Prey to All (20 page)

Trish had huge sympathy for Deb, but this was not the time for such cruel honesty. ‘Listen, Kate, your mother is living under enormous stress at the moment, like you. I know she’s been very unhappy at your real father’s death. Maybe …’

‘But he wanted me to be aborted. He didn’t want me.’

‘Your mother wanted you,’ Trish said quietly. ‘She loves you more than she loves anyone else. When I went to see her about making this programme, it was you she was thinking of. Not herself, not your legal father, or the other children. Just you. She cares so much.’

‘But she doesn’t understand.’

‘I expect she does. Sometimes it’s difficult to talk about that sort of thing, especially in her situation when she can’t even see you. Now, I think you’re too tired to talk about it any more tonight. Why not have a hot bath? It’s only a trivial kind of soothing, but it usually helps.’

‘All right.’ Kate wasn’t built for submission, but she looked like the humblest of dependants as she waited for the rest of Trish’s orders. It diminished her.

‘The bathroom’s just there. And try to get some sleep. You’ve had more to put up with in the last couple of years than most people have in their whole lives. But you’ll come through.’

‘Will I?’

‘Yes. You’re strong and brave. Now, I’ll start the bath running. Don’t let it overflow, will you?’

 

As Trish let herself fall into her own bed, she wondered whether she ought to have offered Kate one of her own over-the-counter sleeping pills. She’d been in the kind of state that often made it impossible to sleep.

Still trying to decide whether any member of Kate’s family would ever dare take a pill from someone else, Trish didn’t notice when her own mind went blank. The next thing she knew was the radio turning itself on at six thirty in the morning.

She silenced it at once. As quietly as she could, she padded downstairs. The door to the spare bedroom was open. Trish put her head round it and was relieved to see that Kate was lying on her back, her hair spread all over the pillow and her mouth open.

Trish left her to it and checked her diary to make sure she didn’t have to be in chambers early. Luckily she had no commitments until the following day. She put on the kettle, planning to deal with her paperwork until Kate woke.

It was too early to phone the police, or Sprindler’s, or George. She made herself a mug of tea and sorted through everything she’d stuffed into her briefcase last night.

When the post came an hour later, she leafed through it and found a letter addressed in Deb’s writing. Glancing over her shoulder, Trish was glad there was no sign of Kate. The letter was quite short.

Trish drank a mouthful of cooling tea, contemplating the letter. It suggested that Deb still trusted Adam completely and made Trish ache for her and her inevitable disillusion. Memories of his doubts about Deb’s innocence mingled in Trish’s mind with echoes of the loathing Cordelia had poured out. Did anyone ever really know the truth about the people they loved?

It seemed astonishing that the letter in front of her could have been written by the same woman as the vituperative outpourings Cordelia had passed on. The photocopies were still in the bottom drawer of Trish’s desk. She leaned down to get them out again.

The handwriting was clearly the same, but everything else was different. Startling phrases leaped off the page, just as bitter as Trish remembered from her first reading.

Trish put the photocopied letters down and ran her hands under the hot tap in the kitchen, pouring washing-up liquid over them and scrubbing as hard as she could bear.

It would have been useful to see the other half of the correspondence to find out what provocation there had been in Cordelia’s letters.

The sight of the clock warned Trish that Kate might be waking soon. She dried her hands, put the letters out of sight and forced herself back to work.

She was peacefully sitting at her computer in one of the XXL T-shirts she wore in bed when Kate emerged from the spare room, rubbing her sore eyes. Trish swivelled round, making sure the T-shirt still covered most of her thighs. The slogan on it was more apposite than usual, trumpeting the fact that ‘Eve was framed’.

‘Good morning, Kate. Did you sleep?’ she asked.

‘Not much till it was nearly light. That’s why I’m so late. I’ve only just woken. I’m really sorry. Am I in your way?’

‘No. I thought we might have breakfast first. We can phone the incident room then. Now, what do you like to eat at this time of day? I can do toast or muesli or eggs.’

‘Can I cook myself some scrambled egg? I’m a bit hungry. I didn’t have anything yesterday. I couldn’t really eat at all.’

‘Of course.’ Trish got to her feet in a hurry. ‘But you don’t have to cook them. Let me do it for you. D’you like toast with them?’

