But she did not, as she had had half a mind to do before she had had her row on the telephone with Peter Scholl, advise the Chief Constable to rescind the order that no uniformed officer was to go on to the streets of Birchester unaccompanied by another.
If I’d asked Smellyfeet then, she thought, and he’d said the order ought to be kept in force, almost certainly I’d have got it cancelled.
The notion whined for a moment like an irritating mosquito in her head.
And came whining there again, more than once, as the days went by. Until at the start of the following week, when still nothing had happened even to indicate that Grace might have tried to lure some police officer to death by fire, she began to think the time was coming when the loss from restricting policing would outweigh the possible danger of losing one more officer.
It was a visit from Inspector Roberts that finally tipped the scales.
‘There’s something I think I ought to say, ma’am. You know, I see it as part of my duties to bear in mind the welfare of members of the Force. And— And— Well, I know it’s important that—’
‘Inspector, say what you’ve got to say and get on with it.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Well, it’s simply this. A good many of the uniform constables are getting fed up with having to change into civvies night after night when they finish their reliefs and having to get into uniform at the start of their day in the cramped conditions of most nicks in the city. And— And it’s worse for the women, so they tell me.’
His naturally ruddy face visibly darkened in a blush.
Soft fool.
‘All right, Inspector. You’ve made your point, and if there’s been dissatisfaction you’re right to report it. But I didn’t ask for that order to go out just for fun. Officers’ lives were at risk, and still are, and they should be damn glad I remember it.’
‘Yes. Yes, ma’am. Well, I— I’ll tell anyone else who complains what you’ve said.’
‘Will you, Rob? Or will you give them the soft-speak version?’
He was making for the door, plainly attempting to get out of having to provide an answer to that, when another question occurred to her.
‘Oh, and, Rob, tell me something that’s been nagging at me ever since you discovered Titmuss’s body in that disused passageway.’
A look of apprehension.
‘Just what were you doing there at that very early hour? Don’t tell me it was because of your urgent need for an early paper.’
He stood there in the doorway, an absolute illustration of the term hangdog.
‘Well?’
‘It was— I was— Well, to tell you the truth, I’d— I’d had a bit of a row with my wife. I— I just had to get out of the house.’
‘I might have guessed. Okay, on your way.’
A police officer in retreat after a skirmish in the battle of the sexes. Rather him …
But, reviewing all the pros and cons of double-officer policing after Rob Roberts had managed at last to close the door between them, in the end she phoned the Chief Constable.
‘Sir, about not permitting officers in uniform to go out on the streets except in pairs.’
‘Yes, Miss Martens, I’ve been considering that matter. The loss of patrolling hours is having a measurably bad effect on the crime figures. Not to speak of the overtime hours accumulating.’
‘No doubt, sir. And there’s another factor. From things that have been coming to my ears, I gather morale’s being affected as well. Changing in and out of uniform adds to the time officers are on duty, besides the discomforts of changing in restricted spaces in some of the smaller stations.’
‘Yes. Yes, I’m glad you’ve drawn my attention to that aspect. So, are you thinking that, with nothing being heard of that mad woman, we could safely withdraw the order?’
‘Yes, sir. I am. It may be exposing officers to some risk, but plainly it’s much less than when you issued the order, sir.’
‘Some risk … Yes. Perhaps after all …’
‘No, sir. You can’t be a member of the cloth without the possibility of facing danger. It may be, to an extent, a hard decision. But I think it’s one that’s got to be taken.’
‘Very well, Superintendent. Shall we say normal policing to be resumed from six a.m. tomorrow?’
‘Yes, sir.’
And next day, just after darkness had fallen, there came a buzz on her direct-line phone.
‘Detective Superintendent Martens here.’
‘Miss Martens.’ She recognized the voice: the Fire Service one she had heard so many times already. ‘We’ve had a call to a house fire in Batley Street. A sudden—’
‘One moment, Mr Wythenshaw. My red phone’s buzzing.’ She picked it up. ‘Yes?’
‘A fire in a house in Batley Street, ma’am, and there’s— There’s a uniform officer inside. They think —’
‘Never mind what they think. I’ll be there in less than ten minutes.’
She was there within that time. As her car swerved into the narrow street in the run-down Chapeltown area, well within Dr Smellyfeet’s cut-off circle, she saw the high white tongues of flame striking up towards the night sky. A fire engine had pulled up outside the blazing house and its crew were busy rolling out their hoses. Already a turntable ladder was being hoisted. A panda patrol car was parked opposite the burning house and half a dozen people from nearby were standing gawping.
Braking hard, she got out and ran.
Beside the panda a flat-capped constable was sagging over its bonnet, looking as if at any moment he would cover it in vomit. She strode across.
‘You know me? Superintendent Martens. What happened?’
He raised his head an inch or two and gave her a white-faced, glazed look.
‘My mate,’ he brought out. ‘My mate. Inside.’
‘Stand to attention when you talk to me.’
He looked as if a strong electric shock had gone through him from feet to head. And jerked himself upright.
‘Sorry. Sorry, ma’am.’
‘I asked you what’s happened.’
