Wings over the Watcher (4 page)

Korpanski interrupted them with their drinks, taking a while to fuss over milk and sugar before sitting at his own desk in the far corner and silently witnessing the interview. Joanna was more than usually aware of him. She wished he wasn’t there.

With the result that she was frowning as she continued with her questions. “Just for the record where does your wife work?”

“Leek library.” Pennington was just beginning to run out of patience. “But as I said she didn’t turn up at all yesterday, Wednesday. It’s their busiest day – being market day and all that. They were very annoyed.”

Joanna sensed that to Pennington the word
annoyed
meant something deeper. Anger, frustration, inconvenience.

“She didn’t phone in sick?”

“No – she didn’t. I don’t recall Beatrice ever being sick. It’s most odd,” he mused. “She set out for work as normal. She wasn’t unwell.
Where
did she go if she didn’t go to
work?
Why
did she set out on her bike as usual if she had no intention of spending the day at the library? She deceived me.”

Joanna nodded and Pennington failed to notice.

But in every disappearance there is an exact point at which a person exits from one life to enter another. So – you pretend you are going to work, setting out as normal. You might even travel for a mile or two along that road. But at some point you veer to the right or left, depart from your normal route. And the farther you travel along this strange and unfamiliar road the farther you are away from your old life. Sometimes the void between the two becomes so wide, so vast, that it is a no-man’s-land you can never ever cross again.

And the little Joanna knew about the missing woman seemed to underline a person who could take this route. There had been something very fervent about the way Beatrice had gritted her teeth and driven herself up the hills on her bike, pulse racing, sweating. Finding it physically tough – yet performing it without complaint or giving up. And at the top Joanna had seen more than simply the glow of exercise achieved. She had witnessed something else. The nearest she could get to it was a child presenting its mother with a school-made Mothers’ Day card or a home-baked cake offered for tea.

Oh yes. There had been love lying behind Beatrice’s effort and it was not for the bespectacled man sitting on the other side of Joanna’s desk.

In the corner of her eye she could see Korpanski’s chair turning into the room, knew his eyebrows were rising, that his dark eyes would be wide and innocent and that he would deny that he had been both listening and inventing a solution. But basically they both knew already that this was a “domestic”. Something between husband and wife. Nothing to do with the law. This was the story of a woman who simply wanted to escape the humdrum nature of her mundane life.

It didn’t interest her. And glancing across at Korpanski’s face she knew it wouldn’t interest him either. But she must feign concern.

“One last question,” she said. “What about money?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have a joint bank account? Has any money been withdrawn?”

“I don’t know. Yes – we do have a joint bank account but I haven’t looked in it.”

“Then I suggest you get a statement. What about her car?”

“She’s been cycling to work lately. Getting fit,” he said disparagingly.

It answered just one of the tiny little questions which the mind will inevitably ask. How was it that Beatrice’s form had improved so dramatically during the few weeks since she had joined the cycling club? She had not admitted that she had been cycling into work every day. Joanna smiled. More evidence of feminine deceit.

“Her car’s still in the garage,” Pennington said disconsolately.

She stood up then, agitated with a silly vision of Beatrice Pennington being whisked off in an exotic sports car to a destination unknown, like the final scene of Grease. Into the sunset of fantasyland.

The idiotic picture made her anxious to dismiss the husband so she shook his hand, suggested he do the “homework” she had set him and watched him shuffle out with a feeling of despair. He had a shock waiting for him. He was about to turn over his wife’s life and find something nasty crawling beneath the stones.

She was torn, as a woman and as a policeman, something between sympathy and admiration.

The woman won.

“Go for it, Beatrice”, she muttered under her breath. “Go for it.”

Korpanski watched her close the door behind the sad man. “Anything interesting?”

“Nope. Just a woman who got bored with her husband and has legged it. Probably with some fancy man.” She leaned back in her chair and smiled, picturing Beatrice Pennington – happy at last – just as she had been when she’d reached the top of the hill under her own steam and surveyed the panorama beneath her feet. The vision gave her a feeling of warmth. At least someone was happy.

