by Harper Fox
After that—reabsorb the adrenaline, wipe off the grit from your face, such being the life of a uniformed town bobby. Suddenly Gid had a flash of Tamsie’s book from yesterday. He saw himself marching about in the guise of a tubby, black-and-white Mr Policeman Badger, and was shaking with laughter when he went to pick up the next call from the Rover’s dashboard radio.
A summons to the high-street butcher’s, where to his grief he recognised one of the smaller Prowses, now eking out a breadline existence with his mother in one of Bodmin town’s council estates, caught literally red-handed with a half pound of liver down the front of his coat. Gideon retrieved the bloody package. Disgusting, but he was suddenly faint with hunger. He slipped the kid a fiver, gave him a look he wouldn’t soon forget, and released him to scamper away. Mr Kyger the butcher showed signs of outrage, so Gideon gave him the look too, slapped the meat down on his counter-top and added another fiver to pay for it, reflecting that he’d come off this shift in the red if this went on.
Blood, dirt, fur. At lunchtime, back at HQ, he cleaned himself up as best he could and went to look for his boss.
He didn’t have to wait. She was prowling the corridor, evidently in search of him. “Sergeant,” she rapped out. “Where on earth have you been? My office, please—now.”
Gideon followed her, trying to control a junior constable’s sinking of the heart. But there was no need: once the door was closed behind them, Lawrence rounded on him with a beaming grin. “Alice Rawle!” she declared, venturing to slap him on the arm. “Arrested in the grounds of Godolphin Road Primary in Launceston early this morning, loitering with intent, although intent to do what, God only knows. She’s not our usual profile for kiddy-school stalkers, that’s for sure. Distraught, extremely violent, confessing to yesterday’s incident faster than Sergeant Lennox could take notes. Sit down, Gideon, sit down.”
He obeyed, head spinning a bit at the onslaught. “They caught her?”
“Are you awake, Sergeant? Yes, they caught her, thanks to a late-night tip-off from a Bodmin-station team member of mine.”
Remembering his manners, Gideon took off his cap. Ragdoll Suki’s fur had got onto there somehow too, and he absently tried to brush it off. “Hardly that, ma’am. The tip-off was no more than a name.”
“Ah, but the right name, Sergeant! Karen Lennox thinks we’re bloody psychic over here.” Lawrence sat down with a contented bounce on the far side of the desk. “Speaking of which, she is exceptionally sorry for her treatment of your other half. She’s been doing her homework and watching some Spirits of Cornwall back episodes. I think she’s sending flowers. Station politics aside, that was bloody good work—nobody wants a predator near any of our kids. How is our local prophet today?”
“Off-duty,” Gideon told her, with an unintended rasp that made her eyebrows rise. “Sorry. He’s okay, but yesterday was rough on him. He’s taking a few weeks off.”
“Well, much deserved, although I’m starting to wonder how this department would function without him. And you. You’re a formidable team. Who came up with the name?”
“Lee did.” In fact Gid was proud of his own work on Lee’s puzzle, but that was irrelevant. Lee did the seeing and the suffering. Only Lee bled. “We’ve had a run-in with that family before.”
“What family? Alice Rawle’s?”
Are you awake, ma’am? “Yes. The father is a long-time friend of the Tyack family, although that hit the rocks last year when he came to visit us. He runs a school for what he calls gifted children, and I gather the gifts are more than a penchant for algebra or the violin.”
“Oh. Gifted in the same way that... Lee is gifted, for example?”
She’d been going to say Tamsyn. She had been in charge of the Montol crowd-control op in Penzance three years before. Or maybe Pendower had talked to her, his once-staunch character springing all kinds of leaks these days. Whatever she’d seen in Gideon’s eyes, it had made her veer off from his child. “That’s right,” he said, allowing her a grateful nod for the discretion. If she didn’t ask, he could speak. “Dave Rawle thought Tamsyn might be better off in some kind of... academy or institution for children with that kind of ability.”
Lawrence’s eyes widened. “I bet that went down well.”
