Fault Lines

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Right. It’s a pain, though. We need someone who knew something about her private life. And we’re not getting anywhere.’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t help.’

  Femur looked at him, wondering how much to believe. ‘Then we’d better get shot of this possible link with the drugs world while you’re here. What I want from you is an introduction to your chief snout. I gather from the register of informers that he’s a man called Drakeshill…’

  Once again Spinel’s muscles tightened, and this time not only beside his mouth. His meaty, well-toned thighs twitched. Perhaps to cover it, he slowly raised his left leg again to lay it across the right knee.

  ‘No can do, Guv. Sorry.’ Spinel raised his eyelids and transferred his attention from his shoes to the right of Femur’s face. ‘Too risky. And Drakeshill’s a tricky bugger, not likely to play ball.’

  ‘I could force it and pick him up myself,’ said Femur mildly, watching Spinel’s eyes. They seemed clear, but there was a tiny fluttering under his left eye. It looked a bit like an infant crocodile beginning to break out of its egg. Femur had seen that once in slow motion on some natural-history programme. ‘Murder takes priority.’

  ‘Not in my book, Guv. Like I say, I’d help if I could. But it wouldn’t get you anywhere and it might dry up the only real source of drug intelligence we’ve got in Kingsford. Let me ask him if he knows anything and get back to you. OK?’

  In the end Femur had to pretend to let it go. Spinel had something to hide, but he still couldn’t decide what or how serious it was. Just as he couldn’t make up his mind whether Spinel was S or not.

  He fitted all the clues: he was married, and he had his hard-man reputation to keep up, both of which would’ve meant keeping an affair secret; he’d met Kara at about the right time; and he was the only link so far between her and the original rapes.

  Femur knew he had to give it more time. Something would crop up that would prove it one way or the other. And Spinel wasn’t like an ordinary witness. Femur could lay hands on him any time he wanted. If the worst came to the worst, he’d put him under surveillance and bug his house.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Trish was asleep when the phone rang. Wrenched out of a dream that made her feel washed in light and kindness, she reached out a hand for the receiver and knocked something off her table. Whatever it was did not seem to matter, not with everything going so beautifully behind her eyes.

  ‘George?’ she said sleepily.

  ‘No, it’s not George.’ The voice was male and full of malice. ‘Who’s he anyway? You live on your own.’

  ‘Who is this?’ Trish’s eyes were now fully open; her breathing was quick, shallow. The dark space around her seemed enormous and full of threat. Her arms and neck were rigid, as though steel spikes were holding her head on to her neck.

  ‘You know who I am. You’ve been getting my messages.’ The man’s voice was higher than George’s, with an accent she couldn’t quite identify.

  Shadows seemed to bulge and advance from the distant corners of the room. Trish switched on the light. Nothing was moving, and no one was trying to hide in the corners.

  ‘Patricia?’

  No one ever called her that. No one she knew.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her clock had disappeared from the bedside table. Someone must have taken it. For a sickening moment Trish felt as though she were in a lift that had plummeted out of control from the top of a skyscraper. Then she remembered she’d knocked something off the table and the lurching in her guts eased.

  The clock had rolled on to its side almost out of reach. The brass edge was gleaming, just beyond the circle of brightest light. She leaned out of bed to reach for it, with the receiver gripped between her shoulder and her ear. The man said nothing, but she could hear his breathing. Her stomach muscles stretched painfully as she pushed her free hand towards the clock. The metal felt very cold under her finger ends. As she tapped it, pulling it round and round towards her until it was near enough to pick up, she almost fell out of bed and had to prop herself up with her hand flat against the floor.

  ‘You’re still vere, aren’t you, Patricia?’ said the voice in her ear. ‘You can’t fool me. I can hear you breaving.’

  So, she thought, whoever he is, he can’t say ‘th’.

  ‘Why’re you keeping so quiet? You’ve got my messages, haven’t you?’

