Hidden Power

by Judith Cutler

  ‘So if I give you some idea of the set-up, we’ll fill you in on the detail later,’ Earnshaw said. ‘Jesus, look at that pillock over there—mobile and fags and trying to drive. Serve him right it I pulled him over. And what does that stupid cow…?’

  ‘So it was a case of too much bed, not enough sleep, eh, Power?’ Earnshaw chortled as she pulled into Taunton Deane Services. ‘Need a pee; that’s the trouble with getting older—can’t trust the bladder.’

  Kate followed her to the loos. Was Earnshaw right—she’d just needed a nap Certainly she felt much better. What little of Earnshaw’s driving she’d seen before her eyes closed had convinced her that she was in the hands of an expert, and that the woman’s eyes missed nothing. In fact it was her continuous commentary on the faults and foibles of other road users that had lulled Kate into a defensive doze. The trouble was, she’d probably missed important briefing material. Still, no doubt it would be repeated.

  ‘That’s better. And now we’ll have a cuppa and a bite of elevenses. At the tax payers’ expense, Power—we don’t have to shell out these prices. All that for two coffees and two Danish!’ She grabbed the receipt and pressed it into Kate’s purse. Then she narrowed her eyes like a mariner scanning the sky and headed for a table in an alcove, already occupied by a couple of men, one Kate’s age, one Earnshaw’s.

  ‘Nice kisses all round,’ Earnshaw ordered. ‘Mother and daughter-in-law being reunited with a couple of husbands. I shall be glad when the hairdresser’s got hold of you, and you’ve got more appropriate clothes. Don’t pull that sort of face. Young Sue Whatsit tells me you’ve got a bloke who’d like to have you back in one piece, and since he’s a rank above me, I’m doing what she says and getting you thoroughly disguised. OK?’

  ‘OK, Ma’am.’

  ‘Better make that Ma for a bit. Now, your father-in-law here is Superintendent Knowles, who’s co-ordinating this for the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, and your husband’s Craig—er—Knowles, a sergeant like yourself. It’s Craig with whom you’ll have everyday contact. In fact you’ll be living with him for a while. So where’s the ring, Craig?’

  Craig produced a battered specimen, holding it up for her inspection and then pointing to one area, as if he’d been having it repaired. She slipped it on. It was on the loose side, but she rather preferred it that way. ‘I’ve kept my own surname, then?’

  ‘You’re that sort of woman. Stroppy,’ Craig said.

  She might as well behave that way. ‘Hang on: you’re supposed to be our parents but you’re still active police officers. Does that make sense? Shouldn’t we be orphans or something?’ S There was a silence Rod would have described as satisfactory. Jesus, it seemed as if they hadn’t thought of such an elementary precaution. Here was she, about to give up all her life—her friends, relations and lover—to become someone else, and they hadn’t sorted something as basic as that. If mistakes were made, it would be she and this Craig who would pay for them.

  Earnshaw was extra gruff—with guilt, Kate hoped. ‘You’ll go back with Craig. Your dad and I’ll take your car and lose it. You’re sure there’s nothing to identify you in your luggage? No photos or anything?’

  That was the hardest part. She dug in her bag for her organiser. ‘Keep this safe for me, Ma.’ She attempted Rod’s ironic tone. They’d know she was angry, but wouldn’t be able to fault her professionalism. ‘All my life’s in there. Driving licence, warrant card, donor card. And all my phone numbers—I deleted them from my mobile.’

  Her ‘father’ patted her affectionately on the shoulder as Earnshaw stowed the diary in her own case. ‘You’ll do. You toddle off with young Craig, now. He’ll tell you everything you still need to know.’

  She hoped so, but there was something about the set of his mouth that told her she couldn’t guarantee it What if she pulled out now She still could She could report to her Birmingham superiors that Devon and Cornwall hadn’t got their act together. But there was this pulse of adrenaline telling her she was starting an interesting case. She shut her mouth on her protest.

  ‘Have a good time,’ Knowles added more loudly. ‘But remember, don’t do anything mother and I wouldn’t.’

  ‘As if I would,’ she said equally loudly, dotting kisses on their surprised foreheads.

