Still Waters (11 page)

‘Well, help by finding me another fucking pair of hands, then. Three pairs for preference. Or, better still, four. I’ve got one officer on maternity leave, another on extended sick leave, two on bloody idiotic courses and one asking for a transfer to Devon. There’s talk of me reopening an investigation we all thought was absolutely sodding watertight. And that bugger Henson’s ticker is still supposed to be dicky, so I suppose we’ll end up with some eighteen-year-old kid on the accelerated promotion scheme telling me how to run the case.’ He paused, perhaps for breath.

‘Which case would that be, Chief Inspector?’

‘Roper and Barnes, of course.’

‘How come you got landed with that?’ Fran forgot she was a secretary.

‘Oh, it’s not official, not yet. But that smart-arsed new… Hang on, exactly who am I talking to?’

‘Fran Harman, Doug.’

‘Fucking hell, I took you for—’

‘Doesn’t matter. What’s this about Gates asking you to take on Roper and Barnes?’

‘He just happened to mention it when he dropped by, that’s all.’

Did Gates ever ‘just happen’ to do anything? ‘And when would that have been?’

‘This morning. That’s why I’m so pissed off.’

‘And you told him what you told me?’

‘Pretty well. Dressed it up a bit more polite, though – you know how it is.’

‘One of these days, Doug, I’ll get it into your thick skull that you should be as polite to the lowliest pen-pusher as to the chief. Understand? Meanwhile, I should stall as long as you can on the Roper case. I think they might find someone else.’

Mark was just contemplating another fat, glossy Home Office document and wondering how much it had cost to produce at a time when all police forces across the country were being told to tighten their belts in all departments except those dealing with organised crime and terrorism, while simultaneously improving, of course, all their results, when there was a tap on the door. It was a bit early for Fran, so his invitation to enter was a little on the curt side.

But Fran it was, carrying files and still wearing her reading-glasses; she looked, as she always did, very businesslike.

‘Oh, is it time to go already?’

‘I thought a cup of tea might be on offer.’

That was tantamount to conceding that something or someone had defeated her and she needed cheering up. But he’d have said that she was awash with adrenalin. Had she had another fight with Gates? He hoped not. They both knew that however much she had right on her side it put him in an awkward position.

‘I’m sure it is. Do you want to take a pew while I brew up?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m on my feet – I’ll do it. Actually, if we did leave early, we could have another look at the Rectory – see what they’ve done to enhance security.’

He thought of the reading he still had to get through. ‘Perhaps.’ To his own ears that sounded a bit offhand.

‘You know, you only ever say “perhaps” like that when you mean no and don’t want to say it out loud.’

He’d risk a guilty smile. ‘Perhaps I do.’

‘No perhaps about it. The Rectory’s clearly off the menu tonight, then. But since you’re perhapsing, perhaps it was you who told Doug Kerr he’s got to re-examine the Roper and Barnes files for the CPS.’

He looked at her sharply. ‘And perhaps it wasn’t! Doug’s hideously under strength. How’s he got that idea in his head?’

‘Three guesses?’ But she clearly wasn’t joking.

He half stood in his anger. ‘Are you sure?’

‘According to Doug, Gates just happened to drop by this morning and told him it was a possibility.’

‘Which pleased Doug no end, I should imagine.’

‘He was certainly lacking in tact and charm when we spoke on the phone ten minutes ago. But then, he didn’t realise who he was talking to, the rude old bastard. So who made the decision? Hardly the chief, not from his terrorist conference.’

‘I’d better find out. Officially, of course. Because whatever else is being rearranged in the interests of cost effectiveness, as far as I know, my job description isn’t.’

She looked at him limpidly. ‘I suspect that as far as the
chief
knows, it isn’t.’

He uttered a few epithets she’d probably not heard from him before, apart from in the vilest of murder or assault cases. ‘And what’s been happening between you two that you haven’t told me about?’ he added more sharply than he meant.

He could see her efforts to relax. ‘I didn’t want to tell you quite everything – well, I wasn’t proud of all of it. Yesterday, when Gates gave me that trimming, he suggested I resign – no, not just from the committees, but altogether! – while the chief wasn’t here to talk me out of it.’

He wanted to make all sorts of lucid comments about Gates’ lack of professionalism and especially lack of gratitude – after all, the man would never have reached his present position had it not been for Fran’s constant encouragement. ‘The fucking bastard.’

