Grey Ladies

by William Stafford

  If he was there.

  Oh, I hope he is there, thought Miller, giggling on the inside.

  Brough shot her a dirty look.

  Oops, Miller blushed as she realised she had been giggling on the outside.

  The cool air in the older part of the building with its walls tiled in dark green soothed Brough’s bad temper a little. He was reminded that this section had been part of the hospital that had stood here before they had built the police station in the 1950s. Or whenever. It was an aspect of local history that didn’t concern him. What he was worried about was a frosty reception from the pathologist.

  “Don’t dawdle, Miller,” he cast over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with you this morning?”

  Miller glanced towards the staircase that would lead her up to the staff room and other places where Woodcock might be found. She set her lips and stepped up her pace. At least the interaction between the grumpy Brough and his pathologist boyfriend should provide some amusement.

  “Morning,” Alastair greeted Brough coldly. Then he noticed the pleasant, round-faced sergeant over Brough’s shoulder. “Good morning, Melanie!” he switched on a full-beam smile. Miller giggled back her response although she knew this was all for Brough’s benefit. What had they rowed about, she wondered? Was she about to witness a break-up? Secretly she hoped she was. Why should Brough be happy when she was so alone? It didn’t seem right.

  The pathologist was already leading them through to the examination room and towards a covered figure on one of the stainless steel tables.

  “Maria Keenan,” he announced flatly, pulling the sheet back to reveal the body’s head and torso. The wound on her stomach was little more than a smile. An unfinished emoticon. A punctuation mark.

  “Cause of death: penetration with a blade, a domestic carving knife found at the scene. No prints.”

  Miller was peering at the victim’s face. “What’s happened to her mouth?”

  “Half her tongue has been severed,” Alastair described the injury.

  “Probably cut off,” Brough surmised, “because she said too much.”

  This cut no ice with the others.

  “I’d say she bit it off herself,” said Miller. “Looks like she banged her chin. The bruising there, you see? She did that before she bled out, yes?”

  She looked to the pathologist for approval.

  “That’s what I say too,” Alastair pointed at the notes on his clipboard. Miller beamed with pride.

  Brough scowled. Since when did these two become so chummy? He didn’t like it, this blurring of the professional and the personal. It was tricky enough dating someone from work; he didn’t want his work partner sticking her oar in as well.

  “But she could have been stabbed because she said too much,” he suggested. The other two considered this and conceded his point with a shrug (the pathologist) and a pout (the detective sergeant). “She could have been silenced because she said too much...to me! I was speaking to her not long before this happened.”

  “Were you?” Miller frowned.

  “Yes! While you were busy with your - your mother...” Brough left the words hanging. He enjoyed the way Miller squirmed and turned away. “She told me the cook was a bad tempered sort and the girl seemed to have been promoted young.”

  “Hardly worth killing her for,” Alastair dismissed this. He covered the body.

  “Perhaps it was what she didn’t say!” Miller pointed at the bump beneath the sheet where the victim’s head was. “Perhaps she was about to spill the beans...”

  “And that would enrage the cook...” Brough tried to commandeer her line of reasoning.

  “The beans are metaphorical,” Alastair cleared his throat. Brough glared at him but Alastair turned to Miller. “Carry on, sergeant.”

  “Perhaps the killer was worried that this girl would run her mouth off a bit more and say something that would lead us to him. Or her.”

  “You might have something there,” Alastair nodded. Brough almost snarled out loud. They were becoming too chummy by far.

  “We’d better get upstairs for the briefing,” he made a show of looking at his watch.

  “Thank you, Cartwright, for your efforts.”

  Alastair didn’t acknowledge this.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Miller brightly.

  “Just doing my job,” Alastair replied.

  Miller beamed all the way to the exit. Such a nice man! If only he didn’t climb the wrong side of the ladder. Still, there was always a chance to get a look at Woodcock in the meeting. Perhaps she could get a seat next to him...

