She and Colin had only had time on Sunday evening – nearer Monday morning, to be precise – to dash into her house and dump her clothes on any cleanish flat surface they could find upstairs. She’d had no idea she possessed so many. She rather wished her tenant hadn’t removed about half the coat-hangers, but, as the woman had pointed out, furnished accommodation might be thought to include such vital items. Two trips were called for when she had time – one to a charity shop with black sacks full of superfluous clothes, another to Woolworth’s for a fistful of hangers. In the event, however, Colin rendered that unnecessary: he came in on the Monday morning with two carriers full of wire.
‘Vile things. I’m sure they have a life of their own. Look at them – weaving in and out of each other before your very eyes.’ He shuddered.
Kate made them both coffee. Sally and Reg appeared, then Selby.
‘Set ’em up, then, Power,’ Cope yelled. ‘And then we’ll have a few minutes’ private prayer in the Incident Room.’
Kate made tea and coffee impartially, resolving to be at the back of the queue in future. Tea-lady she was not. The huge tins of coffee and tea bags were getting perilously low, but she had a nasty feeling that if she asked who ran the tea-swindle she’d find the prompt answer was her. Though she didn’t begrudge a minute of the time she’d spent collecting money since she’d arrived, she didn’t want to be typecast. If necessary, she’d stick to water, or invite herself to share the delights of Graham’s supplies.
There was no sign of him in the Incident Room.
‘Right, ladies and gents: let’s see what we’ve got. Power, anything on the schools?’
‘Not a lot of blue-eyed golden-haired boys in the area,’ she said. ‘But I wonder if we’re not taking too narrow a view of male beauty. What if our friend fancies pretty black kids, but just hasn’t snatched one yet?’
‘I’m not an expert in male beauty, Power.’
She laughed. ‘Nor am I when it comes to ten-year-olds, Sir!’ It was out before she could stop it. The first time she’d ever quipped back to Cope. How would he take it?
‘Come off it, Power: last time I saw you you were surrounded by the little bastards. And a lot of bigger ones, too.’ It was his usual jeering tone, but he didn’t seem to have taken offence. ‘But the experience seems to have been too much for the Gaffer. He’s had to take a sickie or two. Must be the sight of your boobs in that tracksuit, eh, Power? Or that snazzy jacket you were wearing, Roper. Nice bit of cloth, that.’
‘You mean he’s bad?’ Reg prompted.
‘According to his wife, yes. My guess it’s because she blacked the other eye for him. Any road, we’ve got to manage without him a bit longer. That all right by you, Reg?’
‘Shame. He’s a good copper, young Graham.’
‘He can rely on you to write him a testimonial, then. I’m sure he’ll be vastly relieved. Right – as I recall we were talking about a particularly nasty crime. Anything else, gents?’
‘Nothing to report from the surveillance, Sir. No suspicious behaviour from anyone. Thing is, Sir,’ the young man – Brian Fenton – continued, ‘going to school seems quite a social thing, if you see what I mean. Families come and go together. Very few kids come on their own. Almost all are collected. Maybe we should be looking at schools where the mums come by car and drop their kids off. More time for them to moon round the playground and be picked out.’
Kate nodded. ‘So more middle-class areas?’
Cope nodded. ‘We’ve already circulated all the schools. But we haven’t the manpower – sorry, Kate! – to keep an eye on every bloody school in Brum.’
Kate shook her head sympathetically, her face sober. Inside she was grinning like a chimpanzee, however – fancy the old bastard using her first name after all this time. Probably just a one-off. She braced herself for the next onslaught; he wouldn’t want her to get the idea he’d gone soft, would he?
Reg coughed: ‘With all due respect to the ladies present, aren’t we being a bit narrow in our investigations? It’s not unknown for women to participate in child abuse.’
‘Fenton?’
‘No reports of anyone of either sex hanging round, Sir.’
‘So now you’re satisfied the Force has been getting on with its work while you were jaunting round the globe?’
Reg nodded.
