Cold Pursuit

by Judith Cutler

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Mark was due in meetings all afternoon, so she was lucky to be able to grab half an hour with him for lunch, which they ate, as usual, in the canteen. With so much noise, she guessed that no one would realise that the two senior lovebirds weren’t tweeting sweet nothings to each other.

  ‘So,’ she began, putting down her fork, ‘we seem to have a veritable hot bed of minor crime, but only one really serious accusation so far. The website.’

  ‘All of which the headmaster—’

  ‘Chief Master!’

  ‘—Would prefer to deal with internally?’

  ‘Naturally. In a most gentlemanly way.’

  ‘I’m sure that went down a treat with you.’

  ‘Quite. Especially as it’d involve just a manly heart-to-heart and a bit of wrist-slapping. But it’s far too serious for that.’

  ‘Absolutely! So what does Jill think?’

  ‘I haven’t got hold of her yet, nor young Rob: I’ve just left messages for them to contact me urgently. Now, I want to consult you. Should we bring in the young persons’ protection team? There are a lot of youngsters on that website whose faces have effectively been stolen. And I must talk to our Chief, too: it seems his son’s one of them. At least the teachers, who prefer to be called masters, were able to put names to the faces, boys’ and girls’.’

  ‘Masters? Not mistresses?’

  ‘In your dreams. There might have been women teachers, of course, but no senior female members of staff, not that I saw.’

  He fielded the last shred of lettuce. ‘Bring in a whole team of counsellors. It might just help the kids and will certainly sound good when the media get hold of it. Noel Field apart, how many kids are running the site?’

  ‘It may be a one-man band: he’s not just a paragon of old-fashioned virtue, he’s already outstripped his computer teachers. But I’ve always found that bullies hunt in packs.’

  ‘Or even coerce other people into doing their work for them.’

  ‘Quite. So I’ve told Challenor to prepare a complete dossier of crimes young Field might want to put his hand up to and get it to me by the end of school. At which point Tom and Harbijan will pick him up.’

  Mark smiled. ‘Harbijan Singh? What a good choice. You know he came down here because he’d been bullied in his home force, don’t you?’

  The moment she returned to her office from lunch the phone rang.

  A woman’s voice she didn’t know, one with a hint of the Midlands about it, asked, ‘Is that Detective Chief Superintendent Frances Harman?’

  Fran enjoyed a direct question. She gave a direct answer. ‘It is.’

  ‘Good afternoon. It’s Mary Wolford here. I understand from a young colleague of yours that you wanted to speak to me about my college classes.’

  The courtesies over, Fran asked, ‘Did DC Arkwright explain how you could help us?’

  ‘I’m afraid I never spoke to him: he spoke to my publicist, who passed on your details. I’m getting more curious by the minute.’

  ‘And who could blame you? What I want, Ms Wolford, is information about students in a creative writing class you ran some years ago.’

  ‘Back at William Murdock College? Heavens, you’re asking a lot, Chief Superintendent!’ The surprise brought out her accent more strongly.

  ‘It’s very important or I wouldn’t ask.’

  ‘Any student in particular?’

  ‘Any male students in the same class as Dilly Pound. You might remember her as Delia Pound.’

  ‘I might if I could remember her at all!’

  Fran mustn’t let her frustration show in her voice. ‘A very quiet young woman, probably pretty underconfident?’

  Wolford sighed. ‘That’s the last sort of student you remember. You remember the outstanding ones – because they’re troublesome or because they’re brilliant. Why, what’s this Pound woman done?’

  ‘She’s just had some success as a crime presenter for our regional TV news, TVInvicta.’

  ‘She must have something about her, then. Look, obviously we don’t get TVInvicta up here in Yorkshire, so I really could do with your prompting me with a photo. I pride myself on never forgetting a face, even if I can’t always attach a name to it.’

  ‘If you’ve got mod cons I could send you her photo through the ether.’

  ‘I meant a good old-fashioned Box Brownie type photo.’