Better than you think. “We asked him to leave. I haven’t seen him since, but I did a little digging around while Lee was helping us out with the Clem Atherton case. The Rawle school is off on the other side of Bodmin moor, conveniently isolated, and the last time anyone looked, there were armed guards at the gate.”
“Nice of you to clue me in on your investigation. Who did the looking?”
“I did, ma’am.” No need to drop gallant Jenny Spargo in the soup. Had he been unfair in raising the ghost of poor Clem? Lawrence had blushed at the name. He hadn’t needed to remind her of the body in the Pascoe cornfields, and the shocks and revelations in the lanes around the farm, the cherry of which for Gid had been the discovery that his buttoned-up inspector was a lesbian.
Well, leverage was leverage. Proudly front and centre on the wall behind Lawrence’s chair was her framed certificate for support services for gay and transgender officers in the southwest. She’d even risked a photo of herself and Morwenna on the desk, not in a clinch or anything but undeniably together. She touched the photo frame now, like a talisman in difficult times. “What do you want, Sergeant?”
“To go and look again, officially this time.”
“And how do you plan to justify that?”
“I’m not sure the place is licensed.”
Lawrence shrugged. “I can check that with a phone call to Ofsted.”
“Listen. Dave Rawle started that school because he had a gifted kid of his own.”
“Oh. Alice?”
“Yeah. And whatever she is now, twenty years or so ago she was there as a kind of teenage assistant and guide to the younger children. She could do what they could, but she’d learned to control it.”
“Does she, though?”
Gideon drew a deep breath. “I last saw Alice just over a year ago in Dark. She was in a bloody spook car with a top-brass general from the military base on Dartmoor. I think she was there voluntarily, but I don’t know. She tried... Whatever it is she can do, whatever influence she exerts, she tried to exert it, but... something stopped her.”
“She must weigh eight stone wet through. Is that why you said she was dangerous when you called in last night?”
“Yeah. The Launceston lads had trouble with her, didn’t they?”
“Only the conventional kind. She didn’t levitate their squad car. She’s sick and debilitated, even though she did put up such a fight—Lennox is having her assessed at Derriford hospital before they press charges. Do you recommend a secure wing?”
“I do, ma’am.”
“I’ll pass that on right away.” She steepled her fingers, rested her chin on the tops of them thoughtfully. “It’s probably best if you just tell me what you need.”
One direct approach deserved another. Gideon met her eyes. “I want to know why a school—any school, even one for kids who can float cars—has gun-toting rentacops at the gate. If Alice is anything to go by, I want to know what happens to those kids, because I don’t think it’s always anything good.”
“A link between David Rawle and the military?”
He nodded in relief. “Yes, ma’am. It’s refreshing to find that you’re almost as paranoid as I am.”
Lawrence sighed, visibly surrendering. “Very well. I’m allowing you this as a personal favour, mind, because Lee is involved, and we owe him a lot more than a bunch of bloody dahlias from Launceston. Take Spargo. She can keep her mouth shut, as I’m sure you already know.” She pushed up and came back round her desk to stand in front of him, brow creasing in disapproval. “I can see that you’ve discharged your morning’s duties—most of ’em are still on your uniform. Get a fresh shirt and vest, Sergeant. Brush down that cap.”
“Er... yes, ma’am.”
/>
“You know that this kind of task is more appropriately CID work, don’t you?”
Gideon surveyed her. She had folded her arms and was staring down at him with a new and troubled intensity. “Possibly,” he said cautiously, not wanting to lose this fight on a technicality. “I can go plainclothes, if you like.”
“No. Because you’re not CID. Are you?”
“I... believe I remember you sitting by my hospital bed in Trelowarren and telling me I’d never be fit enough for that kind of work. Which was fine by me, because I didn’t want it anyway. I belong in uniform, on the street.”
“I tend to agree. And God knows you’re needed there, but... the thing is that you are fit enough. I don’t know how, you damned prize bull, but you’ve climbed back from your injuries as if they’d never happened.”
Unease crawled through Gideon’s veins. “Ma’am, respectfully—if I’m to get over the moor and back in time to finish off my other work today, I’d better start now. Will this discussion wait?”
