by Ian Mayfield
And Lucky got to know DS Wallace. Helen was a tall, thin, plain woman in her mid-thirties, short brown hair clinging in curls close to her head. She had wide hazel eyes and a bow mouth that cracked easily into a warm smile which suited her West Country burr. Lucky, who found it easy to talk, revelled in her company, in the prospect of a colleague she could get on with, who wouldn’t look down on her because she was a humble PC.
‘I think the medal clinched it,’ she caught herself boasting in response to Helen’s ‘what brought you to Special Crime?’ enquiry. ‘So then the Chief Super says to me, “What do you say?” I’m thinking, “I say stop treating me like a five year old who’s just been given a sweetie, you patronising over-promoted git.”’
‘I presume that’s not what you actually said.’
‘No.’ She was enjoying herself. She’d never dared tell the story to anyone above her own rank before. But this was Helen (‘sod Summerfield’) Wallace, who had a healthy lack of awe towards authority. Lucky or not, she didn’t think her remarks would be the final hurrah for the briefest CID service in the history of the Met.
Helen nodded. ‘You said...?’
‘I said, “Thank you, sir,” then went down to the canteen and said it to them.’
Amid the laughter, Helen glanced at the dashboard clock. ‘Crumbs, is that the time? We’d better head back. It’s nearly lunchtime.’
‘CID eat lunch?’
‘On the hoof, normally,’ Helen admitted. ‘But it’s your first day. Break you in gently.’
‘Right.’ Lucky thought for a moment and then said, ‘Would it be OK, d’you think, if I go home for lunch? Only,’ she fingered the lapel of her jacket, ‘I feel a bit overdressed.’
‘Sure. New Addington, wasn’t it?’ Helen, stopping for a junction, subjected her to a careful once-over. ‘You look fine.’
‘I don’t fit in,’ she persisted. She glanced across at Helen in her sensible skirt and sweater. ‘I mean from what I can tell you’re all more or less casual. Even the DI.’
‘Sophia’s policy is we dress as we like, within reason,’ Helen explained. ‘We have to feel comfortable, and convey that to the people we talk to, who’re often very upset. Power dressing is hardly the thing.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Lucky said earnestly. ‘It’s just not what I was led to expect.’
‘By whom?’
Lucky shrugged. ‘The Job.’
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head,’ Helen smiled. She concentrated on the road for a moment, making sure the way ahead was clear. ‘How much was it gone into at your interview? What we’re about?’
Lucky opened her mouth to reply, but stopped and thought. She tilted her head and shot Helen a sly look. ‘Let’s pretend I know nothing,’ she said. ‘I want to hear it from somebody who isn’t quoting the press release.’
‘We’re guinea pigs, really,’ Helen said.
‘That much I gathered.’
‘It’s basically one upshot of the G20 protests and the death of Ian Tomlinson a few years back,’ she explained. ‘And what came out of O’Connor, about the heavy-handed way the demo was policed, our tendency to overreact to every tiny thing, most especially about the us-and-them attitudes in the Job.’
‘I thought we were all your friendly local bobby?’
‘That’s the public line,’ Helen said, ‘but the Commissioner knows it’s at least partly true, and that hurt. So one of the things he did was hold strategy workshops with senior ranks, trawling for ideas. Sophia was one of the ones who came up with something.’
Lucky assumed an intent expression.
‘She told him the public perception of us as clodhopping Neanderthals with riot shields isn’t the problem, it’s a symptom. What it basically boils down to is unprofessionalism.’
‘We’re professional.’
‘The perception again,’ Helen pointed out. ‘The quasi-military structure. Think about it. You recruit somebody, call her a cadet, send her to Hendon to march up and down the parade ground. Then you give her a rank and a uniform, train her to stand to attention and salute senior officers and address them as “sir” and “sarge”. Are you getting my drift?’
Lucky shrugged. ‘So? Nobody complains about the army doing that.’
‘The army don’t deal directly with the public. We do.’
‘Good point.’
‘So, having been trained basically to be a soldier, our recruit is then told she’s part of a service, not a force, and sent out on the street. But it doesn’t matter how polite and professional you are or how much customer awareness training you’ve had,’ Helen said with feeling, ‘people won’t trust a plod with a pocket book out there any more than a squaddie with a gun. It’s too late. The battle lines have already been drawn. We even call them civilians.’