  There was a tiny feeling of achievement as she pulled herself back against the pillows with the clock in her hand. It was three forty-five. No wonder it was still so dark outside. And so cold.

  ‘Patricia? I’m talking to you.’

  She could feel hatred all round her, but she wasn’t sure whether it was hers or his.

  ‘So you are,’ she said, trying to make her voice contemptuous. ‘By messages, d’you mean those brown envelopes full of press cuttings?’

  Her thighs were bare where the T-shirt she wore instead of a nightdress had ridden up around her waist as she reached for the clock. Hastily she pulled the soft cotton down, stretching it to make it seem much longer than it was, and then she hauled the duvet over the top as though the man could see her. It did not provide any warmth. Her legs began to shake. She crossed them, like a child desperate for a pee.

  ‘Yeah. You’ve been getting vem, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been getting those.’ That was better: her voice was beginning to sound better, more controlled, perfectly articulated.

  She caught sight of her reflection in the cheval mirror that stood against the far wall and quickly looked away. There was no control whatsoever in her face or eyes. Above the pale grey of the round-necked T-shirt, her skin was dirty white and her eyes enormous. She was too short-sighted to have read the slogan on her T-shirt in the mirror, but she knew all too well what it said: ‘DO YOUR WORST. I CAN TAKE IT.’ Some hope.

  ‘I knew you would have,’ said the hateful voice. She tried to kill the fantasy that he could see her. ‘I’ve been putting vem in your letter box myself, so I knew vey hadn’t got lost. Like vem, do you?’

  ‘I’ve got them.’ Trish’s breathing was steadying with each word she said. She tried to remember that she was a cool professional, capable, and unfazed by aggressive anonymous callers. She rubbed her legs against each other under the duvet. A faint warmth spread up from her calves. ‘But I don’t understand what they have to do with me.’

  ‘Vey show what happens to slags who interfere. Not nice, is it, what happens to nosy slags? You want to stop getting in ve way, like, before it happens to you too. Slag.’

  Trish bit back questions, fear, and protests. She tried not to cower against her pillows. She tried to feel powerful.

  ‘And it gets worse. Wait for Monday. You’ll see ven, slag.’

  There was silence and then a whine and then a mechanical voice telling her to replace the receiver. She unclamped her fingers with difficulty and obeyed. Perhaps if the call had come during daylight, when she was already wide awake and ready to work, she wouldn’t have hated it so much. She made herself pick up the phone again to ring 1471 and got the infuriating sing-song message: ‘You were called at three forty-five. We do not have the caller’s number to return the call.’

  So, she thought, pleased to find that panic had not completely dried out her brain cells, not ‘the caller withheld the number’.

  That meant it was either a private exchange belonging to some big organisation, a cellphone (although some of their numbers did register with the 1471 system), or perhaps a phone box. And that, of course, was the likeliest.

  Trish sat with her arms round her knees. The duvet made a soft platform for her chin, but there was nothing around her back except the thin T-shirt, and that didn’t keep out the cold.

  Had Kara sat like this, too, trying not to believe that a rapist was outside her door waiting to break in and kill her?

  Trish tried to be rational. She was shivering, but that could have been because of the icy air that filled the room. Or it could have
been fear. She reminded herself that British Telecom could trace malicious calls from any kind of number.

  Her teeth began to clatter against each other. She’d never known a night as cold as this. A hot shower might help. And so would George. If the fear was as bad as this once she was warm again and had had more sleep, she might have to ring him. He’d help. She knew he would. However angry she’d made him – however much she’d hurt him – he’d never leave her to face this alone.

  The goosepimpled skin of her arms looked like seersucker. She knew she had to get warm. There must be some hot water left in the tank even after the long shower she’d had before she went to bed.

  It was hard to force herself to get up and walk across the empty expanse of floor to the bathroom. There were windows to pass that looked out over the back of other buildings. What if the caller were in one of those? Waiting for her. Watching for her lights. She thought of the man who had watched from Kara’s garden in the dark.

