‘Goodness, Kate,’ he said, coming to a swift halt, ‘what on earth have you been doing? Rehearsing for the lead role in The Snowman?’
She rubbed her hand over her head. Plaster flakes. ‘An RTA out my way, sir.’
He shook his head, as well he might. ‘CID involved in an RTA?’
He leaned forward to pick another flake from her hair.
‘Only till Uniform arrived, Gaffer.’ She grinned. ‘So long as not a word of this reaches our friends in the Fire Service – a lorry smashed into a house and I needed to effect a rescue.’
He frowned. ‘I’d have thought a fire-fighter better equipped—’
‘But their chief had forbidden entry – and there was this lone budgie …’
He shook his head and threw up his hands to silence her. ‘No more, thanks. Or I shall have to bollock you for risking your life – for a budgie? Oh, Kate!’ So it was more in sorrow than in anger.
She grinned, allowing, on this occasion, her dimples to show. ‘All’s well that ends well, Gaffer. But seriously I don’t think the house will survive the removal of the lorry – this old couple, losing everything except each other—’ She saw those mottled blue legs, those reddened hands.
‘And their budgie. Well done. Now—’ He flicked a glance at his watch.
She grinned again, sketched a salute, and set off up the stairs.
Hair still damp from the shower, and now in her usual self-imposed uniform of dark trouser suit, Kate gestured with the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee, Colin? How did Rowley take my being late?’
‘Tea. No problems: you had a pretty good excuse. Everyone safe?’
‘Fine. But the local people will go over that lorry with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. How no one was hurt … Both the old folk were in the kitchen. If they’d been in the hall—’ She stopped, shuddering. ‘And the truck driver was pretty lucky. He says he lost his steering and his brakes. But he ended up completely unscathed.’
‘Lucky bugger. And lucky everyone else in his path!’
‘Quite. Guljar Singh Grewal—’
‘That handsome sergeant from Kings Heath?’
‘The same. He’d love to do them for unsafe loads and overloading, because there’s been a stream of complaints from the residents. There’s a big building development – very posh houses – at the top of the hill that the lorry came down. Next to the cottages, now there’s quite a big piece of ground. Lovely site for houses.’
‘Do I sense a disenchantment with your own place? Oh, Kate, not after all the work you’ve put into it!’
‘You should see their garden, the old folks’, that is. And you should see mine. When it rains, it’s beginning to remind me of the pictures you see of the Somme.’
‘The Somme?’
‘Big pits where they’ve dug out the sycamore roots, the odd strand of barbed wire from an old fence, all that mud—’
‘Why on earth didn’t your aunt do something about the trees? She’s no fool. She must have known where the roots would get.’
Kate shrugged. ‘Goodness knows. And why did she let the house itself go so badly? She must have been so intent on stashing everything away for her old age she lost sight of the present.’
Colin shook his head. ‘Carpe diem, that’s my motto. Enjoy today and let the pension look after tomorrow.’
‘But if you didn’t have much of a pension and your chief source of income was your married lover? Anyway, there she is, sitting on piles of money in that retirement oasis, and here I am, living in a house so changed she’d hardly recognise it, poor old dear.’
‘And a garden that’s a tip.’
‘Well, if I survived the house being a tip, I can cope with the garden for a bit. Or so I tell myself.’ She straightened. ‘And the design your friend’s suggested looks lovely.’
‘I’m sure it will be. As will my coffee if you ever stop staring at that kettle.’
She flicked the switch to bring it to the boil again. ‘Sorry. Anyway, I’d better let Rowley know I’m in.’
‘She said to take your time.’
‘Can you imagine the late but unlamented Detective Inspector Cope saying anything like that? You know, it’s a real insult to people who’ve spent all their careers in uniform to have him punished by being put back into uniform.’
‘Hmm. Must make them feel second rate. Trouble is, what could they have done with him? Apart from reducing his rank – which they’ve done anyway. He was a good cop in many ways.’
‘And a nasty human being in many others.’
There was no doubt that life was better without Cope. For her, for Colin, and for Fatima, the young Asian DC. She herself would have survived. But Colin had always lived on eggshells: being a gay policeman was no one’s idea of an easy life and Cope would almost certainly have made his life hell if the rumour had ever got that far. And his treatment of Fatima had been brutal. Almost as brutal as Selby’s had been.
