Will Power Page 9

  She pulled a face. ‘No more, though. OK?’ If she sounded grudging, she meant to. Assertive would have been better, but grudging was better than nothing.

  He followed her into the kitchen, watching her snip the stems and add food to the water in a big cut-glass vase that Cassie had left behind. She couldn’t resist pulling one stem here, pushing another there: flowers deserved more than merely to be plonked into a container. But she knew even as she repositioned the gypsophila that she was sending out the wrong messages. She’d just have to correct them later.

  He looked at his watch. ‘Kate: would you mind if we set off now? I’ve got a table booked.’

  ‘A table! You were pretty bloody sure of me!’ Oh, Rod would never lack for confidence: his looks, his brain, his physique, his position – they all added up to one alpha male.

  ‘I’d have gone on my own if you hadn’t agreed. I got a last-minute cancellation. The Siam – the Thai restaurant at the far end of the High Street.’

  ‘I need to change.’

  ‘Two minutes? It’ll take us ages to find anywhere to park.’

  ‘We could always walk? Ten minutes at most.’

  ‘There’s a storm coming up. Can’t you feel it?’

  Feeling storms? Well, that was a side of Rod she’d never seen before, she reflected, peeling off her work clothes and pulling a dress over her head. She knew the colour suited her – red picked up the colour of her hair – and that the cut flattered her figure. Hairbrush, make-up, a quick check in the mirror told her that at least Rod had nothing to be ashamed of when they sallied forth together. On impulse, she dug in her drawer for perfume – what would be light enough for summer? No! Wrong message. She shut the drawer again.

  ‘In the police, it’s almost impossible to complain about a line manager,’ Kate said, laying her spoon in her bowl after a gluttonous final scrape. Rod knew how to pick a restaurant. ‘You must see that.’

  Their conversation accorded ill with the quietly civilised decor and relaxed service.

  ‘Impossible?’

  ‘The whole ethic’s based on loyalty, isn’t it? Grassing’s the ultimate crime. At my last London nick, someone mentioned his DCI’s alcoholism – in absolute confidence of course – to his super and ended up with piles of lawn-cuttings in his locker. Every day.’

  ‘You could take it to the sergeants’ sector of the Federation – they’d protect you.’

  ‘Or they could feel that someone on the accelerated promotion scheme might just be hoping to try someone else’s desk for size.’

  Rod paused while the waiter removed the soup bowls, then suggested, ‘ACC in charge of Support Services? Or whatever the job title is these days!’

  ‘With all due respect, being an Assistant Chief Constable doesn’t exactly predispose you against hierarchies. More locker problems, I’d have thought.’

  ‘Welfare officer?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. What I ought to do, Rod, as one of my colleagues has made abundantly clear—’

  ‘So other people are aware of the problem?’

  ‘Everyone in the Squad, I’d have thought. What I ought to do is have a woman-to-woman talk with her. I would if I’d come to the problem …’ She hesitated. But she could say it to Rod. ‘If I’d come fresh to the squad, as it were.’

  ‘You’re saying that you two have a history? I didn’t know that.’ Rod stopped to smile as a waiter topped up their glasses.

  ‘For no apparent reason. We simply never have got on.’

  He checked that neighbouring diners couldn’t overhear. But the tables were widely spaced, and he continued, dropping his voice anyway, ‘You know how quickly you and Graham Harvey became friends?’

  She hesitated: last time they’d spoken about her and Graham’s friendship – when they were, quite simply, friends – Rod had chosen to tell her that a pair of gloves she’d thought lost lurked in Graham’s desk. She’d no idea whether he guessed the present situation – she hoped and prayed he didn’t – but her reaction then must have been sufficient to warn him against scoring any more cheap points.

  ‘Yes,’ she said neutrally.

  ‘Rumour has it that she and Graham were an item years back. But he went back to his wife.’

  Kate had heard the same rumour. The arrival of their main course spared her having to say anything.

  ‘So she might well hold that against you,’ Rod continued. ‘Has she said anything about you and Graham?’

