As I arrive DCs Whittle and Fenwick are trying vainly to rub out the words on the whiteboard. With a nod to all and nobody I go to my small glass cubicle of an office in one corner. An email awaits from Jai Li Arden, Head of Scientific Services, wishing me luck in my new role. A text pings in with the same thought from Amy Grayling, my deputy at Intelligence and now in charge there.
Whittle and Fenwick have elected to share a space by a window with their desks facing each other close to me. DC Tony Gadd is marooned in a far corner, away from all, seemingly unwanted and unnoticed. All three give me a vague nod, without meeting my eye, as they now explore their empty desk drawers with zeal. My Sergeant, Jean Parsons, a DC with my squad last time around, simply ignores everyone, setting a pack of cigarettes and lighter on her desk before staring out of the big high window in the other distant corner.
The sky is dark with brooding cloud, snow softly falling on the windows as I take the squad’s personnel files from my bag and lock them in a filing cabinet. All are revealing, as no doubt would be my own. The phone on Parson’s desk rings abruptly then. She listens for a moment, signals that the call is for me. I shake my head, take a message, we are busy. She notes something down, becoming more hostile as the call goes on before banging the phone down loudly as I go to the head of the conference table and wave them all to gather. The four sit in an arc away from me, Parsons pointedly moving as far away as possible.
Her voice is flat rural Ancaster as she tells me the call was male, Australian she thinks, says he needs to talk to me urgently, been trying for several months and has written a number of letters without response. I think of similar calls Amy has been taking once a month for a year, of the boxes of letters that I have at home, unopened. All four of these officers will have heard the rumours that I am planning to emigrate to Australia and make a new start; they will assume the call is to do with that rumoured top job I have been offered out there. If only I had, if only I could. But it will not build group confidence to think I am looking to desert them already.
***
I leave the insult on the white board as I begin our first team meeting, outlining our geographical area, responsibilities or ‘Mission Statement’ in the jargon, and explain that the team will be gradually built up to twelve in all with purpose built premises in Ister ‘when budgets permit.’ ‘Long after I am gone’, I think, but do not say. I hand out a file to each which gives details of this background, already emailed to them too.
I ask them to introduce themselves. To see how they handle it, to see what they say and, more importantly, what they do not say.
DC Whittle perches forward on her rickety chair, almost to attention, smart in a darker business suit with a light pink blouse today. Her voice is low, sultry, almost like the soul singer she reminds me of, as she carefully explains that she is from Leeds, always wanted to join the police and spent two years on the beat in Ancaster City and then Ister before training to be a Detective. Her confidence grows as she talks but she slows nervously as she ends by saying that after six months in Major Crime with DCI Odling she was assigned to this new project. She does not press her other credentials: that she is a fast track graduate with a first-class academic record. Does not mention that she has a Master’s degree in Criminology and Psychology, and asked for a transfer out of her previous team without giving any explanation. She does not know that Odling concluded in his final review that she is not a team player, lacks the nous and bottle to be a copper let alone a detective, and would be better off finding a new career entirely. He had actually inserted a stray piece of paper: ‘In confidence, intellectual, thinks all the time, waste of space.’ I immediately warmed to the woman, knowing Odling was actually aiming a petty dig at me.
DC Tom Fenwick is different entirely. Where Whittle is tall, slim and stylish with a set of notes ready to go, Fenwick is all size and muscular girth in a smart new suit and shirt bulging with the effort to contain him. He is what my mother would call ‘A Bonny Ancaster Boy,’ with a happy round face. Fenwick’s muted polka dot tie has the signs of tomato sauce drops on it, presumably from breakfast. He scrawled indecipherably in his note book as I talked, the pen puny between fingers as thick as sausages.
He tells his own story with humorous self-deprecation. Local boy, ‘so oi can speake the accent when neaads be or when it beaa choooking it a daarn with raine’ he explains to a smatter of laughter from Gadd and Whittle. Eight years in the force, rising from a plodding beat cop at twenty in Merian and then Ancaster City to his first day with C.I.D. now. He trained to be a detective. with Marcia, DC Whittle, he corrects himself with a smile, and just wants to do a good job.
Despite his dubious desire to make people laugh whenever possible, I am impressed. Experience has clearly taught him to give away as little as possible. He does not say that he is Merian born and bred, his father a local carpenter and mother a teaching assistant in a local school. Nor does he remind me that I coached him in a group of youngsters for a few months at the boxing club. He does not need to say that he is struck on Whittle, and clearly hopes to work with her, a lot. He will not know that Odling’s team rejected him, a fact which while not something welcome for his record, raises his status in my eyes. Another confidential note: ‘Big slow local, welcome to him’ was Odling’s scribbled note. I accepted Fenwick at once, knowing his local knowledge would help my new team and that he came from an honest hard working family I know of by reputation.
Parsons sits, quietly and insolently doodling before bluntly objecting, “Can we not just get on with things - you read their files, know more about them than they know themselves?”
