Authors: Judith Cutler
‘Ah. The ginnel probably runs two ways, doesn’t it?’
‘The what?’
He pointed.
‘You foreigners!’ Sue laughed. ‘You mean the back alley!’
Fran joined in the laughter, but looked at her watch. ‘Come on, we’re not here to discuss the vagaries of dialect.’
Sue Hall knocked the front door, doing the honours when a middle-aged man appeared. He peered from one to the other, and finally, without saying anything, stepped back, letting them in. His appearance was as anonymous as it could be: greyish skin, greyish hair, greyish clothes. And spectacles with lenses that darkened as the light hit them.
The front door opened into a tiny vestibule, with another door, complete with a rather fine stained glass insert, only six feet or so from the first. So they processed in single file past a closed door into a good-sized living room, presumably with a kitchen and possibly a bathroom beyond. The fireplace might have been original; the ceiling rose certainly was. There were bookshelves either side of the chimney-breast, one side occupied not by books but by individual audio-tapes and complete
audio-books
. The Bible – Authorised Version; Shakespeare; Dickens; modern crime fiction – someone had catholic tastes. To Fran’s mind the walls called out for mirrors or paintings, but they were bare. There was an expensive sound system,
but no TV. Fran’s heart considered sinking. By the look of her, Sue’s already had.
Fran smiled, ‘No television, Mr Holden?’
‘This is my sister’s room,’ he said, as if that explained everything. ‘Bigger than mine. Tidier.’
‘Is she in?’
‘Eve? Still on the train home, I should think. Her first day back at work. She’s had the flu – very nasty.’
‘Perhaps we should be talking in yours, then. Because we wanted to ask you about what you watched on TV. Or more precisely, who.’
There was no sign of guilt, let alone panic.
‘Shall we look, Mr Holden?’
‘If you want.’ He gestured back to the tiny entrance hall and the room off it. As he said it was small, but equally tidy, with a crucifix on the chimney breast and another Bible on the mantelpiece. If she’d hoped for pictures of Dilly to cover the wall, she was disappointed. But there was a laptop closed on table below the laden bookshelf nearer the window, with a printer on the floor beneath. A plasma TV screen dominated the further alcove. It must be clearly visible from the street. Another day and she might have given him a lecture on crime prevention.
‘Tell me what you watch on TV,’ she said gently.
‘Not very much. I’m not at home much. I work a lot of overtime.’
She felt less sympathetic. ‘So you don’t watch the news? On TVInvicta?’
‘Why should I?’
Was he genuinely naïve or busy pulling wool? ‘To renew your acquaintance with a fellow student. Dilly Pound.’
He smiled reminiscently. ‘Delia’s a much nicer name. Dilly! Where did they think that one up? These media types.’
‘So you’ve been writing to her, have you?’ Sue asked.
He nodded. ‘I keep hoping for a reply.’
‘I think you’ll find, Jim, it helps if you put your address on the paper,’ Sue observed, her irony earning a minute shake of the head from her boss. ‘Which reminds me, what brought you down here? A long way from home, aren’t you?’
‘I got made redundant. MG Rover. I’d got a job in security, when they said I was fit to work. Rover went belly up. My sister was always on at me to move down here. And I thought, why not? And then I saw Delia!’ His face lit up.
Candy from baby time. She let Sue carry on. ‘On the local or the national news?’
‘Both, of course. I was so proud of her when she was being broadcast all over the country, I had to write to her.’
‘You wrote letters, not poems?’ Sue demanded.
‘She didn’t like my poems. She used to laugh at them, the way they rhymed. I don’t use rhymes any more.’
‘Where do you get your ideas for writing now?’
He turned and patted the Bible. ‘And
Shakespeare. And,’ he added, reaching a volume from the shelves, ‘DH Lawrence. They say he’s out of fashion these days, but I still read him. I suppose it’s a Midlands thing.’
Sue didn’t get involved in lit crit. ‘Before you saw Dilly on national TV you did nothing? Even though you knew where she was working?’ she persisted.
‘I don’t want to talk about this any more.’
‘That’s a shame, because we’d like you to come along to Police Headquarters to talk about it. Shall I leave Eve a note?’
He turned on her with something like exasperation. ‘If you did, how would she read it? She’s blind, officer. Blind.’