  She took a risk. ‘To my face? I don’t know about behind my back. To me, though, no more than she’s said about you and me. Pretty efficient, the rumour machine, isn’t it? Which is another reason I couldn’t come to you to discuss her problems. And why I’m talking to you in absolute confidence. I hope.’

  He smiled. ‘Can you think otherwise? Let’s discuss this again later: it’s a shame to waste wonderful food by talking shop. Now, try some of this Kang Pet Kung.’

  ‘Provided you try some of my Kai Preo Waan.’

  ‘Who could resist?’

  At this point, the lights flickered, there was a simultaneous thunderclap so loud their glasses seemed to rock, and the storm Rod had predicted well and truly arrived.

  It had not abated an hour later. By now they and their fellow guests had succumbed to weather watching from the restaurant’s front window. As well they might. The manhole covers had blown, and the High Street was awash with floodwater. Any cars made huge bow-waves, leaving curling wakes. Rod’s car was only twenty yards away, but they’d have been soaked to the skin in half that distance. In any case, to open the restaurant door would be to admit the floodwaters.

  She could feel him leaning closer: could feel the warmth of his arm through his shirt. She shifted slightly. If only she’d been with Graham, they could have paddled to the car, arms round each other under the inadequate umbrella, falling into each others’ wet arms as they reached safety. But even as she fantasised, she knew that Graham would never behave like that. He wasn’t, was he, a man for shedding inhibitions.

  The rain stopped as quickly as it had started. Another cup of coffee and the pavement was passable. Rod made no attempt to touch her, either in the car or as he saw her to her doorstep.

  To the accompaniment of water dripping from roofs, from gutters, even from the leaves of her tiny new clematis, he coughed. ‘Kate. I behaved intolerably when – when … I can tell you don’t want to start again where we left off. And I can’t blame you.’

  She said nothing, but regarded him steadily in the light from the streetlamp.

  ‘What I’d like – what I’d very much like – is for us to become friends again. Just friends, OK? And do things friends do. And if – if your feelings changed – then maybe …’

  ‘There’d be a hell of a lot of gossip,’ she said crisply.

  ‘I know. Which is why I’d like us to do nice public things. Straightaway. To show we’re not afraid to be seen together. Like you and Colin.’

  ‘Not quite the same,’ she laughed.

  ‘No. But you know what I mean. In fact, let’s start next week. I know you like art: I’ve got tickets for a private view at the Ikon Gallery. How about that?’

  Kate nodded. ‘That’d be good.’

  But as she closed the door behind him she collapsed in giggles. Somehow she didn’t expect too many of her police colleagues to crowd into a gallery best known for its obscure conceptual art installations.

  ‘You’ve made a complete dog’s breakfast of it, as far as I can see. Fancy letting the scrote bugger off like that,’ Lizzie exclaimed first thing the following morning. She shook her splayed hands, raising her eyes heavenwards. ‘God grant me patience.’

  Kate added her silent prayer. ‘He’ll be back tomorrow, ma’am. Thursday, according to his neighbour, is his day for travelling.’

  ‘His day for travelling, is it? And I suppose you know where he travels to?’

  ‘Not yet, ma’am. But I will when I talk to him tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t tell me: Fr
iday is his day for coming home.’

  ‘I hope so. Though now he no longer has to look after Mrs Barr he may be tempted to spend more time away from home. But he’ll be back. He loves the garden, you see.’ Even to her own ears Kate was sounding fey. She added, infusing irony into her voice, ‘Not to mention the valuable wine and other untold riches in the butler’s pantry.’

  ‘The moment he returns, you wheel him in for questioning: right? Meanwhile,’ Lizzie added with an ominous smile, ‘although today is Thursday, you aren’t travelling anywhere. How do you propose to occupy your time, Sergeant?’

  ‘Superintendent Neville wishes to see me at some point this morning, ma’am. And I thought I might set about notifying the Foreign Office that we have two witnesses on foreign soil from whom we may need statements.’

  ‘What the hell for? Oh, your commission interrogative or whatever it’s called.’

  Kate, whose French was decidedly GCSE full stop, though it might be commission rogatoire, but wouldn’t have placed any bets on it, especially in the present circumstances.

