Fran threw the car into a slot marked Consultants Only, leaving one of her business cards propped against the screen and strode in. The dismal queue parted before her good suit and air of authority, though she always reminded herself that being five foot ten never hurt.
She showed her ID. ‘Where can I find Ms Jill Tanner, please?’
Years ago, in her Traffic days, she’d have known every A and E receptionist on the circuit, and each would have got her to the person she needed before she even asked. They had presumably moved up the ladder at she same rate as she. So she was left with this dozy, uncooperative woman.
‘I understand,’ she said very slowly and clearly, ‘that you have admitted DCI Jill Tanner. I would like to see her if it’s clinically possible.’
‘If you sit down.’ The woman gestured. But the flap of the hand towards the vacant chairs transformed itself, almost unconsciously, to point at the most senior nurse the far side of her desk.
Jill was lying listlessly on a trolley waiting for someone to ferry her to X-Ray. She was alone – no sign of Brian or either of the kids. In her unforgiving hospital gown, every bruise was visible, including the two hand-shaped ones Tom had mentioned.
‘If you’re nice to me I shall cry, and it’ll hurt,’ Jill greeted her.
‘Well, you’d better lie to attention then, hadn’t you?’ Fran bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Well?’ She took Jill’s hand in a warm clasp, retaining it.
‘Stairs. I fell down the stairs. They think I may have cracked a rib or two, and maybe my left ankle.’
‘A woman of your age falling down stairs in a bright modern house like yours? That takes some doing, Jill, even at the end of a hard week.’
She rubbed her head with her spare hand. ‘It all happened so fast. Is it only Friday?’
‘It is. And you haven’t told me how you did it.’
‘I just missed my footing. In a rush, not looking where I was going – you know how it is. That time you fell over the pavement that wasn’t there. You remember – Ashford market?’
‘Fancy your remembering that!’ She’d gone base over apex for absolutely no reason. She’d been lucky to bounce. It must have been around the time Pa had started having heart attacks, when she was under unbelievable stress.
‘Teenagers are worse than parents,’ she mused, unthinking.
‘Teenagers are fine. This case – these cases – they’ve really got to me, that’s all.’
Fran nodded. ‘Of course. Like they grabbed you round the forearms hard enough to bruise you.’
Jill flushed vividly. ‘That was – well, come on, Fran, doesn’t Mark grab you when… You know, moments of passion?’
‘If he squeezed that hard, I’d go even as he came. Jill – we’re both adults and we’re old friends. Who has done this to you? Brian?’
Jill turned her face literally to the wall. ‘I fell down the stairs, for God’s sake.’ And she might have muttered under her breath, ‘And you can’t prove otherwise.’
Equally inaudibly, Fran responded. ‘Want a bet?’
Fran parked herself in the waiting area until Jill had been plastered and bound up. Then she presented herself again. ‘You’ll need a lift home, won’t you? And I don’t see Brian.’
‘He’s on a bloody training session, as I could have told you if you’d given me half a chance. Residential. Good respectable local government witnesses everywhere.’ She sighed, with what seemed like resignation but obviously turned to pain. ‘Do you suppose you could stow a pair of crutches in your car?’
Fran had no more than cleared a load of disparate rubbish off Jill’s sofa, which conveniently had a built-in lifting footrest, when her phone rang.
‘Tom?’
‘Bit of a problem, like, guv. The Chief and your ACC like are in a private huddle with some guy from the Transport Police. Absolutely no interruptions. And I don’t think you’d want me to discuss this with anyone else.’
She checked her watch. ‘I should be with you within the hour if you can hold the fort.’
‘I’ll do my best, guv.’
Why did he sound so pleased?
She cut the quickest sandwich, found bottled water, the TV zapper and Jill’s mobile. ‘What time do the kids get back?’
‘Fiveish. And Brian about eight tonight. I shall be fine.’
‘Of course you will.’
Especially if Fran could make it her business to come back too. There were things she needed to sniff out. Not least the reason for the most pungent plug-in air freshener she’d ever had the misfortune to meet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The rest is silence.
However rushed and flustered she felt, Fran always tried to look cool. If she’d combed her hair and applied some slap, senior officers believed the flannel she had to fob them off with, and junior officers trusted her to deal with their problems. Like Tom now, for instance. She even popped a confident smile in place as she opened her office door. And stopped short.
