Power Shift

by Judith Cutler

  She heard footsteps outside her office. It was time to look alert, in control of the job. One of them at least. Perhaps for the time being it should be the official one, being in charge at Scala House. And what was better evidence of being in charge than opening the post, a waste-bin conveniently to hand? The fact that it was the best part of a week’s post was best ignored.

  She had the paper knife already poised when the footsteps stopped. Before whoever it was could even tap, she called, ‘Come in.’ And then was on her feet, arms outstretched. ‘Helen, what’s the matter? Come and sit down!’

  ‘It’s the bab. I think I might be losing the bab. I’ve got this fucking awful pain—Christ, there it goes again!’

  ‘Like contractions?’

  ‘Yes. Like period pains, like.’ Helen clung to her hand.

  Kate returned the pressure. She made a quick decision. ‘Look, you’re going to sit here very quietly and I’m going to call an ambulance.’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be a first-aider?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She was already dialling.

  The worst part was when the paramedics were ready to take Helen off. She’d responded to each wave of pain with a convulsive clasp of Kate’s hand. Now the grip tightened again. ‘Gaffer—you couldn’t see your way to coming with me in the ambulance, like? Only I’m bloody scared.’

  ‘You don’t need me, you need the baby’s dad,’ Kate said gently. She felt sick: she simply didn’t have time, but how could she deny a request from the heart like that? ‘Is his number on your file?’

  ‘Ah. Only he’s somewhere on the M5 in his HGV, isn’t he? Kate—’

  There was another tap on the door. All she needed was an audience when she had to behave like a louse.

  ‘Mrs Speed!’ Heavens, it wasn’t yet eight, and in any case Mrs Speed didn’t work at weekends.

  ‘What with the Phil Bates business and all the extra work from the MIT, I thought…’

  Kate smiled. ‘You shouldn’t have, but I’m very grateful all the same.’

  ‘I’ve a mound of filing. But what I’d like to do, Inspector, if I may, is go with Helen. As a Woman. And, I hope, a friend.’ Helen’s eyes filled.

  Was Mrs Speed sincere or was she just giving a wonderful impression of sincerity? After all, it seemed only minutes ago that Kate had been adjudicating a stand-up row between the two. And did Kate care? Only inasmuch as her conscience was horrified at the relief swamping her.

  ‘You see, Chief Superintendent Oxnard’s just arrived and is asking for you, Inspector. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Thank you. Very much.’ Terrified of changing her mind and insisting on doing her duty to Helen, however much it might conflict with all the other duties, Kate bent and kissed her cheek. ‘Best be going, now.’ She squeezed her hand and passed it to Mrs Speed’s.

  Shoulders braced, she led the little procession from her room. There was no sign of Oxnard. And, indeed, why should there be? The investigation was the MIT’s job, not his. Mrs Speed gave what might have been a wink as she left.

  Back in her office, the least Kate could do was bring up Helen’s file on her screen and make the call to her partner. Even as she was doing that, however, Smith pushed open her door. ‘Got a few minutes?’

  ‘Not until I’ve made this phone call. Sit down, it won’t take long.’ It didn’t. Helen would have her bloke with her in a couple of hours.

  But Smith didn’t sit. He leant across her desk. ‘Putting personal calls before official business? What sort of cop are you?’

  ‘The sort who cares for her colleagues. Which reminds me, I heard a rumour that the MIT was making extra work for our clerical worker. I hope it was mistaken.’

  He shifted. ‘If the stupid cow’s bellyaching about making a few extra cups of tea—’

  ‘She’s not. But she’s so behind in her real work—and making tea is not part of her job description—that she came in before eight. On a Saturday. Unpaid overtime, I need hardly point out. I thought you were going to get in your own facilities.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘No. For everyone’s sake. I take it you didn’t requisition extra loo paper? What a good job I did.’

  The bastard muttered something about women’s work.

