by Penny Grubb
‘She’s having a day off. That salmon you brought is a real beauty, Annie. We’ll have it for lunch.’
He gave her a smile that she returned. Today was ideal. No Mrs Latimer, just the two of them. She’d have breakfast, go and get showered and then sit him down and tell him everything. The panic was gone, her heart beat heavily in her chest, but she was ready to face him. There was sadness that a budding new relationship would be crushed underfoot. She stood here his equal, but by the end of the day, she’d be his little girl again. His bad little girl.
‘Been out for a run?’ He gave a nod to her tracksuit.
‘Uh … no. Just a walk. I saw Beth out there, Dad. It’s a long way for her to come, all the way across the moor. Does she always come over this early?’
‘Beth?’
‘You know, the Doll-Makers’ girl. She takes stuff to Mr Caine. Dolls, I suppose.’
‘Oh, right … Yes, of course.’ And Annie knew that his surprise was not that he hadn’t known Beth, but that she did.
‘Dad. If it’s dolls she brings over, who buys them all?’
‘He does pretty well out of the tourists every year.’
‘Yeah, but not those crappy dolls. I wondered if he kept taking them because he was sorry for her or something like that.’
‘Yes, more or less. He likes to do his bit.’
‘But why her?’
‘He’s her uncle.’
‘He’s what! I never knew that.’
‘No reason you should. He doesn’t shout about it. I mean, would you? You wouldn’t remember. You were only about six or seven when Caine’s father died.’
That would be the old man whose children were taken into care.
‘Caine had a falling out with his brother and decided to leave the community,’ her father went on. ‘Actually, I suspect he wanted to leave long before that, but loyalty to the old man kept him there. He came to me for help when he wanted the post office. And I helped him.’
It twisted the knife to hear the shared confidences, him saying she was his equal now, but it wouldn’t stop her. As his equal, she had to be honest. After breakfast, they would talk. ‘Why did he come to you?’
‘I’d got to know him a little a few years earlier. He and his brother and sister were taken into care briefly. You must have heard about it. I was taken round to meet him, a lad his own age, supposed to talk some sense into him, but I ending up taking his side. Not that I got to know him till years later, but he said he remembered me as an outsider he could trust.’
‘What did you take his side about?’
‘Oh, just hair washing and that sort of thing. You see he was fourteen. The little ones were only … I don’t know … five or six. He felt he had to protect them. The people looking after them wanted to wash all their hair, but he wouldn’t let them.’
‘Why on earth not? Don’t they wash hair? They always look clean enough.’
He laughed. ‘Even you’ve held on to the old prejudices, haven’t you, Annie? And it happened before you were born. No, he was quite right. They wanted to wash their hair, so they could say that all the children had had head lice but it had been treated.’
‘But that’s awful.’
‘It was an eye-opener to me too. I’ve always been grateful to Caine for tarnishing a few of my ideals about authority figures. It’s stood me in good stead over the years. Especially in this job.’
‘What’s his name?’ Annie asked, suddenly curious. ‘He’s always just been Mr Caine to me.’
‘It’s Cain without the e. Cain was his first name. He took it on as his surname when he left the community. You won’t make a big thing of it, will you Annie? It’s not a secret, but it isn’t something he likes to have broadcast.’
‘Of course not.’ She spooned coffee into the pot and waited for the kettle to boil. ‘How’s the case going? Any progress?’
‘They’re still racing round like headless chickens wanting to know how a van under close surveillance could give them the slip.’
‘Yeah, right, they should have called you in sooner.’ She’d meant the leg in the loch; had forgotten about the drugs thing. ‘If they didn’t know the roads round here it’s no wonder really. And what about the leg in the loch? Any idea who it is … was?’
He shook his head. ‘There’s so little to go on. We need to find the rest of the body.’
‘You’re certain there is a rest of the body? Dead, I mean.’
‘Not a hundred per cent.’ His tone told her he was still at odds with his CID colleagues. ‘But a body that was subject to that much heat is unlikely to have survived.’
