Power Shift

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Madam Somethingorother,’ Jenks supplied.

  ‘Madame Constantinou. Yes, she said it was hers.’

  ‘Does she know about the dog?’

  She shook her head. Perhaps Smith had a human side.

  ‘I’d like you to be able to tell her any good news first.’ You. Obviously a man for delegation.

  ‘Now, would it be possible to see the state of the flat, Jenks?’

  ‘You off your head, man? Got to get the investigation team in first. Most of her stuff’s salvageable, I’d have thought. The bedrooms are virtually undamaged. Not like the flat down below, I should add.’ He sighed, as if ashamed of his own human feeling. ‘Lot of water damage there.’

  Kate said, ‘She said something about paintings.’

  ‘What’s insurance for? Look, miss, we’re lucky the whole block didn’t go up—don’t you start belly-aching about some old trout’s pictures.’

  She turned to Smith. ‘When I phone, I shall be as upbeat as I can. But the little dog—’

  ‘Come on,’ Jenks said. ‘It could have been her, couldn’t it? Perhaps that’s why that old codger went risking his life.’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ Zayn asked, ‘how did they get as far as here? There’s a security lock on the main door.’

  Jecks shrugged. ‘Who knows? Pushed their way in when someone was coming out? Or did the usual thing of pressing a few flat numbers at random till someone let them in?’

  ‘I’ll get on to it, shall I, sir? See if I can get any sort of description?’

  Smith nodded, with something like approval. ‘You’ll need help. You go too, Eliot. Get some more uniforms in if you need them.’

  Zayn took to his heels. Eliot followed silently.

  The two men agreed to meet again later, when their respective forensic teams had finished.

  Smith started down the stairs with Kate. ‘Miserable bugger,’ he observed, rather too loudly, given the acoustics.

  It took one to know one.

  ‘Most of the morning bloody gone and for what?’ he demanded. ‘Quite a lot, I’d have thought.’

  ‘All bloody negative, though. Things getting worse, not better. I joined to make things better—didn’t you?’ He let her into his car. ‘Not to start a case and find we’re making things worse.’

  ‘Not us, sir. The villains. Thanks to a bit of stupidity from Madame Constantinou.’

  ‘Someone ought to get on to that taxi firm of hers. See if the driver’s noticed anything before today. I suppose you haven’t got time?’ One look at Kate’s expression and he continued, ‘OK. Any other ideas?’

  ‘The only person I can think who might be worth talking to is the first interpreter we tried. Natasha took a real dislike to him. I thought it was just because he was male, and she’s had enough to put her off men for life.’

  ‘Seems reasonable. Especially if she’s got to talk about, well, women’s problems.’

  ‘Like fellatio and anal sex and things like that,’ Kate agreed smoothly.

  Smith shot her a sideways look. ‘Any other reason why she might have taken against him?’

  ‘I should have asked. Meg should be able to find out.’

  ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘Nothing much. I only spoke to him for about a minute, and not in the easiest of circumstances. Mihail something, as I recall. Very bad skin. Otherwise terribly handsome, in a matinée idol sort of way. Mihail Antonescu.’

  Smith made a note. ‘He’ll be in the list of accredited interpreters?’

  ‘That’s where Meg got him from, anyway. I’ll get her to ask Natasha why she reacted as she did.’ She fished out her mobile. The number was denied. Security had stepped in already. Another job for later. ‘The problem,—of course,’ she added, ‘is that in a sense you’re absolutely right. You’re supposed to be finding out what happened to Phil Bates, aren’t you?’

  He said nothing, concentrating on parking his car. ‘I could do with your company at the market. I always think better aloud’

  Kate thought of her own schedules. But it was another glorious day and it would be good to get the smell of the fire out of her nostrils. ‘Fine.’

  They nodded at the daytime security guard, a youth so thin Kate wanted to press chocolate bars into his hands, and strolled in, not, Kate sensed, at random. By this time of day there was little activity. The dried-flower and florists’-equipment stall was still busy, but there was no one outside the coffee bar. Some overalled men were giving gutters a desultory i sweep; further away a mechanical sweeper was doing the same thing more efficiently.

  ‘There you are,’ Smith said, pointing.

