by Alison Bruce
‘Hi,’ he smiled, and she laughed and pedalled on.
It took him another ten minutes before the Rock pub came into sight, and he heard it almost as soon as he saw it; it wasn’t the sort of venue to book a band incapable of entertaining any passing pedestrians. Tonight it was The Vibes, plus guest saxophone player. The Vibes were four craggy guys, each with more miles on the clock than Keith Richards, but it was the guest saxophone player that he’d really come to watch.
He pushed the outer door. It tremored with their version of ‘Misirlou’, the alto sax doing the whole Dick Dale thing, and opened wide enough for him to fall into the hot churn of bodies, noise and alcohol partying enthusiastically in the same confined space.
He expected to only see two familiar faces: his colleague Mel and the older woman he was planning to meet. Of course Mel was easy to spot, standing centre stage like that, but she was too lost in her solo to notice him. At least that gave him a moment where he could observe her without making her feel self-conscious. Most distinctive was her hair, bright red and back-combed into spiky tufts; maybe she intended to add the impression of robustness to her slight build, or maybe she just liked it like that. And her dress sense for tonight was tomboy meets Debbie Harry: a look she toned down for work, of course, but even so, she offered a touch of sparkle to the dusty Admin department of Parkside police station. In a way, it was amazing they’d even given her the job, except that her efficiency was just like her sax playing – pretty damned hot.
Someone called out his name, and snapped him out of his reverie. He recognized the voice immediately, and began to turn towards it before he had time to consider stepping further into the pub and pretending he hadn’t heard. DC Michael Kincaide was leaning with one elbow on the bar and one foot resting on the rail beneath it. As usual, he wore a suit, and the effect was a pose à la Catalogue Man, which was actually how he looked most of the time.
Kincaide shouted over the noise: ‘It’s my local, what’s your excuse?’
‘I’m meeting someone.’
‘Not jailbait from Admin, I hope?’
‘Mel? No. I’m meeting someone else.’
‘Good, cos her fella’s over there, and I don’t think he likes all the attention she’s getting. I think it’s the way she blows on that instrument.’ Kincaide looked pleased with his joke.
It took Goodhew no effort to look indifferent as a reply as he scanned the pub again. This time saw her. ‘And there she is,’ he said loudly, for Kincaide’s benefit, and walked over to join his grandmother. She sat further into the pub, in front of the raised area where the band was performing but, typically, just to the left of centre.
‘I bought you a pint,’ she announced and took a sip from her own half of lager.
Tonight she wore black slacks and a turquoise lambswool sweater and, with her usual style, she managed to look as though she’d just returned from a day at the salon, as ever cheating her real age by at least fifteen years. Goodhew had inherited her distinctive green eyes and, in turn, she’d pinched her smile from Doris Day.
‘Did you do it?’ she asked.
He kept his voice level and his expression inanimate. ‘Marks should get it tonight. I left it on his desk.’
‘No one saw you?’
‘I don’t think so, although I can’t be sure I guess . . .’
‘Who was that guy at the bar?’
‘DC Kincaide.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah?’
‘And he grates on you?’
‘Just a bit.’
‘You’ve never mentioned it.’
‘He seems to have a good reputation, and I don’t feel I’ve worked with him long enough to justify feeling any differently. So I keep my feelings to myself.’
‘But I could tell.’
‘You know me.’
‘You’re not as good at lying as you think you are. In fact, you’re the wrong person to try leading a double life. You really ought to stop now, Gary.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said and turned his attention back to the band.
His grandmother waited until the next gap between numbers before she spoke again. ‘She’s nothing like Claire.’
There was no edge to her voice and he knew that stirring up trouble wasn’t her way, so he just shrugged. ‘I’m only here to watch her play.’
She touched his arm. ‘I didn’t mean that in a negative way, just that you obviously don’t have a type.’
