Fever of the Bone (24 page)

‘I’m with you, yes,’ Tony said. He knew she didn’t mean to teach him to suck eggs but he wished she’d get to the point. He didn’t need a seminar, only a result.

‘So his choice of locations is limited much more than someone who’s just looking for a public-access computer. Because they’re everywhere. I expect even you’ve noticed that.’

‘I’ve even used them, Fiona.’

‘My, we’ll get you into the twentieth century yet, Tony. So, with the proviso that these results are not backed up with the kind of solid research that underpins the criminal geographic profiling, I’m prepared to say that I think the person using these internet nodes lives in South Manchester, near to the M60. I’ve got a map with a red zone that I’m about to email over to you. It’s apparently where Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton come together. Whatever that means demographically.’

‘They read the
Guardian
and listen to Radio 4. Shop locally and feel wistful about John Lewis.’

Fiona laughed delightedly. ‘Not your usual sexual homicide territory, then?’

‘No. But I don’t think this is sexual. I think it’s going to go serial, but there’s something else going on here that I can’t get at. You know that feeling?’

‘Oh yes. Not a good one. Anyway, if there’s anything else I can help you with, give me a ring.’

‘Thanks, Fiona. I owe you a big drink next time I see you. Are you going to the Europol thing next month?’

He never found out what Fiona was going to say. With no warning, the door opposite the bed swung open and the estate agent who had shown him round the day before walked in, talking over her shoulder to someone behind her. ‘And I think you’ll agree the master suite here is stunning.’ Then she turned into the room and gawped at Tony, clutching the duvet to his chest.

‘I’ve got to go, Fiona,’ he said to the phone. Then he tried on a smile and said, ‘I know this looks weird, but I can explain.’

That was when the estate agent started to scream.

Bethany didn’t quite have the nerve to refuse Carol entry, but she clearly didn’t want to reveal her arrival to Vanessa. ‘She’s very busy,’ the receptionist said. ‘I doubt she’ll be able to fit you in at short notice today. You were very lucky that she was able to make time for you when you were here before,’ she gabbled.

Carol didn’t bother turning on the charm. If this woman had worked for Vanessa for any length of time, fear would be a better spur than the desire to please. ‘This is a police matter,’ she said. ‘Tell Ms Hill that I am here in my capacity as commander of the cold case review team.’ She turned away, giving Bethany no option but to pick up the phone.

‘I’m sorry, Vanessa,’ Carol heard her say plaintively. ‘That policewoman is here again. She says she needs to talk to you on a police matter. Something about a cold case review?’ A long pause. Then the sound of the phone being replaced. ‘She’ll be with you as soon as possible,’ Bethany said in the gloomy voice of a woman who knows she’s caught between a rock and a hard place.

Time slipped by. Carol checked her watch, her phone and her email. She’d stopped by the Northern Division incident room on the way here to issue instructions for the day’s operations and she’d left messages for all her team that the morning conference would be at ten instead of nine. But still she couldn’t quite believe she was pursuing this while she was in the middle of two major cases, not to mention the Wastwater search.

If Blake found out how she was spending her time when she should have her hand on every aspect of ongoing investigations, he’d have all the ammunition he needed to close down her operation. But even that knowledge couldn’t budge her from this path. It was as if she lacked the strength to continue playing the role of the cop who put the job ahead of everything else. For years, she’d done what was asked of her, and more. She’d put her life on the line, she’d faced degradation and damage and dragged herself back into the front line. It had been a struggle to return to the job but, having made her comeback, she hadn’t hesitated to confront whatever had been thrown at her.

But now she’d been utterly blown off course by the demands of her feelings for Tony. Because she cared more about him than the job that had provided her with so much meaning? Or because she wanted to be defiant, to assert her right to do her job the way she wanted in the teeth of a boss who wanted to run her like a clockwork mouse?

Whatever the answer, she’d have to find it another day. For finally, Vanessa Hill was standing before her, clearly in imperfect control of her anger. The toe of her high-heeled shoe tapped a tattoo on the carpet. ‘I thought we’d concluded our business,’ she said, her voice low but sharp.

Carol shook her head. ‘My business is never concluded till I get to the truth,’ she said. ‘And so far, that’s been a commodity in scarce supply where you’re concerned.’ She glanced at Bethany. ‘I don’t think you want to have this conversation in a place where it’s likely to end up as cloakroom gossip.’