  Chapter 6

  Currently sporting a mousy wig with blonde highlights until she could get her hair unrecognisably restyled, Kate was now reincarnated as Kate Potter, aged thirty-one, unemployed, and living with her common law husband Craig. He was officially an odd-job man who made most of his no doubt undeclared income tidying gardens for pensioners. They’d just moved, it seemed, into a house in one of the many new estates circling Newton Abbot: half the homes were still being built, and the roads mere tracks. The bonus was that no one knew anyone, of course.

  According to Craig, Kate Potter had had a variety of jobs, ranging from work in an old people’s home—true, of course, in Kate Power’s case—to being a dinner lady. She’d done phone-sales and data inputting, but had had to give that up as a result of RSI.

  ‘What about my paper qualifications?’ Kate asked, watching Craig fill the kettle with far too much water. Rod had been punctilious about never using more than enough.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, I need to know why I’ve got such a funny work pattern—some people stuff, some unskilled, some skilled.’

  ‘I’d say you’re a bit on the feckless side, to be honest, Kate. You got let’s think—five or six GCSEs.’ •

  Needled despite herself she said, ‘So I’m not stupid. I presume I managed to keep the certificates safe, just in case an employer needs to see them.’

  ‘Of course. And you started a couple of computer courses, but your elbow meant you had to give up. It’s better now, to all intents and purposes. If admin work involves keyboard skills, you can do it. But you have to take regular breaks—right?’

  ‘During which time I keep my eyes and ears open.’ Kate looked around the bright little kitchen. For a starter home it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what she was used to, and Craig, though probably likeable enough when you got to know him, wasn’t Rod. She sipped the tea Craig had passed—he’d sloshed in so much full-cream milk it was miserably lukewarm—and tried to suppress a sigh.

  If he heard it, Craig ignored it. ‘Thing is, you’ve got to be flexible. Whatever vacancy Sophisticasun ask the agency to fill, you’ve got to be able to do it. It’s just a huge slice of luck that they recruit this way.’

  ‘Presumably it’s a way of cutting costs. But, as you say, convenient. And we’ve got a mole in the agency?’

  ‘Right. She’s useless. But even I don’t know who it is.’

  ‘Bloody hell! Are you sure we’re not in the wrong movie? Shouldn’t we be in a James Bond or something?’

  ‘Maybe we are.’

  ‘In which case I’d have thought I’d need much longer to pick up this new identity. Not to mention sorting out whether I’ve got parents. It’ll be easy to make slips.’

  Craig stirred three sugars into his tea and sat beside her at the breakfast bar. ‘I thought you were supposed to be a fucking pro.’

  ‘I am. You are too, I daresay. But our gaffers are behaving like a pair of amateurs,’ she insisted.

  ‘You keep your tongue off them. They’re good officers.’

  ‘Perhaps they haven’t handled undercover work before.’

  ‘They’ll be fine. If we are. You, more particularly. You’ve been briefed.’

  Brief was the word. ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘There you are then. So no more fucking carping remarks. OK?’

  ‘But Earnshaw said—’

  ‘Are you deaf?’

  So this wasn’t the moment to confess she’d slept through some of Earnshaw’s monologue. She’d try a different tack. ‘Does the agency debrief people leaving Sophisticasun?’

  ‘No. Why should it? It’s there to find them other work, of course. But it was the speed of turnover tha
t alerted our contact.’

  ‘OK.’ She managed to convert another sigh into a yawn and a stretch. ‘I suppose that nice little fridge doesn’t run to the ingredients for lunch?’

  ‘That’s one of the things we need to do. A supermarket shop. And a visit to a garden centre. You’re a bit town-pale, you see, and we reckoned you’d probably turn your hand to the garden.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be the jobbing gardener.’

  ‘Quite. When did you last know a builder with a decent house, or a plumber whose taps didn’t drip? OK? So am I going to get out and soil my hands in my own garden? I think not.’

  Kate shrugged off his patronising sneer. ‘Point taken. It’ll be a nice way of keeping fit, too. I take it Kate Potter won’t be playing tennis or using the gym.’

