Playing James

by Sarah Mason

  “. . . organized.”

  Organized? Organized? He’s making it sound like an outing of the Bristol Male Voice Choir. And I should hope they were organized; they’re professional criminals, for pity’s sake. This is hardly a scoop. I can see the headline now: THEY WERE ORGANIZED! What does that mean? That they remembered to bring all their tools? I try not to sound disappointed as I look from one officer to the other.

  “What do you mean? Organized?” But James Sabine is already writing in his notepad and ignores me. Matt, probably feeling a smidgen of contrition for his superior officer’s attitude, steps in.

  He asks, “May I, sir?”, looking at Detective Sergeant Sabine, who glances up and nods his consent before switching his attention back to his notes. Matt turns to me.

  “Truth be told that I’ve never seen anything like it. The burglar knew exactly how to disable the alarm system. And it was a really sophisticated one too, as you can imagine. He then knew the exact place to enter the house. The interior was scarcely disturbed; it was almost as though he understood precisely what he wanted to take and where to find it. And he only took the best stuff—bypassed the video and stereo and went straight for the jugular.”

  “And what was that?” I ask, on the edge of my seat.

  “Antiques.”

  “Antiques?” I say disbelievingly.

  Matt nods emphatically. “Antiques.”

  “Antiques?” I say again.

  “For God’s sake!” explodes James Sabine, his head whipping up from his notebook, “which syllable don’t you get?” I glare at him and then return my gaze to Matt and raise my eyebrows encouragingly, unwilling to say the a-word again. Matt, thankfully, responds.

  “Things like porcelain, silver, clocks and other knickknacks. All extremely valuable according to Mr. Forquar-White.”

  “So, the thief knew all about antiques?” I ask disbelievingly.

  “It doesn’t take a genius to come to that conclusion,” James Sabine interjects wearily.

  I am desperate to ask about the implications of this but am interrupted by Sebastian Forquar-White coming back into the room, followed by a loaded tea tray carried by Anton the butler.

  “Sorry I was so long, had to take a phone call. The insurance people rang me back.” He sits down on the opposite sofa. James Sabine, after thanking Anton for his cup of tea, turns to him. “When did you first notice anything was missing?”

  “Anton, here, went into the dining room, where all of the collectibles are kept, to dust this morning. He immediately told me and I raised the alarm.”

  “When did you last see any of the missing items?” Detective Sergeant Sabine looks at Anton.

  “Yesterday, sir.”

  “Were you woken in the night by anything?”

  Both of them shake their heads.

  “Is the alarm system always activated when you go to bed?”

  “Always,” growls Sebastian F-W.

  “Have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll dispatch uniform to question the neighbors, if that’s all right with you, sir.” Mr. Forquar-White nods his agreement to this. “Can we see the point of entry please?”

  “Certainly, certainly,” he responds. We all replace our empty tea cups on the tray and get up to follow him out of the room. Detective Sergeant Sabine goes first and Matt and I follow. After a few seconds, Matt taps James on the shoulder.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes Matt?”

  “You seem to have something stuck to your, er, trousers.”

  Detective Sergeant Sabine puts out an exploratory hand and soon enough it emerges with the sweet wrapper. He places it in his pocket. I take an inordinate amount of interest in the hall furnishings.

  “Thank you, Matt.” His face is impassive and his steely eyes flicker toward me. We go through into an enormous kitchen and Sebastian Forquar-White opens up a door at the back of the room. It is a sort of larder.

  “They got in here.” He points to a really small window up in the corner. “The catch was forced. Bloody typical, you know, because the insurance company only told me last week to repair it. Always the way, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” says James Sabine thoughtfully, “yes, it is.” He looks up at the window for a minute and then asks, “Has anything been touched while you waited for us?”

  “No, no, nothing.”

  “Good. Matt, can you radio for the forensics officers to come down please, and get uniform on to the neighbors?”

  Matt departs on his errand.

