Backlash (14 page)

‘All right, let's put it in more concrete terms,' Beresford said firmly. ‘I think it offends you that Elaine Kershaw's getting so much attention because of who she is – and Grace Meade's getting none at all, because of who
she
is.'

‘There may be something in that,' Paniatowski admitted.

‘But you're playing a very dangerous game – because if Grace turns up alive and well, and Elaine turns up dead, what do you think people are going to say?'

‘What you really mean is, what will the great
Tom Kershaw
say?'

‘No, I don't. I mean what will
everybody
– from the chief constable down – say?'

‘They'll say that if I'd devoted more of my resources to Elaine, I might have been able to save her. Was that the answer you were looking for?'

‘You know it was.'

‘And what if it's Elaine who turns up safe and well, and Grace who turns up dead? What will people say then?'

‘They'll probably say exactly the same thing as they would have if it had been the other way round.'

‘Well, then?'

‘But they won't say it half as critically, because . . .'

‘Because, when all's said and done, Grace is only a prostitute!'

‘If Grace dies, it will be no more than a footnote on your record,' Beresford said. ‘If Elaine dies, it could cost you your career.'

‘I'll just have to take that chance,' Paniatowski said.

Beresford nodded resignedly. ‘I knew I'd be wasting my breath.'

They walked back to the middle of the car park – in silence again – and it was only when they reached Paniatowski's MGA that she broke that silence by saying, ‘Where's your vehicle, Colin?'

‘It's back at the station.'

‘So would you like a lift home?'

‘I don't think so, thanks. I'd prefer to walk. I need the exercise.'

Paniatowski laughed. ‘Good idea. I was only noticing the other day just how fat you're getting.'

Beresford laughed, too. ‘Isn't that a bit of a case of the kettle calling the pot bellied?'

They didn't mean it, either of them. They were two of the fittest people in the whole of the Whitebridge area. But it was their way of saying that though they might disagree from time to time – and though those disagreements could sometimes seem bitter – they were, and always would be, the best of mates.

Paniatowski watched Beresford walk off into the darkness. For a moment, she was almost certain that he was whistling, but Colin never whistled, so it must have been someone else.

She slipped the key into the ignition, but hesitated before turning it.

Colin had really been rather gentle in his criticism of the way she was handling the case, she thought – far gentler than he'd been during some of their other investigations. So why was it that, on this particular occasion, she'd felt anger bubbling up inside her even from the start?

Could it be – could it possibly be – because Colin's doubts and criticisms were no more than an echo of her own deep-down self-doubts and criticisms?

She didn't
think
that was the case, but she couldn't be
sure
.

She fired up the engine, slipped the car into gear, and drove out of the car park. She could see Beresford walking down the road, about a hundred yards away.

And she could also see that he was not alone.

ELEVEN

‘
Y
ou're the first person I've invited to the house since I had to have my mother put in the home,' Colin Beresford told Kate Meadows, as he inserted the key in his front door.

You're the first person I've invited to the house since I had to have my mother put in the home
, repeated a mocking voice from somewhere at the back of his brain.
Nice going, Colin!

Nice going indeed, he thought. What better way to woo a girl than to let her know that your mother had lost her mind, and that you yourself were nothing but a sad loner?

He led her down the hallway into the living room.

‘Very nice,' she said, unconvincingly.

It wasn't nice at all, he suddenly realized, as if seeing it for the first time himself.

In fact, it wasn't so much a lounge as a museum – frozen in time from the moment his mother had first shown signs of developing Alzheimer's disease.

There was nothing of his own personality in the room at all – and perhaps that was because, when he wasn't deeply involved in a case, he
had
no personality!

‘I don't spend much of my time here,' he said awkwardly. ‘Well, you know how it is, working for a boss like Monika Paniatowski.'

Meadows smiled at him. ‘But you enjoy your work, don't you?' she asked.

‘Oh yes,' he agreed, perhaps a little hastily.

And the mocking voice in his brain chuckled,
You enjoy it because it's all you've got
.

‘Take a seat,' he said.

He cringed as he watched her lower herself on to an old-fashioned sofa he should have thrown out years ago.

‘Can I get you a drink?' he asked.

Then he thought, Oh my God, why did I say that? I haven't got any drink – any
real
drink – in the house.

But that was all right, he remembered with relief, because Kate never touched booze.

‘I'm fine,' she told him.

And she was. She was better than fine. She was beautiful – and growing more beautiful every time he looked at her.

‘Are you going to sit down yourself?' she asked him.

He wondered if he should sit beside her, or in the armchair opposite her. Which of the two did
she
expect him to do? But it was impossible to work out, and, after some weak-willed prevarication, he chose the armchair.

‘So tell me a bit about yourself,' he said – and the moment the words were out of his mouth, he thought, Jesus, I sound like a spotty kid making his first fumbling attempt to pick up a girl.

And apart from the spots, he accepted, that was a pretty fair description.

‘There's really not much to tell,' Meadows said. ‘My dad abandoned us when I was five, and my mother died a couple of years ago.'

I wish
my
mother had died, he thought. I wish that instead of sinking into a woolly, confused world of her own, she'd simply
died
. It wouldn't have bothered her – and it would have been so much better for me.

‘You're either feeling sad or guilty,' Meadows said, noticing the expression on his face. ‘Which is it?'

Both, he thought.

‘Neither,' he said aloud. ‘So before you transferred here, you were working in Stoke-on-Trent, weren't you?'

‘That's right,' Meadows agreed.

And though her expression remained unchanged, he sensed that she was closing herself down.

