‘Just regard him as I do. A funny bugger. Hard one moment, vulnerable another. Human and fallible. Certainly a bully.’
Graham shook his head, more in disbelief than disagreement.
She looked at him under her brows and held his gaze. And then smiled. ‘Thanks. And I can talk to Fraud and see what they say about Alan Grafton’s accounts?’
‘If this goes over budget—’
‘OK. I’ll see if Colin will call in that favour. By the way, have we got any unsolved break-ins?’ Almost against her will she told him about her flooring.
‘Worth a quick check. Get Fatima and Selby on to it. OK?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Meeting. Budgeting.’
‘Great. See you, Graham, and – thanks.’
If her smile was sunny, his was troubled. One day she would ask him if he hated meetings that much. But what she would not ask him about was the latest addition to his desk. No, not a snazzy computer. A very large, heavy, silver frame. She’d not seen what it held, of course. But she’d bet her Christmas overtime it would be a photo of his wife.
Chapter Ten
Perhaps it was that heavy frame that put the idea of domestic strife into Kate’s head. Not that she could imagine Graham lifting a hand in anger. Not even his voice. Though perhaps the cold withdrawal he’d specialised in recently was a means of control at home, too.
It was other means that she was thinking about, however. The sort that put bruises on the face of that care assistant at Cassie’s home. Rosie, that was it. Angry with herself for not thinking about it earlier, she reached for the phone, though their office was only a corridor or two away.
‘Domestic Violence Unit.’ The woman’s voice at the other end was cheery and positive. ‘What do you do for lunch?’ it asked, when Kate had introduced herself.
‘Strong coffee.’
‘Well, why don’t you stretch a point and make it a sarnie? Come down and join us – then we’ll go down to the pub for half an hour. Me – I’m Lorraine – and Midge. Go on, do you good.’
Any other day it might. But it felt as if the wind were slicing into her sinuses, and her eyes poured tears. Again. At least this time she wasn’t crying, if such a distinction could be made. Her two DVU colleagues looked at her with obvious anxiety but seemed reassured. And relaxed visibly when they reached the shelter of a pub and her tears stopped. Presumably every day they heard nervous victims giving fictitious explanations involving friends being beaten. Not themselves, no way!
Both women would be in their late thirties, Lorraine white, Midge African-Caribbean. Lorraine, the sergeant and the older by a couple of years, sank heavily into a deep chintzy chair, before looking round. ‘Hmph. All these familiar faces – it gets more like the police canteen every day. Except for the furniture. Funny, trying to pretend this is a country cottage bang in the middle of Brum. Still, it’s a break, isn’t it? And you can have a salad.’ She gripped the pads of fat on her hips.
‘You can have a salad,’ Midge observed. ‘I shall have – oh, their chilli con carne’s not bad.’
Kate had expected anyone sporting the nickname Midge to be grossly overweight, but in fact she was slight to the point of thinness. She was also surprisingly short. Both women were in plain clothes, but whereas Kate tried to look business-like, sometimes, she thought, adopting her own severely tailored uniform, these women obviously dressed to reassure their clients: cheerful tops and informal skirts.
She bought the first round – mineral waters for all – and settled for the chilli con carne with side salad. And, as an afterthought, chips.
‘There’s this nurse at the nursing home where my great-aunt’s staying,’ she said. She paused, catching a look flung from one woman to the other. ‘No. If someone was knocking me around I wouldn’t stay. I’ll put up with a lot of things, but not, repeat not, violence. It really is, like I said on the phone, information for someone else.’
Lorraine gave an apologetic smile: ‘We have this sort of double act. We go into it automatically, almost. So if we sound a bit heavy, a bit obvious, you will forgive us?’
Kate nodded. ‘No need to apologise.’
‘OK. For starters, you know we can’t intervene – can’t just turn up on the front door and offer to sort the bloke out – without being invited. By someone or other,’ Midge added, grinning. ‘By the beat officer, often as not. And we can’t wave magic wands. The woman’s got to want to protect herself. Which means not continuing in the relationship as it is.’