Later on, after breakfast, she stood facing her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom. Any time today would do, but now she’d made up her mind to it, she kept putting it off minute by minute, knowing it would change everything. The house was warm and bright with the early sun. Breakfasty smells of toast and coffee still hung in the air. On some level her father had already responded to her need to talk to him. How else had this closeness sprung up between them?
‘Annie. Annie!’
‘I’m coming.’ She called out her answer registering the distress in his tone. ‘What is it?’
‘Annie, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know she’d do this.’
Annie looked uncomprehending at the paper he held out towards her.
She took it from him and unfolded it. At the top, in Mrs Latimer’s neat script, was the single word ‘Urgent’. Mrs Latimer had taken messages while she’d been with Aunt Marian and, knowing she could use Annie’s father’s preoccupation as an excuse for it to slip her mind, had left the paper folded in a corner for Annie to find.
None of this mattered as she read the words Mrs Latimer had transcribed. The messages were from Pieternel. The first was an urgent summons to Annie to get her ass back to the office as fast as she could. Two days ago. It had come in two days ago. Oh Christ! The next couple were more peremptory orders to Annie to get in touch, to get back at once. Mrs Latimer had let Pieternel believe she’d ignored them, and never said she was at her aunt’s. This was salvation. It had to be. There could be no other reason for such a summons. She must leave now. Right now! Oh, why hadn’t Pieternel tried her mobile? Maybe she had, and failed to get a signal.
‘I’m so sorry, Annie,’ her father said. ‘I had no idea she’d do anything like this.’
It was the moment Annie had prayed for since she was eight years old. The moment Mrs Latimer overstepped the mark in a way that couldn’t be hidden from her father. This was the moment she crushed the old enemy underfoot.
‘It doesn’t matter, Dad. So, she forgot. There’s been a lot going on lately.’
‘She didn’t forget, Annie. Those notes were deliberately hidden.’
Foolish Mrs Latimer. Hidden somewhere she was sure I would find them, but I didn’t. Not this time.
‘Dad. It doesn’t matter.’ Annie heard her voice, firm, assertive. More like parent to child than the other way round. ‘It’s my fault for riling her. I know I said it was just sport these days, but maybe she doesn’t see it like that. I should be more thoughtful. Please don’t say anything. There’s no point.’
‘You’re being very generous, Annie.’ His expression was grim, doubtful.
‘No, really. She’s had a lot to put up with over the years. No harm done …’ Annie sent up a silent prayer that was true. ‘Just let it lie.’
She worked hard to suppress a smile. Partly, it was the image of herself defending Mrs Latimer, but mainly a sudden high, a rush of gratitude to whatever providence had kept her quiet until now. And anyway, her father would be lost fending for himself after all these years. The fact of being over-generous to the Latimer woman was an irrelevance.
‘Dad, I have to ring the office.’ She knew she couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice, and saw that he heard it too and shared it, happy that something had buoyed her up. Her earlier reticence and worry must have shown through, but he hadn’t pried then and didn’t now.
He gave her a grin and waved her to the phone in the hallway.
‘You have reached the offices of …’
The answer-phone! She couldn’t believe it. Why weren’t they waiting ready to snatch up the receiver as soon as she rang? Maybe they had been two days ago.
She tried Pieternel’s mobile, but it was switched off. That meant Pieternel was in a meeting. Oh please, please, let it be a really, really important meeting, one of the irons Pieternel juggled. Let it be catching fire so it lit the London sky. She was desperate enough to try Dean’s mobile, knowing he never answered it. But he would check his voicemail and they’d know she was on her way. His terse recorded message hit her ear.
‘Dean.’ -Beep-
‘Dean. I’ve only just got your messages … Pieternel’s messages. I’m at my dad’s. I’m setting off now. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Before the end of the day.’
She raced up the stairs and threw her things into her rucksack. Pieternel’s words, even filtered through Mrs Latimer, felt good. Not the message someone would leave if announcing disaster.
