The Hard Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Hardly my responsibility, DI.’

  ‘No, ma’am. I’m well aware of that. But what I want to know is: what are you doing about it? Are you deliberately walking the streets hoping Grace Brown will come running? Or are you ignoring the whole stupid business, and staying inside the building here where you’re well safe?’

  ‘What do you expect me to do, DI?’

  A look of something like astonishment at this turn-about, in so far as the Scotsman would allow it.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I dinna ken, ma’am. I suppose if you did present yourself where she’s likely to find you, it could bring her to the fore. Of course, you’d have to have good backup. I’d be happy to oblige myself, ma’am, if that was the way of it.’

  ‘Thank you, DI. And if we do have to resort to some strategy of that sort, and it may come to that, I’ll certainly take your offer up.’

  But now DI Coleman joined in.

  ‘All the same, ma’am,’ he said, ‘isn’t it possible Grace will try to take up this so-called challenge? If she’s looking for an officer to use that whip on, then — begging your pardon, ma’am — wouldn’t you be her likeliest choice?’

  ‘Yes, DI. Yes, I suppose I would be.’ After yesterday. Yes, Grace may very well target me. ‘And she’s welcome to try.’

  ‘Well, then, ma’am, shouldn’t you have back-up, as DI Johnston’s suggested? I mean, you are in all probability at considerable risk. We don’t know how much that woman may know about you, about what your routines are, about where outside of here you can be found. After all, she worked in the canteen at Queen Street, we know that, and there’ll have been bits of gossip said there about you. You know what a canteen’s like.’

  ‘Yes, DI. I do remember what a canteen’s like. And thank you for your kindly thoughts. But I like to think I can look after myself, you know.’ For an instant she saw Grace Brown rushing towards her out of the mist the day before. ‘And I do always carry a mobile phone. So I don’t think we need concern ourselves too deeply with that particular prospect.’

  She took one more look round the intent faces in the room.

  ‘So let me remind you all that Grace may well be moving from place to place down in Chapeltown. Don’t go thinking that just because one possible hideyhole’s been searched she may not use it again. She’s a planner. Dr Scholl has proved that to me. To the hilt. She’s perfectly capable of working out where our searches have been and how she can outwit us. But don’t let her. We’re going to be the ones doing the outwitting. Get to it.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Approaching home that evening, Harriet, paradoxically exhausted after a day with nothing happening bar the report on Grace buying the whip, no other sighting of her, no report of any attack, could not but acknowledge she was, to a ridiculous extent, prey to fears and alarms. Perhaps DI Johnston’s criticisms got under my skin, she thought. That offer of personal protection rankled. Yes, a little.

  Or is the need to keep secret that stupid, unsuccessful encounter with Grace somehow undermining me still? Do I really need to conceal at all costs what happened? Aren’t I too concerned about my own status? The Hard Detective worsted? Ashamed of that? And, to add to that humiliation, the Hard Detective so battered by an elderly madwoman that she was unable even to run in a straight line. And at last had to be saved from a ducking in the canal.

  But perhaps the fears scuttling round in my mind were put there by the real concern DI Coleman showed. Yet was he right to be concerned? Am I really in danger? More now than when I got Tim Patterson to issue my challenge? Actually in worse danger than I was down at the canal on my own, only my knuckleduster as protection?

  She gave herself a stiffer than usual whisky and ginger.

  A jolt of alcohol and back to normality? But nothing happened. She simply sat brooding.

  Have I been tasked with a job that’s beyond me? Is being a hard police officer, as I’ve prided myself on being, not enough faced with a truly hard task? But what more could I have done? What more, be honest, would any detective in the Greater Birchester Police have done? Nothing. And I did something more. None of them would have contrived that challenge.

  But how clever had that actually been? It had gone wrong. Yet it needn’t have done. If Grace’s knee hadn’t landed at just the right place by chance, by sheer chance, I’d have had her safely in a cell now. Even if I hadn’t swerved so precariously at just the moment that Dr Smellyfeet — no, that Peter Scholl — was coming up behind me, I could very well have caught up with Grace.