  ‘I’ll get one in the post. But it’s not a case of identifying Dilly so much as any man in the group who might have conceived a passion for her,’ Fran added.

  There was a depressing pause. ‘I suppose I could get on to my old college for a copy of the registers of classes I taught. Do you know the precise year?’

  She gave it.

  ‘I was teaching two or three creative writing classes a week, out of a total of twenty or so hours’ class contact. And the college was never the most efficient when it came to administration.’

  Fran didn’t try to suppress her bark of laughter. ‘We know that already. DC Arkwright had to get pretty fierce. But at least they promised the information today.’

  ‘Which in college-speak means “when we get round to it but don’t hold your breath”. Tell you what, Chief Superintendent, let’s cut the Gordian Knot. You give your Dilly Pound my phone number and we’ll have a nice gossip about old times. I’m sure we’ll come up with some names between us. And faxing through anything William Murdock gets round to sending you might speed up the process. This is my fax number.’

  Fran jotted. ‘In that case I’ll fax you a photo too. Grey and grainy it may be, it might still help.’

  Fran didn’t have time to leave more than a terse message for Dilly, asking her to make the call to Wolford at the first opportunity. Another call was waiting.

  ‘This is Janie Falkirk, Chief Superintendent.’

  There was no doubting the claim. The telephone amplified the accent as much as it had Mary Wolford’s; whereas Mary’s voice had been controlled and what Fran’s mother would call ladylike, Janie’s might have been heard above the roars of Braveheart’s forces.

  ‘The folk attending the Alpha Course Dilly and Daniel attended,’ she announced. ‘I’ve got a list.’

  ‘Excellent. Is there any chance you could fax it through?’

  ‘Are we not talking Data Protection Act here, Chief Superintendent?’ Janie demanded. ‘After all, these good folk gave me their details in the belief that they would be confidential.’

  Fran couldn’t dispute what she was saying. But Janie was an intelligent woman and surely had a better nature, to which she would appeal. ‘Please tell me you’re not asking me to obtain all the official paperwork. Please.’

  ‘Ah, well… But faxing the whole is not an option, all the same. A good three quarters are women, and I would assume from the nature of the crime the perpetrator is likely to be male.’

  ‘Likely to be,’ Fran conceded.

  ‘Three of the names on my list couldn’t be committing the crime in question anyway. I know one is in Broadmoor, because I phoned his primary carer, one is in Canterbury Jail, because I visited him the day we met, and one is with a peace team helping rebuild Pakistan after the earthquake – he emailed me a couple of photos this morning. Pretty good alibis, eh?’

  ‘Unshakeable.’

  ‘Apart from the earthquake laddie!’ It sounded as if the vicar had thrown her head back to laugh.

  Fran joined in.

  ‘Which leaves us with two names. Paul Lewis is definitely an epistle short of a testament, and I doubt if he’d have the literacy skills required. But you can have his details if you wish?’ She dictated an address in Canterbury. ‘And there’s Dean Fellows.’

  ‘Dean as in a first name, not as in a church dignitary?’ Fran asked, hoping her grin would travel down the phone.

  ‘Indeed.’ It sounded as if Janie were returning it. ‘Now, if I were a psychologist I might well describe him, in the strictest technical terms, as a weirdo.’ She pa
used while Fran laughed. ‘He lives in a caravan – he does seasonal agricultural work, picking, packing produce. That sort of thing. I think you’ll find him in a village near here called Linsore Bottom. No jokes, please.’

  ‘Would I dare?’

  ‘To be honest, you’re wasting your time with him too, unless he’s got a computer stowed away somewhere in his van. And he was truly more interested in finding God than chasing women. In fact, I wouldn’t have had him down as the marrying sort.’

  And it didn’t sound as if he were mobile enough to send mail – or flowers – from London.

  ‘I wish I could recruit you on to my team,’ Fran said, meaning it.

  ‘I wish I could recruit you on to one of our courses.’ It sounded as if Janie meant it too.