  “Isn’t that window quite small for anyone to get inside?” I ask.

  “Well, maybe a small person got through it, Miss Colshannon,” Detective Sergeant Sabine remarks acidly, not looking up from the notebook he’s studying.

  We go back into the kitchen and then out another door into the garden. Mr. Forquar-White gestures toward the burglar alarm which has been placed in a bucket of water. We go back to the sitting room and wait for the forensics team to arrive. James Sabine asks more questions. When forensics eventually turn up, he goes out to meet them. As an afterthought, he turns back to me. “Don’t touch anything. And don’t get in the way.”

  “Yes, sir,” I reply, standing to attention and giving a mock salute. Possibly a tad cheeky, but really, he’s winding me up like a clockwork toy.

  The three forensics officers get changed into jumpsuits in the hallway and James Sabine briefs them on the burglary. I stand and watch, hoping for a chance to chat to one of them. I am banned from going into the dining room (I might contaminate the scene of the crime) so my chance doesn’t come until lunchtime when they come clattering out having finished the job. I immediately dump the Marmite sandwich that Anton has kindly made me and leap on the nearest one. He is in his late fifties. Out of a thatch of thick gray hair peeps a pair of sparkling eyes. After the formal introductions (he is called Roger) I ask him if he has found anything.

  “Sorry, love. Can’t tell you that, only the officer in charge.”

  “Yes or no?” I ask pleadingly.

  He grins at me. “Yes, but you’ll have to ask him.”

  I look around and spot James Sabine speaking to an officer a few feet away.

  “Detective Sergeant Sabine?” I call. He looks around.

  “What?”

  “Can Roger tell me about the forensic evidence?”

  He hesitates for a second, probably weighing up the Chief’s reaction if he refuses versus his own complete reluctance to tell me anything.

  “OK. But if you print any of it, I’ll wring your neck.”

  I turn back to Roger, beaming.

  Roger begins, “Well, we found some fibers. They could pretty much be from anything—clothes, car seats, any sort of fabric really—and nigh on impossible to pin down to something particular. We also found a hair which can be submitted for DNA testing. Unfortunately that takes quite a long time to come back from the lab, but the positive thing is we can put the DNA information through the computer and if the culprit has a record then the computer will produce a name. Otherwise we can take the DNA from a suspect and link them to the scene. We also found a substance around the cabinet where the missing items were kept, but I don’t know what it is. It may have been on the gloves that the burglar was using as it was also found around the window catch at the point of entry.”

  “How do you find all these things?”

  “We run a sort of fluorescent light over the crime scene and various fibers, fluids and substances show up. This particular substance is peculiar because it is very localized.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, there isn’t any anywhere else around the crime scene. Just on the window catch, the door handle into the dining room and on the cabinet itself. So the thief knew exactly where to go and exactly what he wanted to take. The other items in the cabinet haven’t even been handled.”

  “And you don’t know what this substance is?”

  Roger sighs. “I
’ve never seen it before.”

  I watch him as he clambers awkwardly out of his jumpsuit.

  “So, you’re the reporter, eh?” he inquires.

  “That’s right.”

  “How are you getting on?” He jerks his head toward James Sabine, who is in a conference with another officer a few meters away. I make a face and Roger laughs heartily. The other officers turn around and look at us.

  Roger leans toward me and says in a whisper, “It’ll get better, give it time.”

  “We’ve only got six weeks, Roger, not infinity.”

  After I have said goodbye to Roger and taken my empty plate back to Anton in the kitchen, I go in search of James Sabine. I find him in the sitting room, pursuing what sounds like a highly pressing and important phone call on his mobile about his ushers. I idly wonder what his wife-to-be is like and what sort of relationship they have.

  “Are you ready to go?” he asks after ending his call. I nod and together we go through to say goodbye to Sebastian (him) and Anton (me).

  “So,” I say conversationally as we draw away from the house, “do you think you’ll catch him?”