  Before she could erupt, the door opened further. Oxnard, very red in the face, though perhaps that was as a result of a brisk climb up the stairs, glared at him with the sort of ferocity that had made Kate wince before now. ‘I hope I didn’t hear that, DCI Smith.’ His index finger was an inch from Smith’s chest. ‘Because if I did., I shall have to recommend that you be put back into uniform and sent on some more equal-opps training. A lot more. Get your flicking arse into the MIT room, man. Inspector Power, we’ve just had some news. There are a lot of Scala House people around so I’ve asked them too. Would you care to join us?’

  Sarcasm? No, she didn’t think so. She thought it was Oxnard’s not very subtle way of showing how you should treat a colleague—the way he was now holding the door open for her. Despite the urgency, she remembered to lock it.

  Ears still red from Oxnard’s scorn, Smith took his place in the room now the territory of the MIT He stood in front of a whiteboard they’d conjured from somewhere.

  ‘As you can see, we’ve been joined by Chief Superintendent Oxnard—’

  ‘One of my own people, damn it,’ he snarled. ‘Of course I want to be here.’

  ‘—and Detective Superintendent Neville, who as you know is in overall charge of all the MITs.’

  ‘Like Chief Superintendent Oxnard,’ Rod said, ‘when one of our own is involved, we all want to get stuck in. It’s good to see so many of you Scala House people here today, by the way, on what I’m sure is a rest day for many of you. When stall-to-stall enquiries and fingertip searches are involved, the more the better.’

  Not, as they all knew, that there was much hope they would find anything interesting. But they couldn’t not try.

  ‘We’re also here because we want to reassure you that although you’ll all be questioned till you’re sick of it over the next few days, this is simply routine. It’s not, repeat not, because any of you are under suspicion.’ He seemed to Kate to look particularly at Neil Drew. There might even be a hint of a reassuring smile. Jesus, she’d never even thought of offering Neil that sort of reassurance—what had she been playing at?

  ‘We’ve also got a bit of a problem concerning Inspector Power,’ Oxnard said. ‘I don’t know how much she’s told you about yesterday’s events. As most of you know, Inspector Power’s involved with the investigation into how an Albanian child forced into prostitution was brought over here illegally. It seems that some of the people we’re investigating may have clocked her. Since we’ve already had one lorry driver’s throat cut and lorry torched, we’re anxious about her safety—especially when we suspect that they may have killed the interpreter’s dog and set fire to her fiat. We’re talking about unpleasant people—even the Mafia don’t like them. Hence, as she may have told some of you, I’ve asked her not to wear uniform and to vary her appearance as much as possible. So no sniggers if she turns up in a wig, eh, Power?’

  ‘You can snigger all you like so long as we nail the people involved. Who may or not be involved in Phil Bates’s disappearance? She ended on a question. It was time to leave the limelight to the senior officers.

  ‘More than, disappearance, I’m afraid.’ Oxnard stepped forward again. ‘The SOCO team have found evidence of a crime involving the loss of blood. We’re awaiting the results of DNA tests. But from the pattern of the blood, it looks very much as though the crime was violent. And it took place a matter-of yards from the rubbish crusher in the wholesale market.’ By now his voice was very gruff.

  ‘Before we continue, sir,’ Kate found herself saying, ‘could we have a minute’s silence for Phil?’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Oxnard said, adding piously, ‘We all need a moment to reflect and remember.’

  Despite the senti
mentality—perhaps because of it—the whole room stood.

  She hoped she didn’t have to end it: she wouldn’t know how. At last, it seemed to end itself, and Rod gestured to Smith to continue.

  ‘Trouble is, we may never find—anything. The crusher’s emptied regularly, and the contents taken for immediate incineration, at temperatures that preclude the identification of anything, animal, vegetable or mineral. The blood-splatter is all we have to go on.’

  ‘No witnesses?’ Rod asked.

  Smith shrugged. ‘Folks in the market are a flicking load of Trappist monks.’

  Someone Kate didn’t know raised his hand. ‘Isn’t Sunday a pretty quiet night down there?’

  Neil Drew replied: ‘Not as quiet as it used to be. Folk have got used to having their fresh veg and stuff every day of the week, thanks to the supermarkets. So there are quite a few folk around.’

