by Ford, P. F.
Slater realised Norman had ended the call.
Hot lunchtime totty?’ Cheeky bugger. I bet he’s going to keep on reminding me about that. He’d had to tell Norman he was meeting Amber, but now he wished he’d left it that and not mentioned that she had a crush on him.
Last time he’d met Amber, he’d sat on a bench to wait and got so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t seen her coming, so he thought this time he should try a bit harder to pay attention. The Magazine occupied a building in a pedestrian square dotted with small trees, raised flower beds and benches. It was really quite pleasant. There was a bench right opposite the entrance but, although it was bathed in warm sunshine, it was still wet from an earlier shower, so he decided to stand and wait, eyes glued to the entrance.
Focused on the doorway from behind his sunglasses, quite certain she’d appear at any moment, he was quite unprepared for the slender arm that slipped through his, or the thin body that was suddenly pressing against his left side. He turned quickly.
‘Amber! What are you doing?’
‘Just humour me.’ She smiled, rising onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek.
He tried to brush her off, but she had a fierce grip on his arm.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘It’s not what you think. Just pretend until we get round the corner.’
He looked doubtfully at her and began to remove her arm from his.
‘Please!’ she insisted. ‘Look pleased to see me and start walking.’
‘This had better be good,’ he warned, as he began to walk with her in the direction she was steering him.
‘Trust me.’ She smiled again. ‘I’m not kiddin’. This is serious. And will you smile? Please?’
She marched him across the square, heading for the park where they had sat when he interviewed her before. As they walked, she spoke.
‘What were you doing standing outside the building? I sent you a text telling you to meet me in the park.’
Slater had put his mobile in silent mode while he was travelling across to The Magazine and he’d forgotten to change it back, so he knew she probably had sent him a text and it was his fault he hadn’t seen it.
‘But why? What’s going on? And why do I have to behave like your boyfriend?’ he asked, the questions tumbling rapidly from his mouth.
‘I’ve been told not to speak to you. She said I’d done my bit and if you asked to speak to me again I have to let her know and I’m not to talk to you. Not even on the phone. If she knows I’m meeting you she’ll go potty.’
‘You mean Camilla?’
‘Yes. She called me into her office earlier this morning.’
‘Was that what you meant about a crappy morning?’ Slater asked.
‘Yeah. It wasn’t much fun being spoken to like I’m some sort of dim-witted schoolgirl.’
‘So she doesn’t know about meeting me now?’
‘Course not. If she hadn’t started nagging me about calling you, I might not have even remembered it.’
‘Now look, I don’t want to put you in any danger or cause you any trouble,’ said Slater, anxiously.
‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘This is more excitement than I’ve ever had in my life. Anyway, I think I’m alright as long as no one recognised you. That’s why I thought I’d be your girlfriend. No one seeing me behave like that would think you’re the policeman from out of town, would they? If anyone saw us they’d just think I finally pulled. I hope you don’t mind.’
She smiled shyly at him.
‘Actually, it was very quick thinking,’ he admitted. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t see your text, then we wouldn’t have needed to act.’
‘It’s not that bad pretending to be my boyfriend, is it?’ she said, looking glum.
‘What?’ said Slater. ‘No. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant if I wasn’t so careless I’d have checked my phone and seen your message, and then you wouldn’t have needed to pretend. It was very clever of you to think of it.’
The compliment seemed to perk her up again, and she smiled happily. They were in the park now, heading for a small covered bandstand. Slater thought the time for acting was over, but Amber showed no inclination to take her hand from his arm or step away from his side. He patted her hand.
‘I think we can probably stop this now, don’t you?’ he suggested.
‘Better keep it up for now,’ she assured him, beaming. ‘Lots of people from the offices come here at lunchtime. You start getting all formal and someone might notice.’
Slater wasn’t sure what to think now, and he was concerned it could get really awkward. He knew she had a crush on him, so, he wondered, had she really been warned away, or had she invented this story just so she could con him into briefly being her boyfriend? He really didn’t need this right now.
They had reached the far side of the bandstand now and she pointed to one of the benches under the overhanging roof.
‘This one’ll be dry,’ she said.
She let go of him and sat down, patting the bench next to her. He looked doubtfully at the bench.
‘Oh come on,’ she said, sighing. ‘I’m not going to bite. Is it really such a hardship to spend half an hour with a lonely girl who never has any fun? Perhaps I’m too ugly for you. Is that it?’
Now she was getting through to his softer side and he began to feel guilty about the whole situation. He heaved a heavy sigh and sat down, keeping enough space, but not too much, between them.
‘Look Amber,’ he began. ‘I happen to think you’re very sweet, and you’re certainly not ugly. But you have to understand I’m a police officer. I can’t get involved with girls in situations like this. Besides, I’m old enough to be your father. And I have a girlfriend.’
The last bit was a lie. He didn’t have a girlfriend, but he figured Amber wouldn’t know that and it added a bit more weight to his argument.
‘Yeah. I knew you’d say something like that.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I do understand, you know. But can you imagine what it’s like being me? Everyone tells me how sweet I am, but d’you know what? I don’t wanna be sweet. I wanna be like Ruth. She was beautiful and fun.’ She seemed to choke on her words and he saw the tears in her eyes.
