Authors: Judith Cutler
‘And with whom lies the final decision? You or the chief?’ she asked.
But he was holding the door open for her, and she was damned if she would have a row with him before the interested gaze of his secretary and a Japanese officer with extraordinarily long hair.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ she murmured. But he was already greeting his guest and it was quite possible he didn’t hear.
She never knew why being angry about one thing should make another idea pop up of its own volition. Of course! Given the current climate of blame, she doubted if any of QED Moreton’s original investigation team would give her the low-down on the case. But if anyone would know someone prepared to speak off the record, it would be Jim Champion. And it was about time she did her duty and took him a bunch of grapes. It was just a matter of finding the time.
At last she could shake the dust off her feet and head for home. ‘I’m in a bit of a mood,’ she told Mark. ‘In a sulk, even. Maybe you’d better drive…’
Mark wished he could ask her point-blank what had upset her. He didn’t think anyone else would realise there was anything wrong. After all, she’d grinned broadly as he regaled her with a spot of gossip about an ACC from another force he’d been meeting, and she responded with all the appropriate prompts. But there was a slight glitter about her eyes, a tension about her shoulders that made him think for a moment she might be feverish. He’d seen her popping into Gates’ office, but she’d not yet chatted, as she usually did, about whatever had been said. Had she discovered just what a hard-nosed mean-minded little bastard he was? She’d be as
upset finding that a protégé of hers had feet of clay as he had been discovering that his daughter was a heartless spendthrift.
He ought to talk through with Fran all his doings with Sammie – the girl had even tried to wheedle him into leaving Fran on her own and spending Sunday with her – but he was ashamed both of his anger and of his helplessness. He was Sammie’s father, for God’s sake. He had brought her up better than this. He had cherished her, as she should be cherishing her own children in turn – but was signally failing to. He had taken her to open her first bank account, explained about overdrafts, counselled against credit cards unless you could be sure of paying off the balance.
As for love, surely Sammie had had a living example in his marriage to Tina. Whatever the situation, and towards the end of Tina’s life there had been many crises, Tina and he had always dealt honourably and honestly with each other, love over-and underlying everything they did. Tina would no more have walked out on him after a quarrel, no matter how serious, than she would have run up thousands of pounds in debt.
He glanced at Fran again. In repose there was no doubt her face was troubled, but as soon as she caught his eye she responded with her usual almost joyous smile. Wanting to do far more, he reached for her hand, and on impulse lifted it to his lips in the old-fashioned but possessive gesture he knew she loved. If only Sammie would let Fran close enough to see what a decent woman she was.
‘It’s no good, you know. You’ll have to tell me all about it. It’s bloody Gates, isn’t it?’
‘OK. Since you ask…’ She launched into an account.
‘Return you to Uniform against your will?’ Mark repeated
a few minutes later. ‘He can’t do that, as well you know. And he knows too.’
‘At least he didn’t tell me – as he claims would have been within his remit – to have nothing at all to do with the Roper case,’ she said, fastening her seat belt.
‘So you have to squeeze a little hands-on crime investigation in between meetings and report writing?’
‘I can squeeze quite a lot in. Provided the ACC (Crime) keeps schtum about my occasional unauthorised absences.’
‘The ACC (Crime) is highly susceptible to bribes and blandishments,’ he reported, not even bothering to keep a straight face.
‘I’d better try a spot of both tonight.’
He wriggled in the seat. ‘It may have to be quite late. I promised I’d pop round to Loose to have another go at Sammie’s finances.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Are you sure they’re your responsibility? Mark, love, she’s a woman of twenty-four. She’s married. She ought to be turning to Lloyd, if to anyone, that is. Or one of the professionals you’ve put her in touch with. Or maybe’, she ventured, ‘a health professional.’
‘Why on earth?’
‘Because – if you think of it – spending three thousand pounds on shoes isn’t exactly normal behaviour.’
‘Not for our generation, it isn’t. But maybe for hers.’
‘All the same.’
‘She’s my daughter, Fran – of course I’ve got to help her.’
‘Not if that help is counterproductive,’ she insisted.
‘I don’t want to talk about this now,’ he said, for good measure stabbing the radio’s
ON
button and finding the signature tune of
The Archers
.
‘Tell you what, why don’t you go and do your parental duty, and I’ll nip down to Jim Champion’s for half an hour?’
