A Narrow Victory

by Faith Martin

  ‘No, guv,’ Zoe said quietly. ‘I don’t suppose she would. She’s the competent, suffer-in-silence sort, isn’t she?’

  Hillary sighed heavily. ‘OK, back to HQ. At least if nothing else, we’ve now nailed down where the Felix-is-gay rumours probably originated.’

  ‘What, his being friends with Harry, you mean?’ Zoe said. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, Harry was openly gay, and he had that sort of look about him. You could tell, even from his photograph.’

  ‘Right. And his mother said Felix was the one he went to when he needed help. And I got the feeling he needed it often. People would have seen them together, and if Harry was being emotional, and Felix was comforting him, they would have put two and two together and come up with five.’

  ‘So it has nothing to do with his death then,’ Zoe said, getting behind the wheel of her Mini. ‘That Felix might have been gay, I mean.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it, does it?’ Hillary said practically, doing up her seatbelt. ‘I think it’s clear now that he never was gay, so we can rule out any connection with either a hate crime or a gay-lover scenario.’

  ‘Right. Because everyone knows that old chestnut about gays being more vicious when crossed in love than anyone else, right?’ Zoe said lightly.

  ‘There’s an element of homophobia everywhere, even now,’ Hillary agreed, equally lightly. ‘And that includes institutions such as the police force. I don’t like it but I’d be a fool if I didn’t acknowledge that it still exists.’

  As Zoe reached forward and turned on the ignition, Hillary continued gently. ‘Despite the strides that gay groups are making, if I were a young officer starting out today, especially being a woman, I would think very carefully about just how militant and in-your-face I’d want to be about it. At least until I’d got myself firmly established, had a good group of friends around me, and had gained the rank of sergeant,’ she added.

  Zoe slowly put her car into gear. ‘So in your view there’s no place for gays in the Thames Valley?’ she asked tightly.

  ‘That’s not what I said. And personally, I don’t give a monkey nut what an officer’s sexual orientation is,’ Hillary said. ‘If someone’s good at the job and willing to do it well, that’s all the criteria I need. But I’m not the top brass. Nor am I one of the lads, already feeling slightly miffed that some bit of skirt has managed to be cleverer than I am, work harder than I have, and been awarded a promotion that I think, by rights, should have been mine.’

  Zoe snorted. ‘Who cares what those sort of wankers think?’

  ‘All I’m saying is … I’d be careful to pick my battles. And be sure I could win them, without too much cost to myself.’

  Zoe blinked hard for a moment, then slowly nodded, indicated and pulled out. ‘Interesting. Thanks, guv.’

  In the passenger seat, Hillary said nothing. They were driving past the road down which her old friend Sergeant Janine Tyler had once lived, and she was once again back in the car park at HQ, with the sound of a sniper’s bullet echoing in her memory.

  Grimly, she shrugged the sound away and said abruptly, ‘Zoe, turn right at the main road. You can drop me off in Thrupp. It’s home time anyway, and Steven can drive me in in the morning.’

  ‘Guv.’

  Zoe knew her boss lived on a narrowboat (and just how cool was that?) and that she kept it moored in the tiny hamlet, right on Kidlington’s doorstep. She wondered what Sexy Steven made of it, and bit back a giggle at the thought of the tall, elegant super on a cramped narrowboat.

  Still, it obviously worked for them, so who was she to knock it?

  Steven Crayle, in fact, liked staying on the narrowboat well enough. He found the confined space comforting rather than oppressive, and since he was sharing it in such close quarters with Hillary, the enforced intimacy was all the more appealing. Consequently, as he drove to Thrupp later that evening, he was feeling a mixture of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of spending the night with Hillary, along with a low-level unease at the thought of telling her that he’d reached a decision concerning Donleavy’s job offer.

  She was just putting the finishing touches to a salad as he walked through to the narrow kitchen/dining area, and the aroma of warming garlic bread filled the air.

  ‘Hello. You’re home at a reasonable time for a change,’ Hillary said lightly, ignoring the way her spirits lifted at the sight of him, and laying the table in her usual haphazard dash. ‘Budget meeting finish on time for once?’

