Will Power

by Judith Cutler

  Chapter Three

  Kate had already left her office to meet up with Lizzie when Derek yelled down the corridor to call her back.

  ‘Gaffer’s on the blower for you, Kate!’

  Shrugging, she turned back, wondering whether she should break into a canter, but settling for a brisk stride.

  ‘Something’s come up, Power,’ Lizzie announced. ‘I should be free by five. I’d like an action plan for both the case I gave you and whatever crap that woman came up with this morning. OK?’

  Sure, sit round outside your office like a lemon for half an hour, then endure half an hour of criticism and get home too late for Graham to drop in.

  ‘Fine, Gaffer. Just one thing, they want me back at Steelhouse Lane for a confab about a case that’s coming up in the County Court next week.’

  ‘You’re based here, Power – haven’t they noticed?’

  ‘I’m sure they have. Which is why I’m asking you if I can sort out a couple of free-ish slots and confirm them with you before I get back to them.’

  ‘For them read Graham Harvey, I suppose?’

  Have you stopped beating your wife yet, and other unanswerable questions. ‘Graham Harvey’s arranging the meeting, ma’am. You know what it’s like, pulling people together now they’re scattered out to sector nicks.’

  ‘We’ll talk action plans first. Then you can talk to Graham. OK?’

  ‘Ma’am.’ She spoke to a dead phone. She looked up: Derek, chin on hand, was watching her.

  ‘It’s not just you, you know,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about her, Kate. Five years I’ve known her, and she’s always been – what do they call it? – feisty. But nothing like this. I mean, she’s a good career cop and she’s pissing round like some bloody opera singer – prima whatsit. Hormones, I suppose.’

  Kate shoved her hands in her pockets, shaking her head. ‘If she were a bloke, what would we put it down to? Overwork, family problems, illness.’

  He pulled at his lower lip. ‘But she’s a woman. And it’s well known that women her age—’

  ‘Like I said the other day, she’s a bit on the young side to be menopausal, I’d have thought.’

  ‘My sister-in-law was only thirty-five when she had hers. Come on, Kate, if it’s a woman thing, you should talk to her.’

  She flung her hands in the air but not in a gesture of surrender. ‘No way. In case the rumour hasn’t already reached your ears, I’m not her favourite person at the best of times. I shall do my action plans and my paperwork and keep my head well below the parapet.’

  He didn’t look convinced. He looked at his watch. ‘I forgot my sarnies this morning. Coming down the canteen?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. No, she mustn’t even contemplate the possibility that Graham might have been free for a sandwich in the sun.

  She was entitled to e-mail Graham back, wasn’t she? To explain that she had to prepare something for a meeting late in the afternoon, but would get back to him about the Simmons case and a couple of other things as soon as she could. How was his wife, incidentally? She was sorry to hear she was ill. Then she deleted the last two sentences. Just in case anyone else should read them and want to know how she knew. Just in case.

  She sent the message and closed down the system. Paper files, now, she told herself sternly. But what she wanted, oh, what she wanted more than anything else, was to hear his voice. Simply his voice. It didn’t matter what he was saying. He wasn’t a man for luscious endearments, never would be, she suspected; if he expressed tenderness, he did so by offering her a cup of tea in his office. And their conversation could be as prosaic and business-filled as you like, but it was still talk with him. And if they were on their own, there’d be eye contact, there’d be that electricity …

  She forced herself to concentrate. Ironically, the first case concerned lovers too. She read through the notes again, although she was already almost word perfect on them. A young man had bought his girlfriend a pair of ruby earrings from an antique shop. When they got engaged, he wanted to have a ring to match them, so he took them along to a shop in the Jewellery Quarter which not only sold but also made jewellery. There he learned that the ‘rubies’ were in fact garnets, worth perhaps a tenth of what he’d paid. The shop he’d originally bought them from was profusely apologetic, and refunded his money, but he wanted action taken against it.

  Action, she wrote: talk to: Jewellery Quarter firm manufacturing jewellery and possibly Trading Standards. Time allocation: an hour.

