Double Fault

by Judith Cutler

  There was a short silence: they could all think of cases where their colleagues had nailed an abductor, but not found the victim till too late.

  Ray shook his head. ‘And risk losing him? No, let’s get him.’

  ‘Put him under surveillance,’ Chatfield overrode him. ‘Make sure we know to the inch where he is by night and day.’

  Fran nodded. ‘But we do it with the maximum of discretion. And maybe even mislead him a little, though that might of course be against his human rights,’ she added ironically. ‘How about the next media update suggests we’re working with our colleagues in Europol? Which has the benefit of being true,’ she added, with a limpid glance first at Mark then at Ray. ‘But, as Ed says, we want every sneeze, every scratch of his head recorded. If he sleepwalks, we want to know if he raids his fridge and what he takes out of it. Understood?’ It was clear that everyone understood: people tended to when Fran spoke in that voice. Belatedly she turned to the CEOP super. ‘Sorry, Ed. Is that how you’d want it done? I keep forgetting this is supposed to be a shared enquiry. With your team doing the lion’s share just now,’ she added with a disarming grin.

  ‘No problem. We’re in total agreement here, Fran.’ Was there a slight emphasis on the pronoun that Ray would pick up as a rebuke or a slight? Perhaps. ‘In this case the victim’s safety – assuming the poor child is still alive – must be paramount.’

  Poor Ray: he took it as a public bollocking. But he was wrong, the others right, surely to goodness. Mark wished he could find some way to limit his loss of face. Perhaps he could. Even if it meant drawing attention to himself. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘some of the tennis players Ray was talking about have set up a collection for a reward for information received. They’ve already got quite a large sum pledged.’ He tried desperately – and at last succeeded – in catching Ray’s eye. He willed him to pick up the idea and run with it.

  ‘Thanks, Mark, for that and for all you did this morning.’ He took a minute to brief the rest of the team, who clearly did not like one of their own – even an ex one of their own – being treated so badly. ‘Guv’nor, how would you feel about leading on that at the press conference? Especially as it was Mark who was instrumental in getting them on side.’ He rightly looked at Chatfield, but was no doubt desperate for Fran’s backing. And was going the wrong way about getting it.

  Bother protocol. Mark spoke up again. ‘I’d rather you kept my name out of it, if you can. Internal politics, Chatfield, as I’m sure you’ve heard.’ He caught Fran’s eye. If Wren had vetoed Mark’s appearance at a press conference once, as sure as hell he wouldn’t like the idea a second time, even if it was just as a bit player, or a passing reference. Which it probably wouldn’t be: he’d bet some reporter or other would want to ask searching questions about an ex-ACC’s involvement. He would, in their position. ‘Personally,’ he continued slowly, ‘I think it might have more resonance if the Sunday players were said to have responded directly to Zac’s grief and distress when he turned up to work. They made the point that they wouldn’t be much use in local searches, but did have other resources. And yes, Ray,’ he added with a swift, comradely smile, ‘it was Sadie who suggested they raise a reward.’

  ‘The dinner lady,’ Ray explained. ‘If you don’t have much money I guess you’re more likely to know its value than if you’ve got loads. Will you mention the other horse, guv’nor? At all?’

  Chatfield and Fran exchanged a glance. ‘Let’s just go with the French connection and the reward.’

  ‘Agreed,’ she said. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s over to you for this one. Unless I hear from you, I’ll see you all bright and early in the morning.’

  Even as she left the room she was checking her phone. That wasn’t like her at all, any more than her abrupt exit was. Mark followed at a discreet distance, so there was no question of him listening in if she were on a confidential call. But she shoved it back in her pocket with obvious exasperation and turned to him, putting her hand on his. ‘Are you sure you’re all right? All that stuff about your car? They didn’t have a go at you as well, did they?’

  ‘For a moment it was touch and go – I think it could have gone either way. But in the end they did what Ray said they did: they came to my rescue and promised to deal with the damage. The car’s tucked up in the garage at the moment: I didn’t fancy everyone in Maidstone getting an eyeful of the graffiti. In any case, it was time yours had an outing. Are you ready to come home? There’s plenty of Caffy’s casserole left, remember. And I promise not to ask what’s troubling you at the moment – which has nothing to do with the Livvie case, I gather.’