  ‘Stop it, Trish. Get a grip.’

  She said it out loud several times and eventually shamed herself into moving. The bathroom blind was already pulled down over the black glass of the window so it didn’t matter even if he were looking in. He wouldn’t be able to see anything. She turned on the hot water, stripped off the lying T-shirt and was soon standing under a flood of heat.

  As her skin flattened and became the colour of raspberries, she turned her face up to the water. It drummed down, pushing her eyelids into hard little spots against the eyes themselves, getting up her nose, making her choke. But still she wasn’t hot enough. Disgustingly she blew her nose with her fingers, shook them and then held them above her head to wash them in the strongest jets.

  After a while the water began to cool. She knew she had to get out before all the warmth had gone and she was freezing again. The big red towel had dried on the hot pipes since her last shower and as she tightened it around her breasts, tucking the loose end deep into her cleavage, she felt a faint sense of security.

  But it was nothing like the security she would have felt if she had had George with her. She wished he’d answered his phone when she’d tried to ring, or that she’d been able to leave a message. She needed him very badly.

  Perhaps it wasn’t anger that was keeping him silent. Perhaps he’d become bored with her and grabbed the excuse of the quarrel to get rid of her.

  Her forehead was tight. In the mirror she saw that the skin and muscles were corrugated like a ploughed field. George used to smooth out wrinkles like that whenever he saw her frowning. He had done it first before she had understood what she felt for him – or he for her. She could remember the unexpected touch of his fingers, and the effect it had had on her.

  Oh, grow up! You can smooth out your own forehead, she told herself. Don’t be such a wimp. And don’t start mooning about the past. If he doesn’t come back he wasn’t worth it anyway.

  But she didn’t believe it, and she longed for him to come back. As soon as her hair was dry enough to sleep on, she went down the spiral staircase to check that she really had double-locked her front door and all the windows. Back in bed, she turned out the light and lay on her right side with her hands tucked between her thighs, determined to sleep.

  Ten minutes later, she flopped over on to her other side, trying to smooth out the pillows as she turned. She tucked her hands back between her thighs and forbade herself to think about the man on the phone. When the efficient-sounding DC Lyalt rang back in the morning, she could tell her what had happened and it would be sorted.

  Unless it’s Collons, Trish said to herself, as she turned over on to her front. But if I don’t tell the police about him, and he breaks in here one night … Oh, stop it!

  The softness of the pillows against her face was a comfort, even though breathing in brought a smell of dusty feathers to the back of her nose, but after a few minutes the position hurt her back so she turned on to her side again.

  In her memory Collons’s voice had always sounded more substantial, deeper and less whining, than the one on the phone, and much more powerful than his mien suggested, and he had never had any trouble making ‘th’sounds that she could remember. But it was perfectly possible that he’d disguised his voice, or even got a friend to call for him.

  Trish rolled over on to her back and turned her head to look at the clock on her table. It was already four forty-five. She must sleep again or she’d be no good to anyone in the morning.

  Half an hour later she put on the light once more and picked up Presumed Innocent.

  When the sun broke into her twitching dreams, it seemed as though she had only just shut her eyes. They felt puffy. She rubbed them and realised that her bedside light was still on. The lump under her breast proved to be the paperback novel. She felt worse than she had after the El Vino’s orgy, and this time she hadn’t even had any fun to pay for.

  The phone started to ring. She rather hoped it was him again. If so, she’d give as good as she got this time. She sat up, cleared her throat, and reached for the receiver, noticing that it was still only seven thirty. No wonder she felt so awful.

  Her greeting came out in a snarl and was answered by someone who sounded no happier, telling her that he was Chief Inspector William Femur and understood from Constable Lyalt that she had important information to impart about the Kara Huggate case.

