Power on Her Own

by Judith Cutler

  Exactly what Graham had thought.

  ‘Next time she talks to them, you’d better be there.’

  ‘Sir!’

  Christmas had come early this year.

  Except there was no Graham. If he’d been well enough to go to the match on Saturday, why wasn’t he well enough to work, two days later? On impulse, not allowing herself to think about it, she sat at her desk and dialled his mobile number. She was invited to leave a message. She didn’t. His home number? She’d risk it. Any outgoing police call had its number withheld from the caller, so there was no need to dial 141. But she must be ready to dab a finger down to stop the call should the wrong voice answer. The number was ringing. She held on, biting her lip.

  And was asked to leave a message on a machine.

  But he’d find a way of contacting her; he’d want to reassure her that all was well. He’d mentioned an answerphone. Well, she’d get one this lunch-time and fix it this evening if it was the last thing she did.

  ‘It’s a long process,’ Gail, the social worker, was explaining. ‘They don’t just grab a kid and violate him. That’s too quick. They want the thrill of the chase, too. So they’ll single out a child – one who comes alone or plays alone: some kids are natural loners. Maybe the one who gets bullied. So they have a kind, sympathetic adult to turn to. And then, as they gain the boy’s trust, the stakes are raised. A visit to the paedophile’s house. Oh, not his own, of course. The kid finds a roomful of toys. But the rumour is there are better rooms with better toys. And if he co-operates, he’ll get to see it. Maybe “co-operating” means just having his photo taken. But it’ll mean more and more as the toys get better, believe me.’ She curled her lip in distaste. ‘And don’t get the idea you’re looking for a Mr Nasty. On the contrary, you’re looking for a Mr Nice-Guy, a trusted pillar of society. Every mother’s favourite son. The nicest boss.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be Cope, can it?’ Sally whispered.

  Or could it? Kate locked herself in the lavatory to think. It wasn’t unknown for policemen at all levels to be involved in crime against children – well, all sorts of crime, come to think of it. She’d have gone on oath for most of her colleagues’ honesty and decency. But not all. And it was in that grey area that Cope came. She knew enough about child abuse to know it wasn’t just about sex. It was about domination. And if there was one person in this squad who enjoyed abusing his rank to bully others, it was Cope. She thought back. The day Danny had been killed, Cope was almost in tears. He’d omitted the vital physiological information in his report to the Devon police. He’d even come to the match on Saturday: lots of small boys to inspect then. And what if he’d brought Graham along simply to annoy Mrs Harvey, so that Graham would be kept away from work and thus from the investigation? The idea was far-fetched. Parts were lunatic. But. It was the but that wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t. Other memories floated in: the time he’d rejected out of hand the idea of checking for the safe house: if he thought she was on to anything, of course he’d try to stop her.

  And who could she chew this over with? Colin? He was the obvious person. But one item of her catalogue against Cope applied to him. He’d turned up at the match, too. But that was because he was a friend, wanted to support her. He’d been with her to the schools, too, hadn’t he – plenty of chances then for him to size up kids. Hell!

  Graham? Hell and hell and hell!

  At least she now had an answerphone and some cellophane-wrapped ready-made curtains, plus some lengths of curtain rail, rawl-plugs and curtain hooks. She shoved them into her Fiesta: no point in advertising to Cope the domesticity of her lunch break – and the fact it had stretched a bit to accommodate all her activities.

  She spent a depressing afternoon checking every known woman child-abuser. No help at all. Most were plainly certifiable, like the one who bathed her child in bleach to lighten its skin or the one who fed her teenage daughter iodine to stop menstrual bleeding. There was a nasty clutch who aided and abetted their men, often, it seemed, under some sort of sexual coercion. But none of them was anywhere near this patch, nor would be for some little time. A first-timer? Which got everyone back to square one.

  Reg walked down to the carpark with her, laughing at the contents of her car.

  ‘Only one thing missing, me love. Your electric drill, of course. And some long screws to go through the rawl-plugs into the wall. Now, where d’you live? Well, Shirley’s only just down the road. I’ll be round about eight. Fix them in half an hour. OK, love?’

