Hidden Power

by Judith Cutler

  Though he wouldn’t admit it, and was unlikely to for some time, Gregorie had been extremely lucky. To be fair, the paramedics and firefighters didn’t use the word ‘lucky’ either. Gregorie’s fall had been broken by the front hedge.

  It was only when the second ambulance and the fire appliance had driven off that Earnshaw had started to laugh. Kate tried to soothe her, but Earnshaw pushed her tea to one side and ploughed towards the front gate. She pointed at the new, hand-painted name: The Hollies.

  ‘I was going to have them rooted out. But then someone pointed out you can’t just cut down trees in a conservation area. Not if the trunks are more than a certain diameter. So I had this tree surgeon in to neaten them—’

  ‘They look very spruce,’ Kate agreed.

  ‘“Spruce”. Oh, Kate. Oh, Lord!’ More hoots and howls.

  What on earth—? And then, ‘Oh, God. I’m sorry. Oh, Ma, I can’t think of anything better to break his fall, can you? Lovely, strong holly.’

  ‘Not even berberis and firethorn!’ The women collapsed into each other’s arms.

  Which was where Gary Vernon found them.

  ‘I was really worried about you, Kate,’ he said, over tea in Earnshaw’s living room. They weren’t allowed into the kitchen: a scene-of-crime team had taken over, cursing Kate’s earlier tea-making activities. The SOCO in charge had condescended to make tea and pass them mugs, which suited Kate fine. However long her nap had been this morning, it didn’t seem quite enough. She’d had to be prompted to make introductions, but congratulated herself mentally on referring to Earnshaw without a blink as Ma.

  ‘I saw, your Honda, you see, chained up in Kenton,’ Vernon explained, looking for somewhere to put his teaspoon. ‘And someone had brought a pickup truck. I couldn’t see any signs of damage, but I was afraid… So I thought I’d just drive round a bit—on the off-chance. And there you were.’ He smiled. ‘Julie’ll be so relieved.’

  Kate didn’t believe the bit about chance. He must have phoned Julie. Well, that was what husbands and wives did.

  Earnshaw got up and could be heard yelling into the kitchen. She came back armed with the biscuits Kate had bought earlier and wearing someone’s wedding ring. ‘It was very good of you, Mr Vernon. I’m sure Kate appreciates your interest. She’s talking about coming into work tomorrow, would you believe.’

  Kate was thinking fast. Should she tell Vernon about this second attack? She’d be damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. To tell him might irritate Earnshaw, but to keep quiet about something he’d soon pick up on Sophisticasun’s grapevine was dangerous—when he learnt, he’d wonder why she hadn’t been frank with him.

  ‘Actually, I don’t think I shall bother buying a Lottery ticket for Saturday,’ she said. ‘Something else happened this morning. That’s why the kitchen’s crawling with the police. I had a visitor. Seems that colleague of yours couldn’t take no for an answer. Gregorie.’

  ‘Not Gregorie Phipps?’ Vernon sprang up. To Kate’s amazement he squatted at her feet, taking her hands. ‘The bastard. You poor girl Look, you must tell the police everything.’

  Could she be hearing this? Was Vernon really recommending police intervention? ‘About last night,’ he continued. ‘Tell them everything. He may say he’s my boss, but if he tries to sack me—well,’ he continued, now struggling to stand, ‘he’ll get more than he bargained for, that’s all. How did he know where to find you?’

  ‘Followed me back home last night, I suppose. And waited his chance.’

  ‘I wondered what he was doing at the complex this morning. Kate, do you think it was he who—who bashed your head?’

  ‘I don’t know. And that’s the honest truth.’

  All this time Earnshaw had been very quiet, very watchful. Now she jumped in with fervour. ‘Now the stupid doctor—do you know this silly girl didn’t want to see a doctor, Mr Vernon?—says she can come back to work tomorrow if—big if—she rests properly today.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he frowned ‘Kate, that’s not a good idea, surely? Especially as the agency have agreed to put you on the weekend shift. I put your point to them about inadequate hygiene in some of the older apartments and raised it with my colleagues yesterday: I really think you should take the whole weekend off, but if you insist on coming in at least you’ll be paid four hours’ time to do what’s always been two hours’ work.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Vernon, that’s really kind.’

