Power on Her Own Page 7

  ‘He’s as well as can be expected,’ she said. ‘But no more than that.’

  ‘What had they done to him?’

  ‘Enough,’ she said shortly. ‘OK, Paul, there’s only the end bedroom – the one that overlooks what claims to be a garden. I shall use it as my office. Careful! The floor’s only staying up with faith and friction – they’ve not put the RSJ in underneath yet!’

  She’d better stay where she was: walking alongjoists would be a worse test of being sober than walking the old white line. Penalty for failure – a rapid descent through the kitchen ceiling.

  Even Paul slipped. Struggling for his balance, he dropped the leather-bound organiser he’d been carrying, more like some business executive than a down-to-earth college lecturer. Except down to earth was what he’d be if he wasn’t careful.

  ‘Wait – I’ll get something we can pull it with. Hang on!’ She started back down the corridor.

  ‘No! It’s OK. I’ve got it.’

  Nearly, at least. It wouldn’t do his jacket much good, lying across the floor like that.

  ‘There!’ He straightened, triumphant. ‘Hey, there’s something else, too.’ He burrowed again. ‘I can just reach it.’

  At last he straightened.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Apart from filthy. Now, what have we here?’

  ‘Hang on: I thought I heard something – did you drop anything?’

  He flicked a quick eye over his organiser. ‘Don’t think so. It was probably the last of your rats abandoning a sinking ship. Come on, let’s look at this.’

  ‘The light’s better downstairs.’

  ‘You mean the lights work downstairs! Come on!’ He flourished an oiled-silk package.

  ‘Let’s use my sleeping bag as a table, in case there’s anything breakable.’

  They knelt. He passed it to her. She untied the tape. Inside the silk was a little wash-leather purse.

  ‘Well, you can’t break those,’ she said, her voice as prosaic as possible.

  ‘Diamonds!’ he breathed. ‘Must be a small fortune.’

  She pushed them back into the purse, running her finger tip along the stitching of the sleeping bag to make sure none was trapped. ‘Let’s say, they should keep Cassie in that nursing home a few more months. I wonder why she had cut diamonds: I’d have expected uncut ones.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have recognised them, then. You don’t feel tempted – he straightened, and stood slowly – ‘to help yourself to a couple – just to pay for the decorating and some decent furniture?’

  He was joking. Of course he was joking. She’d better respond in kind. ‘Save me having to go in for the Lottery, wouldn’t it? I could do with a new car, too.’ The purse was small enough to fit into the front pocket of her jeans. She shoved it down as far as it would go.

  It was only when Paul let them into the Manse and called out, that she realised they’d never phoned Maz or Giles to find out how they’d feel about a stranger camping with them. She’d insisted on bringing her sleeping bag: she wouldn’t cause them any extra washing and it meant they shouldn’t feel guilty about offering her a sofa if there were no spare bed. Damn it, even a clean floor would be welcome, provided they could share their hot running water.

  Maz appeared from the back of the house, a pencil stuck behind her ear. Giles came downstairs, in his dressing gown. Paul explained briefly – no doubt he’d tell them about Kate’s boozing another time.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you say? I could have bundled you up there and then!’

  Kate shook her head like a child caught out in something stupid.

  ‘Well, thank goodness Paul had more sense than I did. Come on.’ She hugged her, not wincing despite the smell of whiskey which must have knocked her over.

  They went into what appeared a well-rehearsed routine, Giles to make cocoa and put the kettle on for a hot-water bottle, Maz to find bedclothes – the sleeping bag was vetoed. Well, they wouldn’t want plaster dust on their mattresses for one thing, Kate supposed: there was a little sprinkling on the hall carpet where she’d parked it. Smiling, and kissing her on the cheek, Paul made his farewells.

  She was halfway down the mug of cocoa before she remembered the purse. Giles was sitting at the kitchen table with her, Maz just dashing out of the door.

  ‘Maz!’ she called.

  She stopped, halfway out. ‘Is it important, love? Only it’s Giles’s night on duty on the domestic front, and I’m on the computer. Got to get this done for tomorrow.’

