Still Waters

by Judith Cutler

  ‘“Dave”, Fran? You and Henson on what we’re no longer supposed to call Christian name terms? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘We’ve been getting on better recently, sir. Acting more professionally, you might say.’

  He did not respond to her wry smile. ‘I might, if I hadn’t heard that you two were responsible for some sort of palace revolution.’

  ‘The Peasants’ Revolt, more like. It’s absolute rubbish, sir, if I might say so. I won’t deny that there is unhappiness in some quarters over the number of meetings that senior officers are summoned to these days, but I absolutely and flatly deny that I was involved in any rebellion. Come on, sir, you’ve known me long enough to know that I would tackle anyone I disagreed with face to face.’

  He gave a crack of laughter. ‘I see you’ve got your coffee machine on already.’

  ‘Would you like a cup, sir? No biscuits, I’m afraid. I’ve been a bit busy on this Roper and Barnes case.’

  ‘You’ve let it keep you out of the kitchen! Shame on you, Fran. Thanks.’ He sipped and sat down, motioning her at last to do the same. ‘You think there’s a real problem with the previous inquiry?’

  How fortunate she was used to his sudden changes of tack. ‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘The trouble now is that the media have got their claws into what they will insist on calling the Lady in the Lake case.’

  ‘I suppose that nice girl Dilly Pound’s reporting it, is she?’

  The chief had taken a huge shine to the local TV crime reporter, a victim of a stalker. Fran had run the investigation into her case. As a result, Pound was more cooperative than most reporters in conveying the information the police thought the public ought to know, and sitting on anything that would positively hinder an investigation.

  ‘She is. We’ll be having for a dinner with her and her fiancé Daniel as soon as we’ve sorted out the current investigation, sir,’ Fran said, upgrading a tentative drink arrangement to a positive commitment. ‘Maybe you and your wife would care to join us.’

  He was far too bright not to see that he was being manipulated. ‘I’m sure we would. But you still have to work with other people, Fran. And it’s not always possible for the status quo to be maintained indefinitely: you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.’

  ‘Oh, come on, sir – lives are not eggs! A cliché like that and you an Orwell scholar, too!’ She shook her head, more in apparent sorrow than anger, but realised with a jolt that she’d gone too far. ‘Seriously, sir,’ she continued, trying to retrieve her mistake, ‘the middle of a sensitive case is surely not the moment to pull me off it. I seem to have a rapport with Roper, the man currently doing time for the murder of his wife. Only the more evidence we acquire, the more convinced I am that he’s innocent. As soon as Pat Harper’s in, I shall get her on to her mate in the Home Office to authorise a prison visit to Barnes, the other man sent down for it. There may also be a tie in with a case Dave Henson’s got in hand.’ She preferred that expression to ‘supervising’ – it implied, she thought that Henson had everything totally under control and that they were truly collaborating, admittedly for the first time in their acquaintance.

  ‘What case might that be?’

  ‘Dale Drury, sir. Henson got him when a domestic went wrong, and then managed to tie him up with the death of at least one and possibly several prostitutes here and abroad. He’s involved Interpol and I gather the Sûreté are coming over this week.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back.

  ‘So it would be a shame to interrupt his investigations. Especially while you’re making progress on yours.’ He set his cup down on the only four square inches of desk visible under her paperwork. ‘Shame about the biscuits, Fran.’

  ‘I’ll get Mark on to them. He’s a wonderful cook – as you’ll find out, sir.’

  ‘As indeed I will.’ He made it sound more like a threat than a promise. ‘So long as you don’t neglect other things, Fran.’

  ‘Sir.’

  She listened carefully as he walked along the corridor. Did she hear the subtle sound of Gates’ note being screwed up and slung into a bin? On reflection, the chief was more likely to shred it, wasn’t he? Or consign it to some secret file for future reference.

