Power Games (19 page)

‘Oh, yes. Despite the burglary at Abbott's flat. Well,' Sue said, spreading her hands, ‘you saw. Didn't you?'

Graham waited, as if for Rod's response. There was none. He continued: ‘He gets himself on to the MIT. He changes people's assignments at a moment's notice so they can't work at their most efficient. He tries to get DS Power off the team. And this morning he explodes like a young volcano when he sees her at his computer.'

Sue Rowley nodded home each of his points. ‘You should have seen his face, sir.'

‘He wouldn't be such a fool as to leave anything incriminating on his computer,' Neville said. ‘Even if he were bent.'

Kate said quietly. ‘If you don't want to make an issue of it, sir, would you like me to make his computer impossible to use so it has to be sent to the geeks? Who could take the opportunity to check it over thoroughly.'

Neville frowned. ‘Could you?'

‘Someone once showed me how to change the password. That should be irritating enough for him to ask for it to be repaired.'

‘But not immediately. He's not officially using his room. He's one of the team, mucking in with the rest of you. Us.'

‘It'd be even more interesting if he did notice it straight away, wouldn't it?' Sue observed.

Neville looked at each one in turn. ‘You're convinced that something is – shall we say, at this juncture, amiss?'

Graham and Sue nodded.

‘Kate?'

‘I don't want this to seem like – like some sort of revenge on my part.'

Neville nodded. ‘Easily prevented. Would you be kind enough to work on the computer? And then leave us to finish the discussion without you. I think we would have had to do so anyway. Otherwise working with him would become untenable for you.'

 

Mark, resplendent this morning in a gold shirt and clashing khaki jeans, greeted her with a huge grin and an affable hug. ‘Welcome back. Migraine better?' he asked, very clearly. So he didn't quite buy the sick-leave business, and there might be others who didn't, either.

‘Much better, thank you. Until I saw your outfit, at least. You know, I was out cold for about twelve hours. Never had anything like that before. Now, what's on the agenda?'

‘The DI and Tony are talking to that archaeologist chap.'

‘Stephen Abbott? Right.'

‘Now, I suggested that all the tennis players we've got so far should be invited on court tomorrow evening for a reconstruction. We could get a Rosemary lookalike to play with a tennis machine – don't want to put any ideas of age or gender into people's heads. They get to play for an hour for free, then we'd give them tea and biscuits and the third degree.'

‘Sounds the obvious thing. But do I sense a “but” hanging in the air?'

‘You do,' he said grimly. ‘A “but” from on high.'

‘How high?'

‘DI Crowther high.'

‘Well I'm blowed. What a surprise.'

‘Quite. Meanwhile today we're back on Parsons, again. Though I for one am convinced it's a complete waste of time.'

‘In what way?' She slung her bag on to the desk and helped herself to water from the chiller.

‘If he did it, I'm a Dutchman.'

She passed him a cup too. ‘Is that the line that you've been pursuing? That he did it?'

‘That's the one I was told to take. Orders is orders.'

‘Direct from Crowther's mouth, I dare say. I had the same ones.'

‘So, much as I'd have liked to talk more extensively about her friends—' Mark shrugged.

‘How's he coping with it all? After all, he's been bereft of what seemed to me like a dearly loved wife, and now we're trying to pin her death on him.'

‘No one's ever actually suggested it—'

‘The man's no fool. He must know what you're after.'

‘He's – I know it sounds weird – it's as if he's treating all this as therapy. He keeps saying how good it is, to remember things.' Mark shook his head sadly.

‘Therapy! Some therapy if he gets sent down for life! Not that it'll come to that. We'll get the bugger that did it first.'

‘You hope.'

Like Graham before her, she counted off items on her fingers. ‘So far there's not a shred of evidence against Parsons. All the stuff at the tennis centre – the Blu-tack in the changing room, the duff computer, the sudden changes of personnel – we're talking conspiracy here, Mark. I think Neville's buying the theory. And – having seen him in action – I can assure you he usually gets his way.' Oh, and in more senses than one.

Mark shook his head. ‘In yesterday's briefing meetings he was a hundred per cent behind Crowther.'