“In one way, yes. In others it feels as though nothing will.” Lawrence’s intensity increased, new lines of weariness tightening her face. “I’m fighting a battle out there. Hate crime against every minority we’ve got is on the increase. Violence and street brawls and mad right-wing allegiances across the board. And everything’s gonna get worse as we crawl towards this feckless devil’s deal to take us out of Europe. I don’t want to be here just reacting to it all in the aftermath. I want to get ahead and stop it, Gideon. I want to get upstream.”
Gideon recoiled. Something to do with that damned word: upstream, as if he were a migrating salmon, expected to leap against every flow of his nature or die trying. But his death wouldn’t be the issue, would it? Blood would fall like rain. Children would drop beneath the unseen blade of a scythe, rainbow banners turning scarlet on the cobbled streets of...
“Sergeant?”
He started upright in his seat. Had he fallen asleep for a moment? Cold sweat was standing on his brow. “Sorry. I... It’s nothing. Just a bit of a headache.” With a grinding effort, he smiled. “You’ve got good CID officers tumbling out of the woodwork around here, haven’t you? Jim Cardew and his partner are keen as mustard, and if you’re looking for... er, fresh meat, there’s Jenny Spargo. She’d bite your hand off for a chance.”
“Fresh meat?” Lawrence echoed wonderingly. She rubbed nervously at one wrist. “Have you had your lunch, Sergeant?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You can go to this academy of yours. Keep a low profile, and there’s to be no biting of any kind, thanks very much. Get something to eat first, for heaven’s sake. You look hungry.”
Maybe that was all that ailed him. He thought with queasy desire of the juicy steak sandwiches Mike’s roadside van would be serving up in the Bolventor layby right now. He and Jenny could stop off en route. “I’ll see to it,” he promised, getting up and settling his cap back into place. “Thanks for stretching a point for me about Rawle. And, er—don’t think I don’t appreciate it, about CID. That you think I’d be good enough, I mean.”
“I’d back your application tomorrow. You’re the kind of officer we need out there. You’re smart, you’re disgustingly fit, and you know this blasted sock-toe of a county like the back of your hand.”
He paused, one hand on the peak of the cap. He wanted to salute her, laugh at her, and back off crossing himself all at once. “I couldn’t,” he said hopelessly, wondering why his mind added, never again. I never could do it again. “I’m sorry, Christine. It’s not for me. I’ll be the best uniform copper I can, but not that.” Not that, please God. Never again.
***
Sergeant Spargo finished her coffee, glanced across from the driver’s seat and gave a disgusted chuckle. “Lor’, Gid.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s not like you’re a messy eater or anything. I was partnered up with Alfie Trengwainton last month, and we were both practically wearing his lunches by the time he got done.” She patted the powerful Rover’s wheel in satisfaction. “And he never let me drive.”
“Your point being?”
“Well, one minute your food’s there, and the next...” She picked up the wrapper Gideon’s extra-large steak sandwich had come in. “The next it’s gone. It’s like you evaporate it.”
“What can I say? I was hungry.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining. You’re very tidy. Alfie used to put me off my salad.” She reached over and gave him a friendly poke on the hip. “Then you just metabolise it, you bloody monster. Not a spare inch on you.”
Gideon wondered if he ought to apologise. He could’ve put away another of Mike’s sarnies and not have felt it touch the sides. He looked wistfully at the wrapper, then folded it away with Spargo’s napkin into the car’s recycling box. “Want to give me your carton?”
“No, it needs a rinse. I’ll take it home.” She grinned. “Gone are my days of coffee and doughnuts for lunch, and chuck the packaging over my shoulder into the back! Wouldn’t dare do that in this rolling cathedral.”
“I know. I gave someone a right old blast on the windscreen wipers yesterday in Launceston. Still, a Saturday-night shift or two around the Redruth clubs ought to take the shine off her.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, that’d do it. My cousin Prue at Moor Lane told me you’d had to go over to fetch Lee. Is he all right today?”
“He’s better. You and Steven should come for lunch sometime soon. He’d love to see you.” He watched sympathetically while she pursued a last leaf around her carton. “Not sure that’s gonna sustain a hardworking copper through a tough day, Jen.”