  Trish caught hold of her temper, apologised for the way she had answered the phone and repeated what she’d said to DC Lyalt. Femur listened without interrupting, then said that although he’d be busy for most of the day, he could see her at the incident room at about six thirty. If the traffic was bad and she got held up, would she give him a bell to warn him so that he could reorganise his time?

  Trish longed to go straight to Kingsford and pour out a hysterical account of everything her caller had made her feel, but she hung on to her dignity and embarked on a sober account of what had happened. Femur cut her off before she had said more than three words, telling her that he was urgently needed elsewhere and would listen to everything she had to tell him in Kingsford at six thirty that evening.

  Barefoot, Trish went down to the kitchen in the hope that breakfast would make her feel stronger. She watched the coffee dripping through the buff filter paper and tried to work through her fears and do something useful.

  If Chief Inspector Femur couldn’t see her until six thirty, she’d have plenty of time to talk to Collons first. She was familiar enough with criminal investigations to know that as a chief inspector involved in a murder inquiry, he must be the leader of a team from the local Area Major Investigation Pool, in which case he was unlikely to have the kind of local connections that had so frightened Collons.

  This might be the lever that would move Collons in the right direction. Trish could tell him that she had investigated Drakeshill, that she was on her way to talk to Femur, who was just the kind of senior police officer who would be above any local corruption. She would say that she was going to warn Femur about the conspiracy Collons had uncovered but that she thought it would be more convincing coming directly from him.

  If he were recalcitrant, she would face him with the report of the prowler in Kara’s garden, a prowler who looked just like him. With luck that would shock him into telling her the truth.

  ‘Of course, if he did kill Kara,’ said the derisive voice in her mind, ‘you might also shock him into attacking you. Have you thought of that?’

  She told the voice to shut up. She’d already worked out that she couldn’t expose Collons to the police without evidence. And she still didn’t have any. It was a risk she was going to have to take.

  Carrying a mug of the strong black coffee in one hand, she rummaged among the papers on her desk with the other until she found the piece of paper on which he’d written his phone number. She pushed the relevant buttons on the phone, her fingers rebounding off the plastic in a good punchy way. She was definitely feeling better. Taking action usually helped, whatever mood she was in.

&nbs
p; Collons had his machine switched on and she listened to his outgoing message with more than usual care, measuring it against her memory of the other voice. The taped message was not quite long enough for her to be certain, but she did not think the voice she heard could have been disguised into sounding like the night caller’s.

  After the beep, mindful of the professional risk of giving her name on to a tape, she said, ‘Blair, this is me, Kara’s friend. I have to be in Kingsford around six this evening, and I was thinking of dropping in to see you first. I’m not quite sure what time I’ll get to you, but if you’re not going to be in anyway, don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you some other time.’

  She took her coffee up the spiral stairs and had another stinging shower, which completed her return to full consciousness. Later, warm, dry, and pulling on a new pair of jeans, she tried to feel that it was a relief not to have to warn George that she’d be out that evening or worry about what they might eat. She did not convince herself.

  Her belt was still flapping unbuckled around her waist when she succumbed to temptation. With the receiver tucked under her chin, she did up the belt and waited for him to answer his phone. He, too, was out, but at least his answering-machine was on again.

  ‘George, it’s me. Trish. Can we stop this? I hate it. You’re probably as cross as I’ve been. But don’t let’s throw away the good bits. I’m sorry for what I did, for what I made you feel, I mean. I’ve got a late meeting and I’m not sure what time I’ll be back, but could we speak? I miss you so much.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Trish rang Collons for the fourth time when she was half-way to Kingsford, but she got his machine again. She couldn’t think why he was playing so hard to get. There was no particular reason why he shouldn’t have gone out – or even be away for the weekend – but he hadn’t given her the impression of a man with much of a social life.

  When she eventually reached Kingsford, after an exasperating journey of traffic jams, potholes and kamikaze pedestrians, she drove straight to the address she had taken from the papers James Bletchley had left with her.