Sue gasped audibly.
Fran raised a minatory eyebrow and took over, still speaking gently, reasonably. ‘So how would you let her know if you were going out? Phone? Or would you rather talk a bit more here? We could have a cup of tea, if you want one? Sue, can you oblige?’
He shook his head. ‘No, no. Everything has to be just so. If you start messing about in the kitchen and leaving things in the wrong places it’ll really mess up her system.’
‘OK, no tea, then,’ Fran agreed. ‘Now, Jim, we know you’ve sent Dilly some letters and some flowers. They were gorgeous, by the way. You must have spent a lot of money on them.’
‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well, that’s what my grandma used to say.’
‘And you went to London for them?’
‘Eve wanted me to go with her for some hospital appointment. Women’s troubles,’ he added.
‘But you didn’t want them to arrive that day?’
‘I wasn’t sure if she’d like them. I thought I could always cancel. But when I saw the way she smiled at me I knew it’d be OK.’
Oh, dear. Would he be fit to answer formal questions? Would he be fit to plead when the trial came up?
‘And you wore masks when you were looking through her windows,’ Sue said, obviously trying not to glace in triumph at Fran. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Look at me, officer. I’m no oil-painting. I didn’t want to put her off, did I?’
Sue looked at her in anguish. Was he really as off beam as this?
‘Where did you buy them?’
‘Shop local, that’s me. Down the road – the place near the Cathedral. But I only wore them at night. A lot of people wear them to party in, don’t they?’
‘So when you followed her during the day, you didn’t bother? Tell me, Jim, why did the CCTV cameras never pick you up?’
‘Chance, I suppose,’ he said doubtfully.
As if.
‘It’s so lovely to see her again – renew our relationship, you might say,’ he said, confident again.
Fran might, if there’d ever been a relationship.
‘The trouble is, Jim, she didn’t want to renew your acquaintance. She didn’t like all your visits and letters. Pestering someone like that is called stalking, and it’s against the law. And,’ Fran added, suspecting the innocent bewilderment in his face was entirely feigned, ‘I think you know it is. Otherwise why did you post all the letters in London?’
‘Oh, that wasn’t me. That was Eve.’
She really ought to get the FME to check him over to see if he was fit enough to be questioned. ‘Did she know what she was posting?’
‘Of course not! She wouldn’t have liked the idea of my having a young lady in case it upset our living arrangements. It may well, of course.’
Sue smothered a giggle.
‘Competition entries or bills – that was what she thought they were.’
‘Jim, stalking’s quite a serious offence, you know. Have you got a solicitor whom you could talk to? Because there are one or two other things we want to talk to you about, too. When Eve comes home. And we’ll be applying for a search warrant.’
‘You will remember to put everything back exactly where you found it? I don’t want Eve to fall over anything.’
‘Have you always looked after Eve?’ Sue asked.
‘I don’t look after her! Only when she’s ill. She was so bad last week I had to take time off work so she could stay in bed. Normally she’s an independent woman, holds down a very good job,
far better than mine, I can tell you.’
‘But you’ve never married.’
He produced a wistful smile. ‘When I met the only lady I ever wanted to marry I wasn’t in a position to propose. I’d been in a very serious car crash, ladies, and hadn’t been able to work for years. A nervous breakdown, on top of the physical injuries, you understand. And memory problems. Eye sight, too. So it came to nothing. Until now. And now I’ve found her again,’ he declared, his face as rapt as Dean Fellows’.
‘Didn’t you have any other girlfriends at all in Birmingham?’
His face flushed puce. ‘I…er…you’re both ladies. I wouldn’t want to talk about it.’
‘You mean you saw prostitutes? But not here in Canterbury?’
‘My sister…what if she found out?’ He turned to face the TV, knuckles white as he gripped the back of a chair.
Sue looked at her watch. ‘Time’s going on, Jim. How would you normally tell Eve you were going out?’
For answer he turned tail and bolted, heading for the back door. They gave chase, with a silly after-you moment, in which Sue, the young, fitter woman, thought she ought to invite Fran to take the lead. At least it gave Tom, by now soaking wet, something to do.
Though it was nearly ten, Fran still looked flushed and happy, leaning back in her chair while Mark sat on the corner of her desk, toasting her with water.