This time, instead of taking Carol back to her office, Vanessa led her to a small room off the reception area. Two generously upholstered leather sofas faced each other across a granite coffee table. The walls were decorated with prints of Gustav Klimt’s opulent paintings. A room dressed to impress, Carol thought. She wasn’t.

Vanessa threw herself down on one of the sofas. ‘I thought I made it clear to you that I was done with this bizarre quest of yours,’ she said in a bored voice.

Carol refused to be derailed. ‘Part of my job as commander of the Major Incident Team is to investigate cold cases. I’ve been looking at an old case involving an assault in Savile Park. Ring any bells?’

Vanessa’s composure barely flickered. ‘Get to the point,’ she said.

‘You were with your fiancé, Edmund Arthur Blythe. You told the police you were accosted by a man who wanted Eddie’s money. Things got out of hand and Eddie was stabbed. Almost fatally. And the next thing that happened was that Eddie left town.’

‘Why are you bringing this up?’ There was a dangerous edge to Vanessa’s voice. Carol remembered the Bob Dylan line about the woman who never stumbles because she’s got no place to fall. Except that with Vanessa it was more like never stumbling because she refused to admit falling was a possibility.

‘Because you never have. Tony deserves to know why his father walked out on you both. If you won’t tell me the truth about what happened, then I will reinvestigate this case with full vigour. Your statement seems to me to be very thin. I promise you I will turn your life upside down and I will give a statement to the effect that all these years later you tried to swindle your son out of his inheritance. It’s enough to open an investigation. Believe me, Vanessa, I am every bit as tough as you, and I will cheerfully be a thorn in your side till you give me some answers.’

‘This is harassment. I’ll have your badge if you try it.’ Vanessa couldn’t keep the fury from her face. Carol knew she’d won.

Carol shrugged casually. ‘And how long will that accusation stand up? I can make your life uncomfortable for a very long time. I don’t think you want that. I don’t think you want your name dragged through the mud. Or your company’s name. Not at a time when the economy’s on the floor and people are counting every penny they spend on recruitment and training.’

‘He should have grabbed you with both hands,’ Vanessa said. ‘Pitiful excuse for a man. Just like his father before him.’ She crossed her legs, folded her arms and glared at Carol. ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘I want to know what happened that night to make Eddie run away. And I want to know why you’ve never told Tony.’

Vanessa gave Carol a hard, calculating stare. ‘How would you feel if the man you’d agreed to marry revealed himself to be a spineless coward? The minute that lad produced his knife, Eddie turned to jelly. He was offering his wallet, begging him to leave us alone. He was crying. Can you believe that? Tears running down his cheeks, snot running down his face like a little boy. He was pathetic. And that bastard lapped it up. He was laughing at Eddie.’ She paused. Her left foot moved up and down to a private internal beat, the gleaming leather catching the light. ‘He demanded my jewellery. My engagement ring, a gold bracelet Eddie had given me. So I kicked him in the shins. That’s when he turned on Eddie. He stabbed him, then he ran for it.’

‘Did you blame yourself for what happened?’ Carol asked, knowing what the answer would be.

‘Blame myself? It wasn’t me that grovelled to that bastard. I was the one who stood up for us, the way Eddie should have. He was a coward, and that mugger knew it. It wasn’t me he went for, because he knew I wouldn’t stand for it. All I blame myself for is not realising what a bloody wimp Eddie truly was.’ Contempt dripped from her words like blood from a slaughterman’s knife.

‘Why did Eddie sell up and leave town?’

‘He was mortified. Thanks to the paper, everybody knew he’d let himself down. And me. He was a laughing stock. The big-shot businessman who couldn’t stand up to a late-night mugger. He couldn’t take the shame. And I’d dumped him by then, so there was nothing to keep him here.’

‘You dumped him? While he was in hospital?’

Vanessa looked unconcerned. ‘Why bother waiting? He wasn’t the man I thought he was. Simple as that.’

Her ruthless egotism was breathtaking, Carol thought. She couldn’t imagine anything denting Vanessa’s self-belief. It was a miracle Tony had survived as well as he had. ‘Nobody was ever arrested,’ Carol said.