  Brough was hanging back. He glanced around to check Miller wasn’t watching then he held out his arm, rather stiffly, with his fist clenched.

  “Here,” he said quietly.

  “What’s this?” Alastair looked at the fist. Brough grabbed his hand with his other hand and held it below his fist. The fist opened and pressed an object into Alastair’s hand.

  It was a key.

  “Use it whenever...” Brough’s voice was suddenly thick in his throat. He didn’t look at Alastair and so completely missed the wide-eyed look of surprise and the grin of gratitude.

  “I will!” Alastair closed his own fist around the precious object, but the detective inspector had already left.

  ***

  The briefing was a recap session, a chance to share information and for the airing of views and theories. It reminded Brough of the ‘show-and-tell’ sessions he used to endure at school when the teacher couldn’t be bothered to plan a proper lesson.

  Large images of the victims so far were projected onto the white board. There was Paul Cook the cook doing his evil snowman impression; Kyrie Billings like a game of KerPlunk; and Maria Keenan with part of her tongue protruding from her mouth like being dead required a lot of concentration. These three pictures were in a row. Separate from them was a photograph of Loretta Phipps, her neck at an unworkable angle as she lay on the stones of the castle floor.

  Chief Inspector Wheeler explained the thinking behind this arrangement, using a laser pointer. It targeted each victim with a red dot as though they were being lined up to be killed all over again.

  “These three, all employees at the Dorothy Beaumont rest home and murdered on site. This one, dead at the zoo. Former employee of the Dorothy Beaumont. Her daughter said so and we, of course, checked. Are we looking at one killer here or two? Two separate individuals and the Beaumont connection is just a coincidence? Or are we looking at four separate individuals and all we’m doing is pissing in the wind?”

  Silence hung over the briefing room. Even the dimmest-witted among them knew better than to offer an answer to any of Wheeler’s questions, rhetorical or otherwise.

  Brough and Stevens were called upon in turn to fill in details and the findings of forensics and pathological reports. Harry Henry scrawled salient words in marker pen on a flipchart pad.

  Miller found her mind wandering. She had failed to secure a seat next to Woodcock but he was in front of her and to the right. She could see his left ear and the way his hair curled over it, in need of a cut. She watched his neck. It was clean. She liked a man with a clean neck. She extrapolated that Woodcock’s standards of personal hygiene must be impeccable if the neck was anything to go by. She imagined what that neck would look like on the pillow next to hers.

  Perhaps, when there was a coffee break, she could time her visit to the croissant table to coincide with his.

  But there was to be no break. Wheeler was bringing things to a close. She announced she wanted a greater police presence up at the home, inside and out. No one was to come or go or piss their pants without a copper’s nose being stuck into it. Also - and this cheered Brough up considerably - she declared she was re-opening Dedley nick as an incident centre until the bastard (or
bastards) was caught.

  Brough left the briefing room with a spring in his step. But he had to wait for Miller who was dawdling for some reason, pretending to check her phone for messages. And now rooting around in her bag for something or nothing.

  Stevens was speaking to Wheeler. His D S was hovering at his shoulder. All three of them turned to look at Brough in the doorway. Brough felt himself redden. He cleared his throat and pulled out his own phone - well, if it worked for Miller...

  “Ready, sir?” Miller roused him from his fake message-checking. She seemed downcast, having given up on whatever subterfuge had detained her.

  “Hoi, Brough!” Stevens barked from across the room. “See you up the road in half an hour!”

  Brough grimaced. He didn’t want that wanker in his incident room.

  Miller looked across and caught Woodcock looking at her. He nodded, ever so slightly. Miller waved back. This did not escape Brough’s attention. He laughed.

  “Oh come on, Miller. And come off it.”

  Embarrassed, Miller followed him out to the car. At least Woodcock would be coming up the road with that moustachioed brute. All right, so Woodcock had a moustache as well but on him it was nothing short of dashing.

