Power Games

by Judith Cutler

  She passed him a cup too. ‘Is that the line that you’ve been pursuing? That he did it?’

  ‘That’s the one I was told to take. Orders is orders.’

  ‘Direct from Crowther’s mouth, I dare say. I had the same ones.’

  ‘So, much as I’d have liked to talk more extensively about her friends—’ Mark shrugged.

  ‘How’s he coping with it all? After all, he’s been bereft of what seemed to me like a dearly loved wife, and now we’re trying to pin her death on him.’

  ‘No one’s ever actually suggested it—’

  ‘The man’s no fool. He must know what you’re after.’

  ‘He’s – I know it sounds weird – it’s as if he’s treating all this as therapy. He keeps saying how good it is, to remember things.’ Mark shook his head sadly.

  ‘Therapy! Some therapy if he gets sent down for life! Not that it’ll come to that. We’ll get the bugger that did it first.’

  ‘You hope.’

  Like Graham before her, she counted off items on her fingers. ‘So far there’s not a shred of evidence against Parsons. All the stuff at the tennis centre – the Blu-tack in the changing room, the duff computer, the sudden changes of personnel – we’re talking conspiracy here, Mark. I think Neville’s buying the theory. And – having seen him in action – I can assure you he usually gets his way.’ Oh, and in more senses than one.

  Mark shook his head. ‘In yesterday’s briefing meetings he was a hundred per cent behind Crowther.’

  That brought her up short. ‘I suppose he feels he’s got to support him – new manager, that sort of thing,’ she said doubtfully. He’d been quick to defend him this morning, too, hadn’t he? Oh, to be a fly on the wall, listening to the arguments, and to the ultimate decision.

  Perhaps she’d made a terrible mistake last night. No. Whatever the situation, she’d have been excluded as too lowly anyway. Wouldn’t she?

  ‘I’m afraid I’m what P. G. Wodehouse would have called a non-doing pig,’ Dr Parsons was saying. ‘I’m not interested in sport of any sort, Sergeant.’

  ‘But your wife was?’

  ‘Became, would be a better term, I think. When she reached fifty, she started to put on weight. A combination of retirement and HRT, she said. Oh, it was nothing gross, but enough to make her want to lose it. She loved her food, you see. And she was such a good cook. Dinner parties for twelve were nothing.’

  ‘What sort of people did you invite?’

  ‘Academics. Lawyers. Health and media professionals – doctors, social workers, the odd writer. They’re known in some quarters as the Moseley Mafia. And Rosemary’s teaching colleagues.’

  Kate registered the distinction. ‘No tennis players amongst them?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid none of our friends joined her, despite her efforts to cajole them. She started almost from scratch, you see. Had regular coaching, and then got involved with what she called community tennis. For the over-fifties.’

  ‘“Community tennis”?’ Mark intervened for the first time.

  ‘The idea is that a coach gathers together groups of players of similar ability and gets them to play mixed doubles,’ Kate explained. ‘Certain times and days of the week. I’m surprised she didn’t play at a proper tennis club, Doctor Parsons.’ She could certainly have afforded it.

  ‘She said she didn’t need the social life. More to the point, she didn’t think she was good enough. And the Brayfield Centre’s very convenient. She made friends amongst that over-fifties group – used to play occasional games in the evening, especially when I was away. Kept her out of mischief, she used to say.’

  ‘What sort of mischief?’ Mark asked.

  ‘It was a figure of speech, Constable,’ Parsons said wearily, looking with distaste at Mark’s rings.

  ‘But not necessarily only a figure of speech,’ Kate said. ‘Some people might have regarded her efforts on behalf of the Lodge as mischief … Did she ever speak about – did she ever suggest she might have made enemies?’ It would be nice to have Stephen’s allegations corroborated.

  ‘You can’t be a thorn in the flesh of big development companies without irritating people. But surely – we live in a civilised society—’

  ‘Someone killed your wife, Doctor Parsons: I wouldn’t call that civilised, would you?’ Mark asked, his rings flashing.

  Kate raised a warning hand. ‘Did your wife ever voice any fears about her activities? Or mention which development companies?’

