‘Have you always looked after Eve?’ Sue asked.
‘I don’t look after her! Only when she’s ill. She was so bad last week I had to take time off work so she could stay in bed. Normally she’s an independent woman, holds down a very good job, far better than mine, I can tell you.’
‘But you’ve never married.’
He produced a wistful smile. ‘When I met the only lady I ever wanted to marry I wasn’t in a position to propose. I’d been in a very serious car crash, ladies, and hadn’t been able to work for years. A nervous breakdown, on top of the physical injuries, you understand. And memory problems. Eye sight, too. So it came to nothing. Until now. And now I’ve found her again,’ he declared, his face as rapt as Dean Fellows’.
‘Didn’t you have any other girlfriends at all in Birmingham?’
His face flushed puce. ‘I…er…you’re both ladies. I wouldn’t want to talk about it.’
‘You mean you saw prostitutes? But not here in Canterbury?’
‘My sister…what if she found out?’ He turned to face the TV, knuckles white as he gripped the back of a chair.
Sue looked at her watch. ‘Time’s going on, Jim. How would you normally tell Eve you were going out?’
For answer he turned tail and bolted, heading for the back door. They gave chase, with a silly after-you moment, in which Sue, the young, fitter woman, thought she ought to invite Fran to take the lead. At least it gave Tom, by now soaking wet, something to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Though it was nearly ten, Fran still looked flushed and happy, leaning back in her chair while Mark sat on the corner of her desk, toasting her with water.
‘Two birds with one stone, eh?’ Mark grinned. ‘Stalker and flasher in one neat collar.’
She shook her head. ‘We can’t be absolutely certain that Jim Holden’s the flasher. Not yet. Jon and his team haven’t finished searching his house. Tom and Sue are still talking to him.’ Tom, who’d been soaked to the skin, wore, at her insistence, borrowed clothes that didn’t quite fit. The medics had agreed that Holden was dotty, but sane enough to be cautioned. The duty solicitor was in attendance.
‘What’s the circumstantial evidence?’
‘His work schedules for one thing. We know he fixed or maintained the cameras in many of the locations where the assaults took place. We know he had a variety of masks. But we can’t actually prove he assaulted anyone, not yet. None of the victims say they could identify their assailant.’
‘For God’s sake, surely one out of all those women—’
‘You’d have thought. We shall begin interviewing them all again tomorrow and certainly go for conventional ID as well if we possibly can. I don’t like a case resting simply on DNA – it always feels a bit of a cheat.’
‘Like being LBW, not bowled…’
She looked blank.
‘When we’re both retired, my love, I shall convert you to cricket. And then you’ll at last appreciate the finer intricacies of the English language. Now, what are you going to do with him overnight?’
‘In about half an hour, I shall get them to shove him in a cell down in Maidstone nick. I shouldn’t think he’ll ask for bail. Meanwhile, let’s hope for a full confession. But I want to go at it obliquely.’
‘You?’
She nodded, amused. ‘Me. Devious old me. I’m just going to drop into the interview room for a minute.’
‘Can I watch?’
‘You won’t learn anything. It’s the oldest trick in the book. In fact,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘you may want to play it yourself. Go on, it’s a fair offer!’
‘So’s this,’ he said, slipping from the desk and grabbing her as she brushed past. She liked being kissed hard, so he obliged. ‘For two pins,’ he continued, as they surfaced, ‘I’d lay you here and now on the carpet.’
Her eyes gleamed.
The phone rang. Her transformation from excited lover to cool professional choked a laugh from him as he turned to face the window to calm down. It was one thing for everyone to know about their relationship, another to demonstrate it quite so clearly.
‘Not at all. It’s good of you to phone me.’ There was a note of impatience in her voice. Clearly someone lowly the other end was going through all the formalities due to her rank. ‘So how is he?’ she prompted at last, making circling movements with her right hand as if to elicit the news more quickly and rolling her eyes as the thin voice from the other end continued to spout verbiage. But her face was instantly serious as she asked, ‘But he’ll live?’
More talk. Couldn’t whoever it was give a nice monosyllabic yes or no?