‘So we shouldn’t be surprised if they get upset when we go around giving the impression we think they’re a lower life form.’
‘Right.’
‘So what makes us different?’
‘Apart from cosmetically, not a lot,’ Helen said. ‘We’re partly a behavioural experiment, I suppose – to see if our internal culture affects the way we do business. So the atmosphere in the team is informal. The dress code, or lack of, you know about. We don’t use rank, except occasionally when talking to other units, for convenience.’
‘Not to the public?’
‘Give your rank if asked,’ Helen said, ‘but generally just name and station will do.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘More fundamentally, we stick to standard CID procedure except that the cases we get – in theory, at any rate – are thoroughly screened, so we can spend a lot more time and effort on them. Sophia doesn’t have to have one eye glued to the overtime budget.’
Lucky grinned. ‘And all the women?’
‘Refreshing, right?’ Helen shared the joke. ‘Seriously, the official line is it just turned out that way; we happened to be the people Sophia wanted for her team.’ She paused and inclined her head towards Lucky. ‘Unofficially, word is the Commissioner leaned on her to have a female bias for appearances’ sake. Something he’d never’ve got past the Federation. Where d’you want dropped?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You wanted to go home and change. I’ll drop you off.’
Lucky nodded thanks and looked out of the window. They were on Lodge Lane, heading up past the fire station. ‘Take King Henry’s Drive,’ she said. ‘Sure it’s OK?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I left my car at the nick, though.’
‘No problem,’ Helen said. ‘You’re shadowing Nina Tyminski this afternoon. I’ll get her to pick you up around oneish. It’s on the way anyway.’
‘That’s lucky,’ Lucky said without thinking.
The two women looked at one another and giggled. So Helen had overheard. The secret was out. But it didn’t seem to matter.
The bathroom window hadn’t been shut properly, she noticed, glancing up at the house as Helen drove off. Her mother was a sous-chef at a country hotel out beyond Westerham and wouldn’t have left for work until about ten, which didn’t leave much opportunity for a burglar. Not that, in New Addington, that bothered them. She made a mental note to secure the window.
Even after four years in the Job, she’d never settled to the stiff restrictiveness of uniform. It was a throwback to schooldays, to rebellion against the tyranny of uncomfortable, unflattering ties, jumpers and skirts. Kicking the front door shut behind her, she headed for the stairs, removing her jacket and top as she went and draping them over her arm. Something she’d done since her early teens, this, undressing on the move, when she was alone in the house. It gave her a sense of adventure, a vague thrill of wickedness, and it also meant she could get into something comfortable that much quicker. On the landing she paused to unzip her trousers and take off her socks, then gathered the whole lot together to toss into the laundry basket that stood just inside the door to the master bedroom. When younger this had be
en the climax of the adventure, never sure as she was whether her father might not be asleep, arrived home unexpectedly from his business travels.
Now he was gone for good, and the Stephenson inner sanctum lay still and quiet, forever imbued with the awe it had inspired in her as a child. She ventured inside, into the gloom where she’d watched dust sparkling like stars in the shafts of sunlight that fell through the half-drawn curtains. Briefly she stood before the wardrobe mirror, to look at herself in the silk underwear. Not bad. She smiled nervously, conscious of the presence of her mother in the fittings and furnishings of the room, turned away and went out.
Her own room was different, smaller, homely and untidy; east-facing and stuffy now from its warming in the morning sun. The paintwork was chipped, dirty, the wallpaper pitted and torn from a transient population of old posters and stickers, torn down and replaced over time to mark each stage in a young girl’s maturing. The walls were almost bare now, apart from the framed certificate and medal from the Humane Society and the accompanying Met commendation. One purple velour curtain hung loose from several of its rings. On top of her tatty, both-back-legs-missing green wardrobe, the soft toys and dolls of childhood spilled out of black plastic sacks; she could never bring herself to throw them away. The carpet, threadbare in places, was covered in unwashed socks, books, magazines and pieces of paper. Periodically her mother would nag her to tidy the place up, but by and large she respected her daughter’s need for a bolthole. This room held no awe or thrill for Larissa; it was her own, comfortable, safe, to do as she liked in.