That brought her up short. ‘I suppose he feels he's got to support him – new manager, that sort of thing,' she said doubtfully. He'd been quick to defend him this morning, too, hadn't he? Oh, to be a fly on the wall, listening to the arguments, and to the ultimate decision.

Perhaps she'd made a terrible mistake last night. No. Whatever the situation, she'd have been excluded as too lowly anyway. Wouldn't she?

 

‘I'm afraid I'm what P. G. Wodehouse would have called a non-doing pig,' Dr Parsons was saying. ‘I'm not interested in sport of any sort, Sergeant.'

‘But your wife was?'

‘Became, would be a better term, I think. When she reached fifty, she started to put on weight. A combination of retirement and HRT, she said. Oh, it was nothing gross, but enough to make her want to lose it. She loved her food, you see. And she was such a good cook. Dinner parties for twelve were nothing.'

‘What sort of people did you invite?'

‘Academics. Lawyers. Health and media professionals – doctors, social workers, the odd writer. They're known in some quarters as the Moseley Mafia. And Rosemary's teaching colleagues.'

Kate registered the distinction. ‘No tennis players amongst them?'

He shook his head. ‘I'm afraid none of our friends joined her, despite her efforts to cajole them. She started almost from scratch, you see. Had regular coaching, and then got involved with what she called community tennis. For the over-fifties.'

‘“Community tennis”?' Mark intervened for the first time.

‘The idea is that a coach gathers together groups of players of similar ability and gets them to play mixed doubles,' Kate explained. ‘Certain times and days of the week. I'm surprised she didn't play at a proper tennis club, Doctor Parsons.' She could certainly have afforded it.

‘She said she didn't need the social life. More to the point, she didn't think she was good enough. And the Brayfield Centre's very convenient. She made friends amongst that over-fifties group – used to play occasional games in the evening, especially when I was away. Kept her out of mischief, she used to say.'

‘What sort of mischief?' Mark asked.

‘It was a figure of speech, Constable,' Parsons said wearily, looking with distaste at Mark's rings.

‘But not necessarily only a figure of speech,' Kate said. ‘Some people might have regarded her efforts on behalf of the Lodge as mischief … Did she ever speak about – did she ever suggest she might have made enemies?' It would be nice to have Stephen's allegations corroborated.

‘You can't be a thorn in the flesh of big development companies without irritating people. But surely – we live in a civilised society—'

‘Someone killed your wife, Doctor Parsons: I wouldn't call that civilised, would you?' Mark asked, his rings flashing.

Kate raised a warning hand. ‘Did your wife ever voice any fears about her activities? Or mention which development companies?'

For the first time that morning Parsons looked harried. Guilty? ‘She did. But I pooh-poohed it. So did she, in daylight. Said it was her age. But one day – oh, my God – she swore someone was following her on her cycle. She threatened to get a car. You don't think—? If I'd done something?' There was a long pause while he pulled himself together.

Kate said quietly, ‘Other people knew that she was afraid. You don't have to feel guilty.'

Another long pause. Then, almost as if he were merely an interested bystander, he asked, ‘Did you ever find her cycle?'

Mark shook his head.

‘She must have used it to get down there. Someone must have noticed it.'

‘Someone did. But someone else did more than notice, I'm afraid, sir,' Mark added. ‘Someone removed it from where it was chained. It hasn't been recovered, to the best of my knowledge.'

‘Did she ever feel tempted to report her fears to the police?' Kate asked.

‘She did mention it. But they didn't take it any more seriously than I did.'

Kate nodded. Sounded familiar, didn't it? ‘I suppose you've no idea which station she might have gone to?'

Parsons sat forward. ‘It would have to be this one, wouldn't it? Dear God, you people knew about it all along, and did nothing.'

Mark was about to say something, but Kate silenced him with a glance. Meanwhile, Parsons was gripping the table, repeating with increasing horror, ‘Nothing!'

 

‘It would be remarkably interesting,' Rod Neville said slowly, ‘to find out to whom she spoke. Such an allegation wouldn't have gone unrecorded, would it, now? Even if the officer she spoke to found it spurious.'