“What, my mega-berry super-salad? Highly nutritious, that was. Palaeolithic or something.” She leaned an elbow on the open window frame and inhaled the savoury scents still drifting from Mike’s van. “Mind, so was yours. It’s no good, though. I’d double in size if I so much as looked at what you just tucked away. What’s your secret, Sergeant?”
Gideon wished he had one. He’d have used it in the wake of his injuries at Falmouth, when enforced rest and comfortable married life had threatened his waistline. Men of his build had to work for it, he knew. But he’d healed with ferocious rapidity after that, as if his body had learned how, regaining function in hard-packed muscle and speed. “Just pushing Tamsie’s buggy around, I reckon.”
“Oh, great. If I have to wait for Steve to get around to helping provide one of those...” She shook her head. “Come on. Let’s go and have a snoop around Bowithick, if you’re refuelled.”
She switched the Rover on, gave the engine an appreciative rev. Gideon resisted an urge to ask for the driver’s seat. Immediate appetites satisfied, he was hotly impatient to be on the road and in action. Jenny was one of the Devon & Cornwall’s best duty motorists, though, and would enjoy a bounce across the moor. She’d get him there just as fast as he needed to go.
Suddenly her very willingness touched him behind the heart. Her readiness to help, her cheerful, laid-back competence... He patted her wrist, and she shivered oddly. “Look, Jen,” he said. “You’ve been my partner-in-crime over Dave Rawle before, getting your dad’s mate in Camelford to check this Bowithick place. There’s something hinky about the whole deal. We’ve got a green light from Lawrence this time, but I heard around the Tollgate canteen that you’re looking to make CID.”
“What, and you think buggering about on the backroads of Bodmin with you might tarnish my shiny record?”
“Yeah. So if you want to stay in the truck, working on some nice plausible deniability...”
“Gideon Tyack-Frayne!”
He blinked. She was the calmest and best-natured of his colleagues, imperturbable even in riots and fights. She was staring at him now in frank outrage. “Sorry, Jen,” he said awkwardly. “Sorry.”
“I should bloody well think so too.”
***
He needn’t have worried. Only the wind lived at Bowithick now. Behind the high walls and hedgerows, the site w
as vacant, blank-windowed buildings giving back his own bewildered stare.
Spargo strode straight off to quarter the grounds. No-one had stopped them at the gates, and Gideon wondered if the armed guards there had been a figment of the Camelford copper’s imagination. Bowithick—the countryside around it, dreaming in postcard-perfect serenity, a landscape of tiny lanes and dairy farms and soft-eyed Jersey cows—met every bucolic expectation a weary town-dweller might bring to it. Jenny had nimbly dodged dozens of them en route, the mid-life brigade out on their holiday jaunts, hiking the roads with actual paper maps in hand and expressions of dazed delight.
Everything ended here. Whatever Lee and his sister had found when they’d come to this place as children, now it was vacant. Gideon didn’t need to break locks and enter the low, box-like classrooms and halls to know that Dave Rawle’s academy had been turned to purposes of the rawest, most ruthless utilitarianism. A factory, he thought dully, coming to a halt in the middle of a strangely marked concrete playground. His head ached and his vision blurred. A factory for little lives like my Tamsyn’s. Dear Christ, what did they make?
Footsteps scraped on the far side of the yard. Spargo appeared from behind one grey block, smiling, raising a hand. Her shadow, sturdy and neat as the brave soul who cast it, marked out her shape on the ground.
Gideon’s ears popped. Something twanged in the air, a short-lived, high-pitched shriek. Spargo jerked up on her toes as if seized by the collar. Then she fell.
There were three sacks of quickset sand on the ground. When Gideon ran to her, he found these instead of her bleeding corpse. All were oddly marked, as if someone had used them for target practice from within. The impact craters blossomed on their surfaces, sickeningly inside-out. He couldn’t remember his run across the yard. Fit or not, he’d never make a CID cop, and Lawrence was stupid for insisting. Gideon had seen the training videos, taken part in a couple of live-shooter roleplays. Had seen how Jim Cardew and the other hard young lads ducked and repositioned, strategised and kept their heads low, even in scenarios with an officer down.