  ‘I’ll let you know how I get on with them, shall I? And you can give me the dates then. Now, my phone’s telling me I’ve got another call waiting, so thanks, and good bye for now.’

  ‘Goodbye. And God bless you.’

  He might bless Farat Hafeez, too, calling with the news that Stephen Hardy was apparently touring Cornwall alone in an elderly Fiesta. According to Mrs Hardy, still apparently swallowing the police story that they needed vital and totally confidential information about an ex-parishioner, he had always had an interest in the silver mines of the area.

  ‘She gave me the name of a couple of guest-houses he might stay at,’ Farat added.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He checked out of one at the end of last week. He hasn’t appeared at the other, but since he’d not made a booking no one thought it suspicious.’

  ‘Phone contact?’

  ‘Only one call to say he’d arrived. The mobile company confirmed it was from the right area. Near Launceston. Apparently he doesn’t text, and only has a prepaid mobile, so he rations his calls and the time he spends on them.’

  ‘Have you got his mobile number?’

  Farat dictated it, adding, ‘And would you be surprised that it’s switched off every time I’ve tried to call him?’

  ‘Nothing about this man would surprise me.’ Except the proof that he was guilty. All the same, she asked, ‘Has he made any withdrawals from cashpoints?’

  ‘One for a hundred and fifty the day he left his guesthouse. I suppose if he lived frugally that might keep him going till now. Maybe he’s a cheque and banker’s card man.’

  ‘Whatever he is,’ Fran said decisively, ‘I’ll get a national alert out for him. Can you remind me of his car reg? Right, let’s be having him…’

  Clutching at a cup of green tea as if it were neat gin, she made another attempt to reach Jill. Again the phone rang unanswered. All sorts of unpleasant scenarios began to play themselves before her eyes, most involving Jill lying on the floor with further injuries. She checked the computer again: still nothing on the MisPer records. On impulse, she phoned the school. Had Rob been in that morning?

  The woman at the far end of the phone might have come from a different planet from the one guarding hell’s gate, personifying cooperation, as soon as she heard Fran’s rank.

  ‘You’ll understand that this sort of information is usually confidential to the parents, Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘Of course: I appreciate your cooperation. And your discretion. Is young Rob Tanner in school?’

  ‘No. And his attendance in the last few weeks has been remarkably poor, according to my records.’

  ‘No phone calls to explain his absences?’

  ‘None. In fact, I have a letter in front of me awaiting his Head of Year’s signature to warn his parents of the likelihood of suspension.’

  Suspending someone who was missing classes had always seemed an odd way of dealing with the problem, but Fran didn’t comment, merely thanking the woman for her help. Now what?

  Natasha? She’d trusted her enough to let her know about Rob going missing but not enough apparently to call her back. Her phone was switched off. Fran would have to leave another message.

  Another incoming call. The handset still warm from the previous call, she picked it up to hear Tom’s news. Uniform had confiscated Noel Field’s computer and were searching his parents’ house. He and Harbijan had arrested Field himself; he was already being processed by the custody sergeant. In five minutes she should be observing the interview.

  But there were other things to do first. William Murdock College had sworn they’d faxed the details Tom required, so her first port of call must be to the basket next to the machine. Yes! Excellent. Except they’d sent every single register for that year, all hand-written and none benefiting from the fact that the machine was warning that it was at the end of its paper roll by smearing pink across the sheets. For some reason, some classes didn’t even have their titles anywhere on the page. A quick scan, all she had time for, revealed nothing. Definitely a job for someone who had enough time to consider stuffing mushrooms for his or her supper.

  Now, what about Jon Binns’ success with the contractors fitting CCTV?

  He was back in front of his computer crunching numbers.

  She could either scream or ask quietly, ‘Any luck?’

  ‘I’m expecting a fax any moment, ma’am. They’ve had two standard bollockings and one of my specials.’

  ‘Excellent. Now, when the names come through I want to know if any matches the name on these lists – perhaps you should photocopy everything and pop it on Tom’s desk?’