‘It confirms everything Stephen Abbott said, Gaffer,' Kate said.

Mark nodded.

‘It's interesting that you should have thought it necessary to bring it directly to me,' Neville continued.

Kate said nothing.

‘My idea, sir,' Mark said. ‘It's seemed to me in the past that if DS Power suggested anything, some of our senior officers saw fit to deride it.'

Neville's speech patterns must be universally infectious. Kate stared at her shoes.

‘Point taken, Mark. And not an easy one to make. In fact, when Abbott made his allegations on Saturday, we took them extremely seriously. Investigations are already in train.' He let rip the sort of blazing smile that had guaranteed his popularity despite his quirks. ‘Thank you for bringing this to me.'

Kate wondered if he would call her back. He did not.

 

Kate and Mark were just returning to the Incident Room when they ran into Guljar Singh Grewal.

‘How are you doing, Kate? Heard you were bad,' he said.

‘I'm OK now. Tell me, Guljar, you must know all the gossip round here.'

‘Just off for a slash,' Mark announced, as if she'd somehow pressed an invisible button.

Guljar looked apprehensive. ‘Gossip?'

‘I'd bet you know who's bedding who, who's shedding who.'

‘Might do.'

‘Bet you know who's getting what job.'

‘Might do.'

‘Who's got friends at court, who's in, who's out.'

‘Might do.'

‘Might know whom Nigel Crowther got to pull strings to get him on to this MIT.'

‘Can't you ask Rod Neville? He ought to know.'

‘It'd make it a bit heavy, going straight to the Big Boss, wouldn't it? It's just something that interests me.'

Guljar looked around him. The corridors were empty, all the doors shut. ‘The word is it's his mother.'

‘Mother!'

‘Big on the Police Committee. And maybe close, like, to a Big Gun. Oh, much bigger than Neville. Wants her little lad to shoot up the tree faster than any of the other monkeys.'

Kate nodded. ‘Maybe someone should talk to dear Mrs Crowther.'

‘About pillow-talk promotions? Anyway, her name's not Crowther. She remarried a year or so ago. I remember him going to the wedding.'

‘Thanks. That's very interesting.'

He looked at her shrewdly. ‘This isn't the Power revenge for being suspended, is it?'

‘Me? Suspended? I was off sick with a migraine.'

‘That too. OK, so some deal's been done behind the scenes. But I'd hate to think of you trying to score off him.'

‘Why?'

‘Because you're a decent woman. You shouldn't stoop to cheap revenge.'

Cheap revenge? No, with a bit of luck this would be very expensive revenge. But not for herself. For poor Rosemary Parsons and her grieving husband.

 

And maybe for Stephen Abbott, who phoned her as she was eating chicken tikka in a naan. If she'd hoped it was Rod Neville, she hoped equally that her voice betrayed nothing but an overfull mouth.

‘I can't hack it at work tomorrow,' he said. ‘Not after the grilling they gave me. So I thought I'd come and work on your site, if I may. A bit of peace and quiet.'

‘Was it so very bad today?'

‘It's like they want to pin something on me, Kate! I liked her, remember. We were friends. And they keep on going over and over the stuff I've had stolen. They don't seem to realise it's nothing to do with the case.'

‘In a case like this it's terribly hard for us to tell what's relevant and what isn't, Stephen. That's why we go all round the houses when we question people.'

‘I don't see why they should want to know what was in my filing cabinet. My private one. It's as if they think it's – I don't know, hard porn.'

‘You can see why they should be interested if it were. Is it?' she asked, as lightly as she could.

‘No. But I wouldn't want other people – look, will you be there to let me in tomorrow? You or Alf?'

‘If you want to catch me, it'll have to be horribly early. Before eight.'

‘Before eight it is. Provided you give me a cup of tea. With sugar, not sweeteners, remember.'

Poor Stephen, thinking he could get away with working on those buttons without Kate asking another set of inconvenient questions. Yes, they had to find out what was in those drawers, and if the hard men couldn't manage it, she'd see what the soft touch would do.