  ***

  Brough enjoyed evicting the painters from his office and pulling off the dust sheets from his furniture. He then he called them back in and enlisted them to reposition his desk and, looking altogether too smug for Miller’s liking, sat behind it as though he had just been reinstated as king.

  From his throne he oversaw the painters’ and Miller’s attempts to rearrange the other chairs and tables to his liking. Were it not for the odd lascivious leer from the men in overalls, Miller would have been more upset than she was. Not that she would ever - not with either of them - ugh. But it was nice to get a bit of male attention, even though it was boorish and sexist and harassment in the workplace. Am I that desperate, she thought, that I overlook the objectionable nature of their remarks and don’t put them in their place? Am I letting myself down and all women everywhere?

  It seemed like a big responsibility. And was it really worth making a fuss?

  She glanced across at Brough who was conducting their movements like it was the last night of the Proms. Huh. If someone said something to him about his... preferences, he would squirm and seethe and would let it go. He wasn’t comfortable with the way he was.

  Am I uncomfortable with the way I am?

  No.

  Any discomfort was caused by sexist bastards making their unfunny remarks. She carried on putting out chairs, waiting, just waiting for them to say something.

  “Can I fetch you a nice cup of tea, Sergeant?” one of the men said sweetly.

  “Um, ah...” Miller was confused.

  “There’s some biscuits in the cupboard,” said the other.

  “Um... No sugar. Thanks.”

  She waited for one of them to come back with the old “you’re sweet enough” line, but neither of them did. They bustled out happily. Miller felt frustrated. Should have said something before, she scolded herself. The moment was gone. If indeed they had meant anything by it.

  Oh! Why were men such landmines?

  She sat in a chair, hoping Woodcock could be invited by a nod of her head to sit beside her.

  Brough set about reconstructing his wall of notes and photographs. He’d better not ask me to help with that, Miller scowled at his back.

  Men!

  “Very nice!” Stevens was in the doorway. He adopted an effeminate tone and flapped his wrists at the paintwork. “Did you choose the colour yourself?”

  Brough’s shoulders tightened. He turned to face the wanker, glaring as Stevens strode in, moved a chair and sat on it the wrong way round. His sergeant was lingering in the doorway.

  “Come in!” Miller stood up and made ushering gestures.

  D S Woodcock dipped his head in greeting and stepped inside. He didn’t sit next to Miller. He ambled over to a filing cabinet and stood next to that. Feeling a little rejected, Miller sat down again.

  “Been having a word with the Chief,” Stevens announced, effectively taking charge of proceedings. “We’ve had a bit of an idea.”

  11.

  Pam Fogg was not happy. The place was crawling with police. Police in high-visibility jackets, for fuck’s sake. She may as well write it in the sky: there is a problem with people dying at my rest home. She should get laughing policemen to pose for the brochure.

  She showed her i.d. to the morons at the main entrance and then again to the idiots on the car park. Angrily, she stabbed the key into the car door. It slipped and scratched the paintwork. Shit. More inconvenience. More expense. She realised with bitter irony she needn’t have bothered; the car wasn’t locked. Slipping up, old girl, she admonished herself, but is it any wonder with everything going on?

  She got in and started the engine. Oops. Better belt up. All these coppers around, they’d be bound to nick her.

  The wrought iron gates swung open on their slow, automatic arc. A constable tipped her a salute by touching the rim of his helmet with a finger. He waved her through as though she didn’t know the way to go. Idiot. She smiled at him - well, bared her teeth - as she passed.

  She would be glad to get home and away from all of this for the evening.

  Unfortunately for Pamela Fogg, the figure hiding behind the driving seat had other ideas.

  ***

  Brough’s flat out refusal to go along with Stevens’s idea earned him a telephone call from Chief Inspector Wheeler. She told him in no uncertain terms to stop pissing about and get with the programme, play the game and do the honourable thing.

  “I’m not doing it,” Brough repeated. “It’s a stupid idea.”