  ‘Well, you can forget all about that. Takes bloody months to go through official channels. There are ways round that. For a start, get on the bloody phone to the witnesses.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘That’s how I do it, Power. And that’s how you do it. Now.’

  Kate stood up. ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘And don’t even think about contacting the FO. They’re the last people you want to involve. That’s an order, Power.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘So you can see, Rod, why I can’t ask after her health,’ Kate said, sipping some of his wonderful coffee. She’d told him nothing of the details of her most recent run-in with Lizzie, just the general tenor.

  ‘I still think you ought to. Next to her you’re the senior woman in the squad. You’ve seen her change. You’re a decent, concerned human being. QED.’

  ‘Or, more likely, RIP. OK, Rod. I’ll try. But I’ll have to pick my moment very carefully. If it goes pear-shaped, our working relationship goes pear-shaped too. And I’m in the middle of an intriguing case.’

  ‘And I, I’m afraid, am on the verge of a far from intriguing meeting. Redeployment of already overstretched resources to comply with the latest government initiative. Kate,’ he added, rising as she did, ‘remember that my door is always open. And Kate – I’m glad we’re friends again.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said. And meant it.

  If Kate’s French was limited, her Portuguese was non-existent. At least her German was reasonable, thanks to her father’s brief relationship with Astrid, a woman involved in the marketing of Bosch products. The two women had got on so unexpectedly well that, even though Astrid and her father parted company quite quickly, Kate had still been invited to stay in Cologne a couple of times.

  Even as she dialled International Directory Enquiries, Kate was scratching her head about why Mrs Barr had chosen witnesses from so far afield. Not Mrs Barr, of course. Max Cornfield had chosen the witnesses because his friends were the only people to visit the house. So why had he chosen such conveniently inaccessible friends? Horowitz was living on the Algarve, and Steiner in Berlin.

  More to the point, why hadn’t she asked him that very question when she had the chance? Because she wanted him to be innocent, that’s why. Cursing herself for her laxness, her lack of professionalism, her downright stupidity, she dialled the first number.

  Her German skills were hardly exercised. Dr Steiner spoke immaculate English. If he were taken aback at being addressed by an English policewoman, he did not show it. Yes, he had witnessed Mrs Barr’s will. He’d been in Birmingham at the time to attend a chess convention at the National Exhibition Centre, and it had been natural for Max to invite him over.

  ‘We go back years, Sergeant Power. Forty, fifty years. I always visit when I’m in the UK. Naturally.’

  He would be only too delighted to send her a sample of his handwriting – why not, she suggested, an account of the occasion the will was witnessed – and yes, he was right-handed.

  All she got of Mr Horowitz was his answering machine. She left a message, asking for the same handwritten account, and an indication of with which hand he wrote it. And prayed it was the left.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nearly eleven it might be when Kate came home, but Zenia was putting out her black sacks of rubbish for the following morning’s collection.

  Zenia eyed the racquet: ‘You look very sporty.’

  ‘Yes: tennis with the girls. Plus a balti.’ Tonight Midge and Lorraine had roped in a man as an honorary girl, a middle-aged probation officer who made up in cunning what he lacked in speed about the court.

  ‘Any message for my Rafe?’ Zenia asked quizzically.

  Kate shook her head. ‘Not yet. I seem to have an old flame flickering round me,’ she added with a grimace.

  Zenia’s eyes widened. ‘Come and have a last drop of Joseph’s punch and tell me all about it. Come on, otherwise I shall have to finish it on my own.’

  ‘I’d love to.’ Perhaps she could talk about Lizzie too. Kate shouldered her sports bag into Zenia’s hall. ‘So long as you remind me to put my own rubbish out.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Zenia said, ushering her through into the kitchen, ‘I could do with some advice too. About – about my Royston.’

  Royston! He was the one person about whom Kate and Zenia never spoke. He’d got in with a bad set, and was currently in youth custody.

  ‘I don’t want him coming back here, Kate. He’ll be in with the wrong sort before you can say knife – oh, God—’ Her face crumpled and she turned away. Royston had been put away for stabbing Kate.