‘It’s all right, honestly. I’m used to cooking. I don’t mind it. It sort of makes me feel safe, if you know what I mean.’

‘Not really.’ Trish wondered whether George found cooking made him feel safe and, if so, what she had done to make him so scared that he wanted to cook whenever he came to Southwark. ‘But I’m delighted for you to do it if you want. Come on, I’ll show you where everything is. Then I’d better put some clothes on.’

Caroline Lyalt was waiting for Trish to bring Kate Gibbert to the incident room. It had been a good morning so far. Almost as soon as she’d arrived at work, she’d taken a phone call from Dave Smart, her contact in Incident Room II, with news of Spike Hamper.

They had arrested him on suspicion of drug-dealing and were questioning him now about his possible involvement in the Chaze murder, Dave told her, but Spike was still denying having had anything to do with it. He might be telling the truth. On the other hand, he was also denying taking any drugs to Mandy in the prison and having been her pimp, and that didn’t convince any of them. He had a record for living off immoral earnings as well as possession with intent to supply, so they were sweating him now. They had another five hours before they had to turn him loose, and if Caroline would like to come on over, or send someone else, she’d be welcome to sit in and hear the denials for herself. But it would have to be quick, because five hours was the limit, according to the Super, unless the officers searching Spike’s flat found anything that would let them charge him with drug dealing. Oh, and by the way, they were dead grateful for the tip off.

Co-operation like that made Caroline believe she could have a future in the Job and one that was worth staying for. She’d phoned Femur on his mobile and been glad to hear that
he wanted to sit in on the interview himself. In the meantime, she had gone back to the long list of Malcolm Chaze’s girlfriends.

They’d got back to 1983 now, ignoring most, phoning some, and visiting a few. They’d turned up all sorts of fascinating stuff on the victim – his taste in women and his sexual habits, as well as confirmation of Deb Gibbert’s suggestion that he was something of a social climber – but they hadn’t yet found anything to explain his death. Luckily it sounded as though both the other incident rooms were floundering, too.

Caroline had spread the word of that already, and morale was higher among her team than it had been for some days. After all, it was they who’d turned up Spike Hamper and he was the likeliest suspect anyone had found so far. Things were definitely looking up.

‘Sarge?’

Steve Owler was posing in her doorway. He looked even prettier than usual. His short, razor-cut hair was wet, as though he’d just had a shower, and his skin was glowing with health and exercise. The smooth black T-shirt was tucked into narrow black jeans, both beautifully ironed and showing off all his carefully honed muscles.

‘Yes. What is it?’

‘The girlfriends. I’ve just thought. There’s one called Crackenfield, isn’t there?’

‘So? She wasn’t on any of the drugs or suicide cross-lists, was she?’ Caroline frowned. She didn’t want Steve getting even cockier. What had he spotted? ‘Am I missing something?’

‘No. But don’t you remember that story the other day in the papers about a junkie who died of an overdose while he was supposed to be looking after his baby? Wasn’t he called Crackenfield?’

‘Coincidence,’ she said instinctively, even as she admitted to herself that he might have a point.

‘Maybe, but it’s not a very common name,’ said Owler. ‘At least, I’ve never heard it before. Have you?’

Caroline sighed. She mustn’t be prejudiced just because she didn’t care for his rat-like tendencies or the way he flaunted his good looks. ‘OK, check it out. Get on to whoever dealt with the death and see if there is a connection.’

‘Will do.’

She watched him go jauntily back to his own desk, showing off his taut, cheeky buttocks. She hoped he’d only just noticed the coincidence. She wished she’d seen it herself. The lists of Chaze’s girlfriends had been in the incident room for several days now. In her peripheral vision she saw Femur shambling towards her.

He looked worse than ever. He’d had five shots of The Macallan to her one in the pub last night. She hoped he hadn’t had more of something else when he got home. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. ‘Morning, Guv.’

‘What’s new, Cally?’

‘Not a lot. How did they get on with Spike Hamper?’

Femur shrugged and rubbed his hands through his rough hair. ‘I’m sure they’re right about his innocence of the Chaze killing. He never reads the papers, has no interest in politics, didn’t react to Chaze’s name, and seemed genuinely and completely ignorant of his identity, significance, and everything else.’

