Playing James

by Sarah Mason

  “This is Holly Colshannon,” says James, “she is here—”

  “For observation only,” I cockily finish for him, holding out my hand. The old lady smiles and delicately shakes it.

  “How do you do?” she murmurs.

  She then leads the way through to an elegant drawing room. A uniformed officer is already there and he gets up as we enter.

  “Morning sir.”

  “Morning Matt.”

  “Would you like tea?” the old lady asks us. We all answer in the affirmative and, like a spooky déjà vu of the last post-burglary scene, she goes off to assemble the tea things while the two officers form a huddle. This time, though, I don’t try to overhear their conversation. Firstly, they are speaking so quietly that I seriously doubt my ability to do so, and secondly, I don’t really trust my capacity to make any coordinated movements right now. I would probably end up falling into their laps or something equally horrifying.

  I spend my time looking around the room. A large grandfather clock reassuringly tick-tocks in the corner and dozens of photos are displayed on a grand piano. I get up and wander over to them. I identify the old lady in a few, along with various children whom I presume are grandchildren. While I am scrutinizing them, the old lady comes back in bearing a large tray. James leaps up and takes the tray from her. When we are all holding delicate, rose-patterned china cups of tea, he starts his questioning.

  “Do you live alone, Mrs. Stephens?”

  “I am widowed, Detective. My husband died last year. My grandson lives with me at the moment. His father is in the Royal Navy and has just moved over to Italy. Andrew—that’s my grandson—is taking his exams in the next few weeks and so he is staying with me until they are finished.”

  “We may need to speak to him. Would that be OK?” She nods.

  “I understand the missing items were all taken from the dining room. When were you last in there?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “So presumably the burglary took place last night. Did you hear anything at all?”

  “Not a thing and I am a very light sleeper.”

  “Have you noticed anyone suspicious hanging about in the last few days?”

  Mrs. Stephens thinks hard for a couple of seconds and then replies emphatically, “No.”

  “If it is OK with you, we may just send some officers round to talk to your neighbors.” Mrs. Stephens nods her agreement and James Sabine looks across at Matt, who then glides silently out of the room.

  “May we see where they got in?” James asks.

  We replace our empty cups on the tray and she leads the way out of the room, back into the hallway and then into a dining room. It contains a huge table surrounded by eight large chairs. She points to a window over in the far corner.

  “They got in there; took a pane of glass out of the window.”

  She then walks over to a huge glass display cabinet. It is almost empty. She stares at it forlornly.

  “I kept meaning to have window locks fitted. They took everything of any real value. Still, they left me with a few pieces of porcelain that the children gave me. I’m grateful for that.” The emotion in her voice is apparent. “They even took a clock that my husband gave me on our first wedding anniversary. It wasn’t even working!” Her voice starts to break and a tear rolls down her cheek. We both unconsciously start forward, jolted by her distress.

  Detective Sergeant Sabine says, with a surprising amount of gentleness in his voice, “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Stephens.” There is a pause as he waits for her to regain some composure. After a few minutes he softly continues, “We’re going to bring forensics experts in, Mrs. Stephens. Has anything been touched?”

  She shakes her head slowly, and very gently he turns her around and leads her out of the room. Matt, the uniformed officer, rejoins me in the hall while James Sabine deposits Mrs. Stephens on a sofa in the drawing room. He comes back out to us and says to me, “Look, I know that you have notes to make, but would you mind sitting with her? Just for a bit?”

  I nod my head and go into the drawing room. This is not at all pleasant. I can see why James Sabine was so uptight with me about burglaries. I mean, my first experience of them was with old Sebastian Forquar-Whathisgob, who, let’s face it, was not a sympathetic character. But the crime against this old lady, whose every possession is a memory and something precious to her, feels like a huge violation. I sit down on the sofa next to her and put my professional skills to good use.