  His lips twisted wryly. ‘Wonders will never cease. I think the majority of them must have had golf matches that they needed to get to.’

  She watched him as he shrugged out of his jacket, removed his tie, and unsnapped his gold and onyx cufflinks, leaving them carelessly on top of the tiny fridge. How to go from prim and proper executive to hunky casual stud in two seconds flat, Hillary mused. She smiled and poured out a glass of his preferred white wine, then handed it over.

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart. By the way, I’ve made an appointment to see Donleavy tomorrow.’ Steven was a firm believer in getting baggage out of the way first. He took a sip, and sighed. ‘Lovely.’ Chilled just how he liked it. He sat down in one of the tiny space’s two comfortable chairs and slipped off his shoes. He wriggled his toes, then leaned back, the lines of his face easing as he looked at her.

  Hillary fought back the urge to go and sit in his lap and start nibbling on his earlobes, and instead poured herself a glass of wine and leaned back against a tiny cupboard. ‘Oh? This is about the move to Oxford?’ she said casually.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re going, of course?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hillary nodded. Steven watched her closely. ‘But I don’t suppose I’ll be leaving CRT in any great hurry. Donleavy and the other top brass will want a long recruiting period. I don’t know whether they’ll want to promote in-house or look outside for someone. Either way, I’ll be staying on for a while even after they’ve found someone, just to show them the ropes. You’ll still be working for me for a few months yet.’

  ‘Good.’

  Steven nodded. Yes, he thought she’d take it like this. Wouldn’t give an inch. Wouldn’t show that she was in any way worried or concerned. Wouldn’t admit to any damn chink in her armour.

  ‘So, what’s for dinner?’ he asked brightly.

  ‘Lasagne. Don’t get excited – Sainsbury’s had more to do with it than I did.’

  Steven smiled. ‘Ah yes. But what’s for dessert, that’s what I really want to know?’

  Hillary’s lips twitched. ‘Oh, I’ll think of something.’ She turned away from him to check the progress of the pre-packaged meal, a tight feeling in her chest. No matter what he said, before the year was out, Steven Crayle’s presence in her life would be all but minimal. And they both knew it.

  Why didn’t he just come out with it now and say that they might as well call it a day? They both knew that once they weren’t seeing each other professionally every day then nights like this would become rarer and rarer. Eventually, they’d be down to seeing each other every other weekend for a quick physical fumble, until even that no longer appealed.

  Which was fine, after all, she reasoned. Relationships came and relationships went – that just seemed to be the nature of the modern beast. It had been good while it lasted, and now it was adios and hasta la vista, baby.

  And let’s face it, she thought, catching a warped reflection of herself on the small sink’s corrugated steel draining board, he was a good few years younger than herself, and gorgeous and sexy as hell. And clearly his professional star was rising as well. What had she expected? To be with him forever? All stars and roses and happily ever after? She was fifty-one, not some naïve 20-year-old.

  Best just to enjoy it whilst it lasted. And to hell with the tight hard knot that was forming in her chest cavity and seemed intent on making her want to scream.

  It wasn’t as if it was the first time a relationship had gone belly up on her. She could do
this standing on her head, right?

  ‘Poached pears and elderflower ice cream OK for dessert?’ she asked brightly.

  She then began to feel slightly sick. Which was her own damn fault, of course.

  She really should have known better than to eat canteen food.

  ‘Sounds good,’ Steven said softly. Then, ‘Hillary, come here and let me kiss you.’

  Jake Barnes glanced at the white plastic clock on the office wall. It was nearly six, and only Jimmy Jessop remained in the office. But Jake could wait him out.

  He was just putting the finishing touches to his report on the Querida Phelps interview when Jimmy called goodnight on his way out the door.

  Jake waited ten minutes then printed off the file, put it in the murder book and slipped into his jacket. At the door, he glanced up and down the narrow, twisting corridors and listened.

  Nothing, as he’d expected.

