Authors: Judith Cutler
That was the nearest to an apology she was going to get, and more than she’d expected. After all, they were the same rank, both of them supposed to be responsible not for day-to-day minutiae, but for the grander scheme of things. But she found she
couldn’t forgive him. She said nothing.
‘And maybe he’s returned to wherever and is doing it again there,’ Farmer continued. ‘Hence the sudden cessation of incidents.’
Fran sat down uninvited. ‘What a good idea.’ Her enthusiasm was genuine. ‘The funny thing is, our anonymous letters have stopped coming, too.’
He shrugged expansively. ‘So I thought of standing down some of the teams. Hence young Binns earning his corn with a bit of accountancy. But I didn’t want to interfere with the section, not with DCI Evans new on the scene. She wants results, preferably yesterday. She’s sent your Tom Arkwright out on some errand, by the way,’ he added waspishly.
‘Sounds like my sort of woman.’ He wouldn’t catch her criticising a colleague that way even if all that William Murdock paperwork must still be lying unchecked.
‘D’you reckon? A DCI at thirty? Fast-tracked, of course. Very politically correct. We had to earn our promotions, Fran. Damn it, I’m still trying to earn mine!’
‘Yes, it’s all very well for old lags like me. It’s easy to forget, Joe.’ Which was the nearest he’d get to an apology too.
Judging Dilly to have had plenty of time to make her call, Fran returned to her office and phoned her. Her line was still busy, which Fran chose to interpret as promising. Should she hang about for a
few more minutes, or take advantage of the gap in the weather to whiz over to Canterbury, to talk to Lewis or Fellows – both if she was in luck?
A squall of rain against the window made her press the redial button.
‘Hello, Fran.’ This time Dilly didn’t sound apologetic. ‘I’ve just spoken to Mary. I’d forgotten how nice she is. We’re going to do lunch in London my next day off!’
As if their reminiscences could wait that long!
‘But she remembered some of the people in my group. Well, we both did. Funny how the memory works, isn’t it?’
‘It is indeed,’ Fran agreed, trying to smother the sarcasm. ‘So who’ve you come up with?’ Anything to make the task of picking out the right class register easier.
Dilly reeled off four or five names. All female.
As mildly as she could, Fran said, ‘Sounds like a feminist group. Any men allowed?’
‘Of course. Now, we had a bloke who used to work in GCHQ, but had had a breakdown. We think he was Roddie Muir. And Tony Last. He went on to become a professional tennis player. But that’s it, apart from a quiet man who didn’t attend all that much. We think his name was Jim or Tim, but neither of us could remember his surname.’
‘Do you recall anything about him at all?’ She wanted to ask if he wore glasses, but didn’t want to induce false memory syndrome.
‘Not really. There were a couple of others, but we’re truly stuck for names.’
‘That’s a big help,’ she lied encouragingly. ‘Now, do you recall any fellow students on other courses who might have been attracted to you? Lads in the canteen, that sort of thing?’
‘We didn’t meet in the main building – horrible place. I gather they’re pulling it down. I wonder what horrible secrets they’ll find. Ugh.’ Dilly produced the sort of exaggerated shudder she’d once given herself as a kid after
Doctor Who
.
‘I can’t wait to find out,’ Fran observed repressively. ‘So no other students.’
‘None.’
‘Well, if any do come to mind, just phone Tom.’
‘That’s what I told Mary. He’s such a nice boy, isn’t he?’
Poor Tom. Reduced to that, by a woman heading for forty. Fran opened her mouth to observe he’d make a lovely toy boy, but stopped herself just in time. That really was beyond the bound of what was professionally acceptable. The news about Stephen Hardy? Should Dilly know he was missing? ‘Sufficient unto the day the evil thereof’ – now which part of the brain had that sprung from?
