‘Just a bite to eat,’ said Jonathan Austin, his casual tone at odds with the tight grip he had on the receiver.
‘Fine,’ said Gordon, sounding a little puzzled. ‘Just me?’
Jonathan licked his lips. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Business. The girls would be bored.’
‘Business you couldn’t discuss in the office?’
Oh, God. Jonathan’s blond lashes closed. Trust Gordon to start questioning things now. He could always be relied upon just to do whatever he was being advised to do, by anyone at all, and by Jonathan in particular. But now, he had to ask questions.
‘Well – it’s a bit … sensitive.’
There was a silence.
‘Gordon?’
‘Sensitive,’ Gordon repeated. ‘ More redundancies?’
Sort of, thought Jonathan, looking out of his rain-streaked office window, then back at the agreement on his desk. Sort of. ‘ No,’ he said, trying to sound jovial. ‘ But I’d prefer to talk to you in private.’
Another silence. He held his breath. Gordon, Gordon. You are a nice man. But please, please carry on being obtuse, just for another few hours.
‘All right,’ he said, amiably.
Jonathan breathed again. ‘ Good,’ he said. ‘About eight?’
‘Sure.’
‘See you then.’
‘You’re the one who said that the deployment of manpower in this force was ridiculous,’ said Sergeant Woodford.
Chief Inspector Lloyd grunted.
‘And that a chimpanzee with some graph paper could do a better job,’ added Woodford, with a grin.
Lloyd sighed. ‘Yes. Well now we’ve got a chimpanzee with some graph paper,’ he said, his Welshness relishing the phrase, as it presumably had the first time. He picked a bundle of bulky files out of his in-tray, and dumped them down on the blotter. ‘ Where do they get them from, for God’s sake?’
‘Give the man a chance. I think his ideas are quite interesting.’
Lloyd looked at Jack Woodford and wondered what it was like to have an equable temperament. ‘Special squads for this and special squads for that,’ he said. ‘ He’ll be setting up a special squad for telling people the time next.’
Jack laughed. ‘ It might work,’ he said. ‘ We’ve got to do something about the statistics.’
‘The statistics,’ said Lloyd, ‘have improved overall in the last two years.’
‘The ones people worry about haven’t.’
‘Jack, it doesn’t matter what we do. If we catch more burglars, the local paper will say that violent crime has risen. If we catch more muggers, they’ll say that car thefts have gone up. If we concentrate manpower on one thing, something else loses out.’
‘I know, I know. But that’s why he’s juggling the manpower around.’ Jack smiled. ‘I thought that was what you wanted,’ he said. ‘Judy could hardly have gone on working here with you and she being …’
You and her. Lloyd corrected him mentally, automatically.
‘… being an – item? Isn’t that what you call it these days?’
‘It’s certainty not what I call it,’ said Lloyd, and smiled. ‘I’d like to call it marriage, but …’ He shrugged.
‘I think you’d be best to wait for her divorce to come through,’ said Jack, with a smile. ‘I wonder how she’s coping with her first day at Marworth.’
‘Well – Bob Sandwell’s her DS, so she’s among friends. But I’ve no doubt some of the lads will object to taking orders from a woman.’
‘Ah – our new chief constable might have something to say about that,’ said Jack. ‘He’s quite keen on getting women into the higher ranks.’ He inclined his head a little as he backtracked. ‘Or maybe a woman into the higher ranks, to prove he isn’t prejudiced,’ he said. ‘And if he does set up the rape squad, there’s every reason to suppose that Judy could get further promotion.’
Lloyd opened the top file, and stared at it, not taking in the contents. He closed it again, and looked round the office. ‘What do you think of it, anyway?’ he asked.
‘Very nice,’ said Jack. ‘Compact, but nice.’
The new extension was finished at last, bar the painting, and for the first time in years, Lloyd had an office to himself. ‘It’s a relief not to have to put people wherever there’s desk space,’ he said.
‘It’s a relief not to have electric drills whining all day any more. But we did need an extension.’
‘Yes, yes. He was right about that too,’ said Lloyd. ‘ I’m not so sure we needed another detective sergeant, though,’ he added.
Jack shook his head. ‘If they hadn’t filled the gap with another DS, you would have been climbing the walls,’ he said. ‘What is the matter with you today?’
Lloyd looked up from the file. ‘I’m frightened of Sergeant Drake,’ he said.
Jack grinned. ‘He is keen, I grant you,’ he said.
‘Keen! The man is obsessed with police work.’ He leant across the desk. ‘He is obsessed,’ he said, ‘with paperwork. They come back from a job, and he’s there at his desk typing out reports while all the others are still hanging up their jackets and getting coffees from the machine.’
Jack moved forward slightly. ‘Lloyd,’ he said, ‘as acting head of Stansfield CID, don’t you think you ought to find that commendable?’
‘I find it incomprehensible,’ said Lloyd.
‘I seem to remember a certain keen young detective constable practically turning cartwheels because he was going to be a keen young detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, no less,’ said Jack. ‘Twenty-seven, about to carve out a career for himself in the big city. With hair, even. Not unlike young Drake, I’d say. Not as tall, of course,’ he added wickedly.