  We talk gently for the next hour or so about her family—her late husband, her children and her grandchildren. She talks me through every photo present on that grand piano of hers. By the end of the hour she seems much better. Detective Sergeant Sabine has floated in and out, interrupting our session now and then with queries of his own. Finally he comes in and re-starts his questioning. Made redundant, I wander back out to the hallway and into the dining room. Roger is there. He looks up from his work.

  “Don’t come too close. You’ll contaminate everything.”

  “Roger, you smooth talker, you,” I say idly.

  He grins. “How are you getting on?”

  I hover in the doorway. “Oh, fine,” I say uncertainly.

  He looks up. “That bad, eh?”

  I smile. “Yeah, that bad. I set off the car siren today and then fell over a sweet stuck to the pavement.” Roger lets out a bellow of laughter. I grin and feel much better. Smiling to himself, he goes back to his work and I watch him for a few minutes.

  “Sad, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “An old lady being burgled like this.”

  He stops what he is doing and looks me straight in the eyes. “See a lot of sad things in our line of work, love.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do.” I give a small half-smile. James Sabine comes up behind me.

  “Come on, time to go. Did you find anything, Roger?”

  Roger nods and says, “Some fibers. That peculiar substance we picked up on in the first burglary is on the handles of the cabinet too. Looks like the same person.”

  “Found it anywhere else in the house?”

  “Nope, just in here. And nothing else has been touched but the handles of the cabinet.”

  “Any chance of you working out what that is?”

  “Eventually, James. You know how it is.”

  Detective Sergeant Sabine sighs. “I know. See you soon.”

  Roger nods his affirmation and we both say goodbye to him.

  We go through together to the drawing room. Mrs. Stephens is still sitting on the sofa, staring into space. James jolts her out of her reverie by saying, “Can we get you anything before we go?”

  She gets up carefully and smiles at us. “No, thank you. I’ll see you out.”

  We all walk together toward the door.

  “It was nice to meet you,” I say genuinely.

  “You too. Thank you for our chat. I enjoyed it tremendously. Thank you for your kindness, Detective.”

  We start off down the path but I look over my shoulder halfway down and am surprised to see she is still there, patiently watching our retreating backs. She really is “seeing us out,” a mode of behavior I am completely unfamiliar with. The only time I have been “seen out” before was to ensure that I actually left the premises.

  James Sabine says, as we put on our seat belts, “Look, do you think we could drop this Detective Sergeant Sabine/Miss Colshannon thing? It’s a ridiculous name anyway.”

  “I think that’s a bit harsh. I mean, it isn’t your fault your surname is unpronounceable.”

  “I meant Colshannon,” he says tersely.

  “We can use Christian names if you want,” I continue.

  “It wouldn’t mean we’re getting on though,” he says grimly, putting the car into first gear.

  “Don’t worry, I didn’t think for a second we were.”

  “If I had my way, you still wouldn’t be here at all.”

  “You have made that fairly obvious,” I say, my
mind jolted back to the leaked stories to the Journal.

  We are quiet in the car on the way back to the station. I think over my conversation with Mrs. Stephens and suddenly say, “Are these burglaries turning into a series?”

  “I think they probably are.”

  We arrive back at the station. I leap out of the car first and wait at the front desk to be buzzed through the security door by Dave-the-grumpy-git-desk-sergeant. He doesn’t look up. I sense a pattern may be emerging here. As soon as Detective Sab . . . sorry, James, steps through the doorway his head pops up. How does he do that? Does he have a system of reflecting mirrors down there or something?

  “Morning sir!” Oh God. Is it still morning?

  “Morning Dave. How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. Morning Holly,” Dave says as he buzzes us through. I am so surprised that he actually knows my name that I can only manage an inane grin.

  James and I troop up the stairs together. At the second floor he says, “I’ve got some stuff to do with another department so I’ll see you later.” I am summarily dismissed and make my way back to my desk. I call Joe.

  “Joe, it’s Holly.”

  “Have you seen this morning’s?” I presume he is referring to this morning’s edition of the Journal.