‘Dilly! What are you doing here?’ She stepped inside quickly, closing the door.
The answer, by the looks of it, was that Dilly Pound was enjoying herself, Tom dancing attendance on her. Bottled water, a plastic dish of salad, some uneaten fruit, all on a canteen tray, sat on Fran’s desk, with Dilly occupying her chair and Tom his usual one pulled up opposite.
Tom didn’t even have the grace to blush. He just gave his usual innocent smile. Without a word about Jill Tanner, he explained, ‘Dilly was hungry and I thought no one would notice if I got her the sort of lunch you have if you’re in a hurry.’
Used to have. These days her half hour with Mark, however snatched, was sacrosanct unless one of them was locked in the sort of business that had made Mark inaccessible today.
‘Well, you’d better work out why I’m extraordinarily peckish and go and find me a supplementary sandwich,’ she grinned, appeased by his reasoning. As he left, she turned, amused, to the young woman who seemed to have been absorbed into her unofficial family. ‘OK, Dilly, you’ve obviously explained to Tom why you’re here: could you tell me?’
‘Of course.’ Dilly at least was clearly aware of the potential awkwardness of the situation. ‘And I do apologise. I came straight here. I had to. It never dawned on me you’d be out. And your secretary…she just showed me in. And Tom was working away at your desk and he told her you’d just popped out – you know, as if you’d gone to the loo or something – and that she could leave me. You know, trust me not to – well, hack into your files, or something. I don’t know.’ And this was a woman who could talk to camera in long coherent sentences! ‘Which was wonderful. Look.’ She patted an opened A4 Jiffy-bag. The letter inside was slightly creased, as if something else had been in the bag too. ‘It came to me at work.’
In her position, Fran would probably have wanted to be looked after too. Even by Tom, if Mark wasn’t around. Today’s note, sent by courier to TVInvicta, had shifted from the Bible to Shakespeare – thank goodness she’d done Hamlet for A Level – for inspiration. The rest is silence. Apart from that it was in the format she’d come to expect: A4, average weight paper, laser printed. She’d bet her pension there was no DNA on it either, or anything else the slightest bit of use to the forensic science team.
‘And the note wasn’t quite all.’ Dilly’s voice threatened to break.
‘It sounds as if whatever else there was wasn’t very pleasant.’
Dilly shook her head. ‘Tom put it in an evidence bag. He’s had it photographed and sent for DNA testing. Just in case.’
The door opened, Tom sliding in and shutting the door quickly.
‘Very Secret Service, Tom. Thanks.’ She put the sandwiches on a corner of her desk. ‘Now, you’ve clearly been terribly efficient, but I am, as Senior Investigating Officer, allowed to know what has so upset Dilly.’ She added with a grin, ‘What is the “it” we’re talking about?’
‘Just a five-inch bladed kitchen knife,’ he said with ironic cheerfulness. ‘It came
by courier, from Ashford. I checked with their depot. A very ordinary man in shades, false address.’
‘Just a knife! New? Old?’
‘It was the sort my mum brought me when I set up down here. Woolworth’s. Stainless blade, black plastic handle. Mine looks just like new, even though I’ve used it and it’s been through the communal dishwasher every day. So it’ll take the Forensics team to tell. But what I have done is phone Woollies’ regional HQ and ask for details of sales round here in the last couple of weeks. Just in case, like.’
‘Well done.’
‘The trouble is,’ he declared, with a theatrical pause, ‘the knife didn’t just rattle round inside the bag, ma’am. It came wrapped in something. Didn’t it, Dilly?’
The young woman hiccupped on a sob. ‘Yes. Fran, it was…they were…’
‘Undies, ma’am.’
‘What?’
‘A bra and pants set,’ Tom said, deadpan now. ‘Also bagged for evidence. According to Dilly—’
Fran raised a hand. She wanted this from Dilly herself, whom she encouraged with raised eyebrows and a quick nod.
‘It’s so embarrassing. Three or four weeks ago I lost a set. Out of my laundry basket.’