Jack’s long friendship with Lloyd had been used many times to tone down Lloyd’s more excessive prejudices. ‘ I was a bit cocky,’ he admitted.
‘You were. But here you are, back amongst us provincial folk, with the rank to prove that cockiness works and height isn’t everything.’
Lloyd smiled. ‘I joined straight from school,’ he said. ‘He’s been in the job – what? Four, five years? Do you know how long it took Judy to make detective sergeant?’
‘Ah, but she fell at the first hurdle,’ said Jack. ‘ She had the lack of foresight to be born female – a mistake that young Drake didn’t make.’
‘You’re a poet, Jack,’ said Lloyd wearily. ‘I’m forty-five – are you running a book on when Drake’s going to catch me up?’
‘Well, he’s guaranteed inspector next year. Let’s see … he’ll be twenty-five then – definitely before he’s thirty, I’d say,’ said Jack, getting up. ‘ Yes, I’d be nice to DS Drake if I were you.’ He turned. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You weren’t here when he was here before, were you?’
‘No. When was that?’
‘He did the second of his probationary years here,’ said Jack. ‘You’d never have believed he’d last the course,’ he said. ‘He was nearly kicked out at one point. That was what – not four years ago. I think he realised that you had to take the job seriously or not at all.’
‘He doesn’t do things by halves, does he?’
‘He’s all right. He’s just not Judy, that’s all that’s bothering you. He could be a considerable asset to—’
He broke off as there was a knock on the door.
Lloyd hoped the soundproofing was good enough as Drake appeared in the doorway. ‘I’m just off, sir,’ he said.
For an awful moment, Lloyd had no idea what he meant. ‘Oh – yes,’ he said, with relief, as it came back to him. The Mitchell Estate fiats.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now remember – it’s observation only. I don’t care who you see, I don’t care how long we’ve been after him. You observe, and radio in anything of note. All right?’
‘Sir.’
‘And you’re only being paid until eleven,’ Lloyd reminded him. ‘So don’t stay there all night.’
Drake had had to fight to get that much overtime; there was considerable scepticism about his tip-off that an empty flat there was being used by squatters to manufacture crack cocaine. For one thing it was unheard of in Stansfield, and for another the Mitchell Estate area seemed an unlikely place for it to start. They had to have something to go on other than an informant’s word if they were to mount an operation, Lloyd had said. But Drake had just spent some months with the force drugs squad at Barton, and swore his contact was rock solid; Lloyd had been impressed by the young man’s persistence in argument, and had finally agreed to let him watch the place until eleven, to see if he could pick up anything more definite that would warrant mounting a raid. For three nights only, he had warned.
Drake left, and Lloyd smiled at Jack. ‘I am being nice to him,’ he said. ‘I’m the only one with any faith in his tip-off.’
‘You couldn’t even remember where he was going,’ said Jack, with his usual accurate aim. ‘Isn’t it time you were off?’ he asked. ‘You’re dying to know how she got on. You just don’t want anyone to know that.’
Lloyd smiled a little as he thought of that morning, when Judy had been so nervous, losing everything. Convinced that she was going to start her first day at Malworth with dripping hair, no tights and one shoe. Making him leave early because he was laughing at her. She had doubtless arrived on time, dark hair shining, dressed with her usual flair, looking cool and composed; not a hint of the panic would have been allowed to show. And yes, he was dying to know how she had got on.
He looked at the clock. ‘ Good God, Sergeant Woodford, I’ve been setting the world to rights in my own time.’ He put the bundle of files back into his in-tray, and smiled.
As he went out into the warm, wet June evening, Jack Woodford’s words came back to him. He walked across the now tiny car park, along the windows of the new extension, making for his car. Another promotion? Well – yes, Jack was right. Not easy, for a woman, but given the new chief constable’s apparently enlightened views, further promotion wasn’t out of the question. And once she’d jumped that hurdle …
WPC Alexander hooted him out of his reverie as she passed him on her way in; he waved, and got into the car.
Damn it all, he didn’t know what he wanted.
Pauline watched as Gordon got ready to go out. His new suit lay on the bed as he shaved unnecessarily.
‘You’re going to a lot of trouble just for dinner with Jonathan,’ she said.
He switched off the razor. ‘ Sorry?’ he said.
He had heard her; she didn’t repeat the question.
He patted on aftershave. ‘Are you going to stand there and watch me dress?’ he asked.
She looked at him in the mirror, and shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and went back through to the sitting-room.
He was dressing up for Lennie, of course, not Jonathan. She knew that; there was no point in trying to make him admit it. And she didn’t really think she had anything to fear. Lennie had thus far remained true to the vows she had made through clenched teeth, and it seemed unlikely that Gordon would be the one to persuade her to break them; Lennie’s taste, when it was given its head, was for the hard, muscular type who could defend her with his bare hands if the need arose. Gordon’s fair, fat and forty appeal was lost on her.
Pauline had met Gordon when he was still holding out hope of Lennie; he had been the friend that Lennie had invited to dinner to make up the numbers, and Pauline had been the solo woman who had messed them up in the first place.