There was no room for a dressing table. What passed as one was a freestanding table mirror balanced on the window sill over her bed, surrounded by old shoeboxes full of cosmetics. On the sill, too, half-hidden behind the curtain, was Weezle.
At school she’d been hopeless at anything creative, until Mrs Langton, her art teacher, had introduced her to pottery. No-one, least of all Lucky, could have said she had a flair for it, but it attracted her, the busy rumbling of the wheel, the warm clammy feel of clay under her fingers. Most of the grotesque distorted vessels that were the fruits of her labour had long since been consigned to oblivion, but Weezle survived. He’d been made one winter afternoon when Lucky, fed up because her foot kept slipping off the pedal, had scooped up the wet clay and stomped off to a workbench to see what could be done with it. The result was ragged, but it had four legs and a pointy nose and a slim body that bulged in the middle. Mrs Langton had thought it was a badger; her sister, a hedgehog; others, a stoat. Lucky had settled for Weezle.
She smiled hello to him and clambered onto the bed, wondering whether to touch up her warpaint now or go and have something to eat first. She didn’t see the face until she tilted the mirror up to catch the light.
‘I understand you’re holding my wife.’ Andrew Clarke had leapt up the moment he’d seen the door open, and Kim Oliver emerge into the front office waiting area. Now he loomed over her, feet apart, fists clenched by his sides, face and voice those of a man against whom an unforgiveable outrage, an odious crime, has been committed. Kim was not impressed.
‘She’s here of her own free will, Mr Clarke.’
His gaze wavered, as if he realised they’d stolen his thunder, allowing his wife to phone him knowing full well he’d come straight here. But he recovered quickly. ‘With the tapes running, eh? I’m not stupid, you know.’
‘It’s completely informal, sir,’ Kim said. ‘We’re in an interview room. If you’d like to come through.’
‘Informal, indeed,’ he grumbled, following her. ‘“Helping with your enquiries”, more like. We all know what that means.’ This got no response so he changed tack. With a mirthless chuckle he said, ‘It’s all a joke, isn’t it?’
Politeness demanded a reply. Kim said, ‘What is?’
‘This.’ He indicated her with a nod. ‘I know the police are image-conscious now, but this wheeling you in as the token black officer - it doesn’t fool anyone.’
Yeah, but one thing about us token black officers, Kim thought with fire in her heart, you can’t tell when you’ve pissed us off. See we don’t blush.
‘Hi, Kim.’
With exquisite timing Jasmin Winter, who was blacker than she was, came round a corner and disappeared into a lift before Andrew Clarke’s jaw had completed its downward arc.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Kim said, with a blink. ‘What did you say?’
Sophia Beadle ushered him to a chair beside his wife and said, ‘I apologise for keeping you waiting so long. I’m glad you’ve both come in.’ A stern glance nipped in the bud any retort he might have made. ‘Some new evidence has come to light which drastically increases Debbie’s importance to us.’
‘What evidence?’ Andrew Clarke burst out.
‘I’ll come to that.’ Sophia stirred. ‘We thought it might be best to talk here, away from distractions at home. So you can think more clearly, as it were.’
Kim, sitting down beside her, thought you had to admire the guv’nor’s talent for bare-arsed bullshit.
‘Is it all of us you suspect, inspector,’ Andrew Clarke said, ‘or just Debbie?’
‘You’re here because you, as her parents, should know her better than anyone,’ Sophia answered, unruffled.
‘And what gives you that idea?’
‘Well, for one thing she’s an only child. In my experience that often leads to a closer bond between parent and daughter. How well do you get on, would you say?’ The query was put effortlessly, yet stingingly, like flicking an elastic band.
‘I don’t see how that has anything to do with the fire,’ Andrew Clarke said, ‘unless you think we all had a hand in it.’
Sophia stared at him for a moment, weighing up her choices. ‘Let me tell you what I do think,’ she said. ‘We found this in Debbie’s bedroom.’ The tin was on the table and she pushed it towards the Clarkes.
‘You searched my house again?’ Andrew Clarke’s pupils contracted.
‘I said they could,’ Charlotte Clarke told him. He glanced at her and made a short sound of disgust.