  ‘Since you’ve been with the agency such a short time you won’t be getting sick pay for tomorrow, but I’ll make it up out of petty cash.’ He moved towards the door.

  ‘That’s really very kind,’ Kate said, following him, suppressing all thoughts of employer’s duty of care.

  ‘Not at all.’ He paused, uneasily. ‘Kate, perhaps I was wrong. No. I don’t think you should expose yourself in the courts—you know what these barristers are like at twisting the truth. I’ll take action against Gregorie at Sophisticasun. He won’t get away with it! I promise you.’

  Kate wanted to object that being sacked would simply give the bugger more time to rape other women, but she was too busy working out Vernon’s change of heart. Yes: it had been his heart that had made him offer the first advice. Then his head might have pointed out one or two dangers if she got involved in the legal system. He must be shining himself with anxiety in case she wasn’t persuadable.

  ‘You mean these lawyers might get hooked on the idea that because Craig and I aren’t married and—’

  ‘They’d probably have a field day. And there was that schoolgirl’s dress—you know what a judge might make of that.’ Unfortunately she knew all too well.

  ‘You’ll get her to do the right thing, won’t you, Mrs Knowles? I don’t know how your Craig would react, either. Some men they don’t like it when their partners get raped. They blame the woman.’

  Which she also knew from professional experience.

  ‘I’ll certainly do my best,’ Earnshaw grunted.

  ‘I’m sure if anyone can, Mrs Knowles, you can,’ Vernon smiled, with an irony Kate hadn’t thought him capable of. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but if anyone had asked me, I’d have said Kate was your daughter, not—from what I’ve heard—that Craig was your son.’

  Earnshaw put an arm round Kate’s shoulders and squeezed hard. ‘I’ve often thought as much myself. But I love Craig too, Mr Vernon. Don’t think I don’t.’

  Earnshaw may have waved off Vernon with her best beam, but she was grim-faced by the time they’d got back inside. Kate suspected it wasn’t just the icy wind suddenly blowing in off the river that was responsible.

  ‘You must have told him far more than was necessary,’ she said, shutting the door with a slam. ‘I mean—all that crap about his finding this place by accident!’

  ‘Probably phoned his wife,’ Kate said shortly. ‘I was daft last night—I more or less gave her directions.’

  ‘And telling him you’d no idea who’d hit you. You must be off your head. Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘I wonder how keen he really is to get the first incident sorted out…? It’d be nice if I could persuade him to report it. If we could only go in and look around—’

  ‘You mean Uniform?’

  ‘Yes, and CID and SOCO and anyone else can get in there legitimately. It would also mean if I’m seen going into Alderson Drive, people will think it’s to do with that. I’d say we might have had a very lucky break, here, Ma’am.’

  ‘Hmph.’

  Kate looked at her watch. ‘Tell you what, let’s see if we can pick up a late lunch and go and see—er—father-in-law. All this drama has given me an appetite. The other thing is, maybe you should contact Craig—he’ll no doubt want to visit his father.’

  Earnshaw looked at her, an unreadable expression on her face.

  ‘And by now surely they’ll have developed the photos and picked something up from my bugs. Not to mention the paperwork I’ve been snaffling from the shredder. We could have a busy afternoon and e
vening, couldn’t we? Perhaps it’s a good job I’m not going into work tomorrow.’ She was rubbing her hands with glee when she noticed Earnshaw’s expression hadn’t changed. ‘Have I said something I shouldn’t?’

  ‘Apart from giving the impression that it’s you running the whole shebang? Well, I never did expect tact and diplomacy from you, so let that rest. No. It’s something else. Craig. He’s gone missing, Kate’

  Chapter 26

  Earnshaw sat heavily on the stairs. ‘Missing,’ she repeated. ‘Gone walkabout.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘We should have told you when we picked you up from Kenton, I suppose.’

  ‘When? How long ago?’ Strange: Kate was as anxious as if they’d really had a personal, not just a professional, relationship.