It had been obvious to everyone, with the possible exception of Lennie herself, how Gordon felt about her. His eyes would follow her as she moved, like some large trusting dog waiting to have its head patted. Pauline wondered if Lennie did know, had ever known, of Gordon’s devotion to her. She was used to men falling in love with her; she had them queuing up, unlike Pauline. She probably had never even noticed Gordon in amongst the others.
They had both met Jonathan at that same dinner. Jonathan, Lennie had told them, had been adopted as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Stansfield, and had just moved to the area. Jonathan was a chartered accountant, with a business flair that had led to his being on the board of several companies, and worth a bob or two, unlike Gordon or any other of Lennie’s male friends. He certainly wasn’t Lennie’s type; there really was only one inference to be drawn from her flamboyant production of him to the more respectable of her rather startled friends. It had come as no surprise to anyone but Gordon, then, when Lennie had announced her engagement.
It had been difficult for Gordon to accept her marrying Jonathan, of all people. Stiff, starchy Jonathan. He could have understood it if he had been unsuitable, like most of her boyfriends had been. But Jonathan was so eminently suitable, so much what every middle-class mother would dream of, and so very unlike anyone that Lennie might have chosen. ‘ Why Jonathan?’ he had kept asking. ‘Why Jonathan?’
No accounting for taste, Pauline had said. Jonathan, because Jonathan wasn’t in love with her, and she had no intention of staying in the marriage any longer than she could help, that was why Jonathan. Jonathan needed a wife – prospective members of parliament did. Lennie needed money. It was a marriage of convenience. But Gordon would have been shocked, and Pauline hadn’t said all that. Just no accounting for taste.
Lennie had asked him to give her away, apparently unaware of the irony; Gordon had agreed. The wedding – exactly the opposite of what anyone would ever have expected of Lennie, with its marquee and champagne – had taken place, and Gordon had, as far as other people were concerned, at last given up.
The friendship between Pauline and Gordon which had begun on the night of the meet-Jonathan dinner party had slowly turned into a romance, and marriage. She had always been aware of her status as consolation prize; it hadn’t bothered her.
And Gordon had even forgiven Jonathan sufficiently to take him into his business first as an adviser, and then as a full-time director. It had made a difference: the firm was healthier than it had ever been, and she and Gordon had moved into one of the Malworth riverside development flats as soon as they were finished, on the strength of it. As a business venture, it had been more than successful, but Pauline still wondered about Gordon’s reasons for welcoming Jonathan into the business the way he had.
But now Pauline was pregnant, and with the pregnancy had come an unexpected turning off of sexual desire, which the doctor had assured her was temporary and not unusual. Gordon had been understanding at first, then impatient, then indifferent.
But he was tarting himself up in the bedroom, he was still in love with Lennie, and it bothered her now.
‘Leonora?’
‘Yes.’ Cold, as she always was with him. It wasn’t deliberate; the spirit manifest in all her dealings with other people died when her husband spoke to her.
‘Look – Gordon’s coming round this evening to talk to me about something.’
There had been a silence then, as though he had expected her to supply the request as well as comply with it.
‘So can you come home? I’ve promised to feed him.’
‘I’ve got Mr Beale here,’ she said, looking apologetically at Mr Beale, her best customer. He would prefer patron, she was sure. She flicked the blonde hair from her shoulders, and smiled at him.
Beale smiled back, a fat cat smile, but pleasant enough. He wanted her to do something for his head office, and was here to discuss it. He had bought off-the-peg paintings for his flat, one of the luxury flats over her studio, but this was a special commission. He looked a little like a gangster, she thought. Every time she sold something to him, she half expected him to pull out a bankroll. But he just paid by cheque, and she was very grateful that he did. Plus, his wife had recently joined the board of Jonathan’s company; that should have made him important in Jonathan’s eyes, but apparently not.
‘He can wait, can’t he?’ said Jonathan. ‘ He only lives upstairs from the studio, for God’s sake.’
The fine summer rain still fell, turning the sky and the river grey. She flicked on the desk lamp, and turned her attention back to her husband.’
‘So does Gordon,’ she reminded him. ‘So he might as well give me a lift,’ she said. ‘I’ll make us something when I get there.’
‘No – I’d rather it was a proper meal. Gordon’s fond of his stomach. He isn’t coming until about eight.’
‘But—’ It was useless to protest. She would stop what she was doing and go home.
‘It’s important, Leonora.’
He was the only one who called her Leonora. The only one of all the people she had ever known, ever met in her entire thirty years on this earth. There was something Victorian about Jonathan that she would never get used to; she was almost surprised that he didn’t call her Mrs Austin.
‘All right,’ She put the phone down, and sighed.
‘Have I come at an inconvenient time?’ Beale asked, in the over-polite tones of one who knew how to talk proper when he had to.
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘It’s just – well, I’ve been called home, I’m afraid.’
He looked concerned, his eyebrows rising above his rimless glasses. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope, Mrs Austin?’