  ‘She might play tennis in the park, but not with the sort of fancy racquet I’d guess you use. Unless she got one second-hand, or off the back of a lorry. We’re not on sergeants’ incomes any more, Power. I’ll show you our bank statements after we’ve grabbed ourselves some food. But I daresay I could afford a pub lunch, so long as we have something cheap. We’ll go to Teignmouth. There’s some nice pubs in the old docks area.’ He looked at her critically. ‘Shouldn’t you get that wig on straight?’

  ‘Let’s put a hairdresser’s on the agenda too.’

  Perhaps it was easier to become someone else when you were younger. To shed the habits of speech and posture and dress and tastes in food and music you’d acquired over the years. To say goodbye to loved ones for indefinite periods. To stop being yourself… Kate couldn’t remember feeling this disorientated the time she’d started work in the old people’s home. On the contrary, she’d sailed in, improvising if necessary, like a kid in a Wendy House. No cares, no responsibilities—just a bright girl being nice to old ladies Now she felt unbearably tense Craig was driving. She wasn’t sure if the M reg. Escort would have been his natural choice, but thought it better not to ask. He must have upgraded the sound-system, which now sported a CD player.

  ‘Ministry of Sound,’ he said, slipping in a CD. ‘House OK for you?’

  Ah, the music, not the place. As it happened, it wasn’t. The combination of the heavy beat and the car air freshener (pungent pine) was tightening her temples until she was ready to scream. Especially when he drummed offbeat on the steering wheel and half-sang the odd phrase. Instead, she fished a couple of aspirin caplets from her bag and managed to swallow them without water. Roll on the pub and lunch. Meanwhile, she must take her mind off her headache, and the thwack of the badly adjusted windscreen wipers which might have been left off for all the good they did—by asking questions. Next journey, after all, he’d probably while away the time by asking her questions about her fictitious life—if he were a pro he would.

  ‘What about my accent, Craig? Not very Devon, is it?’

  ‘I told you you’re originally from Birmingham. That’s where you’ve just come back from. We had a tiff, you see, and my mum went to fetch you down.’

  ‘Why Birmingham? Not Leicester or London?’

  ‘Because, you’ve got a fucking Brummie accent!’

  ‘I never have!’

  ‘Bloody have.’

  ‘Oh, my God I shall have to sort that out—’

  ‘But not while you’re down here. You stayed with friends in—hang on, is there somewhere called Kings Norton? Right.’

  ‘What sort of friends? Apart from close enough to stay with if we’ve had a spat And why didn’t you come up for me?’

  ‘Working that’s what the rows have been about My not pulling my weight This is Teignmouth, by the way’ He turned down a steep hill through what on a drier, sunnier day might have been a pretty seaside town. He pulled into a parking slot on a sodden sea front, the fairy lights and attractive gardens looking as off-key as Christmas decorations in January. Alter feeding a space-age parking meter, he led the way through increasingly narrow streets to what was obviously an old part of the town.

  ‘Some nice pubs down here,’ he said. ‘Choose any of them.’

  She was about to turn into the first when she stopped. ‘That’s the sea down there! But I thought you parked by the sea.’

  ‘I did. By the sea. That there’s river—the Teign estuary—and the harbour. They used to build ships down here but where the yard was they’ve put up posh flats. See? Come on. I wouldn’t recommend the cider in here.: it goes to the legs before you can say pissed.’ They stepped inside the bar, small, cosy, with a real fire at the far side. ‘Over in that corner—you get the table and I’ll get the drinks. What’ll you have?’

  She must have been tired. ‘White wine, please,’ she said without thinking.

  He turned back; stabbing her chest. ‘None of your fancy stuff down here, my girl. You’re not in Kings Bloody Norton now. Lager? Coke?’

  He was quite right, of course.

  ‘Sorry, Craig. It’s what my friend Caz always has and I’ve got a taste for it. But I’ve got such a bad head I. could fancy—I’ll just have water.’ She sat, without waiting for a reply. She had a feeling that she and Craig would do tetchy couple very well.

  She looked at him as he waited at the bar. His head was unusually round, and his cropped hair didn’t improve it. He’d obviously got his share of sun earlier in the year, and was tanned wherever you could see—including, as he leaned forward to talk to the barman, his builder’s cleavage. Nothing if not authentic. He had the right build, too: very solid, compact. Not much above five eight or nine.

