Fran nodded slowly.
‘But she’d had sex. And you think with him. There’s something that doesn’t hold water there, if you don’t mind my saying so.’ They grimaced amicably at each other.
‘I don’t. On the contrary, I’m grateful. You’ve saved me saying the same thing to a roomful of people who’d be a lot less polite than you. My brain must be turning to pulp. God, what if I’m turning senile?’ She was afraid her sudden panic made her voice crack.
Harris scrutinised her. ‘I’d say you were just tired. But I know a very good gerontologist if you need one. Meanwhile, I’ll double-check the notes I have on both Roper and Minton, and see what I might have missed. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you might find useful.’
‘Me personally, if you don’t mind.’
She got through to Pete Webb first ring. She cut across his pleasantries. ‘Pete, two questions: why didn’t you forward a report by Dr Harris you must have noticed was meant for me, and why the hell hasn’t anyone been along to do the photo-fit or whatever of Alec Minton?’ Fran leant against her car bonnet, pleasantly warm in the sun, and surveyed all the other cars in the hospital car park as she made the call. Two or three young men seemed to be doing exactly the same thing. She just hoped she wouldn’t see some idiot trying to break into a vehicle – she didn’t want to be interrupted for a few moments.
‘Sorry, guv. It’s been frantic here. Some survey for you folk at HQ. All leave suspended till we come up with the stuff.’
‘You’re sure it isn’t security for some royal visit or something?’ she asked dryly.
‘Absolutely. The photo-fit’s right at the top of my list of things to do when I’m allowed to breathe.’
‘Take it from me now, Pete – you can breathe. So long as you give that reconstruction absolute priority. On my personal orders. Would it help if I spoke to your super direct?’
The pause was long enough to show he was giving it more thought than it deserved.
‘Oh, just get on to it, Pete. Now. I need the best you can do on my desk tomorrow. Understand? And if you haven’t got the staff to check that parish magazine, just let me know the date of the issue and I’ll check it my bloody self.’
The youths were still lolling around. She looked upwards. At least one CCTV camera, possibly two, had a beady eye on them. So at least something was someone else’s problem. She got into the car and headed back to Maidstone.
‘Since when did gathering figures take precedence over fighting crime?’ Fran demanded, trying not to pace round Mark’s office.
‘Sit down, Fran. And give me the time and date. I’ll look into it. But you must give me some nice official reason. After all, a suicide isn’t usually regarded as a major crime for which all else must stop. Indeed, the superintendent at Folkestone’s a little concerned that you should regard it as such, and overrule his direct instruction to Webb.’
‘Of course he is. I tried to phone him to explain and apologise, but it’s hard to grovel to an answering machine.’
‘They’re not very forgiving beasts, are they? And they tend to cut one off in mid-sentence. Promise me one thing, Fran – you won’t sound off to Gates, will you? Or the chief? Let any complaints go through the proper channels.’
‘In other words, you. The chief’s been giving you a hard time, has he? I’m sorry, Mark—’
‘I didn’t say that. I may have to have a word with him on my own account. After all, I’m still technically in charge of crime, and I do wonder about priorities! But, you see, this government directive…’ He looked at his watch. ‘Is there anything else you need to get off your desk – or indeed, off your chest? Because it occurs to me that we’ve not delivered those tubs to our new home, and it’s just the evening to do it.’
‘So it is.’ She blew him a kiss and left. She hoped making her feel better hadn’t left him feeling worse. As she closed the door, an idea came to her, so she opened it again and called, ‘I’ll phone Paula Farmer to let her know.’
Gates and the chief were passing, deep in conversation. But she would have sworn that something made him blush right up his neck, then go equally pale. She was still wondering what that something might be – surely he hadn’t overheard her and surely he wouldn’t have reacted like a sixteen-year-old even if he had – when she reached her office to find a note on her desk. Sue was trying to earn a brownie point or two, no doubt.