‘So I told him that in no circumstances would I do anything like that behind the chief’s back, and then we had an argument about something else. He was in the wrong that time, at least.’ She rubbed her face. ‘Actually, he’s right about my committee work, Mark. I’ve been a complete arsehole. My behaviour might be excusable in a bored schoolgirl, but not in a woman of my age.’

Perhaps she was right. But he would never have loved a yes-woman. ‘When did you ever suffer fools and their folly gladly? It’s part of your charm. And God knows ninety per cent of those meetings – any meetings, I suspect – are a waste of everyone’s time.’

‘But I should have had the decency to take him on one side and tell him he was pissing us all off. It’s not just me, you see.’ She told him about the round robin she’d scotched.

He took her in his arms and gave a companionable hug. ‘If I can shoehorn Lloyd and Sammie back together, we’ll sell the Loose house and then you can tell him where to put his job.’

She shook her head. ‘It’d get under his fingernails far worse if I signed an extended contract. But that apart, the sooner the youngsters are talking
to
each other, and not
at
you, the better for all concerned.’

‘Which reminds me – I had a phone call from Lloyd earlier.’ He felt like a schoolboy asking for the return of the ball that had just broken a greenhouse window. ‘He and I are meeting up at a pub in Tonbridge at six-thirty. Just a drink, I said.’

She pushed him away and looked at him over her glasses. ‘And you’d forgotten we’d only got one car here so either you need a lift and for me to wait for you in the car or you want me to hang on here for you.’

He nodded.

‘And, of course, if you wanted to drink, you’d only be able to sniff the barmaid’s apron if you wanted to stay within the limit.’

He nodded.

‘And if I were sitting outside in the car, it would curtail the time you had to spend with him.’

‘With luck,’ he said fervently. ‘From what he said on the phone he wants to spend an evening bollocking me for breaking up his marriage.’

She made a show of cupping her ear. ‘I beg your pardon? On the contrary, I’d have thought that Sammie was trying to break up ours. Well, our relationship,’ she added, biting back something and turning away slightly.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Despite himself, he fired up. She wasn’t going to raise their unmarried status yet again, was she? He told himself that she had pulled back from whatever brink she’d seen herself on and that he must too. Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘She’s certainly grabbing as many hours of my time as she can. And now he’s joining in.’ He tried for a joke, which sounded off-key even as he made it. ‘You don’t think it’s something deeply Freudian, do you?’ What if it was?

She spread her hands, without much apparent amusement. ‘What are you going to tell him?’

‘That depends what he asks. But I shall certainly say that our not being able to use my house doesn’t help our domestic situation. And that the sooner they resolve their differences the better.’

‘Do you think he could actually afford to pay all her debts?’ she asked. ‘I know he’s got a good job, but the mortgage on that house of theirs must be astronomical. A four-bedroom detached in Tunbridge Wells, for heaven’s sake.’

‘You don’t suppose you could come along too?’ How supine was that? But if he’d miss Tina’s advice this evening, her control of the emotional ebb and flow, he’d also miss Fran’s astringent common sense and pertinent questions.

‘In your dreams, Mark. I shall sit in the car park and catch up with my reading. But you’ll owe me.’ At least she grinned as she sat back, folding her arms.

‘Another trip to France?’

‘Sorry I’ve been so long,’ he said, kissing her as he shifted the files she’d been working through from the passenger seat and settling down.

‘No problem.’ She permitted herself a glance at the clock –
had he really been gone well over an hour?

‘At least I phoned Sammie and persuaded her to let Lloyd go and talk to her over in Loose. He’s on his way now, in fact. But he’s very opaque, Fran. Will you join us next time? Please? I know there’s something going on I can’t understand and you don’t miss much, do you?’

‘Only my supper! What does the food look like in there?’ She gestured to the pub, unwilling to commit herself one way or the other to a family meeting.

‘No idea. Is there anything in the freezer?’

She snorted. ‘Enough for an army at your place – remember that wet weekend and the new Kenwood?’

‘Hell! I’d forgotten Sammie’s taken possession of that too. Not that she’d ever use it. And all the meals you prepared, of course. Let’s go and get them now.’