  They were still forty yards from the mechanical crusher but the smell was strong enough to turn Kate’s stomach. Not for the first time she thanked goodness she wasn’t in a forensic-science team, one of which was swarming around the taped-off crime scene.

  ‘I’d say that’s Bates’s last resting-place,’ Smith said grimly. ‘Only hope he was dead when they put him in it.’

  Kate looked at the machinery, oozing with crushed vegetation: she couldn’t see a cat’s chance of getting evidence from-it.

  By now they’d reached the tape. A SOCO whom Kate didn’t recognise approached them. Smith didn’t introduce him.

  ‘They empty it every working day,’ the young man said pushing the hood of his white suit back to reveal improbably orange hair, ‘and burn everything within forty-eight hours at Tyseley. So if there was a corpse in there, he’ll already have done his bit for the national grid.’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘All the energy generated by that particular waste-disposal plant is converted to electricity and sold on. The ash goes to road-building and breezeblocks, that sort of thing. Ever so useful.’

  Smith’s face hardened. It was clear he didn’t approve of the young man’s levity. ‘So there’s no chance of finding his warrant card? Or his epaulettes?’

  ‘Not so much as a rusty button, mate. No, what we’re hoping is that he was killed before he was put in. That way we might get a few blood-spatters for you.’

  Kate had barely skimmed through the first of her messages when Dave Bush appeared at her door. ‘Remind me never to join CID,’ he said, taking a seat with what sounded like a grateful sigh.

  ‘You’re too valuable here,’ she said. ‘But you’ll want promotion when the time comes, uniform, CID, whatever.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. No, I really don’t. I’m happy as I am, gaffer.’

  ‘How did you get on yesterday with Mr Choi? Hell, I see I’m down for a meeting this afternoon I’d forgotten all about: CCTV.’

  ‘Me too—at Cherish House.’ He grinned. ‘Would you mind if I brought my sarnies through and ate while we talked?’

  ‘Go and get them now. I’ll brew some coffee.’

  ‘Would you mind using mine, gaffer? Only it’s Fair Trade coffee. And I like to do my bit, if you see what I mean.’ Still talking, as she followed him out of the office to the kettle, he added, ‘You pay that much for a jar, whatever it is, these days, but less than a tenth goes to the poor buggers producing it. So I buy Fair Trade stuff whenever I can.’

  ‘Like Neil and being Green,’ she said.

  ‘Neil? Never knew that. I’ll have to get him on to this.’ He spooned granules and poured. ‘Now, try that, and tell me it isn’t as good as your average brew.’

  God, all this fuss over a drink! Shop. They ought to be talking shop. But having someone volunteer to eat with her—what had happened to her resolution to take everyone in rotation out to lunch?—felt like such a breakthrough she should let him matter away. And the coffee wasn’t at all bad, either.

  ‘Mr Choi now reckons,’ Dave began, through a mouthful of egg and cress, ‘that something’s happening, not here but in Manchester. Look, have one of these—my wife always makes too many. He’s got a lot of mates up there—well, there’s a proper Chinese Quarter, much bigger than ours. There’s also a red-light district.’

/>   ‘Thanks.’ Kate nodded. ‘Yes. Between the gay village and Piccadilly.’

  ‘And Mr Choi reckons that there’s a flood of toms. Very cheap. Do-anything-anywhere toms. No condoms, that sort of thing.’

  ‘And they’re very young and don’t speak a lot of English,’ Kate prompted.

  ‘Quite. So they can’t complain if they get beaten up, either by their pimps or by their clients. Poor kids. I know they’re toms, but Mr Choi says some of them are only twelve or thirteen.’

  Kate swallowed before she spoke. ‘So why is Choi so concerned? I don’t altogether buy his reputation as a bastion of public morality and friend of the British bobby.’

  ‘Nor should you. I’m sure of that. At least, I’m sure he’s both as far as it suits him. And he keeps any dodgy dealing quite separate from his, civic life, I’m sure of that, too. But in his other life, I reckon he’s into prostitution himself, gaffer, only at such a far remove no one could possibly associate him with it.’

  ‘So it’d really suit him if we could take out a rival organisation.’

