Power Games

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Did you have any rows recently?’ Mark put in, his voice, his body language as gentle as Kate’s.

  ‘Probably – yes, we had a flaming set-to because I’d forgotten to put out the dustbin. Last Friday, that would have been. But it didn’t matter – you see, officer, we always enjoyed making up again.’

  ‘You weren’t the sort for slow, smouldering disagreements?’ Kate put in.

  He shook his head decisively. ‘That sort of thing breaks up marriages. We’re the only pair in our circle with the original marriage partners, would you believe? “Till death do you part …”.’ This time he wept in good earnest.

  Kate told the tape recorder they were taking a break.

  Back at Kings Heath, she dropped the airport audio tape into the security box and broke open another. Parsons said he was pleased for them to keep a record: all he wanted was a copy afterwards, in case his memory ever needed jogging, he had so much of his wife to remember.

  ‘Crowther’d like him to get a copy via his solicitor – he really wants to nail him,’ Mark said, coming back from the MIT office. ‘Except I’m sure in his heart he doesn’t believe he killed Rosemary – it’s almost as if he’s repeating things, parrot-fashion.’

  ‘I thought parrots were supposed to be intelligent,’ Kate said dourly. She’d forgotten to get any aspirin, hadn’t she?

  ‘Miaow,’ Mark said.

  ‘Oh, and cats too. Very intelligent. Oh, of course he’s good. Has to be to be where he’s got as fast as he’s got there. If you look at his record, it’s exemplary.’

  ‘So why’s he off-beam with this one? Because he is, you know. And say what you like, he’s taken against you. Is it because your rampant heterosexuality offends his sexual orientation?’

  ‘Jesus – what cornflake packet did you get that off? You know, until someone told me, I truly didn’t realise he was gay. None of my business if he is.’

  ‘And don’t look at me in that “none-of-your-businesseither” way, either. I may not have been on a rapid reading course, but I’ve been on my equal opportunities ones. OK?’

  Kate nodded and wished she hadn’t. The headache was no longer a back-of-the-eyes niggle. It felt as if someone were screwing her eyes out of their sockets. Thank God it was the weekend tomorrow: except somehow, she didn’t think that, for all Neville’s fine words, it would bring much in the way of free time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kate took into the interview room some drinking chocolate and a selection of biscuits, after Parsons had declined the offer of coffee. ‘Tell me,’ she said, trying not to slop, ‘these allergies of yours must be very inconvenient, Michael. What do you do for them?’

  ‘Avoid them, if I can. I’m not one of those people who die if they get so much as a whiff of a peanut – anaphylaxis, isn’t it? No, I just get a bit of asthma and some eczema. See.’ He produced a spray of some sort. ‘And just in here’ – he burrowed in an inside jacket pocket for a bubble-strip – ‘are my antihistamine tablets.’

  ‘May I?’ She held out a hand. ‘Doctor Parsons has shown me an asthma spray and a strip of antihistamine tablets,’ she told the tape-recorder.

  He looked blank, but passed the strip across. ‘Telfast,’ he said. ‘Latest generation. No side effects at all as far as I can see.’

  ‘Did you ever take Terfenadine?’

  He looked completely blank.

  ‘They were marketed as Triludan, I believe.’

  ‘My doctor took me off them as soon as these came on the market. I get on with these much better.’

  ‘What did you do with those you had left?’

  ‘I didn’t have any left. I finished them and trotted off to the surgery for some more and my GP gave me these. About two years ago, I’d say.’

  ‘You’re quite sure you had none left – in some cupboard, somewhere, for a rainy day?’ She felt bad, pressing him like this. But she should have done it back at the airport, shouldn’t she, as soon as he’d mentioned his allergy. Now she was in danger of making a big deal of it. And taking her eye off other things. What was happening to her brain?

  ‘Quite sure. Rosemary was very systematic. Anything unused for a year and it was out. Clothes and shoes, too. Oxfam did very well out of my old sweaters. And books. Not academic books. But holiday reading, that sort of thing. And if you hadn’t read the Observer by the end of Monday evening, woe betide you.’ He managed a watery grin. ‘She did concede that it wasn’t possible to read the whole thing on Sunday.’