  Yes, but it did go wrong. All right, it may turn out yet that we hunt Grace down when she comes out to use that whip. But the whole business of my challenge went disastrously wrong. No getting past that.

  God, the truth is I’d love to have John here at the moment. Here and not in damn, distant Brazil. To lay it all out to him. Okay, he’d do no more than reassure me, tell me I’m doing my best. Even if the twins were here, I’d break a resolution at this moment and tell them about it all. And they’d probably try to reassure me, too. Mum, hey, you’re the Top Cop. I wouldn’t believe them. I wouldn’t believe John. But I could snuggle those words to me. And feel better.

  But I don’t feel better. I know my challenge to Grace Brown did go disastrously wrong. So is it that I wasn’t right in the first place to trick sharp Tim Patterson into issuing my challenge for me? Have I … The thought grew, try how she might to force it down. Have I been too sure I was right all along? From the best of the Stop the Rot days even? When in Tim Patterson’s office they called me Miss Eyemright. Miss I’m right. Yes, that went home. I refused to let myself think about it when he brought it out there in the Gardens. Rejected it. Pushed it away. But now … Now, don’t I have to look at it fairly and squarely? Miss Eyemright. Am I that? Right every time about everything?

  A long hard mental inward look.

  And, no. No, truly I don’t think of myself as being right about everything. But I am right in my whole attitude to the wrong in my world. I am right to be the Hard Detective.

  Yes.

  She glanced at her watch.

  Hell, the time. Should have been getting some supper together half an hour ago. Missed the eight o’clock radio news. Suppose, if there’d been any development I’d have been told. But all the same …

  She heaved herself out of her chair and strode into the kitchen.

  A ready-meal from the freezer. Once again.

  Carrying a tray through the hall, heading for the sitting room — supper on my knee, soothing burble of the telly, early bed — the scream that rang out seemed almost to come from inside the house.

  For an instant she froze.

  Teenagers larking about? No. That sound I know well enough. I’ve marched up often enough and put an end to it. No, that was the scream of real fright. Fear? It might be. Yes.

  She stooped, put the tray down on the carpet.

  Another scream rang out. And another. Someone out there in the road, or even inside the gate screaming in fear. Almost certainly. So, deal with it.

  She went to the door, quietly wound back the security bolt.

  Then a thought.

  Grace Brown. Could the screamer be her? Could it be a planned trick to get her hated enemy out into the open? But Grace wouldn’t find her way here. Nobody knew where Detective Superintendent Martens lived. Or hardly anybody outside those in the Force who needed to know. That had been half the point of not using the married name. To keep Miss Martens and Mrs Piddock as far apart as possible. All right, it hadn’t always worked. When the small-time criminals in the B Division had been riled enough by Stop the Rot some of them had managed to track DCI Martens back to her home — and put their parcels of shit through the letterbox.

  But Grace Brown, the Bible quoter who had driven her cousins the Studleys half-crazy with prayers before, prayers after and as many as could be fitted in between, she would never have mixed with that sort of low-life. So she could not possibly—

  Another thoug
ht. Bursting in like an unwelcome stranger. Grace Brown, the canteen worker, collecting dirty dishes and keeping her ears open. And one day at least Rob Roberts, trying perhaps to earn acceptance from the macho constables who laughed at him and his precious files, telling them her real name was Piddock. The guffaws and the jokes.

  So Grace could know my married name. But what good would that do her? Rob Roberts wouldn’t have gone about yakking out my address. So how could she know this is where I live? All right, there is, as a matter of fact, only one Piddock in the Birchester phone book. But how likely is it that Grace, hiding in derelict houses, sleeping rough somewhere in Chapeltown, would be able to consult a phone book? She couldn’t exactly take one from some neat shelf under a telephone table in her nice, comfortable home. And it’s been many years since a telephone directory was placed in every phone box. The sort of vandals Stop the Rot was put into operation to check saw to that. So, really there’s nowhere for Grace to look up this address.