Her father came out of the kitchen as she thundered back down the stairs.
‘Dad … I’m really sorry. I’ve got to go. It’s a big job. We weren’t expecting it. I have to get back.’
‘It won’t be the first time your visit ends this way.’ The grin lit his face again. ‘At least I got my salmon this time. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to share it.’
His expression, happy and relaxed, almost made her fall apart. She’d just found him again and here she was rushing off. And yet how much better like this than what she’d had planned for today. She might be back again in a week’s time with all her bad news intact, no illusions, but suddenly there was hope. Impulsively, she flung her arms round him and gave him a real hug. ‘Now promise me you won’t have a go at Mrs L. She’ll only burn your porridge if you do.’
He laughed. ‘OK, Annie. Drive carefully.’ The spark in his eye matched the prickle of a tear at the back of hers.
At the start of her drive, the rain was unrelenting, but by the time she reached the Midlands she found herself praying for it to return, to ease the heat of the southern sun and break the monotony of the motorway. The swell of traffic around the Birmingham junctions made her fall for the fiction that because the bulk of the journey was over, she was almost there. She boiled with irritation every last mile of the route.
Then at last, the weather and the aggravation was forgotten as she fought her way through the city traffic and slotted her car in behind Pieternel’s. The fatigue and stiffness of the journey fell from her as she pounded up the staircase, too impatient to wait for the lift. She burst into the office panting as though she’d done the 400 miles on foot. Pieternel stood there, her slim form silhouetted against the glare of the sun through the windows, her dark hair scraped back and held untidily by an off-centre clip as she held a document out in front of her and raked her gaze over it. Dean crouched in a corner of the room, his small frame made smaller as he hunched over one of the machines, his mop of black hair looking as though it hadn’t been brushed in days. He was the first to look up and see her. Then Pieternel’s gaze snapped from the document to Annie, who knew her own eyes shone, and matched the fierce hope on their faces.
‘What’s happened? Tell me everything.’ She flexed her fingers, resisting an urge to grab she wasn’t quite sure whose lapels and shake the story out of them.
Pieternel’s expression relaxed into a grin. Annie realized it was the first smile she’d seen on her senior partner’s face in months. She grabbed for the words as Pieternel told them, barely letting the bones of the story emerge before she pitched in question after question. When …? How …? Exactly how …? Who …? Together, they savoured every re-telling, bounced possibilities back and forth.
‘We’re not rebooted yet, guys,’ from Dean. ‘But, hey …’
‘Listen to me.’ Pieternel’s words were superfluous. Annie had no intention of doing anything else. ‘I’ve met them twice now. They’ll give us this one, but no promises. I’ve juggled a worse pack than this and come out unsinged, but we’re right on the edge. Don’t ever forget it.’
‘Oh God, if I’d only got your message, or left you the number of the guesthouse. Of all the times for that to happen …’
‘No damage as it goes. We couldn’t get your side started till I got the file out of them, and I only got that today. But can’t you get a transmitter put up near your aunt so your mobile works? There must be a cash-strapped school nearby that could take a mast on its playing field.’
‘Don’t be daft. But Pieternel, this is brilliant! They’re blue chip! If they’ll sign us up …?’
Pieternel’s expression hardened. ‘This landed on us because the outfit they usually go to went bust, and I played politics. We’re on a knife edge here, Annie.’
Annie nodded, sobered. They only had hope because someone else had hit a bad patch worse than theirs, and now they descended like a wake of vultures before the bodies of their fallen rivals were cold.
‘What we need out of this,’ Pieternel went on, ‘is a fast result and a good one. It’s a routine claim, but sizeable. They’re resigned to paying out, but they want it checked.’
‘OK.’ Annie flipped through inventories in her head. Don’t let us need anything we’ve sold off. ‘Where’s the paperwork?’
‘Here.’ Pieternel passed across a bulky folder. ‘I’m in the office while this one’s flying. Dean’ll take the day to day once he’s got you set up, and you’re in the field, Annie. Right then, it’s a routine case and that’s how we treat it.’