  As far as the will allegations went, she was afraid that if you lifted up what seemed to be a rotting log, you might find all sorts of unsavoury insect life underneath it.

  Talk to: Michael Barton, Max Cornfield, forensic graphologist, witnesses to will. Time allocation, two days. She looked at the witness signatures again. One had a Portuguese address; the other lived in Berlin. Maybe longer, if the witnesses are not based in the UK.

  Two-ten. What if Graham were free now?

  Her hand was already on the phone. But she drew it away swiftly. ‘Any chance you could spare me ten minutes on this in-tray, Derek? Then maybe I could wrap up one or two of them for her nibs.’

  He looked up, sighing.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll be off to the Jewellery Quarter, then.’

  ‘Nice day for a walk down there,’ he nodded.

  ‘Walk?’ She still forgot that, however sprawling its conurbation, the centre of Birmingham was remarkably compact.

  ‘Shouldn’t take you more than ten minutes – fifteen in this heat.’ He grinned, sardonically. ‘Take your brolly, though.’

  The trouble was, the old misery might be right. Though the sun was still hot, and bright enough for sun-glasses, the sky above Birmingham was taking on a milky brownness. No, that was just pollution, surely: all those particles of dust and chemical that blended into an atmospheric soup, the sort of haze you saw over every big city. She didn’t want it to rain tonight. She wanted a sunny evening, to sit out in her new garden. She might even have a barbecue for one – though a barbecue for two was infinitely preferable. Oh, Kate, in your dreams. Graham will always go home to eat. Think of the stress you caused him that time you tipped his lunch sandwiches into the bin so he could go and eat with you. No, solo eating’s the price you’ll have to pay as long as you and Graham are together.

  She paused: this must be St Paul’s churchyard. She’d heard people talk about the church itself, a neat, elegant Georgian building. It was supposed to have very good acoustics as she recalled, good enough for concerts. And across there should be – yes, that must be it – a pub which did great food, and over there a couple of clubs. She pressed on. And stopped, thunderstruck. She had never seen so many shops – some big, but mostly small – all selling jewellery. Real jewellery, not the china and resin stuff that filled so many high-street shop windows these days. There was gold in them there shops. Gold and diamonds. And a museum. Not far from the museum was the shop she wanted, the one that had alerted the young man to the problems of his fiancée’s earrings. Yes, there it was, next to the Metro station, lying slightly back from the kerb from which its bow-window was protected (from ram-raiding?) by a big square brick-built planter, burgeoning with petunias and, ironically enough, busy lizzies. It shared its outer front door with a gem-cutter; there was a buzzer system to let customers into the shop itself. She had to remind herself she was there on business, or she could have spent the whole afternoon drooling over the items on display. What intrigued her was what lay behind one of the counters; a workshop, complete with gas burners. It wasn’t just for show, either. Young men were working there, to the quiet accompaniment of a local radio station.

  Thank goodness the assistant was an intelligent-looking woman in her forties, not some vacuous kid. She had diamonds to die for on her ring fingers.

  Kate introduced herself and explained the problem.

  ‘You have to do it sometimes,’ the woman said simply. ‘You get to know the stones – the colour, the cut. But I
always refer them to Mick – he’s the boss – or Stephen, just in case.’

  At the mention of his name, one of the young men got up from his bench and came round into the shop. He nodded. ‘Happens the other way round, too,’ he said, smiling. ‘Sometimes we get to give good news. I had this customer with an opal so big I thought it was a doublet—’

  ‘A doublet?’

  ‘An opal covered with a thin skin of glass to make it bigger and stronger,’ he explained. ‘But it turned out it was one lovely big stone. Whoever sold it to her would have torn his hair out he’d let her have it so cheap. They’re antique dealers, you see. Not gemmologists.’

  ‘So you don’t see this as some nasty big scam designed to rip off Joe Public.’

  ‘If there are scams, we get to hear about them soon enough. It’s all done by trust in the trade, Sergeant. Has to be. We have to trust our gem suppliers; sometimes we have to send a customer’s stone away to be matched. We’ve got to know it’ll come back. That one. Not another quite like it. We have to trust the gold suppliers, because the assay office will pounce on anything sub-standard.’