He looked a bit more together by the time he’d finished talking. Gallons of hot, sweet tea and a greasefix in the form of several bacon sarnies, and he’d probably do fine.

‘Right,’ Caroline said, aware too late that it was his favourite way of acknowledging a subordinate’s report. She grinned at him, hoping he’d take that as an apology, but he looked back blankly.

‘What have you been up to, while I’ve been flogging over to IR Two?’ he asked, clumsily, as though his tongue was swollen or bitten.

‘We’ve got one new line of inquiry going this morning, although I’m not sure it’s worth much.’

He nodded, so she told him about the dead junkie and Chaze’s old girlfriend. Femur’s blank expression sharpened.

‘It could be worth looking into,’ he said. He even smiled. ‘Well spotted.’

She wrestled with her conscience and lost. ‘It was Steve Owler who picked it up, Guv. Not me.’ She turned back to her heaps of paper.

‘Well done for that, anyway,’ he said, in his old voice. She looked back and saw that he knew how close she’d been to taking Owler’s credit. Femur’s smile broadened and looked much more affectionate. ‘You’d better see Chaze’s daughter on your own. I’d only get in the way. But let me know how it goes.’

‘Will do, Guv.’

 

In the interview room, Kate was repeating everything she could remember of the night when she’d phoned her real father from the theatre. She looked as though she was carrying the world on her back, but for most of the time her eyes were dry, and her voice hardly shook. When Caroline asked for the background to her relationship with Malcolm Chaze, Kate recited the facts of her parentage and her discovery of it, with a coolness that didn’t seem real but was brave.

Caroline, who hadn’t found much in Malcolm Chaze to like or respect, began to think there must have been some good in him to have produced a daughter like this one. Considering that she was already having to deal with her mother’s conviction for murder, an outrageously snotty, selfish aunt, far too much domestic responsibility, and the
discovery that the needy man she’d always called Dad was nothing of the sort, she was handling herself well. Add to that the fact that she was now in the local nick, answering questions about the murder of her real – hardly known – father, and you had someone with the kind of courage that left you breathless.

Caroline had always been a sucker for courage, and she was having to hold on to her impulse to reassure and comfort this beleaguered child. There might be a chance to do that once they’d found Chaze’s killer, but until then, she had to keep herself cool and detached.

Luckily, it was more than clear that Trish Maguire was acting
in loco parentis,
and doing all that anyone could to support Kate. For form’s sake as much as anything else, Caroline asked Kate to repeat everything she could remember of her earlier conversations with the dead man. That didn’t produce much beyond a whole slew of encouraging waffle about how he’d help her find a job as soon as she needed one, give her money for her gap year and so on.

‘And what about his wife, Laura? Did you talk to her at all the day you came to his house?’

Kate’s eyes brimmed, but again she held on. She waited a moment, coughed, then rubbed her eyes with a screwed-up piece of loo paper, nodding at the same time.

Caroline Lyalt exchanged glances with Trish.

‘What was she like, Kate?’ Caroline asked gently.

‘Snooty. She came into the drawing room, where he was talking to me.’ The tears were well under control now. Kate’s voice was stronger too. ‘Then she said, “So this is the famous daughter, is it?” “It” again, you see.’

Trish Maguire patted her shoulder but didn’t interrupt.

‘Then she looked me up and down, obviously not liking what she saw, and said, “Yes, I suppose there’s no doubt. She’s got your awful bulbous nose, Malcolm.”’

Caroline felt her eyebrows twitch. From where she was sitting, Kate’s nose looked anything but bulbous. There was a slight thickening around the nostrils, but it was hardly noticeable.

‘“Well,” she said to him, “make sure she doesn’t embarrass either of us.”’ Kate’s voice took on a clipped patrician intonation when she was impersonating Laura Chaze. Caroline had no idea whether it was an accurate impression, but it effectively created the idea of a busy, antagonistic, grand woman of several generations past, the kind of woman Caroline detested.

‘“If she wants money, give it to her and get her out of here as soon as possible.”’

Caroline wanted to say something helpful, but she couldn’t think of a single thing. She saw Trish pat Kate’s shoulder again and hoped it was helping. The girl gulped. ‘Then she turned to me and sounded a little bit less snotty: “I know he’s your father, but he’s not in a position to have you living with him. I don’t wish to sound unkind, but it’s better that you stay with the people you’ve known all your life. Do you understand?” So I said of course I did. I just wanted to meet him, talk to him. I promised her I wouldn’t get in the way, and that I didn’t want anything from either of them, especially not money. All I wanted was to know him, just a bit.’

