The Autumn sun was unexpectedly warm, reflected from the red-and-blue brickwork and the murky waters of the canals.
‘Cuts, we call them in this neck of the woods,’ Graham said, keeping his pace slow to match Kate’s. ‘You’ve no idea how much pleasure it gives me to see this part of Brum being done up. I’m never sure about Symphony Hall and I really dislike the Indoor Arena, but look at this.’ He gestured at the newly restored bridges, at the old school, now a pub where they were to eat, at the round-house that had once held not engines but horses.
‘I’d no idea Birmingham had parts like this,’ she said, suddenly shy. ‘I mean, things were changing when I was up working undercover, and I like the pedestrianisation and everything. But this is magic.’ She risked a smile.
‘And flat. Are you sure that leg of yours is OK?’
‘Getting better every day. All that physio. I shed the stick tomorrow – and maybe the eye-patch and the parrot! – and the strapping at the weekend. Good as new by next week.’
‘I doubt that. You’ll always have a weakness there – it’s the second time you’ve injured it in six months.’
‘Lots of quads exercises – I shall have thighs like Gazza’s.’
‘We can look forward to miniskirts this winter, then, can we?’ He looked away. ‘How’s Tim?’
‘Hard to say with such an equable child. Maz, now – she’s still deeply shocked. It’s a good job I could move out. She doesn’t know whether to be grateful to me for saving Tim or hate and resent me for what happened to Paul.’
‘What happened to Paul was a good deal better for the family than massive media exposure and a muck-raking trial. It was better for Paul himself than years in a high security gaol being kept away from the other inmates for fear of reprisals. And then being shunted from pillar to post afterwards by Joe Moral Public.’
‘I don’t think she really believes he did anything wrong.’
‘But then, she hasn’t seen all the stuff we got off his computer, has she? Or all the little delights of that house. I kid you not, I was so sick I wondered if I’d picked up that bloody bug. And yet the people in the Porn Squad deal with even worse stuff without turning a hair.’
‘Apparently. How much has Reg said?’ she asked abruptly.
‘Not much, yet. A canny bloke, Reg. I had him down as Mr Nice Guy, you know. The model officer, full of old-fashioned virtues. Who comes home from Australia a couple of weeks early and buggers a kid with a toy engine and throws him in the path of a lorry so he can’t talk. It was a funny thing for you to talk about in the ambulance, Kate, someone else’s wedding photos. I thought you must have banged your head or something. But we got him.’
‘You would have done anyway. Pretty conclusive evidence, driving a bloody great van at an innocent kid. And a colleague.’ She stopped, staring at the water. ‘Graham – why did Paul do it?’ She heard the sounds of the impact again. Smelt the blood, the urine, the faeces. It had been a nasty, messy death all right. And she didn’t think she regretted a minute of his agony.
‘Throw himself at you both? Who can tell? To save Tim, certainly. That stuff he’d written about him – you’ll see it when you’re back on duty – certainly convinced me that he loved him. And you. I think if a man like that could love a woman he loved you.’ His voice was tight.
‘Love? I wouldn’t want the love of a man like that.’ She lowered her voice – there were others on the towpath, after all. ‘Buggering little boys! Prepared to deliver up his own flesh and blood for others to bugger! Spare me the tears, Graham. The man was a shit. OK, it was great of him to paint my window, but think what he was really doing when he was there. Eyeing up new victims.’ She stopped short.
‘But the pressure was being put on him by others, Kate. Bring in more boys. And he wouldn’t foul the Boys’ Brigade nest, so he was after kids from that school. In the end, someone put sufficient pressure on him to introduce Tim, at very least. The room with the train set was the start of their system. Co-operate, and you’ll see the next room. Whether he’d have let Tim progress I don’t know. But he was under enormous pressure. From Superintendent Gordon. The man who sent me on my courses, Kate, to get me out of the way when I was needed here.’
‘I thought you were being set up for promotion.’
‘I thought I was.’
So that was why he was so angry when she’d taken work away from his squad – he was afraid it would damage his reputation and mess up his prospects.
‘Do you suppose he got at Cope somehow – to make him rewrite his report for the Devon and Cornwall people? I looked a right idiot, I can tell you. If the woman down there hadn’t yelled at me for wasting her time, I might never have known.’
‘Got yelled at some more, did you?’