‘You miss her, don’t you?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yeah.’ Amber nodded. ‘She was good, a ray of sunshine. Now it’s just like someone turned the light off, you know?’
Slater nodded. Yeah. Some people just seem to light up the world, and when they’re gone the world seems a darker place. He knew exactly what she meant. He handed her a handkerchief kept for occasions like these.
‘They didn’t care, you know,’ she said, suddenly. ‘Those other coppers. They couldn’t care less what happened to her. I thought that’s what all coppers are like. And then you come along, and you want to find out what happened to her, and you listen to what I have to say…’
She stopped for a moment to wipe her eyes before continuing.
‘And you’re nice and you’re kind.’ She said, sniffing. ‘And, well, you just seem to care.’
Slater didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he chose to say nothing and wait for Amber to regain her composure. Eventually she held out his handkerchief.
‘You’d better have this back. I’m sorry it’s a bit snotty.’
‘That’s ok. You can keep it.’ Slater said, smiling at her. ‘Thanks,’ she said, clutching it like the crown jewels. ‘You’re really nice, you are. You might be old enough to be my dad, but I couldn’t talk to him like I can talk to you.’
She stared thoughtfully at her hands and then finally turned to look into his face.
‘Why is the world such a shitty place?’ she asked.
‘That’s just how it seems, Amber. It seems shitty while you’re growing up because people are always telling you what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, and then when you grow up it seems shitty because you realise it’s no different. If anything, it seems worse, because you still have people trying to tell you wh
at to do, and now you’ve got to start telling young people what to do as well.’
‘That sounds pretty depressing,’ she said. ‘Makes you wonder if there’s any point.’
‘Oh it’s not all bad.’ Slater smiled. ‘The thing is, you have to find enough good things to cancel out the crap. Find pleasures wherever you can and you’ll be surprised how easy it is to forget about the shitty side of life. I mean, look at my job. I have to deal with crap almost all the time, but then I get to meet some really interesting people. And look at me today, getting paid to spend my lunch break with a pretty young girl. That’s the sort of thing that makes it all worthwhile.’
A huge beam of pleasure crossed her face and then was replaced with a sudden look of alarm. She looked down at her wristwatch.
‘Oh bum,’ she said. ‘Look at the time. I have to get back. There’s the shitty side of life creeping up on me again, but I get what you said. I’ve also had the pleasure of having lunch with a handsome policeman, so it’s not all bad.’
She smiled happily at the idea.
‘What did you want to tell me?’ he asked, panicking slightly that she might disappear without telling him, and silently cursing for allowing himself to get so far off track.
‘I found this,’ she said, digging in her pocket. ‘It was in Ruth’s drawer. I was going to take it home and use it, but it’s password protected.’
She handed Slater a memory stick.
‘Obviously I haven’t got a clue what’s on it, and it might well be nothing, but you never know. If she went to the trouble of protecting it perhaps it’s important.’
Slater looked at the memory stick in his hand. The possibilities made him feel slightly giddy.
‘Amber, this could be really important. Well done! Does anyone else know about it?’
‘No one’s ever mentioned it, so I guess not. You and me are the only ones who know it exists,’ she said, conspiratorially.
She stood and smiled at him.
‘I suppose this is goodbye, then,’ she said.
They stood awkwardly for a moment.
‘A real boyfriend would kiss me goodbye,’ she said with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Even a pretend one would pretend to kiss me.’
He hesitated for just a moment then stepped forward, giving her a quick hug. She was a good deal shorter so he kissed the top of her head.
‘Thank you for the best half hour of my life.’ She smiled up at him.
‘You’re a lovely girl, Amber,’ he said. ‘But you need a much younger man than me.’
‘You’re probably right.’ She said. ‘But a girl can dream, can’t she?’
Slater smiled at her as he stepped back.
‘I promise you it’ll get a lot better if you try to look for the little pleasures in amongst the crap,’ he told her.
‘I’m gonna try,’ she said. ‘Probably best if you head off in the other direction now, just in case, you know.’
She turned on her heel and headed resolutely back towards The Magazine and the shitty world that went with it.
Slater watched her as she walked away. He thought she really was a nice kid. If he was 20 years younger, he might even have thought about dating her…
He felt the memory stick in his fist. Let’s just hope this might prove to be useful, he thought, slipping it into his pocket. Then he, too, turned on his heel and headed off to catch a train back to Tinton. If he was lucky he’d be early enough to miss the rush hour.
He fumbled his mobile phone from his pocket. No doubt Norman had nothing doing tonight. Perhaps they could meet down the pub and do some catching up.
But Norman wasn’t keen on going to the pub. He had a much better idea.
‘Why don’t I come over to your place? I’ll pick up a takeaway on the way over. Chinese or Indian? Your choice.’
Slater didn’t think this was the best idea he’d ever heard, but as Norman pointed out, he had lots of paperwork to show Slater. He could hardly do that in a pub, now could he?
