Will Power

by Judith Cutler

  Dear Kate, he’d written on lined paper torn from a pad, If I don’t do this now I’m afraid I never will. But I must. I’ve come to the conclusion that what I’m doing is wrong. I always want to be friends, but it mustn’t be more than that. Not any more. I’m sinning. I’m breaking the seventh commandment, and I can’t continue to do so.

  She read it again and again. No, not even a signature, let alone a loving valediction. Nothing. Nothing except this. She even looked in the envelope again. Of course there was nothing in the envelope. No more than there was anything about his feelings or hers. No, nothing about her, let alone her feelings. No. No, no, no.

  She turned quickly, and retched into the pan. Retched until there was nothing else to come up. When she stood up, she had to squat again. Her legs wouldn’t work, and her balance had gone.

  Graham had gone. Left her. Graham.

  There was a tap on the door.

  ‘Kate? Kate? You all right in there?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Sure,’ she managed.

  ‘What’s up, our kid?’

  ‘Something I ate. It’s all right. I shall be out in a second.’ She should tear the note into tiny pieces and flush them after her vomit, but she couldn’t. Not his handwriting, not his note to her. She crammed it back into the envelope, which she shoved to the bottom of her bag, ‘Those baps, I should think,’ she said, emerging at last. ‘Plus it’s period time.’

  ‘You look really bad. Thought you were going to pass out in there. Come along to the first aid room and have a lie down. Then I’ll run you back home. OK, chick?’

  If Jane was any kinder, Kate knew she’d put her head down on her shoulder and cry, tell her everything. Nearly everything. That her bloke had ditched her, at least. But Jane would have seen the envelope, might even have recognised the writing. Even if she hadn’t, the rumours would have reached this far, wouldn’t they?

  ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly.’ She leaned on the washbasin. She’d have to make the effort to bend to splash water on her face, wipe round her mouth. ‘There.’

  Jane stood, arms akimbo, watching. ‘Look, kid, you’ve been taken bad. You can’t work. If you don’t want the first aid room, I’ll get you straight home. Dave won’t mind. In fact, if he sees you looking like that, he’ll as likely take you himself.’

  And make those observations about married men? Kate shook her head. ‘Honestly, I’m all right. Bit of lippie, no one’ll tell the difference, will they?’ She foraged in her bag, desperate not to touch the letter, and produced her lipstick. ‘There. Back in the human race.’

  ‘If you say so. You look more like death warmed up, if you ask me. Actually, what I came to say was there’s a fax for you.’ Jane stepped back to let Kate go through the door first. ‘From Germany.’

  ‘So Edna is dead, after all,’ Kate said, passing Dave Allen the fax, which curled irritatingly. ‘Poor woman. Killed by her pimp in 1973. Look at this lot. Drug abuse; evidence of at least one termination; chlamydia. And then to be—Jesus, look how she died, poor cow.’ The pimp had gone berserk, killing three prostitutes within an hour, told by God, apparently, to change his ways – and, presumably, theirs. God had a lot to answer for, didn’t He? Still, being angry with Him was better than throwing up again. If she could just hang on to her anger …

  Dave looked at the fax again, then up at her. ‘So our Dr Barton is a rich man. A very rich man if Cornfield forged that will.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I think you should go and break the news. Hey, Kate,’ he said, looking at her more closely, ‘What’s up, my wench?’

  ‘My breakfast,’ she said. ‘Something I ate yesterday, I should think. Or something I brought home from foreign parts.’

  ‘Ah. Do anything these foreigners will to muck us about. Stomach bugs. Commissions rogatoires. One of these days I want us to have a proper chat about that Portuguese business, Kate.’ He looked at her under his brows. ‘I think you’ve been like that Steiner bloke: telling the truth but not the whole truth. Understand me?’

  She met his gaze but said nothing.

  ‘OK,’ he said, smiling ironically. ‘Any road, are you fit for this trip to the country?’

  ‘Sure. What line do you want us to take?’

  ‘Why, loads of sympathy, I’d have thought. And then another little poke around the circumstances of the old man’s death. Come on, Kate, you must be feeling bad if you need to ask my advice. In fact, maybe I should send you on immediate sick leave.’