‘Who’d want to, if you were being beaten up?’ Kate led with her chin. She knew many of the answers already – no money, no place to stay. ‘You can’t tell me many women actually enjoy it – ask for it?’
Lorraine looked hard at her over the rim of her glass. ‘You batter away at a woman’s self-esteem long enough, she’ll think she does deserve bad treatment. Ah! Here’s the food. Now, before I forget, you give that nurse one of these.’
Kate took what looked like a credit or a loyalty card.
‘See? A woman can slip it into her purse, and no one will be any the wiser. You don’t even have to talk to her about it – everything’s pretty self-explicit – but if she does ask you can point out that that’s our number. There.’
‘My phone: some people get all the fun,’ Midge observed.
‘The thing to remember, Kate, is that brutality isn’t always a matter of breaking bones. Some people do seem to thrive in really explosive relationships. But some men seem able to grind their partners down in unbelievable ways without ever hitting them.’
‘Or without needing to hit them any more,’ Midge put in dryly. She dabbed crisp-looking chips into the chilli con carne.
Kate followed suit. The chips were excellent.
‘So what’s it like in the hallowed halls of CID? For a woman?’ Lorraine asked, as if to take her mind off her salad. She’d allowed herself a puny-looking slice of ham.
‘A bit male.’
‘What! After the Met? I’d have thought anything else would be a holiday after a stint down in the Smoke!’
Kate shrugged. ‘I never had anything there but a bit of teasing. Not sexual harassment, ever. And we got very close, some of us. Maybe I’ll make friends up here eventually.’ It slipped out before she could stop it.
‘Not so good up here?’ Midge asked.
It wasn’t worth prevaricating. She’d heard her voice give her away. ‘I’m actually quite lonely. I got quite friendly with one couple, but we’ve rather drifted apart. Her brother was implicated in a very nasty case and – I think she rather blamed me. I’ve got a lovely next-door neighbour but she’s got my cold squared – flu, really. Anyway, she works shifts. I do run a football team for the local Boys’ Brigade but—’
‘You don’t go in for cradle-snatching. And I suppose the boys’ parents are – all parents?’
‘And solidly married.’
‘And you don’t do married men? Very wise.’ Lorraine nodded sagely.’
Except that she did, didn’t she? Kate didn’t reply.
Fatima was looking very pale when Kate got back, warmed by a brisk walk and the promise of some more time with Lorraine and Midge. It was a long time since she’d held a tennis racket in her hand, but Midge assured her she’d soon manage again, and promised to coach her at an indoor centre. Lorraine promised to take her cooking in hand, just as soon, that was, as she’d reached her Weight Watchers’ target.
Selby, an indefinably cocky air about him, was clicking away so assiduously with his mouse that Kate wanted to pounce, there and then. But she didn’t want to sink to his level and humiliate him by bawling him out in front of anyone else, and in any case, maybe she should be finding out what ailed Fatima. It could be sheer hunger. She sniffed. There was a strong smell of food in the room – cheese and onion sandwiches, and something fried. A sandwich at your desk was one thing, chips and burgers quite another. But so far as she knew there were no rules apart from those of courtesy and common sense. Or, at the other end of the spectru
m, loud, crude complaints if someone’s tuna on brown was deemed too smelly.
Anything was too smelly for someone on a dawn-to-dusk fast.
Hell, she’d taken food so much for granted. Should she have salad or a portion of chips with her meal? Why not both? Pile them on! And there was this woman allowing herself not so much as a glass of water, never mind whether it was still or sparkling or plain Severn-Trent H2O.
Still, it was no good appealing to Selby’s non-existent sense of humanity. No good either going over his head to Cope, who probably thought a thick pork chop with crackling would do Fatima good.
It would have to be something to float when she and Graham had another moment.
Meanwhile Fatima was digging in her desk. ‘A couple of messages for you, Kate.’
‘And she hasn’t lost either of them. Bloody hell, this must be a first!’
‘Shut it, Selby. Anything interesting?’