  ‘You gather right. And I truly can’t say anything. Except yes to the lift and yes to the casserole. Hey, is it warm enough to have a drink on the terrace?’

  He shook his head reluctantly. ‘The sun’s been wonderful, as you probably didn’t even have time to notice, but there’s been a strong breeze all day, and now there’s quite a nip in the air. I’d recommend a nice hot bath while I reheat the food. And a gin and tonic while you soak.’

  ‘Sounds like bliss,’ she declared.

  But it didn’t sound as if her heart was in it.

  Fran had still had no response from Wren by the time the alarm clock rang the next morning. Since Mark didn’t so much as stir, she tiptoed around in the hope that he’d sleep on: it must be safe for her to drive after all this time. But as she munched her muesli, he appeared, fully dressed if fashionably unshaven. Then he insisted on driving her in.

  ‘I’m worried about that repair to your car,’ she said, as he set off carefully through thick mist. ‘You only want one person in the body shop or whatever it’s called to tell his mates and it’ll be all over the press, willy-nilly. Mud sticks. So do scratches.’

  ‘Quite. I’d thought of that. So did Harry Mansfield. He texted last night to say he’s going to make the damage far worse with some piece of farm machinery, so no one can read the letters. And the lad who did it is going to pay for the whole lot – him, or as seems more likely, his dad. Don’t worry about it. It’s a car. Full-stop. And you can’t say you don’t have other things to worry about.’

  She took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ll tell you – all this stuff – as soon as I can. Thanks for not asking.’

  As she let herself into the building, she checked the car park. No, no sign of Wren’s car. Half of her wasn’t surprised: it was unlike him to be in so early. On the other hand, most bosses, faced with at least two crises, and bombarded with the number of messages she had sent, would have been waiting on the threshold like a Victorian father, timepiece in hand, ready to confront a tardy son or daughter.

  She’d no sooner switched on her kettle, however, than a text arrived. Tom. Telling her to take a casual stroll past the CID offices and keep her eyes open. A text? Tom? Not his usual modus operandi.

  But stroll she did, and her eyes weren’t just open but agog by the time she’d finished.

  She didn’t think it was necessary to knock as she walked into Sean Murray’s goldfish bowl.

  ‘DCI Murray. My office, now.’ She added, ‘We won’t have the conversation I intend to have here, in case your colleagues can lip-read.’ Turning on her heel, she strode off, yes, the old Fran stride, she noted triumphantly, even as another part of her brain was wondering what on earth to say. Correction: she had so much to say she didn’t know where to start.

  At least he had the nous not to try to fall into step with her, or, worse still, to try to engage her in conversation. However, as she turned to face him in her office, and nodded at him to close the door, she got the impression that he was at least as angry with her as she was with him.

  She sat. She toyed with the idea of making him stand, but thought that it would be petty – too like a Wren move. So she nodded at a chair. Her hospitality didn’t extend to offering him coffee, however, though she sipped at her half-cold mug.

  She decided to resort to the interviewing method she’d used when dealing wi
th low-life criminals: start with small, manageable accusations, and move up to the serious matters that really needed to be examined. Like, in his case, being someone other than he was claiming to be, and, perhaps, being a murderer. Mass murderer.

  ‘How are you getting on with the files I asked you to check?’

  ‘No pattern has yet emerged in the care home deaths. After all, you’d expect a few deaths amongst wrinklies, wouldn’t you?’ He ignored the height to which her eyebrows had risen and ploughed on. ‘Come on, I’d have thought this was more a job for a bog-standard DC.’

  ‘What a shame they’re all engaged in work on an active case, which meant leave was cancelled and your colleagues were working double shifts. A case I’d have wanted you to work on, given your expertise and experience. And the fact that the head of MIT, Don Simpson, personally invited you down to see the scene and assist him in what promises to be a very complex enquiry – just the sort of case on which an officer with your record and potential would have been expected to shine.’ She paused, not just for breath, but to give him time to respond.