  She had an idea he was only half-joking.

  At Kate’s suggestion they stopped at a pub for a late sandwich lunch. An excuse, in Kate’s case, for a stiff brandy, which she claimed would settle her stomach and ease her period pains. From time to time, she would shake violently and uncontrollably. When Jane raised concerned eyebrows she made some excuse about having a touch of fever.

  ‘I still think you should go home.’

  ‘I’d rather be working.’ And she would. She couldn’t face going home to the bedroom where he’d slept with her, the kitchen where they’d sipped coffee, the sitting room where he’d tried once or twice to sit relaxed and insouciant, all the time desperate to go to bed with her. Couldn’t face closing the front door forever on their pitifully short time together.

  Dr Barton’s front door was still firmly shut, as were all his windows. His garden had suffered in the previous day’s storm – lupins and other tall plants were prostrate.

  Kate peered through the letter-box again. The case was still there. She walked round to the garage. That too was still locked.

  She was almost surprised by what she said. ‘Time for the old Ways and Means Act, Jane. My bunion started to twitch yesterday and it’s going full belt now. I want to know what’s going on inside that house. I think I can smell gas: maybe we should break in and make sure everything’s OK.’

  Jane’s eyes widened.

  ‘Go and sniff at that letter-box again,’ Kate suggested. ‘Then if you smell it too, we’ll be absolutely forced to break in.’

  Shrugging, Jane walked to the front door and did as she was told. But as she straightened real concern furrowed her face. ‘You try,’ she suggested. ‘You see, I reckon I can smell something. But I don’t reckon it’s gas.’

  ‘Poor bugger,’ Jane said, staring down at the late Michael Barton. ‘Sitting on a likely twelve million quid and popping his clogs like that.’

  Michael Barton lay halfway down his elegant staircase, his neck and at least one arm broken. He had almost certainly been there yesterday when they’d driven away. The news would not go down well with Dave, would it? Another bollocking, this time deserved.

  ‘Looks as if he trod on one of those piles of books and – phut,’ Kate said. She pointed to the cascade of paper they’d had to dodge. ‘And dropped those as he went flying.’

  Jane nodded. ‘Silly sod was still wearing his reading glasses by the look of it. Perhaps he couldn’t even see where he was putting his feet. My granddad’s always doing that. Keeps his glasses on the end of his nose and tries to peer over them. I must have another go at him.’ She pressed a tissue hard to her eyes.

  Kate put an arm around her shoulders. ‘It’d be very quick, I should think. I hope so anyway. OK,’ she said, ‘thank goodness for good old routine. Coroner’s officer. Undertaker. Post mortem. Inquest. But I’ve got this sneaking feeling we should preserve the scene, just in case.’

  ‘In case what?’

  ‘In case he didn’t die conveniently of natural causes. In case someone pushed him. Though I’m sure they didn’t. Thing is, we cocked up yesterday, didn’t we? Don’t want anyone complaining we didn’t get it right this time.’

  ‘Who’d there be to complain? No family, after all.’

  ‘The way this case is going,’ Kate said grimly, ‘Max Cornfield.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘I must talk to you. I think I’m going mad,’ Graham’s voice said on her answerphone. But he didn’t leave a number she could safely call him
on. It was after ten, for goodness’ sake, so how could she have called him back in any case? On impulse she dialled his direct office number, and was rewarded by his voice, after one ring.

  ‘Harvey.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Can you come in here? Now?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  No one seemed to think there was anything unusual about her sprinting up the Steelhouse Lane Police Station stairs as if Old Nick were after her: perhaps the odd officer she passed thought she was still based there. She didn’t know what to expect: might have hoped for electric sex, feared – no, surely there was nothing worse to come than this morning’s letter?

  She tapped on his door and popped her head round. If he were genuinely working late, if it wasn’t just an excuse to his wife, he might have someone with him. But he was alone, grey-faced and drawn. He didn’t get up to take her in his arms, but stayed behind the desk, clutching the edge as if to tear the top off. She stayed the far side: she might have been expecting the sort of conversations they’d had in the past about her handling of some case.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said at last.