Trish Maguire looked as though she wanted to intervene, but Caroline gestured to her to let Kate finish uninterrupted.

‘And then she said to me, sounding nearly nice, that in his work he needed to be above reproach and that to be known as the father of a child whose mother had committed murder would ruin his career, and I didn’t want that, did I?’

‘That must have made you angry,’ Caroline suggested.

Kate looked surprised for a moment, but then she nodded. ‘Well, yeah. I suppose it did. But it was all so difficult then, I didn’t have time to be cross. I just said no, of course I didn’t,
even though my mother hadn’t killed anyone and shouldn’t have been in prison. Then she smiled properly and said she was glad I was so sensible and she hadn’t really meant it about the nose, and that she’d do her best to help me when I was through university, so long as I went on being discreet about my father.’

‘That’s very clear,’ Caroline said, when she’d got her breath back. Laura Chaze sounded like a right cow. If anyone was going to be shot, it should have been her.

‘Then she went away and my father made a pot of tea and opened some biscuits.’ Kate smiled suddenly, revealing a childishly open delight for a second. ‘They were called Chocolate Olivers. I asked where I could buy some because I’d like to take some back for Millie and the boys, and he told me to take the rest of the packet home with me. He was kind, you see. He let me tell him about the children, and he said he could see they really needed me. Even more than he did.’

Trish leaned forwards. To Caroline’s surprise, she said, ‘Kate, did he ask anything about your legal father, about Adam?’

‘Yes, a bit.’ Kate looked as surprised as Caroline felt. All the delight had been extinguished. ‘Why?’

‘I just wondered. They’d known each other when your parents got engaged, hadn’t they?’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘OK. Never mind that now,’ said Caroline, glaring at Trish. This was not her interview and she should’ve known better than to interrupt. ‘And what did he say about your mother?’

‘Just that he hadn’t realised how much he loved her till it was too late.’ Kate rammed the hardened lump of tissue into her eyes again and sniffed. ‘I told Trish all this yesterday, Sergeant Lyalt.’

‘I know. But it helps me to hear it, too. And which day
exactly was it that your mother phoned you and told you how he’d wanted her to have an abortion?’

There was a stillness about Kate as she sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes slowly leaking. She said nothing. Trish looked surprised and as though she was about to intervene again. Luckily she held her tongue. They both waited. Kate was blushing and her long hair hung down, hiding her face as she stared at the floor.

‘Kate?’ said Caroline firmly. ‘You must tell me the truth, you know.’

‘It was Friday,’ she said, looking up at last. Her eyes were huge and hurt and the tears were falling faster. Caroline went out to find some Kleenex.

‘This last Friday,’ she said, when she came back with a small, unopened packet, ‘or the one before he was shot?’

Kate’s blush betrayed her. Trish sat forward, but Caroline didn’t want her to protest.

‘Kate?’

‘The one before he was shot.’ She started howling then, like a child taking refuge from punishment in a sobbing fit.

‘Sergeant,’ Trish said firmly, back in her professional persona, ‘I think it would be a good idea if I had a chance to talk to Kate privately.’

‘It’s all right.’ Kate sniffed. ‘It’s all right, Trish. I didn’t mean to lie. It just seemed easier not to go into details about it. I’m sorry, I really am. I rang him from the theatre because I was so upset by what my mother told me. That’s why I wanted to see him again.’

Caroline saw that Trish was about to tell her not to say anything else, so she leaned forwards, smiling kindly at Kate, and said, ‘It’s much better to get the whole truth out in the open. You told him, did you, what your mother had said?’

Kate nodded.

‘And what did he say?’

‘That I had to try to understand. That it wasn’t me he didn’t want, just any kind of baby. Like you said last night, Trish. That he’d never had anything to do with children, and hadn’t reached a stage in his life when he was fit to marry. He said he was incredibly immature and that he’d regretted it ever since. That’s why he was so glad I’d found my way to his house and why he wanted a chance to know me and help me now, to make up for everything he’d done wrong before.’