Linsore Bottom: what would Mark think about that for their new address? Apart from the obvious connotation, in her mind’s eye it was as picturesque as villages came, complete with thatch, mill, church,
green and a few sheep. The reality, waiting halfway along a lane inches deep in mud, was different. Sheep there were, and horses, but the only dwellings were rows of tatty caravans parked near a farmhouse that was now the office of what looked like farming on an industrial scale. Logo-bearing lorries and vans came and went briskly as she looked for someone – anyone – to ask for help. At last a weary-looking security guard and a
sullen-looking
dog rounded a corner. The dog switched to hostile in the flash of a warrant. The guard switched to sullen.
‘I’m looking for Dean Fellows.’
He gestured with his thumb and muttered something. She’d have loved it to be directions to the Hundred Acre field, or something equally bucolic. Instead, it was apparently to a packing shed.
Trekking through the mud, squelchy enough for a TV period drama set, she pushed open the nearest barn door. She sucked in deep breaths of
celery-scented
air. Magic. Less delightful were the unprotected hundred and fifty-watt bulbs hanging at almost scalp height. They gave almost enough light for a team of ill-kempt youngish men to chop messy outer leaves and roots from celery and shove them into plastic baskets. Once a basket was full, it was carried to the far end of the barn for washing. The operation took place against a background of canned music, possibly Eastern European in origin, without much conversation.
She raised her voice. ‘Dean Fellows?’ And to parade ground level. ‘Dean Fellows?’
A tiny brown-skinned man, scarcely to her shoulder and fine-framed as a child, put down the baskets he was hefting. He nodded to one corner, putting his hands together, as if in a namaste. She replied, in kind, bowing her head even lower and searching for the correct Hindi phrase.
‘Prayer,’ the man said. ‘Prayer. There. Prayer.’ His accent wasn’t Indian.
Nonetheless, she gave him another namaste, and followed the jerk of his thumb, the ball
criss-crossed
with scars old and recent in the filthy skin.
An even skinnier man was on his knees in the far corner, in the straight-backed, head-upright style she associated with Tudor tombs. Eyes closed, he was muttering under his breath, the same thing, she thought, over and over again, so quickly the words ran together, as at Mr Polly’s wedding – amazing how flickers of her school curriculum would keep popping back these days.
She coughed, as reverently as she could. Unoffended, he got to his feet in an amazingly easy movement and treated her to a wonderful beam. She responded, hoping her halitosis wasn’t as powerful as his.
‘Dean? Might we talk somewhere? Your caravan, for instance?’ She showed her ID and gave her name and rank, but he evinced nothing except mild interest.
Another beam, and they were on their way. The
smell of paraffin hitting her as he opened the door told her that her mission was in vain. Unless Dean had got himself one of those wind-up computers that world leaders insisted would save Africa, he wouldn’t be sending any computer printed letters.
The other smell was roughly the same as Rob’s bedroom, minus the cannabis.
‘How can I help?’ His voice was surprisingly middle-class.
‘I just wanted to ask you a few questions. Do you ever watch television, Mr Fellows?’
He gestured. There was no set, and how would it work anyway? ‘We do have a sort of common room,’ he said. ‘More a canteen, I suppose. There’s a television in there, but it’s mostly tuned to overseas stations, and who am I to argue? My colleagues are so far from home it comforts them to hear their own languages spoken.’
‘And you – don’t you want to see the News or other programmes?’
‘I watch
Songs of Praise
. No one minds that. But my news is in here, madam.’ He touched his heart. ‘And it’s good news.’
‘The news the Reverend Janie Falkirk shared with you?’
She’d pressed the right button there. ‘You know Janie! What a wonderful woman.’ His face glowed with pleasure.
‘She’s a delight, isn’t she?’ Fran agreed with absolute sincerity.
‘I thank God every day for her.’ He pointed to a
tiny book-shelf. She could see a Bible and a prayer book, and a number of other small volumes. ‘And for those.’ He reached forward, making her step back sharply. But all he picked up was a leatherette covered New Testament. ‘For you,’ he said. ‘Please.’