‘I thought you’d like to play with the children.’
‘It disturbs their bedtime,’ she said.
‘Don’t talk such rubbish,’ he said. And then he flushed. He’d just recalled where he’d heard those words before. She’d fluently quoted Sammie.
‘Corn in Egypt!’ Maureen greeted her obscurely, but with obvious warmth, relief even. ‘Come along in, Fran. Jim, I’ve got a visitor for you! He’s in a lot of pain,’ she added parenthetically, ushering Fran into the living room.
Jim might never have moved from the depths of his armchair, which was enisled in a sea of masculine detritus. A couple of beer cans, a bubble-pack of what looked like prescription painkillers, some videos, several paperbacks – Westerns – and a pile of red-tops. Two walking sticks rounded off the pile.
‘I’m bored out of my skull,’ Jim declared. Without waiting till his wife was out of the room, he continued, with a jerk of his head, ‘And it’s fuss, fuss, fuss from that one. Nag? She never stops. I’d offer you a beer but she says I’ve had my ration for today.’
‘I’m driving,’ Fran said, shaking her head and praying that Maureen wouldn’t press strong tea on her. ‘What I came for, Jim, apart from the doubtful pleasure of your company, you miserable old bugger, was to pick your brain.’
‘But I’ve been sitting on the sidelines all these years.’
‘Come on, there are loads of your old mates who’ve kept in touch, I’ll bet my pension.’
‘Well, one or two of the youngsters on the training course
still regard me as a bit of a father confessor,’ he conceded, as if ashamed of his justifiable pride.
‘Like me. Except it’s a long time since I was a youngster!’
‘You’ll always be a lovely young girl to me,’ he said with mock gallantry. ‘If I was ten years younger I’d have fought young Mark for you, pistols at dawn, ACC or no!’
‘Thank you kindly, sir, she said,’ Fran replied in kind, dropping an ironic curtsey for good measure. In her normal voice she asked directly, ‘Now, do you recall anything being said about the Roper and Barnes case?’
He stared into the past. ‘Something about the corpse never being found? A MisPer case which turned into a murder inquiry?’
‘The very same. It’s coming up for appeal, and I want to make sure we don’t get egg on our faces.’
‘Quite right. Don’t want all our good work undone because we’ve forgotten to cross a t and dot an i.’ But he went quiet, as if he was recalling something he couldn’t put his finger on. ‘Funnily enough, one of the lads who kept in touch was on that case, as I recall. You may have seen him at my leaving do. Young Rob Venables. He’s a bright lad. Mind you,’ he added, as if it were a major criticism, ‘he’s not very tall – only five-eight. You’d be able to look down on his bald spot.’
‘He can’t be all that young,’ she objected, laughing.
‘He must have had a wearing life,’ Jim said. ‘Went thin on top in his twenties – before the days when it became trendy to shave it all off. Anyway, he was one of those high-fliers, very bright indeed. An inspector these days – traffic, I think, or whatever they call it this week. Chief inspector next year with luck, and him only thirty-four.’
What would she have given in her younger days for a bit of
fast tracking? But she thought of Mark and smiled; perhaps things had a way of evening themselves out.
‘And he had a real bad time with this case,’ Jim continued. ‘Fell out with all his mates. Nearly got a disciplinary, and then where would his high-flying have got him? I got him to go sick for a couple of weeks till it all blew over. But he ought to be telling you all this himself. Where’s that bloody phone? I told her to leave it where I could reach it!’
‘Don’t you start giving Maureen a bad time just because your leg hurts,’ she said with a sharp nod, passing him the handset. ‘She’s had to put up with your being married to the job all these years and she’s entitled to a bit of respect.’
‘She’s entitled to a man with both legs.’
‘She’ll get one soon enough – and not you, either, if you don’t watch your step,’ she said. She leant to take his hand. When had he grown age spots? ‘Come on, Jim, I know it’s a rotten blow, but think of all those young footballers who’ve had knees as bad as yours and been playing in the Premier next season.’
‘Aye, and more to the point some Test cricketers who’ve never played again. And they’re young, Fran. Young. The NHS will do everything for them, all right, but they may reckon I’m too old for fancy surgery for free.’
‘May they indeed? Who’s your consultant?’ If the NHS wouldn’t fund the op, what about the Police Benevolent Fund?