‘Have a look.’ Sophia stirred her tea. ‘It’s all right,’ she added, seeing them hesitate, ‘we’ve checked for fingerprints.’
‘Whose did you find?’ Andrew Clarke said, but a vicious nudge from his wife diverted his attention to the contents of the tin. Sophia and Kim watched as they took out objects and scowled at them. Andrew Clarke said, finally, ‘Where did she get this filth?’
‘Did either of you know about any of this?’ Sophia asked.
‘Evidently not, as she seems to have gone to inordinate lengths to hide it from us.’
Kim blinked.
Deliberately, Sophia folded her arms. She said, ‘Inordinate lengths, Mr Clarke?’
He wilted under the unwavering blue stare. ‘Well...’
‘I merely told you these things were found in her room.’
Charlotte Clarke said, ‘Andrew?’
‘Well, they’d hardly have been in plain view, would they?’ he snapped.
‘Really? Do you make a habit of searching your daughter’s room?’
‘Not as much as you seem to.’
‘Mr Clarke,’ Sophia said warningly.
‘If you must know,’ Andrew Clarke said after a moment’s hesitation, ‘my wife told me what you’d found when she rang me. So I’m sorry, but there’s nothing nefarious about my knowing.’ Sophia glanced at Charlotte Clarke, who nodded, eyes downcast. Her husband added, ‘And if things are going to continue in this tone, I really don’t think we want to say anything further without our solicitor present.’
‘Sorry, guv.’ Kim, despondent, joined Sophia at the office window, to watch the cab containing the Clarkes pull away and merge with the traffic on Park Lane. ‘I did let Mrs Clarke know where we’d found the tin. She asked what the noise was. We had to tell her about the floorboards.’
‘Not to worry,’ the DCI shrugged. ‘Would have been nice to have an ace up our sleeves, that’s all.’ She smile
d at Kim in a way that seemed to convey underlying disappointment. ‘So what do you think?’
‘My opinion ain’t changed.’
‘Active involvement? Him and the daughter?’
‘No way to tell, at this stage.’
‘Well,’ Sophia said, ‘you’ve spent plenty of time with them by now. What do you suggest?’
Kim screwed up her face in thought. ‘Might sound a bit extravagant,’ she said, ‘but would it be possible to set up an obbo? Not round the clock, just low-level, part-time. See if any interesting faces come to visit.’
Sophia turned to her desk, pulled up an expenses spreadsheet on her computer and studied it for a long moment. ‘I can probably justify a couple of hours a day,’ she said, in tones that suggested she’d really rather not. ‘During the evening, when he’s at home. You and Marie. Take turns.’
‘Thanks, guv,’ Kim said. She hesitated. ‘I dunno about Marie, though. Her being a single mum and that.’
‘She’s also a copper,’ Sophia said. ‘She knows the score.’
‘Yeah, she does,’ Kim said. ‘But childminders don’t work nights. Also the Clarkes might make her.’
‘But not you?’
‘Guv, I might as well be invisible.’
The DCI stared at her.
‘I know how people like them think,’ Kim said bluntly. ‘Far as they’re concerned, we all look alike.’
Dubious, Sophia conceded the point. ‘All right, get someone else. If no-one’s up for it I’ll try and borrow a body from CID, but if that fails,’ she levelled her clear blue stare at Kim, ‘you’re on your own.’
Her colleague and best friend Sandra Jones had once said of Detective Constable Nina Tyminski that it was as if she’d been standing in the right queue when God was handing out the parts, but had then lost the assembly diagram. Sandra had got away without being thumped because she was Sandra, but the remark had nonetheless hurt. Nina was under no illusion that her best point had always been her face: snow-pale, elegantly fashioned like fine, angular china with its close-set, arresting violet eyes; carefully fringed with darkest brown hair. But from the neck down something had gone wrong. Stooped shoulders, small breasts over a deep ribcage, a high waist, narrow hips, knock knees and an odd, scampering walk on tiny feet that had to make an outward turn in order to keep her balanced. She was painfully aware of all this, and dressed accordingly. An enforced mistress of disguise, she’d turned her choice of wardrobe into an artform. The things Nina could do with black defied even Sandra Jones’s powers of description.