Sorry, guv
Went to see the old guy who says he saw a guy weeping at the relevant time. No joy. He says he often sees a man weeping in a car. But he can’t give a description of the man or the car – not even colour or shape – and he’s so frail it wouldn’t be fair to put him in the witness box.
Sue
Drat. Well, it had been a long shot anyway. There’d always be blind alleys and cops to crawl up them – and back again.
As Fran put the car into gear, Mark said, ‘I’ve just done what Paula told us to do – I looked up the Clive Granville case.’
She shot him a look. It wasn’t often a phlegmatic professional cop allowed himself to sound so angry or so upset.
‘Granville started out as a fairly petty criminal in Birmingham – drugs, prostitution, that sort of thing. Later he gravitated – as so many lowlifes seem to do! – down here to Kent, where he got involved in a spot of people smuggling too. By this time he’d got some of our people in his pocket – that might have been when you were on secondment, Fran, and I was on that infernal management course – and this is where Gates came on the scene.’
‘Rubber-heeling, right?’
‘Exactly. He met Caffy because it was her evidence that had helped net Granville and indeed the bent cops.’
‘I’m missing something here. Why Caffy?’
‘Because she was working high up on a house and saw things you wouldn’t see from ground level. And did her public duty and reported them. It’s a long story. Anyway, I’m glad to report that Clive Granville got himself killed – nothing to do with Caffy – and so everything was nicely wrapped up. She picked up a sum from the Criminal Injuries Authority – nothing like enough, of course – for what he’d done to her.’
‘She looks OK,’ she objected. ‘Though I suppose you can’t see psychological scars.’
‘It seems to me she may have dealt with the psychological ones quite well – I know I find her a bit OTT, but that’s a matter of taste.’
‘You’re saying she’s got physical scars? Didn’t Paula say something about her always wearing dungarees?’
‘Exactly. She doesn’t want a gap between her tops and her trousers, I’d guess.’
Fran could feel herself growing cold. ‘What did the bastard do?’
‘Slashed her abdomen. Left a scar.’
‘Dear God. But why?’
‘Because at one time he was her pimp. He’d forced her into a life of drugs and prostitution so when she escaped and tried to make something of her life he objected. When she did it a second time, he took his revenge. Apparently, after her final escape his mission was to run her to earth and send her to the morgue with her intestines wrapped round her neck.’
‘Sorry to be a little later than we hoped – we wanted to pick these up and install them in their new home,’ Fran apologised.
Paula dismissed the poor tubs with a nod. They’d looked good in the garden centre, but there was no doubt that against the grander backdrop of the Rectory, they were pitifully small. But then, Mark wouldn’t have been able to lift an empty tub large enough to look in proportion, let alone a ready-planted one.
‘Thank goodness the house is in the hands of people who know what they’re doing,’ Mark said, by way of apology. ‘And I’ve an idea that they’re going to be in your way wherever I put them,’ he added, looking helplessly round.
‘Don’t worry. Just leave them there, by the front steps. We can move them as and when.’ Paula smiled forgiveness. ‘And your being late isn’t a problem. Caffy’s only just finishing one of the corbels in the hall.
It was too dark for her to work in the drawing room this morning so she decamped to where there was more natural light. I wouldn’t have the patience, I tell you. I believe she uses a dental burr for some of the finest detail. Anyway, here she is.’
Fran turned, aware for the first time how small Caffy was compared with the rest of them. What was life like for someone who had to go round looking up into other people’s faces? More to the point, what was life like for someone who had had to look over her shoulder in case her ex-pimp turned up, ready to deal the most horrible death? How did the girl manage to be so positive all the time? And how dared life deal her another bad hand in the form of Gates?
‘Hi, there!’ she greeted them all, sunny as usual. ‘Paula tells me you’ve identified the man who keeps parking here – Simon Gates, is that right?’
‘I’m afraid he’s a colleague of ours,’ Mark said, contriving all the same to leave no one in any doubt that in a dispute he would back Caffy.
