‘Who’s going to talk to the media in tonight’s briefing?’ he paused long enough to ask.
‘Wren, if there’s any justice in the world. Better still, our beloved government for slashing funds. Or more likely me. Trying to defend the indefensible.’
‘Tell you what, Fran,’ Don said, dropping his voice conspiratorially, ‘tell them where to put their press conference. Wren’s problem. Let Wren deal with it. It should be an ACC, not just a Chief Super like yourself. You’re not paid to put your head above the parapet.’
‘Wren’s tied up with ACPO for the rest of the day.’
She pulled the phone from her ear as he snorted. ‘What a surprise. Tell you what, then, Fran – if you have to do it, you take those crutches, right? That stumble of yours was brilliant this morning: yes, it was on TVInvicta. Something like that reminds Joe Public just how much we do for them. Except we can’t walk on the sodding water – even with crutches,’ he concluded.
TWENTY-ONE
With mispers at every location where Malcolm Perkins had worked as a youth leader, which now appeared to include temporary placements in Portsmouth and Rotherham, where Fran was strongly tempted to send Tom, given his hankering after Yorkshire, the media were leaping up and down with morbid hysteria. They particularly relished the fact that Perkins was some sort of social worker, always their favourite scapegoat. Heads of Social Service departments all over the country were being dragged out for interviews. Her turn would almost certainly come later, as yet another example of policing failure.
Meanwhile, after his day in the sin bin, perhaps she should go and talk to Sean Murray, though it would leave her hard pressed to prepare for the early evening media briefing about the latest on the skeletons case. On the other hand, perhaps she shouldn’t be the one to do the briefing. Not for the tempting reasons that Don had put forward, but for a quite professional one. If she wasn’t thoroughly up to date on all the developments, she’d mess up. It ought to be someone with the very latest news to offer. Young Madge, for instance. She’d been on media courses recently: how would she cope with the real thing? It would be more than a baptism of fire, of course, but she was so attractive, with an air of what Fran hoped was totally spurious vulnerability, that a few hacks might be disconcerted enough to miss a stride or two. She wouldn’t summon her to her office, but go down to the incident room and no more than float the idea of her fronting the bun fight. One nanosecond of hesitation from the young woman and Fran would make the decision for her.
‘You’re the one who’s done most of the work, Madge – you’re far more up to speed than I am. If you have a moment’s misgiving, tell me and I’ll be there instead. I promise. But I really think the investigation would move forward more quickly if I followed up another lead. There’s just a chance someone’s run Christopher Manton to earth. A contact from the Met,’ she lied hurriedly, ‘wants me to deal with it.’
‘That’s one person whose DNA is on record – should be a doddle to prove that,’ Madge declared.
‘Excellent. So all we need is a sample of this guy’s. Now, you’ll have gathered that this is someone else’s case at the moment. Something quite different. But if you wanted to battle with the media scrum this evening, you could truthfully say I’m pursuing a lead. Of course,’ she continued slowly, ‘there’s no need to do this on your own. The three of you who investigated Perkins’ other youth placements could appear.’
‘Like wise monkeys. Or Macbeth’s witches, except Tom wouldn’t quite fit that scenario.’
‘Quite. But you could all talk about how you went about your searches – the meticulous, time-consuming work. Lost Saturdays and Sundays. Cancelled dates – no, maybe that’s going too far. Say how easy it would have been to assume that Perkins’ death wrapped up everything. Heavens, you’ve all been on media courses: I’d trust you more than I’d trust myself at the moment, and that’s the truth.’
The sympathetic look Madge subjected her to seemed to confirm the worst. ‘Look, ma’am, can I go and have a quick word with the others? See what they say?’
‘Of course. I’ve got stuff to attend to back in my office. But remember – if one of you has the slightest reservation, it’s back to me.’
Madge shook her head. ‘Ma’am, we know you work miracles. But even you can’t be in two places at once.’
So now it was Sean Murray time. The confrontation she’d put off all day. She just hoped he was as knackered as she was.