So they both remembered his outburst.
She grinned forgiveness at him. ‘It seems to be my lot in life. What seems odd is Cope doing what he’s told. The man’s a bully but he’s straight. Isn’t he?’
‘If I didn’t think so he wouldn’t be in my squad. He’s an old-fashioned policeman, isn’t he? Believes in the hierarchy. Which got him where he is. But no further. He’s not like you whizz-kids. Maybe Gordon promised him something: who knows? Promotion at this stage would improve his pension. It’ll come out eventually. He may even tell you, if you choose your moment to ask him. He likes you. Likes your guts.’
‘Got strange ways of showing it.’
‘He did all that was proper over those maggots of yours.’
‘So he ought. Like me or not, he’d have had to do that. What did they find, anyway?’
‘What you’d expect: sweet F.A. The tin was clean, the stamp was stuck on with water, not saliva, the Sellotape hadn’t caught any hairs or any fabric. Everything done under laboratory conditions, in fact.’
‘An inside job done by a bloke in a white paper suit?’
‘Could be. Could have been Reg, or another of Gordon’s minions.’
That night Paul had been especially solicitous about her health and her day’s work. ‘Paul knew. He kept trying to find out if anything had gone wrong. He knew even if he didn’t do it. And – yes, he knew I hated maggots. He kept on talking about them one night. I ended up being sick. And I think he’d tried to find out if I had any other weaknesses.’ She pointed back to the International Convention Centre. ‘He took me there. To Symphony Hall. And booked the very highest seats.’
‘Did you get vertigo?’
She shook her head. ‘Not a smidgen. Maggots, yes; heights, not at all. Funny.’
He set them in motion once again, his hand ready to take Kate’s elbow if she wobbled.
‘So will we be able to nail Gordon?’ she asked.
‘It’ll take some doing, but believe me, we haven’t been sitting twiddling our thumbs while you’ve been off.’
‘He’ll have all the fancy lawyers going, won’t he, and if that doesn’t work he’ll roll up his trouser leg and shake hands with someone.’
A chill breeze swirled the water.
‘This must be so difficult for you, Kate. After all you went through – this summer.’ He paused, awkwardly. ‘With Robin. But – but I hope you’ll feel – that you won’t want –’
She shook her head. ‘I won’t be hot-footing it off to some other force, Graham. I want to make a go of it here.’ There was so much unfinished business, wasn’t there? ‘After all, I’ve only just got the house straight. And I have it on the very best authority that my working surface will arrive on Friday. Imagine it, having a kitchen!’
He laughed briefly. ‘Good girl!’ Then, in a different voice, he asked, ‘Has Mrs Mackenzie been to see you?’
‘A couple of times. And she even drove me to see Cassie once. You should have seen the old girl’s face.’
‘You gave her the right advice. At least Royston didn’t actually rape either girl. And it wasn’t he who used the knife in the second attack. Bad ways. What put you on to him?’
‘Such a little thing. He was so furtive when I turned up in his mother’s kitchen. So horrified. And he tried to hide something, double quick. And the assailants weren’t white, I was fairly sure of that. And his mother was plainly worried. Never enough to make a case though.’
‘Good job he turned himself in, then. He’s redeemable, please God.’
‘Amen. They’ve managed to find a new organist, by the way. A music student at the university.’
‘An organ scholar?’ he grinned.
‘Oh, they take specialisation too far, these days!’ And then she became serious. ‘I don’t know about the football team, though. I may have to stick with them. Derek and Alec came to see me, too. They were very cut up – someone they knew and trusted.’
‘There is no one on God’s earth more devious than a paedophile, Kate. No vetting could have shown up his proclivities. Any more than they’d have shown up Reg’s. Until someone’s committed an offence.’ He broke off, shaking his head. ‘Unless you’ve got a crystal ball.’
‘Even Cassie was taken in,’ she reflected. And then she squared her shoulders. ‘I must try and see more of Cassie. And the rest of my friends,’ she added, smiling at him.
If it was an invitation, he chose to ignore it. At last, coughing awkwardly, he said, ‘We are friends, aren’t we? Friends? You see –’ But he tailed off, gesturing.
His gesture spoke of his marriage, his religion and his feelings for her. And whatever she wanted to say – and she wasn’t sure – she leaned on her stick, and said to the waters of the cut, ‘Friends.’