Staying Power

by Judith Cutler

  Kate stuck out a hand towards him. ‘Lend us yours, Gaffer, will you?’

  If Kate was surprised by a large TV and state-of-the-art video in Detective Superintendent Neville’s office, she wouldn’t show it. Nor would she allow her eyes to widen at the thousands of pounds’ worth of computer technology making itself at home on his desk, or, indeed, at the general ambience, which owed little to the scuffed Victorian accommodation they all shared. Clever disposition of lighting and plasterboard had entirely changed the appearance of the room, which was newly-carpeted. The furniture was new, too. Stylish. To match his suit and haircut, no doubt.

  She told herself it was natural that a new man would want to establish himself so totally. He would no doubt wish to eradicate all evidence of his predecessor, currently occupying some other type of Her Majesty’s accommodation, though no doubt considerably less gracious and shared with company even less genteel than the squad. But it was unusual that he’d eradicated all the usual macho traces: not a sporting trophy, not a photo of a police or other worthy in sight. In fact to her mind, the walls were rather bare – they could have done with some jolly prints, the sort she and Colin had put up until they’d spawned girlie posters over Selby’s desk and everything had had to be removed, including little patches of paint where the Blu-TackTM had been.

  ‘DS Power!’ He emerged from behind his desk and clasped her hand, covering with both his. Unlike hers, they were newly manicured. His aftershave was subtle enough to be expensive. ‘Rodney Neville. I’m sorry we didn’t have an opportunity to speak yesterday. I gather you were doing an excellent job of dealing with our media friends.’

  ‘Some of them were dealing with me, Sir.’ She allowed herself an ironic smile. ‘I expect you’ve seen today’s press.’

  ‘And intend to capitalise on it,’ he said.

  Her heart sank at his enthusiasm. It was better to say nothing. She stayed at as near attention as she could with his hands still enfolding hers. When she was finally released, she allowed herself to stand at ease, chin up, posture a model for any rookie who happened to be watching.

  ‘Oh, do sit down, Sergeant.’ If it was a command, it came from a relaxed and smiling face, the skin in the sort of condition that came, she suspected, from meticulous skin-care. He himself turned to a bookshelf supporting a coffee machine. Kate had met the machine’s bigger and pricier brothers in Florence. If he offered her coffee it should be excellent.

  He did. She accepted, placed the cup and saucer on his desk, and continued to wait.

  ‘Now, Kate – I may call you Kate?’

  ‘Sir,’ she nodded.

  ‘This meeting today is only one of many I intend to set up with members of my Command Unit. I believe absolutely in efficient communication – in fact, I want you to regard my office door as permanently open. True, the police service is necessarily hierarchical but that shouldn’t deter you in any way.’

  Hierarchical and patriarchal, she thought. But did not say. Instead she smiled and nodded.

  ‘Now, it’s quite clear that your communication skills are excellent,’ he beamed.

  If standing still, sitting upright and nodding were communication skills, no doubt it would be difficult to fault them. On the other hand, she had no idea on what other, more searching criteria, he’d made his judgement. She risked a cool, ‘Sir?’

  ‘You handled the Press very well yesterday, I understand. And you’re clearly photogenic.’ He tapped the Guardian and The Times. Some hack had made a great deal of profit out of Alan Grafton’s death. ‘The service is always on the look-out for people with original talent. Your future could lie in that direction. Think the media, Kate. Think televisual. Think Crimewatch, Kate. Think fronting that.’

  ‘With respect, Sir, I’m a detective, not an actress.’

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘Have you never watched the programme?’

  ‘Not recently.’

  ‘Come, Sergeant, all work and no play!’

  ‘My recent personal circumstances have not been conducive to watching television, Sir.’

  He raised elegant but disbelieving eyebrows. ‘Well, serving officers are involved at all levels, including in front of the cameras. Should a vacancy arise, I am minded to nominate you as a likely presenter. The new face of the West Midlands Police.’ His fingers drew quotation marks round the sentence. ‘You’re personable, well-turned out and clearly intelligent.’

  So the attribute she valued most was bottom of his list. She smiled politely.

  He was waiting for her to say something, wasn’t he?

