‘Downpour, more like!’
‘Quite. Anyway, they’ll pay for another year in that home of hers. You live in an old place. Anything interesting under your floor boards?’
‘I wish.’ His sigh gave her the opening she’d been edging towards.
‘What they took – was it insured?’
‘Not intrinsic value, really. Photos, mainly. And some letters.’
‘Anyone special?’
‘A woman.’
Well, that was one theory blown out of the water. Possibly. He squatted again: had she lost him?
‘Must have been someone pretty special – you were very upset about it.’
‘A woman. Just a woman. Oh, the sister of a friend of mine. I – got too fond of her.’
She waited.
‘You know how intense things get when you’re young. You lose a sense of proportion. I thought she cared for me as much as I cared for her.’ He broke off to ease up a dandelion root. ‘Turned out she didn’t. But I couldn’t quite – well, maybe the burglar did me a good turn, getting rid of that stuff.’
‘What was she like?’
He put the root on what would become the path – then thought better of it and slung it over the fence into the entry. ‘Beautiful. No, I mean it. Beautiful. She was. Extraordinary. Why I should ever have expected her to want to stay with me—’ He shrugged. ‘And very clever. Intelligent. Whatever. Got a double first a month after she’d dumped me.’
‘You were both at Durham?’
‘No. I suppose that was one problem. I was a year older than she was, so I went off to Durham a year before she went to Cambridge. And I remained absolutely faithful to her, all the time. We wrote – just a note, sometimes – every day. And when I’d got my degree, and started work on a project in Lincoln, we still wrote. Until the Easter of her last year. And then that was it. Full-stop.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She’s already a senior civil servant. Going to fly very high. Home Office, I think. Your boss,’ he said, managing a grin at last.
She nodded. ‘So all Burglar Bill got was her love letters and some snapshots.’
‘Oh, no. Snapshots they weren’t. Studio portraits. I’m a very good photographer – though I says it as shouldn’t,’ he added, dropping into a Birmingham accent. ‘I use photography a lot in my work,’ he said, in his normal voice.
‘Studio portraits? We’re not talking what amateur photographers will call “glamour”, are we?’
‘Silly tarts wearing nothing but a basque and a pout? Do me a favour! Oh, there was some nude stuff. But, as the amateur photographers would say, “all very tasteful”.’
‘But she might not have wanted them lying around.’
‘They were in a locked drawer,’ he snapped.
Get his trust back. ‘Where did you meet her?’ she asked.
‘The county youth orchestra. We were both viola players. Now, I know there are pages and pages of viola player jokes on the Internet, but we’re not all sad old gits. At least, she isn’t!’
‘So you’d be very young – still at school?’
‘That’s right. Both swots, of course, but with lust and loyalty. We’d study together, until I went up north. And half of her letters are about work she’d be doing – ideas for essays and so on. But she was good fun, Kate. We laughed a lot. Of course, her parents were loaded compared with mine, but they quite liked me. Didn’t discourage me, at any rate.’
‘Were you at the same school?’
‘No, I was at the local comp. She – I told you she was a high-flyer – she was at a girls’ public school.’
‘Oh – now, what are they called here in Brum? One of the King Edwards’ schools?’
‘No. Neither of us is a Brummie – can’t you tell? The accent? We were both from Lichfield.’
Lichfield! ‘The Swan of Lichfield’! And the Seward Foundation and all its land!
Not letting her voice change, keeping the tightest control over her face, Kate asked, ‘Now, would that be an Anna Seward Academy, out there?’
‘That’s right. Know someone there, do you?’
‘Someone was telling me about the foundation, just the other day. They were saying it was surprising there weren’t Seward Academies in Brum.’
‘Suppose it is, really. Still, like you said, there are other good girls’ schools. Now,’ he said, pointing swiftly, ‘how about that for a bright little button?’
It seemed Stephen, slender though he was, was a man for second breakfasts. If all his work was done in weather like this she could hardly blame him, even if making him toast did finish off the bread.