‘Of course… Of course… I understand…’
Who was she talking about? It sounded as if she really cared, or was that simply another of her skills?
‘No, I quite appreciate… Oh, I should be back at my desk by nine… I’m still at it, that’s why!’ And, this time laughing wryly, she cut the call. ‘Cheeky sod. Only giving me lip for not starting at seven. It’s that vicar. Dilly’s vicar. Stephen Hardy. They’ve found him.’ Suddenly she looked tired.
He put his arm across her shoulders. ‘But not in perfect health, I gather?’
She shook her head. ‘Broken back and exposure. Not a good combination. Fell down a disused mine working on Bodmin. Touch and go. Poor Dilly.’
And poor Fran. She was genuinely touched. Why? She’d only met the man once. She stared at the phone.
‘Will you tell her?’
She moved away from him, shaking her head sadly. ‘Only if he dies. I think that’s what he’d want. As for her – who knows what she wants? Come on, let’s go and talk to Jim Holden.’ She picked up her jacket, case and bag, and, as they left the office, turned to lock it. ‘That’s it for the night, whatever happens.’
‘Knackered?’
‘Not while there’s this much adrenaline coursing the old veins. Getting to sleep, that’s always the worst problem, isn’t it?’
Grinning, he fished a small elegantly wrapped package from his own case and shook it enticingly before her nose. ‘Courtesy that nice new shop in Fremlin Walk,’ he said. ‘And no, you certainly can’t open it till we get home.’ He tucked it away again, but shook the case in front of her from time to time as they made their way down to the interview room where Tom and Sue were still talking to Jim Holden. A glimpse through the window in the observation room next door suggested that fatigue had set in all round. Even his solicitor seemed three quarters asleep.
Mark stayed where he was, to watch the proceedings, as she breezed in. He’d fully expected her to leave everything she was carrying with him – wasn’t it a mite unprofessional to show quite so clearly you were going home? But no, there she was case and all.
‘Right, gentlemen, how are we getting on?’
Tom eased himself to his feet and drew her to the door, turning so that Holden couldn’t see his mouth. It also meant Mark couldn’t hear. But the young man’s body language suggested that Holden was still playing the innocent, and would continue to do so until science proved him a liar.
Fran turned back into the room, concern all over her face. Spurious concern, if he knew her. ‘Look, Jim, I’m sorry this is all taking so long. Do you want to phone your sister to tell her where you are? She must be worried sick.’
His face glimmered with bravado. ‘That’s not necessary. I’m never at home in the evening. Rarely till midnight, sometimes later. She won’t stay up.’
‘Good. Because I want you to explain to these nice young officers exactly how you spend your evenings.’
‘But—’
‘You see, I think you’ve been spending your evenings doing something far worse than going with prostitutes. I think you’ve been assaulting a lot of young women. And some older ones too.’
‘You’ve got no evidence—’
His solicitor shushed him.
‘A simple gob swab will provide us with all the evidence we need. But we’d all much rather you made
a clean breast of it all. We might even tell the judge how cooperative you were. Come on, Jim – then we can all go home. Oh, no, Jim: not you. We’ve got accommodation set aside in Maidstone nick. Just as tidy as your room. But somewhat less cluttered.’
Mark was in the corridor miming applause when she came out. Instead of punching the air, she was shaking her head. ‘They always give themselves away somehow, don’t they? OK, I’d better let Dilly know she can sleep soundly tonight.’
‘It’s a good job someone will be able to,’ he said, patting his case again.
Fran made it to her desk by eight-fifty five, not bad at all considering the time she and Mark had finally settled to sleep. In fact, if she knew her body, she’d be bright all day, and a zombie tomorrow. She rubbed her hands. She’d best make the most of today, then.
The phone rang bang on nine. As she picked it up, she had a vision of some piskie of a Cornish policeman watching the second hand of the station clock jerk slowly onward until he dared pounce on his handset. Was she as scary as that?
‘Fran, it’s Jill. Rob’s refusing to get out of bed. Literally. Absolutely doesn’t want to talk to you. Insists he’s going to leave school.’