And perhaps now was the moment for normal service to be resumed to Kate. The meeting over, he called her back. ‘Power?’ But he was straight, business-like. ‘Got a job for you. Sally Richards has been liaising with Family Protection. She’ll be packing the job in soon. Mightn’t do any harm if we had a bit of continuity.’
Exactly what Graham had thought.
‘Next time she talks to them, you’d better be there.’
‘Sir!’
Christmas had come early this year.
Except there was no Graham. If he’d been well enough to go to the match on Saturday, why wasn’t he well enough to work, two days later? On impulse, not allowing herself to think about it, she sat at her desk and dialled his mobile number. She was invited to leave a message. She didn’t. His home number? She’d risk it. Any outgoing police call had its number withheld from the caller, so there was no need to dial 141. But she must be ready to dab a finger down to stop the call should the wrong voice answer. The number was ringing. She held on, biting her lip.
And was asked to leave a message on a machine.
But he’d find a way of contacting her; he’d want to reassure her that all was well. He’d mentioned an answerphone. Well, she’d get one this lunch-time and fix it this evening if it was the last thing she did.
‘It’s a long process,’ Gail, the social worker, was explaining. ‘They don’t just grab a kid and violate him. That’s too quick. They want the thrill of the chase, too. So they’ll single out a child – one who comes alone or plays alone: some kids are natural loners. Maybe the one who gets bullied. So they have a kind, sympathetic adult to turn to. And then, as they gain the boy’s trust, the stakes are raised. A visit to the paedophile’s house. Oh, not his own, of course. The kid finds a roomful of toys. But the rumour is there are better rooms with better toys. And if he co-operates, he’ll get to see it. Maybe “co-operating” means just having his photo taken. But it’ll mean more and more as the toys get better, believe me.’ She curled her lip in distaste. ‘And don’t get the idea you’re looking for a Mr Nasty. On the contrary, you’re looking for a Mr Nice-Guy, a trusted pillar of society. Every mother’s favourite son. The nicest boss.’
‘Well, it can’t be Cope, can it?’ Sally whispered.
Or could it? Kate locked herself in the lavatory to think. It wasn’t unknown for policemen at all levels to be involved in crime against children – well, all sorts of crime, come to think of it. She’d have gone on oath for most of her colleagues’ honesty and decency. But not all. And it was in that grey area that Cope came. She knew enough about child abuse to know it wasn’t just about sex. It was about domination. And if there was one person in this squad who enjoyed abusing his rank to bully others, it was Cope. She thought back. The day Danny had been killed, Cope was almost in tears. He’d omitted the vital physiological information in his report to the Devon police. He’d even come to the match on Saturday: lots of small boys to inspect then. And what if he’d brought Graham along simply to annoy Mrs Harvey, so that Graham would be kept away from work and thus from the investigation? The idea was far-fetched. Parts were lunatic. But. It was the but that wouldn’t go away. Wouldn’t. Other memories floated in: the time he’d rejected out of hand the idea of checking for the safe house: if he thought she was on to anything, of course he’d try to stop her.
And who could she chew this over with? Colin? He was the obvious person. But one item of her catalogue against Cope applied to him. He’d turned up at the match, too. But that was because he was a friend, wanted to support her. He’d been with her to the schools, too, hadn’t he – plenty of chances then for him to size up kids. Hell!
Graham? Hell and hell and hell!
At least she now had an answerphone and some cellophane-wrapped ready-made curtains, plus some lengths of curtain rail, rawl-plugs and curtain hooks. She shoved them into her Fiesta: no point in advertising to Cope the domesticity of her lunch break – and the fact it had stretched a bit to accommodate all her activities.
She spent a depressing afternoon checking every known woman child-abuser. No help at all. Most were plainly certifiable, like the one who bathed her child in bleach to lighten its skin or the one who fed her teenage daughter iodine to stop menstrual bleeding. There was a nasty clutch who aided and abetted their men, often, it seemed, under some sort of sexual coercion. But none of them was anywhere near this patch, nor would be for some little time. A first-timer? Which got everyone back to square one.