‘Two. Harry Carter says someone’s phoned and will you go down. The other was from a man who didn’t give his name but asked you to call back.’ Fatima waited until Kate was between her and Selby. ‘Pat the Path.’ she mouthed.
‘Probably the Chief Constable – only Fatty’s forgotten his name,’ Selby offered.
Kate clenched her fists. ‘You’re way out of line,’ she said, rounding on him. ‘Way out. For God’s sake, man, can’t you remember the simple rule that you always support your partner? If you can’t rely on each other in the bloody office, how can you trust each other in life or death situations? A bit of decent, human loyalty, please.’
‘Ma’am.’
Damn the man. Impossible to tell how much submission, how much insolence the single syllable carried. And here were some of the others coming into the room. She didn’t want a yelling match in front of them. If she didn’t lose dignity, he’d lose face. Neither a good scenario for the squad.
She held out her hand for the notes. There was no doubting the anger in Fatima’s eyes.
Trusting she could lip-read, Kate mouthed, ‘The loo. Five minutes. OK?’
Pat the Path.’s answering service invited Kate to leave a message. She did. Then, picking up a couple of quite irrelevant files, she strolled out of the office, fetching up in the loo. The evil lighting made her hair look green and increased the swelling under her eyes to the size of weekend bags. Some of the skin round her lips and nose was flaking badly: she scraped at it irritably. She was so engrossed that she jumped when the door opened. Fatima, of course.
‘I don’t want any favours,’ she said, before she’d shut the door properly. ‘Ramadan is a time of temptation. We choose to undertake the fast. We don’t expect other people to fast. Or even to be particularly considerate,’ she added, breaking into a faint smile.
‘But not to leave coffee on your desk or to wave food under your nose.’
‘It shouldn’t matter.’ Fatima’s face was stubborn again. It wouldn’t matter. But—’
‘But?’ What else has he been doing, Fatima?’
Fatima wouldn’t meet her eyes in the mirror. ‘Let’s just call it violating my personal space.’
‘Groping you!’
Fatima turned away, shaking her head. ‘Not quite.’ She turned abruptly. ‘Look, Sarge, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. OK?’
Kate looked straight at her, holding her gaze. ‘If it’s not a big problem we don’t make a big deal out of it. But you looked awful in there just now and—’
‘I just felt a bit sick. You get used to it.’
‘The smell of food or something else that stinks? Look, Fatima, I meant what I said in there. Out there we have to trust each other with our lives? How can you function as partners if Selby’s bullying you?’
‘How can he trust me if I grass on him?’
How many times had Kate used the same specious argument to Graham? No wonder he’d been angry. She pushed her hands through her hair in exasperation before trying again. ‘You’ll tell me – please – if things get any worse. Not because I’m “Sarge” but because I—’ She tailed off. If she’d said, I’d like to be your friend that would have all the wrong connotations. The most brutal of the men she’d worked with had thought all women officers were bikes or dikes. Selby might even have suggested to Fatima that Kate was one of the latter. She tried again. ‘Because I believe in what I’m doing and I don’t like little fuckwits like Selby giving the service a bad name.’ God, she sounded pretentious even to her own ears. ‘Sorry,’ she added lamely.
Fatima looked uncomfortable, as well she might.
Kate tried one last tack. ‘I also think the service is the better for having women in it. The woman who you replaced left. Altogether. I don’t want you to leave. Or the next woman in the squad.’
This time Fatima smiled faintly. ‘If it gets any worse … But she didn’t promise to tell her.
The message Harry Carter had for her was much clearer, in tape quality and in content. They listened to it in the room set aside for the incoming calls, a minute or two from the front desk. A woman’s voice said, ‘Good morning. If you want to know who was responsible for Alan Grafton’s death, ask Howard Sanderson.’
‘That’s it.’ Harry said. ‘Time I went back to my desk, love.’
‘It’s a lot,’ she said, walking back with him. ‘Middle-class, probably white, well-educated. An accusation against a possible killer. Harry, I could kiss you. Giving up your lunchtime like that.’