  ‘Thank you, Sir. I have to point out, though, Sir, that the same can be said for many of my colleagues. I’m new to the squad, to the area. I—’

  ‘It would look well in your CV, Sergeant. Think career.’ He smiled. ‘And it doesn’t hurt to let those dimples show.’

  The interview was clearly over. Thank God.

  ‘So much against my will, it’ll be you and Colin who will start going through Grafton’s effects.’ Graham had called her into his office almost as soon as she’d returned from Neville’s.

  She nodded. ‘It’ll be better than the job the Super has in mind for me,’ she said. ‘Has he told you?’

  ‘The Boy Wonder?’ He shook his head. ‘Enlighten me – unless it’s confidential.’

  ‘It is between you and me. I’d hate the others to get hold of it. He only wants me to go on the bloody telly, doesn’t he? Fronting some crime programme. Bastard!’

  ‘It would be a great opportunity,’ Graham said mildly. ‘Tea? Or are you full up with expensive espresso coffee?’

  ‘I know he gave me some, but I don’t actually recall getting a chance to drink it. I want to be a cop, Graham. Not a well-groomed doll.’

  Another man might have told her to come off it. Graham smiled, but with restraint. ‘The women on that programme are actually top-notch officers,’ he said. ‘And it certainly wouldn’t do you any harm, career-wise.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you start using his lingo! Minded, personable – is it pompo-verbosity or verbo-pomposity?’

  He stiffened. If she’d forgotten the difference between them in rank, he hadn’t, had he? And then he smiled, his face softening, his eyes warm. ‘Not many people have read Gowers’ Plain Words, Kate. I think it’s pompo-verbosity, though.’

  ‘We had this brilliant English teacher,’ she said, helping herself from the tin of biscuits he was shaking at her. ‘She made us read Gower and that essay by Orwell, the one in which he listed all the rules no writer should break. Not part of the syllabus, but useful.’

  ‘And it explains why your reports are always a pleasure to read. And I shall look forward, of course, to what you have to say about Grafton. The brother that ID’d him will be at Grafton’s house to unlock it for you this afternoon.’

  Colin looked up from his desk as she went back into the office. ‘Harry says he thinks the woman who wouldn’t talk may have called in again, but she spoke so quietly they couldn’t make out what she was saying.’

  ‘Get them to do something with the tape – enhance the quality.’

  ‘Costs money,’ he said, half-heartedly. He was feeding her a line, wasn’t he?

  ‘If she cares enough to call three times – what do you think, Gaffer?’

  ‘You and your bloody hunches are going to bankrupt the Force,’ Cope grunted. ‘Beg your pardon, the Service. Go on, see what them boffins can do.’

  She nodded. ‘By the way, Gaffer – this Grafton business. Thanks for your support – I take it it was you that got me on to this Grafton case?’

  ‘I like a woman with a bit of spirit,’ he said.

  ‘Whatever that’s supposed to mean,’ she said, as she and Colin headed for the stairs.

  ‘“Yes”, I suppose. Plus an implied criticism of Fatima.’

  ‘Kate! Sergeant Power!’

  She turned. It was Fatima herself, gesturing to the phone.

  ‘Hell! I’d better get it, though!’ Who on earth might
that be?

  Fatima covered the handset as Kate came through the door. She grinned, mouthing, ‘A man. Personal.’ As she passed it over, however, she added, ‘Not the same one as the other day, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

  Kate pulled a face. That was precisely what she had been wondering, hoping even. ‘Kate Power,’ she said, her disappointment making her curt.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Power?’ She recognised the voice but couldn’t place it. ‘Patrick here. Patrick Duncan. We met in fairly inauspicious circumstances yesterday. I wondered if you’d had any more thoughts about the deceased?’

  ‘I’m checking out his papers and so on this afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘To help you with your theory that he had everything to live for?’

  ‘We need as much background as we can get,’ she said, noncommittally.

  ‘Trying to blow my thesis out of the water, eh? Well, you won’t succeed. But I think you should try. In the interests of truth. Why don’t we talk things over – a drink, perhaps – this evening?’