  She tried again. ‘Would you describe her health as good?’

  ‘She had just one bad patch, during the menopause. Then she went on HRT and sang her way through life. Almost literally. The energy she put into things – like saving the Reservoir Lodge, for instance.’

  ‘HRT – that doesn’t suit everyone, does it?’ It was like the Pill, wasn’t it? Side effects.

  ‘It certainly suited her.’

  ‘You and she – you sound very happy. Did either of you ever have any – any problems?’ If Kate sounded embarrassed it was because she was. But she and Mark had agreed beforehand – medical problems were her questions. Mark would take over later, on more general issues.

  Parsons gave a bark of laughter. ‘You mean male menopause? Only occasionally, Sergeant. I wasn’t knocking on my GP’s door for Viagra.’

  ‘I meant things more like your wife’s blood-pressure, weight-gain, thrush – that sort of problem sometimes arises with HRT.’

  ‘No. HRT suited her. She never had any of those things.’

  ‘Would she have talked about them with you if she had?’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, we’re talking about a marriage of thirty years, not a one-night stand.’

  ‘I’m just trying to establish that to the best of your knowledge there were no’ – she checked the name – ‘Triludan tablets anywhere in your house. Nor any thrush preparations, such as Diflucan tablets.’

  ‘Absolutely not. I don’t know what you’re getting at. Next you’ll be asking me what she kept in the fridge!’

  She should be saying something, shouldn’t she?

  Mark coughed gently. ‘Funny you should say that, Doctor Parsons. Because I was wondering, did you or your wife enjoy fruit juice, that sort of thing?’

  Parsons pushed away from the table. ‘Are we in some sort of mad-house here?’

  ‘Please sit down, Michael,’ Kate said. ‘There is a method in our apparent madness.’

  ‘OK, yes, she liked fruit juice,’ he shouted. Then he took a deep breath. ‘We tended to drink orange because I preferred it. There are probably a couple of boxes in the fridge.’

  Kate nodded. There had been. Thank goodness Mark had remembered.

  ‘Now – for pity’s sake: can you tell me what all this is about?’

  ‘You’ve been told your wife died of a heart attack, and you must have guessed that we don’t think it’s as straightforward as that. We think someone introduced various drugs into a drink. Which proved fatal.’

  ‘Poison!’

  ‘If only it were something as traceable as that, Michael. What we think happened is this …’

  ‘A tennis partner! Someone she knows well enough to play tennis with wanting to kill my Rosemary.’

  ‘We simply don’t know if it was a tennis partner. But we can’t rule that out. So if you could let us have a list of the people your wife played tennis with, it would be more than useful.’

  Parsons spread his hands. ‘It was something she’d taken up since she’d retired. She had lessons – coaching, I suppose I should call it – and then started to play with some arrangement they have for over-fifties – some sort of mix and match arrangement. There’s a coach who supervises that. He’d know. And then – especially if she knew I wasn’t going to be around – she’d arrange with some of them to play in an evening. A real passion, she’d got. I mean, that was Rosemary. Her tennis and her Lodge-saving. But tell me – who on earth would want to kill a woman like her?’ He started to sob, dry,
controlled sobs that must have hurt.

  Mark, putting his hand on Parsons’ shoulder, asked quietly, ‘Is there anything we can get you, Michael, anything you want?’

  ‘I want only one thing,’ the man cried out, shaking himself free. ‘Can’t you understand? Only one thing. The living touch of my wife’s hand.’

  ‘But can you believe him?’ DI Crowther asked, sitting on a table and crossing his legs slowly, as if he were aping Neville’s elegance.

  ‘It would take a lot to make us believe he was lying,’ Mark said. They’d agreed that he should take responsibility for presenting their day’s results to the late afternoon-evening. Kate’s headache was now a full-scale blinder. God, what if Crowther made her angry and she embarrassed everyone by throwing up or keeling over?

  ‘All right. Let’s assume for a moment he’s a genuine grieving widower. Anyone got anything else?’ He’d have made a good teacher, wouldn’t he? Or a good committee member – like Rosemary.