Mark was in front of the fridge again. He felt guilty about not waiting for Fran, but an afternoon spreading compost over the garden had left him with what he told himself was a healthy appetite. Before he could choose between a slice of the lunchtime flan or a hunk of his bread – a bit crumbly, this particular loaf, not easy to slice neatly – and some cheese, the phone went.
‘Caffy! Can you see into my kitchen? Every time I’m looking in the fridge, tempted by the unhealthy option, you phone.’
‘In that case close it now and grab yourself an apple. Are you busy?’
‘Just about to have a shower.’
‘I want to show you something. In good light. It’s called Abbot’s Croft. The nearest village is Westry. It’s east of Stone Street. You know what it’s like out there – all lanes, no real roads.’
It wasn’t like Caffy to be so incoherent. He grabbed at his old professional calm. ‘Give me the map references and I’ll be there. What am I looking for?’
‘Just a PACT van at the moment. It’ll take you – oh, about half an hour to get here. Maybe a bit longer. No, don’t bust a gut. I won’t go away. I’ve got something to read.’
‘As if you ever didn’t have. OK. Pen and pad ready. Fire away.’ He wrote to her dictation. ‘Caffy, you’re being sensible, are you?’
‘I’m parked too far away from what might be a crime scene to draw attention to myself or to compromise it.’
His ACC voice returned, this time the stern version. ‘This really is something serious, isn’t it, Caffy? So you can show me what you’ve found – but from a distance. If necessary I’ll call for back-up. If I do, I want you to get the hell out of there. Understood?’
‘But it might be nothing, Mark – and I know how resources are stretched. They’ve even got three substitutes for Fran on the evening news.’
‘If I take you seriously, I know a man or a woman who will too. Just shoot, Caffy – we’re wasting time here.’
‘It’s a deserted farmhouse, partially ruined, with recent four by four tracks and a horse’s footprints. I’d say the horse is still at home.’
‘OK. I’m on my way. Half an hour, you said.’
‘But Mark, what if someone turns up?’
‘Did you trust me over that watch? Well, then, trust me now. Pull back to at least half a mile – no, a mile away. My car keys are in my hand. Start your engine and scoot. And then we can make a decision.’
Sean Murray was no fool. He must have been all too aware that Fran was interested in far more than a minor disciplinary defence, the way she probed the reasons for his precipitate departure. All the same, he stonewalled until he must have been bored almost to tears.
‘Why did you change your name, Sean?’
‘That’s like asking me when I stopped beating my wife.’ To Fran, there was less charm than anxiety behind that smile.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s asking a question I’d like an answer to. I’m happy with your name: you can go on being Sean Murray. But you were once Christopher Manton, and that’s why I want to know why you became someone else. Come on, we can check your DNA if you prefer.’
‘I don’t see the point.’
‘A police officer has to do a lot of things he or she doesn’t see the point of. I don’t see the point of sitting here pretending that we’re just talking about you bunking off for a perfectly innocent weekend here in the Smoke when you should have been investigating a horrific find in Ashford. That’s bad enough, of course. Actually, as I’m sure you’ve heard, there have been
equally grisly discoveries in other towns and cities. What do you know about them?’
Fran would swear he was completely nonplussed.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why should I know anything about them? The skeletons in Ashford—’
‘If you’d rather talk about them, fine. Let’s do that.’ People who had known Fran longer would have been worried at this sudden burst of affability. ‘The fact you changed your name at about the same time as those kids were being murdered and bricked up raises the odd eyebrow, you know. The files other people had to read while you were skiving reveal you weren’t popular with your mates then. You had the reputation of an idle bully, as you could have seen if you’d spent the weekend working with your colleagues who had to come in and work instead.’
‘OK, you’ve made your point. I’m sorry. I should have asked you before I left.’
‘You’re not getting this, Sean. Knowing that Don had found what he had you shouldn’t even have asked for leave.’
‘After all the work I had to do in your stead I’m owed weeks rather than days.’