  ‘Yesterday morning.’

  ‘Funny: I thought we were all getting on rather better.’

  ‘For “all” read “you two”. Well, he left the place where he’s been staying before his mates woke up and hasn’t been back since. He withdrew two hundred and fifty pounds from an ATM at that big Tesco near you—’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Six forty-five—a.m., before you ask. No calls from his mobile. No report of any RTA, though he seems to have taken that bloody car. No sighting, either. He hasn’t used his credit or debit cards. Well, with two-fifty in cash he wouldn’t need to.’

  ‘What about earlier in the week? Had be been hoarding cash?’

  ‘Not that we know of.’ Hands on thighs, Earnshaw levered herself up. ‘If you still want to eat…’ she added accusingly.

  To please Earnshaw the answer should have been no. But if she needed to think on her feet, it had to be yes. Unless this wooziness was really a result of the bang on the head. ‘A sandwich on the hoof,’ she suggested.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting a three-course meal at the bloody Ritz. I can’t work you out, Power. Half the time you’re as steady as a rock; the rest you’re as flaky, as a packet of crisps. I’ve never known anyone so bloody self-centred, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘No, Ma’am.’ And don’t let the old bitch see the tears in your eyes.

  Kate had a nasty feeling she was supposed to let the arguments flow over her head. She felt like a pawn argued over by so many Grand Masters. She looked around the small conference room: yes, mostly masters, if not grand white middle-aged ones, too. Where were the young officers, and the women. Not to mention any African, Caribbean and Asian officers. How on earth would the constabulary reach those Home Office ethnicity targets? Angry as she was, however, she had to admit that these questions were silly, really, given the ethnicity of Devon itself.

  Back to the matters in hand: plenty of them since it was a long agenda. Most of them to do with her, of course But not with her input Tucked away at a corner of the table, she seethed and smarted.

  The item they were on now was the Gregorie business. It was embarrassing all round, of course. Firstly it had drawn vivid attention to the casual arrangement that had worried Kate originally; secondly anyone wanting to check on Kate would have a starting point; thirdly, and this seemed uppermost in some minds, Gregorie might have to lie on his stomach for a couple more days.

  ‘What we have to hope,’ a bald chief superintendent was saying—she didn’t recall anyone introducing him and he had no name card in front of him, ‘is that he doesn’t decide to take legal action against Power. It would blow everything wide open Most unfortunate.’

  The clear implication was that Kate should have hauled him through the window and then lain still, thinking of the inconveniences to the Devon and Cornwall Police she was thus averting.

  ‘What are the chances, do you think, of his going for compensation?’ An anonymous ginger-haired superintendent, this one.

  ‘He’s within his rights Perhaps,’ Bald Chief Superintendent continued, smugly, ‘our colleagues aren’t so au fait with defusing methods in Birmingham. More confrontational.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t judge a force by a single officer,’ someone put in, benignly.

  ‘We call it a service in the West Midlands,’ Kate snapped. What had happened to all the CID officers who might have understood and supported her? All bloody Uniforms in here.

  Except for Earnshaw, of course, who now scowled her into silence and asked, ‘So you don’t think we should proceed with the case from our end?’

  ‘Do you?’ Ginger-hair, this time.

  Earnshaw’s striving to be fair was almost visible. ‘I suppose it depends whether the DNA Power obtained matches that in any outstanding cases. By the time any of them get to court, this operation should be done and dusted.’

  ‘Very well.’ Ginger-hair’s weary tone implied that the chances of a match were unlikely in the extreme.

  ‘You don’t feel that such a man ought to be brought to justice anyway?’ Kate put in. ‘We’ve all the evidence we need on tape, after all. Plus witnesses.’

  ‘You’re being very naïve, Power, if I may say so. How could you possibly break cover at this stage?’