I stare at Jean. I was expecting hostility from someone, but not so soon and not from her. Even when I accepted her as a very young DC on my first squad, I was warned she was ‘a bit of a terror’ by her uniform Sergeant, Edgar Brocksom, who talked her up as he rated her but also could not hide that he was not sorry to lose her. In person, she had turned out to be short (the bare minimum height for the force then), stout woman with glasses on a chain round her neck. At twenty-five, from a shepherd’s family in the south of the county, she wanted to be in C.I.D. so badly it hurt, tried not to show it and failed miserably. She had read all the required books, passed her exams with top marks and had explored detecting in fiction and coppers’ memoirs which impressed me. Then Creel had rejected her for his squad and I found myself drawn to Parsons even more as a result and taken her once an opportunity arose. She had proved a lioness of a detective and person: perceptive, quick thinking, seeing through people, able to either blend in to her surroundings or magnetically dominate proceedings. While not classically beautiful, she was pretty, with a rosy complexion, short blonde curly hair, all seeing eyes lit by an inner light that said she would never be defeated. In my old squad, she had flourished, become a family friend to Bess, Grace and I, and been made up to Sergeant at my insistence just before my trauma began.
And now, all of that dynamism is seemingly trained against me. I ignore her, nodding for DC Tony Gadd to speak when all three of the DCs look confused at such an outburst from their immediate superior.
***
Gadd is the only one I actually interviewed, the likeliest Creel / Odling plant I thought. I could not have been more wrong, or he was and is very clever. Gadd is tall, thin and weedy looking in face and body, with large spectacles magnifying his eyes so that two men-of-war from the ocean depths seem to be staring at you. Then and today he is dressed in an old tweed suit with trousers that do not quite reach his shoes, one of which perpetually and desperately needs cleaning.
In my then office at Intelligence, he was very honest, telling me immediately he had three reasons for wanting to join the new squad. First, he wanted to stay close to Ister, where his ex-wife and two children lived. Second, he was first and foremost a computer geek and researcher, had joined Ancaster police on that basis with a view to specializing in cyber-crime. He had just made DC in the IT unit when the Superintendent had abolished it and moved h
im to general duties with Odling’s crime squad.
His voice had stuttered even as he looked me in the eye and his already reedy voice wavered, “Degree in computer science, second rate Uni, but I am very very good with data, computers, software, finding digital information, seeing patterns, but poor with people DCI Cade. I know I am. But I know with you I have to do general detective work and will improve if you help me, but hope I might also get to use my specialist skills too.”
The third reason? He was not stupid, knew his very job was in jeopardy if he stayed where he was. “Don’t fit there, never will.’
Today his presentation is nervous but well thought out. He has been with the force for ten years after University, three of them in C.I.D.. He tells essentially the same story as he had in our interview though a little more diplomatically about his old squad.
His file says that he prefers to work alone on technical matters. Odling, and then Creel, had approved the request for a transfer within a day of receiving it, giving him a glowing few sentences on a few points that they clearly did not mean. All to ensure that I got landed with him. Amy told me that Gadd is a joke in Odling’s squad and people think him lazy, just wanting to stare at computer screens, play with phone Apps and cameras, and go on courses for such. Still I had a good feeling and took him. The alternatives were even worse, truth be told: DCs who were old and set in their ways in Vice or Juvenile, or the newly trained and unpromising. At least these three were hungry to do well, wanted to be in my squad and would presumably work to my approach.
Bottom line: they are two total newbies, and a failure. Creel has dumped people on me who he thinks are bound to help me sink. No doubt the others, if and when they join, will be as bad if not worse - on paper at least. I know I got this job against all Creel’s objections, when he had another of his own sycophantic group ready and he is biding his time to find a reason to replace me with one of his own. My attending a crime scene when I should not have been there and before I called it in, my going back to that same location and finding new evidence and not disclosing it, my keeping my mother’s involvements secret, are three acts that could finish me.
Parsons is about to erupt again as Gadd finishes, before I cut her off, saying that they probably know about me but I am here for the duration and they will have to judge for themselves. From the heavy cloud of anger around Parsons, her body language and the simmering tension she is projecting, I am fairly certain that they will learn about Sergeant Parsons soon enough.
25
Break time and Fenwick has slipped to Bert’s to collect provisions for all as my treat. Sipping my piping hot latte, watching Fenwick devour a sausage sandwich and large cappuccino, my mind is elsewhere. How to wrest the hit and run case from Odling’s squad so I can investigate it properly myself, explore and protect my mother and possibly my own involvement there and prove Sam totally innocent. All without upsetting Creel and Odling too much. By chance I do have a plan, of sorts.
The squad back to order, I summarise the cases we have, giving out files on each, allotting tasks.
Parsons and Gadd will visit the offices of the Merian Standard newspaper, scene of a burglary over the weekend. Whittle will take the D'Eynscourte Village Primary School, where a break-in on Sunday evening led to a fire in a store room. Both incidents were undiscovered until people went to work yesterday morning and uniform have dealt with it to date. Fenwick will make preliminary visits to the three farms that have had major thefts committed on them in the past month. His face does not hide his disappointment, but whether about the crimes allotted or not working with Whittle I am unsure.
