Hard Time (27 page)

Julia Tate had been hanging on for six minutes and fifteen seconds. The phone dug into her neck. She tapped nervous fingers on the kitchen table in time to a perfectly dreadful
recording of Vivaldi. The old woman sighed, but supposed even a muzak version of the
Four Seasons
was preferable to the tinny singsong voice that kept telling her how important her call was
to them.

“Vital, obviously,” she drawled. She slammed the receiver on the rest, cradled her chin in her hands. Maybe it was God’s way of telling her not to interfere? She sighed,
reached for her cup, took a sip and grimaced. Even the Earl Grey was stewed now. She’d have coffee when she popped into Highgate.

Chores first. It was important to stick to a routine. She flicked surfaces with a duster, reflected on her frustration. It wasn’t the first time she’d failed to get through. Fobbed
off and cut off, she was now thoroughly browned off. Social services was a misnomer in Julia’s book. The only real person she’d spoken to had been both condescending and incompetent. He
couldn’t help blah blah, she’d been transferred to the wrong department blah blah, she needed to contact blah blah. And then the call had been disconnected.

She swept the carpet with a glance; the hoover could stay in the cupboard. She wandered to the window: next door’s drive was empty. Were they out? Should she knock again? Since the scream
yesterday afternoon, she’d heard nothing. Was she seeing mountains where there were only molehills?

Julia folded her arms, stiffened her resolve. She would not be cowed. She knew what she’d heard and she’d rather make a fool of herself than do nothing. A few minutes later, she
slipped through the front door wearing her new purple suit. It was important to maintain standards. She needed to pick up a few bits and pieces from the shops, told herself she had to pass the
police station anyway.

The early brief had already kicked off when Bev crept into the kidnap room. Byford, pacing in front of the whiteboards up at the front, registered her late arrival but
didn’t acknowledge it. She raised a hand in mute apology, sank into a hard chair at the back, glanced round at the troops. It was 8.22, day seven of Operation Sapphire and the squad looked
dead on its feet. Missed sleep, skipped meals, lost chances. She knew the feeling. Her broken night and still dodgy insides were exacerbating the low-level but on-going exhaustion that went with
every major inquiry. Ironic, really, she mused. As cases dragged on and they needed every cylinder operating, batteries were on the way out.
Nice metaphor, Bev.

“Get out there... question of time... do your best...” The guv sounded dead chirpy, obviously trying to instil a bit of positive energy.

She tugged at the hem of her favourite skirt, pencil-cut steel-blue; it had cost a bomb and was hauled out of the wardrobe when she needed a boost. She thought of it as sartorial adrenalin.
Thank God the hormonal variety would kick in when the time came.

Couldn’t be soon enough. They’d been at it seventy-odd hours and had little to show but slumped postures and dark shadows. Something pervaded the air, too, something she sensed,
could almost smell. Fear: fear of failure.

She waited until Byford threw it open, then chucked in Mac’s two penn’orth about Stephen Cross and Laura Foster. It didn’t set proceedings alight; mild interest was as far as
squad reaction went. “Mac’s on his way. Should hear back any time.”

Byford was already gathering papers. “What’s your thinking, Bev?”

She still couldn’t see a connection; hoped that in the absence of anything else she wasn’t making too much of it. “Not sure, guv.” She ticked points on her fingers.
“Laura Foster knows the Page family, works with Daniel’s father. Stephen Cross tells us he witnessed what could have been the kidnap.”

“Was he lying?” Byford asked.

“But why?”

“Ask him. Get uniform to bring him in.”

She nodded. Made sense; it might involve hanging round and she didn’t have time.

Byford was in a hurry too. She caught up with him in the corridor. “Guv?”

He didn’t need to glance round. “I’m in a hurry, Bev.”

“What’s your definition of ‘years ago’?”

Maybe it was something in her voice. He stopped, met her gaze. “What’s your point?”

It was something Jenny Page had said during their first meeting. The words had returned to Bev during the early hours and were still bugging. “If someone told you something happened
years ago
, what’s that in your book? Five? Ten? More? Less?”

Byford shrugged. “Strictly speaking, two. But people generally mean more.”

She nodded. “Yeah. That’s my take.” So she’d run a few checks on Jenny’s mother.

“Can you walk and talk at the same time?” Byford asked, nodding down the corridor.

“Chew gum and everything, guv.” She fell into stride with the big man. “See, Jenny Page said she lost her mother
years ago
. But I checked: it was less than
two.”