  ‘Absolutely. He assures me he’ll feed us any information he gets.’

  ‘After he’s acted on it first?’

  ‘Not if we can do it more publicly and at no cost to him.’ Dave dusted the last crumbs from his fingers and closed his sandwich box.

  ‘You’re very well organised,’ Kate said.

  ‘That’s my wife. She’s a teacher. Very disciplined. She prepares all our lunchboxes the night before. Sometimes the system goes wrong and I get weird-flavoured crisps or whatever instead of my apple, but we never starve. And my eldest’s started to cook the occasional meal. Seems really funny, a lad taking that sort of interest.’

  Kate smiled. ‘Rod’s a much better cook than I am.’ There. It was out. A nice casual reference to him.

  ‘Would that be Superintendent Neville, gaffer? The one young Jill Todd carried a torch for?’

  ‘The same.’ She mustn’t encourage him to gossip, but wouldn’t have minded his take on the situation, all the same.

  There was a token knock at the door, and DCI Smith’s head appeared. ‘I need a formal update on—What the fuck are you doing here, Bush?’

  ‘He’s been briefing me about Mr Choi. As I asked.’

  ‘All very cosy, I must say. Well, shift your arse, Bush, and treat us to the same briefing. It’d have saved time if you’d done both at once. Why don’t you come along, Power?’

  ‘Good idea. Thanks for the invitation.’ She thought he might have missed the irony, however. ‘But I’ve got to be at Lloyd House in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Power!’ Chief Superintendent Oxnard’s voice rang down the corridor. ‘In my office. Now!’

  The old bugger. He must have known she was trying to sneak home unnoticed. After all, it was well after five, and any decent human being would hear the call of the weekend echoing along the Victorian corridors.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Come along in. I want to hear what’s going on. Your young man’s here, too.’

  Jesus, not Graham. He was the last man of hers Oxnard had referred to. And Graham might have appeared to simmer down, but residual grievance could have festered enough for him to go steaming along to seek redress. Trying to appear as nonchalant as anyone could after two hours of bitterly inconclusive policy discussion, she smiled and followed him into his office.

  To find not Graham but Rod sitting in a visitor’s chair. He winked with the eye further from Oxnard.

  ‘I believe you know Superintendent Neville,’ Oxnard said, with belated heavy irony.

  ‘Indeed I do, sir. But that shouldn’t stop you bollocking me if needs be. It wouldn’t stop him.’

  Oxnard gave an appreciative bark. ‘Deserve a bollocking, do you?’ He waved her to a chair.

  She nodded. ‘There’s a very important phone call I haven’t had time to make. And the problem is, I don’t even know the number to call, since it’s one for a safe-house.’

  ‘Which safe-house? I thought Natasha was safe and sound,’ Rod observed

  ‘She was. Until Madame Constantinou—she was the interpreter we used to interview the Albanian child—got too clever for her own good and led Chummy to Ladywood, where he got a nice clear view of all of us on the station steps So now Meg, Natasha and Madame Constantinou are all closeted together in another safe-house; and I need to tell Madame C that her fiat was probably torched—yes, she knew it was on fire—by someone who also slit her dog’s throat.’

  ‘So I told her to involve Smith,’ Oxnard said. ‘Power!’ He suddenly fixed her. Surely he’d told her to sit? ‘Tell me, Power, what time did you start work?’

  – ‘Six thirty.’

  ‘OK. Well, the sun’s well and truly over the yardarm. Here.’ He produced a bottle of Bell’s and tipped a good couple of drams into a mug. Before Rod could argue, he repeated the process with two other mugs. ‘Well?’

  ‘Hits the spot nicely, sir. Thank you.’ She beamed.

  Rod’s smile was rather thinner, but he sipped his too. ‘Could you give us a slightly more detailed briefing, Kate?’ He listened carefully, making several notes. Once or twice he frowned. But he waited for Oxnard to speak first.

  ‘Who are you supposed to be working for, Kate?’ Oxnard asked at last.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Me or DCI Smith?’

  She flushed. ‘You, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’ She wouldn’t allow herself to look at Rod.

  ‘It sounds to me as if DCI Smith hasn’t quite realised that you’ve got Other responsibilities.’