  He did, but only with what her dear old sergeant in her salad days would have called dumb insolence.

  ‘You made a trivial – and as it turns out – spurious excuse and quit the premises as soon as you took the call, although you knew that MIT was short-staffed and must have suspected that all leave would be cancelled. Your phone was switched off and you didn’t respond to my calls.’

  ‘Not exactly a hanging offence.’

  ‘Not exactly a hanging offence, ma’am,’ she snarled, she who cared little more than a snap of the fingers about rank. ‘For God’s sake, Sean, I was calling to offer you a career-changing promotion – only temporary, but to detective superintendent. And you didn’t return my calls.’ She thought that had penetrated his carapace, but still he said nothing. ‘There was so much concern for you – were you having some sort of temporary breakdown? – that we then wasted valuable time and resources trying to locate you.’

  ‘You mean check up on me? How dare you? I was taking quite legitimate Time Off in Lieu.’

  ‘But you hadn’t cleared it with me.’

  ‘Because you aren’t my line manager. Ma’am.’

  ‘Not yet. But you hadn’t cleared it with your Met line manager, either. Don’t look so shocked. We have such things as phones, Sean. From lucrative and prestigious promotion to a disciplinary, I’d have thought. What a waste.’ As she geared herself up for the next stage of her tirade, the internal phone rang: Wren’s line.

  ‘Your messages, Harman?’

  ‘May be redundant, sir. Some of them. But I believe we need to have a very urgent conversation, sir. Before or after the rest of the one I’m currently having with DCI Sean Murray.’ She eyed him coldly. Eventually he had the grace to drop his eyes.

  ‘Murray! I was just going to tell you that we can stand down the search for him,’ he declared. ‘My contact in the Met has located him. Even as we speak he’s probably on the train back here. I’ve made clear to my contact that I’m far from happy with his gross violation of discipline, and that I want him under my jurisdiction in future. So as and when he returns, send him directly to me. I may, of course, have to consider the temporary promotion you wanted to offer him.’

  There was no point in correcting his use of pronouns. She had something more important to say. ‘I would be delighted to discuss that with you. Meanwhile DCI Murray is here in my office.’

  ‘Send him to me.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I would prefer to have a confidential conversation with you myself before he is involved. And furthermore I would like you to take measures to ensure he stays on the premises, preferably incommunicado, while this conversation takes place.’

  Murray was on his feet.

  So was she. She held the handset away from her mouth, but Wren would almost certainly hear her as she barked, ‘Sit down. You know running will only harm your case. I said sit. Now. And make yourself familiar with those files.’ She pointed to a pile in the corner: let his back and legs deal with the tottering and undistinguished heap. ‘We’ll discuss the contents when I return.’

  She was still shaking with fury when she presented herself in Wren’s office, moments later. He took a swift look at her, told her to sit and produced, wonder of wonders, a cup of coffee.

  ‘We have problems?’ he asked, also sitting down, but behind his desk. In his place, she’d have pulled her chair round to a less formal position, but that was Wren for you.

  ‘We do indeed. Thank you.’ Perhaps he thought she was expressing gratitude for the excellent coffee; in fact, she was acknowledging the change of pronoun. We was a hundred times better than you. She kept the word in play. ‘We actually have more than we expected. A DCI going AWOL is one thing; a DCI changing his identity is another.’

  ‘Changing—’

  ‘You’ll recall that I asked you to authorize the comparison of two photographs? Here is the report.’ She laid it on his desk. ‘The evidence suggests that Christopher Manton and Sean Murray are one and the same. I’ve not yet had time to check the possibilities of an official change of name by deed poll – it struck me as almost an irrelevance at the time – but I should imagine it won’t take long. Probably the Met noted it and forgot all about it when they lent him to us. What matters far more is that in the Ashford case—’

  ‘The skeletons in the youth club?’

  ‘Exactly. We have two main suspects. By far the stronger is the youth worker, Malcolm Perkins; the other is Christopher Manton. Perkins is dead, that’s for certain, but I have officers checking possible activities in the other towns where he worked. On the other hand, assuming my suspicions are correct, Manton is here. In fact, it is just possible that we have to arrest him on suspicion of the murder of at least eight young adults, currently being identified.’