  As if aware of her scrutiny, he turned round and smiled, ambiguously. God, what if he got the idea she fancied him?

  Picking up their glasses and a couple of packets of crisps, he came back over. As he sat down he raised an eyebrow.

  Yes. Bad mistake. And a woman wouldn’t have inspected her man like that either. She’d have known how he looked, fastened, after an absence like this, on the parts she loved the most. Rod, now: she’d be looking with tenderness at the way his hair curled softly, vulnerably, into the nape of his neck.

  Craig sat on the bench but leaned heavily against the back of her chair. ‘Penny for them.’ He clinked his glass against hers. ‘Cheers. Thanks.’

  ‘I said, “Penny for them”.’

  ‘If you must know I was thinking about this chap I met in Birmingham,’ she said, loud enough for anyone to hear. ‘Though what my thoughts have got to do with you I’m sure I don’t know.’

  ‘That sort of thought’s my business all right!’ Yes, he was good at this.

  ‘I daresay you met other girls while—while I was away!’

  ‘What if I did? It was you walked out, not me.’ He looked up. ‘Ah, here’s our food.’

  Kate wasn’t sure when she’d last eaten burger and chips. Certainly not since she’d been with Rod, either as a friend or now as a lover. For one thing, he was getting to the age where cholesterol mattered—it hadn’t taken a colleague’s untimely death to remind them of that; for another, he just didn’t seem to be the sort of man to want to munch his way through a burger and bun. No, he wasn’t finicky, certainly not effeminate. It was just that—yes, come to think of it, Rod had the neatest table manners of any man she’d ever met.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask what I wanted?’

  ‘You always have burger and chips.’ Craig looked genuinely affronted.

  ‘Well, in Birmingham I had other things. And liked them better. And lost half a stone,’ she retorted. ‘So next time, if you wouldn’t mind just asking—’

  ‘There won’t bloody well be a next time if you carry on like this! Just shut up and get on with it.’

  She decided they’d done enough to establish themselves as unhappy—should anyone be interested, of course. The burger was surprisingly good and the chips excellent. But if she didn’t want that mythical half stone to make a genuine appearance, she’d have to be firm about choosing for herself. She’d also make sure she was in charge of the shopping trolley when they did their supermarket run.

 
The rain had given way to pallid autumnal sun when they came out. She headed straight to the estuary end of the road and breathed in the smell of childhood holidays—the early holidays spent with her parents, as opposed to the later ones when Aunt Cassie insisted on taking her. Diesel; seaweed; salt. Then there was the slap of rigging—was it called the shrouds?—on all those little boats. Across the estuary the tide must be high, since a cargo ship was picking her way, low in the water, out to sea—was another town, more a village, climbing up a huge red cliff.

  ‘Good to be back, is it?’ Craig asked, pointedly.

  ‘Funny thing:. I think I have come back. I’m sure I’ve been here before,’ she replied, her voice very low. ‘When I was very tiny. Four or five. Isn’t there a ferryboat—a little bucket of a boat? Black and white?’

  For the first time he looked at her with real respect. For a feat of memory! Not for the decision to give up her real life. Her happy life. She realised with a sudden glow that since she and Rod had been together, she’d been happy. For the first time in years. But Craig was talking.

  ‘If you come along here—these used to be proper fishermen’s cottages, but you can see they’re all poncy weekenders’ places now—you can see where the ferry sails from.’

  It was chugging towards them as they arrived.

  ‘Don’t even think of asking if we can go across on it,’ he continued. ‘We haven’t the money, and it’s too bloody touristy. Shaldon’s not Kate Potter’s sort of place, either. Very few shops, and some very posh houses.’

  ‘Isn’t there some sort of tunnel through the cliff? And a little zoo?’

  ‘Right. Back home—

  Home? The sight of Rod in her kitchen ripped through her. That was home.

  ‘—there’s videos, slides, picture postcards—you name it. And maps. You have to memorise things you haven’t even seen. You should do well with them.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Yes, she’d always had a good visual memory—could read Ordnance Survey maps too, thanks to a martinet of a geography teacher, who’d dinned contours and spot-heights into them till they could all read them like books. Thank you, Miss Firth. You never knew to what use the skill might be put, did you?