‘Yes. Yes, ma’am. It— It’s Constable Strachan. He’s inside there. And— Jesus, I think he’s being burnt alive.’
‘Go on. I want to know exactly what happened.’
‘Well, we— we were just driving down the street here. It’s on our regular route. You often get druggies here. Girls bring their clients. You can see what sort of a place it is.’
He gave a glance each way along the narrow terraced street, its littered pavements, doors and windows of half its houses boarded up, white-painted sprawled graffiti visible in the fire engine’s arc lights. Up United — Kill Police — Rovers Are Scum.
‘I know what sort of a place this is. I ran B Division until a few weeks ago. Tell me precisely what happened.’
‘Yes. Well, just as we came along, right from the far end we saw a sudden outbreak of flame in the ground-floor window there. Not much, but definitely a fire. So we stopped.’
‘Yes, yes. Go on.’
‘Well, then an old gent opened the window on the floor above and called for help.’
‘An old gent? You’re sure it was a man? Sure?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course, ma’am. He had a beard, long white. Sort of Father Christmassy.’
‘So your mate went in to try and rescue him. That it?’
‘Yes. Yes, it was. He said something about — About Cop Killer, burning for burning and that. But more as a sort of joke, like. Seeing that the order to go about in pairs had been rescinded, and this wasn’t a woman but just an old man. And so he ran over to the house. He had to kick the door in, but that didn’t seem to be difficult. And while he was doing it I radioed the Fire Service, ambulance and everything.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, that’s when it began to go pear-shaped. Jock — er — Constable Strachan, ma’am, went in, heading straight for the stairs in front of him. I didn’t see any flames beyond the door. Nothing to be worried about
. And then— Then I saw Jock suddenly disappear. I think the boards in the passage must have— Or they may have— Ma’am, they may have been taken away under the bit of carpet there. So he’d fall through. These houses have basements. He’d have fallen right down. And then— I don’t know how it happened but all of a sudden the flames got worse. They sprang up, coming from the basement. A sudden whoosh of— Of white flames like you see there, ma’am.’
The wretched little house was almost all ablaze now. The eye-searing white flames leaping up in narrow tongues.
Two more fire engines, bells clanging, blue lights flash-flash-flashing, came to a halt beside the first. Harriet went across to the officer in charge, noticing as she got nearer the house an odour that reminded her, all too horribly, of summer garden barbecues. She blotted the thought from her mind.
‘Detective Superintendent Martens,’ she introduced herself. ‘You know one of my men’s inside there?’
‘I do, Superintendent. And— Well, I have to tell you, you’ll not see him again.’
‘I guessed as much.’
She wrinkled her nose.
‘Yes, it’s an unmistakable smell. I hate it whenever I encounter it.’
‘I dare say. But, tell me, what about the other one in there, an old man who called out from that window?’
She looked up at the flame-filled square that until a few moments before had been a dark rectangle.
‘We’ve seen nothing of anyone up there so far. My chap on the ladder would’ve let us know if there’d been signs of life.’
‘Do you know anything about these houses? Is there a way out at the rear?’
‘Well, they’re back-to-backs actually. And the terrace of the street beyond’s in much the same state as this one, half the houses unoccupied and those that are — I’d take a bet on it — filled with squatters, all bar a few old inhabitants hanging on. No, I’d say it’s almost certain the old fellow managed to get out that way.’
Old fellow? Or old but active woman? Harmless squatter? Or Grace Brown?
A second panda car came up to a brake-squealing halt.
Harriet went over.
‘Don’t waste your time here. Get round into the next street — Hartley Street, is it? — and see if anyone’s made their way out through some empty house there. I don’t doubt we’re too late, but give it a try.’
‘Then, ma’am, it’s her? Cop Killer?’
‘Just get round there.’
The car roared away.
‘Superintendent Martens?’
From the ring of darkness round the brightly flame-illuminated area surrounding the burning house Tim Patterson came striding up. Ready as ever at the scene of the crime.
‘Superintendent, tell me, is this Cop Killer striking? Burning for burning, Super?’
Harriet turned and went across to the panda that had not so long before come idly by on patrol. Its driver had got himself inside and was sitting gripping the wheel in front of him as if, were he not to, he would slump to the floor.
‘Constable.’
‘Ma’am.’
‘Get out of the car. Just over there you’ll see a young man who may be known to you, a Mr Patterson of the Evening Star. Escort him to the end of the street and tell him if he sets foot in it again he’ll be charged with obstruction. Yes?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
A good deal steadier than he had been half a minute before, the constable obeyed.
Harriet watched until he had led the reporter, resentment squealing out of every inch of his hunched back, to the far end of the street.
A few moments later the second panda came in at the other end of the road. Its driver brought it to a halt within a few feet of Harriet.
‘Ma’am, bad news.’
‘She got away?’
‘Yes, ma’am. If it was her. Old lady woken by the fire saw a woman come out of a derelict house two doors along from her and hurry away. Tall, she said, and with a darkish hat on her head. Black, blue, she didn’t know. But it looks as if it could be Cop Killer all right. I radioed in straight away. Perhaps we’ll pick her up yet.’