Korpanski gave her a sharp look. “You’re looking like the cat that got the cream. Heard from Levin, have you?”

“Nope.” She turned back to her computer screen and pretended to read off last month’s crime figures. Korpanski’s eyes were too penetrating sometimes. He read her when she didn’t want to be read. “No, I haven’t.”

“He’s a…”

“Mike. Please,” she appealed, “leave my private life alone.” It was hard enough fighting her own devils without Korpanski acting as St George, brandishing his chivalrous sword at her side.

He was sitting on the corner of his desk, his leg swinging. “Sometimes it’s difficult,” he observed, slipping back into his chair and moodily staring at his own computer screen.

She hated the silence between them and jerked her head in the direction of the door, knowing they should move away from personal things and return to safer ground. They were colleagues after all but it was a tightrope they constantly teetered along. “It’s simply a case of an errant wife,” she said – calmer now. “An errant wife who has, coincidentally been coming out cycling with the ladies of Leek for a few weeks. Even more of a coincidence is that during a bike ride a couple of weeks ago she confessed to having a secret lover.”

“Ooh.” Korpanski was grinning. “I love a bit of scandal.”

“She missed coming out with us on Sunday and, according to her husband, disappeared yesterday instead of going to work in the library. I wish all disappearances were as simple to resolve.”

“What dangerous lives some people lead.”

“Mmm.” She leaned back in her chair and eyed him up slyly. She never could resist teasing him. “Talking about excitement, did you get your little insurance claim sorted?”

Without warning Korpanski’s face went puce and the muscles in his neck stood out like ropes. “That little episode,” he exploded, “is about to cost us a bloody fortune in lost No Claims and Excess. I could kill Fran for her carelessness. And typically she’s shifted the blame onto me just because the handbrake was a bit loose. And now the insurance company have started asking awkward questions. I
told
her always to leave the car in gear. Women,” he ended furiously.

He paced the room for a moment, stopping in front of her desk.

She braced herself for another onslaught but just as abruptly his face had softened with concern so she answered his question before he even asked it. “No, Mike,” she said. “I haven’t heard and I’m not ringing.”

“I didn’t think you were so proud,” he said, “or so jealous.”

The words stung like salt water sprayed across her face.

“He’ll damn me one way or the other, blame me completely and probably disbelieve me. I’m dreading the inevitable fall out. If he’s met someone else then maybe it’s just as well. It’ll be easier – less complicated.”

“You don’t mean it, Jo.”

“Don’t I?” She gave a long sigh. “Don’t I? Ever since I first met Matthew he’s come with a rucksack full of complications. First of all a wife – Jane. Then a daughter, Eloise. And now this. Quite honestly I wouldn’t mind just for once a relationship
without
complications. Something nice and simple.”

“You’d find it boring, Jo.” He jerked his head towards the door. “Like them.”

She didn’t answer.

“But this wasn’t your fault, Jo. You couldn’t help it.”

She leaned right back in her chair – so far she was brushing the wall behind her. “And you think he’s going to believe that?”

“If Levin knows you at all he’ll know you would never lie. You’d always face up to the truth – however hard. If he doesn’t trust you, Jo, he doesn’t
know
you.”

She felt vulnerably grateful to Mike for his implicit faith, wisely said nothing but twiddled her biro between her fingers and wished very hard that Matthew Levin shared the same trust. His face, initially vivid, quite without warning, began to fade. It blurred as did his voice. She knew then he could become less important to her if he didn’t come home. But would stay forever far away, tucked tidily in a small corner of her brain.

She looked up at Mike and he stared back at her then moved in closer and touched her shoulder. “Come on, Jo. It’ll all…”

“Don’t use any of your damned clichés on me, Korpanski,” she warned. “I don’t want it. It’s
not going
to come out in the wash. At some point Matt and I are going to have to talk face to face and sort this out. If he even wants to any more.” She stared into the distance, picturing Matthew’s cold stare the night before he had left for Washington DC. “And I can tell you. I’m dreading it. He’s going to say things to me which’ll stick with me all my life. No one on earth can hurt you like a lover,” she finished under her breath.