‘Now? With Lloyd on his way there? No, let them get on with it, sweetheart. We shan’t starve.’

One of the Pact team was already on site when Fran and Mark arrived at the Rectory at eight on Thursday morning. When they’d called Paula to arrange the hastiest of visits they’d suggested the more civilised hour of eight-thirty, but Paula assured them that Caffy Tyler would be in the building well before that.

‘She may not necessarily be doing what you’d consider work, though. That doesn’t start officially till eight-thirty. One of us always unobtrusively checks what time the subcontractors arrive and leave,’ Paula explained. ‘If they don’t keep up to speed, we get held up and so do you.’

In fact, Caffy was in the old scullery, making coffee on a camping-gas stove. Her mug and a couple of paperbacks sat on the wooden draining board. Since alongside them lay a clipboard bearing a piece of paper headed
Schedule for the Day
neither protested, especially as she interrupted their conversation to log the arrival of some workmen who headed straight up onto the roof.

‘Excellent,’ Caffy said. ‘They’re ten minutes early again, all
four of them. Paula had to Have a Word, and no one runs the risk of a second of Paula’s Words. Can I offer you coffee? It’s good Fair Trade stuff. I can’t start the day without my fix, can you? Go on, try it. Fresh milk here and sugar in that tin.’

They found themselves clutching mugs. Mark’s was
Sons and Lovers
, in the old Penguin livery, Fran’s the National Portrait Gallery Shakespeare.

‘Now, you wanted to talk about our security updates? First of all, did you notice the camera over the front door? Neat, isn’t it?’ Caffy said.

‘Very. Now,’ said Mark, who was clearly not in a mood to be charmed, ‘has there been a specific threat or are you just taking general precautions?’

She hesitated, only for a beat, but long enough for Fran to reckon she was lying. ‘So many places out in the back of beyond like this get robbed that we thought enhanced security was in order. Even if it’s going to cost more.’

‘So we noticed from the security firm’s quote,’ Mark confirmed, in his dourest morning voice.

Behind his shoulder, Fran pulled a conspiratorial face at the young woman – the silent message was that with another couple of sips of Caffy’s excellent brew he’d show signs of rejoining the human race.

‘Quite. But we thought – since you hear of so many security firms being bent – we’d go for belt and braces.’ Removing her hands from her dungaree pockets, Caffy twanged the shoulder straps. ‘Actually, hands in pockets too!’ She replaced them with an impish grin. ‘After all, one man and his dog can’t be here all the time. And thank God for that. I loathe dogs.’ Her shudder appeared genuine. ‘So we thought we’d get mugshots of everyone coming onto the site. After all, it’s not exactly as
if there’s a passing trade down here in the back of beyond. You have to try pretty hard to find your way. So there’s one camera covering each entrance to the house. The others are better disguised than this.’

‘Trouble is, if anyone just parked by the gate without attempting to come in, you wouldn’t get photos of car number plates, would you?’ Mark demanded, coming gradually out of his torpor.

‘Oh, yes, we would! After all, what might seem to be someone pulling over to take a call on his mobile might be someone casing the joint – stealing architectural antiques to order’s a popular pastime these days, as I’m sure Paula told you. Not that you wouldn’t know anyway, would you? Anyway, there’s a pair of cameras in the hedge, disguised as trees. A mate of mine from back in Brum makes the pretend trees for the Home Office, would you believe, and he’s done some for us.’

‘I don’t think he’s supposed to talk about covert government surveillance equipment,’ Fran said dryly.

Caffy responded with a sunny smile. ‘I wouldn’t tell anyone else, but surely you’re both important enough to be in on the secret! No? Well, he’s never told me where these official cameras are sited, but I bet I could find out if you wanted.’

Fran shook her head. ‘Lead us not into temptation, Caffy. But these of ours sound a brilliant idea.’

‘Well, if you can’t nick an idea from the Home Office, I don’t see who you can nick one from.’

‘Quite,’ Mark said repressively.

Fran thought it better to change the subject. ‘In fact, we’re extra pleased to have the camera on the gates. Did Paula tell you we came the other night just to check the place was still
here and saw a BMW driving away as we arrived? I gather it wasn’t you driving it.’