  ‘I’ll check my diary.’ All she had planned, of course, was a visit to Aunt Cassie. And a basketful of ironing. ‘It couldn’t be before eight-thirty,’ she said.

  ‘Shall we say nine, then? Any preferences for where we eat?’

  ‘Eat?’

  ‘Why not? After a day’s work!’

  She mustn’t make a big deal out of this. ‘OK. No preferences, anyway. The only places I’ve checked out so far socially are a pub near Symphony Hall, a Balti restaurant in Kings Heath – oh, and a wonderful Kings Heath chippie specialising in the most marvellous chicken tikka in a naan.’

  ‘Are you based in Kings Heath then? Splendid – I know just where we’ll eat.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be Kings Heath—’

  ‘But no reason why it shouldn’t be. Giovanni’s, that’s where. Just off the High Street, opposite Safeway’s car park. Would nine-ish suit you? Excellent. I’ll look forward to that.’

  Would she? His voice told her it wasn’t a purely business meeting. Could she really want to go out socially with him? Biting her lip, she looked for the phone to replace the handset.

  Fatima pointed, ironically. The phone was at the extreme edge of her desk. There was a barricade of files between it and Fatima’s work-space. On top of the files was a styrofoam cup of greyish liquid which was probably the coffee that Selby had left there earlier. He himself was nowhere around.

  ‘Is he being a pain?’ What Kate couldn’t ask was why Fatima simply didn’t plonk it back on Selby’s desk.

  Fatima shook her head. ‘He just finds it funny to leave a drink just where I might reach for it without thinking. When we were out yesterday, he kept offering me sweets and crisps.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s just being generous?’ Kate said, her heart not in the question.

  ‘Do you?’ Fatima asked.

  Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t think he knows the meaning of the word.’

  ‘Maybe he’s just trying to proselytise? Turn me to the paths of Christian righteousness?’

  ‘It would be nice to think he knew the meaning of those words. Oh, shit!’ Kate shoved a chair over to Fatima’s side. ‘What are you going to do? Apart from resist temptation, that is?’

  Fatima shrugged. ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Have you tried simply explaining and asking for his co-operation? No? I don’t say that it’ll succeed but you never know.’

  ‘Too many people are hostile to Islam.’

  ‘Do you really think it’s anything as sophisticated as that? Not just like some stupid prat thinking it’s clever to offer a bacon sandwich to a vegetarian?’

  Fatima looked her straight in the eye. ‘He may be a prat, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a malicious prat.’ She smiled. ‘Kate – that phone-call upset you, didn’t it?’

  Kate blinked. ‘Not – well, yes, maybe. Not so much upset as unsettled me. My bloke was killed only a few months ago and this path’s asked me out for a drink. Then it became a meal. After sunset,’ she risked, to be rewarded with an answering grin.

  ‘Is he nice?’

  ‘I’ve only seen him in the morgue. He did yesterday’s autopsy. Says he wants to discuss my theories about Alan Grafton’s death.’

  Fatima nodded. ‘There’s always the possibility that that’s precisely what he wants to do.’

  ‘Hm. He may be just a path. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be an amorous path.’

  Fatima threw up her hand to acknowledge the hit. ‘And what if he is an amorous path: is that a problem?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Doesn’t look much like a business tycoon’s residence,’ Colin said, as he and Kate stood under an inadequate porch waiting to be let into Alan Grafton’s house.

  ‘Remind me never even to contemplate moving into – where is this? Acocks Green?’ She dashed a futile hand at a dollop of rain, presumably sloshing from a blocked gutter.

  ‘It’s not so bad when it’s fine,’ Colin said. ‘Ah, do I hear action?’

  ‘Can you hear action? Or only see it?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  The door was opened by a paler, more delicate version of Alan Grafton.

  ‘Good afternoon. Mr Grafton, is it? Mr Adrian Grafton? I’m Detective Constable Colin Roper, and this is Detective Sergeant Kate Power.’

  What had made Colin so voluble? He usually left this sort of introduction to her.

  ‘Yes. Adrian Grafton. A.C. Grafton, as opposed to A.J. Grafton. Can’t think what my parents were thinking of, giving us the same initials, well, nearly. Always got the wrong post, so embarrassing at times.’