  Detective Sabine looks wearily across at me. “This isn’t The Bill you know. Cases are not solved in neat one-hour blocks. I know you’d like this all wrapped up within a few weeks so you can present your diary readers with a nice happy ending but I’m afraid real police work is simply not like that.” Sigh.

  Once back at the station, I deposit Tristan in a parking space and we walk toward the entrance together.

  “James! Holly! Wait up!” We spin around. It’s Callum.

  “How’s your day gone?” He looks from one to the other of us.

  “Fine,” we both say simultaneously. I suspect this is the standard answer for detectives as real answers may get more complicated than “fine.”

  “Coming out for a drink after work with us, Holly?” I sneak a look at Detective Sergeant Sabine. I don’t think so.

  “I don’t think so. Have to file copy at the paper.”

  “Of course! The infamous diary! I have to say we are really looking forward to it. Especially Jamie here. Aren’t you?”

  “Jamie” shoots him a look which is very familiar to me.

  Callum just laughs. “When’s it out? Monday?”

  I nod and smile and he bounds off again.

  “See you then, Holly! Have a good weekend! See you later, James!” he shouts over his shoulder.

  I work on the diary for what’s left of the afternoon while James Sabine catches up on phone calls and paperwork, of which there seems to be an abundance. I knead and mold the diary into shape, creating what I hope is quite a good first installment from a factual point of view. I would like to bring the Jack character to life so readers can actually get to know him over the next few weeks (whether they can empathize with him may be another matter). He’s not giving me an awful lot to work with but I do my best, and also work through the interesting parts of police procedure and focus on the actual crimes.

  When I am finished, I attach the whole thing to an e-mail to Joe and send it across the ether. I breathe a sigh of relief. I have the weekend stretching ahead of me which is definitely going to be a police-free zone.

  eight

  “Darling. It’s us. Let us in immediately. Your father is one of the walking wounded.” My mother’s voice has a certain presence, even over the intercom. Something to do with the dramatic training, I would imagine. This is a complete surprise to me—I thought they were in Cornwall. I feel a rush of pleasure and press the release key on the intercom before hurtling down the flight of stairs to greet them and help my father who has obviously met with an accident of some kind. This does not surprise me.

  It is Saturday afternoon. I spent a very pleasurable Friday night celebrating the first installment of my diary with some of the other writers from the paper. This morning I went to the supermarket and this afternoon I was planning to lounge around before getting ready to see Ben this evening.

  My mother is a flurry of dog, handbag and skirt. My father is hobbling but still seems pleased to see me.

  “What on earth has happened?” I ask.

  “Got any gin?” my mother says, obviously in dire need of a swift large one straight between the eyes.

  “Er, yes. Dad, you’re not supposed to be carrying those, you know,” I say, pointing to a pair of crutches which he is carefully holding under one arm. “They’re supposed to be carrying you.”

  “Can’t get the hang of the bloody things. Give the old man a hand up the stairs?”

  The two of us attempt to cart my father up to my flat—quite a feat. We are three abreast on the stairs, with my mother holding Morgan the Pekinese under one arm and practically holding my father up with the other. I have taken her handbag off her which, as always, is hopelessly flamboyant and makes me feel slightly like a drag queen, and I also have the crutches from my father which are doing quite a good job of propping me up. For every two steps we take forward, we sway a bit and then take one back. There is a persistent air of hysteria and my mother and I start to get a little giggly.

  After we totter through the door of the flat, we drop my father onto the sofa and I go to prepare three large drinks. “So,” I shout from the kitchen as I clink bottles and glasses together, “what are you doing up here?”

  “It’s a long and tedious story,” says Dad. I hand their drinks over to them and they both take huge slugs. My mother frowns at my father.

  “Darling, are you sure that you are supposed to be drinking this? Didn’t the doctor give you some antibiotics?”