  “Yep.”

  “Where are they getting it from?” He sounds desperate.

  “Don’t know, the IT department here is looking into it. I wouldn’t hold your breath though.” I don’t think the IT department is going to be very forthcoming—they sound as though they have more important things to do.

  “Look, Holly. You’re going to have to give our readers something that the Journal can’t. We’ve had the pollsters out today. The diary has had a rather lukewarm reception. The people who have read it like it, but it’s not getting readers over to us. I think this scooping business is really stirring everything up. The Journal is blatantly poking fun at us and the diary. We need to get the readers to switch allegiance somehow.”

  “Right,” I say slowly, “and how are we going to do that?”

  “Well, you’ve got the private angle on this. The Journal can pilfer stories all they like, but you are actually in there with a real, live detective. You need to look to your laurel leaves. You’re going to have to develop the detective more.”

  “OK,” I say doubtfully. I don’t like where this seems to be heading.

  “How’s your personal relationship with this Jack character?”

  “James Sabine?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well . . .” Now, how can I put this? “We don’t really have much of a personal relationship,” I say carefully.

  “Can you get one?” asks Joe impatiently. I am tempted to ask if Sainsbury’s does them.

  “I could try . . .” I say doubtfully.

  “Holly! You are going to have to do better than TRY! I don’t care what you have to do! Wine him and dine him! Bed him, for all I care! But get some sort of repartee going with him!”

  “Have you met James Sabine?” I’m getting a little heated now. “Well, let me tell you, getting some sort of repartee going with him is like trying to get some sort of repartee going with HANNIBAL LECTER!” I am suddenly aware of someone standing in close proximity to me and I glance up to find James Sabine staring straight back down at me. I don’t know how long he has been there, but probably long enough. “Who is my cousin and a very nice man . . .” I murmur into the mouthpiece while simultaneously going puce. James picks up something from his desk and then walks off again. I close my eyes and swear silently to myself as Joe continues to rant down the phone into my ear.

  After replacing the receiver and carefully weighing up the odds, I think the pressure would come off me and my “personal relationship” with James Sabine if the leaks to the Journal stopped. With this great deduction in mind, I trot up to the IT department, situated on the top floor of the building, intent on some no-holds-barred, unashamed begging tactics. IT department is probably a bit of an exaggeration. “Group” might be a more accurate description, or even “huddle.” I spot a lady in a corner and make my way over to her.

  “Er, hello?” I say in a bid to attract her attention.

  Her head shoots back in shock, her eyes wide with surprise.

  “Sorry, did I scare you?”

  “Er, no. Not at all. Are you lost?”

  “I’m looking for the IT department.”

  “You’ve found it!” she says, beaming at me. “How can I help?”

  “Well, I know Detective Sergeant Sabine has already reported it, but I’ve come to see if you’ve made any progress with tracing the leaks to the Journal newspaper?”

  She looks absolutely dumbfounded at this. But then these academic sorts are always lost in some other world, aren’t they? They’re a bit vague because their minds are on higher planes than us mere mortals. I smile understandingly and lean a little closer. I say slowly and clearly, with the emphasis on my pronunciation, “The leaks to the Journal newspaper are from Detective Sergeant Sabine’s computer. You are supposed to be tracking them.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, love. Nobody’s reported anything here.”

  I step back in surprise. “Nobody’s reported anything?”

  It’s her turn to speak clearly and slowly; in fact, seeing my baffled face, she probably feels words are too much for me and resorts to shaking her head very slowly.

  “Well, might it have been reported to someone else?”

  She points behind my head to a large white board. “If it’s not up on the board, it’s not a problem,” she recites in a mantra-type fashion. “There’s no way if he had reported it that it wouldn’t be up there. It’s what we all work from.” She shrugs. “Maybe he forgot.”