‘Just like that? You didn’t leave it at Daniel’s or at another friend’s?’ She’d be hard put herself to say in whichever house she’d left any item of clothing, of course.
‘Daniel and I – you know we…’ She swallowed. ‘At first I thought I must have washed them and they had got stuck in the washing machine, you know, pressed against the sides of the drum. Or hung them on the line and they’d blown off. But I thought, why just them?’
‘Why indeed?’
‘And then – well, Daniel told me I was imagining things, but you can’t just imagine losing a bra. Pants, yes.’
Unwilling, for Tom’s sake, to get involved in the philosophy of underwear loss, Fran asked, ‘And now your bra and pants are back?’
‘Not exactly. An identical set. Marks and Sparks, of course.’
‘And Chummie had cut out the labels,’ Tom put in.
‘So someone got into your house, stole some dirty undies and a few weeks later replaced them with clean ones. What a nice man. The more he does this sort of thing, the sooner he’ll bring himself down, won’t he, Tom? So you won’t have to endure this sort of thing much longer. Now, do you have any work assignments today, Dilly?’
‘Not till Monday – I already had this afternoon booked as time off. There was some talk of doing something with Daniel, but it fell through, so I was hoping to do some gardening, but I didn’t want…didn’t think…’
‘Good. I’m sorry about your pruning or whatever, but you’re certainly safer here. As for the weekend, we’ll have to give that some thought, won’t we?’ She fancied she caught a tiny silence: had they already discussed that but decided not to float the idea yet?
Tom coughed. ‘Do you want me to get back to the Incident Room with the others, ma’am?’
‘Not for a couple of moments, if you don’t mind keeping Ms Pound company a little longer.’ As if. ‘I’ve got some running around to do. In connection with DCI Tanner’s accident. There should be a general announcement on the Incident Room.’
He’d completely forgotten, hadn’t he? ‘Is she—? God, I—’ He smacked his forehead. ‘Not much of a multi-tasker, am I?’
‘You’re male,’ Dilly put in indulgently.
‘She’s safe at home, but with a couple of cracked ribs and a broken ankle. So I’ve got to go and talk to people. Best if you learn the details when the others do, eh?’
With the Chief and Mark still in their private meeting, she could no more barge in than Tom could, though they would certainly have to be involved in the next move in the Dilly Pound affair. That could wait, as long as Tom was happy to babysit. He might as well make himself useful while he did. She approached the matter obliquely. ‘By the way, Dilly, your fiancé told me you’d thought you were being followed at one point. And that you’d had George Dubya himself peering through your window. Why didn’t you tell me?’
Dilly looked at Tom, not her, and blushed. ‘Daniel said it was all nonsense, and I’m sure he’s right.’
‘Just in case he isn’t, just go through the various incidents with Tom, will you? In as much detail as you possibly can. With dates. Everything.’
She didn’t need to tell Tom to be thorough. Thorough was his middle name.
Her immediate problem, then, was Jill. For once she’d go through official channels. Someone had to tell Joe Farmer he was a significant member of his team light, but for Tom’s sake she’d rather he didn’t know exactly how she herself got involved.
Cosmo Dix was the answer. It was his job now to redistribute personnel. With luck the Chief’s fiat would ensure she kept Tom as her gofer the couple of hours a day he’d promised. If she were a betting woman, she’d have a fiver on Joe Farmer wanting to take on at least Jill’s caseload, popping the rest on to her desk. Five years ago she’d have been the first to put her hand in the air. Now she wasn’t so sure.
‘Three weeks’ sick leave?’ Cosmo repeated. ‘And the gravy, if I may say so.’
‘You may,’ Fran said graciously. ‘So long as you can tell me what it means.’
‘It’s what my dear old gran used to say when she meant that and a good deal more. Dudley, Fran – where Lenny Henry comes from. They have a nice line on vivid phraseology up there. Bear with me one tick, would you?’ He leaned back to page his secretary. ‘The minute the Chief’s free, get his secretary to call back. The very nanosecond, in fact. No, I don’t want to talk to him – it’s the ACC, Mr Turner, I want. Thanks.’ He turned back to Fran. ‘Might as well get this sorted before the weekend. At least, as sorted as we can. And that means involving DCS Farmer, too, of course. Though I fancy,’ he added, eyes agleam under his lashes, ‘that the fact you’ve come on your own means you’re making some sort of pre-emptive strike. Who’s your nomination, then?’