  There was never any need to supervise anything that Pat might be doing, so all Fran needed to do was ask her to fix the appointment with Barnes and scoot off to Gates’ meeting. What she wanted to do was stand arms akimbo and publicly challenge Gates’ visits to the Rectory. What she had to do was become a model committee member, eager to share her information and absorb others’. She and the chief might have a tacit understanding but underlying it was a bargain, equally unspoken. If she failed to deliver on committees part-time she would sure as hell lose her CID brief and learn to administrate full-time.

  She polished her halo and sat as upright as she could after two hours on the computer. And realised a whole section of her dratted report had got itself into the wrong order, no doubt while it was leaping about the floor.

  The meeting finished earlier than she dared expect.

  Gates had been perceptibly more efficient, sticking absolutely to the agenda and summing up each point well. To her discomfort, however, he fell into step with her was they left the seminar room she was coming to loathe.

  ‘How are Paula Farmer and her girls getting on with your new house?’ he asked with what might have been a smile.

  What an opening! Dared she jump straight in? Despising herself for insisting she move slowly, she kept her voice neutral as she remarked, ‘They seem to be very efficient.’

  He bowed as if she was complimenting him, not the women.

  ‘I was wondering how you came across them, actually,’ she fished. She’d had him down as much more a man to buy new property with a view to improving and selling it at a swift and excessive profit.

  ‘In one of my earlier incarnations,’ he said, with no smile at all. It was clear he thought the conversation closed.

  ‘He wouldn’t admit it, but Mark’s terrified of Paula,’ she fibbed, possibly, raising the stakes a little.

  ‘She’s a pussy cat really.’ Conveniently, his pager prevented any further questions. Why on earth should he head off at something approaching a trot? It wasn’t as if he was pursuing a major criminal.

  But here was DCI Pearce, exposing rather less bosom but more leg than usual, through the medium of a deeply gored skirt stitched only halfway down the thigh. She also sported distractingly dangly earrings and a huge grin.

  ‘The Sureté have been delayed, guv – they seem to have found yet more cases to discuss with him. But he’s languishing in Maidstone Jail for the time being, and we’ve got clearance for any number of interviews with him.’

  ‘Maybe he’d like a welcome party,’ Fran said. ‘Could you contact his lawyer and fix it for early this afternoon?’ With a smile she turned on her heel and went to have lunch with Mark feeling, though she couldn’t have explained why, that the morning hadn’t been a total waste of time after all.

  With no sense of déjà vu at all, accompanied by Sue Hall, Fran sat in an interview room facing a man accused of murdering his wife – plus, in this case, possibly half a dozen prostitutes. Unlike Roper, Dale Drury looked more than capable of physical violence. If she wasn’t careful, he might dominate the room with his size – at forty, he must have weighed in at seventeen stone and been something like six feet one. He had a couple of tattoos, neither particularly offensive, just visible on his neck. His hands were surprisingly well manicured.

  Why should she feel sorrier for a puny specimen like Roper than for this man? Drury hadn’t, after all, even been to court yet, let alone sent down for life. Had his wife been the only victim, he might even, disgracefully, have got away with manslaughter, arguing he’d hit her under provocation. Counsel would certainly make much of the fact that he’d made no attempt to run away when the police arrived, and had shown every sign of distress at momentary loss of control.

  Had he wept for th
e others he would be accused of killing? All those prostitutes?

  Suddenly she realised that she had the thinnest, the most tenuous of reasons to question him. Janine wouldn’t fit his pattern, would she? Fran grasped at intellectual straws. Had Janine become a part-time prostitute, like far too many young women, to service debts or a drug habit? She wanted to discount the first motive: Janine didn’t have huge student loans to pay off, and the contents of the house had suggested expenditure well within the Ropers’ income. All the same, something danced tantalisingly at the back of Fran’s brain – those red shoes and the bra set, no doubt.

  In any case, she hadn’t been interviewing suspects without a shred of evidence all these years to let the lack of it inhibit her now. ‘Have a look at this, Dale,’ she said, casually passing across Janine’s photo in its evidence bag. ‘Do you know this girl?’

  He looked, to do him justice, but, with a glance at his solicitor, shook his head. ‘Not my type at all.’