‘No,’ she said, a little grimly. ‘ Nothing at all.’ She smiled. ‘ Perhaps we could have a chat about the sort of thing you’re looking for some other time,’ she said, packing things into the desk drawer.
He held up his hands. ‘Say no more, Mrs Austin – I understand domestic problems. With two sons-in-law, a wife and an ex-wife, I should.’
She walked with him through the studio, and he ran a little way ahead of her to open the door.
‘No car?’ he said. ‘May I offer you a lift?’
‘It would be rather out of your way,’ she pointed out, smiling.
‘Secret of success, Mrs Austin. Know who your friends are. And don’t make them wait for buses.’
She lifted an eyebrow. ‘I know who my friends are too, Mr Beale,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘ Thank you.’
They walked through the misty rain along the row of craft shops and studios to the private car park at the rear of the Riverside Complex, which was how it had been described on the estate agents’ literature, and the only way in which the residents thought of it. It was actually called Andwell House, after the river. Two spaces to each flat; Beale’s Rolls took up both of his. Those who rented the shops and studios parked in a side-street, or they knew all about it when a resident found his space occupied.
Beale reversed with difficulty in the tight space, then glided out on to the quiet road with a warning toot of the horn. Rain beaded the window, and the silent wipers flicked back and forth every fifteen seconds.
‘Do you think we’ll have a summer this year, Mrs Austin?’
Other people had independence; so had she, once. But the money necessary for independence had gone into a dream. A dream of using her talent, instead of letting it fester. A dream that she couldn’t afford, but she had done it, anyway. And then along had come Jonathan. Solid, dependable Jonathan. ‘I’ve got this enormous flat and no one to share it with,’ he had said. ‘You’re in a bedsit that you can’t afford. Why don’t we get married, Leonora?’
Before that, she had somehow survived years of juggling credit cards, of begging sceptical bank managers for loans; years of writing apologetic, determinedly optimistic letters to creditors, of persuading the council that she really would pay the back rent on the flat and the studio at the end of the month; years of breadline economics.
And now, two years of marriage. Jonathan’s offer of security, of a roof over her head that wouldn’t actually cost her money, of three meals a day and a constant free supply of toothpaste, tights and Tampax had been an offer that she couldn’t refuse. But it had not been she who had accepted it. It had been some woman called Leonora.
The little river along which they drove was moving slowly today, its surface flecked with the fine rain. Beale turned right, on to Stansfield Road, leading out of Malworth and – not unnaturally – to Stansfield, and Jonathan’s flat. Leonora kept Jonathan’s flat clean, washed his clothes, ironed his shirts and cooked his food. Leonora slept with him, come to that, for there was a strange formality about even Jonathan’s lovemaking to which Lennie could never have conformed. So Leonora had taken over there too, a dutiful Victorian housewife, lying back and thinking of England.
The car slowed to a halt, opposite the darkened windows of a shop that had turned into a doctor’s surgery; through the car window, in the darkened plate glass, she could see her reflection. It made a curious double image that seemed all too appropriate.
Beale was chatting, all the time; Lennie was supplying appropriate answers, and not listening to a word.
‘I can’t go on calling you Mrs Austin,’ he said. ‘I feel we’re old friends by now. What’s your first name?’
She looked at him. ‘Lennie,’ she said.
‘What?’ He inclined his ear slightly, as the in-car CD played James Last.
‘Lennie.’
‘That’s a boy’s name.’
‘It’s my name,’ she said firmly. ‘Do I get to know yours?’
‘Lucy,’ he said, his face entirely serious.
She laughed.
The car moved off, past the open fields and hedgerows, into the light industrial estates which fringed the town in place of the now demolished Mitchell Engineering, down towards the big roundabout that guarded the entrance to the old village that had once been all there was of Stansfield. Mitchell Engineering-had been a pre-war enterprise, cloaked in secrecy, plonked down beside an Elizabethan village that had barely altered with the centuries. After the war, it couldn’t find enough people to employ, and her father had come looking for work in the fifties, like so many others. They had made him redundant, in the end, when electronics and microchips took over, and the days of heavy industry were past.
Beale turned left, away from the village, passing the old post office building, now closed.
‘What is it really?’ she asked.
‘What’s what really?’
‘Your name.’
‘Frank,’ he said, and glanced at her. ‘ What’s yours, really?’
‘Lennie.’
The sleek car turned into the Mitchell Estate, and entered the thirties housing with which she had grown up while what had been countryside had turned into a new town; it looked different, now, with the smoke and dust of the heavy engineering works gone, and the side-streets blocked off from traffic by bollards.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as he smoothly pulled up outside the two new blocks of flats which had risen on the edge of the pleasingly elderly houses, aping their architecture. That was very kind of you.’
‘It was a pleasure.’ The car slid to a halt. ‘And don’t forget – I still want to talk about business some time. I don’t want domestic crises stopping me investing in you. You’ve got real talent.’ He paused, almost hesitant. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve got a friend who’s into art exhibitions and stuff like that. I could have a word with him for you.’ He leaned over her to open her door, and winked. ‘Lennie,’ he said.