‘Not a good curry, then?’
‘The pits.’
Fran suppressed a sigh. The obligations of friendship. But someone like Rob could go good ways as easily as he could go bad ones, and maybe a nudge from her might help. If it didn’t? She’d better make sure it did.
‘A spot of tough love from Auntie Fran? Because I can really only do tough, Jill.’
‘Liar. OK, I’ve seen you reduce grown men to tears, but I’ve also seen you hug them better if they needed it. I can’t do it; Brian can’t do it. Actually, it was Tash who suggested you. She rates you. And Mark.’
‘I must remember to tell him,’ Fran responded dryly enough to make Jill laugh. ‘Look, I’ve got a few things to sort out here, then I’ll come and get him. If you think he’ll still be there.’
‘I’d stake my teeth on it. And – Fran? – he did nick that silver.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. And those bruises? On your forearms?’
‘Yes. But Fran,’ she almost shouted down the phone, ‘I did fall down the stairs. That was nothing to do with him. Honest. I promise.’
‘OK, Jill. Now, don’t worry any more than you have to. I’ll be round as soon as I’ve got things under way here.’
Before the phone could ring again, in came Tom and Sue, quite as pleased with themselves as they were entitled to be, and maybe a little bit more. She saw Mark and herself mirrored in them.
‘Just the paperwork to do now, like, guv. Jon and his team found enough to put him away for a good long stretch.’
‘Pity about that sister of his, Eve,’ Fran said, half ashamed for raining on their parade.
‘Don’t you believe it, ma’am,’ Sue responded. ‘According to Jon she kept on and on about how miserable he was. She blames the accident. She said he had a bang on the head bad enough to bring about a personality change. A cheerful, outgoing lad, she said he was – it’s all on paper and on tape. Says she hopes at last he’ll get some proper treatment.’
‘In today’s prisons? She’s got to be joking! Pile ’em high, shunt off to the next nick quick. Oh, and send their stuff to a different nick. I heard all about it from Ian. A friend, many years ago. An OU lecturer. He died. He tried to help loads of cons through courses, and the prison system seemed hell-bent on preventing any sort of continuity. Some hope of rehabilitation!’ She got a grip. ‘Now, I’m going to bring in young Rob Tanner. He’s got a habit he supports by nicking from his mum, and possibly other people.’
‘From DCI Tanner! Bloody hell! Those bruises—’
A look shut her up. Sue’d soon learn there were some times you had to put your brain in gear before you opened your mouth.
‘That young scrote Field admitted to getting kids hooked – mightn’t he have done the same to Rob?’ Sue almost pleaded. ‘She’s a decent guvnor, DCI Tanner. She’s a better cop than she looks.’ She stopped abruptly, and blushed deeply. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
Fran managed something between a sigh and a laugh. ‘I’ve known that since before you were born, Sue. And for God’s sake, if we’re going to work together, learn to call me guv, like the others.’
‘Jill, with your permission, I’m going to treat him more as a victim of crime than as a petty crook. We may get more out of him that way?’
‘OK. I’ll just call him.’ The doubt in Jill’s voice suggested she wouldn’t do so particularly loudly.
‘You get the coffee on. I’ll sort it.’
‘His bedroom – I’ve tried airing it…’
‘For God’s sake, Jill, I’ve seen scruffy pads before now!’
But at the door she almost turned back, revolted by the smell of unwashed male feet, old pot, cigarettes and testosterone. What had happened to the old Fran, the Fran who’d been known to adjust an accident victim’s head to give mouth to mouth, only to have it come off in her hands? Who’d picked through clouds of blowflies to identify a putrefying mess as a dead old man?
The bundle under the duvet might look endearing or exasperating depending on your viewpoint. Fran just saw the giant maggot, with a tiny lock of hair escaping, as infinitely vulnerable, despite its unattractive habitat. She threw open a window. If you listened carefully you could hear the urgent calls of birds responding to the spring. They always made her feel that life was to be lived. Poor Rob simply huddled deeper. She braced herself. Off with the duvet in one swift, unkind movement. Rob huddled in aged T-shirt and boxer shorts. His legs looked absurdly thin, despite the tufting of coarse hair, and the feet, in tennis socks, enormous.