  For the first time that morning Parsons looked harried. Guilty? ‘She did. But I pooh-poohed it. So did she, in daylight. Said it was her age. But one day – oh, my God – she swore someone was following her on her cycle. She threatened to get a car. You don’t think—? If I’d done something?’ There was a long pause while he pulled himself together.

  Kate said quietly, ‘Other people knew that she was afraid. You don’t have to feel guilty.’

  Another long pause. Then, almost as if he were merely an interested bystander, he asked, ‘Did you ever find her cycle?’

  Mark shook his head.

  ‘She must have used it to get down there. Someone must have noticed it.’

  ‘Someone did. But someone else did more than notice, I’m afraid, sir,’ Mark added. ‘Someone removed it from where it was chained. It hasn’t been recovered, to the best of my knowledge.’

  ‘Did she ever feel tempted to report her fears to the police?’ Kate asked.

  ‘She did mention it. But they didn’t take it any more seriously than I did.’

  Kate nodded. Sounded familiar, didn’t it? ‘I suppose you’ve no idea which station she might have gone to?’

  Parsons sat forward. ‘It would have to be this one, wouldn’t it? Dear God, you people knew about it all along, and did nothing.’

  Mark was about to say something, but Kate silenced him with a glance. Meanwhile, Parsons was gripping the table, repeating with increasing horror, ‘Nothing!’

  ‘It would be remarkably interesting,’ Rod Neville said slowly, ‘to find out to whom she spoke. Such an allegation wouldn’t have gone unrecorded, would it, now? Even if the officer she spoke to found it spurious.’

  ‘It confirms everything Stephen Abbott said, Gaffer,’ Kate said.

  Mark nodded.

  ‘It’s interesting that you should have thought it necessary to bring it directly to me,’ Neville continued.

  Kate said nothing.

  ‘My idea, sir,’ Mark said. ‘It’s seemed to me in the past that if DS Power suggested anything, some of our senior officers saw fit to deride it.’

  Neville’s speech patterns must be universally infectious. Kate stared at her shoes.

  ‘Point taken, Mark. And not an easy one to make. In fact, when Abbott made his allegations on Saturday, we took them extremely seriously. Investigations are already in train.’ He let rip the sort of blazing smile that had guaranteed his popularity despite his quirks. ‘Thank you for bringing this to me.’

  Kate wondered if he would call her back. He did not.

  Kate and Mark were just returning to the Incident Room when they ran into Guljar Singh Grewal.

  ‘How are you doing, Kate? Heard you were bad,’ he said.

  ‘I’m OK now. Tell me, Guljar, you must know all the gossip round here.’

  ‘Just off for a slash,’ Mark announced, as if she’d somehow pressed an invisible button.

  Guljar looked apprehensive. ‘Gossip?’

  ‘I’d bet you know who’s bedding who, who’s shedding who.’

  ‘Might do.’

  ‘Bet you know who’s getting what job.’

  ‘Might do.’

  ‘Who’s got friends at court, who’s in, who’s out.’

  ‘Might do.’

  ‘Might know whom Nigel Crowther got to pull strings to get him on to this MIT.’

  ‘Can’t you ask Rod Neville? He ought to know.’

  ‘It’d make it a bit heavy, going straight to the Big Boss, wouldn�
�t it? It’s just something that interests me.’

  Guljar looked around him. The corridors were empty, all the doors shut. ‘The word is it’s his mother.’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Big on the Police Committee. And maybe close, like, to a Big Gun. Oh, much bigger than Neville. Wants her little lad to shoot up the tree faster than any of the other monkeys.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Maybe someone should talk to dear Mrs Crowther.’

  ‘About pillow-talk promotions? Anyway, her name’s not Crowther. She remarried a year or so ago. I remember him going to the wedding.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very interesting.’

  He looked at her shrewdly. ‘This isn’t the Power revenge for being suspended, is it?’

  ‘Me? Suspended? I was off sick with a migraine.’

  ‘That too. OK, so some deal’s been done behind the scenes. But I’d hate to think of you trying to score off him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re a decent woman. You shouldn’t stoop to cheap revenge.’

  Cheap revenge? No, with a bit of luck this would be very expensive revenge. But not for herself. For poor Rosemary Parsons and her grieving husband.