Dorothy Hamilton had died in the same two-up-two-down end-of-terrace Bolton house where Jenny had been born. Broken neck was on the death certificate. The Bolton
Evening News
had been
slightly more forthcoming: a few pars in the archives on the website reported that Dorothy had fallen downstairs. Body found by the milkman.

Byford halted outside his office. “Maybe they weren’t close. Jenny could’ve left home when she finished school, not kept in touch. Sad. But these things happen.”

Possible. But there was another discrepancy. “There’s something else, guv.” She wasn’t even sure why she’d checked; it certainly hadn’t shed any light.
“I can’t find a death certificate for the baby she lost.”

His fingers were on the door handle. “Well, you know who to ask.”

“I’m asking you, Maxwell.” Byford and the crime boss were in Interview One. The e-fits of Doug Edensor’s alleged attackers on the metal table between
them. “Who are they?”

“You don’t have to answer that question, Mr Maxwell.”

Byford stifled already pent-up fury. According to Rumpole over there, Maxwell didn’t have to answer a call of nature. The lawyer, Edward Cornwell, was smooth as Queen’s silk. He
could have tutored Houdini; show him a loophole, he’d jump right through. Elderly and prissy, Cornwell had been Maxwell’s brief for fifteen years.

“What, exactly, are the charges, superintendent?”

“
Mr
Maxwell is helping police inquiries.” Or not. Byford sat back, arms crossed, lethal stare fixed on the crime boss.

“So he’s free to go whenever he chooses?” Silver hair, light grey suit, not an ounce of spare flesh on the lawyer’s six-foot frame.

“Leave it, Ted,” Maxwell drawled. “Let’s get it over with. I want this bastard off my back.” Byford suspected the casual sprawl was an act. Damp crescents darkened
the armpits of Maxwell’s blue shirt; beads of sweat showed on his sallow face, even through patchy stubble that peppered both chins.

“As long as you know, superintendent.” Cornwell adjusted half-moon glasses, made a note on a legal pad.

“Take another look, Maxwell.” The detective shoved the likenesses closer. “I’m told these goons are on your payroll.” Byford was looking too – for every
reaction, the slightest tic, the tiniest flicker.

“Says who?”

“A witness.”

“Yeah, right.” He lit a cigar, took his time, sneered through the smoke. “Never seen them before in my life.”

“What about these, then?” Byford opened a file, pushed more paperwork across the desk: photocopies of the death threats sent to Robbie Crawford and Doug. The cigar halted
fractionally on the way to Maxwell’s fleshy lips. Cornwell leaned in, muttered a few words in the crime boss’s ear.

“My client...” Cornwell began.

Byford flapped a hand. “Maxwell?”

“Yeah. I sent them. So what?” Cornwell tightened his grip on a classy fountain pen, but Maxwell’s words were hardly an admission; his metaphorical fingerprints were all over
the originals. Maxwell stared, defiant. “They needed a reminder... of what they done.”

“Your boy’s death was an accident.” Byford’s voice was level, quiet.

Lazy shrug. “Like Crawford’s.”

“How much did you pay the driver, Maxwell?”

“I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

“Where’d you get the insulin?”

“What?” The surprise might have been genuine. Or ingenuous.

“The insulin that killed Doug Edensor.”

An eyebrow briefly arched. Byford couldn’t interpret it. “I haven’t got a clue.” Maxwell tapped ash into a tin ashtray. “And neither have you, cop.”

“Or proof, superintendent?” Cornwell fiddled with a cuff link.

“Tell me about the child porn, Maxwell.”

As before in the pub, he didn’t like that. Fat fingers bunched into fists; an unhealthy flush seeped from the neck up. “Dangerous talk, copper.” Cornwell’s liverspotted
hand reached out; Maxwell brushed it away, still glaring at Byford.

“Informants are grassing, Maxwell.” Byford leaned across the divide. “I could turf Wembley with the spare.” He read a hint of panic in Maxwell’s eyes.

“I see now.” Slow nod. Slitted eyes. “You fuckers are stitching me up. Bollocks to that.” The crime boss lunged forward, grabbed the detective’s shirt with both
hands. “Go play with yourself,” he snarled. “I’m outa here.”

Byford smiled; his barbs had hit home. “No. You’re not, Maxwell.” If he walked, he’d probably leave the country this time.

“And the charge, superintendent?” the lawyer asked.

Byford made a show of smoothing his ruffled shirtfront. “Threatening a police officer will do as a start.”