  ‘And you realize the implications of that?’ He looked more troubled than she’d imagined he could.

  ‘On him? On us? On the media embargo? On the ongoing publicity for the Livvie case? I do indeed, sir. The last thing we wanted was to have to go public now with the Ashford case but if there’s the remotest chance of this getting out—’

  The phone rang. ‘Ah, that’ll be the Home Office. Nothing to do with this case. But I have to take it. We’ll continue this in half an hour or so. Meanwhile, get everything out of him that you can. Informally if possible, Fran.’

  Fran, eh? Any moment now they’d be best buddies. Or not.

  EIGHTEEN

  As she returned from Wren’s office she intercepted Tom Arkwright, just about to make his breezy way into her room. He always knocked, of course, but increasingly his tap was perfunctory and he would pop his head in simultaneously. Today she would have to freeze him out, having a conversation in the corridor.

  ‘Morning, guv. I’ve got a bit of news for you. Not about Murray.’ He registered her frown and the lack of invitation. ‘I guess I’m not allowed to talk about that, am I?’

  ‘No. And I’m afraid I’m flat out just now – rush job for the boss, Tom.’ Which had the virtue of being true. Almost. Even though he didn’t seem to expect frankness, she hated fobbing him off. She just hoped no one else had clocked Murray’s early appearance. She made an effort. ‘Do I gather you were working yesterday, despite what I said?’

  Tom clearly picked up on something in her manner, but continued, ‘Well, I always was a bit pig-headed, according to my auntie. So, yesterday I joined in with the little team checking on yon Malcolm Perkins.’

  ‘As anyone would, if they were bored. Unless the sun was shining and they should be enjoying life while they’re young. Oh, Tom … Very well. Bollocking over. Not that I meant too much of it, except the bit about the sun. We should have been breathing in fresh air, getting some dear old vitamin D for free.’ Her sigh was genuine.

  ‘Sunshine or not, I found stuff I wanted to tell you first. Only to find you’d just gone home.’

  ‘In other words, you were working
till well after eight o’clock.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘And you didn’t phone?’

  He pulled a face. ‘I reckoned if you’d called it a day, it was only because you were dead on your feet.’ They exchanged an understanding smile. No one else would have dared say anything like that, and they both knew it. ‘In any case, a mate was on to me for a couple of jars and a game of pool. No vitamin D in pub lighting, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Too true. OK, what did you find?’ She shook her head. ‘No, tell you what, give me half an hour – maybe forty minutes – and then come back. With cake, if possible,’ she added with what she hoped was her usual grin.

  He looked at her steadily. ‘Fair enough, guv. Though I’d say it was right important.’

  ‘Half an hour, Tom?’ But Tom never exaggerated. ‘OK, if you don’t need fresh air and birdsong, I do. We’ll talk outside now. I’ll just get my jacket.’ And make sure Murray was working his socks off.

  ‘West Bromwich is the most interesting,’ Tom declared, turning his face to the sun and closing his eyes against the glare.

  She did likewise. ‘I bet that’s the first time anyone’s ever said that!’

  ‘Unless you’re a Baggies supporter, that is,’ he said, picking up her change of mood.

  ‘Or you’re a fan of the M5.’

  ‘Or interested in the activities of Malcolm Perkins. Now, just as you can’t get much more rural than Kent, so it’s hard to find anywhere nearer the industrial heartland of England.’

  She must show interest, not relief. ‘That might be a euphemism, young Tom. Or an oxymoron.’

  He bridled. He must have misheard.

  ‘Oxymoron,’ she repeated. ‘Figure of speech, meaning contradiction in terms. I’m not suggesting you’re an idiot.’ She started to walk: good physio for the leg, after all, which was always frighteningly stiff in the morning.

  He fell into step beside her. ‘I like a bit of industry, myself. It’s not all Last of the Summer Wine and cricket up my way, Fran. A few mills, the odd canal – that’s me happy. They call them cuts in the Midlands, did you know that? And there’s some town up there says it’s got more canals than Venice.’ His face might have been as straight as a pall-bearer’s, but his eyes were twinkling.