‘Damn and blast it!’ No mobile signal! Fran abandoned her mobile and pulled back on to the road. Dark ages or what. Very well, if she couldn’t phone HQ, HQ couldn’t contact her. Since she was so close to Canterbury, she’d drop in on Paul Lewis, probably to do no more than confirm Janie’s opinion, which had been pretty sound, after all, in the case of Dean.
Picking her way through narrow streets of old houses given Georgian or even Victorian face lifts, she found the place she was looking for. No earthly chance of parking legally within half a mile, she reckoned. Would a drive-by appraisal do? It was very tempting.
But she managed to squeeze the car into a space in the next street, so do the job properly she would. Other people had had even more of a struggle than she, and several vehicles had wheels on the pavement, or were sticking out at awkward angles. Shamed, she had another go, succeeding only after three or four more backwards and forward shuffles. She patted Dean’s little gift with what was meant to be irony. But her hand froze. Tapping his way along the street was an elderly man apparently totally reliant on his white stick. All those protruding
boots and bonnets for him to walk into. Fran was out of the car and offering help before she knew it.
‘Ta, love.’ He took her arm unselfconsciously. ‘The one thing I can do, to drop my neighbour’s stuff on the post, and all these cars make even that difficult.’
She guided him along, asking, as much to fill the silence as anything, ‘Why do you act as post boy?’
‘It makes her think I think I’m being useful, see. She’s got it into her head she needs to cook for me, and it has to be said she has a cooler hand for pastry than I do. So I get out of her kitchen by taking odds and ends to the pillar-box, see.’ Clearly there was more to this relationship than she had time to uncover. ‘Here we are. Now, if you’d just warn me if there are any bits and bobs on the pavement the other side of the road, I shall be fine.’
‘Let’s go together. Tell me, do you know where I might find Paul Lewis?’
‘Are you another social worker? You might as well give up, lady. Unless you grasp the nettle and pop him in the madhouse.’
‘And are you going to?’ Mark asked, topping up her lunchtime water.
‘I’ll have another go at social services. I don’t think Lewis is doing anyone – even himself – any actual harm: it’s just that he sees life in terms, as far as I can make out, of musical keys. I’m G major. He’s in a D minor phase, I gather.’
‘Which might make sense if I were a musician.’
At least she knew enough to explain briefly. ‘But he’s thin enough to be anorexic. And all the utilities have been cut off,’ she added, with a retrospective shudder.
‘Which someone ought to deal with. But not you, Fran, not you.’ He spoke tenderly, not in boss mode.
‘I can make the phone call to Social Services and get Gary Tranter to make it all happen, though. He owes me for help above and beyond the call of duty and now he can pay, with interest.’
He reached for her hand and squeezed it appreciatively. ‘That’s my Fran – why bother to nag an underling when you can twist the arm of the guy at the top?’
Rain having set in again, a quiet afternoon doing the good old-fashioned police work of her youth seemed almost appealing. So Fran gathered all the William Murdock photocopies that the lads hadn’t yet tackled and dumped them on her desk. Some tutors had computer printed their paperwork; others had written them by hand, with varying degrees of legibility. With only one name, the task would have been dispiriting, but even the few Dilly had recalled made it comparatively easy to locate the anonymous creative writing group.
At last, half an hour’s eye-popping toil later, she found a match. It was a good job, she thought dourly, for Mary Wolford’s publisher, that they didn’t get manuscripts in long-hand. Spidery, small, nasty long-hand. And – as far as the names here were concerned – scant respect for alphabetical order. But there it was: Pound, Delia. Alongside were the names Delia had come up with: Roddie Muir and Tom List; Tim Edwards; Jim Holder. Buzzing with adrenaline, she reached for the list of Watchbrief CCTV employees. Not a Muir, List, Edwards or Holder amongst them. But a Holden! Could that be the same person, his name changed by a simple slip of the pen?
She dialled so hurriedly she had to stop and start again. It took an age for TVInvicta’s switchboard toconnect them, and she jumped in without preamble. ‘Dilly, do you recall a fellow student from your William Murdock class called Jim Holden?’