‘My colleagues need to know all about the problems with protecting the Lodge,’ she said, passing him the butter. ‘All.’
‘They didn’t seem very interested. Or in the fact that the committee papers had been nicked. In fact, that sleek bastard Crowther thought that part of the burglary was just a bit of vandalism, that all they really wanted were sellable things: the video and TV, and the computer.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘Are you sure?’
He shifted. ‘OK. Probably he didn’t. What he really wanted to find out was what I’ve just told you. And I suppose you’ll have to go and tell him, won’t you? He is your boss, after all,’ he added wearily.
‘What I’m more interested in now,’ she said, ‘is the Lodge. The Lodge documents that were stolen.’
‘No need to worry about them. There’ll be copies of everything in Rosemary’s files,’ he said. Her silence must have told him what he didn’t want to know. ‘Oh, God, don’t say they’ve taken all her stuff?’
‘Enough,’ she said mildly.
‘When? No, don’t tell me. The night she was lying dead in the shower. Fucking hell, how callous can you be! They kill her, they nick her keys, they break into her house and take her stuff. Jesus Christ. God save me from big business.’
‘From what?’
‘Stands to reason. We were trying to protect the Lodge from being “redeveloped”—’
‘Not simply protect it from general dilapidation?’
He shook his head. ‘So it doesn’t take much detective work, does it? It’s got to be one of the firms that wanted to develop it.’
She nodded. At least someone was now taking it seriously.
‘Then there was the Tax Office—’
‘Tax!’
‘Yes. She’d been on PAYE all her life, of course. But she reckoned someone at the Tax Office kept on querying her returns. And she’d have been punctilious about something like that. I suppose I should have told that woman on Saturday, shouldn’t I?’
She didn’t deny it. Why hadn’t he?
‘Someone else you should talk to,’ he continued, as if relieved to have everything out in the open, ‘is whoever it was in the Planning Department that messed up our application to have it listed.’
She pounced. ‘Any idea who?’
‘Rosemary went to see her. Yes, some woman. She wrote a report – and that was in my files, see?’
‘Any guess at a name?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve got this blind spot about names. Hereditary according to this article I read in New Scientist. So everything’s written down in there. If that’s gone—’ He flapped his hands in resignation.
‘Ever talked to a hypnotist?’ she asked.
Chapter Twenty-two
The five-minute walk up the High Street gave Kate enough time to worry about reporting her next move. She wanted to go to the Planning Department. Stephen might have difficulty with names, but he’d had no problems describing the woman who’d delayed their attempts to list the Lodge.
So she ought to tell someone what she was up to. Nigel – to whom she was officially reporting? Or Rod? With whom she was unofficially sleeping? Both? Both would be best. Separately? So in which order? Nigel first, as was usual? But what if he vetoed it? She could scarce
ly go over his head to Rod without it becoming an issue.
And what about Rod and herself? A cleanish break now? A couple of nights of fun, no hard feelings? That would be best. He seemed to want a relationship, but certainly saw problems. She – well, she hadn’t realised how much she enjoyed having a warm body in the bed beside her. Or how much she’d missed sex.
Jesus, she wanted him now. Now.
Or did she want Robin?
No. Mustn’t even think about Robin.
Think some sense. It would be better to put the whole thing on hold for a bit. Wouldn’t it? Until this case was over, at least. And don’t admit that that would be an excellent incentive to solve it as quickly as possible.
Ahead of her, an old woman stumbled in the road. No wonder: there was a pot-hole some four or five inches deep. No need for her to do anything, by the looks of it. A couple of other people were steadying her, and Kate could hear words like ‘reporting’ and ‘council’ being bandied about. She hoped the roads were better wherever the Sargents were now living. She couldn’t, come to think of it, imagine them being less than perfect if that barrister daughter and her round tuits had any influence. So what would be happening to their claim? And had Guljar managed to pin anything on the driver or his employers? She’d have a word with him the moment she could make a chance.