  ‘Two minutes. But I want you both to see this. Paul and I found it under the floorboards. Have you got a sheet of paper? Yes, kitchen towel will do.’ There was hardly any space: homework books jostled a pile of books. Henry the Green Engine, Gordon the Blue Engine. And there were some adult ones, all about locomotives.

  ‘Tim’s,’ said Giles, as if there were any need for explanation. ‘Just mad about railways. And he’s too old for these and too young for these. Sorry.’

  She undid the purse and tipped.

  They both gasped. And sat at the table.

  ‘Glory be! How much is that lot worth?’ Giles asked. ‘At least a new set of toilets, I should think.’

  Maz snorted. ‘Gold-plated loo seats! Any idea how many you’ve got, Kate?’

  ‘Trust an accountant to want to know that sort of thing,’ Giles said. ‘OK, let’s count.’

  Out loud, like children, they chanted. ‘Twenty-one. Twenty-two! Twenty-three! Twenty-four! Twenty-five!’

  Kate pushed them around, watching the light play on them. ‘Thank God Cassie’s got all her marbles.’ Realising what she’d said, she added, ‘If not all her diamonds. She’ll have far more idea of what to do with them than I’ve got. Hey, have you got a safe here, Giles? For collection money?’

  ‘What sort of ministry do you think we have here? OK, we have a small one. I’ll go and pop it in, shall I? Come on, I’d rather you watched me – the thought of gold-plated loos really does tempt me.’

  ‘If,’ Maz said, following too, ‘you really did want to do a heist, can you think of three more unlikely criminals? A detective, an accountant and a lawyer turned Baptist minister. I should think with credentials like that we could get away with murder. How much – seriously – would they be worth?’

  Did Giles flick a glance at her ringless finger? There’d never been enough money for anything like that, had there?

  ‘How much do we insure your engagement ring for, love? Three and a half? We bought that when I was in practice, Kate. Every time we get a major bill I wonder when we’ll have to hock it. Well, those stones were about the same size as yours. So, assuming the insurance value is slightly inflated, let’s say each stone is worth a thousand pounds. Twenty-five times a thousand pounds is –’

  ‘Twenty-five thousand. Even you should be able to work that out, Giles.’

  ‘Hmm. Another year in the nursing home,’ Kate said.

  ‘Let’s hope she lives to enjoy it,’ Maz said.

  ‘Or enjoys living it,’ Giles amended, thoughtfully.

  The safe was under the carpet in the room Maz had originally emerged from. Her computer was in screen-saver mode, but a pile of papers lay on the printer – a recent laser. The carpet was less new, and the curtains frankly shabby. But the chair was multi-adjustable and the desk looked more solid than the average flat-pack. The filing cabinets looked as if they meant business, too.

  As did the safe.

  ‘No,’ said Kate. ‘Don’t let anyone see that combination. Even me.’ Seeing their blank looks, she added, ‘It has been known for the odd police officer to be bent!’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Nothing,’ Kate said, dropping her report apologetically on Graham Harvey’s desk. ‘Abso-bloody-lutely nothing. I’ve tried every database I could think of and then some. And – whatever field I’ve tried – there’s nothing to suggest Chummie’s on any register with any sort of form. So I reckon we must have a nasty new kid on the block.’

 
; Graham leaned forward to pick up the thin sheaf of papers. ‘These things happen,’ he said, ruefully.

  ‘All those hours wasted!’

  ‘Nothing in police work is ever wasted. Surely you know that. All those names, all that form – it’ll be in another computer now: yours!’ He put his fingers on his forehead and smiled. ‘Locked away until you need it. And look at it another way, you could have spent all that time on the streets in pouring rain and still come up with nothing. Next thing you’ll say you’d rather have done that.’

  ‘Well, since you ask me –’ Kate grinned.

  ‘All in good time. Tell me, are all your disks in place? Nothing gone walkabout?’

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘No disks. But a notebook – no, anyone can pick up someone else’s book by mistake.’

  ‘True. And anyone can return it when they find someone else’s writing in it. I shouldn’t be having to ask you these questions: you should be volunteering the information, Kate.’

  ‘As soon as I have proof positive. If ever I have proof positive, perhaps I should say.’

  ‘I’m terribly afraid it’ll be the former. OK.’ He looked at his watch, half standing. ‘You’re looking pretty washed out. Are you all right?’