‘Or perhaps not. The woman’s a planner. She’ll have planned her get-away.’
‘Yes, ma’am. And there was a funny thing.’
‘All right, tell me.’
‘In the letter-box of the house she came out of, jammed in it, there was this, ma’am.’
He reached down beside him and presented Harriet with a full cotton-wool white beard with neat loops either side all ready for any Santa to hook round his ears.
‘Yes, Constable, as I said, a planner. Just after Christmas — as long ago as that — beards like this would have been easy to get hold of.’
And so, she thought, perhaps Grace had intended all along to carry out the full list of rigid Exodus commands. It had been only a small change of plan to make Froggy Froggott her victim. But, all the same, it had been a change of plan. Grace not always a perfect planner. Hope here? The two last tragedies after all avoidable?
*
Nevertheless the Chief Fire Officer’s eventual report on the Batley Street fire made bitter reading. Stripped of its verbiage, it said that the main seat of the blaze had been in the basement of the house from which the body of Police Constable Strachan had been recovered. The source of the flames was petrol, liberally puddled there. It had been ignited — the device had been easy to find — with a simple contrivance using an old electric fire with a wire running to a switch at the rear of the house. There had been, too, a second smaller fire, in the middle of the front room. But that had consisted simply of paper and a few sticks, easy enough to have put out with a bucket of water. And, finally, it was plain that floorboards in the narrow hallway had been removed beneath the carpet runner so that anyone hurrying in would be sent tumbling into the basement below.
Harriet sat, when she had finished reading, looking at the Santa Claus beard, now in a transparent evidence bag, that lay beside Dr Smellyfeet’s Profile on her desk.
But will that wretched object ever have to be brought into court, she asked herself. To be used as part of a long complex of evidence in the trial of Grace Brown on six counts of murder? Six counts at present. But when, if ever, that trial is held will it be on seven counts? Wound for wound? On eight counts? Stripe for stripe? Three murders committed while newly promoted Detective Superintendent Harriet Martens had been in charge of the case. Two more still to be committed?
She picked up her phone and asked for the Chief Constable.
‘Sir, I’ve just been reading the report on the fire that killed Constable Strachan. It confirms beyond doubt that it was as the result of a deliberately planned booby-trap. And, sir, I can only blame myself. It was on my direct advice that officers ceased going on the streets in pairs. A bad decision. The situation in effect was unchanged, and, whatever difficulties arose in keeping that original order, I ought not to have sanctioned the easy answer.’
‘But, Miss Martens, no one’s blaming you. It was a perfectly reasonable course of action to advocate, and one which I myself endorsed. Besides which, there were two officers together there in — what’s the place? — Batley Street. You cannot possibly take responsibility for what occurred then.’
‘Nevertheless, I do, sir. All right, I know that, as it so happened, there were two men at the scene of that fire. But the one who was killed said, sir, that he didn’t need to worry about going into the house on his own, as that order had been rescinded. I know he was under the impression he had an old man with a white beard to rescue’ — she looked down once again at the trumpery, ear-hooked cottonwool-like mass in the evidence bag — ‘but if that order had still been in force, wouldn’t he have thought twice? Wouldn’t he have gone in there with a degree of caution? Wouldn’t he have avoided that simple trap in the hallway? He had the right to feel he was in no exceptional danger. And I ought to have known that any officer in uniform, at the very least, was still at risk from that woman. No, sir, I do blame myself, and
if you wish to put the operation into someone else’s hands, I’ll be glad to accept that.’
Chapter Thirteen
Harriet, her offer to the Chief Constable made, did not make it again. She had said what she had to say. It was up to Sir Michael to accept or not. Sir Michael took a little time, and a good many words, to reply.
‘Miss Martens, it was not without thought that I put you in charge of the inquiry into the deaths of three of my officers. And I know well it may be said in such places as the so-called editorials of that rag the Evening Star, and even in the national press, that since you have been in charge all that has happened is that there have been three more killings. But I cannot see that any action of yours, or any action omitted by you, could have saved those men, that lad. I have been aware of every step you took to prevent those deaths, and I am quite satisfied you could have done no more than you did. Including, let me say, your advising me that the weight of the argument was in favour of rescinding the order that sent our officers going about the city in pairs. So, no, Superintendent, I put you in charge, and I wish you to remain in charge.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Nevertheless, as Harriet put down the receiver, she made a resolution.
Plainly there was no point in asking Sir Michael, once again, if she could issue a personal challenge to Grace Brown. But were a challenge to be issued without her consent or authorization …
*
Another day, another press conference. As well attended as either of the ones since the murder of PC Strachan, but without any new questions called out. Harriet had stated the day after the fire in Batley Street that the blaze had every appearance of having been the work of Mrs Grace Brown, ‘or Cop Killer, as you people like to call her’. No, she had answered then, no one had been arrested. At the next day’s conference she had said that it was confirmed that PC Strachan had been lured into a trap at Batley Street and that ‘we have no evidence to the contrary when we say we are looking for Grace Brown’. And, no, ‘we do not at the present time have any indication of where she may be’.
The Hard Detective Page 12