There was a pause so long she suspected she’d interrupted a conversation Dilly, hand clamped over handset, was determined to finish.
‘Dilly? Are you there? You said there was a Jim or a Tim. Could it have been Jim Holden?’
At last Dilly condescended to reply. ‘Might have been. Yes, it might. If it was, he wrote rhyming verse. Oh, yes. Yucky stuff.’
‘In what way yucky?’
‘You know, sentimental. To his absent princess. Sub-greetings card.’
‘Oh, dear. And where did he sit? In relation to you?’
‘Opposite, usually. He needed glasses, but he kept taking them off and polishing them and leaving them on the table.’
‘What sort of glasses?’
‘Fran, after all this time!’
‘It’s important, Dilly. What sort of glasses?’
‘Just glasses. Only he’d been in some sort of accident and he couldn’t face the sun, so he’d swap
them for dark ones on a very bright day.’
Ah! ‘Did you ever talk to each other?’
‘Quite often. We used to have coffee sometimes. And when it got dark, he insisted on taking me to my bus stop. But he was very quiet. Never said anything. And if you hadn’t mentioned him, I’d never… You don’t think it’s him, Fran? Jim Holden? No, never. He wasn’t – I didn’t… It was never like that. What’s he been saying?’
Fran sighed. ‘It’s not so much what he’s been saying, is it, Dilly, as what he might have been writing.’
On Mark’s advice the Chief had summoned Joe Farmer to join him and Fran, who was looking as vibrant and sexy as he’d ever known her.
Middle-aged
? Old? In the gloomy late afternoon light her energy and excitement lit the room.
‘As you may be aware,’ the Chief began, pausing portentously, as was becoming his habit these days, ‘Chief Superintendent Harman has been working on a strictly Need to Know case.’
Farmer shook his head, irritated as he might well be. But he was wise enough not to carp about missing officers diverted from their day-to-day work.
‘Good. Because the matter was – still is! – absolutely confidential. Someone from the Media World –’ he spoke with a reverence others might have reserved for senior statesmen or clerics ‘– has been stalked. Fran has made a connection between
a possible stalker and someone who may – and may is still the operative word – be responsible for the sex attacks throughout the county.’ He explained.
Fran contrived to look both modest and raring to go.
‘It’s a very tenuous lead,’ Farmer said at last, ungraciously.
The fool! Couldn’t he see that bad-mouthing an officer entrusted with a special assignment wasn’t a wise move, especially in the presence of another senior officer known to be her lover?
‘Do we have any others?’ the Chief asked mildly.
‘No, sir. We don’t, sir. So I shall get my team on to this immediately,’ he added, more positive and enthusiastic with every syllable. It had clearly dawned on him that it was, after all, the Chief Constable he was addressing.
Fran’s mouth was twitching with amusement. Mark had a feeling she dared not catch his eye, any more than he risked catching hers.
Could the others feel the electricity sizzling between them? He hoped not. All he dared do was nod with professional sagacity. What he wanted was to whip her back to his office and make love to her. Since that wasn’t an option, he’d bloody well take her shopping on the way home and buy her the modern equivalent of a new hat. Or would do if they weren’t both working late on this case. What had fired him up as it had fired her? Surely more than the thrill of the chase.
‘I’d rather we kept back the news about our
“celebrity”,’ Fran put in, as the two DCs left the room. ‘Just treat it as an anonymous lead for now. But copy me in on every scrap of information about Jim Holden. Everything.’
‘The way you’ve kept me informed?’ Farmer asked sourly.
It was a pity for him he wasn’t out of earshot. The Chief said nothing, but sighed heavily, catching Mark’s eye and looking heavenwards. And he would be the one to chair the interview panel when the post was ratified.
Mark wondered how Farmer would react to a word in his ear? In the spirit in which it was meant or simply as a grouse from a colleague’s lover?
