by Kim M Watt
Miriam raised her hands as if she could trap the ideas floating around the garden and lock them away somewhere safe. “Alice! We don’t even know anything! No more than the police do. And it’s really nothing to do with us, anyway.”
“I understand that you’re worried, dear,” Alice said. “But it is to do with us. It’s our village that lost its councillor. One of our own who’s been killed. One can’t stand by and pretend to be disconnected. The world doesn’t work like that. Or it shouldn’t.”
There was silence for a moment. Mortimer had curled his tail tightly around him, and was worrying at it with his forepaws. Beaufort was looking on with enormous interest, and even Thompson was, for once, silent, his green eyes narrow. Miriam squeezed her hands together. The cake felt heavy and suddenly unpleasant in her belly, and the sunny day had dark edges.
“I don’t like it,” she said finally. “And what are you going to do, anyway?”
“I shall poke around a little. Ask a few questions. Nothing risky.”
“But why you? You hate politicians.”
“I have never been a politician,” Alice said. “I may change my mind about the matter.”
“You’ll make a great politician,” the cat said. “You’ve got the right mindset for it.”
Alice frowned at him. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“I’m pretty certain it’s not,” Mortimer muttered.
“Marvellous!” Beaufort exclaimed, ignoring the younger dragon. “And we will, of course, be security.”
“We will?” Mortimer said, and Thompson snorted.
“Well, of course! In the event that there are criminal elements involved, we must be around to protect Alice.”
“Criminal elements?” Mortimer said faintly, and grabbed a slice of cake, stuffing it into his mouth whole. “Criminal elements?” he repeated, somewhat indistinctly.
Miriam only just managed not to join Mortimer on the ground. Beaufort had flushed an even deeper green, vying with the grass for brightness.
“That’s very kind of you,” Alice said, “but I’m sure it won’t be necessary. I have no intention of getting into trouble.”
Thompson snorted so loudly it turned into another coughing fit, and Miriam thought protection might actually be very necessary once DI Adams heard that Alice was entirely disregarding the police’s directions. “How are you going to explain this?” she asked. “You know the inspectors will find out about it.”
“I’m quite sure they will. But you know the old adage about it being easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Thrown around far too often by reckless individuals as an excuse for not thinking things through, but the exception proves the rule. It applies in this scenario.”
“Of course,” Beaufort said, grinning. “Once you’re in the council, the inspectors will have no choice but to let you help. They can’t force you to resign, and they can’t turn down that sort of information.”
“Quite,” Alice said. “And I can think of no finer support in getting started than you three. Four,” she added, as Thompson opened his mouth.
Miriam’s cheeks heated up, even though she was trying to remain upset. “It still sounds terribly dangerous to me.”
“Miriam,” Alice said gravely, “we have faced much more dangerous things together than local council meetings. And we shall have the full support of the police.”
“Once they find out,” Mortimer pointed out.
“Yes.”
“And assuming DI Adams doesn’t arrest you.”
“Yes.”
“Or tase you.” Mortimer was almost entirely grey, just his wings retaining a little purple and blue. “Or tase all of us!”
“I really think this tasing thing is a much smaller problem than you make out,” Beaufort said. “I’ve never once seen her even threaten to tase anyone.”
“It only takes once,” Mortimer muttered, and checked his plate for more cake.
“Are you sure about this?” Miriam asked Alice. “If Thomas really was murdered, this is serious.”
“I’m serious, too,” Alice said, and smiled.
Miriam sighed. She never liked that smile. It wasn’t a nasty smile, not at all, but it was the sort of smile that said Alice was going to do exactly what she intended to do, no matter what anyone else said. It was the sort of smile that suggested the smiler could take over a small country, if she so desired, never mind a local council.
“Alright,” Miriam said. “What do you need me to do?”