‘Two birds with one stone, eh?’ Mark grinned. ‘Stalker and flasher in one neat collar.’
She shook her head. ‘We can’t be absolutely certain that Jim Holden’s the flasher. Not yet. Jon and his team haven’t finished searching his house. Tom and Sue are still talking to him.’ Tom, who’d been soaked to the skin, wore, at her insistence, borrowed clothes that didn’t quite fit. The medics had agreed that Holden was dotty, but sane enough to be cautioned. The duty solicitor was in attendance.
‘What’s the circumstantial evidence?’
‘His work schedules for one thing. We know he fixed or maintained the cameras in many of the locations where the assaults took place. We know he had a variety of masks. But we can’t actually prove he assaulted anyone, not yet. None of the victims say they could identify their assailant.’
‘For God’s sake, surely one out of all those women—’
‘You’d have thought. We shall begin interviewing them all again tomorrow and certainly go for conventional ID as well if we possibly can. I don’t like a case resting simply on DNA – it always feels a bit of a cheat.’
‘Like being LBW, not bowled…’
She looked blank.
‘When we’re both retired, my love, I shall convert you to cricket. And then you’ll at last appreciate the finer intricacies of the English language. Now, what are you going to do with him overnight?’
‘In about half an hour, I shall get them to shove him in a cell down in Maidstone nick. I shouldn’t think he’ll ask for bail. Meanwhile, let’s hope for a full confession. But I want to go at it obliquely.’
‘You?’
She nodded, amused. ‘Me. Devious old me. I’m just going to drop into the interview room for a minute.’
‘Can I watch?’
‘You won’t learn anything. It’s the oldest trick in the book. In fact,’ she said, getting to her feet, ‘you may want to play it yourself. Go on, it’s a fair offer!’
‘So’s this,’ he said, slipping from the desk and grabbing her as she brushed past. She liked being kissed hard, so he obliged. ‘For two pins,’ he continued, as they surfaced, ‘I’d lay you here and now on the carpet.’
Her eyes gleamed.
The phone rang. Her transformation from excited lover to cool professional choked a laugh from him as he turned to face the window to calm down. It was one thing for everyone to know about their relationship, another to demonstrate it quite so clearly.
‘Not at all. It’s good of you to phone me.’ There was a note of impatience in her voice. Clearly someone lowly the other end was going through all the formalities due to her rank. ‘So how is he?’ she prompted at last, making circling movements with her right hand as if to elicit the news more quickly and rolling her eyes as the thin voice from the other end continued to spout verbiage. But her face was instantly serious as she asked, ‘But he’ll live?’
More talk. Couldn’t whoever it was give a nice monosyllabic yes or no?
‘Of course… Of course… I understand…’
Who was she talking about? It sounded as if she really cared, or was that simply another of her skills?
‘No, I quite appreciate… Oh, I should be back at my desk by nine… I’m still at it, that’s why!’ And, this time laughing wryly, she cut the call. ‘Cheeky sod. Only giving me lip for not starting at seven. It’s that vicar. Dilly’s vicar. Stephen Hardy. They’ve found him.’ Suddenly she looked tired.
He put his arm across her shoulders. ‘But not in perfect health, I gather?’
She shook her head. ‘Broken back and exposure.
Not a good combination. Fell down a disused mine working on Bodmin. Touch and go. Poor Dilly.’
And poor Fran. She was genuinely touched. Why? She’d only met the man once. She stared at the phone.
‘Will you tell her?’
She moved away from him, shaking her head sadly. ‘Only if he dies. I think that’s what he’d want. As for her – who knows what she wants? Come on, let’s go and talk to Jim Holden.’ She picked up her jacket, case and bag, and, as they left the office, turned to lock it. ‘That’s it for the night, whatever happens.’
‘Knackered?’
‘Not while there’s this much adrenaline coursing the old veins. Getting to sleep, that’s always the worst problem, isn’t it?’
Grinning, he fished a small elegantly wrapped package from his own case and shook it enticingly before her nose. ‘Courtesy that nice new shop in Fremlin Walk,’ he said. ‘And no, you certainly can’t open it till we get home.’ He tucked it away again, but shook the case in front of her from time to time as they made their way down to the interview room where Tom and Sue were still talking to Jim Holden. A glimpse through the window in the observation room next door suggested that fatigue had set in all round. Even his solicitor seemed three quarters asleep.