  Marilyn, a constable in her forties Kate had hardly spoken to, raised a hand. ‘So far seven people have come forward to admit that they were at the Brayfield Centre on the evening in question, and they’ve identified a further five. We start to interview them tomorrow. But no one’s managed to sort out the centre’s computer—’

  ‘Why hasn’t that gone off to the forensic geeks?’ Crowther demanded. ‘If it’s a job for experts, Constable, let an expert do it.’

  Marilyn flushed. ‘We’ve also a report of a bicycle seen chained to the centre’s cycle stand at the very end of the evening. Did you check with Parsons whether his wife would have used one, Kate?’

  Kate shook her head dumbly. She made a shaky note.

  Crowther’s face and hands indicated supreme despair.

  ‘I’ll go round tonight, sir,’ Kate said. ‘We had to cut the discussion short because Doctor Parsons clearly couldn’t take much more.’ No more than she could. ‘In any case we had to come up here.’ OK, it sounded like an excuse, but it had the virtue of being true.

  ‘Well, Sergeant, when you eventually get round to it’ – he paused heavily and an image of Meg Hutchings and her Cornish round tuits flashed before Kate’s eyes – ‘you might consider asking Doctor Parsons a few other questions that might conceivably be useful – about his past, her past, that sort of thing. Unless you had time to do that?’

  ‘No, sir. Not yet.’

  ‘Dear, dear, and I had it on the best authority that you were a crack detective. Pull your socks up, Sergeant—’

  There was a murmur from the others.

  Mark was on his feet: ‘With due respect, sir, there’s only so much we can achieve. We weren’t, if you remember, scheduled to do the interview with Parsons, so we didn’t have time to bone up on anything beforehand. I mean, like that saying goes, we can do the impossible in five minutes, but miracles take a bit longer.’

  ‘Point taken, Constable.’ But it clearly wasn’t.

  At least they had the support of the others in the team: Crowther was going to blow it if he wasn’t careful. But even that knowledge couldn’t calm the waves of pain around Kate’s eyes.

  Carter, a constable who, it was rumoured, played the cello in his spare time, coughed diffidently. ‘Since it was originally intended to be our assignment, sir, we did get a bit of background on Parsons. Before you sent us off to check if local pharmacies had sold the drugs in question to Mrs Parsons. A negative report, so far, incidentally.’

  Brady nodded. ‘We got the bumf from the university. His personnel file. Haven’t had time to plough through it yet.’ He passed the folder – half an inch thick – across to Kate with a smile. ‘All yours.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She managed to return the smile. ‘By the way, the guy who gave the initial ID – Stephen Abbott: he seemed to know about Rosemary. Has anyone talked to him yet?’

  ‘If you know about something, Sergeant, you’re expected to follow it up. Anyone else?’

  Tony, who’d been with Crowther when Stephen had identified Rosemary’s body, grinned. ‘How about a fine set of Kate Power’s finger-prints?’

  Kate sat up and stared, head clanging.

  Tony nodded at her, quite cordially. ‘On a plastic drinks bottle. Apparently,’ he continued, ‘Kate got all the rubbish saved. Right? Just on the off-chance. Well, SOCO found a bottle that smelt of grapefruit juice, they thought, so they had a very careful look at it. Checked it for everything. For a start, they found – and they thought this was very odd – only one set of prints.’

  ‘Sergeant Power’s prints? I think it’s time we stopped this meeting now. Power – I’d like to talk to you immediately.’

  ‘You’re clearly off the case,’ Crowther said, sitting behind the desk in his original office, and then getting up again. ‘You may be facing a charge of planting evidence. I’ll talk to Superintendent Neville about suspending you completely. I don’t like bent cops, Power.’

  ‘Neither do I, sir. But if you’d be kind enough to listen to me, I can offer a very simple explanation.’ Kate hoped she sounded calmer than she felt. Her head now ached so badly she could hardly see Crowther, let alone focus on him. She gripped the back of a chair – mustn’t pass out on him.