  He knew that the main bulk of the CRT offices, which contained the computer geeks, forensics specialists and paper crunchers, kept strict office hours. Since overtime was now almost unheard of, he wasn’t surprised by the almost total silence that greeted him.

  He slipped smoothly from the office and down and around the next corner, coming to rest outside an anonymous door. He wondered why Hillary Greene never had her name put on it, and couldn’t help but speculate that it was because she no longer had a rank to put in front of it.

  After researching the woman who would be his day-to-day working boss, he’d found himself dissatisfied with the official reason for her retirement. The woman had a record that was literally second to none, and must have worked like a demon to maintain it. She must have been proud of what she’d achieved, and fiercely ambitious in the first place to rise so high and be so respected. Her reputation, even now, was fearsome and near-legendary in the Big House. And in his experience, people like that didn’t just throw in the towel early. Just because she’d put in the years and earned the pension didn’t necessarily mean that she had to take early retirement.

  He was sure that there was some other story behind her decision to leave. Maybe something to do with the Janine Mallow incident. Still, finding the skeletons in Hillary Greene’s cupboards was not his top priority, and so he shrugged and tried the door. It was, as he’d expected, locked.

  But that was not a problem. A man with nearly unlimited means such as himself could easily afford the most illegal of gadgets, and within a minute or two he was pushing open the door and slipping inside. Not wanting to get caught out, he left the door slightly ajar so that he could hear anyone coming, just in case there was still someone out and about down here in the depths.

  He grimaced at the tiny, windowless space. He’d heard Hillary mock-complain that her office had once been a stationery cupboard but he’d thought she’d been either joking or exaggerating. Now he could see that she hadn’t been doing either. He could even see the screw-marks in the walls where the shelves had once been, which had no doubt held paper and envelopes.

  Surely a woman of her previous standing and record could have been given a better office? And he’d thought that having to share the other cramped office with three others was the pits. In the commercial sector, nobody would have put up with this working environment.

  Still, he thought with a sudden philosophical grin, it made it easier to search.

  He sat down in the single chair behind the tiny desk and booted up Hillary’s computer. He wasn’t anticipating too many problems figuring out her password, and began to run a programme that he’d previously set up that used a combination of possible numbers – her date of birth, National Insurance digits, old telephone numbers, house addresses, etc. Plus names and words that might be relevant to her life.

  While that was running, he began to search her desk. Most people, especially those who chose to use a random set of letters and figures for their password, as he suspected someone as smart as Hillary would choose to do, had trouble remembering it, and wrote it down somewhere to remind themselves.

  But there was nothing taped beneath her desk or in the drawers, or under the console itself, or underneath the mouse mat. He watched the programme run, to no avail, and reluctantly shut it down.

  He sighed.

  The hard way it was then.

  As he began to type quickly and expertly at her console, Jimmy Jessop, holding his shoes in his hand and standing barefoot outside the door, peered through the crack created by the hinges and watched thoughtfully.

  He nodded once, then slowly tiptoed away, only pausing to put his shoes back on once he was almost at the foot of the stairs leading out.

  The next morning, Hillary was in early. Even so, Zoe Turnbull was ahead of her, and as she walked past the communal office, the goth called out a cheerful hello in greeting. She was reading Jake’s report on Querida Phelps, and wishing that she’d seen the beautiful converted mill house for herself.

  Hillary went to her office, hung up her lightweight jacket on the back of the door and walked to her desk.

  And stopped dead.

  The chair behind her desk, a standard black swivel chair, was facing slightly to the right. And her last action every night, in a purely habitual reflex, was to tuck it straight and hard beneath the knee-hole in her desk.

  Slowly she sat down and looked around. The items on top of her desk were exactly as she’d left them, as was the order of her paperwork in her in and out trays.

  She leaned slowly back in her chair and booted up her computer. As she did so, there came a soft knock on her door and she looked up to see Jimmy Jessop in the doorway.

  ‘Jimmy, some sod’s been in here,’ she said at once.

  Jimmy grinned, not at all surprised by her perspicacity. ‘Yup, I know. Good job you asked me to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘The Boy Wonder?’