  ‘Everything?’

  She reflected. ‘Any sheets you can identify as being creative writing classes. Though of course, he may have been in a different class altogether and smitten from a distance.’

  ‘Their eyes met across the crowded canteen, that sort of thing?’

  ‘You put it beautifully – perhaps you should join a writers’ group yourself. Now, how’s the profiler getting on with your main case?’

  ‘Profiler? What profiler?’

  For God’s sake, hadn’t they set one up yet? ‘I just heard a rumour…’

  ‘Budget. Every briefing we have, someone asks for one. Seems there’s no cash left in the pot. You couldn’t do a quid pro quo, could you, guv? Find a few quid for your poor relations?’

  Although she knew she was invisible and inaudible to everyone in the interview room, Fran tiptoed in and settled herself as quietly as if she’d arrived late at a theatre auditorium. One of the cast, Noel Field, had already taken his place, and was preening in front of what he believed was a mirror while awaiting his interrogators and the highly expensive solicitor his family had conjured up. Apparently his mother thought it would be unethical, given her legal background, to sit in on the interview, but Fran suspected the poor woman would have given her right arm to be able to lurk undetected as Fran was doing. Police courtesy, however, didn’t compel Fran to offer to share the facility, much as she wanted to respond to the anguish written all over the woman’s face.

  Tom and Harbijan were to conduct the interview on the grounds that their skills with the young were likely to be far better than her own. They could also talk with authority about his website’s contents, not to mention the computer, currently in the hands of the forensic computer science team. Giving no hint that he knew they had an audience, Tom made all the introductions by the book, carefully explaining about the tape-recording. Not even the top brief would be able to fault anything.

  Unfortunately it was equally hard to fault Noel Field. It would have been easier if he had slumped yobbishly back in his chair, his baseball cap on backwards, demanding his rights and a fag. As it was, he personified an old-fashioned courtesy that involved sitting up straight, listening without interruption, and responding with carefully chosen words. No wonder Dr Challenor and the other Thomas Bowdler staff didn’t want him cast as a criminal. He’d have polished the school’s reputation at Cambridge. It would also have been easier if he’d seen himself as a criminal, but he listened with genuine – or very well-feigned – shock when he was told his antics were against the law.

  ‘But it was all j
ust a bit of fun,’ he protested, contriving to be both innocently wide-eyed and to have a puzzled frown.

  ‘Fun is usually at someone’s expense,’ Tom pointed out mildly.

  ‘So did you get the consent of the film-maker to use his material?’ Harbijan asked.

  There was the merest hesitation that wouldn’t have pleased his liberal-lawyer mother, as if young Master Field wished to convey a smidgen of surprise that the young Asian should have spoken. ‘No. But you know, it’s not exactly as if I’m stealing great literature.’ He gave a winsome smile.

  ‘What about the people whose faces you superimposed on the bodies? Did you ask their permission? I notice your own isn’t on there,’ Tom added ominously.

  ‘I told you, it was a joke. You don’t go up to someone and say, “D’you mind if I play a joke on you”, do you?’ Winsome morphed into truculent.

  ‘I suppose not. Nor do you go up to a person and ask if you can happy-slap them.’

  ‘Happy-slapping? That’s kids’ stuff.’ The authentic voice of one of our country’s elite, Fran thought, dismissing the lower orders.

  ‘Of course. Remind me what subjects you’re taking for A Level, Mr Field,’ Harbijan said.

  Field’s smile came tinged with patronage. ‘I don’t believe you asked me, so I fail to see how I can remind you. But I’m happy to impart the information—’

  His lawyer raised a minatory finger. Obviously mocking the poor plods was not the tactic they’d agreed.

  ‘Chemistry, Physics, Biology, General Studies and Computer Science. On the basis of my A/S results, I’m expected to obtain A’s in all of them.’

  Harbijan’s eyes widened. ‘Five good A Levels! It’s a pity you’re not likely to be taking up your university place next year.’