  ‘Is there any need? With clear evidence against him, Gregorie might even plead guilty.’ A hazy thought that other people in the organisation might tell him to do just that to protect the organisation itself crept across her mind. ‘And if we told Mr Vernon the police would be asking questions to see if the assault on one of his staff could be tied in with the other assaults, he might even co-operate. He seems—very kindly disposed towards me.’ Even as she spoke she realised she was crazy; Gregorie would have to be charged with an offence against a specific woman, namely Katherine Elizabeth Power. And she’d forgotten Vernon’s volte-face. His instincts had spoken first time: his position in Sophisticasun the second, no doubt.

  Before anyone could point that out, Bald Head raised eyes and hands heavenwards. ‘Dear me, Power: you seem to have forgotten Rule One of undercover work: don’t get involved with the scrote you’re investigating.’

  ‘With respect, Sir, to the best of my knowledge I have not yet uncovered any evidence at all to confirm that Gary Vernon himself is a scrote. Except his clipboard and those plants. I know from personal experience that Gregorie Phipps is, however.’ She overrode a rumble of disagreement from someone. ‘I would, in fact, be very grateful if I could be informed of the nature of some of the material I’ve passed on to you.’ She counted them off on her fingers. ‘The photographs and audio material at the Vernons’ premises. The papers I’ve saved from the shredder. The audio material from the complex. The vehicles whose registration numbers I’ve logged for you. But all these are secondary to two pieces of information I’d like simply as a human being—the news about Superintendent Knowles and Craig—er—Knowles. I’ve never known his real surname.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  Earnshaw filled it. ‘Seems these Brummies like to run the show, too. Don’t you, Sergeant Power? We’re not all bumpkins with straw in our hair, you know.’

  Kate managed not to stand up and yell. ‘When I worked on a covert operation before, far fewer colleagues knew of my role, but I was always kept fully briefed,’ she said quietly. ‘Indeed, I knew what I was looking for. I’ve been creeping round in the dark down here. And now you’re surprised I want to know what’s been picked up. And you’re even surprised I want to know what’s happening to my colleagues.’ She heard her voice rising. Any moment she might burst into tears. Hell and damnation.

  Fortunately at this point there was a knock on the door. From the tail of her eye Kate saw a young woman in an overall, not unlike her Sophisticasun outfit, wheel in a trolley of tea and coffee and leave. No one moved.

  Despite a strong feeling that something domesticated was expected of her, she kept her eyes on the Chief Superintendent’s face. OK, if she got a reputation down here for being a hard bitch, she wouldn’t relish it, but the people who mattered, the people she admired and respected, would know better. Meanwhile, if the tea and coffee set like concrete in their pots, she didn’t care.

  Chief Superinten
dents weren’t fools. Kate knew enough to know that while some reached their posts through Buggins’ turn, most had worked hard for their promotions. And needed brains to do that work. If she could convince him of the rightness of her case, he’d carry most of the others with him. She kept eyes and chin steady.

  He dropped his eyes and leafed through a file. On her, she suspected, from the occasional flick of his eyes at her.

  The silence stewed like the tea.

  ‘I expect,’ began the chief superintendent, ‘you’ll all be glad to hear that Superintendent Knowles is expected to make a complete recovery. He’ll be detained overnight for observation, however. I believe that’s usual in cases of concussion. He sent, I believe, a message: that your skull was obviously thicker than his, Power.’

  Kate nodded. The pain over her ear told her it was a mistake. She allowed herself a slight wince.

  ‘You mean Power has been attacked too?’ Ginger-hair, put in. ‘I thought the reference to one of Vernon’s staff meant—’

  ‘A glancing blow, that’s all, Sir,’ Earnshaw informed him.

  ‘All the same, she should be on sick leave too. Policy after a head injury.’ But he didn’t pursue it. He pulled himself to his feet, looking older than she’d realised, and headed for the trolley.

  The herd followed. As did Kate.

  Fed and watered, they returned to hostile-mode. But the superintendent had certainly softened them.

  ‘As for DS Barnard—Craig Knowles, Power—we are exploring every avenue.’

  ‘Do we have any—are we looking for someone who’s alive or who’s…?’ Kate asked.

  He looked her straight in the eye. ‘I have to say, both. There’s been no sighting, no contact with him at all. Is there any light you might cast on this?’