Caffy looked ostentatiously heavenwards. ‘Oink, oink! Oink, oink! Oh, it’s a flying pig.’ She became serious again. ‘A Beamer can mean trouble, as I’m sure you know better than I. For some reason, people I’d rather not mix with drive big, flashy cars with tinted windows and alloys and such, which they fancy make them anonymous.’

‘Or highly obvious,’ Fran countered. She feared Mark was about to ask Caffy what gave her the idea that the BMW they had disturbed had tinted windows – it hadn’t; she rather thought that the young woman was doing her utmost to help them protect a building they all seemed to love.

‘Now, this here car you saw “loitering with intent” – do you want his number to run through your clever computer?’ Caffy raised an engaging eyebrow as she used the old police cliché. ‘Because it’ll only take me a minute to check. We keep the gubbins out of sight in the cold pantry.’

Mark succumbed. ‘Why not?’

‘And I bet you both want to have another look at the inside of the house and give it a metaphorical hug. Hard hats, please. You’ll find spares just inside the front door. Oh, and yellow jackets. Our insurance won’t cover you otherwise. You ought to wear boots, but I won’t tell if you won’t.’

By the time they returned, Caffy was playing the video in an icy little room. ‘Won’t need a deep freeze, will you?’ she flashed. But then she was serious again. ‘I think we may need to adjust the angle of one of the cameras,’ she said, ‘to take in the driver’s face. You see, the same car already appears twice on the video – yes, you can tell from the number.’ She froze the frame.

‘Which happens to coincide with the part of the number I jotted down the other day,’ Mark said. ‘Thanks for this, Caffy. Forgive me if I give you the advice I always give in situations like this. However important the property, human life is far more valuable. Don’t take any risks, any of you. Promise me that.’

Caffy gave the sort of serious nod that told Fran she would carry on doing exactly what she thought fit.

‘What an extraordinary woman that Caffy is,’ Fran began as she started the car and drove away, waving as if to an old friend. ‘I’ve never heard a decorator talk about metaphorical hugs before.’

‘You told Paula you wanted to hug the place better,’ he objected.

‘But I certainly didn’t use the word metaphorical. And did you see the book beside her coffee?
Hard Times
. On top of
The Canterbury Tales
.’

‘Well, there are plenty of post-graduates turned plumbers. Perhaps she found the atmosphere in the British Library reading room too rarefied.’ Even the pleasure of seeing work in progress hadn’t completely eradicated Mark’s tendency to sound like Eeyore.

‘She isn’t old enough, surely, to have studied for a degree and then for all the technical qualifications Paula said she had. She can’t be more than – what? – twenty-eight?’ Fran countered.

‘She might well have done – and we might be underestimating her age, of course.’ He frowned. ‘She’s very edgy, isn’t she? Too bright and chatty.’

‘Perhaps she has a problem with mornings, too, and overcompensates.’

‘She certainly seems to be overcompensating for something.’

‘Paula wouldn’t think it was good PR if one of the team was miserable when punters were around.’

‘Hmm. I know you two entered into some women-
versus-grumpy
-old-men conspiracy, but there’s something
knowing
about her. Didn’t you spot it?’

Fran shook her head. ‘I’d have said she was more vulnerable than knowing. But I see what you mean. Do you want me to ask Paula about her?’

He snorted. ‘Question Paula’s judgement? And have her march the entire team off the site in high dudgeon?’

‘She would, wouldn’t she? Maybe one day I’ll get a chance to talk to Caffy on her own.’

‘And find out what?’

‘I don’t know – just what makes her tick.’ She got no response so she asked eventually, ‘Are you going to see who owns that car?’

‘I suppose so. You know, it seems vaguely familiar. The car and the number.’

‘You always had difficulty with these new multi-letter ones.’

‘Almost as much as you do!’

‘Touché! If you’re busy, I could.’

‘No, it’s all right. I’ll try to make time.’

Pat greeted Fran with a pile of post and a broad smile. ‘I’m terribly sorry but Mr Gates won’t be in today. He’s unwell.’

‘Nothing too trivial, I hope,’ Fran joked, astonished and appalled to find that she meant what she said. Was illness the reason he was so edgy? Hell, more than that – so downright unpleasant?

‘And he’s cancelled today’s meeting.’

‘The bugger won’t trust me to chair it for him? Well, I’m blessed.’

She shared a smile with Pat. On a day like this it was good to make people smile.