Why not make that moment now? It would put off making a decision on the other stuff. She headed not for the Incident Room and the MIT’s quarters but for Guljar’s office. Which was occupied by him seated at his desk and Rod, standing, clutching a file.
‘God, you CID people work tough hours,’ Guljar said, looking ostentatiously at his watch. ‘Fancy having to get here for ten. Such a strain.’
‘I know. And I shall be leaving in half an hour, absolutely exhausted. That’s if it’s OK with you and DI Crowther, Gaffer? Something cropped up with Stephen Abbott. Did Mark tell you I was talking to Stephen this morning?’
‘He mentioned something.’ Full marks for his acting. ‘Anything interesting?’
‘Only the contents of his drawer – the one he was keeping schtum over. And a possible lead.’
‘Well – what are you waiting for? Tell—’ Rod shoved a chair at her, but then seemed to think better of it. ‘Ah, hang on. I’ve got a meeting with Crowther in a few minutes – my room. Room! Gold-fish bowl, more like. You can brief us both at the same time. OK? See you in five minutes, Kate.’ He nodded and was off.
Nice and brisk and impersonal. Good. But what was he doing closeted with Guljar? An unlikely combination. And why in Guljar’s room, not his own? Because Guljar’s had solid walls and a wooden door?
She grinned at Guljar, and took the seat Rod had pushed forward. ‘No need to look so apprehensive. I’m not after any more gossip. Just wanted to know what was happening to the lorry driver that flattened the cottage down the back of Moseley.’
Guljar stared. ‘Ah, the budgie people! Well, we’re doing him for careless driving.’
‘Not dangerous?’
‘No injuries resulting.’
‘Oh, come off it – they could have been killed. And he went into that place like – what was it you called it? An aries?’
He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘We’re doing his boss for overloading, as well. The thing is, the forensic people in Traffic went over it with the proverbial fine-toothed comb and couldn’t find much wrong with the vehicle itself.’
‘So they’ll get off lightly?’
Another nod. ‘I must admit that that barrister-woman – you know, the daughter – she’s not happy. And she’s now alleging that someone was harassing the old dears. Nothing serious. Just enough to have made them think about moving down south. Tim Brown in our CID’s on to it, if you’re interested.’
‘I rather think I might be,’ Kate said. ‘Thanks.’
Tim Brown was a comfortably padded man in his mid forties, with fading blond hair, a snub nose and big, baby-blue eyes. Big shoulders and short legs – once a rugby prop, perhaps.
‘Someone wanted the Sargents out of that place,’ he said flatly. ‘The person who watered their front garden with weed-killer, who put dog-shit through the front door, and who – allegedly’ – he stressed the adverb ironically – ‘allegedly rammed the front of the cottage with a bloody great lorry. Well, the lorry and the cottage certainly came into intimate contact. And the latter is no more.’
‘Who are you after?’
‘You tell me.’
DI’s could play that game, couldn’t they? All of them.
‘The people who own the site next to their cottage,’ she said briskly. ‘Who probably own the site being developed at the top of the hill – from whence cometh our lorry,’ she added, a fragment of Sunday School surprising her.
‘Hole in one. And I’m sure you could come up with some names?’
‘Behn for one. And possibly Hodge for another?’
He looked totally blank. ‘Why them?’
‘Because they want to develop a prime site out at the reservoir.’
‘Do they, by Christ?’ He jotted.
‘But it isn’t them?’
‘Not unless there’s been a recent change and the Land Registry hasn’t caught up with it.’
‘So would the Land Registry have on record the Anna Seward Foundation?’ she asked.
The baby-blue eyes opened wide. ‘I think we need to talk,’ he said.
‘Not just us, but the MIT on the warehouse arson cases. And maybe, just maybe, the MIT I’m in.’
‘Quite a lot of conversation, one way and another,’ Tim observed, smiling broadly, and rubbing fat paws.