Jim was evidently disappointed with the response from the other end, and cut the call abruptly. ‘Says he’s putting the kids to bed or somesuch. But I tell you, Fran, you want to talk to him if you can.’
‘I believe you. Now why don’t you phone him again, a bit
more friendly, when he’s had a chance to settle the kids, and invite him over here another night for a quiet drink? Would you do that for me?’
‘So he’ll tell you things he wouldn’t want overheard by anyone? Right, Fran you’re on.’
‘I’d no idea you could get permission for prison visits this easily,’ DC Sue Hall said, as she fastened her seat belt and started the car.
‘Pat’s doing. Pat Harper, my secretary. I didn’t realise until she came on the scene that a good secretary’s price is above rubies. Especially if, like Pat, she has a friend, it seems, with the Home Secretary’s ear. Or whatever civil servant represents the Home Secretary on earth. And this person knows the precise time to get hold of the prison governor to expedite things his end. Who are we to argue, if we have the idea on Monday and everything’s hunky-dory by Wednesday midday? What have you found out in the meantime, by the way?’
As if it were her fault, Hall bit her lip. ‘By praying to St Anthony? Well, he’s not been entirely helpful. I’ve been all through the paperwork with a fine-toothed comb and can’t find anything more about Janine’s books. But maybe it’s St Anthony’s doing that I’ve found a note that his sailing gear – wetsuits, aqualung, the lot – is up in the sailing club locker room in Whitstable.’
‘That lot’s diving, not sailing, isn’t it?’ Fran objected.
‘There was no record of his having dived, though. And that sounds quite expert…’
‘My sister might know… Hell, we’ve got our own Underwater Search and Recovery team – ask one of them, will you? We might even have a sailing club with members all too willing to share their knowledge. Meanwhile, why not ask Roper himself? We can park over there. Funny, I can never walk into a prison, especially an old one like this, without the hairs on the back of my neck creeping up the moment I step into the first airlock…’
‘You and Janine met through the Internet!’ Fran exclaimed. They were in an interview room that, try how it might – and she was not sure that it was making much effort – declared it was part of a prison, and an old one at that.
‘Yes. Lots of people do,’ Ken Roper said defensively. He was prison-pale and thin to the point of being anorexic. His standard-issue denims hung about him. He had a raw patch of eczema on his left wrist which he picked from time to time. ‘And marry, too.’
‘Of course they do.’ Fran made a swift reappraisal of the few facts at her command. ‘And was it a happy marriage, Ken?’
‘We liked to think so. We didn’t spend all our time in each other’s pockets, of course. But we wanted the same things.’
‘Which were?’
‘A nice house. Company. Children, I suppose. You know…’ Ken gestured lamely.
‘Security?’ Sue put in.
His smile transformed his face. ‘Exactly. What more could anyone want?’
Fran could think of a very great deal more, but contented herself with an encouraging smile. ‘You didn’t live in each other’s pockets. So would you say you saw much of each other?’
He seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘We were at work all day. And she had to go into school in the evenings a lot.’
‘She was a classroom assistant, wasn’t she?’ Were they as hard-pressed as teachers? She wouldn’t have thought a lot of after-school work would be called for.
He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted, ‘And at weekends I had my sailing.’
‘You don’t think it helps keep a marriage together if you share each other’s hobbies?’
‘Poor Janine was frightened of water. Oh, she could swim, and at the start she used to go sailing with me once a month or so, but you could tell she wasn’t enjoying it. So I stopped pressing her, eventually.’ Sue raised a cynical eyebrow, which provoked him into adding, ‘We weren’t drifting apart or anything. It was just something we didn’t share any more.’
‘So what did you share?’ Sue asked. ‘She liked reading, didn’t she?’
‘Not particularly, I don’t think. The odd
Hello!
or
OK
. She watched a lot of TV, when I wasn’t there, at least. We played Scrabble.’
Which wasn’t in the file either. Whereas the love of reading was. How had that error come about?
‘We used to buy a bar of chocolate every Sunday evening and play for it,’ he continued, a gentle smile briefly lighting his face.
Fran and Mark had had games involving chocolate too, but not necessarily Scrabble. ‘Every week?’
‘Without fail. Cadbury’s. One of those nice big bars.’
‘Did you ever argue about who’d won?’
‘Sometimes. It was often very close, and we’d say the other one had cheated tallying up their score.’ He smiled reminiscently.