  ‘Reg, you are an angel.’

  Reg had finished the upstairs ones, when the doorbell rang. Paul.

  ‘Hi! Just thought I’d see how you were getting on.’

  ‘Getting on well. A friend of mine from work’s helping me replace all auntie’s metal curtain rails with nice smooth plastic ones. Reg!’ she called up the stairs. ‘Tea break!’

  Paul was always a little awkward when introduced to other men, so she wasn’t surprised when he hesitated at the sight of Reg. But Reg – the light over the stair spotlit his face – looked positively taken aback to see Paul. The two stared at each other, if for no more than a second. It was enough for her to say, ‘Do you two know each other? Paul Taylor, Reg Tanner,’ she added, in parentheses.

  ‘I reckon I do know you from somewhere,’ Reg was first to speak.

  ‘I do a lot with the Boys’ Brigade,’ Paul volunteered. ‘Maybe something to do with that?’

  ‘Ah, that’d be it. My kids were dead keen on the Brigade. Used to drag me all over the country, what with their bands and their outdoor activities and that.’

  ‘And now we’ve got Kate involved, too.’ Paul’s smile was affectionate. ‘You should see her running our under-fourteen team. Got them a score draw – first time they’d got a ball in a net for two seasons!’

  Reg looked at her: ‘Well done – ah! That’d be what Cope was carrying on about this morning. I know I’m getting on, Kate me love, but I didn’t like his remarks about your – well, you know. Sexual harassment, that’s what I’d call that.’

  ‘Haven’t you got rules in the police against that sort of thing?’ Paul asked. ‘We have in education.’

  ‘’Course we have. And there’s a team of senior women officers at the end of a phone to help counsel women who have that sort of thing inflicted on them. You should get on to them, me love.’ Reg nodded his point home. ‘You mustn’t let people get away with behaviour like that.’

  She filled the kettle from the outside tap. It wouldn’t help to point out that Cope had been far nastier to Reg himself than to Kate – no, at least as nasty. She compromised.

  ‘It seems to me that Cope bullies everyone, regardless. One of these days he’ll go too far, maybe.’

  She locked the door behind her, and switched on the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee? Powdered milk, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Any herbal tea?’ Paul asked.

  As if in this dump there might be. She gave an exaggerated shrug and peered around, hand shading her eyes. But then she remembered, and laughed, apologetically.

  ‘There’s some de-caffeinated tea-bags somewhere. And I think Cassie kept real camomile flowers.’

  He settled for coffee, the fully-caffeinated variety, taking it black. ‘What’s this about curtain rails, Reg?’

  ‘I’ve done the upstairs. Wouldn’t mind a hand with the landing, if you’ve got time. A bit awkward – nowhere safe to wedge the ladder. And you’re a good bit taller than me, lad.’

  Kate was afraid the ladders would scuff her newly painted walls, and busied herself with rags to pad the ends. At last the men got busy. They worked in comparative silence, broken only by a suppressed curse if one dropped a screw.

  ‘There! Now, what about your curtains?’

  Kate gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. ‘You’ll never guess – I never bought any for the landing. Just the bedrooms. Never mind. This window’s not overlooked.’

  Paul smiled kindly: ‘I’ll come round to ha
ng then whenever you get them. Provided,’ he added, his voice becoming mock-serious, ‘neither of you dares to get anywhere near my wet paint with that dusty drill.’

  ‘Paint?’ Kate echoed.

  They trooped down to her dining room.

  ‘Tara!’ Paul shouted. ‘Undercoat!’

  And indeed, there was undercoat. He’d painted the whole of the frame.

  ‘Paul – that’s so kind of you. I never expected –’

  ‘Well,’ he said, blushing, ‘that’s what friends are for.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Reg was making their coffee this morning. ‘Milk and sugar, Kate? Oh, and there’s some post for you. On your desk.’

  There had been no phone message from Graham: perhaps this was a note from him. Though why he should send it here, where people would recognise his hand-writing, she’d no idea. Perhaps he wasn’t sure of the Manse address, and he’d be reasonably certain that she was still based there, rather than at her home. Yes, that would be it.