Cope had taken his punishment, but Selby had so far escaped. His sick leave had been extended twice already. Sick! The man might be sick in the head, but he was a vicious, idle bastard, for whom the words sexist and racist might have been invented. The thought of him sitting around unpunished, leaving the squad short-handed while drawing a detective constable’s pay made her grind her teeth in rage.
‘Thanks.’ Colin took the mug but pulled a face. ‘Is that all the milk there is?’
‘Whose turn is it to bring it in?’ She ran a finger down the rota. ‘Oh dear: Roper, C. Shall I cadge a cup from the canteen? I’ve got to grab a bite before I start.’
‘Bananas, that’s what you need. I’ve seen those blokes at Wimbledon stuffing the things.’
‘And not amiss in a place like this monkey-house anyway,’ came a voice from the door. ‘Morning, Sergeant. It was cold, first thing.’ Sue Rowley, the new DI, was a kindly-looking woman in her forties. Her sarcasm was far too mild to be threatening
‘Morning, Gaffer. My tennis lesson. And then this RTA.’
‘Sure. Everyone all right? Good.’ DI Rowley nodded amiably enough. ‘How’s that dodgy knee coping with the tennis?’
‘It likes it better than jogging, ma’am.’
‘The medics said it would.’ Rowley pulled her reading glasses further down her nose and peered at Kate’s feet. ‘You’ve got the right sports shoes?’
Kate nodded. Her stomach rumbled.
Rowley laughed. ‘Go and get those bananas, then, Kate. And an apple for me, if you wouldn’t mind. Oh, and while you’re about it, better bring up some milk – seems the cow’s on strike. Either that or young Roper here didn’t notice he was rostered for this week.’
Colin flushed. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
‘When you’re fed and watered, I’d like to talk to you both. Ten-thirty?’
‘Ten-thirty it is, Gaffer,’ Kate said, grabbing her purse and heading downstairs.
Fatima was deep in conversation with Colin when she returned. She turned to Kate. ‘Heard the news?’
‘What’s up?’ Kate put the cup of milk with the rest of the tea things. ‘Hang on: I’d better deliver this first.’
‘Apple for teacher time.’ Colin explained. ‘The gaffer.’
Fatima stared at the apple. ‘Ah! Currying favour!’
‘God, that’s awful!’ Kate groaned.
Fatima stuck out her tongue.
Kate dodged out to Rowley’s office. Seeing that Rowley was busy on the phone, she popped the apple on her desk, and withdrew.
‘So have you heard this?’ Colin resumed, as soon as she returned.
‘The rumour is, changes,’ Fatima said. ‘In the squad.’
‘More changes? I mean, we needed those we’ve had. But more?’
‘At the top. Not us,’ Fatima said.
‘The top? You mean—’
‘Graham Harvey. That’s what the rumour is,’ Fatima said.
‘Not the sort of DCI that grows on trees,’ Colin said.
‘Absolutely,’ Kate agreed tamel
y. She wasn’t about to tell them that her stomach clenched tight at the thought of Graham’s removal. He and Colin had made life bearable for her when she’d arrived in the autumn. Like Colin, Graham had become a friend. But not the sort of friend that Colin was. No. ‘So where’s he off to?’ Yes, her voice was perfectly level.
‘To head up some new initiative or other,’ Colin said, who would have told her later if it hadn’t been.
‘MITs,’ Fatima said. ‘That’s the current term, isn’t it? Major Incident Teams.’
‘But they’ll be called something else next week,’ Colin said. ‘I wonder if there’s a Booker Prize for acronyms.’
‘The idea is,’ Fatima said, drawing herself up and speaking in a pseudo-official voice, ‘that there’ll be a full-time team of experienced officers, led by a senior officer, on stand-by to deal with any serious crime as and when the need arises. And,’ she added, apparently getting bored with the lingo, ‘they’ll pull in anyone else to help if they want them. What happens to the work they’re supposed to be doing …’ She broke off to answer the phone.