‘Get outa town!’ Dean had the words out before Annie. Routine case. What was she talking about?
Pieternel smiled back at them from one step ahead. ‘One hint of desperation and they’ll run like swimmers at a gate. It’s got to look like it’s all in a day’s work. We go in fast and slick. You do the most professional job you ever did, Annie, and we might just reel them in. They need an outfit to take on this stuff regularly; let’s make sure it’s us.’
Annie wished Pieternel had used an image other than reeling them in, but shook thoughts of Freddie Pearson out of her head as she read through the papers. A straightforward surveillance. Was the woman as badly injured as she claimed to be? She paused, lost for a moment as a mental picture of the 66-year-old claimant described in the notes built up in her mind. She skimmed enough of the summary to get the picture. A thorough read-through would come later when she was on her own with no distractions. ‘It looks routine,’ she said, thinking of the extra impact she could make by pulling apart a complex scam. This would be no more than a confirmation that the woman was on the level. ‘To be honest, I’m surprised they’re even checking it.’
‘It’s a multi-meg claim,’ Dean pointed out. ‘Those guys hate shelling out. It’s how they got to be so hi-spec in the first place.’
‘Annie, you’re not thinking straight. If it’d been more than a routine one, I couldn’t have lobbied it into our laps. They’d have taken it to someone with a longer track record.’
True, thought Annie, but how was she to produce the triumph they needed out of a routine job?
She and Dean struggled with the bulky camera-housing. It was straight from the Ark, not the right equipment for a covert surveillance job, but the good stuff was long sold off. Annie thought back to her first ever real surveillance on an estate in East Hull. She’d had good equipment then, someone else’s, but no real idea what to do with it. Now she had the experience and the skills. Surely that outweighed the problems. Anyway she was set to follow a 60-odd year old who walked with crutches. How hard could it be?
‘So it’s all shoulders to the wheel again. Just like old times.’
‘Yeah, kinda.’ Dean’s voice was heavy.
‘We can do it, Dean. This is the break we need. And if we get out of the shit this time, we’re really set up. We won’t be relying on anyone but ourselves.’
‘Yeah. If. I
t still means I’ve got to do all your shit while you swan about with this lot.’
It wasn’t like Dean to be so negative.
‘Pieternel,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘What did you mean you’d be in the office while this job’s on?’
‘They need to see us running smooth as an oil spill. Head of Ops full time behind her desk, not plugging gaps where there aren’t any staff. They’ll be over to check us out so I’m getting a temp in to sit behind a desk and look efficient.’
A temp. Annie’s mind flashed momentarily back to Charlotte – the temp with the hidden agendas. But a temp couldn’t do the specialist stuff. And that left Dean with all the case work on his shoulders. All the ongoing jobs. His own, hers and Pieternel’s. All those not very lucrative loose ends and odds and sods of jobs they couldn’t abandon without broadcasting to the world that they were finished.
‘Dean can’t manage on his own, Pieternel. We don’t want to mess up any of the regulars we’ve got left. With any luck, we’ll still need them.’
‘I know. I’m buying in help till we’re through this.’
‘What with? Fresh air?’ Annie was surprised Pieternel had found the funds for a decorative temp, but experienced help had to be out of the question.
‘Casey Lane comes cheap. She’s as unreliable as shit, but she can take over a full workload and hit the ground running.’
No puzzle now over Dean’s mood. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d got it together with Casey, and his desolation when she dumped him had left the place heavy with gloom. It had been a relief all round when Casey went. ‘What if she won’t come back? It’s barely five minutes ago you sacked her.’
Pieternel ran her gaze across them in a way that reminded them why she was top dog. ‘Turns out she just got the push again, so she’s desperate. Word gets round, you know. She might be good, but she’s high risk.’
Annie said nothing. She supposed Pieternel had dropped a word somewhere about Casey’s drug habits. Her senior partner could be a real bastard when her back was to the wall.