Lennie smiled. That would, be very nice of you,’ she said, getting out. ‘ Mr Beale.’
He smiled, shrugged philosophically, and drove off. She watched the car go; Leonora could perhaps have put up with Mr Beale. She couldn’t.
She took out her key, and pushed open the door to the flats, letting herself into one of the two on the ground floor.
She rang the garage as soon as she got inside. The car, she was assured by the youth who answered the phone, would be ready in about half an hour; it was just being valeted. There would be someone there until seven if she wanted to collect it.
‘Of course I can’t,’ said Jonathan as, her hand over the mouthpiece, Lennie had asked if he could run her to the garage later. ‘ Gordon’s coming. I have to have paperwork ready for him.’
‘It’ll only take quarter of an hour,’ Lennie argued, but she knew she wasn’t going to win. ‘I can’t get there for seven,’ she said, once more addressing the youth. ‘Is it possible to leave it somewhere I can pick it up later?’
‘I’ll have to ask the boss,’ he said, and the phone clattered down.
‘I probably still won’t have time later,’ said Jonathan.
Lennie didn’t reply, as the phone was picked up again. ‘He says he’ll leave it in the yard with the key under the seat, but to tell you that it’s at your own risk.’
‘Fine,’ said Lennie, slamming down the phone, and relayed this information to Jonathan, who seemed less than interested. She went into the kitchen where, presumably, she belonged.
Gordon arrived, and the meal was eaten with barely a word exchanged between his hosts.
‘That was lovely, Lennie.’ Gordon pushed away his empty plate, and plonked unpretentious elbows on the table. ‘Jonathan, I hope you know what you’ve got in this girl.’
‘I’ve always appreciated Leonora,’ he said, with a smile. He was handsome. Lennie had called him her fair-haired beauty, in the days when she had still been making an effort. But her efforts never seemed to please him, and she had long ago given up.
‘She looks good and she cooks good,’ Gordon said, putting his hand over hers and giving it a squeeze. ‘You can’t beat that for a combination.’
Gordon Pearce was the son of friends of Lennie’s family, and she had known him almost all her life. He had followed her hopefully around until she married, but he had only recently taken to chatting her up, and then only in front of Jonathan.
Jonathan glanced at her, his fair lashes closing for a moment before he spoke. ‘ I’ll give you a hand to get this lot loaded up,’ he said.
As they loaded the dishwasher, he asked her if she could find something to do so that he and Gordon could talk.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We’ve a lot to get through,’ he said. ‘And I’d rather you weren’t distracting him from the matter at hand. I want him to keep his mind on business, not on your legs.’
She was glad that she had changed out of her jeans; she almost hadn’t, since it was only Gordon.
‘You brought me home just to cook a meal? I’ve to retire to my room and do my embroidery? Read an improving book?’
‘I really don’t care what you do,’ he said. ‘Just don’t do it in the same room as us.’
In her time, she had been irritated by him, annoyed by him, angered by him. Sheer blind rage was new.
‘Right,’ she said, going into the living-room. ‘Sorry, Gordon,’ she called over her shoulder as she walked past him. ‘I’ll have to love you and leave you.’
Gordon, halfway through easing his well-fed frame into an armchair, stood up again. ‘Oh,’ he said, with mock-disappointment. ‘You’re the only reason I came.’
‘Sorry,’ she said again, picking up her jacket, walking quickly to the door.
She turned and treated Gordon to a dazzling smile. ‘I might be late back,’ she said. ‘ So I probably won’t see you. Tell Pauline she must come with you next time.’
‘How did your first day go, ma’am?’ asked Lloyd.
‘Oh, don’t!’ She twisted out of his arms. ‘I’m never going to get used to that – it makes me feel like the Queen Mother.’
‘Now there’s someone who knows a bit about promotion,’ Lloyd said.
She smiled.
‘How come you haven’t said anything about it?’
‘How come you’re such a great cook?’ Judy asked, the button at the waist of her jeans wishing that he wasn’t.
‘I learned at my mother’s knee,’ Lloyd said, sitting down beside her. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘What’s up?’
‘I thought Welsh mams waited on their menfolk hand and foot,’ she said, leaning back, eyes closed, drawing her legs up and resting them on his knee.
‘They do,’ he said. ‘ Real Welsh mams. Don’t change the subject. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ That was no more than the truth. Nothing was wrong. Malworth, once a busy market town, was now a haven for successful, middle-aged, middle-class businessmen; winner of the Best Kept Town competition three years running in the eighties, clean and neat and tidy.
Real shops and businesses had given way to estate agencies and twee craft and gift shops. Nothing was wrong, and it looked as though nothing ever would be. And the sad fact was that police officers really rather preferred things to be wrong. Malworth did a roaring trade in parking offences, and its officers lurked in lay-bys with radar guns to catch the motorists who failed to observe its thirty-mile-an-hour speed limit as they went through; others waited by the traffic lights to catch the ones who didn’t obediently and unnecessarily wait on red late at night.
She smiled to herself. Bob Sandwell had solemnly assured her that one of these well-appointed houses with the manicured lawns was a brothel, but even he hadn’t found out which, so it obviously kept itself to itself if it was. She half believed that he’d made it up to make her feel better.