  Kate put her arms round her and waited.

  Zenia sniffed. ‘It: should be you getting upset, not me.’ She straightened. ‘But it’s not because of you I don’t want him coming back here. Nor because of what the neighbours will say. It’s – it’s the school and the boys he was with and – what chance does he have?’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’

  ‘My brother would have him. The one in Canada. I don’t want him going back home to my mum: she’ll just spoil him and let him run loose and it’ll be worse than if he’s here.’

  ‘What does Joseph think?’

  ‘Him! He’s got this wonderful idea that if I gave up work I could be here for him. But Royston needs a man’s hand. And it’d make more sense for Joseph to give up work than me.’

  ‘Have you talked to Royston?’

  ‘Not yet. I can’t talk to him, Kate, you know? I go and visit him and we talk about all sorts of things, but I can’t talk to him about … You see …’

  Kate had always thought Zenia a strong woman, the sort she could turn to herself. But there was no doubt that Zenia’s crisis was worse than hers, so she let her talk on. Problem sons, cracks in what had seemed a perfect marriage – what did Joseph see in this woman at work? And what should she do about this sexy administrator at the hospital? Kate’s life was calm itself compared to Zenia’s.

  There was no doubt that when Lizzie was out of the office, everyone breathed more easily. Knowing in her bones her journey was in vain, Kate had set out bright and early to haul Max Cornfield in, tangling with evil jams and having to fight to get out of his drive when she’d established that no one was home. Perhaps she was simply too early. Wherever his travels took him, he had to get back from them, and if he relied on the railways, maybe lunchtime was a more reasonable ETA. Anyway, back at Lloyd House she could while the morning away quite profitably making phone calls for Derek, who was showing signs of going under.

  ‘What are you going to do about Cornfield?’ he asked, boiling a kettle for a mid-morning coffee.

  ‘Try to talk to him this afternoon. Thanks. Not at his place but here. Perhaps it’ll give the proceedings a bit more seriousness.’

  ‘Scare him into admitting things?’

  ‘Assuming he’s got things to admit. Tell you what, Derek, you haven’t got a sp
are half-hour yourself, have you? I – I like the guy, see. I don’t see him as a scrote. It’s quite clear he was the only person in the world to care for the old biddy. He admits to having written the will for her. His buddy in Germany has explained to my satisfaction how he came to witness the signature. But we’ve got this evidence from the handwriting expert—’

  Derek shook his head. ‘We’ve got this opinion from the expert.’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s hear what Cornfield’s got to say. But it’d stiffen my resolve no end to have you sitting in on the interview.’

  He pulled his chin. ‘I’d rather see this set-up for myself. Let’s talk to him out there, shall we? If things look really sticky for him, we can easily wheel him in here. And, like you, I don’t like prejudging folk as scrotes.’

  ‘Lizzie said to talk to him here,’ she admitted.

  ‘Lizzie’s not here. Any idea where she might be, incidentally?’

  ‘No one seems to know.’

  ‘Lizzie?’ Tammy popped her head round the door. ‘Anyone got any milk? The thing is, no one knows when she’ll be back. Sick leave?’

  ‘No phone call,’ Derek said. ‘And it was pre-booked, apparently.’

  Tammy grinned. ‘There are enough detectives in the building; we should be able to sniff it out!’

  Kate shook her head firmly. ‘Ours to do or die, ours not to find out why. No, let’s leave it. There’s something wrong with her and making her the object of gossip isn’t going to help.’

  Tammy raised mocking eyebrows. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d be on her side, not after all the stick you’ve had to take from her.’

  Kate poured some milk into a clean mug, and held out what was left in the packet. ‘Is this enough? Thing is, Tammy, that’s precisely why I don’t want to ferret round in Lizzie’s life. I’ve been the subject of gossip before now, and it isn’t much fun. And if that makes me sound horribly pious, I’m sorry, but so be it.’

  Derek had his eyebrows up now. ‘Come on, nothing wrong with a harmless chinwag between friends.’