She stared at him and raised her right eyebrow. It never failed.
Dropping his eyes, he gave a grudging shrug. ‘Actually, I suppose it was quite useful.’
‘Yes, it was. For one thing you got access to the level of meetings a DCI wouldn’t normally go to. And your reports, which were excellent as I said at the time, put your name in front of all sorts of influential officers. But this is nothing to do with what you are or are not owed. And as I said earlier, this is really very little to do with the fact that you bunked off. It’s why you bunked off that interests me. Sean, was it because you knew some of the people who were now walled up there dead, and you couldn’t bear to look at what was left of your old mates? Or, Sean, and I really want you to think carefully before you answer this – was it because you’d put them there?’
TWENTY-TWO
Perhaps it was love that had addled Caffy’s brain. To call her calm and efficient was usually a masterpiece of understatement. He’d never known her as panic-stricken and downright flaky as this. So he made a point of calling her every few minutes as he drove, firstly to reassure her that he was on his way, secondly – and possibly more importantly – to make sure she stayed put and didn’t attempt any sort of heroics.
The location, in a tangle of lanes miles from an A road and with no major towns, or even villages apart from the hamlet that she’d mentioned, Westry, was considerably further south-east than the parts of Kent he knew like the back of his hand – better, since he didn’t spend all that long staring at bits of his anatomy he simply relied on to do their job. Silly image altogether: how many people did? They looked at their palms, perhaps, if they were holding something.
On his fourth call he tried to displace some of her anxiety by eliciting her thoughts about the hand cliché. There were few things she enjoyed more than discussion about words.
‘It’s a terribly narrow lane,’ she responded. ‘I know I said it was urgent, but you won’t take any risks, will you?’ She gave a familiar gurgle of laughter. ‘I wouldn’t want anything to prevent my being your best woman. Sorry. I’m being such a pain. I keep thinking how obvious I must be parked up here.’
‘Or not. White vans, even clean ones like PACT’s, are not unknown. In fact, surveillance teams find them very useful. OK, I’m hitting traffic – need to concentrate since this is Fran’s car – so I’ll call you back.’
By the time he’d negotiated a couple of awkward staggered crossroads, he knew he was almost there. However, the deep, winding lane meant he really did have to drop speed – it wasn’t just Caffy being nervous then – and he was almost on the PACT van before he had any warning. Caffy had parked amazingly well in a really tight space; he had to find a gateway sixty metres further on before he could park and walk back to her.
‘No blues and twos?’ she asked quizzically as he let himself in.
‘What the hell brought you down here?’ he demanded by way of greeting. ‘There’s even grass growing down the middle, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Large scale OS map. No, I’m not joking. It’s a very good way of finding out all sorts of things you didn’t know about a place you think you’re familiar with. And a woman on that course said she’d located several disused places worth developing just by scanning a map. If she can, I can. I didn’t bargain on this lane being quite so narrow, to be honest.’
‘So which way is it? This Croft?’
She pointed forwards.
‘So you’ve driven past, turned, come back here and turned again? On a lane this wide? Hell’s bells, Caffy – what if someone had come hurtling along?’
‘They’d just have cursed me for being another White Van Man – or Woman, of course.’
He raised his hands in despair. But there wasn’t any point in arguing with her when she was in a mood like this. In fact, to be honest, there was very rarely any point in arguing with Caffy. ‘I thought we’d do a nice quiet walk past first,’ he said. ‘You’ve hidden this well, and mine’s tucked out of harm’s way. Any problems, anything dodgy, we simply turn and walk back here. Agreed? Or we forget it.’
She jutted her lower lip like a five-year-old. ‘And you’d come sneaking back on your own.’
‘Of course. Maybe me and some mates in a helicopter.’ Except he didn’t see Fran getting away with that a second time. ‘Are you coming or not?’