‘Oh, I know that. He’s a pretty big cheese, isn’t he? But such a cold fish. Whoops! I didn’t half mix my metaphors there, didn’t I? He passed out at my feet once, in the morgue.’ She produced an impish grin. ‘Which I thought was a bit ironic, since he was supposed to be looking after me.’
‘You’re not worried about him stalking you like this?’ Mark asked. Again, he had exactly the right tone – a blend of compassion, interest, possible anger.
Caffy blinked, as if taken aback. ‘Stalking’s a very serious term, isn’t it? I suppose he is, come to think of it. It’s a good job I never let anyone have my mobile number or he could have been on to me all the time. I suppose I hoped he was more like Gabriel Oak, really. Doing a spot of yearning. Except yearning implies a strongly beating heart and warm glances.’
‘Warm! Gates!’ Paula snorted.
Caffy ignored her. ‘Not that I see myself as a Hardy heroine anyway.’
‘Not Jude?’ Fran asked, adding in a cod-rustic voice. ‘All your book learning?’
‘That’s one book I just can’t reread,’ Caffy said seriously. ‘I can’t get past the hangings. Any road up, as we said in Brum, what I’ll do is try and catch him at his yearning or stalking or whatever it is – quite by accident, you understand.’
‘You’re sure?’
She burrowed in one of her dungaree pockets and produced a screamer. ‘We all carry these,’ she said flatly, ‘on a project like this. You know, thieves, tramps, that sort of interloper. One peep out of them and they get more than a peep from this. And the rest of the team materialising from nowhere.’
‘You promise you won’t attempt this when you’re on your own?’ Fran asked.
‘Sacking offence,’ Paula said briefly.
‘So you’re all right here. What if he turns up at your home?’
Paula and Caffy exchanged a glance Fran couldn’t read.
‘I’m doubly safe there. I live with a family that’s more or less adopted me,’ Caffy said at last.
Fran had a vision of a vulnerable ex-council house. ‘Security?’ she ventured.
Paula snorted with laughter. ‘Think Fort Knox. Todd Dawes is – used to be – a pop singer.’
Fran’s eyes rounded despite herself. ‘Not the Todd Dawes? I had a crush on him once.’
Caffy smiled with a warmth and tenderness way beyond Gates’ range. ‘He and his wife Jan are my family now.’
Fran said no more. You couldn’t talk about someone’s dad in those terms, could you?
Perhaps Caffy picked up on her embarrassment. ‘Wherever I meet Simon, what could he do to me? Swear undying love? In which case he’s going to be a lot more upset than me.’
‘Some men turn nasty when they’re upset,’ Paula snapped.
Fran recalled her theory about Minton and suppressed a shudder. She dug out her card. ‘Phone me, please, day or night, on this number, if there’s a problem. You won’t have to battle your way through a switchboard. And we’ll be there.’
‘Thanks.’ Caffy took the card and stowed it. ‘But it might be he just wants to ask me out for a date or something.’ She sounded less certain about this theory.
‘And would you go?’
‘By taxi,’ she nodded. ‘If he took me somewhere posh enough.’ As if to reassure herself as much as them, she said briskly, ‘Oh, come on, people, this is not the Yorkshire Ripper we’re talking about. It’s a highly respectable middle-aged policeman. Who once fainted at my feet, remember.’
Fran couldn’t stop herself asking, ‘What made him pass out when – presumably – you didn’t? It must have been a pretty nasty sight.’
‘Only this.’ Caffy wriggled out of the dungaree straps and pulled down the bib to hip level. Then she hitched up her T-shirt.
‘I think I might have passed out too,’ Mark said, staring not at some abstract scar but at the pinkish-purple puckered flesh of the initials, CG.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘What’s so frustrating now is sitting around waiting for other people to come up with the goods,’ Fran said, loading the last plate into the dishwasher and switching it on. ‘And though I can prioritise lab tests, I can’t wave a magic wand and make them take less time. What we really need is what they’ve got in other parts of the country, mobile labs that go to scenes of crime as soon as the crime’s been detected, before the scene’s been corrupted.’