  But if somehow … ?

  The knuckleduster. Get it.

  No, deep in the mud of the canal.

  So, fail to fall for the trick? If it is a trick … But if it’s really some girl in real distress? Rape? A brutal beating? Then only one thing to do. Go out.

  And, right, if there’s no girl there, no rapist. If it is Grace … Then still go out. Tackle her. Face her again. Tackle her, even if the advantage this time must be with the one who’s laid the trap.

  Call for back-up first? The mobile’s here on the hall table. Is there time? If I don’t respond to that scream as quickly as I would if I’d never thought of Grace, she’ll know I’ve seen through her trick, and— And, as likely as not, she’ll just creep away into the dark. Peter’s planner.

  Right. Fling door wide.

  The blank emptiness of the night. Pause for a moment. What I would do, truly responding to a scream of fear? Call out? Yes.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  Silence. The warmth of an April night. The almond tree faintly scenting the air, damp from the last shower. A glimmer of daffodils down by the garden wall.

  ‘Anyone there?’

  That should be enough. Enough for Grace to believe her trick’s worked. And now it’s all but certain it is a trick. A girl, even locked tight under a man’s pressing body, must have managed some squeak of a call for help.

  So, next move?

  Step out. Step on to the veranda, grasp the rail, peer forwards.

  And Grace? Where will she be? What’s the next move she’s planned? Down there in the shadow of the wall? She could be there, all right. If she’s managed to get herself some dark garment, she could be crouching there, totally invisible with that distant street lamp making the shadow even denser.

  Wait. If there’s a patch where the daffodils are not to be seen, that could be her blocking them out, crushing them. Or, no, it could just be that no flowerhead happens to catch the light coming from the door here.

  All right. If I was going to the rescue of a screaming girl, I’d go cautiously. So now do no more than lean well out into the darkness to look from side to side? Call out once again? Yes. Why not?

  ‘Who’s there? Is there anybo—’

  The sudden heavy blow on the back of the neck. The just grasped realization that a body — Grace’s body — had tumbled from the porch roof above. Clawing hands at her hair, face, arms. Tugging sharply.

  And the consciousness, even as it happened, that the trick Grace had played had worked.

  That she was tumbling forward, falling to the ground in front of the veranda. Helpless. That thin wiry gangling body all over her.

  So, roll.

  Putting every ounce of effort into it, fighting against the dizziness in her head, Harriet rolled across the soft earth of the narrow flowerbed bordering the veranda on to the path, the sharpness of the edging tiles momentarily halting her, then digging painfully into her side.

  But in a moment she knew she had done it. The netting limbs that had pinned her down were no longer there.

  She was lying flat on her back.

  She looked desperately from side to side. Where was Grace? What was she preparing to do now?

  Then she made it out. In the darkness, all the deeper for the swath of light still coming fruitlessly from the open house door, she could see Grace’s body jerking limb by limb into an upright position. Did she know where her target was? She must do.

  Up. Get up. Level the terms.

  She forced herself on to her knees, keeping Grace firmly in sight at every instant.

  And then she realized what the half-silhouetted figure in front of her was doing. Raising her arm. And dangling from it, just visible, the whip.

  Lunge at her. Get to the feet and lunge. Before she has time to—

  Too late. Too late. Her arm swinging down and forwards. Left arm. Left-handed Grace. Girl at Boots said.

  So dodge left, me.

  Crack.

  Searing pain slashed across Harriet’s face as she fell backwards. For one instant everything was blotted out. But for one instant only. Then she realized the whip stroke had landed high. Across her forehead.

  But she was down. Down. Limp on her side, and at the mercy of the woman dedicated to killing police officers. Might be dead already.

  Now. Now it had come. The final moment. The end.

  ‘Stop!’

  Harriet heard the shout. She was unable to make out whether it was hallucination, or if she’d really heard a loud male voice shouting Stop! from somewhere in the road outside.