6
DI Adams
The Skipton police station was more modern than one might expect, and freshly painted, but that didn’t change the fact that her desk was small, wooden, and appeared to have one leg shorter than the others. But she’d arrived prepared this morning, and was underneath the desk with an assortment of cardboard scraps when an amused voice said, “You alright there, Adams? I don’t think there’s an earthquake drill scheduled today.”
She peered around the offending desk leg to glare at DI Collins until he offered her a takeaway cup of coffee, then extricated herself from the computer cables and dust bunnies and sat back in her chair with a sigh. She prodded the desk. It still wobbled, just not as violently. She’d half thought her to-go mug was going to slide straight off this morning when she’d set it down. The lean really did seem to be getting worse, and she was starting to suspect Dandy of chewing on the legs.
“Coffee?” she asked him, taking the cup. “Is it any good?”
“I told them to add three extra shots, since you’re a Londoner and all.” Collins sipped his own coffee and gave a pleased sigh.
“I don’t need extra shots.” DI Adams took the lid off and scrutinised the coffee. It smelled good, and there was still a slick of crema on the top. “I just need something that doesn’t come out of a bloody packet. Or some ancient filter that’s never been cleaned.”
“We’re not entirely backward, you know.”
“There’s a queue outside the pork pie shop every morning. Not lunch, morning.”
“They’re bloody good pork pies. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
DI Adams rather doubted a cold, sausage-stuffed pastry would be the thing that would break almost two decades of vegetarianism, but instead of saying anything she sipped the coffee, then spluttered. “You actually told them three extra shots?”
“No, just one. It comes with two already.” Collins sat down at his own desk, leaning back in a dangerously creaking chair. “Have some of mine if you want. Mocha.”
“That’s sacrilege.”
“Delicious, delicious sacrilege.” He grinned at her, took another gulp of coffee, then leaned forward to turn the computer on.
DI Adams took another sip and discovered that, once her taste buds had got over the shock, it was actually rather good.
She put her cup on the table just as Dandy pulled her carefully stacked pieces of cardboard out from under the leg and swallowed them. Her coffee lurched, along with everything else, and she barely saved the keyboard from the small tidal wave it unleashed. “Bad dog!”
Dandy whuff-ed at her, and Collins scratched his chin. “That’s unfortunate.”
“It’s bloody impractical, is what it is.”
“Dandy?”
“No! This bloody wobbly table. Can’t you get some new furniture? Doesn’t IKEA exist up here?”
“Sure. In Leeds. Or Manchester.”
“That’s a lot of bloody use,” she mumbled, and went to find some kitchen roll to clean up the mess.
“Alright,” DI Adams said, the spill mopped up and a packet of chocolate digestives liberated from her bag. Ever since encountering Toot Hansell she seemed to find it impossible to have a cup of coffee without accompanying it with biscuits. The Women’s Institute were an insidious influence, it seemed. “Where are we with everything?”
“In regards to this case, or in general?” Collins asked. “Because in general seems a rather big question. Bigger than it did a year
ago, what with dragons and so on.”
“Yes, in relation to the Thomas Wright case.” DI Adams suspected he was being facetious, but it was hard to tell with Collins. He might have thought she was asking a serious question about life in general. She took another sip of coffee, upgrading her opinion from rather good to excellent. Although it wasn’t a very big cup, and the third shot was making her eye twitch. She pushed Dandy away as he snuffled the mug. One of the things she was learning about him was that, along with an ability to run up trees after squirrels, he had an insatiable appetite for coffee. He really was her sort of creature. Especially with the not talking. There were far too many things around here that talked, and the fact that Dandy didn’t made her feel really rather fond of him.
“Well, the lab says Wright had a cardiac event, whatever that is when it’s at home, despite having no history of heart problems. No word on possible toxins yet. No sign of Wright’s phone, and we’re waiting on phone records still. We’ve interviewed the W.I., discovered the deceased did not appreciate blue potato salad, liked communal gardens, and may have had mixed views on chickens. His widower says that while maybe not everyone loved him, no one had a grudge against him. Said widower was tending bar, which a surprisingly large proportion of the village seems able to testify to.” Collins leaned over to take a biscuit and thought for a moment. “The widower does say that upon leaving the W.I. meeting the deceased called him to, quote, ‘make sure he was okay’. Should have been the other way around, really.”