‘Bob Sandwell is very supportive,’ she said.
‘Does he have to be?’ Lloyd asked, his voice concerned.
Well. Judy didn’t answer. She seemed to have acquired some sort of reputation as a women’s rights activist which had preceded her to Malworth. She had sensed a good deal of hostility, though none of it was overt. An over-punctiliousness, perhaps. Too much emphasis on her rank, which was after all newly achieved and the bottom rung of middle management. She supposed that they were being defensive; they were having to get used to a new sergeant and a new inspector. Perhaps it was more wariness than hostility.
‘I did hear that you might run into some male chauvinist piggery,’ said Lloyd.
‘I run into that all the time,’ grumbled Judy. ‘Sometimes from a source not a million miles from where I’m sitting.’
Lloyd looked hurt, but that had long ago ceased to fool Judy.
‘Do you really want to know how my first day went?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Well, he’d asked for it.
Gordon Pearce stared at Jonathan Bolton.
‘You’d get a salary, of course,’ Jonathan said, pouring him another whisky. ‘That’s probably a blessing, with a baby on the way. You don’t need uncertainty with another mouth to feed.’
He had known it wasn’t going to be good. He had known, from the tone of Jonathan’s voice when he’d asked him over. Pauline thought that his careful preparation had been for Lennie, but it hadn’t. He had known, had wanted to feel on top of things. He picked up the whisky, and stared at Jonathan. He had known it wouldn’t be good. But this.
‘Salary?’ he said, his mind still unable to take it in.
‘It’s a good deal, Gordon,’ said Jonathan. ‘I wouldn’t recommend it if it wasn’t.’
Gordon’s mouth opened. ‘ Recommend it?’ he said. ‘You drafted the bloody thing!’
Jonathan shrugged a little, and sat down again. ‘ The board drafted it,’ he said, in reasonable tones.
Gordon’s mouth opened and closed again as he tried to dredge up the words. ‘But this isn’t …’ he began. ‘We didn’t …’
‘Come on, Gordon,’ Jonathan said, his voice full of comradely encouragement. ‘ If there’s something about the agreement that bothers you, just say. We can be flexible, surely? We’re friends, aren’t we?’
Gordon didn’t know which point to counter first ‘Agreement?’ he repeated. ‘Agreement? I haven’t agreed to anything – I haven’t…’ He finished in a spluttering cough, and drank some more whisky.
‘I know,’ said Jonathan. ‘But you have to agree, Gordon. If you don’t sign this, then …’ He sighed. ‘Then you’ll simply be voted out altogether. No job, no salary. No dividends for at least five years – Gordon, you’ve just taken on that flat. You’ve got a baby on the way. Pauline won’t be working – you’ve got commitments. Yes, I drafted it! Christ, Gordon, I fought to get this agreement!’
‘Fought?’ Gordon knocked his drink over as he got to his feet. ‘The board was your idea – your friends. There was no board until you came in!’
Jonathan mopped up the coffee table with tissues, and shook some drops off the bundle of papers. ‘Gordon,’ he said, ‘you are an engineer. Not a business man. The figures speak for themselves. Until I came in you were going downhill. The board feels that you should …’ He sighed again. ‘They think you should stick to what you know best, and let business brains run the company.’
Gordon sat down heavily. ‘A moment ago they wanted me out altogether,’ he said. ‘You want to get your story straight.’
Jonathan replenished Gordon’s glass. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be straight. Your expertise isn’t what’s needed any more. What’s needed now is someone with the right attitude to take the company into the nineties. Into Europe.’
‘1992 and all that.’ Gordon shook his head.
‘Yes!’
‘And you’re it, are you? Tomorrow’s man? The business brain?’
‘No,’ said Jonathan. ‘Obviously, I hope to be elected whenever the general election happens, so I won’t be involved at all after that.’
Through the hurt and the anger sudden clarity presented itself to Gordon. ‘Rosemary Beale,’ he said.
Jonathan went slightly pink.
‘Your fancy woman’s going to run my company!’ roared Gordon.
Jonathan’s eyes widened.
‘Do you think people don’t know?’ Gordon gulped down his drink. ‘A woman! A woman running an engineering firm? Whoever heard of – what the hell does she know about it?’
‘She … she knows the market-place. She knows about beating off the competition, about reaching the winning line first.’
‘She’s a crook,’ said Gordon, indistinctly.
‘Oh, don’t start all that again.’
‘She’s a crook! She and her husband are the biggest crooks this side of prison bars! And I let you talk me into giving her a seat on the board. What’s she want with my company? I asked. And you said we were going to be big. Big, big, by the end of the century, and she recognised a good thing when she saw it.’
‘We are.’
‘Damn all I’ll get out of it!’
‘You’re still a major shareholder!’
‘But it’s my company,’ Gordon said weakly. ‘I started it. I built it. I …’
‘You would have seen it into bankruptcy. I’ve got it where it is now, Gordon. I’ve trebled the profits – I’ve got lorries with our name on them taking our products to six Common Market countries, and further. The Middle East – maybe even eastern Europe when things settle—’
‘And what’s Mrs Beale done for us? I’m not denying what you’ve done. What’s she done?’