  And maybe for Stephen Abbott, who phoned her as she was eating chicken tikka in a naan. If she’d hoped it was Rod Neville, she hoped equally that her voice betrayed nothing but an overfull mouth.

  ‘I can’t hack it at work tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Not after the grilling they gave me. So I thought I’d come and work on your site, if I may. A bit of peace and quiet.’

  ‘Was it so very bad today?’

  ‘It’s like they want to pin something on me, Kate! I liked her, remember. We were friends. And they keep on going over and over the stuff I’ve had stolen. They don’t seem to realise it’s nothing to do with the case.’

  ‘In a case like this it’s terribly hard for us to tell what’s relevant and what isn’t, Stephen. That’s why we go all round the houses when we question people.’

  ‘I don’t see why they should want to know what was in my filing cabinet. My private one. It’s as if they think it’s – I don’t know, hard porn.’

  ‘You can see why they should be interested if it were. Is it?’ she asked, as lightly as she could.

  ‘No. But I wouldn’t want other people – look, will you be there to let me in tomorrow? You or Alf?’

  ‘If you want to catch me, it’ll have to be horribly early. Before eight.’

  ‘Before eight it is. Provided you give me a cup of tea. With sugar, not sweeteners, remember.’

  Poor Stephen, thinking he could get away with working on those buttons without Kate asking another set of inconvenient questions. Yes, they had to find out what was in those drawers, and if the hard men couldn’t manage it, she’d see what the soft touch would do.

  The naan had gone cold and leathery. She picked at it with distaste, until she was saved by the doorbell.

  Rod with his briefcase and a couple of carrier bags. One chinked on the hall tiles. The other emitted good and familiar smells.

  ‘I thought you’d be too knackered to cook,’ he said, picking up the carriers and taking them through to the kitchen. ‘So I brought you some of our regional speciality.’

  ‘You’re a King Kebab fan too!’ She meant it as a sociable observation. It sounded more like the eager sharing of a lover.

  ‘Of course.’ His smile suggested he took it as it sounded. And the smile intensified as he produced a bottle. ‘And something to wash it down with afterwards – they wouldn’t go together. Only first I want you to promise me something. Not a single word about work.’

  ‘One single word only,’ she said, reaching plates for new portions of chicken tikka in naan, and shoving the champagne in the fridge, ‘before we deal with any of this. And that’s it. Promise.’

  ‘And what’s that word?’ he asked, sinking to a chair and rubbing his neck.

  ‘Sweeteners,’ she said. ‘Oh, and perhaps one more. Backhanders.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘The hardest part of this relationship is trying not to talk shop with you,’ Rod said, tracing a trickle of sweat between her breasts.

  ‘You’re sure it isn’t the second hardest part?’ Kate asked, with a sexy giggle. ‘Going by the evidence, that is.’ And then she stopped giggling. Although she knew it was inevitable, the last thing she wanted at that moment was a sober discussion.

  He produced that devastating smile. Just for her. ‘And the third hardest is trying not to let my feelings for you affect my judgement about some of our colleagues. And what to do about them. And not to break confidentiality when I’m with you.’

  She tensed. ‘You’re saying that the relationship is a mistake?’

  ‘A tiny, tiny part of my head’s trying to tell me that. But the rest of me just isn’t listening.’

  But it might, one day, mightn’t it? And how would she feel then?

  He brushed her cheek with a finger that smelt of her. ‘I’ve broken my promise, haven’t I? And talking like this in bed is in the worst possible taste. Oh, please lie down again.’

  She shook her head. They’d done things in quite the wrong order, hadn’t they? They should have talked before they fucked. She and Robin had worked things out, not clinically, but clear-sightedly. That’s why they’d been so good together. In every respect.

  ‘Oh, Kate, Kate. Don’t you see, I want it to work, you and me? But there are issues.’

  She scrubbed her face and turned to him. ‘Not the least of which is my late partner. You must have read my file.’

  He nodded. ‘Is this – am I – the first since – since you lost him?’

  Her turn to nod.