  After restoring communication and officially reporting the leak, I wander slowly back down the stairs, frowning to myself. Why did James Sabine not report this? My mind runs over the various possibilities and keeps returning to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, there can only be two reasons for it. Either he wants the leaks to continue in an effort to get me chucked off this job or there is no leak to be traced as it has come directly from him. Either way it confirms the fact he wants me out, a fact he hasn’t been disguising anyway. I clench my hands. He is deliberately ruining my career just because he can’t put up with a reporter for a few weeks.

  Muttering furiously to myself, I slowly walk toward Robin’s office. I need to talk to someone and I feel I can trust her as she wants this diary to work as much as I do, for whatever personal reasons of her own. What I would really like to do right now is have it out with Detective Sabine, but I know that since there is no direct proof against him it would probably result in me being thrown out of here. My options are really quite limited and I hope that Robin may have a solution. I stride into her office.

  “Robin, have you got a . . .” I stand rooted to the spot and the hairs instinctively go up on the back of my neck. You know how, if you interrupt two lovers having a row, or a very intimate conversation between two people, there is a certain atmosphere of intensity and high emotion? Well, I’ve just walked in on such an atmosphere. I feel my arrival has sent shock waves around the room. Emotions are running high in here. James Sabine holds Robin in his arms. He looks crossly at me.

  I say, quickly, “I’ll come back,” and turn and walk out of the room.

  twelve

  Ben comes over for the evening but I am so distracted that I either ignore his questions altogether, laugh in the wrong places during his account of the day or come out with peculiar responses like “would you prefer sausages with that?” He finally gives up on me and watches A Question of Sport, but not before tipping his dirty kit into the washing machine and then asking me how to run the cycle through.

  I toss and turn all night, listening to Ben’s rhythmic breathing beside me. Questions run through my head. Are Robin and James having an affair? Is that why Robin wants to leave Bristol so badly, because James Sabin
e is getting married?

  James Sabine just doesn’t seem the sort to be having an affair though. Maybe it was one of those poor-sods-just-can’t-help-themselves things. But Robin has only been there a few months. I suppose these things can develop quite quickly and she is so glamorous. In which case, why is he still getting married?

  Whatever is going on between those two still leaves the problem that I can’t trust Robin now she is sharing pillow talk with James. I don’t know who else to turn to regarding these leaks. Now that I have officially told the IT department about them, they can be traced. In fact, I think suddenly, if I subtly let James Sabine know that I have been up to the IT department to alert them to the leaks, he may feel obliged to stop as they won’t be able to find anyone getting into his computer but him.

  Even with some sort of plan in place, sleep still eludes me. Eventually I drop off into a restless doze, my dreams punctuated with images of James, Robin and computers.

  I get up early and, after kissing a sleepy Ben goodbye, leave for the police station. I am already at my desk and working on my laptop by the time James Sabine arrives. We eye each other warily. My hackles are up. The last time I saw him he was with Robin and I had just learned he was shopping me to the Journal. He is the first to speak.

  “Look, I know what it must have seemed like yesterday—”

  “I don’t think it’s any of my business,” I say. I really don’t want to have this conversation and so stare stubbornly at my laptop screen.

  “It’s just that . . . I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Sure,” I snap.

  So there is definitely something going on then. If there is just an innocent explanation, surely this would be a great opportunity to tell me? We work in silence for a few minutes more, then I say casually, “By the way, I went up to the IT department yesterday to see if they’ve managed to trace the leaks.”

  I think he suddenly looks wary. “And what did they say?”

  “They said they haven’t been able to yet.”

  In the true spirit of nosiness, I drop in to see Robin later in the morning. She is looking a little subdued, but still exudes glamour. Looking at her beautiful and troubled face I decide that James could be excused for falling for such a gorgeous woman, even though she is as hard as nails and it really isn’t any of my business. Besides, I don’t know the full story and it’s easy to make quick judgments about people. Before I can even open my mouth, she says, “I’m sorry about yesterday. I was going to come and find you today to apologize.”