Jonathan didn’t speak.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Gordon. ‘ Nothing. But she’s going to, isn’t she? She’s going to be prepared to cook whatever books she has to to make it look as though you’re complying with the obligation to give up your interest if you get into parliament. Right?’
Jonathan looked horrified.
Gordon shook his head. ‘You’re getting rid of me because I’m too honest for you,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what it’s all about?’
Jonathan sighed. ‘You have to think of Pauline,’ he said. ‘And the baby. If you won’t sign, then you’ll be in trouble. Unless you’ve more savings than I think you have.’
‘My savings are my business,’ said Gordon.
‘I know, I know. But this way you’ve got a salary. And you’ll get dividends too, as soon as we can pay them out again. In the long term, you can afford to stand on your dignity. But in the short term, you simply can’t. Unless you think that you can get a job somewhere else, and at the kind of salary you’d need …’
‘So I’m to be employed by my own firm,’ said Gordon, heavily.
‘We’re all employed by it. It’s a limited company now.’
‘Don’t split straws! You’ll go public, won’t you? That’ll be the next thing.’
‘Maybe – that’ll make your shares worth even more.’
‘Oh, sure. But I won’t have any say in the running of my own company. As soon as I sign that, you’ll be laying more people off, you’ll be—’
‘It has to be done. We have to be competitive.’
‘You’re going to force a strike. Aren’t you? Aren’t you? We want to cut back on production, so when better? Force a strike, get rid of the union … I know you and your lady friend – you’re hatching something.’
Jonathan sighed. ‘It’snothing like that,’ he said. ‘I just …’
‘Why didn’t she do her own dirty work anyway? Why you?’
‘It was thought best that I should talk to you because you’re a friend of the family, that’s all.’
Gordon frowned. ‘What family?’ he demanded.
‘Leonora’s family. Me.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s her I’ve got to thank for this.’
Jonathan closed his eyes. ‘Please, Gordon, don’t blame my wife for anything you think I may have done to you.’
‘Your wife got me into this. ‘‘Let Jonathan have a look at your problems, Jonathan understands about business, Jonathan would be an asset to you, Gordon.’’ I can hear her now. You wanted into my company, and she made sure you got in.’
‘I could see that you had a business that could take off, or go down the drain,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s all.’
‘Oh, she worked hard for you, Austin. I hope you do appreciate her. She always knew how to get round me. She used me – she always did.’ He made a sharp noise, a cross between a sob and a laugh. ‘ I met Pauline because she was using me. I’d come and make up the numbers – she could always count on me doing what she wanted. She just had to flutter her eyelashes. She did a lot of eyelash fluttering for you, Austin.’
‘Gordon – Leonora had nothing whatever to do with any of this. I’d rather you left her out of it.’
‘I only let you in because she wanted me to.’
‘She wanted to help you out!’
‘Yes, well – she’s helped me out all right. Right out of the bloody door!’ He got to his feet.
‘Gordon – you’re wrong. Leonora has done nothing to you – your friendship is important to her. To both of us. I hope we’re not going to lose it just because—’
But Gordon walked away from the words, from the talk, from Jonathan’s smooth demolition of his life.
‘I’ll see myself out, friend,’ he shouted.
In the hallway, he almost stumbled over the joke present he had brought. He picked it up, and went out, slamming the door as hard as he knew how.
The slammed door, plainly audible through the glass of the entrance door, made Mickey look up, and he watched with interest as the man strode to the car parked directly outside, slamming its door too. It was the heavily built man with thinning tight brown hair whom he’d seen arrive two hours earlier. He didn’t drive off; he just sat there, rather like Mickey himself.
Ten o’clock. There was a great deal more happening in Flat 2 than there was in the one he was supposed to be watching. First Frank Beale, and now this. He had noted the number of the Rolls when it arrived to drop its passenger off, though he had a feeling it was probably the only brand-new Roller in the county, never mind in Stansfield. Frankie Beale was always interesting.
She had left the flat too, later on – also, he fancied, less than happy with life. He had watched as she had walked quickly through the brightening evening, taking the shortcut to the main road through the alleyway. The husband was still in the flat.
A movement in his wing mirror caught his eye, and Mickey swivelled round in time to see a jacket disappear round the corner, out of the garage area in which he was parked, into the alleyway through the old houses. But for someone to be reflected in his mirror, they had to have passed the corner, he reasoned. So someone had changed his mind about where he was going.
He frowned. He had been spotted. That wasn’t someone just changing his mind, or realising he was going in the wrong direction. He had a sixth sense about these things. He had been spotted. Who knew him? He hadn’t been back in Stansfield long, and he had been in uniform the last time he’d been here. Who knew to duck out of sight just from his back view in a car? Perhaps he ought to think about that. His previous stint in Stansfield was a little hazy; other things had seemed much more important than being a police officer.
And perhaps they were, he thought. Perhaps they were.
