Reg was making their coffee this morning. ‘Milk and sugar, Kate? Oh, and there’s some post for you. On your desk.’
There had been no phone message from Graham: perhaps this was a note from him. Though why he should send it here, where people would recognise his hand-writing, she’d no idea. Perhaps he wasn’t sure of the Manse address, and he’d be reasonably certain that she was still based there, rather than at her home. Yes, that would be it.
It wasn’t a letter from Graham, that was certain. It was a small packet, well sealed in a jiffy-bag.
‘So have you known this Paul long?’ Reg asked, coming to sit on the corner of her desk.
‘Just since I came to Brum. It’s all his fault I’ve got so involved with the BB.’
‘Love, is it?’
‘Reg, you men are just as romantic as we women are supposed to be!’
‘More,’ said Colin. ‘We like a nice cry at a wedding. Hell, doesn’t that phone ever stop ringing? Your turn, Kate.’
She reached for it, tucking the handset on to her shoulder and peeling back the Sellotape on the packet. ‘Selby! It’s for you!’
He peeled himself slowly from the computer.
Inside the jiffy-bag was a small tin. ‘Come on! Caller’s waiting!’ She prised open the can.
Maggots. Maggots.
She dropped the tin, screaming like Jenny in a nightmare. The maggots bounced out. The scream shook her whole body. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop until a hand slapped her face. Even then the shuddering didn’t stop.
They were still there, on her desk. Pushing from whoever was holding her, she dashed to the loo. She made it; stayed huddled on the cubicle floor.
She’d no idea how long she stayed there. Probably not long. Sally was there, and a uniformed woman inspector she’d seen around but didn’t know to talk to.
How she got to this woman’s office she didn’t know.
‘Can you talk about it?’ The inspector clasped Kate’s hands round a mug of very sweet tea. ‘Go on, another sip. You lost all your breakfast.’
‘I’m so sorry – I –’
‘No need to apologise. It was a vile thing to have happen to you. Any idea who could have done it?’
Kate shook her head. ‘I’ve not really had time to make enemies while I’ve been up here. I mean, I must have made plenty when I was in the Met – people I got sent down, they’d have a grudge.’
‘Sometimes people don’t have to have rational reasons to bear a grudge.’ The inspector looked her straight in the eye. She was about thirty-three. A bit of a high-flyer, then. And pretty, indeed glamorous, too. She wore the uniform like a fashion item. ‘Some people might think this was a joke – a bit of horse-play?’
Had Graham mentioned Cope and Selby? Kate dismissed the idea almost as it formed. That didn’t mean other people hadn’t – especially other women.
Kate shook her head. ‘There’s always a bit of bullying, isn’t there,’ she said, conscious of the evasion. ‘But nothing like that, I promise you. And God knows I over-reacted. My partner was killed a few months ago. His wife insisted on having him buried, not cremated. Since then I’ve got this – this phobia.’
‘We can get you support with that,’ the Inspector said. ‘You’ll need it if you’re going to carry on in this job. And the problem is, I’ll bet you’re due for a rash of maggot stories from your less sensitive colleagues.’
Kate nodded. ‘Yes. Selby and Cope will have a field day. All the long-dead corpses they discovered when they were on the beat. I know.’
‘So you’ll go and get support?’
‘Try and stop me.’
‘I think you should take the rest of the day off, you know. Meanwhile I’ll make sure your office and desk have the going over of their lives – there’ll be no evidence of this morning’s events.’
Kate shook her head. The thoughts came appallingly slowly. ‘That’s just it. Evidence. Finger-prints and saliva under the stamp. The post-mark. I want to find who did that.’
The inspector – if only Kate knew her name: she must have told Kate when she helped gather her up from the loo floor – looked at her intently.
Kate gathered together the wisps and shreds of her brain. ‘Do you ever do crosswords? You see, I’m working on this paedophilia case at the moment. Been asking questions, outside and here in the nick. Maybe asked the right questions, only I didn’t know it.’
‘I’m sorry – I don’t follow.’
Kate tried harder. ‘Ever heard the expression, Opening up a can of worms?’
By the time she’d eaten a second breakfast and checked in for an appointment with the shrink, Kate knew she wasn’t going to go home. OK, it would have made sense to mooch round doing domestic tasks, but she wanted to make sure that tin, that jiffy-bag, didn’t get mysteriously lost. She wanted to nail the bugger that had sent it. Revenge was a wonderful remedy for shock, she decided.