Farmer continued his downbeat mode in the privacy of his own office. ‘There’s nothing about a Jim or James Holden on any of the computer databases.’
Fran breathed out very gently. ‘Chummie’s DNA isn’t on record, either,’ she reminded him. ‘Indulge me, Joe. Let’s just go with this until he’s out of the frame. Let’s bring him in and talk to him, very low key.’
‘We don’t want him suing us for wrongful arrest.’
Was this why the investigation had dragged? Because the poor man was so afraid he was going to get blots on his copybook that he didn’t dare take risks?
She smiled. ‘Bring in those two new DCIs and tell them I’m having a brainstorm and to indulge
me. Tom Arkwright’s up to speed on the stalking case. And as you know Jon Binns has been burdened with my thoughts on this one. So I think they should be involved, too. Let’s bring in DC Whatshername – Sue something. Bright lass. Lots of auburn hair.’
‘Do you mean DC Hall, by any chance?’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘That’s the one. I told you how committed she was. No need to involve the whole unit unless things get interesting. My responsibility, Joe. If everything goes pear-shaped, you can blame it on the whim of an aged old biddy, and when I retire you can tell everyone it was about time too. No need for you to lose face.’ If she expected him to protest, he didn’t. Old, was she? She’d show him.
‘The new DCI has insisted on a profiler, by the way.’
She gasped.
‘Oh, he’s come up with the usual wishy-washy psychology. Problem childhood, unusual relations with women, you know the sort of thing.’
‘Nothing more specific?’
‘To tie him in with your suspect? Well, he’s probably got two eyes and a nose, hasn’t he?’
She stopped herself punching either her colleague or the air. But she wanted to do both. Celebrate she must. If she had time, she’d take time out after work to buy some truly sexy undies. No better way to celebrate than with an evening doing what she and Mark did best.
But the work must come first.
Jon Binns had had Holden’s personnel details faxed over. ‘A lot of blanks in the CV,’ he reported to the cabal in Fran’s office. Everyone else must know something was up, just from the sudden scurrying around, but they would have to wait.
‘Let’s hear what you have got,’ Fran suggested.
‘Jim Holden. Born West Bromwich, 1950,’ he said.
‘I suppose someone’s got to be,’ Tom interjected, like an excited puppy.
She frowned him down.
‘Educated at Bristnall Hall Secondary Modern, Chance Tech, Gosta Green College of Advanced Technology. A variety of qualifications. Lots of jobs in industry, most in car factories. Period at what became MG Rover. Car crash in the Eighties. Off work for some years.’
‘Years!’ Fran interjected. ‘Must have been a bad smash.’
‘Worth checking if there was any other reason for his not working, ma’am?’ Sue Hall put in. ‘Such as prison?’
‘Of course. But the crash might have been bad enough. Any more, Jon?’
‘Starts picking up qualifications again, mostly non-vocational, hobby-type subjects. French, Spanish. Creative writing.’
Tom whistled. ‘Bloody hell.’
They exchanged a huge grin.
‘Tell them, Tom. Just remember, everyone, that this is highly confidential.’
‘Dilly Pound—’
‘Hang on,’ Sue Hall interrupted. ‘That’s the reporter who was so persistent at your news conference, right? And the one who interviewed you for TVInvicta when you were assaulted?’
‘Good-looking woman,’ Jon nodded.
‘OK for a bit of arm candy,’ Tom said, ‘but not all that much between the ears, like. Anyway, some bugger’s been stalking her – sending anonymous letters pretty well every day and maybe doing other things – and she asked the guvnor here for help. You can’t say she’s been exactly forthcoming and helpful, but she managed to dredge up the names of some men from her past. And it seems she fancied writing a bit of poetry, like, and turned up at a creative writing class too.’
Jon smiled, the lovely long smile of a man solving a crossword puzzle clue. ‘Where she met our friend Jim Holden. Ah, ha!’
But Tom was shaking his head. ‘Doesn’t work, guv. All the letters to Dilly were posted in London, remember. And if he was living in—?’