  It wasn’t a letter from Graham, that was certain. It was a small packet, well sealed in a jiffy-bag.

  ‘So have you known this Paul long?’ Reg asked, coming to sit on the corner of her desk.

  ‘Just since I came to Brum. It’s all his fault I’ve got so involved with the BB.’

  ‘Love, is it?’

  ‘Reg, you men are just as romantic as we women are supposed to be!’

  ‘More,’ said Colin. ‘We like a nice cry at a wedding. Hell, doesn’t that phone ever stop ringing? Your turn, Kate.’

  She reached for it, tucking the handset on to her shoulder and peeling back the Sellotape on the packet. ‘Selby! It’s for you!’

  He peeled himself slowly from the computer.

  Inside the jiffy-bag was a small tin. ‘Come on! Caller’s waiting!’ She prised open the can.

  Maggots. Maggots.

  She dropped the tin, screaming like Jenny in a nightmare. The maggots bounced out. The scream shook her whole body. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop until a hand slapped her face. Even then the shuddering didn’t stop.

  They were still there, on her desk. Pushing from whoever was holding her, she dashed to the loo. She made it; stayed huddled on the cubicle floor.

  She’d no idea how long she stayed there. Probably not long. Sally was there, and a uniformed woman inspector she’d seen around but didn’t know to talk to.

  How she got to this woman’s office she didn’t know.

  ‘Can you talk about it?’ The inspector clasped Kate’s hands round a mug of very sweet tea. ‘Go on, another sip. You lost all your breakfast.’

  ‘I’m so sorry – I –’

  ‘No need to apologise. It was a vile thing to have happen to you. Any idea who could have done it?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I’ve not really had time to make enemies while I’ve been up here. I mean, I must have made plenty when I was in the Met – people I got sent down, they’d have a grudge.’

  ‘Sometimes people don’t have to have rational reasons to bear a grudge.’ The inspector looked her straight in the eye. She was about thirty-three. A bit of a high-flyer, then. And pretty, indeed glamorous, too. She wore the uniform like a fashion item. ‘Some people might think this was a joke – a bit of horse-play?’

  Had Graham mentioned Cope and Selby? Kate dismissed the idea almost as it formed. That didn’t mean other people hadn’t – especially other women.

  Kate shook her head. ‘There’s always a bit of bullying, isn’t there,’ she said, conscious of the evasion. ‘But nothing like that, I promise you. And God knows I over-reacted. My partner was killed a few months ago. His wife insisted on having him buried, not cremated. Since then I’ve got this – this phobia.’

  ‘We can get you support with that,’ the Inspector said. ‘You’ll need it if you’re going to carry on in this job. And the problem is, I’ll bet you’re due for a rash of maggot stories from your less sensitive colleagues.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Yes. Selby and Cope will have a field day. All the long-dead corpses they discovered when they were on the beat. I know.’

  ‘So you’ll go and get support?’

  ‘Try and stop me.’

  ‘I think you should take the rest of the day off, you know. Meanwhile I’ll make sure your office and desk have the going over of their lives – there’ll be no evidence of this morning’s events.’

  Kate shook her head. The thoughts came appallingly slowly. ‘That’s just it. Evidence. Finger-prints and saliva under the stamp. The post-mark. I want to find who did that.’

  The inspector – if only Kate knew her name: she must have told Kate when she helped gather her up from the loo floor – looked at her intently.

  Kate gathered together the wisps and shreds of her brain. ‘Do you ever do crosswords? You see, I’m working on this paedophilia case at the moment. Been asking questions, outside and here in the nick. Maybe asked the right questions, only I didn’t know it.’

  ‘I’m sorry – I don’t follow.’

  Kate tried harder. ‘Ever heard the expression, Opening up a can of worms?’

  By the time she’d eaten a second breakfast and checked in for an appointment with the shrink, Kate knew she wasn’t going to go home. OK, it would have made sense to mooch round doing domestic tasks, but she wanted to make sure that tin, that jiffy-bag, didn’t get mysteriously lost. She wanted to nail the bugger that had sent it. Revenge was a wonderful remedy for shock, she decided.