‘No, you lot were as useless then as you are now. To be honest, I didn’t think they were that bothered. If he’d tried to rape me, they might have summoned up some interest. But to them, Eddie was just a pathetic rich bugger who didn’t know how to take care of himself and deserved what he got.’

Carol struggled to believe that. Back in the less violent 1960s, the police would have taken such an attack seriously, even given an alleged class divide that didn’t square with Alan Miles’s account of Eddie as a local lad made good. But Vanessa’s version gave Carol a stick to beat her with, which made it irresistible. ‘You didn’t give them much of a description to go on.’

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. ‘It was dark. And he didn’t hang around. He sounded local. You of all people must know how little witnesses actually see when they’re being attacked.’

She had a point. But then smart operators like Vanessa usually did. ‘So why did you never tell Tony the truth? Why let him believe that Eddie leaving was something to do with him?’

‘I’ve no control over what my son chooses to believe,’ Vanessa said dismissively.

‘You could have told him the whole story.’

A cold, malicious smile lifted the corners of her mouth. ‘I was protecting him from the truth. I didn’t want him to know how pathetic his father was. First, because he couldn’t stand up to a lad who was probably as scared as he was. And second, because he cared so much about what people thought of him that he ran away rather than face the music. Do you think it would have helped Tony to know that his father had a yellow streak a mile wide? That he’d been abandoned by a man who made the lion in
The Wizard of Oz
look like a hero?’

‘I think it would have been more helpful than growing up thinking his father left because he didn’t want anything to do with his child. Did Eddie never show any interest in the fact that he had a son?’

Vanessa breathed heavily through her nose. ‘I didn’t know he knew. I certainly never told him. How he found out, I don’t know.’

Carol couldn’t keep the astonishment from her face. ‘You never told him? He didn’t know you were pregnant?’

‘I was only three months gone when the attack happened. I wasn’t showing. Back then, you didn’t advertise that you were expecting. And as it turned out, it’s just as well. He’d have rushed me to the altar and I’d have been stuck with the pathetic little coward. I’d never have had all this,’ she added with absolute conviction, waving her arm proudly to encompass her offices. ‘Eddie did us a favour when he cleared off.’

This, thought Carol, was where self-belief teetered over into self-delusion. ‘You don’t think he was entitled to know his son?’

‘You get what you take in this world. Entitled’s got bugger all to do with it.’ With that brutal line, Vanessa got to her feet. ‘This time, we’re really done. I’ve nothing more to say to you. You can tell Tony or not. I couldn’t care less.’ She opened the door with a flourish. ‘You really could do better for yourself, you know.’

Carol smiled in her face as she walked out. ‘I almost feel sorry for you. You have no idea what you’re missing.’

Friday was the best day of Pippa Thomas’s week. Since she’d cut her working week at the surgery to four days, she’d found a space in her life for her. One whole day when she didn’t have to poke and prod, drill and fill to improve other people’s smiles. One whole day when Huw was at work and the kids were at school and she was free. And she loved it.

But most of all, she loved the Friday Morning Club. There were five of them. Monica, who worked afternoons and evenings at the Citizens Advice Bureau; Pam who looked after her demented mother and chose to spend her limited respite budget to liberate her for Friday mornings; Denise, who was a Lady Who Lunched except on Fridays; and Aoife, who ran the front of house at the Bradfield Royal Theatre. Rain or shine, they met in the car park of the Shining Hour inn, high up on the moors between Bradfield and Rochdale. And rain or shine, they would run a dozen miles over some of the roughest terrain in the north of England. They’d first met on a Breast Cancer Fun Run one Sunday in Grattan Park. ‘Talk about oxy-moron, ‘ Denise had muttered as the five of them searched in vain for a toilet that was unlocked. ‘Fun and breast cancer. Yeah, right.’ They’d ended up acting as lookouts for each other as they squatted in the rhododendrons to empty their middle-aged bladders before they could run. By the end of the afternoon, the Friday Morning Club had been born.

That Friday it was a bright blue day with an exfoliating edge to the north-east wind that knifed its way across the Pennine moors. Pippa hugged herself inside her lightweight top. Soon she’d feel that delirious sense of her body moving freely through this amazing landscape. As soon as they set off Pippa assumed the lead. Denise took up position on her shoulder and they exchanged a few catch-up sentences. But soon they needed all their breath to feed oxygen to their muscles for the long slow climb up to the summit of Bickerslow.