‘I’m only the messenger,’ he said. ‘I mean, it was young Mandy on the switchboard who picked them all up. Like I said, she’s a bright kid. But that doesn’t mean I won’t take you up on your offer when there’s no one around.’ He grinned, looking over her shoulder.
‘Won the pools, Kate?’ It was Graham, winking at Harry and then smiling at her with an almost frightening intensity, given the lightness of his words.
‘Better,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a lead in the Alan Grafton business.’
‘Some woman says that one Howard Sanderson killed him,’ Harry added.
Should she correct him? Or would it be pedantic? She compromised. ‘Or can help us with our enquiries,’ she said dryly.
‘Funny thing,’ said Harry, with the air of someone pulling a rabbit from his hat, ‘her voice sounds ever so like that woman we’ve had on the blower before. The one we were talking about, Kate.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before, Sergeant?’ Graham demanded, his face rigid once again. ‘OK, Harry – give me the tapes.’
Chapter Eleven
Graham took the stairs two at a time. Kate followed a pace behind, as if he were royalty. He didn’t speak until they reached his office.
There wasn’t any question about which chair to take. Kate stood.
‘Other tapes? Other tapes? There’s something going on here that a civilian receptionist knows about that you haven’t bothered to tell me?’
‘Or DI Cope hasn’t bothered to tell you,’ Kate said quietly. ‘He was going to try to authorise the funds to have the tapes improved. As it was they were virtually inaudible.’
‘And?’
‘And he hasn’t told me what the current situation is.’ One of them had to defuse the situation, even if it meant taking a risk. It had better be her. She went over to the kettle. Empty. At least there was water in the plastic bottle. ‘Tea or coffee?’
He flung over to the window: had he been a teenage girl she’d have called the movement a flounce. She could see his knuckles whitening as he gripped the sill. OK. Herbal tea: something to calm him down, even though she found it disgusting. Leaving the tea bag to stew, as he preferred, she placed the mug beside one of the pots of geranium cuttings. He left it where it was.
So did she tiptoe away like a nurse leaving a patient? She had an idea he wanted to be alone with a capital A. Or she could confront him? Risky, in the circumstances. Or she could embark on a possibly futile wait, knowing, meanwhile, that waiting for her out there was an office full of paper she ought to be sifting through. Or
some tapes to listen to.
She took the first tape from where he’d abandoned it, the corner of his desk, and slipped it into the tape-recorder on one of the filing cabinets. ‘Good morning – I want—’ That was all. Then the next two. Much the same. Then the most recent. ‘Good morning. If you want to know who was responsible for Alan Grafton’s death, ask Howard Sanderson.’
‘Any idea where she was calling from?’ he asked, as if he’d never hurtled up the stairs in fury.
‘One-four-one’d the first. I don’t know about the others.’ Well, she wouldn’t, would she? Hadn’t had time to ask, thanks to his tantrums. Except she had. She’d forgotten in the heat of the moment. She dialled down to Reception. No, she’d better not ask Harry for information. Just for Mandy’s internal phone number.
Mandy’s number was engaged.
‘All calls made about twelve,’ she said, reading the information from the cassettes. ‘Two of them two minutes before the hour, one two minutes after. One spot on.’
‘I wonder if that’s more than a coincidence,’ he said, moving over to examine the cassettes himself.
‘And this Howard Sanderson?’
‘If it’s the Howard Sanderson I know, you can’t just turn up on his front doorstep and ask questions. He’s got all sorts of contacts with very senior officers indeed, and is your classic pillar of the community committee man.’
‘You know him?’
‘Know of, more accurately.’ He did not elaborate.
‘There might be more than one Howard Sanderson?’ She picked up the phone books. ‘Who was it had the bright idea that Brum needed three residential volumes? And you only get one delivered, as if you only need to phone people in your immediate area. Aren’t people in Birmingham South West supposed to know people in Birmingham North or Birmingham South East?’
‘Only if they’re rich enough to pay for a third volume – you get a second free if you ask. Anyway, the Howard Sanderson I know of will grace yours – South West.’
She passed it to him, running quick fingers down the entries in the other volumes herself. ‘No. No one here.’
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