A memory flits to mind of Val’s remark about casual workers yesterday, “Tom, subtly find out if these farms have had contractors or freelancers working on them in the past twelve months.”
I stress they should all explore the burglar alarm systems installed and who is responsible for fitting and servicing, especially whether ‘Cat’ Rudd, James Rudd or Derek Stephenson figured in any of the locations.
Parsons is quick, “Cat, Duane? The brother of scrote Rudd who we could not get on sex charges against those little girls in your lane?”
I nod. Her contempt is concrete. Loathing any sexual crimes, Jean had never forgiven me for not nailing Rudd at the time. ‘Everything black and white for our Jean,’ Brocksom had concluded all those years ago.
I do not say what I am going to be doing and nobody asks. I end the meeting, stressing that all are to keep in contact with me regularly, follow up any leads we agree, and that a Team Meeting will be held every morning to assess progress and our next steps.
***
Whittle and Fenwick immediately begin to study their files, Gadd manages to drop his beneath the conference table, scattering paper for yards around.
I quietly ask Parsons if she will record and write up notes on our meetings after today, which I will see to. Parsons ignores me, Gadd’s mess and the file I have put in front of her, scowling as she bursts out angrily to everyone in general, “Why us?”
The DCs are suddenly engrossed in their paperwork as I stare past them to Jean at the far end of the table.
“Us, a Major Crime Team, shit squad room,’ she spits out harshly in her rural twang as her hands go up in exasperation. “Low end cases standard for uniform or general C.I.D., not Major Crime. We should call this ‘The Dump’ if this goes on.”
I say nothing, thinking only of the peace at Intelligence now, a coffee fetched for me from the cafeteria and even discussion on politics or literature with Amy. Yet here I am, seeing Parsons’ eyes flashing dangerously with red spots on her cheeks. She stands up suddenly, her temper only fanned by my silence.
She addresses the DCs now, voice rising, forcing them to look up at her by strength of will, ‘I will tell you why, he, our DCI is being set up to fail, they want him out, so he has this crap squad room, the low-end cases.”
Her voice is pure frustration, “And us. You? Collateral damage in getting him out of the force. As they should have done years ago.”
Before she ends in quiet sorrow, “Sorry for you guys that presumably nobody else wants. All here to sink without trace. Me included.”
The DCs are totally stunned. I can see in Whittle’s face the sudden realisation that her previously stellar career may be about to nosedive. Fenwick is sweating, looking from the Sergeant to me in total confusion. Ten years to get here and it could soon be over? Only Gadd seems almost amused by events, until he sees I am observing and becomes instantly straight faced.
Despite not having spoken to Jean for six years, I still had a forlorn illusion that we might work together. No more. But what to do now?
Shock treatment is the only way in such situations. Scorch and burn. Napalm dreaming to the sound of copter blades and Wagner blasting, often becomes the only way at times, my friend Jerry says. Not literally, but metaphorically, a strategy, as here. I see the point. I always have, even if I have often not agreed with it. Though that was in my pre-succubus days.
Hard to be angry with Jean, I would probably feel the same in her situation. Indeed, I agree with her in many ways. She is as sharp and direct as ever. My trauma has devoured me for seven years, I could not help myself, let alone others when they needed me. Not the time here and now to say that to her, in private later perhaps. And how would a shouting match help at this point. I know vaguely what Parsons put up with once for me; staying loyal and defending me publicly far too long after I told her and all my old squad to stay quiet and put space between themselves and me as Creel and Odling spread their poison in the force and outside.
I can suddenly see too why she has turned full circle and accepted my guilt without ever becoming a vocal detractor; until now at least. She has simply been worn down. Yet still this outburst, likely borne out of frustration and anger at her own poor situation, is not sensible, not helpful, right now. For either or any of us.
Scorch and burn.
My eyes will be flaring violent blue I know as I gaze at
each in turn, forcing all bar the Sergeant to look away or down, before I say amiably, “The Sergeant may be right, team.
“She often is.”
The moments lengthen, they know the ‘but’ is coming.
What to say? I could brag but know I will not. My actual achievements are too obscured in my villainous legend. Too pathetic to raise: I was the youngest DCI in the history of Ancaster County, indeed in England; my squad’s detection rate was second to none; my people were carefully selected and quickly promoted, most now enjoying stellar careers with other forces.
Instead I say quietly, “I always enjoyed working with the best and cracking cases, together, welcoming every thought and opinion.”
I let the thought hang, “And that applies to you. Now.”
A pause, not for effect but to control my icy distaste, “The success rate will be to the same high level too. If you work with me.”
Parsons shrugs, mouth curled in dismissal as the others stare nervously at me despite my being all sweet reason and understanding.
Before my offer comes quietly, “If not, there is still time, I will approve any requests for immediate transfer. Without comment. To uniform I expect.”
My voice then becomes cold doom as I stand and issue the cruel ultimatum, “So, those who want.”
Bitter Pastoral_A DCI Caleb Cade Crime Thriller of rural Ancaster County. Page 15