  “Sod the doctor,” he says defiantly, taking another huge gulp. They are both dressed smartly—my mother is wearing a typically swirly, flowery little number while my father is also running to form in a blazer and tie. They must have been to the hospital as the crutches have NHS emblazoned across them. My parents’ friends seem to think this is some sort of trendy brand name from the States as there is quite a collection of memorabilia at home. The guest rooms even have NHS blankets, left over from when we were all involved in a flood and the rescue crews had to come and get us. My mother was carried out by a fireman, all the while telling him loudly he’d arrived thirty years too late.

  I wait for the gins to deplete a little more before I re-start my inquiry.

  “Well, it’s perfectly simple really,” my mother explains. “Your father and I were going to a retirement lunch in Bath. We just thought we would pop up, not disturb you as we’re seeing you in a few weeks anyway, and then go back the same day.”

  “When are you seeing me?”

  “I have told you, haven’t I?” I shake my head. “Got a wedding here in a few weeks’ time. Thought we might come up and stay a few nights before. Is that OK?”

  “Fine. So whose retirement lunch was this today?”

  “Alex’s, darling. Alex Scott. You know, has that dreadful daughter. She’s a Buddhist or something, dresses in a sari. Always chanting. Anyway, your father and I were early, so we thought we would stop by Weston-super-Mare and have a walk on the beach. We both take off our shoes and then your father goes and steps on some rock and gets it wedged in his heel. Very silly. But he said he was fine so we went to the lunch anyway. But the meal was perfectly ghastly and then they wanted me to sing some of my old numbers, so I stamped on your father’s foot and had the perfect excuse to whisk him off to Casualty.”

  See? What did I tell you about this Casualty thing? Really, we all seem to spend most of our waking hours there. And such is the nature of my parents’ relationship that my father doesn’t seem at all upset she has stamped on his foot and she doesn’t seem at all repentant.

  “Your father made the most dreadful fuss down at the hospital. Thank goodness it’s not our local because I don’t know if we can ever be seen in there again.”

  “You didn’t see a Dr. Kirkpatrick, did you?” It is my turn to look worried. I mean, I think it may be a bit soon to start meeting the parents.


  “No, no. That wasn’t his name, it was something quite ordinary. Can’t remember. Anyway, the doctor said he was going to dig the stones out of your father’s foot and that your father had to have a local anaesthetic which would feel just like a bee sting.” They both start grinning wickedly at this point. “He put the needle in and Dad started writhing around, shouting, ‘What sort of monster bloody bees sting you?’ ”

  We all laugh. My father, normally very well-tempered and a perfect foil for my mother’s more dramatic tendencies, seems to enjoy his momentary spot in the limelight.

  “So, how are you, Holly?” he asks. “How’s the crime business?”

  “Oh, fine. Quite a change from features anyway.”

  “Who’s this detective character you’re supposed to be shadowing?”

  “Detective Sergeant Sabine. Except I’ve called him Jack in the paper. After the cat. He’s OK. Doesn’t like me very much.”

  “We’ve arranged with the newsagent up the road to have the paper posted down to us each day. So, come on, tell us all.”

  I explain about the recent burglaries and then I go back and describe in full how I happened to get the job and all about Robin. I also tell them about James in more detail and how he seems to dislike me so much. They say they are sure he will like me more in time but I’m not convinced.

  By now we are all nursing our second gin and tonics. I love spending time with my parents like this. They are really easy to be with. Great adult parents, if you see what I mean. All their eccentricities seemed so awful when I was a kid. You could absolutely guarantee that wherever they went some sort of drama would follow and I’m sure you understand that that is not the sort of attention you like when you’re a child. I would drag my feet behind their considerable wake, painfully aware of the looks and glances I would be receiving. Parents’ evenings, school plays, summer fêtes (which my mother usually opened due to her slight star status) were all the same. My mother, being an actress, would always “make an entrance” and then design a momentous exit, almost to a round of applause. Heinous crimes indeed when you are ten, but now they amuse me.