Grey Ladies

by William Stafford

  “Any road,” he said, moving to the door, “Our boy’s ready. Waiting for you in Interview Room 3. You can watch the Benny Stevens show on DVD later.”

  ***

  Gavin Foster looked ashen and subdued. The painkillers and treatment he had received for his broken ankle may have had something to do with it, Brough considered, but the news of Loretta Phipps’s demise seemed to have hit him hard.

  “You can’t pin this on me,” Foster whimpered, sniffing wetly. “I’ve got me an alibi.”

  Brough stared at him from across the table, with his arms folded in a “cut the bullshit” posture. Miller held her biro poised to write. The wheels in the tape recorder churned softly. The red light on the video camera glared without fail.

  “I was with the daughter, wor I?” Foster’s local dialect became stronger under duress. “We was havin’ it off, wor we?” He glanced at the lady detective and reddened. He looked away.

  “From the beginning, Mr Foster,” Brough droned impatiently.

  “Well, first, I likes to slide my hand up her thigh, like, and work my fingers -“

  Brough interrupted. “I mean, how did you know Loretta Phipps? The deceased.”

  “Oh.” Foster looked confused. “I day. Never actually met her, like.”

  ***

  What emerged from the questioning of Gavin Foster was surprising but not startling; his activities had been underhand and ungallant but not exactly criminal.

  Brough summarised what had been discovered to the rest of the team in the briefing room.

  Team! Brough supposed he would have to get used to that, but having been accustomed to working alone and not exactly to a rota, it rankled with everything he knew and had experienced as a policeman. You’re not undercover anymore, David, he told himself. Pairing up with Miller had been bad enough but now there was a whole slew of them, hanging on his every word - from the comfort of their sofas. He felt more like a raconteur in a pub than a detective inspector trying to further an investigation.

  Gavin Foster had been approached by a man in a pub. What man? He never said his name. He had been approached by this man in a pub. This man had bought drinks and had made Foster a proposition, an offer he could not refuse - the promise of a thousand quid, cash in hand, no questions asked, was too much to resist.

  To secure this thousand pounds, Foster had to foster (hah!) an online relationship with - guess who - Loretta Phipps. Over the course of several weeks, he ‘liked’ some of her photographs on Facebook, made a few saucy comments, requested her ‘friendship’. Once this was established, the man - this mystery man with the thousand pounds in an envelope - said he would take over there. He would write messages to Loretta and chat with her online and Gavin would have no further contact. The man was merely borrowing Gavin’s online profile.

  But why?

  Brough paused to scan the faces of his ‘team’ who were all, to a man (and woman) looking particularly gormless at that moment. Woodcock seemed to realise that an answer was perhaps necessary.

  “Dunno,” he said.

  Brough gave up waiting for them to bombard him with speculations.

  It was a joke, Foster says this man said. A joke. The man claimed to be an old flame of Loretta Phipps. A face from her past and he was keen to renew a relationship with her. Things had gone badly between them. They had left things on a sour note. He surmised that contacting her directly would only lead to rejection and the slamming of a door he had hoped they had at least left ajar.

  “He talks like that, does he? Leaving doors ajar?” This was Stevens, taking a break from picking his teeth with a fingernail.

  “Who? Foster?” Brough didn’t like the bored expression or the slouching posture or indeed anything at all about this member of the team. “I believe he was quoting this mystery man.”

  Anyway, Brough resumed, this man took over the helm - that’s my phrase, not Foster’s - and, as Foster, made direct contact online with Loretta Phipps. And that’s the last of Foster’s involvement. He was paid the thousand pounds, in cash. He only knew that the meeting was to be at the zoo because of the daughter.

  “Hold up!” Stevens sat up a little straighter. “How did Foster know about the daughter?”

  “Um...” Brough searched his notes, reddening a little to be put on the spot and by Stevens of all wankers.

  “Facebook,” said Miller. “He saw from Loretta’s profile she had a daughter. And she was more his type. So he also contacted her, as himself, and they hit it off.”

  “Yes, thank you, Miller,” Brough was both grateful for and annoyed by the interruption.

  “Hmm,” Stevens stroked his moustache as though thinking something through. “Foster contacts the mother, takes a shine to her daughter but meanwhile hands over his account to this mystery man, this old flame with a grand to throw around...”

  “Foster used two accounts. His own and a new one, set up solely for the purposes of contacting Loretta.”

  “Yes, thank you, Miller.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Woodcock.

  “That’s Twitter,” said Miller. “You follow on Twitter. You friend someone on Facebook.”

  “Ah.” Woodcock looked none the wiser, but he sent Miller a sweet smile of thanks.

  “Friend isn’t a verb,” said Brough, “but that’s about the size of it. Foster and the daughter, Fiona Phipps, became a couple. They both thought Loretta was a bit of a joke, a bit of...” he consulted his notes, “mutton dressed as pork, and they monitored the conversations between her and the mystery man, watching the relationship get to the point where they agreed to meeting up for the first time.”

  “How?” said Woodcock, genuinely struggling.

  “Foster would have had access to the new account. Mystery Man must have neglected to change the log in details.”