‘Put it in your next report for Gates,’ Mark suggested. ‘He wants a wish list – let him have one that’ll make his eyes water. Enough shop-talk! Come and have your feet massaged and another glass of wine.’
She stood in front of him, arms akimbo. ‘Not until you’ve phoned Sammie. Come on, Mark, she’s had all day to contact you. You’re going to have to have another go. Meanwhile, I shall go on line and see if I can find someone to value our house. But I might as well take some wine with me,’ she conceded.
If there was one thing he hated it was being railroaded into something, especially where his family was concerned. But she was right. Sammie should have responded, if not to last night’s message then to the half a dozen other ones that he’d left during the day and that Fran didn’t need to worry about.
The answerphone yet again. No, he wouldn’t leave yet another bloody message! He slung the handset down with more passion than accuracy and had to scrabble on the floor for it, hoping to God he hadn’t broken it. He lifted it to his ear. It was working. Replacing it more gently, he stood staring it, as if willing Sammie to respond.
He didn’t know how long he stood there. Eventually, however, he realised that there was no sign of Fran; if anyone might have a sensible rather than a panicky reaction to the news, it was surely she.
He found her in the room she used as her office, poring over the computer with an expression on her face halfway between puzzled and anxious. Putting his hands on her shoulders, he peered at the screen.
She whipped off her reading-glasses. ‘Here, put these on and sit here and tell me what I’m seeing on this property website.’
‘I can tell you what you’re seeing. You’re seeing Sammie and Lloyd’s house in Tunbridge Wells. With a For Sale board in front of it. That’s what you’re seeing.’
‘And, if you read on,’ she scrolled down, ‘you’ll see the magic words, No Chain.’
She left it to him to ask the obvious question, so he did. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘It looks as if what you hoped would be a helpful little chat the other night didn’t work, doesn’t it? They’re breaking up and going their separate ways. Oh, Mark, I’m so sorry. For them all. And especially the kids.’
And for the Loose house. How long would Sammie need to stay? Would this put their deal with Bill and Maeve at risk? The way the Rectory costs were mounting, they dared not renege on the deal. Hoping his voice sounded calm and reasonable, he asked, ‘But why won’t she pick up the phone and tell me?’
She spread her hands. ‘Perhaps she’s so upset she can’t talk about it yet. Perhaps she’s taken refuge with a friend to see her t
hrough the crisis.’
‘But the Loose house is supposed to be her place of refuge.’
‘Yes, but only as a place. Perhaps she needs to be with a confidante.’
‘Would you?’
Fran pulled a face. ‘I’ve never been solely responsible for the twenty-four-hour care of two demanding babies. I’ve never been in the middle of a marriage breakdown. I don’t think I’m qualified to say.’ She checked her watch. ‘I know it’s getting late, but why don’t you pop round to the house to see if she’s still there but too miserable to pick up the phone?’
How could he explain the anxiety cramping his stomach? ‘Please – come too.’
She took his hand, only partly using it to pull herself up. ‘If you want me to, of course I will.’ Which meant, in view of her previous refusals, she must feel something was seriously wrong. ‘In fact,’ she added, pointing to the untouched wine, ‘I’ll drive, shall I? Have you got your house keys?’
‘What would I need them for?’ Did she imagine Sammie lying ill, with only two howling babies for company? A glance at her serious face gave nothing away.
‘I don’t know… But take them anyway.’
‘That’s Lloyd’s car,’ Mark declared, as Fran pulled onto the drive, to find curtains drawn and lights on all over the house. ‘My God, what’s he doing to her?’
He was out of the car, pounding on the front door, before she’d even cut the engine. She wanted to shout at him to be careful, to remember that he wasn’t a young man. He might have passed his annual physical with flying colours, but factor stress into a situation and that way might lie heart attacks.
Now wasn’t the moment to voice her fears. She must simply support him in whatever way he wanted. If she had had a standard-issue ram she believed that she would have forced the door in person.
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