‘I know,’ he replied. And it was a fair point. Claire was like the clichéd Scandinavian blonde, despite having been born and bred in Derbyshire. They had met in their first week at university, and they’d found themselves bowled over by the kind of hit-you-in-the-face, all-encompassing love that exists in movies. Until he met Claire, Goodhew had assumed real-life romance could never be that intense, but for three subsequent years they had been inseparable, inhabiting each other’s lives with an intensity that never soured into claustrophobia or boredom. But, ultimately, they reached a mutual understanding that it wasn’t a relationship that would translate into their adult lives: it was more like a three-year-long holiday romance.
He couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than he’d loved Claire, but the hard truth was that, in the end, whatever they felt for each other wasn’t enough.
She had ambitions to be an architect in London, while his dream was to be a police detective here, in what she called the ‘museum city of Cambridge’. OK, they might have overcome the geographical obstacles, but he guessed their post-university lives were destined to follow increasingly divergent trajectories. Their split was one of those rare amicable break-ups: term finished and so did they. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Three years on, and he thought about her infrequently now, but on those occasions she still glowed, basking in Color By Deluxe while every girl he’d met before her had long since faded into grainy black and white.
His grandmother was right: Mel wasn’t Claire but, more importantly, Mel wasn’t monochrome either.
Kincaide drained his glass, then leant his elbow on the bar while he waited to be served again. He noticed Goodhew was still sitting with the same woman who was sixty if she was a day, and it wasn’t just the age difference that made them seem an odd couple; Goodhew was perpetually under-groomed while she’d clearly been high maintenance her whole life.
As the barmaid handed some change to the man standing next to him, Kincaide waved his glass in her direction and demanded ‘Foster’s’.
He felt his mobile vibrating in his pocket, and though he had no intention of answering it, he took it out anyway, just to see who was calling. His pint arrived as the caller display announced ‘DI Marks’, which probably meant there’d be nothing stronger than coffee for him for the rest of the night.
Marks just wanted the two of them, Kincaide and Goodhew, back at the station, and was therefore pleased to learn that a single phone call had found them both.
Kincaide pushed his way towards Goodhew thinking, This is absolutely great. He didn’t want to be thrown together with some enthusiastic new kid anyway, but being his taxi service back to town irritated him even more. No doubt the journey would be filled with inane conversation when all Kincaide really wanted to do was wind down for the night.
‘Marks wants us back in,’ Kincaide announced to Goodhew, with a glance at the woman who seemed intent on only listening to the music.
‘Now?’
‘No, next Tuesday. Yes, right now, if that’s not too much trouble.’
Mel was still playing as Goodhew mouthed ‘Goodbye’ to her. She didn’t smile back, which was fair enough considering she was halfway through the Stray Cats’ ‘Wild Saxophone’. But it may also have been because her boyfriend Toby was sitting two tables away and looking more taut than the top E on the guitarist’s Gretsch.
Goodhew said little on the way back to town, having glanced across to the driver’s side and weighed up his colleague’s mood. Kincaide had never-out-of-place black hair an
d perfect grooming, and he could do neat with less difficulty than Goodhew managed to do marginally unkempt. For every pair of jeans Goodhew owned, he guessed Kincaide had at least two suits. Kincaide’s current lack of humour didn’t bother him, but nor did it motivate him to make any unnecessary conversation.
They were inside Parkside station and heading towards Marks’ office before Goodhew spoke again, ‘Why does Marks want us in?’
‘Dunno what it’s about. He doesn’t seem to want to see anyone else, just us.’
‘So it’s going to be something either really interesting or incredibly dull.’
Kincaide shot him a sideways glance. ‘What makes you say that? Have you got wind of some new development, or are you just going on that “average jobs take most people” theory?’
‘B,’ Goodhew fibbed. ‘Anyway, I haven’t been here long enough to get roped into anything above mundane, have I?’
‘We’ll see.’