  ‘You seemed to know when you sent me that note.’ Any moment now her legs would give way and she’d have to sit. The rest of her would give way too: hunger, tiredness, anxiety – whichever or whichever combination left her ready to weep.

  ‘I meant it. I think I still mean it. But …’ He released the desk, and then grabbed it again. ‘You do understand, don’t you? It may be all right for you – fornication’s one thing, but adultery … I can’t, I mustn’t … But—’ He broke off, looking at her as if the answer would appear in her face.

  She mustn’t let it. Graham had to make his own decisions, as he always had, always did. She might be fifty per cent of the relationship, entitled to half the decision-making, but she’d known from the start that loving him would involve the suspension of those rights. He was the one with the marriage and the religion that made sharing her bed the agony she knew it was, but simply couldn’t understand. He always fell on her like a man collapsing in an oasis, but tore himself away more quickly after each encounter.

  ‘I want us to be friends. There’s no harm in that. I can’t bear the thought of not seeing you, not talking to you. But I can’t – I mustn’t – make love to you. Not any more. It’s a sin, Kate: you must see that.’

  Wasn’t there something in the Bible about looking at a woman with lust in your heart being as bad as bedding her? Sooner or later he’d no doubt remember that, but at the moment she couldn’t remind him. Yes, just being in a room with him, the opposite side of that insuperable desk, was better than not being with him at all.

  ‘We are friends,’ she said. ‘We always were. I hope we always will be.’

  He pushed away from the desk, to lean on the window sill. ‘You – if you find someone else, then you’ll be free …’

  It was the first time he’d mentioned her and her feelings, wasn’t it? She was spineless not to point it out, spineless to stutter, ‘I don’t want anyone else.’ But she meant it. She knew the living body beneath the staid office clothes; knew each mole and scar as if she’d studied them. And wanted him now.

  He turned. His eyes told her that he wanted her at least as much as she wanted him. Why not claim him? Make him forget his doubts?

  Because of her period, that was why. However much he’d desired her in the past, menstruation had always turned him off as if she were unclean. So she stuffed her hands deep in her pockets and waited.

  ‘I’ll still visit Cassie,’ he said, surprising her. She’d never expected him not to. ‘She doesn’t know about … us, does she?’

  ‘You know I’ve told no one,’ she said, almost as angrily as she felt.

  ‘But has she guessed?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘That’s why I’m doing this,’ he said quietly. ‘For God’s sake.’

  She’d no idea how long the words hung between them.

  At last, he flicked a glance at his watch. ‘It’s late. You should be going home.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m waiting for a call from America about this case I’m working on. That’s why I’m here.’

  As if on cue the phone rang. He seized it, managing a brief smile at her. But then his smile faded. ‘I told you, I’ve got to stay till Mellors phones … No, of course not. No later than I can help.’ He cut the call. As if weighing his decision, he came round the desk, half-opening his arms. Even as she opened her own to embrace him, she dropped them to her sides. It hadn’t been a gesture of desire, it was a gesture of utter helplessness. She took his face swiftly between her hands, kissed him on the lips, and left the office before he could speak.

  She couldn’t fight God. And she no longer wanted to fight his wife. All she had to fight now was herself, and she had a terrible fear that that would be the hardest of all.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘You all right, my wench?’ Dave Allen asked, peering at Kate’s pale face with concern.

  ‘That wretched bug’s still hanging round,’ she lied. ‘But I’m much better, honestly. And those sarnies smell wonderful.’

  They did. Smoked bacon done to a crisp, sausages to die for: what a good job there’d never been anything wrong with her stomach except the shock of Graham’s letter. If she was looking washed out, who could have blamed her, knowing the circumstances? Meanwhile, she took her place in the team gathered in the incident room, all, by now, looking expectantly at Dave Allen.