‘That’ll get spread out amongst the plebs like me,’ Colin said. He waited until Fatima was engrossed in the call to whisper, ‘Well, Kate, this is your job: go and tackle Graham. Find out the truth.’
Refusing, in public at least, to rise to the bait, she smiled, tapping her watch. ‘We’d better go and see what Rowley’s got to say, hadn’t we, Colin?’ She flapped a hand at Fatima as they left.
All that remained of Rowley’s apple was the stalk, apart from the bits of skin stuck between her front teeth. What she needed was a toothpick, even a pin. As it was, she punctuated her sentences the whole meeting with irritated little sucks.
‘Any news on that warehouse fire yet?’ she asked, her lips undulating with the efforts of her tongue to shift the peel.
‘Not yet, ma’am,’ Kate replied. ‘There’s a meeting set up with the Fire Service and the insurance people for three this afternoon. I’ll be able to report back to you after that.’
‘That’s official news. Anything from the streets?’
‘It’d be nice if we could make my Big Issue seller into an official informant, wouldn’t it?’ she said. ‘After that beating he took last year for talking to us, it’s the least we can do for him. He’ll get precious little from the Criminal Injuries Board.’
‘He’d do better to sue the scrotes that did it,’ Colin observed. ‘He’ll get Legal Aid, surely.’
‘A little help now wouldn’t come amiss, would it?’ Kate pursued.
Rowley nodded. ‘Put it on paper, Kate. But don’t call him an informant. It’s sarbut up here. And I tell you, though I hate to admit it, we don’t often get women managing sarbuts.’ She looked at Kate doubtfully.
‘“Sarbut”?’ Kate repeated.
‘Brummie for informant,’ Rowley grinned. ‘Forgot you were a foreigner!’
Kate grinned to acknowledge the dig.
‘I see him regularly anyway, ma’am. Every time I go to Sainsbury’s, as it happens. He’s got into a hostel in Moseley. It’s easier for him to get to the Kings Heath pitch.’ This was nothing like as lucrative as the Selly Oak Sainsbury’s. It was a much smaller branch, for one thing, and the shoppers less affluent.
Rowley nodded as she made notes. ‘I’ll talk to them upstairs. But he’d have to come up with hard news, mind – not just bits of gossip from his mates. Being an informant isn’t meant to be a thank-you for being good in the past, either,’ she said, looking over her glasses with a frown. She gathered her papers. ‘Right. And I suppose you two have heard the rumour, eh?’
‘About DCI Harvey?’
‘Who else? But as far as I know, it’s no more than a rumour. Just a question of watch this space.’
Kate waited a second before she said, ‘It’ll put a lot more on you, ma’am, if they take away a DCI.’
‘Well, that’s the pattern, these days, isn’t it? And not just on me – on you, too, Kate. Until you go flitting off somewhere on this accelerated promotion scheme you’re on.’
Kate’s turn to suck her teeth. ‘Between the three of us, I’m having doubts about that.’
Sue Rowley looked at her shrewdly. ‘Don’t like the idea of fourteen-hour days, seven days a week?’
‘I get enough of that anyway, don’t I? And I’m studying for the next lot of exams, just in case I change my mind. But it’s not the work that worries me. It’s the nature of the work.’
‘You prefer to lead from the front, not from behind a desk, don’t you? Well, don’t decide anything in a hurry, Kate. There’s a lot to be said for catching all the experience you can get.’
‘And for picking up the pay to match,’ Colin said.
‘As to that, the rate she’s going, she’ll make it to inspector soon enough. Time I was reaching for my slippers and my knitting,’ Rowley sighed. ‘Be off with you then. Time to fight a bit of this crime we’re always hearing about. But don’t fall over my Zimmer on the way out.’
Chapter Three
Kate was forcing those stiff joints and muscles to walk briskly back from the Fire Station when her mobile tweeted.
‘That you, Kate? Alf here. I was wondering, could you get yourself back here before it gets dark tonight? Only I’ve found something in your garden you ought to see.’
She hunched into a doorway to cut the traffic noise.
‘What sort of something?’ she asked.
‘Remains, like.’
‘Remains! Human remains?’
‘Not as such. Not a body, like. But it’s something you should see before I clear the rest of this shed.’