‘Canterbury,’ Jon said, running his finger down the record sheet.
‘—And working full time, like, he couldn’t have posted them. Not if he was popping up all over Kent to assault young girls.’
Fran felt herself deflate. But for the sake of the
others she mustn’t be seen to let go. ‘Let’s just forget that, just for a minute.’
‘With respect, ma’am,’ Sue said, ‘you can’t just ask someone to post what were presumably quite unpleasant letters for you. They’d ask questions. Especially if it was every day.’
She shook her head as if they were importunate insects. ‘Maybe he could.’ But she couldn’t see how, not just yet. It was there, wasn’t it, tucked into some part of her brain?
But Tom rushed in. ‘Maybe he’s got an accomplice who shares the thrills. Maybe they’re in cahoots over the assault business too.’
‘Hence Chummie’s ability to pop up all over the bloody county?’ Jon murmured.
‘Yes!’ Sue joined in. ‘What do we know of Holden’s personal circumstances? Is he married?’
Jon shook his head. ‘No record at any point. Mind you, people don’t always, do they?’
People like her and Mark. She didn’t want to be soiled by analogy. But she said, she hoped without missing a beat, ‘Check, please. Live-in lover; mother; maiden aunt; whatever.’
‘It would figure if whoever it was has recently been taken ill, wouldn’t it?’ Sue Hall said. ‘So he lost his post person and had to stay in to care for him or her?’
Where had she dug that up from? It was a hell of a leap of logic.
But reluctantly, Sue was shaking her head. ‘But that wouldn’t work. Whoever it was would see the
same name on the same letter day after day and start asking questions.’
‘Unless,’ Fran said quietly, the idea surfacing at last as the memory of her encounter in Canterbury, ‘whoever posts the letters can’t see the address on the envelope. What if his post person is blind?’ She could feel the atmosphere chill. The guvnor had clearly lost it, hadn’t she? ‘OK. Let’s call a halt now. No point in speculating, not when there are hard facts out there. Jon, to Watchbrief, or whatever they call themselves. Sue and Tom, off to his home address. Tact,’ she added, nodding to Joe Farmer, ‘is the order of the day. If you think a search is called for, get the warrant first. We’ll play this absolutely by the book.’
To her amazement Farmer looked at his watch. ‘It’s after five already, but it’d be nice to do as much as we can tonight. I’ll get overtime authorised,’ he said. ‘Now, remember to keep it low key.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll remember,’ Fran said dourly.
Everyone, Farmer to Hall, stared.
‘I’ve earned this last collar,’ she said.
She should be ashamed of herself, muscling in on the youngsters’ fun like this. Truly, deeply ashamed. And part of her was. Mostly she felt the old exhilaration – she wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
The traffic was heavy, and the rain sheeting down, so she was glad to let Tom take responsibility for driving. He and Sue exchanged a prolonged
banter. Dilly Pound, eat your heart out. So she sat quietly in the back, texting Mark to explain what she was up to and receiving a message in return:!!! LOL.
Then a call.
‘Jill?’
‘Rob’s home,’ Jill said flatly. ‘Brian’s just picked him up from the station. Do you want me to bring him straight over?’
‘Actually, I’m out on a job. In any case, are you asking me as a police officer or as a friend?’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘As an officer I’d like him grilled now. As a friend – and therefore a nice cuddly human being – I’d suggest you all go out for a nice curry and talk family talk.’
Jill snorted with laughter. ‘There’s only one problem with that. Can you tell me where in Ashford I can get a nice curry?’
Jim Holden lived in a Victorian terraced house within spitting distance of Canterbury West Station, his work van parked twenty yards or so down the street. Someone had made an attempt to brighten grey pebble-dash with window boxes, but at this stage of the winter the pansies looked frowsty and bedraggled. The door was painted the most vivid yellow she’d ever seen outside a children’s fairytale book.
She nodded at the entry. ‘Tom, just make sure he doesn’t try the back door route, would you?’