Goodhew paused and let Kincaide walk through the doorway of DI Marks’ office first. The room never changed: an empty, undersized desk that faced the door and stood island-like, with enough space to walk around it on either side, the spare chairs in a slightly different shade of olive to the filing cabinet, the water-cooler beside the window. On sunny days he could see it sparkling from his own window and it looked turquoise, the way a lagoon looks from twenty thousand feet. The room smelt of sweet lilac air freshener intermingling with the stale whiff of tobacco rising from Marks’ jacket.
A dying bluebottle buzzed in the window, the latest victim of an odourless fly killer hanging from the room’s only picture hook.
Today one of the three spare chairs was heaped with documents, and a cardboard crate lay half full beside it on the floor. Marks sat at his desk with a pile of other papers on his lap, his head bowed. Something he spotted made him tut and shake his head.
Goodhew and Kincaide waited and, after a few seconds, Goodhew began to wish they’d announced their arrival so he cleared his throat. ‘We’re here, sir.’
‘My deduction skills aren’t quite that poor yet, Gary. Sit!’ Marks instructed.
Goodhew wondered whether his boss had ever trained as a dog handler. Probably not a good time to ask. A half-smile reached his lips but he pushed it away.
Marks put the papers on his desk, looked up at Goodhew, then nodded at the free chair. ‘I said, sit down.’
Kincaide had already taken the chair to the side of the desk, so Goodhew settled into the second one, which was directly facing the inspector.
‘How many weeks has this rape investigation been running?’ Marks looked irritated. Kincaide glanced at Goodhew but neither of them spoke. That was just as well, as it turned out to be a rhetorical question. ‘Eleven weeks tomorrow.’ He patted the pile of papers he’d moved to the desk. ‘Do you know what all this paperwork is?’
Kincaide looked blank and Goodhew did his best to follow suit.
‘The case notes for the rape investigation – our last major investigation.’ He emphasized the word ‘last’ and spotted Kincaide stiffen. ‘Yes, that’s right, two rapes near Cambridge airport, and this evening we’ve brought a suspect in for questioning.’ He took a quick breath and his expression settled back into its usual beady-eyed mask: the one that read much and revealed little. The very same expression that caused habitual discomfort around the station.
‘You’re familiar with the case, I take it?’ As they’d both been working full-time on it, they were definitely facing another rhetorical question. ‘I thought we all were fully informed, and yet tonight I received another anonymous tip-off. An envelope was hand-delivered to my desk, yep, this desk here, and it contained a letter addressed to me and a toothbrush. This guy was so accurate last time that I have every confidence that the DNA from that same brush will match the rapist’s DNA, so we’ve already brought the suspect in. He’s an Ian Knott, by the way.’ He glanced from one to the other as if hoping for a glimmer of recognition. ‘I’m about to suggest to him that he might like to allow a mouth swab to be taken, just to eliminate him.’
‘He’ll say no,’ Kincaide pointed out.
Goodhew spoke at last. ‘Not necessarily.’ They both looked at him. ‘Tell him that no DNA has been recovered from the victims so far, but that we may get lucky if there’s another attack. He’ll know that refusing will look suspicious, and may decide to risk the possibility that you’re telling the truth. We know he understands how to be careful, and he may even think he’s not going to do it again – they often do genuinely believe that, don’t they?’
Marks didn’t reply, but studied the top report on the pile. Goodhew and Kincaide waited for him to speak.
‘Michael,’ he said finally, ‘I’d like you to accompany me while I question Mr Knott. You go down now and make sure the interview room’s ready and that we have all the necessary kit.’
‘Kit?’
‘Like chairs for starters,’ Marks muttered drily. ‘Just use your initiative and I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’
If Kincaide was surprised to be dispatched so abruptly, he didn’t show it. However, just before he closed the door, he heard Marks announce that Goodhew had drawn the short straw. So it was as Goodhew had predicted: Kincaide had bagged ‘the something really interesting’ while Goodhew was about to receive ‘the something incredibly dull’.