  Colin was alone in the office when she got back. He gathered her up into his arms. ‘You poor kid. That was all to do with Robin, was it? Hell, someone likes kicking in the most painful place. Now, shall I run you home?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I want to get the wrapping off to Forensics.’

  ‘Too late, Power,’ said a voice from the door. You’re not the only one as can act fast, you know. It’s already on its way.’

  ‘Sir!’ She pulled away from Colin.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Cope said affably, coming into the room. ‘You’re entitled to a bit of canoodling after something like this. But I tell you, Power, that was a bloody stupid thing to do, and I’ll have you on a disciplinary if you do anything like it again.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Opening a package like that, of course. Could have been a fucking bomb, woman. Then where would you have been? Bloody kingdom come, that’s where. Now, I want you out of this office for the rest of the day. Get that?’

  ‘But Sir –’

  ‘But Sir nothing. I want to make sure there’s no more of them little bleeders around, you silly girl. Now, shift. You can come back here when you’ve taken her home, Colin. Right?’

  Home? It was all very well, but she didn’t exactly have one. She did have a car, however, and that was what she’d do. It would be easier by day-light anyway. She’d take her car and her A–Z and run rings round the 50 bus route. The opportunity she’d been waiting for, come to think of it. But Colin was talking.

  ‘– was Helen Carter who saw to you?’

  ‘Sorry? Who? When?’

  ‘This morning, Kate. When you were throwing up in the bog. Was it Helen Carter who saw to you?’

  ‘Wish I knew. I never caught her name. And I’d like to thank her – she was very kind.’

  ‘Kind and –?’

  ‘Very pretty, beautifully turned out. Looked more like a model than a policewoman.’

  ‘That’d be Helen. Face that launched a thousand squad cars. Christ, Kate, one look at her and I wish I were a lesbian.’

  She’d have to eat again before she drove anywhere, that was certain. She was still unpleasantly wobbly. An early lunch, then. And then get on the road.

  She’d not noticed before, but it was another pleasant day. If she bought a sandwich she could always eat it in the park – maybe even look at the more interesting-looking park the Moseley end of Kings Heath. First she looked in on her house. No post, except a couple of bills. Time to
get the payments for the utilities on monthly direct debit. She could do that while she was here. And hang the rest of the upstairs curtains. And see if the paint was dry enough to fit the dining-room curtain rail.

  No! She had to check out that house. Today.

  In the end, she compromised. She made a little timetable on the back of the gas bill. 12.00–1.30 – lunch; 1.30–4.00, hunting for the house; 4.00–5.00, domestic chores, including buying a vacuum cleaner and dusters. Right. Start with sorting the bills, then off to Sainsbury’s for some portable lunch.

  She found a sheltered bench, from which she could see nothing but grass. She heard her joints relaxing, they did it so crunchily, one vertebra after another. My God, she’d been under that sort of pressure, had she? A squirrel, flowing along an ash tree branch, agreed, chittering at her as she threw it some crumbs of cherry cake. The sooner she got herself to therapy the better. Except she suspected it would mean confronting everything, including maggots, head on. She’d have to talk about Robin. How she still saw him, still smelt his aftershave: Colin sometimes used the same one. How she saw the car heading for them, saw him hurling her out of the way. Saw his shattered body. Saw the maggots.

  At least there’d be support. She leaned back. Another vertebra cracked. So when was the last time she’d run, not with the kids, but for her own pleasure? Before she got involved with the BB, that was when. Maybe a lifetime ago, perhaps a couple of weeks. She’d have to remedy that. An unfit officer was a hazard to herself and others in the team. Look at her this morning: what if she’d been in the middle of checking out a scene of crime?

  No, no more of this. She screwed up the wrappers, swigged the last drop of water, and headed for her car.

  Her slow progress and constant three-point-turning didn’t seem to attract anyone’s attention. She found neat modern culs-de-sac, newly-privatised council ones. Thirties, fifties, sixties, seventies culs-de-sac. By four she was ready to give up – should have done so if she meant to stick to her schedule. But there were two more. Milton Avenue and Leavensbrook Close. Flipping a mental coin, she turned back to Leavensbrook.