‘I’ll try and be there by six,’ she promised.
‘See you at seven – that’s what you mean, isn’t it! No, don’t wait till it gets too dark. Go and tell your gaffer you’re pursuing your inquiries or something.’
‘Something nasty in the woodshed, Kate? How wonderful!’ Graham passed her a mug of Darjeeling. ‘Diamonds under your bedroom floor and now something nasty in the woodshed. I wonder what lies concealed in the other houses in Worksop Road … Now – you don’t have a house name, do you?’
She shook her head. He knew that as well as she did. She braced herself for the sort of laboured joke he made when he looked as tired as this.
‘Well then, you could set a trend. Cold Comfort House.’ He drifted over to the window.
She laughed obligingly. Should she risk a joke about finding a handsome, sexy Seth? No, perhaps not.
‘So what do you reckon it is in your woodshed?’ He turned to face her.
‘So long as whatever it is doesn’t involve coroner’s officers and inquests, I don’t care.’
‘Well, you must care enough to get back in time to talk to Alf about it. Remember me to him, by the way. He did a grand job doing up my mother-in-law’s house.’
Mrs Nelmes had sold up and moved into the same retirement home as Aunt Cassie, providing Cassie with an endless source of vindictive amusement. Especially now she’d discovered Graham’s wife was burdened with the name of Flavia.
Kate nodded. ‘He’s a good man. Honest as the day is long.’
‘All the more reason not to keep him waiting. You put in enough hours here not to worry about slipping off – provided, of course, that Sue Rowley’s happy about it,’ he added, smiling straight into her eyes. He poked a geranium cutting that had dried out too much. Wasn’t it time they were planted up now?
‘Thanks. The Fire Service people’ – after all, this was what they were supposed to be talking about – ‘are pretty well convinced there’s an arsonist about, by the way. You remember that spate of school fires they had in the Black Country? We’ve got warehouse ones on our patch. Yesterday morning’s was the third.’
‘Any connections?’
Kate shook her head. ‘Nothing in common apart from the fact that they’re warehouses. One practically in West Bromwich, one in Selly Oak, one closer to home – Perry Barr, near the University of Central England. Chem
icals – nothing toxic; fabric – that went up like the clappers; and household goods. Same modus operandi in each case – getting up on to the roof, prising open a roof-light, sprinkling petrol on to the floor below, and a rapid exit.’
‘Bloody risky. In an explosion, the roof could go—’ He gestured. ‘Any theories?’
‘Crazy kids playing chicken. But why are the sites so far apart? Highly mobile kids, if they are kids. And there’s no car thefts to tie in with the arson. So how are they getting there? Taking a can of petrol on an all-night bus?’
‘Or older kids with their own car? Are the warehouses all covered by the same insurance company?’
‘Three different ones. Three different firms – no connection that we can see.’
How could she bring the conversation round to his departure? He was already looking at his watch. He drained his mug in one go.
‘Come on, Kate – time you weren’t here.’
‘But it’s only just after five and I can’t see my desk for—’
‘Come in early tomorrow. Stay late tomorrow. Only now,’ he grinned, ‘vamoose!’
It seemed as though all Birmingham were leaving work early to see what was under a garden shed. Plus every set of lights was at red, every yellow line had a parked car. But she got home at ten to six – nowhere to park nearby, of course, as she could have predicted. When at last she scooted up her entry she found several panels of the fence removed and an ominous blue plastic sheet where her shed had been.
Alf greeted her with a flap of the hand. ‘Glad you got back, Kate. Only I’ve never seen anything like this before. And I thought you, being in the police, ought to. You might know what to do. Oh, don’t worry about those panels – it was just that it was easier for us to barrow out the last of the trees, see. Come on, aren’t you going to have a look? I mean, there’s nothing to be afraid of, not that you policewomen don’t see nasty sights every day, of course.’
Despite herself, her hand was shaking as she lifted a corner of the heavy plastic. Fear of creepy-crawlies, she told herself, was a thing of the past, conquered by all that therapy. So it couldn’t be that. Would it be something human so decayed that Alf could no longer identify it? No. There was no smell to alert him or her.
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