Phone tucked under chin, Bev hadn’t even made a start. According to Richard Page, Jenny was asleep and not talking to anyone. She ended the call. Fuck it. She’d
been fobbed off once too often. She grabbed keys and bag and was heading out of the office when the phone rang. Mac, on the move going by extraneous engine noises.

“Sarge. Laura Foster swears blind she was nowhere near Priory Rise this morning. Any morning, come to that. Says she’s never heard of Stephen Cross.”

Damn. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

Mac wasn’t brilliant at women’s wardrobes but didn’t think Laura was wearing the same clobber he’d spotted on Cross’s house guest. Not that it meant much. She could
keep any number of costume changes at the agency. Bev sighed. The Cross-Foster connection – or otherwise – would have to go on the back burner for the time being.

“OK, Mac. Meet you at the Page place, ten mins.”

“I’m nearly back, sarge. Pick you up out front in two.”

Kicking her heels in reception, waiting for Mac, Bev caught a bit of crossfire between Vince Hanlon and an old woman trussed up like a purple cracker.

“She give you a hard time, Vincie?” Bev smiled, as the old dear scurried through the swing door into the street.

“Nah, not really. Poor old thing. She’s been getting the run-around from social services. Just needed to get it out of her system.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Broad
shoulders, that’s me, Bev.”

Broad everything. She gave him the once-over, eyebrow arched.

“Don’t even go there.” The finger he wagged was like a sausage with a weight problem.

Bev helped herself to a humbug; Vince was addicted to the things. “Point her in the right direction, did you?” She glanced through the window. Where the hell was Mac?

“Pointed so often, she could’ve been a sodding compass – that was part of the problem. She went off feeling a bit perkier. I gave her the number she actually needs, for one
thing.”

“Saint, you are.” Bev winked. “Vincent of the nick. Patron of old biddies.” He’d even made a few notes to keep the woman happy. Bev peered at his scrawl. “You
should’ve been a doctor, mate. What’s that say?”

He lowered glasses from his shiny forehead. “Potatoes, carrots, mince, onions and milk.” He grinned. “Not going the shops, are you?”

“Cheeky sod.”

“Joke. Must be the old woman’s.”

Bev picked up the list. It was on the back of an old envelope. Julia Tate, 12 Marlborough Close. Just round the corner. “What was her gripe, Vince?”

A horn blared. She swivelled her head, frowning. Mac on a double yellow. She turned to the door as Vince said something about noisy neighbours, crying kids. “Usual stuff, Bev.”

She saluted on the way out. “As I say, Vince. You’re a bloody saint. Catch you later.”

“I’m going nowhere till I’ve spoken to her.”

Bev’s size seven wasn’t the only thing in the door. Her size twelve frame loomed foursquare as well. Arms crossed, fixed stare – it was gloves off, gauntlets down. The Morriss
head of steam had built up in the motor on the way over to the Pages. Right now it could power the Rocket. Not that there wasn’t a plan B. If the tough-guy strategy failed, Mac was going to
plead a dodgy prostate and beg to use the loo.

Richard Page looked pleased to see them. Not. Pained was more accurate. “She’s still sleep...” He stopped suddenly, stroked his forehead as if to relieve an ache. Maybe he saw
the glint of steel in Bev’s eyes. He stepped back. She opened her mouth to argue, closed it smartish when she realised he was letting them in. She threw Mac a puzzled glance, then stepped
over the threshold before Page changed his mind.

Surly but resigned, he swung an arm in the direction of the sitting room. “Wait in there. I’ll see if she’s awake.”

Colin Henfield popped his head round the door. “Any news?”

“’Fraid not, mate,” she said.

Col looked crestfallen. Occupational hazard for family liaison: getting involved. He raised a hand, left them to it. Mac took the weight off his pins while Bev performed the usual prowl. Apart
from another layer of dead skin cells, nothing appeared to have changed.

She perched on the settee, slipped a hand down the side. Mac raised an eyebrow.

“Force of habit, mate.” She grinned. Never knew what you might come across. Nada in this instance.

“Taking his time, isn’t he?” Mac asked.

She shrugged. “Maybe he was telling the truth and she’s doing a Sleeping Beauty.” She rose again, paced about. “Prince Charming’s lost his sparkle, though,”
she murmured. There were footsteps overhead; a door closed, another opened. “Have to use that prostate scam another time. Reckon it’d work?”
Stop wittering, Beverley.