  “Yes, thank you, Miller!” What made her the bloody expert? And then Brough reflected she had mentioned something about spending a lot of time online. Social networks. Dating sites... He’d thought at the time she was perhaps hinting at something, hinting that he should say something. Now she just seemed sad and pathetic.

  Foster and the daughter had kept their relationship hidden from Loretta. It was only when they knew exactly where Loretta would be and when - namely, at the zoo - that Foster actually visited the house, where he and Fiona celebrated their cash windfall with Chinese takeaways and champagne and um - Brough blushed.

  “A right good fucking!” Stevens added.

  “Yes, thank you, Miller!” Brough snapped.

  “Don’t seem right to me,” said Woodcock. “What kind of daughter would do that? See her mum’s boyfriend behind her back!”

  “Shut it, Woodcock,” Stevens warned.

  “Foster wasn’t the boyfriend; the mystery man was,” Miller explained. Woodcock absorbed this statement.

  “Then what kind of daughter would let her mother go off and meet a stranger? Some bloke off the internet. Seems bonkers to me.”

  “Loretta Phipps was a grown woman,” Stevens sent his detective sergeant another warning glare: don’t show me up in front of the team. Don’t show yourself to be more stupider than pansy boy Brough’s bit of skirt.

  “Even so...” Woodcock began and then caught Stevens’s hard stare.

  “The relationship between mother and daughter was strained at the best of times,” Brough observed. “I mean, you interviewed her. Seemed apparent to me from watching the playback.”

  “Well, yeah, of course,” Stevens shifted uncomfortably. “I was going to say...”

  What it all added up to was that Foster wasn’t their man. He hadn’t murdered Loretta Phipps, disguised as an old woman or dressed as himself. He hadn’t even been at the zoo.

  “Perhaps we can do him with conspiracy or summat,” said Stevens, perking up. “Or
identity theft.”

  Brough screwed his nose up. He didn’t like the sound of either of those.

  “He didn’t steal his identity,” said Miller, “he rented it to someone else.”

  “Yes, thank you, Mil -”

  “Rented it to the killer!” Stevens interrupted. “We must be able to do him for that.”

  The ‘team’ reflected on this for a moment. No one could come up with anything. Detective Inspector Harry Henry approached.

  “Sorry to interrupt this little brainstorming or spit balling or whatever it is you guys are up to, but we’ve got another dead one.”

  Four pairs of eyes turned to look at him.

  “Up at the rest home,” Harry’s mouth shrugged. “Just been called in.”

  Four pairs of legs stood up.

  “Does it - do we know who?” Miller looked genuinely concerned. Of course, thought Brough: her mum.

  8.

  Miller fretted all the way to the Dorothy Beaumont rest home. This made her driving a little more erratic than usual. Brough was in contact with uniformed officers already at the scene, trying to establish the identity of the deceased.

  “Unconfirmed,” he said, pocketing his phone. “But it’s a male.”

  The relief on Miller’s face would have been visible from space. It didn’t seem to make her driving any better, however.

  An ambulance was parked skewiff on the drive, its front wheels in a flower border. Its back doors were open wide ready to receive whomever had kicked the bucket.

  Brough and Miller found rest home manager Pamela Fogg wringing her hands. Was she waiting for them? Either way, she seemed less than overjoyed to see them.

  “Detectives,” she sounded annoyed, “there is no need for you to be here. You need not have come.”

  “Pardon me, Miss Fogg,” Brough adopted the same annoyed tone.

  “Ms,” interjected Miller.

  “Yes, thank you, Miller. Pardon me, Mzzz Fogg, but there have been a number of unlawful deaths on these premises. I think our presence here is obligatory.”

  “Two,” said Pam Fogg, trying to stare him down. “Only two.”

  “Two is a number,” Brough could feel his eyes beginning to sting but he’d be damned if he blinked first. “Two too many in anyone’s book. And now there’s been a third. That won’t look good in your brochures, will it?”

  “Inspector, people die all the time. Old people more so than others. What I mean is, our residents are always checking out. It is what they are here to do, to be perfectly frank. It’s always terribly sad, of course it is, but it is part of life. We are all mortal.”

  “So, this one is just one of your old boys checking out - as you put it?”

  “Well...” Fogg glanced away. She looked at Miller and then back to the inspector who seemed to be blinking away tears for some reason, “perhaps there is more to this particular passing than you might expect. Although not in terms of the previous two, um, unfortunate, ah...”

  “Murders is the word you’re grasping for,” said Brough.

  “Quite. Perhaps you should step inside. And I’d appreciate it if your uniformed officers could be a little more discreet. It doesn’t look -”

  “Sorry, Mzzz, you don’t get to deploy the coppers and say who stands where. Your office is this way, if memory serves?” Brough went indoors. Miller sent Ms Fogg a look that was something in the way of an apology before following him inside.

  Pam Fogg looked at the ambulance and then at the constables standing around like ninnies in full view of anyone who happened to be passing.

  The past few days had been a PR nightmare.

  She swore at the sky and went inside.