  “It’s a stroke of fucking genius is what it is,” Wheeler corrected him. “Now, come on,” she tried a different tack, “you’ve got experience in this sort of thing.”

  “I have not!” Brough protested.

  “Let me finish,” Wheeler snapped. She didn’t like being interrupted. “As I say, you’ve got experience in this sort of thing. The going undercover I mean. The dressing-up and staying in character. And you were bloody good at it by all accounts. If results am anything to go by.”

  “Madam, it wasn’t play-acting or make-believe. It was a very dangerous situation.”

  Wheeler shrugged - a gesture wasted over the phone. “You say potato.”

  “Potato,” said Brough.

  “Well, there’s nobody else, is there? I cor exactly send Stevens in, can I? The galumphing great brute. And his lackey’s no better. No; you’m the best man for the job. The only man for the job. Now, get your finger out and pull your trousers down. There’s a good boy.”

  “Madam, I -”

  “You’ve had an easy ride up to now, Davey. Because of your dad. And the men do have a grudging respect for what you done, even though nobody likes a grass. But things could turn a lot less pleasant for you if you don’t do as you’m told.”

  “Madam, I’m merely pointing out the utter fallacy of the idea -”

  “On the other hand, things could get a lot less unpleasant for you, an’ all. I could see my way to keeping Dedley nick open indefinitely. I know you like it up there, fuck knows why, like.”

  “Madam -”

  “We put this plan into action tomorrow, Davey. And you will be on board. Do I make myself clear?”

  Brough sighed. Wheeler recognised it as the sound of capitulation. Before he could say another word, Wheeler jumped in. “Good boy, Davey. I knew I could count on you. And Davey? Don’t you ever fucking call me Madam again, right?”

  The line went dead with a click. Brough swore at his phone and threw it across the room. He could imagine Steven’s wanker face laughing its wanker laugh. Of all the stupid,
bloody...

  His gaze fell on the crime scene photographs and pictures of the victims. Some of them still had to be stuck on his thinking wall. He closed his eyes. He would do it but not because Wheeler had told him to but because the dead deserved it. Paul the cook, Kyrie Billings, Maria Keenan and Loretta Phipps - they all deserved justice for their brutal and violent deaths.

  Hawaii 5-0 blared out from across the room. The phone had survived its crash landing. It was Alastair. Brough let it ring through to voicemail, imagining the little crease that would appear between Alastair’s eyebrows when he heard Brough’s stilted outgoing message.

  Alastair could wait.

  Brough had preparations to make. He looked out at the window. If there was one thing Dedley wasn’t short of it was charity shops. He retrieved his phone. The little icon was flashing to tell him Alastair had left a message. He dialled Miller.

  “Come on,” he sighed, resigned to his fate. “Let’s go shopping.”

  ***

  Later that evening Miller’s kitchen was host to a planning session. A back-story was created, its details ironed out. Stevens actually made some pertinent points; he appeared to be taking the matter seriously. Miller, thrilled to have Woodcock under her roof, kept the coffee coming, apologising repeatedly for having packed the best mugs. Woodcock was politeness itself, all pleases and thank-yous. He even used a coaster without Miller having to point them out. Wonderful.

  And Brough - Brough was up in the bathroom, cursing and sweating.

  “Come on, Davey!” Stevens called up through the kitchen ceiling. “Let’s be having you!” He put his index fingers in the corner of his mouth and whistled shrilly. He tried to enlist Woodcock in a rousing chorus of Why Are We Waiting, with rhythmic accompaniment consisting of slapping the tabletop. Woodcock, looking nervously at Miller, didn’t join in.

  That was also wonderful.

  “Dav-ey! Dav-ey! Dav-ey!” Stevens began the chant. Miller joined in and so did wonderful Woodcock. They clapped their hands and kept the noise going until the kitchen door swung open and plunged them into open-mouthed and still-handed silence. Framed in the doorway stood an elderly woman in baggy clothing and a shapeless hat. She was stooped and trembling.