Mark stayed where he was, to watch the proceedings, as she breezed in. He’d fully expected
her to leave everything she was carrying with him – wasn’t it a mite unprofessional to show quite so clearly you were going home? But no, there she was case and all.
‘Right, gentlemen, how are we getting on?’
Tom eased himself to his feet and drew her to the door, turning so that Holden couldn’t see his mouth. It also meant Mark couldn’t hear. But the young man’s body language suggested that Holden was still playing the innocent, and would continue to do so until science proved him a liar.
Fran turned back into the room, concern all over her face. Spurious concern, if he knew her. ‘Look, Jim, I’m sorry this is all taking so long. Do you want to phone your sister to tell her where you are? She must be worried sick.’
His face glimmered with bravado. ‘That’s not necessary. I’m never at home in the evening. Rarely till midnight, sometimes later. She won’t stay up.’
‘Good. Because I want you to explain to these nice young officers exactly how you spend your evenings.’
‘But—’
‘You see, I think you’ve been spending your evenings doing something far worse than going with prostitutes. I think you’ve been assaulting a lot of young women. And some older ones too.’
‘You’ve got no evidence—’
His solicitor shushed him.
‘A simple gob swab will provide us with all the evidence we need. But we’d all much rather you
made a clean breast of it all. We might even tell the judge how cooperative you were. Come on, Jim – then we can all go home. Oh, no, Jim: not you. We’ve got accommodation set aside in Maidstone nick. Just as tidy as your room. But somewhat less cluttered.’
Mark was in the corridor miming applause when she came out. Instead of punching the air, she was shaking her head. ‘They always give themselves away somehow, don’t they? OK, I’d better let Dilly know she can sleep soundly tonight.’
‘It’s a good job someone will be able to,’ he said, patting his case again.
Fran made it to her desk by eight-fifty five, not bad at all considering the time she and Mark had finally settled to sleep. In fact, if she knew her body, she’d be bright all day, and a zombie tomorrow. She rubbed her hands. She’d best make the most of today, then.
The phone rang bang on nine. As she picked it up, she had a vision of some piskie of a Cornish policeman watching the second hand of the station clock jerk slowly onward until he dared pounce on his handset. Was she as scary as that?
‘Fran, it’s Jill. Rob’s refusing to get out of bed. Literally. Absolutely doesn’t want to talk to you. Insists he’s going to leave school.’
‘Not a good curry, then?’
‘The pits.’
Fran suppressed a sigh. The obligations of friendship. But someone like Rob could go good
ways as easily as he could go bad ones, and maybe a nudge from her might help. If it didn’t? She’d better make sure it did.
‘A spot of tough love from Auntie Fran? Because I can really only do tough, Jill.’
‘Liar. OK, I’ve seen you reduce grown men to tears, but I’ve also seen you hug them better if they needed it. I can’t do it; Brian can’t do it. Actually, it was Tash who suggested you. She rates you. And Mark.’
‘I must remember to tell him,’ Fran responded dryly enough to make Jill laugh. ‘Look, I’ve got a few things to sort out here, then I’ll come and get him. If you think he’ll still be there.’
‘I’d stake my teeth on it. And – Fran? – he did nick that silver.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. And those bruises? On your forearms?’
‘Yes. But Fran,’ she almost shouted down the phone, ‘I did fall down the stairs. That was nothing to do with him. Honest. I promise.’
‘OK, Jill. Now, don’t worry any more than you have to. I’ll be round as soon as I’ve got things under way here.’
Before the phone could ring again, in came Tom and Sue, quite as pleased with themselves as they were entitled to be, and maybe a little bit more. She saw Mark and herself mirrored in them.
‘Just the paperwork to do now, like, guv. Jon and his team found enough to put him away for a good long stretch.’
‘Pity about that sister of his, Eve,’ Fran said, half ashamed for raining on their parade.
‘Don’t you believe it, ma’am,’ Sue responded. ‘According to Jon she kept on and on about how miserable he was. She blames the accident. She said he had a bang on the head bad enough to bring about a personality change. A cheerful, outgoing lad, she said he was – it’s all on paper and on tape. Says she hopes at last he’ll get some proper treatment.’