And innocently?
‘So why did you kill her, Ken?’
She would have sworn his eyes filled with tears.
‘I didn’t. I told the policemen at the time I didn’t. I explained everything, just like I’m explaining to you now. I got home one weekend after sailing with Moz—’
‘That’s Maurice Barnes?’
‘That’s right, Moz Barnes. I got home one Sunday night after a weekend’s sailing and found she wasn’t there. I phoned her friends—’
‘Did she have many friends?’ She couldn’t imagine he had a wide circle.
‘A few. Women friends, I mean. Because she and Moz were friends too.’
‘How close?’
‘Friends. You know, friends.’
‘Sometimes it’s hard for men and women to be friends and nothing more.’
She would have sworn he was genuinely puzzled.
‘Janine and Moz were like brother and sister. I mean, Moz and I were like brothers, so why shouldn’t she and he have been…?’
‘So how did you feel when she didn’t come home?’ Sue interrupted.
‘How would you expect me to feel?’ he responded, with more force than Fran would have expected. ‘At first I was a bit
irritated – she’d always had the supper on the table before, see. And then I got worried. Very worried, when her friends said they hadn’t seen her. And then I called the police. Only they thought – yes, right from the start – that I’d done it and it was all my fault. But I swear to you I didn’t hurt a hair on her head, ever.’
Sue pounced. ‘But Moz – your friend and “brother” Moz – could have done it for you.’
‘What do you mean, done it for me?’
‘Tell me about Moz,’ Fran said. One of her dictums was that wrong-footing was a useful interview technique. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Very quiet. Like me, I suppose. Some weekends we could go for a whole day without needing to speak.’
‘I suppose it’s hard to speak when you’re underwater.’
He flashed a pallid smile. ‘Oh, my diving days are long past. I did it for a while after I’d left school. I’d really given up before I met Janine.’
‘But you kept your gear.’
‘For old time’s sake, to be honest. Like other people keep tiny little footie cups they won when they were ten, or photos of weddings of friends they never see any more.’
‘Did Moz go to your wedding?’
‘He was one of the witnesses. Ladies, he was a good…companion… And friend, of course. I’d trust him with my life.’ His eyes flew to hers in apparent horror at what he’d said. His voice taking on a defiant note, he added, ‘And with hers, too. With Janine’s. When she had her migraines he was much better with her than I was. They said they found her DNA on his pillow, as if that was a bad thing. Last time we were there, he had to pick her up bodily and tuck her up in his bed, she was so bad.’
‘He’s strong enough to carry a grown woman?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s not like me, Chief Superintendent. Not a seven-stone weakling who gets sand kicked in his face. He’s altogether stronger and fitter. I daresay while he’s banged up he spends all the time he can in the gym.’
‘And how do you spend your time, Ken?’
She thought his flicker of a smile was ironic. ‘In the library. Yes, already. Shows you what a trusty I am. Or perhaps they don’t like my cooking.’
She looked him straight in the eye. ‘You don’t look to me like the sort of man who’d spit or piss in someone’s food.’
‘Thank you. I’m not the sort to kill his wife and throw her body in the sea, either. And if I were, I wouldn’t do it off that bit of coast – far too much risk of having her poor body washed up somewhere,’ he added with a sudden gleam.
Sue asked swiftly, ‘Where would you dump it then?’
He paused, as if trying to find a rational answer. ‘
If
I’d killed her – which I swear to God I haven’t, nor Moz neither, then I wouldn’t put her in the sea, Sergeant. Not knowing how she hated water. A nice quiet grave in a country churchyard, that’s where I’d want her to lie. And me next to her.’
‘And Moz?’ Fran asked softly.
‘He’d tend them for us – make sure there were always plenty of nice flowers.’
‘What a brilliant actor,’ Sue declared as soon as they were free from the prison environs.
‘You think so?’
‘Oh, yes. I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’
‘He’s a very slight man,’ Fran said, as if considering the idea seriously.
‘You mean you believed him? You certainly went very gently on him.’ Sue sounded distinctly aggrieved.
‘Yes, and I missed a lot of leads I should have pursued, which I’m sure you’ll want to follow up next time.’ When Sue didn’t respond to the prompt, Fran said, ‘Her friends: I don’t recall a list in the file, do you? What sort of clothes she wore. Make-up.’