‘But, at your place we can spread it out as much as we want and no one sees any of it except us. And I promise you, you will want to see it.’
Slater had finally agreed with a very grudging, ‘This had better be as good as you say it is.’
‘Oh, you’ll love it,’ promised Norman.
Chapter Fifteen
Slater stared at the memory stick in frustration. It was a big one at 64GB, so it could hold plenty of information. Right now, it was plugged into his laptop, but it might just as well have been plugged into the microwave for all the good it was. Of course, there could be nothing on it at all, but he was convinced he had a key piece of evidence in his hands. However, without the password it was about as much good as the proverbial chocolate teapot.
This was so frustrating. How the bloody hell was he going to figure out the password? It could be anything.
‘And just how long have you been swearing and cursing at it?’ asked Norman, his amusement patently obvious.
‘Ever since I got home and booted up my laptop,’ said Slater, with a sigh.
‘And that was when?’
‘About 5.30.’
Norman made a grand gesture of looking at his watch.
‘It’s now coming up to 8.30,’ he announced. ‘So that’s, ooh, let me see, almost three hours wasted. I mean, people have spent years developing some very sophisticated software to work these things out, and yet here you are thinking you can crack a password just by swearing at it. Do you really think this is the best use of your time and brain?’
‘I suppose you’ve got a better idea,’ grumbled Slater.
‘Well, I should hope so.’ Norman laughed. ‘The Anglo-Saxons weren’t up to much when it comes to computers, so I doubt you’ll find using their language is going to be very helpful. On the other hand, someone who speaks fluent computer code might just have a slightly better chance, don’t you think?’
‘That’s a great idea, Einstein,’ argued Slater, ‘but we don’t have access to anyone fluent in code at Tinton, and do you know how long the waiting list is for stuff like this?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Norman, patiently, ‘the shortest distance between two places isn’t necessarily the approved route.’
‘If you don’t start speaking in plain English,’ warned Slater, ‘there’s going to be a lot more Anglo-Saxon flying around here.’
‘Boy, oh boy. You are such a grouch this evening. And that’s after you were given what could be a key piece of evidence. I’d hate to be around when your lunchtime totty fails to deliver.’
‘Oh yes, you cheeky sod.’ Slater smiled, warming to the argument. ‘I’ll have you know she was not, is not, and never will be, my ‘lunchtime totty’. She’s just a kid with a misguided crush, that’s all.’
‘Well, forgive me for touching a raw nerve,’ said Norman. ‘Anyway, did she have anything to tell you?’
‘Not really. But she has been warned not to talk to me again,’ said Slater.
‘Who by?’
‘Her boss, Camilla. But she was quite happy to talk to me before, and she was happy for me to talk to her staff too, so my feeling is that someone’s leaning on her.’
‘Now that’s interesting,’ said Norman, thoughtfully. ‘It would be very helpful to find out who that was.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Slater. ‘I’m beginning to think we could do with another dozen pairs of hands.’
‘Small teams make for better security,’ Norman said, sagely. ‘We’ll just have to prioritise what we do.’
‘What about this damned memory stick?’
‘Patience,’ said Norman with an evil grin. ‘You’ve told me about your day. Now it’s my turn.’
Slater pointed to the bag containing their takeaway.
‘That’s going to get cold. Let’s eat while you talk.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
Norman began to unpack the bag, carefully laying the individual trays on the table.
‘I hope you like curry.’
‘Like feeding a donkey on strawberries,’ he said, sighing blissfully.
As they feasted, Norman gave a quick rundown on his day’s findings. It turned out Mr Chan had several dodgy businesses.
‘The kind,’ said Norman, ‘that the SCU should be very interested in. But even though he operates right under their very noses, they haven’t so much as glanced in his direction.’
‘Somehow I’m not surprised after what you told me this morning,’ said Slater gloomily. ‘Pity we can’t get hold of that membership list.’
‘Ahem.’ Norman coughed theatrically. ‘As it happens…’
‘What?’ Slater nearly sprayed curry everywhere. ‘You mean you got it? But how?’
‘It’s probably better if you don’t know that.’
‘If it’s iffy, Norm, we won’t be able to use it. You know that.’
‘Look,’ said Norman. ‘We needed to know who was on it, right? If we think we need it ‘officially’ we can go through the proper channels to get it. Okay?’
‘Yeah, but-’
‘Never mind “yeah, but”,’ interrupted Norman. ‘If this thing is as corrupt as it looks, do you think these guys are going to play fair with us?’
He let Slater think about that for a moment but continued before he could answer.
‘They’ve already tried to push you under a bus, Dave. Do you think they’re going to start playing fair now? Of course not. You said you wanted my experience and knowledge, didn’t you? Well, my experience and knowledge says you gotta fight fire with fire. You just have to make sure you keep the dodgy stuff out of sight, that’s all.’
Slater was still doubtful.
‘Trust me,’ said Norman. ‘I’m a detective. How d’you think I’ve survived so long?’
He slid the list across to Slater. It was on a tatty piece of paper.
‘Printed it off my own laptop,’ explained Norman. ‘It’s not seen inside Tinton station, so don’t worry about that.’