Colin was alone in the office when she got back. He gathered her up into his arms. ‘You poor kid. That was all to do with Robin, was it? Hell, someone likes kicking in the most painful place. Now, shall I run you home?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet. I want to get the wrapping off to Forensics.’
‘Too late, Power,’ said a voice from the door. You’re not the only one as can act fast, you know. It’s already on its way.’
‘Sir!’ She pulled away from Colin.
‘That’s all right,’ Cope said affably, coming into the room. ‘You’re entitled to a bit of canoodling after something like this. But I tell you, Power, that was a bloody stupid thing to do, and I’ll have you on a disciplinary if you do anything like it again.’
‘Sir?’
‘Opening a package like that, of course. Could have been a fucking bomb, woman. Then where would you have been? Bloody kingdom come, that’s where. Now, I want you out of this office for the rest of the day. Get that?’
‘But Sir –’
‘But Sir nothing. I want to make sure there’s no more of them little bleeders around, you silly girl. Now, shift. You can come back here when you’ve taken her home, Colin. Right?’
Home? It was all very well, but she didn’t exactly have one. She did have a car, however, and that was what she’d do. It would be easier by day-light anyway. She’d take her car and her A–Z and run rings round the 50 bus route. The opportunity she’d been waiting for, come to think of it. But Colin was talking.
‘– was Helen Carter who saw to you?’
‘Sorry? Who? When?’
‘This morning, Kate. When you were throwing up in the bog. Was it Helen Carter who saw to you?’
‘Wish I knew. I never caught her name. And I’d like to thank her – she was very kind.’
‘Kind and –?’
‘Very pretty, beautifully turned out. Looked more like a model than a policewoman.’
‘That’d be Helen. Face that launched a thousand squad cars. Christ, Kate, one look at her and I wish I were a lesbian.’
She’d have to eat again before she drove anywhere, that was certain. She was still unpleasantly wobbly. An early lunch, then. And then get on the road.
She’d not noticed before, but it was another pleasant day. If she bought a sandwich she could always eat it in the park – maybe even look at the more interesting-looking park the Moseley end of Kings Heath. First she looked in on her house. No post, except a couple of bills. Time to get the payments for the utilities on monthly direct debit. She could do that while she was here. And hang the rest of the upstairs curtains. And see if the paint was dry enough to fit the dining-room curtain rail.
No! She had to check out that house. Today.
In the end, she compromised. She made a little timetable on the back of the gas bill. 12.00–1.30 – lunch; 1.30–4.00, hunting for the house; 4.00–5.00, domestic chores, including buying a vacuum cleaner and dusters. Right. Start with sorting the bills, then off to Sainsbury’s for some portable lunch.
She found a sheltered bench, from which she could see nothing but grass. She heard her joints relaxing, they did it so crunchily, one vertebra after another. My God, she’d been under that sort of pressure, had she? A squirrel, flowing along an ash tree branch, agreed, chittering at her as she threw it some crumbs of cherry cake. The sooner she got herself to therapy the better. Except she suspected it would mean confronting everything, including maggots, head on. She’d have to talk about Robin. How she still saw him, still smelt his aftershave: Colin sometimes used the same one. How she saw the car heading for them, saw him hurling her out of the way. Saw his shattered body. Saw the maggots.
At least there’d be support. She leaned back. Another vertebra cracked. So when was the last time she’d run, not with the kids, but for her own pleasure? Before she got involved with the BB, that was when. Maybe a lifetime ago, perhaps a couple of weeks. She’d have to remedy that. An unfit officer was a hazard to herself and others in the team. Look at her this morning: what if she’d been in the middle of checking out a scene of crime?
No, no more of this. She screwed up the wrappers, swigged the last drop of water, and headed for her car.
Her slow progress and constant three-point-turning didn’t seem to attract anyone’s attention. She found neat modern culs-de-sac, newly-privatised council ones. Thirties, fifties, sixties, seventies culs-de-sac. By four she was ready to give up – should have done so if she meant to stick to her schedule. But there were two more. Milton Avenue and Leavensbrook Close. Flipping a mental coin, she turned back to Leavensbrook.
And found it!