Reg walked down to the carpark with her, laughing at the contents of her car.
‘Only one thing missing, me love. Your electric drill, of course. And some long screws to go through the rawl-plugs into the wall. Now, where d’you live? Well, Shirley’s only just down the road. I’ll be round about eight. Fix them in half an hour. OK, love?’
‘Reg, you are an angel.’
Reg had finished the upstairs ones, when the doorbell rang. Paul.
‘Hi! Just thought I’d see how you were getting on.’
‘Getting on well. A friend of mine from work’s helping me replace all auntie’s metal curtain rails with nice smooth plastic ones. Reg!’ she called up the stairs. ‘Tea break!’
Paul was always a little awkward when introduced to other men, so she wasn’t surprised when he hesitated at the sight of Reg. But Reg – the light over the stair spotlit his face – looked positively taken aback to see Paul. The two stared at each other, if for no more than a second. It was enough for her to say, ‘Do you two know each other? Paul Taylor, Reg Tanner,’ she added, in parentheses.
‘I reckon I do know you from somewhere,’ Reg was first to speak.
‘I do a lot with the Boys’ Brigade,’ Paul volunteered. ‘Maybe something to do with that?’
‘Ah, that’d be it. My kids were dead keen on the Brigade. Used to drag me all over the country, what with their bands and their outdoor activities and that.’
‘And now we’ve got Kate involved, too.’ Paul’s smile was affectionate. ‘You should see her running our under-fourteen team. Got them a score draw – first time they’d got a ball in a net for two seasons!’
Reg looked at her: ‘Well done – ah! That’d be what Cope was carrying on about this morning. I know I’m getting on, Kate me love, but I didn’t like his remarks about your – well, you know. Sexual harassment, that’s what I’d call that.’
‘Haven’t you got rules in the police against that sort of thing?’ Paul asked. ‘We have in education.’
‘’Course we have. And there’s a team of senior women officers at the end of a phone to help counsel women who have that sort of thing inflicted on them. You should get on to them, me love.’ Reg nodded his point home. ‘You mustn’t let people get away with behaviour like that.’
She filled the kettle from the outside tap. It wouldn’t help to point out that Cope had been far nastier to Reg himself than to Kate – no, at least as nasty. She compromised.
‘It seems to me that Cope bullies everyone, regardless. One of these days he’ll go too far, maybe.’
She locked the door behind her, and switched on the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee? Powdered milk, I’m afraid.’
‘Any herbal tea?’ Paul asked.
As if in this dump there might be. She gave an exaggerated shrug and peered around, hand shading her eyes. But then she remembered, and laughed, apologetically.
‘There’s some de-caffeinated tea-bags somewhere. And I think Cassie kept real camomile flowers.’
He settled for coffee, the fully-caffeinated variety, taking it black. ‘What’s this about curtain rails, Reg?’
‘I’ve done the upstairs. Wouldn’t mind a hand with the landing, if you’ve got time. A bit awkward – nowhere safe to wedge the ladder. And you’re a good bit taller than me, lad.’
Kate was afraid the ladders would scuff her newly painted walls, and busied herself with rags to pad the ends. At last the men got busy. They worked in comparative silence, broken only by a suppressed curse if one dropped a screw.
‘There! Now, what about your curtains?’
Kate gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth in embarrassment. ‘You’ll never guess – I never bought any for the landing. Just the bedrooms. Never mind. This window’s not overlooked.’
Paul smiled kindly: ‘I’ll come round to hang then whenever you get them. Provided,’ he added, his voice becoming mock-serious, ‘neither of you dares to get anywhere near my wet paint with that dusty drill.’
‘Paint?’ Kate echoed.
They trooped down to her dining room.
‘Tara!’ Paul shouted. ‘Undercoat!’
And indeed, there was undercoat. He’d painted the whole of the frame.
‘Paul – that’s so kind of you. I never expected –’
‘Well,’ he said, blushing, ‘that’s what friends are for.’