And yet the unwanted pregnancy might not have been such a bad thing. It had merely forced them to face the issue instead of running away from it. In some ways she was glad it had happened.

Korpanski’s eyes flickered. He straightened up, chewed his lip and said nothing.

They worked solidly for an hour or so at their own desks before he squeaked his chair backwards. “Hey, Jo.” He rustled through the sheaf of papers. “Nothing much here. How about a pub lunch?”

And because she knew this was an olive branch when it was she who had been unreasonable she grinned. “Nothing I’d like better.”

Halfway up the High Street of Leek is an ancient pub called The Black Bull. It is all you can possibly want in an English pub. Atmospheric. Beams low enough to crack your head on, cheap, good food, nosey bar staff, cold beer and darts instead of one-armed-bandits and warm lager. Plus – the absolute bonus for a couple of inquisitive detectives – a nice little huddle of copper’s narks in the corner who shifted uncomfortably as they entered. They must have nothing for them. Perfect. Mike and Joanna found a table in the corner, ordered their food and drinks at the bar and settled down, both facing inwards towards the door. Police always like to see what’s going on around them.

Apart from the narks they recognised a few more familiar faces. Some who were uncomfortable to see them and swivelled around, presenting their backs, making the child’s mistake – that if the detectives were not in their sights they, in turn, were invisible to the two detectives. Others came over and chatted more easily – and innocently. Joanna tucked into a Caesar salad, Korpanski to steak and kidney pie with plenty of chips. She pinched a couple and couldn’t resist a dig. “You know, Mike,” she said, “the moment you stop burning muscle at the gym you’ll put on weight like a retired rugby player.”

He stuffed the food in anyway. “Ah, but you see I won’t give up going to the gym. Way o’life, Ma’am.”

She enjoyed the teasing. It was essential to them now, this sparring.

“And anyway.” He jabbed his fork at her Caesar salad. “That’s no food for a lady cyclist.”

She suddenly threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Mike,” she said, “the only time I can really forget about Matthew is when you’re around.”

Korpanski’s eyes were very dark, different from Matthew’s which were a warm – or cold – depending on his mood – green. Korpanski’s eyes were so dark you could not always tell the iris from his pupil, particularly in this poorly lit corner of the pub. Joanna had always thought the eyes and his muscular build were probably a throwback to his Polish ancestry.

It was the eyes which met hers but instead of responding to her capricious remark he bent back over his food and continued chewing stolidly.

Work is a neutral subject.

“What are you going to do about your missing woman?”

“Not a lot,” she said idly. “There isn’t much cause for concern here. I suppose we should make a few enquiries, try and find out just who her Romeo is. Just as long as we know she’s safe we don’t need to intervene at all. It isn’t police business.”

Korpanski merely grunted. The case didn’t really interest him either. He’d just been making conversation.

Once or twice during the meal he did look up and almost spoke but he had finished his first course before he broached the subject that always lay between them.

“So how is Levin getting on?”

“I don’t know.” She felt she needed to qualify the remark. “He emailed me to say he’d arrived safely and that the Pathology Department was really welcoming and very well set up. He was glad he’d gone and he felt he’d learn a lot.”

“And?”

Joanna took a long swig of her J
²
O and made a face. “That is it. Sum total of contact between the subject and yours truly. I knew he would leave me alone. It’s his way. He never wants to influence people, you see. He’s a great believer in free choice. And he wanted me to make up my own mind about… Well – you know.”

“But in the end it wasn’t your decision, Joanna. Doesn’t he even know that?”

She shook her head, swizzled the ice cubes around in the tall glass. “Nope. The trouble is I know what I’d ultimately have done. So does he. So in a way it makes no difference. It’s hardly the issue.”