  ‘Trouble with the house. No, delays, more like. So when they offered to let me sleep at the Manse, I jumped at the chance. I was daft not to ask earlier. Or go into digs or whatever.’

  ‘Time for a pint before you go home?’

  She flicked a glance at her watch. ‘I’d love one.’ God knew she’d like a whisky more. Or would she? Perhaps things were getting better. And she’d have liked a drink with him. Pity she had to add, ‘But I’m talking to the chapel Boys’ Brigade tonight: you know I’ve started to play the organ there. They need to know about the police for part of their community badge. The man who runs it’s the minister’s brother-in-law.’ She could feel the excitement rising. ‘Actually … look, I’ve got to tell someone, and –’

  Graham settled down again. ‘Tell someone what?’

  Why was he controlling his voice so carefully? She checked the rush, and then let rip: ‘I found a cache of diamonds at Cassie’s last night! Twenty-five of them – this big!’ She held her finger and thumb a centimetre apart. ‘Or rather, Paul Taylor did – he’s the brother-in-law – he found them. Under a floorboard.’

  ‘My God! So what did you do?’

  ‘Have them locked in the Manse safe. Well, they must be worth twenty-five grand or so. I phoned Cassie. She was quite casual about it. She had a long-standing relationship with someone in the jewellery trade: apparently he wanted to make them into a necklace for her but they had a falling out and by the time they’d made up again they’d forgotten all about the diamonds. Or he had. I’ll bet she stashed them for a rainy day and kept mum. At least it’ll keep her in that home another year.’

  ‘Is she OK there?’

  ‘Seems to be. I fancy she’s running the place, actually.’

  Graham laughed grimly: ‘Yes, these old folks know a bit about management. My ma-in-law has us all dancing to her tune. But she won’t survive on her own much longer. So we’re keeping our eyes open for a good place.’

  ‘I’d talk to Cassie, if I were you. She cased the lot before she settled on this one. Applied the pee test!’

  ‘Pee test?’

  ‘If the place smells of pee, you don’t want to let her stay there.’

  They were still laughing when they left the building. About other things. She couldn’t have said what, had anyone cared to ask.

  Cassie would have liked her to be a teacher, and had been shocked by her decision to do her Master’s and then join the police. But after tonight she was quite sure she’d made the right decision. Paul had been vague about the ages and numbers involved: she’d rather expected thirty teenagers and had ended with twelve kids between ten and thirteen. None had seemed particularly interested, and she didn’t know how to woo them. They perked up a little when it came to question time, asking for the gruesome details of any crimes she’d solved.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she laughed. ‘All this Morse and Lewis: it’s not accurate. We work in teams, everyone dependent on everyone else. We need scene-of-crime officers, computer experts, not just a couple of bright men. Or women.’

  They laughed, but weren’t convinced. There was a lot of shuffling.

  ‘My goodness, it’s the big match tonight, isn’t it? What time do they finish, Paul?’

  He looked grim: ‘They’re supposed to have their own soccer practice tonight. We’re bottom of the league, and I keep trying to get it home to them, watching Aston Villa or whoever isn’t the same as training themselves! Trouble is, they’ve lost their coach, and I’m a rugby man.’

  She laughed. ‘Well, if they’re desperate, I suppose – I’ve always been keen on soccer …’

  ‘So there I was, offering to be their coach!’ she said to Colin the next morning. ‘They all look so weedy and unco-ordinated. God knows how long it’ll take me to knock them into shape.’

  ‘How do you propose to start? God, this coffee’s worse than usual. Try some tea.’ He slapped the dispenser. It produced a thin stream of muddy water and expired. ‘Shit!’

  ‘And when do you propose to start? I’ll bring me binoculars, like.’ Selby leered at the front of her shirt.

  ‘Tonight. And after chapel on Sunday. Why don’t you come along?’

  ‘Fuck that: got better things to do of a Sunday morning.’

  ‘Come on. I’m sure you’d like to see me at work on a big organ.’ She turned her back on him: time she was back at her desk. Graham had asked her to read through the transcripts of all the statements, just in case. In case of what she wasn’t sure. What she did suspect was that he was still protecting her. The trouble was his paternalism irritated the others. She wanted to pair up with someone, start seeing some action.