  She nodded. ‘But if you do come on any scams, you will tell me?’ She put her card on the counter.

  ‘Sure; it’s in everyone’s interest, isn’t it?’

  She grinned. ‘What I’m interested in is that chain, there. Tell you what, I’ll come back when I’m not on duty!’

  There were friendly smiles and good-natured laughter. But the smile left her face as soon as she stepped into the street.

  Any diamonds she wore would be diamonds she bought herself, wouldn’t they?

  As she’d predicted, Lizzie’s five o’clock was actually five-thirty, and the criticism was ready to crackle. However, Lizzie was disarmed, temporarily at least, by the news that the garnets and ruby case was still-born.

  ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ she said. ‘But what about this morning’s punter? You don’t want to get us involved in some family feud, Power.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Quite. But it may turn out to be bigger than that. In fact, Gaffer, my nose tells me it’s going to.’

  Lizzie treated her to a long, level stare. At last her face softened. ‘That’s what makes a good cop, Kate. A nose. You use that and you’ll be all right.’ She sat back and stretched, grimacing as something clicked audibly in her back.

  ‘You all right, Gaffer?’ Kate risked.

  ‘Sounded bad, didn’t it? I could use an hour in a sauna, I admit. But—’ she gestured helplessly at her desk. ‘And I wanted to talk to Ben before I left.’

  Kate took another risk. ‘Why not talk to him in the pub? A day like this, we’d all be the better for a long cold beer.’

  Lizzie managed a half-smile. ‘You’re telling me it’s time to go home. Maybe. Tell Ben I’ll see him tomorrow.’

  Taking that as dismissal, Kate got to her feet. The angle of Lizzie’s eyebrow told her to sit down again.

  ‘This business of a partner for you. I’ve been talking to Personnel. And one or two others. The feeling seems to be that you might as well get on with things on your own. You’re not going to be dealing with violent criminals here, after all. You’ve got a good deal of police experience and we’re understaffed. QED. Oh, you’ll be reporting back to me, and anything really needing two cops – like an arrest – we’ll find you someone. OK?’ This time there was a definite dismissal.

  Kate nodded, getting to her feet. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t worked on her own before. When she was undercover in that home, she was well and truly isolated. But she’d come to enjoy being part of a team. Well, if there was no team to be part of, that was that.

  Ben shrugged when she told him the news. And packed up like a schoolboy late for half-term when she told him his session with Lizzie could wait. So much for that half of mild. Well, he had a family to go home to.

  If there’d been any single-use barbecues left in Sainsbury’s, she’d have bought herself one, and some steak to cook on it. But the locusts had landed before her. There were only a few salads hanging around, tatty as Cinders waiting for a fairy godmother. Next year, she’d grow lettuces and radishes and some young onions. In fact, she was so taken with the idea, she nipped round to the seed stand. There was a chance that some might germinate even at this late date. There!

  Back to the salad area. Tomatoes and basil: that would do. And some pâté. And some nice bread. No strawberries; the locusts were evidently partial to them, too. And she’d bet her pension there wouldn’t be much in the way of quality ice-cream, either. But there was a good offer on white wine.

  Displacement activity, of course. Because she didn’t want to go home to find no message from Graham. That would be even worse than a message saying he still couldn’t see her. She chose a long queue, and dawdled back up Worksop Road. To find a familiar car just about to pull away.

  ‘I waited and waited,’ Graham said, still panting slightly. ‘I reasoned that if your car was outside you wouldn’t be long away.’

  She passed him a glass of wine. ‘I’m glad you waited. Oh, I’m so glad.’ Deliberately, she slopped some of her wine on to his stomach, licking it up. ‘Or should I say, I’m so glad you came.’

  ‘I might come again,’ he said.

  And did.

  But he was showered and dressed and out of the house twenty minutes later. And, as she’d known she’d have to, she ate alone in her garden.

  Chapter Four

  ‘The key is to be absolutely meticulous,’ Derek said, first thing next morning, passing her a coffee. ‘Not just paperwork. Everything. Because if you aren’t, if Lizzie suspects you of being the tiniest bit sloppy, she’ll slice you up into tiny pieces and have you on toast.’