Korpanski didn’t even need to ask.

“But you’re right, Mike. It wasn’t my decision in the end. It was taken away from me. Some might say by a wiser being.” Her smile was asymmetrical, atypical, twisted and heavily cynical.

“And you’re really saying he doesn’t know?” Korpanski was incredulous.

“Yes. I’m really saying he doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t know he isn’t going to be a father?”

“Don’t make such a big deal of it. I told you, Mike.” Her tone was forbidding any more questions. “I thought I’d write.”

“But you can’t find the words.” There was something positively scathing in his tone now.

She shook her head, waited for him to say something else, disliking this evidence of bonding between the two men – even if it was conducted at a distance of thousands of miles.

“You don’t think a man has the right to know these things?”

“Of course – but…”

“I’d fucking kill you.”

And Mike Korpanski, at last, having blurted out his truthful opinion, fell silent. And so did she, having shot him one long glare.

He finished his food, drained his beer and slapped the jug back down on the table. “Coffee?”

She shook her head. “No. Let’s get back. I have a feeling Pennington might return. I sort of set him a number of tasks to carry out.”

They walked back up the High Street, through throngs of
shoppers – even though it was a Thursday and traditionally the quietest shopping day. The old habit of half-day closing had practically disappeared from the Moorlands market town and most of the shops now stayed open through the afternoon.

The police station was at the top of the High Street, beyond the war memorial and the bus station. It was an ugly building, modern brick, squashed in behind an old mill. The old police station had been a Gothic, Victorian piece of architecture, designed to give the police status and instil fear into the criminal fraternity. But it had been impractical and, like many other
Ye Olde Police Stations,
had been sold off.

They were scarcely in through the door when Joanna knew her prediction had been correct.

In the small, square waiting area, Arthur Pennington was sitting solemnly on a bench, knees pressed together, back ramrod straight. He was obviously waiting for her. This tiresome little man. As soon as she entered he jumped to his feet and caught at her sleeve. “Detective Inspector. Joanna. Miss Piercy. Please.”

And just as suddenly and unexpectedly she felt a wave of pity for him. It simply wasn’t his fault that he had developed these habits designed to irritate. He wasn’t to know that of all things she hated it was having her sleeve pulled or her arm pinched, purely to gain attention. Neither did he know that somehow his dumpling of a wife had battled to transform herself into something else. But not for him.

She jerked her elbow so his hand fell away. “Let’s go into my office,” she said. “It’s more private.”

She felt Korpanski’s eyes following her through the door and knew they would joke about this later. But with a certain frostiness. She just wished he wouldn’t venture his opinions on her private life.

She led the way along the corridor, two steps ahead of Pennington whom she could hear breathing behind her heavily. She didn’t speak as they climbed the stairs and
entered the small office she shared with Korpanski, grey-walled, maroon-floored, small and square, filing cabinets in the corner, a computer link on each desk. Characterless, business-like, efficient. She liked everything about her office except one aspect. Its window overlooked a brick wall. She had been offered vertical blinds to cover the view but she felt, somehow, that it was a stern reminder to her, that police cases frequently reflected just that – a brick wall. It is only when you study the structure that you realise there is no uniformity in old bricks. There are stains and marks, hollows where frost has penetrated and destroyed some of the baked clay, ridges where the mortar has worn more quickly because of wind and weathering. Irregularities of the grouting, thick, thin, pale, dark. Even sometimes clues of previous structures, that abutted the wall, nail-holes, screw-holes, marks where hinges or ropes have worn grooves. She had once felt that the wall lacked inspiration. These days she did not.

She sat down behind her desk, motioning the nervous, upset man to the low armchair in front of it. She was well known for ignoring all the PC rules about being approachable, not hiding behind a desk, being open and so on
ad nauseum.
She was a policewoman. A Detective Inspector. Not a social worker. She
liked
the desk between her and her interviewees. She was here because she was in a position of authority and that was how she liked it. People who knew her respected it. As, eventually, did people who did not initially know her.