“But apparently that wasn’t an unusual thing for Thomas Wright to do, to check in.”
“Apparently not.”
DI Adams sipped her coffee, looking at the notes on her screen. “But then there was a second phone call. About half an hour before the crash, so presumably when the victim was either driving back to Toot Hansell, or just about to – and that was unusual.”
“Yes. Once a day was normal. A second time was, apparently, not. And the widower says that although Wright didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, he sounded anxious.”
DI Adams took another biscuit and tried to remember if she’d already had two or just one. “But we still don’t know where he was coming from, or what might have made him anxious, as the only event in his diary was the meeting with the W.I.”
“Which is enough to make anyone anxious, but was apparently not related. Unless it was a delayed reaction.”
DI Adams wondered if it was possible to have a delayed reaction to the W.I. Her reaction was always pretty immediate. She moved the biscuits as Dandy ventured a little too close to them, and found a dog chew in her bag. He might disdain canned food, but he loved chews. “We need to find out where he went after the meeting. I can’t believe there are no traffic cameras around there.”
“Well, the tech may turn up something on the mobile phone location,” Collins said. “Otherwise we shall have to rely on good old-fashioned police work. And Alice Martin poking around, of course.”
DI Adams discovered she’d finished her biscuits, and took two more, as the situation seemed to call for it. “Alice Martin is not a part of this investigation.”
DI Collins made a non-committal sound.
“She’s not!”
“Not of our investigation, no, but this is Alice we’re talking about. She’s hardly going to sit by quietly if she thinks someone’s causing trouble in her village.”
“Yes, but—” DI Adams stopped as there was a tentative knock on the open door. “Yes?” she said to the tall PC lingering in the doorway, his brow furrowed with worry. “PC Shaw, isn’t it?” Jasmine’s husband, the one who survived blue potato salad, among other delicacies.
“Yes. Hi,” he said, and rubbed his lips. “Um, ma’am.” He raised a hand to Collins, who nodded and offered him a biscuit.
“DI Adams or Detective Inspector’s fine.”
“Okay.” He took a biscuit and sat down in one of the spare chairs. It was almost as wobbly as the table.
“What’s happening, Ben?” Collins asked.
“Right. Yes.” He took a deep breath. “You asked me to let you know if the W.I. seemed to be up to anything. Well, Jas was really excited yesterday, because they had a sort of emergency meeting in the afternoon.”
“Oh God,” DI Adams said, and Collins sighed.
Ben went pink. He was that type of round-cheeked, permanently young-looking sort that was halfway there most of the time anyway. “They all went around to Alice’s – Ms Martin’s – house for it. It was about the council candidate for Toot Hansell.”
DI Adams put her cup down before she could crush it and waste the coffee. “What do you mean? Toot Hansell has no candidate at the moment.”
“Um, yes.” He’d gone past pink into red territory. “The thing is, there’s a clause in the town charter that states there has to be a representative for Toot Hansell at all times. If we lose the sitting one, a stand-in has to be brought in pretty much immediately.”
“No elections?”
“Not for a stand-in. They just need a couple of signatures, then they take over until there’s time for a proper election to be held.”
DI Adams thought that was both ridiculous and completely expected. “Who’s the candidate, PC Shaw?”
The constable looked distinctly unhappy, and DI Adams could see sweat on his hairline. “Alice Martin, ma’am. Detective Inspector, sorry.”
She managed not to either hit her head on the desk or bury her face in her hands, and gave a stiff nod instead. “I see. And did Jasmine say anything else about the meeting?”