Fran listed half a dozen names. ‘But I want to take a back seat in this. What I do need to do is talk to the Chief before he leaves the building, so—’
‘No, you sit back down again.’ Back to his secretary. ‘And tell Janice that DCS Harman must talk to God before he hies him home. M for must. OK?’
‘Cosmo, I’m not supposed to “must” the Chief, you know.’
‘Come on, you can rely on Janice to be firm tactfully.’
Dilly suggested she was in the way, and stopping Fran and Tom doing their job. Unable to gainsay it, Fran asked how she would feel simply staying where she was, while Tom and she did indeed do other things. Tom found her some embarrassingly old magazines from Reception, and they left her to it. Fran’s secretary was as huffy as an old-time butler at such an unorthodox arrangement, but these days knew better than to argue.
‘Anything new?’ Fran asked, as she and Tom stopped outside the Incident Room.
‘Bloody McDine’s told her to keep schtum about all sorts of sightings. God knows why. But I think Chummie’s regularly been doing a Peeping Tom act outside her cottage. You know, wearing one of those masks, like – the sort people wear on demos. And I think he regularly tailed her from her office to her car.’
‘Before or after the broadcast?’
‘Well before, I reckon. I reckon her going national was just an excuse to step things up further. I may be wrong. But she’s so bloody vague about dates and times.’
‘And anything else?’
‘Not a lot. What she needs if you ask me is a good shrink to find why she’s saying so little. In her place I’d be scared witless, but she’s so bloody phlegmatic.’
‘We’ll have to do the shrink act for her, I suspect. Sod it, it looks as if DCS Farmer’s on his way out. Get back to the Incident Room – oh, you’ll come up with an excuse for going AWOL – and then brief me later. Off you go.’
Farmer, caught in mid-stride as he left his office, didn’t take the news of Jill’s fall with any enthusiasm.
<
br /> ‘I wondered if we should both be present to tell the troops,’ she said, though she didn’t really fancy a Tweedledee and Tweedledum act.
He pulled a long face and looked at his watch.
‘OK,’ she said helpfully, ‘I’ll do it myself and update you later.’
The Sexual Incidents teams greeted her announcement with something like relief that the governor had a genuine reason for absence.
‘Will you be taking over the cases, ma’am?’ some hopeful asked.
‘Nothing’s been decided yet. I’ll let you know immediately it has. In the meantime, simply press on with what you’ve been doing. I’ll be in DCI Tanner’s office if you need me, but I shall be busy, so I don’t want purely social visits. OK? Tom? Can I pick your brain, please?’ She withdrew to the comparative privacy of the goldfish bowl.
‘How far did you get before our visitor turned up?’ she demanded, nodding towards the door.
Shutting it, he counted his tasks off on his fingers. ‘CCTV at her cottage: for some reason the camera wasn’t tracking properly. Something to do with high wind blowing it off its moorings, like.’
‘What high wind?’
‘Well, it’s been a bit breezy, like.’
‘Enough to damage a well-fixed camera?’
‘Must have been a Friday afternoon job.’
She slapped the desk in exasperation. ‘So we’ve got nothing?’
‘Apart from you and the ACC, just a very fuzzy shot of someone’s bald spot.’
‘Bloody hell. So we get every suspect to kneel for the ID parade, do we? I take it you gave the firm that fitted it an earful on my behalf.’
‘You’d have been proud of me, guv,’ he said dryly. ‘And of the one I gave the Whitefriars security staff for not putting a tape in their recorder. All this bloody technology there to help us and it’s no bloody use!’
‘It seems too much of a coincidence to me.’ As if the idea were new, as if she hadn’t floated it to Jill at least twice, she asked, ‘Can you get on to the firm installing the cameras and see who made a porridge of Dilly’s? Low key. No accusations. Just general information about any installers. After all,’ she added, ‘I know you’re on the happy-slapping team, but all the sex crimes have been out of CCTV range and you do just wonder… No, hang on. I’d better see if DCI Tanner got one of the other team on to it. No need to reinvent the wheel. Any progress on the Alpha Course vicar?’
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