And to make them jump a little. When had she last badgered Pete Webb down in Folkestone about the Minton case? He was getting all too adept at ignoring her demands for information, wasn’t he? Her first phone call of the day would be to him.

‘Hi, Pete. How’s tricks?’

‘Good morning, ma’am.’ He sounded as if he was standing to attention.

‘Guv. Unless you’ve no news for me.’

Now she could hear him stand at ease. ‘Some. Only not much. Look, guv, strictly off the record, could I pick your brains?’

‘I don’t think you’ll find much to pick, not these days. But they’re all yours if you want them.’

‘I feel such a fool, guv,’ he began. ‘This suicide business – there’s still absolutely no suspicion of anyone else being involved, by the way, and I’ve double-and triple-checked it myself – is getting to me. Why should he do it, that’s what I keep asking myself.’

‘Good! OK, I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’

‘Yes. No. Maybe. I’ve gone through Alec Minton’s things myself this time, and still can’t find anything except a few
out-of
-date receipts and bills. Surely, even in these days of emails and mobiles, a man doesn’t live entirely without paper.’

‘What about his mobile and his computer, then?’

‘There’s no record he ever had a mobile,’ he began bravely.

‘A prepaid one?’

‘Could have been.’ He sounded increasingly hangdog.

‘Come on, spit it out.’

‘The computer’s gone. I know, I know! I assumed it would be in that office-cupboard thing. I even told you it was in there. And the connections leading into the cupboard certainly were. But when we went to get it, the computer itself had gone.’

Well, well, well. ‘Not stolen, by any chance?’

‘Why should it have been?’

‘His phone because that’s what kids do. The computer because that’s what burglars do.’

‘But why didn’t he report them as missing?’

It was obviously time to be brisk and inspiring. ‘OK, let’s look at this another way. You’ve got the CCTV from the Mondiale’s reception area showing he went to his room alone. Have we any other CCTV from Hythe with him on?’

‘Would it still be in the system? It’s probably been recorded over by now.’

‘Is it worth a shot? Grab a rookie constable—’

‘Not a minion?’ He was clearly feeling better, wasn’t he?

‘Anyone you can spare, Pete, to go and see. If there is anything, we could look at it together.’

‘Would you really mind coming out all this way?’

‘I’d welcome the sea breeze.’

‘It’s blowing half-bricks at the moment, so you’ll get plenty of fresh air.’

Without needing Pat’s advice this time, she took an unmarked car from the pool. If Pete was embarrassed about asking for help, there was no need to humiliate him further by turning up in a vehicle everyone knew was registered to Mark.

Pete Webb met her as she parked, something that confirmed her suspicions. Whom did he not want to know about her visit?

Like him she hunched her shoulders against the wind and shoved her hands into her pockets.

‘As I feared,’ Pete confessed, ‘the CCTV footage from the relevant week was long gone, but young Tessa’s brought back all footage shot since then.’

‘Have you had time to run through it? OK, Pete, I’ve had enough fresh air. Let’s go inside and have a morning at the movies.’

They peered at the screen together. Community policing – or the average age of the Hythe citizens – had obviously kept the street crime rate remarkably low. There was even very little unofficial dumping in the skip outside the house opposite the flats, as if decent retired people knew they should find their own means of disposing of waste. There was good stuff in there too, the sort that would have vanished immediately in a less affluent, law-abiding area.

‘Is that a computer in there?’ Pete asked, freezing the frame.

‘My God, so it is.’

‘Now that should have gone to a proper recycling depot. All that toxic stuff going to landfill.’

‘The first minus point against Hythe,’ she agreed with a grin, letting the tape roll again. ‘And there’s someone coming to liberate it.’ She pointed and froze the frame.

Pete was entering the spirit of things. ‘Do we arrest him for theft or congratulate him for services to the environment?’

She rocked back in her chair. ‘Pete, you may want to call the men in white coats and the comfy van, but I’ve got a feeling about that computer. At the very least we should make sure
that the hard disk’s been removed to prevent any identity theft,’ she said sanctimoniously. ‘And if we strike gold we may find it’s Alec Minton’s machine.’

‘It’s a long shot. Very long.’

‘And a complete waste of police resources. Unless we find some – er, minion – to do it, who’ll think it’s an honour to do our dirty work.’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Guv, you’re an education.’