‘You’re right – there wasn’t any in her bedroom or the bathroom, was there? And nothing in the evidence store, either.’
‘Never mind. We can always pop round to see him again – he’s practically a neighbour, and it’ll break up his day a bit, won’t it? And if I wanted to go any harder, I think I’d have insisted that his solicitor be there, just in case.’
Her mildness didn’t deceive Sue, who blushed. ‘Of course. Sorry.’
‘No problem. Especially when I have a strong suspicion we’ve had an innocent man sent down.’
There didn’t seem much doubt of Dale Drury’s guilt, at least not in DCI Pearce’s eyes. Fran popped down to see her before she returned to her own office, just, she said, to see if there was any help she could offer.
Pearce shook her head politely. ‘We’re certain he has a problem with women, guv.’
So what would he make of Joanne’s plunging neckline? For herself, Fran had always found T-shirts adorned with the sort of lace she’d associated with slips and other underwear inappropriate for work. As for the high heels, Fran had some very similar for which she and Mark had an altogether different use.
‘And we’ve had one or two outbursts his solicitor’s had to rein in. But we’re working away with the proposition that these days pleading guilty means his tariff is automatically reduced. And if he’s going to go down for one murder, it might as well be for all he’s committed.’
‘He hasn’t spotted that being a serial killer might carry a longer sentence than
just
doing your wife in?’ Fran stressed the word slightly and ironically.
‘So far he hasn’t. Of course his solicitor has, hence things are a bit quieter today. But we’ll get there, just you see.’
‘There’s one person you might mention. Janine Roper. She disappeared three years back, and her husband’s case is up for appeal.’
Joanne Pearce digested the implications. ‘Wasn’t that one of QED Moreton’s cases? And you think—?’
‘Never mind what I think, Joanne. Just go digging.’
Mark replaced the phone handset with what he considered quite admirable calm. Why Lloyd should have considered it a good idea to phone him at work, when he was up to his eyes in urgent paperwork, just to complain about his part in Sammie’s defection he didn’t know. To be fair – which he didn’t especially want to be – he conceded that Lloyd couldn’t have known he had spent the whole morning wrestling with intransigent words, which, try how he might, refused to convey the nuances and subtleties he needed for a report that eventually the chief would have to put his signature to.
Perhaps the lad was right. Perhaps it would have been better all round if instead of offering his daughter a comfortable sanctuary, Mark had turned her round and sent
her straight back home. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn’t offered to pay off all her credit card debts – the fact that Sammie was supposed to be paying her father week by week was irrelevant in her husband’s eyes.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell her to come back here where she belongs? It’s my job to sort out all her problems,’ he’d insisted.
The deadline for the report was getting steadily closer, and there was no time for a dialogue on the dynamics of modern marriage. ‘Look, Lloyd, why don’t you and I just have a drink together one night – tonight, if you like – and thrash this out. I’m far more on your side than you realise, you know.’
There was something curiously flat about Lloyd’s response. Nonetheless, the date was made.
Hell and damnation, what had he let himself in for? Why the hell wasn’t Tina here to help him sort it all out?
God, what was he thinking of? How could he resent Tina’s death like that?
And how would Fran react to finding him spending yet another evening on private family affairs? And why on earth should they be private? He and Fran were a unit now. If anyone doubted it, they should look at their joint financial commitment in the Rectory. Although they didn’t like to live in each other’s pockets, since they’d come together, there’d been very few evenings that they hadn’t chosen to spend in each other’s company. Even if they both had to deal with paperwork after dinner, they preferred to work in the same room. And now, willy-nilly, his family was shattering the pattern.
If he felt resentful, what was Fran feeling?
True to her brief to discover what divisional CIDs really needed – it seemed to be like posing the age-old question of what women wanted most – Fran spent the next half-hour emailing divisional CID colleagues whom she knew to be computer literate or on the phone to some of the others, reminding each one that on top of all their other work they still had to prepare wish lists for her, and that she needed them pretty well yesterday. One old-stager, whom she rather thought had mistaken her for some office junior, was more honest than most, and told her he could give his answer there and then. ‘And make sure you write down every word! I just wish HQ would stop asking sodding silly questions we’re too sodding busy to answer.’
Instead of reminding him of the politeness due to senior officers, she said with mild innocence, ‘The idea is to help you, Chief Inspector.’