  But Grace, she saw, as she looked up through half-closed, defensive eyelids, had had no doubts. Timing like a spitting cat, she was glaring into the darkness.

  ‘No,’ she yelled out now. ‘You’re too late. Too late. I’ve won. I’ve won. Stripe for stripe I’ve killed her. Killed her, killed.’

  Then she darted away. In through the open house door. Which slammed. A noise like a reverberating gunshot. And an extra shade of darkness descending on the garden.

  ‘Harriet. Mrs Piddock. Are you— Are you all right?’

  Who … ?

  She managed to lift up her head a little. Her vision swam, cleared.

  A mop of fair hair, almost white in the darkness. A face almost black, but ruddy, bending over her. And a big fluffy moustache.

  Rob Roberts.

  ‘What— What you here?’

  ‘You’re okay then? Er— ma’am?’

  ‘What are you doing here, I asked.’

  ‘I — er — Well, it’s a long story. But are you all right? I mean, are you?’

  ‘I’m as well as can be expected,’ she said, unable to stop herself retreating into her foetal position. ‘And please answer my question.’

  ‘It— It was like this. I was worried about you. Not— Not tonight. But when I thought about that challenge the paper said you’d made. And— And, well, I wondered how you’d go about it. Would you have someone to guard your back? Only I knew you wouldn’t want that. So I—’

  ‘Get on with it, man.’

  Harriet felt vigour returning. And the pain across her forehead beating out at double, triple strength.

  ‘Yes. Yes, ma’am. So … Well, I sort of guessed you might go down to that deserted stretch of the canal running along from Chapeltown. So … So I just went down there. Only, because I’d left it too long, what I saw was you coming away to where you’d left your car. And your face was all bloody. So I followed you back here and saw you’d got indoors all right, then I worked out you must have met Grace Brown, and— And, well come off worst.’

  ‘What I asked was: why are you here? Now?’

  She still felt incapable of moving.

  ‘Yes. Yes, sorry. It was— Well, the same thing really. I mean, I thought— I wondered what Grace Brown would do now that she’d met you, as it were face to face. And I knew her next thing was stripe for stripe, and I worried she might have a go at you like that. I mean, she’s killed. Time and again. So, well, I was sitting there at home
— my wife’s left me, did I tell you that? — and I was thinking about you. And Grace Brown. And … and everything. And I thought I must just pop round to the house here, see if you seemed to be all right. And, well, I suppose I came just in the nick of time.’

  Harriet mentally roused herself.

  ‘Yes, Rob,’ she said, lying huddled there. ‘Yes, you did arrive in the nick of time. And, yes, I’m grateful. Very grateful. If you hadn’t shouted out when you did that woman would have looked at me more carefully. And found I wasn’t dead. And then I soon should’ve been. No doubt about that.’

  ‘But do you think … I mean, has she just run through the house there and got away? Or …’

  ‘Or, as you say, Rob. Or has she been foxed by the locked back-door, the key well hidden away? And the windows with safety-locks on as well? She most likely has. So what’s she doing— Rob, your car’s here? You’ve got a phone?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I had it —’

  ‘Then for God’s sake, call this in. I want the house surrounded. I want the firearms team, John’s shotgun’s in there, locked away but … I want them now.’

  ‘Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.’

  Rob scuttled off.

  Harriet decided to lie where she was. Grace might well look out of a window, if she still was trapped in the house, and if she did not see her victim on the ground there, she would come out again. And — the thought forced its way inside the throbbing pain in her face — I’m in no state to get her on my own.

  The not-so Hard Detective. Well, hard detectives and soft, we’re all human. At the mercy sometimes of brute facts. Not always up on top.

  Chapter Twenty

  Soon, faster than might have been expected, there came the multiple screeching of brakes, running feet, orders echoing decisively across the night air. Harriet staggered to her feet. Saw the faithful Rob standing discreetly just inside the garden gate. And then a moment later saw someone she had not expected. Dr Smellyfeet.