Yes, an expensive late eighties development, all manicured grass and newly-painted wood, with a startling crop of window-boxes, tubs and pseudo-wheelbarrows full of winter pansies. Any cars were up-market – hers Audis and BMWs, waiting to be joined by his. There was a rash of Austrian blinds at the bedroom windows – hadn’t someone said they reminded him of old ladies who’d gone to the lav and got their petticoats caught in their knickers? She grinned at the thought. Nice to grin again. She sighed. Her back cracked its relief as she sat back. A job well done.
Now all she had to do was find the house in question.
At least this was something she was good at. She went systematically from house to house with an easy line on looking for one Cassie Wright. She even had a convincing-looking slightly scrumpled envelope with a hand-written note on it. Her envelope, her hand-writing. Most of the houses were still empty. Those with cars in front were occupied by a nice set of pleasant, helpful housewives, all, to judge by the smells emanating from the kitchens, using up-market cookbooks to provide something for hubby’s tea. Not partners, but husbands, in this sort of cul-de-sac.
Making a note of the houses which looked as if they were awaiting their owners’ return, she went back to the car. Did she risk a quick peer through letter-boxes? Of course. Four had those bristly draught-excluder fringes round them. Two had both draught-excluders and flaps of something heavy tacked across them. She made a further note, and looked around her. No, from this position it wasn’t possible to guess which house her unwitting informant lived in. She’d settle down in the car and wait for the commuters’ return.
It was her bladder that let her down in the end. She could hardly go and squat behind a neatly-shaved bush to relieve herself, and she couldn’t recall seeing anything as vulgar as a public loo in an area like this, so she’d have to go home. But she could come back later.
Alf and his crew were just packing up when she got home. She fled upstairs before engaging in any conversation, however, and by the time she’d got back down it was only Alf who was left. Since he had a bill for the fence to slip her, it wasn’t surprising he’d hung back. She walked out into the desert the poor garden had become to inspect his handwork. Whether he’d used one or not, she suspected she could have laid a spirit-level on the fence and found the bubble slap in the middle of the lines. When she fished out her chequebook, he looked awkward. He’d rather have cash, wouldn’t he? But she could scarcely endorse the Black Economy. She wrote out the cheque quickly, adding another fifty. He looked at it askance. ‘A little extra for bed-shifting,’ she said. ‘If you need cash to buy the security light and fittings, let me know.’
‘Could do with it in the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘Autumn coming in, work’s getting slack.’
She nodded. She’d seen what happened to families when the seasonal work ran out.
‘You wouldn’t tackle gutters, would you?’
She was just leaving for her surveillance stint when the phone rang. Maz. Could she manage a little ad hoc baby-sitting this evening? From about eight?
She could hardly refuse, could she?
‘I’ll be there as close to eight as I can,’ she said cautiously, ‘but I’ve got to finish something for work, first.’
‘You’re as bad as Paul,’ Maz laughed. ‘You two could have a little competition about who works longer hours.’
‘I’d back your Giles, myself,’ Kate said. ‘See you later.’
The phone rang again, straight away. It went dead as soon as she answered. It couldn’t, could it, have been Graham caught in flagrante, as it were, by his wife? She waited another five minutes to see if the caller would try again. At last, setting the answerphone, she set off to Leavensbrook Close.
She’d reckoned without the rush-hour traffic. Cursing herself for sticking to the main roads, she turned into rat-runs. They were just as solid.
By the time she got to it, the close was neatly packed with cars. If she had a drive, let alone a garage, she thought bitterly, she wouldn’t clutter the road. She thought of the morning and mid-afternoon chaos outside her house. What if she had her front garden flattened to provide an off-road parking-space? Paul would love to do that for her. The trouble was, she thought dourly, as she inched into a space, that Joe Public would either ignore her need to get in or out – or, more likely, park there when she wasn’t in it. Meanwhile, she told herself grimly, just on the off-chance she’d better look at the cars, too, just on the off-chance she might recognise one. Like Cope’s Mondeo, maybe.
This time her inquiries took longer, but were no more fruitful. Presumably because their womenfolk were busy making last minute adjustments to the haute cuisine that was to constitute their supper, a lot of men answered the front doors she knocked. Sighing, she turned back to the car. Next time she’d provide herself with an excuse to ask for the lady of the house – that’d be the terminology round here; next time she’d crack it.