‘So what made you decide to move so far from home?' he asked, like the fool he was beginning to realize he was.

‘I felt like a change,' Meadows said. ‘Listen, Colin . . . it's all right if I call you Colin now we're not at work, isn't it?'

‘Of course.'

‘Then listen, Colin, we both know why we're here, don't we?'

He knew why he was there, but he didn't want to make any more mistakes, and so he said, ‘Why do
you
think we're here?'

‘I like a man to
be
a man,' Kate Meadows said. ‘I like a man with rock-hard muscles, and a stomach that you could bounce tennis balls off – and you pretty much fit the bill.'

‘I see,' he said, feeling vaguely disappointed – though he could not say exactly why.

‘And I also like you as a
person
.'

‘That's good.'

‘So why don't we cut out all the unnecessary chit-chat and go straight upstairs.'

‘There's something that you have to know,' Beresford blurted out. ‘I'm a virgin.'

She could have laughed, or she could have looked shocked, but she did neither.

Instead, she nodded her head, and with a half-smile said, ‘Do you know, I sort of suspected you might be.'

Fool! he told himself. You've let out your big secret to somebody you
work with
– and by tomorrow afternoon, at the latest, you'll be the laughing stock of police headquarters.

‘I won't tell anybody, I promise,' Kate said. ‘It really doesn't bother me that you've had no experience – and I'm rather hoping that it doesn't bother you that I
have
.'

‘It doesn't bother me,' he said.

‘Then, for goodness sake, let's go upstairs and get on with it.'

Lily Perkins, the housekeeper, met Paniatowski at the front door.

‘That's another three hours overtime you owe me,' she said cheerfully. ‘I'm really getting to be quite rich.'

‘Well, I'm pleased that one of us is,' Paniatowski replied. ‘Was Louisa any trouble?'

‘None at all. I said she could stay up an extra half-hour in case you came home, and she said, “There's no point. Mum's on a major case. She won't be home for hours yet.” And she was right, wasn't she?'

‘Yes,' Paniatowski agreed tiredly, ‘she was.'

She waited until Lily had left, then tiptoed upstairs to Louisa's room. Her daughter's long and luxurious black hair – her only legacy from her real mother, who'd been Spanish – was spread across the pillow, and Louisa was sound asleep.

She might not spend as much time with the girl as she should, Paniatowski thought – hell, there was no ‘might' about it – but she loved her with all her heart. And if she never fell in love with a man again – if she lived like a nun until the day she died – it didn't matter, as long as she had her wonderful child.

No harm would ever come to Louisa – not if she could help it. She'd fight like a lioness to keep her safe. Louisa would never have to walk the streets and suffer the drunken embraces of men who cared nothing for her, but had the necessary money in their pockets.

Is that what this is all about? she asked herself.

When she thought about Grace, was she also thinking about Louisa, who was only a few years younger?

You can't protect every waif and stray who comes your way, just because you have a daughter, she thought.

‘No, I can't,' she said aloud – though softly, so as not to wake Louisa. ‘No, I most certainly can't – but at least I can bloody well
try
!'

Kate Meadows glanced around the bedroom, fixed the location of every piece of furniture in her mind, then switched off the light.

‘Why did you do that?' Beresford asked.

‘Maybe I'm shy,' Meadows said.

But she certainly didn't sound as if she were shy – and anyway, he had seen enough of her firm figure to know she had no reason for shyness.

‘I want to look at you,' he said.

‘Not now,' Kate told him.

‘Then when?'

‘Maybe later.'

‘Later tonight, you mean?'

‘Perhaps,' said Kate's disembodied voice, unconvincing, through the darkness.

‘It won't be tonight, will it?' Beresford said.

‘No,' Kate agreed. She paused. ‘I have to learn to trust you a little more first. I have to be certain that when I do show you, it won't really matter.'

‘
What
won't really matter?'

Kate didn't answer. Instead, all Beresford could hear was the rustling in the darkness, as she started to take off her clothes.

‘Get undressed, then,' she said.

Beresford was worried. Something was wrong, his brain told him – something was
very
wrong.

But though his brain was advising caution, his body – especially that part of it between his legs – was not listening.

He unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off.

He dropped his trousers.

He heard the bed creak, somewhere in the darkness.

‘I'm waiting,' Kate said, in a soft, seductive voice.

Why won't she let me see her naked? he asked himself, and he discarded his underpants and peeled off his socks.

It was only as he was climbing into bed that the images of the ‘shemales' who hung around the Boulevard were suddenly filling his head.

Oh God, no! he prayed. Please, no, not that!

But if it
was
that, wouldn't it explain all the things that, up to now, had made no sense?

She had transferred from Stoke-on-Trent to a town she'd had no previous connection with.

She had been the one who'd made all the running in getting them into bed together.

She hadn't minded that he was a virgin.

And she had insisted on getting undressed in the dark.

His hand brushed against Kate Meadows' right breast, and the breast felt as firm and as silky as he'd imagined it would be.

But perhaps the shemales on the Boulevard also had breasts like that.

How the hell would he know?

They was one way to find out for sure whether Kate was a real woman or not, and though his hand had never before made such a verifying journey, he knew the route it had to take clearly enough.

And yet he couldn't do it! He just couldn't summon up the courage necessary to establish once and for all whether this was a dream come true – or a complete bloody nightmare.

Then Kate Meadows took his hand in hers, and placed it where it refused to go under its own volition – and everything was all right.

The tea from the machine outside the now-closed canteen wasn't wonderful, but at least it was hot and wet, Sergeant Bill Lee thought, as he walked along the corridor with the flimsy plastic cup in his hand.