  ‘I didn’t make all that much effort to remind him, sir. I like to get to the bottom of a case.’

  ‘Two cases, by the sound of it. And I know that Bates was one of your officers and you feel a responsibility there. But you don’t have to be a dogsbody, Kate. It’s not your job to trot round finding phone numbers and phoning people. You’re a manager.’

  ‘And a very good detective,’ Rod put in.

  Oxnard grunted. ‘Well, the station’s been known to run itself quite well without an inspector. A lot of good experienced officers there. Do you want to continue riding two horses?’

  ‘As long as I can, sir. So long as I have your authority to draw lines.’

  ‘You do, you do. Do you have any problem with that, Neville?’

  ‘Only one. Let me take you back, Kate, to that point in your account where you said Chummy arrived outside Ladywood nick. Two Chummies, I think you said in your more detailed account?’

  ‘Yes. We checked the vehicle registration numbers: both cars were stolen.’

  ‘And you were clearly visible on the steps with Meg Walker and Natasha.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Chapter 19

  Kate took a deep breath. ‘I was in uniform at the time, just like now, complete with hat. I don’t think they’d have seen enough of me to recognise me, or to see my number. The person who maybe at risk is the person whose car I was travelling in,’ she added, with a fleeting glance at Rod: although he’d been relaxed enough about the missing letter and the lunch invitation, he wouldn’t necessarily like the news. Whatever his feelings, he’d give nothing away to Oxnard. ‘They’d almost certainly have got his number: they definitely slowed down long enough to. DCI Graham Harvey, gaffer.’ She addressed Oxnard, not Rod.

  Oxnard blushed. ‘I—I…’ He glanced sideways at Rod, who looked in turn at Kate, a certain amount of dour enjoyment lurking in his eyes.

  ‘DCI Harvey thought a personal disagreement between us had prevented me simply asking CID for help. He took some convincing that the decision was yours, gaffer. By then I was late for Natasha’s debriefing at Ladywood, so I asked for a lift.’

  Oxnard reached for the internal phone. ‘Is he still in the building?’

  ‘No idea, gaffer.’ Though if he’d been duty officer yesterday evening he probably was. What excuse had he given his wife for such an early start this morning?

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ he grunted. ‘You w
ouldn’t know his extension number?’

  He’d been her boss long enough when she’d been in CID. She rattled it off. Part of her was as amused as Rod apparently was. Rod and she knew the truth of the situation, but Graham would no doubt be at such pains to show there was no basis for the rumours that he would simply make Oxnard more suspicious. And embarrassed.

  But not as embarrassed as he was himself when he opened Oxnard’s door to find the three of them.

  Without preamble, Oxnard said, ‘Power thinks you’re in some danger, Harvey.’

  He looked at her coldly. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes, you explain, Power,’ Oxnard said. ‘Sit down, Harvey, for God’s sake. Bugger it, not God. You don’t like me bothering him, do you?’

  Kate gave him a succinct account of the morning’s events. ‘And your contact at NCIS said they were ruthless enough to have the Mafia running scared. They’ve killed, we suspect, a man whom we know helped Natasha. They’ve killed the dog—’

  ‘A dog! In any case, most criminals simply try to stay away from us—they don’t actively go around killing peopled for revenge.’

  ‘These appear to. Or why target Madame Constantinou?’

  ‘I still don’t see the problem,’ Graham said. ‘To identify my car, they’d have to have access to the PNC or the DVLA computer.’

  ‘And you don’t think they’re powerful enough to get hold of either?’ Kate enquired. ‘There are such things as bent cops, Graham. Or terrified computer operators.’

  ‘You’re talking as if Birmingham’s some Hollywood movie,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Or they could simply have hung around here and kill you when you reach your car. Or they may prefer to-trail you home, of course,’ Rod observed, his voice, devoid of expression.

  Graham looked straight at Oxnard. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘Graham, the people running this operation have a propensity for slitting throats and torching things,’ Kate persisted. If only she could shake some sense into him. ‘They’ve got an international reputation for major violence. Your mate at NCIS was very anxious to be kept informed—and equally anxious that we should watch our backs.’