Steve Tasker pushed open the door of the pub, his dark, handsome face wincing as fifties rock bounced off the walls at him. The fifties was his era, but the music was never meant to be amplified on state-of-the-art equipment. He made his way to the bar, and indicated what he wanted by pointing to the pump and holding his hands a pint distance apart. He took his drink, his mind still on the ominous police presence that he had just discovered, and turned from the bar, his free hand catching, and knocking over, someone’s drink.
‘Oh, sorry, love,’ he said, stooping to pick up the empty glass as it rolled to his feet. He straightened up, and smiled broadly. ‘Lennie!’ he said. ‘ Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Are you following me around?’
Not quite, he thought, signalling to the barman for a replacement. This was a happy accident, unlike the other times.
‘Don’t try chatting me up,’ she said, as they sat down, and the music stopped.
He grinned. ‘Listen, sweetheart, if I see a good-looking blonde, I chat her up. If I see a good-looking blonde I used to be very friendly with, who’s on her own in a pub’ – he looked pointedly at her left hand – ‘minus her wedding ring – I reckon it’s my lucky night.’
‘Well, it’s not.’
Conversation became impossible that close to the speakers; he watched as she tapped her glass in time to the music which was drowning them again, and bent his head close to hers. He knew Lennie. ‘I reckon if the music’s this loud, all you can do is dance to it,’ he shouted.
‘No thank you.’
‘Come on, Len! I’ll bet that stuffed shirt doesn’t take you dancing, does he?’
She shook her head.
‘Come on, then. You need cheering up.’ He put down his glass and stood up, holding out his hand.
She gave a little sigh, then took his hand, and went with him to the dance-floor.
The music of his youth pounded in his ears; she hadn’t even been born. But they had discovered something primeval when they had discovered rock; something that made your blood beat faster through your veins, something that produced a need to move to the rhythms, something sexual; it was timeless, ageless. And it had always worked like a charm on Lennie, which was its chief appeal.
Out of breath, they made their way back to the table. Steve let his knee press against hers as they sat down. ‘ Forget it, Steve,’ she said.
Steve picked up their glasses, handing hers to her. ‘Drink up,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you another.’ Gin had always had a pretty good effect too.
He worked hard for the next few minutes; he even managed to get his arm round her shoulders without her objecting. Or noticing might be nearer the mark, he conceded. She seemed to have other things on her mind. Whichever, it was good. His hand strayed to her breast; she reacted, but she didn’t stop him.
‘It’s getting late,’ whispered the DJ, his lips too close to the mike. ‘So let’s get romantic.’
He led her on to the floor again, and took her in his arms as the slow ballad began. The DJ, with a shattering lack of empathy, uttered again. ‘Not much you can do to this last batch but smooch, he said. ‘That’s the word, isn’t it?’
His hand moved from her back to her waist as he drew her closer to him. ‘ What do you say, Len?’ he whispered, clasping his hands behind her; her arms were round his neck as they moved together.
His lips brushed her face.
‘Please, Stevie,’ she said.
He grinned. Stevie was good. ‘Please Stevie what?’ he murmured, and nibbled her ear.
‘Please stop.’
His hands slid lower, applying gentle pressure; she caught her breath as his mouth found hers, and their shuffling footsteps slowed to a halt, only their bodies moving to the slow, slow music, until the final chord died away.
She drew her lips away from his, and smiled at him.
‘Can I walk you home?’ he asked.
She looked at him for a long time, then gave a little sigh. ‘No,’ she said.
Another soulful ballad; Steve smiled. ‘Let’s get some air,’ he said, and they left the dance-floor, picking up their things – en route to the door.
In the shadows of the pub car park, he kissed her again.
‘Stevie,’ she said, pushing him off.
He lifted up her left hand. ‘Where’s your ring?’ he asked.
She drew in her breath, then let it out again: ‘I threw it away,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘Tonight,’ She looked up at him. ‘I was angry,’ she said, as though he had demanded an explanation.
There was nowhere as silent as Stansfield at night, Steve thought. He was a London boy, and had never got used to it; there was traffic somewhere, rumbling along the dual carriageway; there was a slow, muffled heartbeat from inside the pub, but that only heightened the silence round them.
‘Are you throwing him away too?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She leant back on the wall. ‘I wasn’t angry with him,’ she said.
‘Who then?’
‘Me. Who else?’
If he had somewhere to take her, she would come with him, he was sure. But he lived in digs, and his landlady would not take kindly to his bringing a woman home with him. He pushed her gently against the wall, his lips at her ear. ‘Let’s go somewhere,’ he whispered.
‘Stevie, please,’ she said, closing her eyes as his lips touched her face. He was winning.
‘Stevie, please what?’ He pressed hard against her as a car came out of the main road, its headlights sweeping them, slowing almost to a stop as it passed them.
She pushed him away, and watched it go. ‘Just leave me here,’ she said nervously. ‘Someone will see us.’
‘Oh, forget him,’ he said, smiling, taking her in his arms. ‘Don’t let that put you off.’
‘Stevie, please,’ she said.
‘Stevie, please what?’
‘Just please,’ she said, kissing him.