“It sounded like the rest was fairly normal. Alice – Ms Martin – was just letting them all know and making sure they agreed she should do it, I think.”
DI Adams wished Alice had extended the same courtesy to them. “And this didn’t seem like an odd move to Jasmine?”
“Not really. I mean, it is Alice.” He thought for a moment. “I can’t imagine anyone else doing it, to be honest.”
“That does sound about right,” Collins said. “Did Jasmine say anything else?”
“Just that she was surprised Alice was doing it, because she doesn’t like politicians. Alice, I mean, not Jasmine. I’m not sure Jasmine has an opinion on politicians.” He considered it. “No more than the rest of us, anyway.”
DI Adams clasped her hands on the desk, then winced and tried to ease her grip as her fingers ground together. “Thank you, PC Shaw,” she said. “I appreciate you coming to us with this.”
He nodded. “Jasmine would only be doing what she’s told, ma— Detective Inspector. She wouldn’t be meddling.” He lifted his chin and looked at the inspector directly for the first time, his eyes wide and startlingly blue. “She won’t mean anything by it.”
DI Adams smiled. “I know. She won’t be in any trouble, um, Ben.”
He blinked at her as if more alarmed by the fact she’d used his first name than by the possibility of Jasmine facing arrest for interfering with a police investigation.
“Nice one, Ben,” DI Collins said. “Let us know if you hear anything else, although I imagine Alice is controlling information better than the damn MI5.” He looked at DI Adams. “In fact, are you sure she was RAF and not a bloody spook?”
“I’m sure of nothing when it comes to Alice Martin,” DI Adams said, wondering if another biscuit would help.
Ben got up and put the chair back in place carefully, as if afraid he might break something. “I’ll be off, then.”
Collins raised a lazy hand and watched the other man cross the room and head out of the office, then looked at DI Adams. “Thoughts?”
“I have no idea. Do you think we can stop her? Call her off before she gets registered or whatever? It could be dangerous.”
Collins snorted. “Good luck with that. And knowing her, she’s probably already on the council.”
DI Adams groaned and gave up, folding her arms on the desk and resting her forehead on them. “This is impossible. She’s impossible!”
�
�Hey, you’re the big city cop. You can’t tell me you didn’t deal with worse in London.”
“Criminals. I dealt with criminals. Not the Toot bloody Hansell W.I.”
“I’m pretty sure there are plenty of W.I.s in London.”
“Not like this one. Nothing like this one.”
DI Collins nodded. “You’ve got a point there. But what can we do? Got to work with what we’ve got.”
DI Adams made a small growling sound that made the dandy jump to his feet in alarm. “What does that mean?”
Collins grinned. “We’ve got someone on the council now. Alice is not the worst person to have in place.”
DI Adams stared at her biscuits, thinking that eating another was possibly a good tactic. She felt like shouting. She didn’t want to shout, but something about Toot Hansell kept bringing the urge up. In the calmest voice she could manage she said, “This is a police investigation. Ex-RAF or not, Alice is a civilian these days.”
“Do you want to tell her that?” DI Collins asked. He’d taken the lid off his coffee so he could dunk his biscuits in it.
DI Adams opened her mouth, shut it again, then took a weary bite of biscuit. “We shouldn’t need to tell her,” she pointed out.
“Well, I’m certainly not telling her.”
“I just said we shouldn’t have to tell her.”
“So we’re not going to tell her.”
DI Adams sighed. Collins was right. Alice was smart, adaptable, and alarmingly observant. She was, in fact, just the sort of person DI Adams would have chosen to have working for them, if she hadn’t been Alice, and therefore just as likely to try and deal with the whole thing on her own as she was to actually pass them any information. “Surely your DCI won’t approve that.”
“Maud knows all about the W.I. She grew up in Toot Hansell.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Sure. Before Alice moved there, but she knows her. She’s Pearl Davies’ niece.”
DI Adams looked at him for a moment, then said, “Are you actually all related out in the country, then?”