  ‘I’m sure you can. A very plausible one, no doubt.’

  She made a huge effort. ‘Do you seriously think that if I were planting evidence I’d leave my bloody prints on it?’

  ‘Don’t take that tone with me, Sergeant. I think it’s time you left the building. I’ll be in touch with you in due course.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, we’ve got a murder on our hands.’

  ‘Which is precisely the reason you will not be in the building. And why you will not be talking to any of your colleagues, either. Get out of my office, Sergeant. And if you’re still in the building in ten minutes’ time, I’ll have you on a charge of insubordination as soon as you can say knife.’

  Kate took a deep breath. ‘I shall be talking to my Police Federation representative. You’d better be sure, sir, that you’re following the approved procedure to the letter—’

  ‘Out! Now!’

  The office heaved like an oily sea. She left.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Painkillers. Now. Something really strong. There was a Lloyd’s on the corner opposite Worksop Road. Thank God she’d left the car at home this morning. She wouldn’t be safe driving. Not with eyes that hurt too much to open.

  Equipped with something – she’d no idea what the pharmacist had given her – she turned for the traffic lights. And leapt back, as a car hooted her out of the way, his passenger yelling at her. Reeling, she staggered into another pedestrian.

  ‘Fucking pissed at this time of day! Should be ashamed of yourself.’

  Another voice. ‘Hang on, mate. Can’t you see she’s bad?’ And someone took her arm. ‘Kate, come on. It’s me. Simon. What’s up?’

  ‘Simon?’

  ‘Yeah. You know. Down Sainsbury’s. Selling the Big Issue, right? Come on, chick. Let’s get across this lot while we can.’

  Someone gripped her arm, quite hard, above the elbow.

  ‘Now, where are you going?’ Simon asked.

  ‘Home. Just up here. I’ll be fine. Honestly. Thanks, Simon.’

  ‘You got a migraine or something?’

  ‘I don’t get migraines.’

  ‘Always a first time. Or even a stress headache. That’s what my mum used to get. Now, where you got to go?’

  ‘Just up here. Just up Worksop Road.’

  ‘I’ll see you up there. Plenty of time. And if you like, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’

  If she drank tea, if she drank anything, she’d throw up. She knew she would. But he could get her some water for those tablets.

  ‘Which house, Kate? This side of the road or the other?’

  ‘Far side.’ For the life of her she couldn’t remember the number. Maybe she’d recognise it when she saw it. If she could see it.

  ‘There – soon have you feeling
better,’ Simon said, taking the empty glass from her. ‘God, you got this place looking nice. I feel – you know – this place is clean. And I’m—’ He picked at his clothes.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ And then a bubble of thought surfaced. ‘Unless you want to pop your stuff in the washer. And have a nice bubble bath or something. Only if you want to.’

  He flushed scarlet. ‘Would that be – I mean—’

  ‘There’s a unisex bathrobe. And you can tumble the stuff dry. So long as you can do it. The detergent’s on that shelf.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Up to you. A nice private bathroom for you …’ The world started to ebb and flow.

  ‘You ought to be having a lie down, not worrying about baths and washing.’

  She managed the tiniest of nods. ‘Going to lie down. See you in a bit.’

  Halfway up the stairs, she realised her legs wouldn’t take her any further and she finished on her hands and knees.

  It was dark when she woke. It took her a moment to place herself. Then information arrived quite separately in her brain, like the names clicking up on a station destination board. Dark. Bed. Her own bed. The bedroom in the house she must now call hers.

  So why bed? How had she got here?

  No. She wasn’t dressed. Not dressed?

  She didn’t remember getting undressed.

  The words on the board were clicking more quickly now.

  Someone must have undressed her. Simon! Simon must have undressed her.

  She was up and out of bed before she remembered her head. Except it wasn’t hurting, not apart from a distant dull throb. Yes – she clicked the light – there were her clothes. She picked through the neatly folded pile. All there. All except her bra and pants. Jesus, what sort of pervert was he, to take her bra and pants? It was only as she fished in the drawer for spares that another fact registered. He hadn’t taken her bra and pants because she was still wearing them.