant Todd paints him as?’

  He looked uneasy. ‘I should think you’d want to watch her.’ In response to her raised eyebrows he added, ‘Well, you know…’

  ‘I don’t know. Care to tell me?’ She tried to keep her voice light but was sure she’d failed.

  ‘Well, you’ve both got a taste for—’ he stopped short, swallowing bread ‘ for promotion. That’s it.’ He looked with huge relief at his watch. ‘Thanks for lunch, gaffer, but I’m off on the school run.’

  She rose too. ‘We’ll continue this conversation first thing tomorrow, Neil.’

  ‘I thought you were on days.’

  ‘I’ve done a short-term swap with Helen so she doesn’t have to come in till she’s over her sickness. I’ll be in before s even.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Then you can tell me what you really meant to say.’

  Though she was technically free, there was no way she could leave the office for the delights of Christmas shopping. Apart from battling through more policy documents, there was a little matter of clearing up crime in the city, and there were several items from Steve Timms’s in-tray that she should be able to wrap up by the time Rod was finishing work. They’d agreed, more or less at his insistence, to have a drink and a meal out. He claimed to have exhausted his repertory of recipes, and they both knew she was no cook. She was running out of clothes and ought to check her mail: a quick foray to Kings Heath was in order, too. But, as Neil had pointed out, it was school-run time, and there was no point in trying to get into Worksop Road, l
et alone to park there, until well after three thirty. She’d wait till four-ish to push open a window of opportunity. There was plenty to tackle in the meantime.

  She made sure that none of the taps dripped and drained the outside loo, checking that some fuchsias and geraniums she was trying to over-winter in there were well wrapped up in fleece. Suddenly depressed by the house’s reproachful reminder that she’d put a great deal of time, money and energy into it, she stuffed the mail into a carrier. She’d take it with her. She was checking that she’d double-locked the front door—shades of Aunt Cassie—when her neighbour hailed her.

  Zenia nodded at the carrier. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to have it redirected? I mean, you’re not with us much these days, more’s the pity. Love, is it? That nice, sexy Rod?’

  Kate blushed.

  ‘Good for you. Better than that other creep, making you look furtive in your own home.’

  Kate turned the conversation to Zenia’s own family.

  ‘And Royston’s got himself a job! Not much of one, but it’s a start and it gets him up in the morning.’

  ‘He’ll be all right, Zenia.’

  ‘He’s got more brains than he uses, that’s the trouble.’

  ‘Haven’t most kids? He’ll end up going to college one of these days, you mark my words… Now, just in case the place burns down, would you mind having my address and phone number? You can even e-mail me at work.’ She Wrote down her details.

  ‘But you’re not going altogether? Not yet?’

  ‘It’s OK—no new neighbours to run in, Zenia. Not yet,’ she added, under her breath.

  At last she headed back to work. At least it was much easier driving back into the city, against the flow of rush-hour traffic. She found some music on the radio: perhaps that’d cheer her up.

  Mrs Speed raised an eyebrow as she came back in. ‘I thought you’d gone home for the day.’