  On impulse she phoned the CID team that were handling the Kings Heath rape. She couldn’t have explained why, even to herself. Was it to talk to someone else who was stuck or to find out how the girl was getting on?

  ‘Hi Kate! Ready to ID some more bums, are you?’ This was Maureen, one of the women trained in dealing with rape victims.

  ‘Maybe. Any news?’

  ‘Only that the poor kid wouldn’t go home. She’s with some auntie in Leicester – more liberal than the rest of the family. My opposite number in Leicester’s in touch with her now. Seems they didn’t like her being out at night.’

  ‘So why was she? It was past ten.’

  ‘At the Central Library, studying. And then she had a drink at McDonald’s in Paradise Forum. Poor kid, she’s blaming herself –’

  ‘What rape victim doesn’t?’

  ‘Well, it seems she was going against her family’s wishes by going to college, compounding it by studying late in the Ref, and then committed the heinous sin of relaxing with a milk-shake. And then she goes and gets herself raped.’

  ‘So the lads could have seen her in the library, in McDonald’s or on the bus?’

  ‘Or even at the Kings Heath bus-stop. And we’re not much further forward. How’s that cut of yours?’

  ‘Fine. Tell you what, though, Maureen, it wasn’t glass I cut it on. I went back and checked, me and the constable looking after the scene. I think it was a small knife. A little Stanley knife, something like that.’ She’d have to talk to Mrs Mackenzie. Try to find out what she was so anxious about. And she’d bet a new carpet it would be something to do with young Royston.

  So there she was, still avoiding the problem. But not for any longer. Time to get stuck in. Not that there wasn’t a page of statement she hadn’t read two and three times.

  She snapped her fingers in irritation. There’d been something she’d wanted to look up, hadn’t there? She’d written it down in that notebook that had gone walkabout. Something the kid had muttered in his sleep. Duck, that was it. Fancy forgetting that! Damn it all, they’d bought him that cuddly t
oy.

  ‘You look as if you’d lost a bob and found a rusty button,’ Sally said. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump. You all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘No more trouble?’ Sally jerked her head in the direction of Selby and Cope.

  ‘Not recently. How are you? Not seen much of you for a bit.’

  ‘Been liaising with Family Protection. But I’m coming off that now. Thing is,’ she added, dropping her voice and looking around her, ‘I’m leaving altogether. And now I’m expecting and all –’

  ‘Expecting! That’s –’

  Sally shushed her. ‘And then we had this win on the Lottery, see, me and Huw thought it’d be better if I became a full-time mum.’

  ‘Win!’ Kate mouthed. ‘Wow!’

  ‘Huw’s in this syndicate, see. Two hundred thousand between them. So we get nearly seventy. And he’s got a job with this micro-electronics place back home. So I told Graham, ’cause I thought he’d want to keep some continuity. I reckon he’ll ask you to take over.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Well, since you and he are – you know.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kate tried to keep her voice low.

  Sally bit her lip. ‘Sorry. But – come on, let’s go to the loo.’ She looked in Selby’s direction. ‘I’ll swear that bugger can lip-read.’

  Kate led the way. Sally followed. Neither spoke till the inner door was shut.

  ‘Now what’s this about me and Graham Harvey?’ Kate asked, not quite failing to keep calm.

  Sally looked at her wide-eyed. ‘It’s all round the squad, see. That you and he are – you know – having a relationship. I mean, he’s good looking, and there’s a lot of these blokes’ll get their hands in your knickers with the promise of a quick promotion. I must say, I never thought it of Harvey.’

  ‘Or of me, I hope.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean – no, of course not. But they say that’s how you got into CID. I mean, there’s a long queue waiting to get in, and you come up and –’

  So this was the cause of the hostility. She sighed. Still, if Sally was so adept at spreading information – or mis-information – she might as well use her to spread the honest truth. ‘I was in CID before. Up here. They borrowed me from the Met to go undercover at an old folks’ home. And when my bloke was killed, I found I couldn’t work any longer with the guy who cocked up the whole operation and so I got transferred. I know it’s not the usual way of doing things, but that’s how it worked out.’