  ‘So someone could have come along expecting it either to be seething so he wouldn’t be noticed or dead quiet so there’d be no one to notice what he was doing,’ Zayn said

  ‘Good point.’ Rod nodded.

  ‘Only he found Phil was there and…’ Zayn spread his hands. ‘Neil,’ Kate began, ‘you were hoping to sort out a Sarbut. Sorry, official informer. Did you have any joy?’

  ‘None at all. I haven’t seen him for a bit. I thought he’d maybe got the stomach bug. Oh, my God—you mean he could…‘He mimed throat-slitting.

  Kate leaned forward. ‘It’s OK, Neil. He may well have the bug. But have you any idea how to get hold of him? Just to make sure?’

  ‘I’ll be on my way now, if it’s OK by you, gaffer.’

  She looked at her watch. ‘You can spend one hour checking for an address. You phone it in. And then you go straight home to bed. Is that clear?’

  ‘Hang on,’ Smith interrupted. ‘We need to talk to you again, Drew. You were the last person to see him alive, remember.’

  ‘OK. Come back here for half an hour—that’s thirty minutes, right?—and then go straight home to bed. That all right by you, sir?’ She spoke to Smith, but she knew that she’d have Rod’s and Oxnard’s support.

  ‘Gaffer.’ Neil lifted a hand in valediction to the room as a whole and left.

  ‘We can rise to some overtime,’ Smith said huffily.

  ‘So I should hope. Three-quarters of the room will be claiming.’ She looked around, catching eyes. ‘But Neil’s—’ She bit back an observation about his home problems. ‘Neil’s got a lot of responsibilities here. I want him to have something in reserve. The same applies to all of the Scala House team,’ she added. ‘We’re here to help the MIT, not to make things worse by working when we’re overtired And we all still have our normal duties, apart from Dave Bush and Zayn Ara, who’ve been seconded full-time. By the way, I’ll let you all have news of Helen as soon as I have any.’

  Kate knew she needed a break when she deleted an e-mail she meant to keep and tried to forward another to herself. When she got to the kettle, it wasn’t, of course, there. Neither were the mugs. And the milk container was empty, with a fag end drifting enticingly inside.

  All the senior staff had abandoned the Scala House annexe of the MIT, Rod included. She wasn’t surprised or disappointed that he’d left without saying goodbye. He’d no doubt have been deep in conversation with Oxnard and Smith, doing his job just as he assumed she’d be doing hers. Which she could do as soon as she’d had a coffee.

  Hell. There was certainly no possibility of nipping out casually to get one today.

  She pushed open the door to the incident room. It would have. been nice to find it seething with activity, but she hadn’t expected it to be deserted but for a couple of young men hunched over a computer. It’d better be Holmes or some similar database they had on screen. Especially as they were drinking milky coffee from Mr Choi’s mugs. The rest were scattered around various desks, to a greater or lesser extent revolting with dried-on dregs. She tossed a mental coin; she was damned if, in a horribly gender-programmed way, she cleared them up; she was damned if she left them where they were, because she wouldn’t get a drink.

  If she looked over the young men’s shoulders she could see what they were up to and treat them accordingly.

  ‘Yes? What do you want?’ one asked, not taking his eyes off the screen, which did seem to be throwing up criminal records.

  ‘Your attention for a couple of minutes.’ Surely she’d never been so rude when she’d been their age.

  ‘Can’t you see we’re busy?’ he replied.

  ‘Yes. It’s a good job for you that you are.’

  He froze in a most gratifying way. But his mate continued to scroll down the screen, making occasional grunts.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your names.’ Her voice chilled to sub-zero.

  ‘Al. He’s Mike,’ said the grunter.

  ‘Good morning, Al. Good morning, Mike.’ She didn’t move. They turned as one.

  ‘I,’ she said, saying what, deep down, she’d wanted to say for several weeks, ‘am Inspector Power.’

  Chapter 21

  Kate surveyed the clean mugs and fresh milk with pleasure. Al had shown a real gift for washing-up, while Mike had

  not only brought in milk, he’d also replenished the biscuit and sugar tins. It was a shame that her first serious puffing of rank had resulted in nothing more beneficial to the world. But at least she could console herself with the knowledge that when Mrs Speed reappeared she’d not feel she ought to turn to menial tasks before she started on whatever it was that had originally brought her into work.