  ‘In that case we have all the more to work through. Together: I want us to deal with all this together.’ He pulled her gently down, cradling her head on his shoulder. ‘Let it all go, Kate – I’m here.’

  She woke to find the bed empty. The bastard! Not even saying goodbye. But then she could see his clothes still on the chair where he’d flung them. Part of his brain had clearly wanted to fold everything meticulously. The other part had simply wanted to leave things where they’d fallen. A compromise: his trousers should be OK, but she didn’t hold out much hope for his shirt.

  And there he was, wearing the unisex bathrobe last worn by Simon.

  ‘Tea in bed! What a luxury!’

  ‘But it presages my early departure. There are things I must collect from home. And I can’t fake the car again.’ Putting the mugs on the bedside cabinet, he perched on the side of the bed. ‘Cold shower time, Kate. Enjoy your tea. Only before you do, tell me when I can come and meet Aunt Cassie.’

  ‘Whenever you want,’ she said. ‘She’s always happy to entertain attractive young men. Trouble is,’ she added more soberly, ‘there’s always a chance you’ll meet Graham Harvey there.’

  ‘Graham Harvey! Visiting your aunt!’ His smile faded.

  ‘More particularly his mother-in-law. He consulted Cassie before he booked Mrs Nelmes in, and he still pops in from time to time.’

  ‘Whether you’re there or not?’

  ‘More often when I’m not there, I’d say. He’s fond of the old bat.’

  ‘Is she like you?’

  ‘Heavens, isn’t that stretching the laws of heredity a bit far? I’ll say this, she’s a tough old bird, my great aunt. With a heart of gold.’

  He looked at her sideways. ‘You may think you’re tough, Kate, but I’d say you’re more vulnerable than you care to admit. God!’ He kissed her, gently then very hard. ‘Kate – you have this weird effect on me. I want to protect you from the harsh winds that blow.’

  She reeled. No one had ever said anything like that to her. She looked away. And managed a cracked laugh. ‘So long as you protect all the other Lodge Committee members too.’

  Biting his lip, he looked her straight in the eye. Whatever he meant to say he cancelled. This time his smile was his professional one, and it became grimmer. ‘It wa
s a job I delegated to – to someone. Perhaps it would be advisable to check that measures have in fact been put in train.’

  She cobbled together some breakfast while he was showering. A trip to Sainsbury’s was called for if he proposed to stay more often. Milk; eggs; bread. Even loo rolls.

  ‘I thought,’ she said, scraping the very last from the Marmite jar, ‘that I’d stay and talk to Stephen Abbott for a few minutes. See if softly-softly will extract from him what was nicked from his filing cabinet.’

  ‘Good idea. Of course. I’ll let Mark and Nigel know.’ He started to make a note.

  ‘No, you won’t. Not unless you and I have started to practise telepathy.’

  Kate didn’t broach the subject while she and Stephen were drinking tea in the warmth of the kitchen. She thought she’d wait till he was off his guard, hunkered over the bricks at the bottom of her garden. Alf hadn’t arrived yet. There was no point, as he said, in busting a gut if he couldn’t get on with the path. And he’d got other jobs he could get on with.

  ‘I’m just off,’ she said. She might well have been, with her jacket buttoned firmly over her working clothes. Bright though the sun was, it was still pretty feeble – only seven-thirty, in its own terms, which were nothing to do, after all, with British Summer Time. ‘You’ll help yourself to tea and everything, won’t you?’

  ‘And I’ll remember to take my boots off when I go in.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re still feeling … bad?’

  ‘This,’ he said, waving a tiny trowel, ‘is very therapeutic. Better than writing reports, any day. I’ve been wondering if any of your neighbours have similar sites. Where you have one workshop, you tend to get a cluster.’

  ‘Enough to make quite a landmark? Did you ever find out about Worksop Road? If it is a corruption of Workshop Road?’

  He stood. ‘It’s on my list.’

  ‘If this road is worth investigating, think how much the neighbouring one would – Goldsmith Road.’

  ‘If you know how many precautions jewellers take not to lose one iota of gold dust, you wouldn’t expect much,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know about losing gold. I do know I found a packet of diamonds under my study floor,’ she said. ‘Oh, my Aunt Cassie had put them there for a rainy day—’