Marks watched Kincaide leave, then spent the next few seconds quietly scratching his ear.
‘When’s my birthday, Gary?’
The question seemed odd but the junior officer answered without hesitation. ‘July 14th, sir.’
‘You’re very open about your ability to do that.’
‘Do what, sir? Remember dates?’
‘Find things out. What is it, a talent or an obsession – or something else?’
Goodhew shrugged. ‘I didn’t know it was anything special, I suppose I just have a good memory.’
‘Bollocks,’ Marks grunted, but without any hint of anger in his voice.
Silence.
Each stared at the other with a kind of respectful curiosity. Marks strummed the desk and looked like he was trying to read Goodhew’s thoughts.
He then took a breath and addressed his junior. ‘If I were speaking to the person behind these tip-offs, the first thing I’d want to know is where they get their information and, secondly, why they can’t come to me directly. Perhaps they break the law to retrieve the evidence – so if I condoned that, not only would it be inadmissible evidence, but they could lose their job over it.’
‘If they had a job,’ Goodhew pointed out.
‘But why am I asking you all of this?’ Marks’ eyes shone, though Goodhew couldn’t decide whether he was looking at a gleam of anger or a glint of encouragement.
‘No idea,’ he replied evenly.
‘Because I have a sneaking feeling that you’re taking the piss, Goodhew. That’s why.’
Goodhew raised an eyebrow. ‘Not at all, sir.’
Marks rapped the desk several times with a sharp tap-tap-tap of his index finger, using the sound like a gavel to ensure he had Goodhew’s full attention.
Which he did.
‘These two tip-offs have both occurred in the three months since you arrived here.’
Goodhew’s eyes widened. ‘I had no idea, sir. But I suppose new people start work here all the time, so it was bound to coincide with someone new. Just circumstantial evidence then, I guess. Sir.’
‘Don’t be smart, son. It is just as well that circumstantial is all I have. I’m now going over the files to see what we missed, and to find out why someone with either an unusual talent or an obsession with uncovering information, managed to hone in on that obscure group of men called “recently divorced, sociopathic wife-beaters who can only get a hard-on when they have sex under the flight path of jets taking off from a commercial airfield”. I can see how obvious all that is, now it is pointed out to me. To think the rest of us thought we were cleverly scrutinizing simple things like sex offe
nders, plane spotters and disgruntled ex-airport staff.’
Goodhew eyed his boss with concern. ‘I sense this is frustrating you, sir.’
The phone rang and Marks mouthed, ‘Piss off, Gary,’ as he lifted the receiver to his ear. His voice kept its usual unemotional tone, and he spoke for about thirty seconds.
He replaced the handset and continued. ‘Well, in this particular case, I don’t care too much how we caught him, assuming we’ve got the right guy. I’m just relieved we did so before it happened again. I’m not saying the end always justifies the means, but in this case, it’s a job well done. Now, back to that short straw I mentioned. One of the victims states that the last person she spoke to before she was attacked was a man who sleeps rough and who she thinks is called Ratty. He usually hangs round the shops during the daytime. The name mean anything to you?’
Goodhew nodded. ‘And you want me to get a statement from him?’
‘Just a confirmation of time and place of his recent whereabouts, if he can. But he’s made himself scarce and I’m guessing you’d love to spend some time hunting for him.’
‘You can’t tell me we’re seriously relying on any statement he provides?’
‘Absolutely correct, we’re not. Just call it belt-and-braces stuff, and don’t moan, because I’m sure you’ll turn it into something interesting. It’s late now, so I suggest you start first thing in the morning. In fact, just so there’s no ambiguity, I’m insisting that you leave it until then and, right now, go home.’ Marks stood up and Goodhew followed suit. ‘And the next time there’s a major investigation, I would like to think we could at least attempt to solve it faster than by depending on an anonymous envelope, eh?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Goodhew agreed cheerfully as he followed his superior from the room and down the stairs.