  Someone else too voluble – the sort of reaction to stress they were all familiar with in bereaved relatives and friends.

  Another drip down her neck prompted Kate to speak. ‘You’ll know we’re investigating the circumstances surrounding your brother’s unfortunate death, Mr Grafton.’

  ‘Oh, call me Adrian – everyone does!’ He smiled. It was a horribly winsome smile.

  ‘I will if you get us out of this rain.’ Kate fancied her smile was bracing.

  He stood aside, gesturing courteously.

  He watched them as they wiped their feet, and took their coats to hang them on an old-fashioned hall-stand. Kate stepped forward to look more closely: in the elaborate woodwork of the back panel there was a brilliant turquoise enamel inlay in a copper plaque.

  ‘Ah, you have an eye for a good piece, Sergeant,’ Adrian said. ‘Arts and Crafts. Lovely, isn’t it?’

  The plaque was. On the other hand the hall stand was too ornate, too heavy, and dominated the narrow hall.

  ‘Now, Alan used the box-room as an office. Everything else is just a normal home. Except – well, you’ll see what fine taste he had. Do you want to look round down here before you go up? Looking for Clues?’ His winsome smile inserted a capital C.

  Kate nodded. ‘If you don’t mind. What we’re looking for is anything that will help us work out why he died as he did.’

  ‘You put that very tactfully, Sergeant! Did he fall or was he pushed? Isn’t that what you’re wondering?’

  She smiled. And waited.

  ‘Firstly, as I told the other policemen, you know, the ones in uniform, as far as I know he didn’t have a single enemy. Not one. But there again, he’d just done this fabulous business deal – why should anyone with his prospects want to – to kill himself?’ Adrian’s voice cracked. He turned briefly from them.

  ‘This must be very upsetting for you, Sir,’ Colin said quietly.

  ‘I’m all right as long as I can be interested or angry. My poor kid brother – and some kinky bastard strings him up to die.’

  Kate’s eyes flickered to Colin’s: he’d registered the word, too.

  But Adrian noticed. ‘Oh, you know, these guys and their funny sex. Strange underwear, plastic bags and oranges in their mouths.
’

  ‘Did Alan …?’ On the face of it, she’d have thought Adrian a more likely candidate.

  ‘No, Sergeant, he did not. To the best of my knowledge – isn’t that the phrase? – to the best of my knowledge, Alan was just a decent ordinary guy. To the best of my knowledge … No, we weren’t all that close. Talked on the phone, that sort of thing. Family Christmases—’

  Was he cold or repressed? She must remember his brother had just died horribly.

  ‘Your parents—?’ Colin prompted.

  ‘Dad had a stroke two years back. Like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Pity Ma can’t – she’s got some sort of dementia. Only sixty-three.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Kate meant it. Aunt Cassie might have her moments but thank God she had her full complement of marbles.

  He shrugged. ‘Tea or coffee? I suppose I can’t offer you what I’m going to spend the afternoon sinking: a decent red wine. If one’s got to pick over the bits and pieces, one might as well do it in style.’ But there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll make it, shall I?’ Colin pushed open a door which did in fact lead to the kitchen.

  Kate followed. The place was immaculate – even to the J-cloth wrung out and hung to dry over the tap. The fridge was switched off, empty, door ajar. The freezer was still running, however, with a typed note of the contents stuck to it.

  ‘Unbelievable, isn’t it?’ Colin gestured. ‘Imagine, going through all this – leaving it as if you wanted to find it nice and clean when you came back from your holiday.’

  ‘Maybe he did. Maybe he simply didn’t use it when he got back on Sunday – didn’t have time to restock with milk and everything. D’you want to have black tea or black coffee?’

  ‘Try that tin over there,’ Adrian suggested, coming up behind them. He pointed, but wouldn’t pass it.

  They followed his finger. The hand-printed label said, POWERED MILK.

  ‘It was one of the last things Ma wrote,’ Adrian said. ‘He said it made him smile every time he used it. He had this vision of Ma casting aside her zimmer, slipping her knickers outside her dress and taking off to right the world.’ He spread his arms to demonstrate.