  ‘Last night, he was too careful to be the last one to leave. Rang the old alarm bells in here.’ He tapped his forehead.

  ‘What was he after?’

  ‘Not sure, guv, but I think he wanted your password.’

  ‘Makes sense. None of my paperwork on the current case seemed to be touched. Did he get it?’

  ‘Can’t say, guv. I didn’t want him catching me watching him. But he’s a whizz on IT and all that, isn’t he? So I expect that he did. Eventually.’

  Hillary sighed and pushed the hair back off her forehead. To Jimmy she looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept well. ‘So, for some reason the Boy Wonder wants deeper access to the police database.’ She knew that, as a civilian and a newbie, none of the others, including Jimmy, had any high-level access to sensitive records.

  She herself had more, due to her past rank, and Donleavy’s backing. But even she was still, technically, a civilian, and her clearance didn’t go exactly sky-high, as Barnes must have guessed. So what good would having that limited access do him?

  ‘You going to call him on it, guv?’ Jimmy asked.

  Hillary thought about it, then shook her head. ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘You could get him kicked off the team, easy as,’ Jimmy pointed out.

  ‘Not until I know what he’s after,’ Hillary said stubbornly.

  ‘That might come back to bite you if he pulls something major off,’ Jimmy warned her, not that he was second-guessing her or even thought that she was playing it wrong. He’d come to know her too well to doubt either her gut feeling or her thought processes.

  ‘What, you think he’s out to rip off our evidence lockers or gain info so he can start up a blackmailing ring?’ Hillary said with a small smile. ‘You seem to forget, he’s already got more money than he can spend. I might be wrong, of course, but I don’t think he’s a criminal mastermind out to rip us off.’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘So whatever it is he’s after …’ He shrugged. ‘Dunno. Something personal, most likely? A private vendetta.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Seems our best bet, yes. And whatever it is, I want to know about it. So we’ll just have to play along, act dumb and ke
ep an eye out. In the meantime, we can assume that whatever I have access to he now has access to.’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘Even so, I don’t like it, guv. You’re going to tell the super, right? Cover your arse?’

  Hillary smiled bleakly. ‘Soon it won’t be the super’s headache either, Jimmy. He’s leaving us.’

  She told him about the transfer and watched his face fall. ‘So we’ve got to break in a new super, as well as try and figure out what the Boy Wonder is after? Great.’

  Hillary smiled grimly. ‘Well, you can always retire, Jimmy. Again.’

  Jimmy Jessop grunted. ‘Tried that once, guv. Didn’t like it.’

  ‘Ditto,’ Hillary said drolly. ‘And speaking of getting on with work….’ She got up and followed the old man back to the office. Now both Sam and Jake Barnes were in but it was to Zoe that Hillary turned.

  ‘Greer Ryanson. Where does Olligree Interiors hang out nowadays?’

  ‘Oxford, guv.’

  ‘Right. It’s about time we talked to Felix’s business partner, don’t you think?’

  Zoe didn’t need asking twice. ‘Right, guv.’

  ‘Jake, you too. I want a successful businessman’s eye view on how our murder victim’s company is doing nowadays.’

  ‘Guv.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Greer Ryanson had elected to keep the company name after losing her partner, probably because by then it had earned such a good reputation for itself that she didn’t want to advertise the fact that the Olli part of the firm was no longer extant.

  Presumably she had had to take on a new partner, though, and as Zoe drove towards the city, she had Jake Barnes do his stuff and fill her in on who that was.

  Within a few minutes of opening up the laptop he took everywhere with him, he came back with the news that Greer Ryanson’s husband, Guy, had taken over. He had, of course, known all about that from doing his financial research but it made him feel better to have the digital proof of it in his hands. ‘It all seems above board, guv. He was an advertising executive in some Saatchi and Saatchi wannabe firm in High Wycombe that went belly up not long after Felix was killed. He’s been written in all nice and legal, and has been claiming a salary since. Nothing too extravagant. But from the looks of it, all of Felix’s shares stayed with her.’