Anyone spotting them would have taken them for father and daughter taking an evening stroll, albeit in a slightly unlikely location. Had she been wearing dungarees at any point, she’d shed them and was now neat in jeans and fleece, as he was. They both wore serious trainers. She rapidly engaged with his thoughts about the backs of hands and other clichés, picking up and running with them as he’d hoped she would. What would this Alistair make of her mind? She must be Mensa level, not bad for a self-educated painter and decorator, who’d once been a drug-taking prostitute. He hoped he’d appreciate her, value her, as she deserved. And if he didn’t, Mark would personally eviscerate him. Or maybe her adoptive parents would beat him to it.
‘Over there,’ she said quietly.
‘It’s just a Victorian farmhouse,’ he objected. ‘Not the sort of place you’d want to rescue, surely. And though it’s run down, I’d scarcely describe it as a ruin. However, that’s not the point, is it? It’s the deserted bit and the horse that matters. Look, we’d best keep walking, just in case anyone does see us, but we can sort of drift, the way folk do. Could you have a problem with your trainer – needs retying or something? So I can walk back to you?’
‘OK. It’s when you turn back you’ll see what excites me,’ she murmured, adding more loudly, ‘Drat this thing!’
As if he hadn’t heard – he only just had, to be honest – he walked on, and then feigned surprise mixed with irritation and walked back, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. Unlike Fran, of course, she didn’t need assistance, but sprang up with enviable agility and resumed her stroll.
‘Well?’
‘Was that really a Tudor chimney at the back of the farmyard?’ he asked.
‘Looks like it to me. It’s as if someone simply gave up living in the original building, and built a more fashionable one. But waste not, want not – another of those damned proverbs – and they decided to use the old entrance hall as their stables. I’d say there’s quite a lot of it we can’t see from here – perhaps it was used as a store or a barn. Who knows?’ They were now well clear of any eavesdropper. ‘Did you hear the horse?’
‘With my ears? I’m having them syringed next week, by the way.’
‘And how would you feel about hearing aids? You wouldn’t see them as some stigma?’
Right question, of course, but definitely the wrong time. ‘Let’s just focus on the house. And any moment, we’ll have to turn round and walk past it again. No, I didn’t hear the horse. But I did see the manure heap, which looked fresh, if you take my meaning. And I did s
ee hoof prints – I don’t know much about horses, but I presume they’re like humans: the taller the animal, the bigger the feet. Right? And I saw the tracks of a fairly heavy-duty vehicle. On the other hand, I saw no evidence of any activity in the house itself. The curtains must have been the original ones, or near enough. The paint ditto. Real neglect. What would you do with it if you bought it so you could resuscitate the Tudor part? Pull it down?’ He turned them round and set them in motion again.
‘Let’s be quiet – see if you can hear the horse too.’ She strolled on casually. ‘There? Did you hear it? Though the birds were trying to drown it out.’ She stopped dead and looked him in the eye. ‘Mark, you can’t even hear the birds, can you?’
He couldn’t deal with the depth of pity. He smiled grimly. ‘No, but I can smell a rat. As soon as we get back to the car, I’m going to call it in. And just so that we’re clear about this, Caffy, you are going home to Alistair—’
‘We’re not – I mean, we’re just seeing each other. Nothing more.’
And yet she was besotted enough to trawl round unknown parts of Kent searching for ruins they could turn into joint projects.
He touched her cheek. ‘Yet. At any rate, for now, go safely home to Andy and Paula – I shall phone to check, you know, so you better had.’
She pulled a little girl’s face. ‘They’re in Mustique.’
‘And Fran’s in for a dead busy evening. Let’s go and find a pub – didn’t I see one on the last main road we crossed? – and I’ll shout you some food. After all, when I’ve made a few calls from somewhere some way distant from here, I’d probably just have to make myself scarce as well. Not being a cop any more,’ he added with a trace of pathos, some of which was genuine.
‘Bugger,’ she said. ‘Poor you, too.’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. Now, you drive off first. Have you got enough space for a U-turn?’ he asked so seriously she missed the joke.
She pulled a face. ‘It’ll take three goes. Why not just drive straight down the lane?’
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