  ‘So what’s new?’

  ‘And for all she says you’ll be working on your own, you’ll find she wants chapter and verse every day, and she’ll be running the show. In her own highly individual not to say eccentric way. You’ll just be her gofer. You’d be better off partnered with one of the kids.’

  ‘I’m sure I would. But in this job I want doesn’t get. Any more than it got me jelly at Aunt Cassie’s when I was a kid.’

  ‘How is the old bat? As bad as my ma-in-law? God, we all have our crosses to bear!’

  Kate pulled a face. ‘Getting stroppier. She used to say she didn’t want to interfere in my life, didn’t want me to visit her, even, if I had anything else to do. But things are changing. She says she worries about me if I don’t pop in every other day.’

  ‘And do you?’

  Kate spread her hands. ‘In this job?’

  Derek shook his head. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not criticising. Every other day’s quite often, if she’s being cared for by someone else. It’s not as if she was stuck in a house on her own all day with nothing but the telly for company.’

  ‘I feel guilty, all the same. After all, she’s been very generous to me. Very generous indeed. And all I can manage – no, all I make time to do – is pop in twice a week. Sometimes once.’ Nor did she always make the effort to stay and talk as long as Cassie would have liked. But conversation was becoming more and more difficult, the more institutionalised Aunt Cassie became. ‘Any road,’ she added, ‘better get on with the job. Soon as I’ve finished this I’ll be on my way to sunny Edgbaston.’

  ‘“Any road”! Anyone would think you lived round here! You’ll be getting a Brummie accent next.’

  ‘According to the punter who stirred this lot up, people think you’re thick if you talk Brummie. So at least I’d be in good company.’ She drained her mug, and picked up her bag. ‘Right; into battle!’

  ‘Take a brolly!’ he yelled after her.

  She dodged back into the office: ‘You said it would rain yesterday. And look at it, it’s gorgeous out there. I think I might even walk.’

  ‘Unless you want to go by bus, you’ll have to. We’re down to two cars today, and Lizzie’s bagged one. And I’m having the other.’ His face invited her to challenge him. When she d
idn’t, it softened a mite. ‘I suppose I could always give you a lift.’

  ‘Only if you’re going that way. It’s only a step, after all.’

  ‘True. Still, like I say, take your brolly. Too bright too early if you ask me.’

  As houses went, Mrs Barr’s wasn’t particularly attractive. It was obviously later than some of the elegant Georgian and Regency houses in the area, its windows smaller, its overall proportions less right. And it lacked the sheer cheek of some of the neighbouring Victorian piles. But it was on such a prime site that it would no doubt fetch a mint on the open market, particularly if someone slapped some paint on it and fixed the rough-cast.

  The term Coach House had been somewhat generously applied. To Kate’s eyes it had far more the look of a twenties garage. In the side were a couple of windows, inviting Kate to peer through; which she duly did. Into a tidy bed-sitting room. Hmm. Had anyone got round to notifying the council of a change of use? Did anyone pay council tax on what was clearly a dwelling? Perhaps she didn’t care. What she wanted was the place’s front door, surely not the big wooden ones appropriate to the original use? She dodged round to the back, but a fence ran between it and the house. So was the only access through the house itself?

  Before she rang the front bell, she’d go and rap on the window of the big doors. No. No response.

  Back to the front door, which lay within a deep porch. She’d have wanted a security light to greet her comings and goings if she’d been the owner. The bell – an old-fashioned one helpfully labelled ‘Press’ – echoed loudly enough for her to hear it through what she suspected was a very solid front door. But no one responded.

  Turning away, she looked straight into the eyes of an elderly golden retriever, tugging half-heartedly at its leash. Its owner, an immensely tall woman who might be any age between seventy and ninety, peered over what looked like bifocals from the end of the drive.

  ‘May I help you?’ Her county vowels might have carried a further fifty yards. She hadn’t raised her voice, simply projected.

  Kate stepped away from the door, and smiled. ‘Good morning. I was hoping to find Mr Cornfield at home.’