  ‘Have another look. Tell me what you make of her.’

  Shrugging, he picked it up and made a show of holding it this way and that, the better to peer at it through its polythene covering. At last he stuck out his lower lip. ‘Looks a bit of a goer on the quiet, don’t she?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Meet her at the pub, she’d have her knickers off before you could say shag.’

  She shook her head and wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement. ‘I’m a woman – explain how a man can tell something like that from a photo.’

  She didn’t like the look he gave her before staring at Sue.

  ‘Put you two together, now. Which would I rather fuck? Not her – she’s as tight-arsed as they come. But I reckon you’d screw all right, love.’

  Fran didn’t so much as glance at poor Sue, confining herself to kicking her foot lightly to register sisterly offence and also to prevent her speaking out. Should she snarl at the bugger? Nine-tenths of her wanted to. The other tenth insisted she say ironically, ‘Thank you kindly, Dale. But I’m afraid neither my colleague nor I need your sexual evaluation. It’s this woman here we’re interested in.’ She touched the photo.

  ‘Meet her on a street corner and I’d ask if she was doing business. And probably give her one anyway. Only joking,’ he added, as his solicitor hissed him down.

  ‘Of course,’ Fran agreed, with a gracious smile at the poor sap landed with the idiot as client. ‘You’re saying she looks like a tom?’

  ‘Doesn’t have to make a living by shagging. And all these shrinks say toms don’t actually enjoy it, don’t they?’ he added, surprising her.

  ‘Good point,’ Fran said. She really ought to have shed some of her preconceptions after all these years, shouldn’t she?

  ‘So she might be just a housewife not getting enough and asking for it from someone else. Not me, though, love.’

  ‘What if she was prettied up a bit – you know, big hair, eye make-up, shiny lips?’

  He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to be helpful. ‘You want to ask some of the local girls. You know, wherever she lived.’

  ‘You said “lived”.’ Sue pounced.

  ‘’Course I did, sweetheart.’

  Fran’s toes curled at his easy use of one of Mark’s endearments.

  ‘You wouldn’t be showing me a mugshot of her if she was alive, would you now? I know you want to pin it on me, but I tell you, I didn’t kill her. Didn’t even poke her.’

  ‘You’ve poked a lot of prostitutes, Dale?’ Sue asked.

  ‘A few.’

  ‘A good few?’

  ‘Suppose.’

  ‘So you might not recall one among so many.’

  ‘Never forget a face, not me. Nor a place. Photographic memory they call it.’

  ‘Wow. You don’t meet many people like that,’ Fran said. ‘So if my colleague and I walked out of the room, you’d be able to describe us in detail to your solicitor next week.’

  The solicitor looked as if it was a delight he would not press for.

  ‘Sure,’ Dale declared. ‘Try me, mate – it’s a date.’

  ‘So we might push harder on this idea that Janine might have led a secret life,’ Fran said, to break a seething silence as she drove back to HQ. She could understand Sue being furious, not just with Drury but also with her, for failing to make a stand against such personal observations.

  ‘You don’t have to take the suggestion of a psychopath, surely, ma’am.’

  ‘Lord, no. No more than his nasty little innuendoes against us.’

  ‘Why didn’t you…?’ Sue’s voice cracked.

  ‘Because I wanted him on our side, as much as a man like that can be, even more than to lecture him on the politics of gender. Believe me, Sue, you’ll hear far worse than that – and often from our colleagues, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But the interesting thing was that we hadn’t mentioned to him those anomalous undies and shoes,’ Fran overrode her, wanting progress not polemic. ‘There’s more to Janine Roper than met the eye, Sue. And I’d like you to find out what it is. In fact, what I’d like you to do is get on to the snappers. I want this image digitally enhanced with make-up and a tarty wig.’

  ‘But, guv—’

  ‘The moment we arrive. Get it? And then I want plain clothes officers, preferably those working with the women, to ask around. And not just the poor girls on the street. Lap dancers, pole dancers, belly dancers, any bloody dancers you can think of. OK?’