  Now Scala House was satisfactorily quiet: the two trainee detective constables—that was what they’d proved to be—had settled back to their work scanning the Holmes database for possible links with other, similar crimes. Occasionally their phone rang, and Kate would hear the murmur of an earnest voice. Yes, it was very rewarding to make young pillocks sound earnest. Meanwhile she could wade through the mound of paperwork that Helen’s arrival had interrupted. Hell, she’d rather be out there with her MIT colleagues, but since they’d need to protect her she’d be more a liability than an asset. She’d be much more useful doing the routine work, which had suffered recently. She even made time to contact her Witness Protection colleagues, who promised to organise some flowers in her name. There was no question of inviting Interflora to deliver a tasteful bouquet.

  The only fly in Kate’s ointment was that Jill Todd hadn’t been at either briefing meeting—the Scala House people’s or the general one. She should have been: according to the computer, she was due in at eight. But that was certainly her voice out in the corridor. Should Kate talk to her now? Challenge her—and maybe discuss the missing letter? Or, on the grounds that poor Jill was well and truly having her nose rubbed in the present situation by Rod’s intermittent presence, should she leave well alone?

  She’d finish the post first.

  ‘Inspector?’ It was Mrs Speed.

  ‘Oh, Kathleen! I was miles away.’ She came round the desk and took the mug she was offered. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So I could see—buried deep in government directives. Now, do you want the good news or the bad?’

  ‘About Helen? I hope the good outweighs the bad. Do sit down. Better still, go and get your own mug and sit down. Really, you deserve a break. It must have been a very harrowing couple of hours.’

  ‘If you’re sure…’ She scuttled off, to return with her hands clamped round a mug of something that smelt like Ribena. ‘A Blackcurrant Bracer, according to the label,’ she said, in response to Kate’s interrogatory sniff. ‘It’s so cold out there. A lazy wind, my father used to call it—’

  ‘Because it doesn’t bother going round you—’ Kate began. ‘It goes straight through you!’ the women chanted together. ‘We must have similar fathers.’ Kate grinned. ‘Now, tell me

  about Helen.’

  ‘The good news is that the baby’s still there, safe and sound. The bad is that they’re going to keep her in for observatio
n.’

  ‘Well, we expected that. Did you get any idea how long it might be?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t supposed to hear, of course, but several days. Then maybe sick leave, and only light duties when she gets back.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jill put her head round the door.

  ‘Come on in, Jill,’ Kate said. ‘Mrs Speed was wonderful this

  incumbency must be extremely unpleasant for an ambitious woman like Jill, especially given the Rod situation. That was something she could spare her, at least.

  Jill, you’ll hear this on the grapevine soon enough, but I thought you might prefer to hear it straight from me. I’m actually living with Rod now. This can’t be easy for you, especially as we have to work together. I know you cared for him.’

  ‘Oh, don’t give me any crocodile tears! He’s a shit, as you’ll soon find out. A hand-in-knickers man, your precious Rod. A word to the wise: don’t sell your house. You’ll be moving back

  H in soon enough.’.

  H ‘Thank you for your advice, Jill. Now, we’ve both got work

  H

  to do.’

  ‘You mean that now you’re gracing us with your presence—’

  ‘Go and read your e-mails, Sergeant. And take this bit of

  H advice with you. Don’t try to make capital out of any letters that

  may have come your way recently. Don’t even think of trying. Because that sort of publicity will hurt other people—innocent people—far more than it hurts me. You may go now.’ There. It was out. And to hell with the fact that she had sounded like a desiccated headmistress chewing the ears off a silly teenager. She was actually more tense than when the workman had appeared. And jumped so much when the phone rang she was afraid that the person at the other end would hear her heart beating.

  ‘Power?’ It was Oxnard.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Can you abandon your ship for a bit? I’ve got a job down here for you, if it’s not a problem.’

  ‘Not at all. I can almost see the bottom of my in-tray.’