  ‘Now, I know that is a bit early, for a Saturday, but I thought the sooner you all knew, the better,’ Dave said, a great beam spreading across his face. ‘It’s good news, bad news time. The good is that we know who killed Mavis Duncton; the bad is that however many guts we’ve all bust, the best we can get is an “unfit to plead” trial.’

  So it was Duncton, poor weird, down-trodden Duncton. The team might have erupted into conversation, but there was none of the jubilation that would have gone with nicking a dyed-in-the-wool villain.

  ‘What next, Gaffer?’ Jane asked, when the hubbub was dying down.

  ‘There’ll be a little matter of tying up all the loose ends, and although the splatter and all the other forensic tests are conclusive, I still want that paperwork watertight. Just in case. We’ve still got a loose end in the form of Kate and Jane’s dead doctor to worry about. Any news on that?’

  ‘Only that SOCO say we can start looking at the papers he dropped when he fell. He said he was working on some book: maybe it’s to do with that.’

  ‘Well, keep the bedtime reading till after the PM. That’s scheduled for this afternoon, by the way. Patrick Duncan’s doing it. He’s sent a message asking if you want to be there, Kate.’

  Back at Steelhouse Lane, there’d have been a general snigger. Fortunately no one here seemed to know about her brief fling with him.

  ‘Seems a perfect way to pass a lovely sunny Saturday afternoon,’ Kate said as dryly as she could. Even thinking about Steelhouse Lane tightened her throat.

  ‘Right, I’ll tell him you’re on, then. And the other business – that dodgy will – that’ll be going back to Fraud, I should think. Now – ah, come on in, Gaffer,’ Dave said, looking over their heads.

  Gaffer? Like everyone else, Kate turned. The immaculate figure of Rod Neville appeared, pushing, of all things, a canteen trolley, on top of which stood a couple of red plastic buckets holding bottles with promising necks. On the lower shelf were glasses and cartons of orange juice. Trust Rod to counter their sense of anticlimax with Buck’s Fizz.

  ‘Obviously our next move will depend on the results of the post mortem,’ Rod said, perching on the edge of Dave’s desk. Looking exhausted, Dave leaned back, apparently happy to do no more than host the discussion. ‘At least it’ll be the job of the local people to notify relatives and so on.’

  ‘I can save them some time there,’ Kate said. ‘If there were any family, the obvious per
son to ask would be my fraud suspect, Max Cornfield. He might even know if Barton had any close friends.’

  Rod raised his eyes heavenward. ‘All roads lead to Rome!’

  ‘Or,’ Kate put in, anxious for once to cap him, ‘is he the still centre of a turning world? A Level,’ she added, turning apologetically to Dave.

  What on earth was the matter with him? On her feet in a flash, she asked, ‘You all right, Dave?’

  ‘I think I must have that bug of yours,’ he said, as if it was an effort to make his mouth work. ‘You haven’t got some Alka-Seltzer or something, have you?’

  She was just going to say she never touched the stuff, not with her cast-iron stomach, when she remembered. ‘I ran out. But I can nip and get you some more.’ She took another look. ‘In fact, I’m on my way.’

  ‘No – I can’t …’ He clutched his stomach. ‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind, my wench.’

  Kate sped. It was nice to be able to do something for Dave, whose good-heartedness would have seen her through her crisis, she knew, if she’d cared to entrust anyone with it. The chemist’s was seething with Saturday shoppers; she thought she’d never get served.

  When she got back, however, Dave’s office was empty. She left the tablets in the middle of his desk and looked round for Rod. It was unlike him to leave without saying goodbye, now they were back in friendship mode.

  Would she and Graham ever get into friendship mode?

  She was staring at her desk, wondering what to take back to Lloyd House and the Fraud Squad, when she heard running feet. Jane, hitting a computer keyboard as if intent to punish it for all the world’s crashes, looked up briefly but carried on with her work. So did everyone else. Now the job was done, there was a good chance they could leave the paperwork till Monday and scoot off at a reasonable hour. Dave wasn’t the sort of man to impose unnecessary overtime, any more than budget-eyed Rod was the sort of man to sanction it. And since the panic bell wasn’t ringing, it was none of their business. Kate finished sorting, and strolled over to Jane.