  ***

  “I wonder if you have the slightest inkling how inconvenient this all is.” Pamela Fogg looked at the two detectives from behind the desk in her office. They, offputtingly, had chosen to remain standing, despite her most insistent invitations.

  “I mean, I have people to care for. I’m a care worker down, and a cook, and I can’t exactly advertise for replacements until this whole sorry business is sorted out. Have you caught him yet? No; didn’t think so. And I’ve got staff calling in sick like nobody’s business and the agency is reluctant to send anyone over. Word is out. I need this matter resolved and right now, if you please, before I lose any more, um, people.”

  Brough nodded. “People taking their oldies away, are they?”

  Pam Fogg’s expression darkened. “There has been an element of that, yes, but...”

  Miller leaned towards Brough’s ear. “Do you think I should... My mum?”

  Brough didn’t respond. The tickle of her breath made him shudder.

  “Your business woes aside, Mzzzzzz Fogg, let’s talk of this latest unfortunate, um, loss.”

  The rest home manager glanced at Miller and then at her desk. When she raised her eyes to the detective sergeant again, her face was contorted in the grimace of someone about to say something awkward. “Perhaps you had better sit down, love. There is something I have to tell you.”

  ***

  Moments later, the detectives were charging through the rest home. Miller was racing up the stairs to her mother’s room on the second floor with Brough trotting along behind, laughing his head off.

  “It’s not funny!” Miller scowled over her shoulder.

  “It bloody well is!” Brough contradicted, laughing louder.

  She was striding along the corridor. He ran to keep up, just so he could mock her to her face.

  “Plenty of life in your old dog!” he teased.

  “Shut up!”

  “Who would have guessed?”

  “Shut up! Sir!”

  They had reached the door. Sandra Miller’s name was on a card in a little frame at eyelevel; a scrawl in biro - there was no need for anything more permanent, Brough supposed.

  Miller turned to face him. “Look, sir, this might be funny to you-”

  “Oh, it is!” Brough snickered and Miller wondered why she liked him sometimes.

  “- but this is my mother we’re talking about, so a little respect, if you don’t mind.”

  Brough held up his hands as though in surrender. But then he collapsed into giggles. “At least the old sod died with a smile on his face!”

  Miller shook her head. “That’s it! I’m going in alone. You can wait in the common room until you’ve grown up a bit.”

  Brough was startled. “You can’t order me around, Miller, I’m -”

  “I know what you are. Sir,” Miller said evenly. “Now, I’m going to talk to my mum who must be in bits over this, and you’re going to wait for me in the common room. If you don’t mind. Sir.”

  Brough raised his hands again. A genuine surrender this time. He backed away before turning and walking back the way they had come, just about managing to keep his smirk under control without having to bite his own lips off.

  He found his way to the common room. It was quiet. The radio was off and the large majority of the chairs were unoccupied. A couple of old women were sitting companionably in a corner. They smiled when he came in - nice young man in a nice smart suit - each of them seeming to think he was their son, come to visit at last. When the nice young man did nothing more than return their smiles with a curt nod and stride past them to the window, they fell into disappointed silence.

  Brough was still smirking from the revelation of the circumstances of old Harold’s demise. Poor Miller! It must be so embarrassing for her! No one likes to think of their parents having sex but for your mother to take a fancy man to her bed only to have his heart give out while he was on top of and inside her - well, that was just bloody hilarious!

  The thought of too such old birds going at it was disgusting enough but one of them being your parent! Your own m
other!

  This line of thought led Brough to consider his own parents. Still going strong and still the full shilling, he was glad to report. That they would continue to make the beast with two walking sticks was too distasteful to contemplate. That they had done it once - in the making of him - was weird enough. They had been younger then, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. Parents and sex; it all seemed wrong somehow. Like they didn’t go together. Perfect nonsense, of course, but even so: ugh.

  A flicker of movement in the street below caught Brough’s attention and hooked him from his thoughts like a fish yanked from dark waters. There, by the lamppost, a figure. A woman. A woman in grey. Brough put his face closer to the double glazing. The figure was gone.

  A chill danced down his spine. A beeping sound behind him almost startled him out of his skin.

  It was Mim in her motorised chair. Her face was slack and expressionless, her eyes unfocussed, but her message was clear enough. He was standing where she liked to park her chair. Mumbling apologies, Brough stumbled out of the way, barking his shin on a coffee table. In the corner, the two women laughed. Served him right for not being their son and not paying them a visit.

  Mim’s chair assumed its customary position and its occupant gazed blankly through the glass at nothing in particular.

  Brough regained his composure, did some adjusting of his shirt cuffs, some checking of his watch and phone, before selecting a seat and sitting in it. He cast around for some reading material. There was nothing that took his fancy. Gradually he calmed down. The glimpse of the woman in grey had unnerved him and his slapstick routine with the coffee table had embarrassed him and had bloody hurt. He wondered if his life’s blood was coursing down his leg and ruining his sock but he wasn’t going to roll up his trousers in front of those cackling harpies.

  A care worker ambled in, humming to herself. She performed a double take on seeing the detective inspector on one of the chairs.

  “’Scuse me, love, you cor sit there,” she smiled at him, with her mouth only. “You bay old enough.”