Rod Neville was still deep in conversation with Nigel Crowther when she arrived outside his office. She caught his eye, nodding as he held up a splayed hand – five more minutes.
Enough time for her to make a phone call then. One she’d rather not make in the office. Or even in the building. She ran downstairs; only to find, out in the street, that her mobile was being temperamental. Thank goodness for the payphone by the library.
Graham picked up his phone first ring.
‘Gaffer: do you have any hard news about why Nigel Crowther got moved into the MIT?’
‘Morning, Kate. Yes, it’s a nice day, isn’t it?’
‘And I haven’t all that much change,’ she retorted. Trust this to be one of Graham’s affable days.
‘Phone box call?’ His voice was suddenly serious. ‘OK, fire away.’
‘The rumour this end is that his mother pulled rank. She’s on the Police Committee and married to someone with even more clout.’
‘Name?’
‘Remarried last year. Guljar remembers that Crowther went to the wedding. Don’t know what her new name is. Gaffer – this could be important.’ Why did she add that? Didn’t she trust him to take it seriously.
‘I know. I’ll deal with this myself, Kate. You – you just keep out of this.’ He said this as a plea, not an order. Then, more briskly, ‘Anything I should be looking out for?’
‘Whether she’s associated with developers called Behn or Hodge. Oh, and Gaffer, much more important – see where she went to school.’
Her money ran out.
If Rod Neville noticed the rain splashes on her jacket, her damp and ruffled hair, he gave no sign of it. He nodded her to a chair next to the one occupied by Crowther, who, as far as she could tell, didn’t look at her at all.
‘First of all, Power, I have to ask you if you in any way interfered with DI Crowther’s computer when you used it yesterday,’ Rod said, grim, intimidating.
‘Sir?’ She sat up straight.
‘You heard. When you were getting your e-mail or whatever.’
She spread her hands in disbelief. ‘All I did was get my e-mail, sir. You’ll find it in the computer’s trash bin. And I printed it off. As DI Crowther saw.’
‘You didn’t infect it with a virus, anything like that?’
She allowed herself a short laugh. ‘I’d have thought we’d got t
he best anti-virus system going, sir. Of course, PC’s are notoriously unstable. I can never open my e-mail until I’ve had a moment tapping away in Word. Don’t ask me why.’
‘I have your word on that, Sergeant?’
She nodded. No problem: she did always have to go into Word first.
‘OK, Crowther, it seems the best thing we can do is get a technician to have a look at it for you. And – well, until we can get you a replacement, there are all those in the incident room for you to choose from.’ He spoke with an air of finality – this wasn’t a suggestion that he expected Crowther to argue with. ‘Right, now that’s out of the way, to MIT business. How are your interviews with Doctor Parsons progressing, Power?’
Kate shook her head. ‘It depends how you look at it, sir. Neither Mark nor I can see anything in his demeanour to suggest he’s anything but a bereaved husband. We see neither motive nor opportunity. The way we see it – with due respect, Inspector Crowther – is that person or persons unknown prepared a lethal brew, left Rosemary to die while they searched the house, and then made a follow-up visit to Stephen Abbott’s place.’
‘The modi operandi are completely different,’ Crowther said.
Now that was something Rod could adopt: a full-length Latin term with, presumably, the correct ending for the plural.
‘Nothing was taken from the Parsons home except files,’ Crowther was saying. ‘And we’ve no idea how many files or what they may contain. Abbott’s was a straightforward breaking and entering, according to SOCO. TV, video, hi-fi: a whole tranche of objects taken. Oh, and his computer, of course. All highly saleable.’
‘And the contents of his filing cabinet. Cabinets, I should say.’
‘A few porno magazines!’ Crowther scoffed.
‘Is that what he says?’ Neville asked.
‘He wouldn’t answer. Consistently. I’d say he was scared shitless the scandal would lose him his job.’
‘He confided to me what had gone, sir,’ Kate said, direct to Rod.
‘Well?’
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