‘In today’s prisons? She’s got to be joking! Pile ’em high, shunt off to the next nick quick. Oh, and send their stuff to a different nick. I heard all about it from Ian. A friend, many years ago. An OU lecturer. He died. He tried to help loads of cons through courses, and the prison system seemed
hell-bent
on preventing any sort of continuity. Some hope of rehabilitation!’ She got a grip. ‘Now, I’m going to bring in young Rob Tanner. He’s got a habit he supports by nicking from his mum, and possibly other people.’
‘From DCI Tanner! Bloody hell! Those bruises—’
A look shut her up. Sue’d soon learn there were some times you had to put your brain in gear before you opened your mouth.
‘That young scrote Field admitted to getting kids hooked – mightn’t he have done the same to Rob?’ Sue almost pleaded. ‘She’s a decent guvnor, DCI Tanner. She’s a better cop than she looks.’ She stopped abruptly, and blushed deeply. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’
Fran managed something between a sigh and a laugh. ‘I’ve known that since before you were born, Sue. And for God’s sake, if we’re going to work together, learn to call me guv, like the others.’
‘Jill, with your permission, I’m going to treat him more as a victim of crime than as a petty crook. We may get more out of him that way?’
‘OK. I’ll just call him.’ The doubt in Jill’s voice suggested she wouldn’t do so particularly loudly.
‘You get the coffee on. I’ll sort it.’
‘His bedroom – I’ve tried airing it…’
‘For God’s sake, Jill, I’ve seen scruffy pads before now!’
But at the door she almost turned back, revolted by the smell of unwashed male feet, old pot, cigarettes and testosterone. What had happened to the old Fran, the Fran who’d been known to adjust an accident victim’s head to give mouth to mouth, only to have it come off in her hands? Who’d picked through clouds of blowflies to identify a putrefying mess as a dead old man?
The bundle under the duvet might look endearing or exasperating depending on your viewpoint. Fran just saw the giant maggot, with a tiny lock of hair escaping, as infinitely vulnerable, despite its unattractive habitat. She threw open a window. If you listened carefully you could hear the urgent calls of birds responding to the spring. They always made her feel that life was to be lived. Poor Rob simply huddled deeper. She braced herself. Off
with the duvet in one swift, unkind movement. Rob huddled in aged T-shirt and boxer shorts. His legs looked absurdly thin, despite the tufting of coarse hair, and the feet, in tennis socks, enormous.
‘Fuck off, will you. Just fuck off!’
‘It’s not your mother. It’s dear old Auntie Fran. The shower’s running, and since there’s a water shortage you’d better not waste any more. When you’ve showered and washed your hair, you can shave.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘You’re coming along to police headquarters to answer a few questions. And I don’t want you looking like a dog’s breakfast and upsetting my officers. Get it?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Rob, that shower’s going to run out of hot water any moment now. And I tell you this, you’re having a shower and a shave even if the water’s
ice-cold
. Up to you. Now, move.’ This time she removed the bottom sheet.
‘I still can’t understand,’ he said, drooping as far from her as the seatbelt would permit, ‘why you wouldn’t let me bring Mum.’
She hardened her heart against a yob suddenly turning needy infant. She’d seen it so many times before, but once she’d loved Rob. Perhaps she still did, though she certainly didn’t like him very much at the moment. ‘I didn’t think you’d want her, a grown lad like you. Besides which, I’ve
something to show you that you might prefer her not to see.’
‘Whatever.’ There was more anger and resentment, she fancied, than curiosity.
‘You’ll see it when we get to Maidstone. And when you’ve had some breakfast. Then one of my lads’ll run you back to school.’
‘Fuck school.’
‘And all your GCSEs no doubt. OK. Not my problem. Now, just be quiet while I drive.’
‘Some cop! Can’t drive and talk at the same time!’
‘Not if I don’t want to.’ She snapped on Classic FM. Let him chew on that.
If spring was really springing, she might just treat them both to a dose of countryside. She couldn’t imagine that he’d enjoy looking at the greening of the fields and trees, but she would and she was the driver.
She was slowed down by a small van, one with an estate agent’s name on the back, obviously looking for turning. On impulse, she followed him when he found the right lane. When he stopped, she stopped. He was erecting a For Sale sign, on the verge, an arrow directing those interested along what was little more then a track.