‘Fuck off, will you. Just fuck off!’
‘It’s not your mother. It’s dear old Auntie Fran. The shower’s running, and since there’s a water shortage you’d better not waste any more. When you’ve showered and washed your hair, you can shave.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘You’re coming along to police headquarters to answer a few questions. And I don’t want you looking like a dog’s breakfast and upsetting my officers. Get it?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Rob, that shower’s going to run out of hot water any moment now. And I tell you this, you’re having a shower and a shave even if the water’s ice-cold. Up to you. Now, move.’ This time she removed the bottom sheet.
‘I still can’t understand,’ he said, drooping as far from her as the seatbelt would permit, ‘why you wouldn’t let me bring Mum.’
She hardened her heart against a yob suddenly turning needy infant. She’d seen it so many times before, but once she’d loved Rob. Perhaps she still did, though she certainly didn’t like him very much at the moment. ‘I didn’t think you’d want her, a grown lad like you. Besides which, I’ve something to show you that you might prefer her not to see.’
‘Whatever.’ There was more anger and resentment, she fancied, than curiosity.
‘You’ll see it when we get to Maidstone. And when you’ve had some breakfast. Then one of my lads’ll run you back to school.’
‘Fuck school.’
‘And all your GCSEs no doubt. OK. Not my problem. Now, just be quiet while I drive.’
‘Some cop! Can’t drive and talk at the same time!’
‘Not if I don’t want to.’ She snapped on Classic FM. Let him chew on that.
If spring was really springing, she might just treat them both to a dose of countryside. She couldn’t imagine that he’d enjoy looking at the greening of the fields and trees, but she would and she was the driver.
She was slowed down by a small van, one with an estate agent’s name on the back, obviously looking for turning. On impulse, she followed him when he found the right lane. When he stopped, she stopped. He was erecting a For Sale sign, on the verge, an arrow directing those interested along what was little more then a track.
‘What the fuck?’
‘Who rattled you
r cage?’ she responded.
‘But a lane, man! A fucking lane!’
‘Detective work,’ she snapped. No, she wouldn’t follow the arrow, not with a passenger – to do Rob justice, not with any passenger except Mark. She jotted down the name of the agent and the location, did a nifty job of a many pointed turn in a narrow space, and set off once again to Maidstone.
‘The silent treatment and a lot of food,’ Fran told Tom. ‘We’ll see what that’ll do. Then we’ll get the Child Protection people to show him his movie. They’re trained and we’re not, that’s why.’
‘Plus you think he’s a snotty little runt, and you don’t want to upset DCI Tanner by telling him so.’
She rewarded Tom with a look. ‘Just get on with it. But let me know when he’s going to be shown the film – I want to watch his reaction.’
She left him in the capable hands of him and Sue, possibly pleased to delay the mountain of paperwork heading inexorably their way. They’d strict instructions to feed him the most nutritious brunch they could find – she was sure his refusal to contemplate food was more to annoy her than because he wasn’t hungry.
There was no one from Child Protection available till lunchtime, so Rob was left to cool his heels and talk to them about whatever came into their heads. Eventually, they accompanied him to the Child Protection suite, where victims of abuse were normally interviewed. Its emphasis on the youngest in the age group, biologically correct dolls, Lego, teddies and other comforting distractions clearly made Rob feel superior. Until they produced the disk of the revamped porn film.
Standing behind the soundproof screen with the officer video-recording Rob’s reactions, Fran saw him crumple from arrogant guy with street cred into a terrified kid.
‘I promised I wouldn’t tell. Now they’ll kill me. I tell you, they’ll fucking kill me!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was hard to leave Rob in other people’s hands, even though she knew specialised colleagues would do the job of extracting information and, just as important, putting him back together as a functioning human being better than she ever could. Or Jill, for that matter. And Jill would be frantic by now, so she gave her a reassuring call.
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