  As for Fran, all she wanted was to make a cup of tea and metaphorically put her feet up. She would never, however great the need, do it literally, not when anyone might catch her doing it. She permitted herself the tea, at least, and checked her emails. None. No emails?

  She padded out to her secretary’s office, where Pat held up her hands in exculpation. ‘The whole system’s been down all afternoon, Fran. But I did have a phone call from DI Pete Webb. He said he’d put the PM photos in the internal post for you.’

  ‘Thanks. I suppose tomorrow’s another day. I might as well go and pick up Mark, then – we’re off to see how things are moving on the Rectory. But if anyone wants me, I shall be back by six for another briefing.’

  ‘Have fun. But Fran,’ Pat added as Fran left the room, ‘you might want to put your shoes on before you go.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘It’s a good job it’s been so dry,’ Caffy said, ‘or the garden would be like a jungle. Mind you, we do need the rain – they say we’re going to have standpipes in the streets unless we have a wet summer. Which is a bugger when you’re painting exteriors, of course. At least with a site this big we can all nip indoors and carry on there when it rains.’

  ‘All? I must say I thought there’d be more of you.’

  ‘There are. The rest of the team are finishing smaller projects until everyone else is off site. Then you’ll find the place crawling with us. Meanwhile, I get on with specialist stuff like stripping paint and restoring plasterwork in rooms you don’t propose to change. All the plasterwork that’s been chipped and scuffed – I’m looking after that. My special project’s the ceiling in the old drawing room – have you seen what I’ve discovered under all that gloss paint?’

  They could scarcely decline the implicit invitation. And Fran for one was pleased they had followed the young woman. What had been an ugly indeterminate lump of peeling gloss paint was now a delicate piece of plasterwork.

  Caffy’s face glowed with the sort of delight that Fran had seen when new mothers looked at their babies. ‘I’ve had to rebuild that edge – you can see it’s still not quite the same as the rest. And then I shall work on that beautiful section over the door. Didn’t our ancestors do a wonderful job of their domestic architecture?’

  ‘And you’re doing a wonderful job, bringing it back to life,’ Mark said, his voice full of more admiration than even Fran would have expected. He traced a curve with his finger. ‘Look at that…’

  They left Caffy perched
on a stepladder, her work lit by a sort of miner’s light strapped to her forehead, to find Paula scrubbing her hands in the scullery sink.

  ‘Those shoes are better but you really need lace-ups,’ she informed them.

  It took Fran a second to register the problem. ‘No, I’m not here to shin up the scaffolding. Isn’t it a bit windy?’

  Paula clearly thought such an excuse beneath contempt.

  ‘We’re actually here because of the security footage,’ Fran continued. ‘There’s one particular car—’

  ‘Yes, that black Beamer. Rather a regular visitor, isn’t it?’ Paula leant back against the sink, crossing her arms. ‘Should we be worried?’ It was clear she meant all three of them.

  Mark, however, showed an unnatural interest in his shoes. At least he managed to say, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think it’s anyone going to strip lead off the roof or rip out fireplaces. At least, I’d be very surprised if he did. You see, the driver’s a police officer, Paula.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘It’s not that bloody copper that fancies Caffy? Shit! I think way back she might have found him attractive – for half an hour or so – but he was absolutely smitten. What was his name now?’ She clicked her fingers in irritation. ‘Dawes? Gates! Worked for Police Standards or something – you know, fuzz checking up on other fuzz. Do you know him?’

  ‘It was he who recommended you, remember,’ Fran said, weak with relief that their conversation was going so easily.

  ‘Shit, so it was. I thought it was out of the kindness of his heart. And all the time it was because he could sneak over and ogle poor Caffy whenever he felt like it. The poor bastard.’

  ‘Except it’s called stalking,’ Fran said quietly, ‘if the woman doesn’t want to be ogled. Don’t get me wrong, Paula. There’s no law against some lovelorn bloke – or woman – leaning against a gate in the hope of seeing his beloved. It’s if he does it against the woman’s will or starts doing other things that the law takes an interest.’