Thursday dawned – if you can call seven thirty in early December dawn – grey and bleak. I scraped myself out of bed and over to the window. By the look of the carrier bags flapping in the trees like pale vultures, there was a lazy wind – one that would slice through you rather than bother to go round. It was a day for cowering inside, with a good book and central heating. If you had to go out, then an early return, cheered by hot soup, was the order of the day. Except this was my evening class night, three hours of the theory of Managing the Curriculum. All those worries about doing it in practice were still unresolved. After his flash of light, Saul of Tarsus hadn’t hung around like I was doing. But then, he hadn’t had his vision in a car park, and I hadn’t been struck blind. I suppose my record on persecuting other people was better than his, too. The evidence was, in the past at least, that they had been after me.
At least very few of them would be after me while Chris’s car was parked immaculately outside my house. This year’s model, it made assertions about power without anyone needing to look up the price. Not that it would be there long, parked under its guardian streetlight: Chris was already in the bathroom – he was rather late this morning, come to think of it – and would set off immediately to have his breakfast in the police station canteen. Good for Piddock Road morale, I suppose. And much better for my reputation, the fewer people who saw he’d spent the night here. Aggie had always regarded him as a sort of favourite grandson, and however much she let Mike charm her, she made it quite clear to me whenever I saw her that I’d made a terrible mistake not marrying Chris. Not, of course, that he’d ever asked me. And not, of course, that I would have done if he had, even before Mike burst on to the scene.
It occurred to me, as I retreated back to bed and the duvet, that Mike hadn’t come back to me about Carla’s thesis. Or anything else. The tour team morale-building must be taking a lot of time. Well, with the team’s results so far, that wasn’t surprising. All the same, I felt like a child learning Christmas had been postponed, I wanted so much to hear his voice. Or even see what he’d put on fax. Or whatever.
Ah, there was Chris going downstairs now. He’d relock the Chubb and drop the key though the letter box. As if in the half-hour or so he fancied I’d be lingering in bed anyone would come and penetrate the Yale.
In one sense it was nice to have someone looking after me; in another it was quite unnerving.
That was the front door closing. And that the thud of the key. Any moment now the gentle shutting of the car door – slam it? In a residential area! And then the engine would start.
And I would get up.
I lay. And waited.
And heard feet sprinting back up my drive, and the sound of an irate bell.
Grabbing my dressing gown and shoving my feet into my shoes – that doorbell was far too irate to wait for me to look for slippers, except from the sound of it the batteries were expiring fast – I hurtled down the stairs.
‘Did you hear anything last night?’ He stepped inside and reached for my phone. Always anxious about frying his brain on his mobile, Chris. ‘Vandalism,’ he threw over his shoulder. He punched the numbers with the air of one shoving a finger into offending eyes. Looking back at me he took in my outfit. ‘Have a look.’
Despite Mike’s eruption into my life, my dressing gown was a neck-to-ankle affair, tightly belted and so modest not even Ian Dale turned a hair. Decent it might be, but Puffa-jacket it wasn’t. So I only looked at the two nearest cars – his and mine. Someone had thrown paint stripper over both bonnets. Huddling back into the house, I collided with him coming out.
‘Ours and at least three others,’ he snapped. ‘You’d better get dressed. Someone’s on his way from Rose Road.’
I needed a shower hot enough to thaw the worst of the frostbite. And would take one. Surely the police didn’t bother with that sort of petty damage these days. And certainly not with any urgency.
In fact I’d hardly got dressed when a pair of uniformed kids presented themselves at the front door. Presumably Chris still carried enough clout at his old nick to make things happen briskly. The elder lad, who looked about fifteen, introduced himself as Constable Aherne, and asked me to report the criminal damage to my vehicle. As soon as I’d done so, they’d go and break the good news to my neighbours.
I suppose there was always the consolation that though They were definitely persecuting me, They were also having a go at a few others.
The garage I always favoured was a side street but eminently respectable one in Selly Oak, not so far, as it happened, from Mike’s place. I stopped off for an estimate and some sympathetic tooth-sucking. I’d have to go round scar-faced for a couple of days, Martin said. And hadn’t I better get an insurance estimate from somewhere else? But if they got the job, they’d make sure it was serviced and got through its MOT while it was in their care. Meanwhile, yes, it was drivable, if not pretty.
‘Let’s just make sure, shall we?’ Paul said, sauntering up. ‘There’s nothing on the ramps at the moment. Never hurts to have a quick look, does it?’ Wiping his hands on his overalls, he slid a polythene cover over the driving seat and had it into the service bay before you could say car-ringing.
The expression on his face as he peered up at those parts of a car best not seen told me the news would be expensive.
Martin and I joined him.
‘Lot of wear on those brake hoses, wouldn’t you say?’ Paul pointed.
‘A suspicious amount. In fact, I’d call it damage, not wear,’ Martin said. ‘I’m not touting for business, Sophie – in fact, we couldn’t start on it till next week – but I’d say it would be better not to drive it too far.’
‘I’ll get the insurance assessor to call here,’ I said crisply. ‘But he may not be the only one to call. I’ve got a policeman friend who might want to have a look, seeing that his car had similar treatment this morning. And several neighbours, come to think of it. Jesus, what a night’s work!’
‘It wasn’t just you, then?’ Martin asked.
I shook my head.
He patted the rear wing as the car descended. ‘Good. Only I was thinking – it’s had quite a tough life, this little thing, hasn’t it?’
I’d had to take a taxi from Selly Oak to West Bromwich, and just made my class on time, having dropped my coat and gathered up the register folder in one hasty movement. And then a scrabble for the folder of work I’d prepared. And another scrabble for the homework folder. Thank goodness for the single drawer which forced me to be systematic.
This time calling the register wouldn’t be the usual perfunctory technicality. I wanted finally to assure myself that the person responding and the name I called were one and the same. I also got them to sign a sheet this morning, with their name in blocks alongside. Some of them looked at me strangely, as well they might. And at the end of the class I’d go and check with signatures and the photos on the application forms somewhere in Kathryn’s files.
Meanwhile, we had to practise the vocabulary of food and of shopping. And I had to hammer home the message that cheap could be just as nutritious as expensive, and that everything had to be paid for. Had I had a fistful of shares in Marks and Sparks at risk from light-fingered activities, I could not have been more persuasive. Nor more emphatic.
But my fine words caused no flushes of embarrassment, and any fidgets were probably irritation that I was hammering on at such length.
I’d have to wait till the following day to see if anyone might have heeded what I was saying, of course. Today’s lunch break might at least give me the opportunity to see who exactly it was who was indulging in expensive sandwiches.
Meanwhile I headed off to Kathryn’s empire to look at mug shots. And found her door locked. This was a training day, a glum secretary told me. Everyone except her was off having an away-day with nice lunch.
Perhaps that’s what Lola’s student was doing: there was no sign of her in the canteen, Lola said.
‘You should have grasped the nettle at the time, Sophie, and not pussyfooted around.’ She paused, presumably for me to applaud her idioms.
‘Perhaps you should have trusted me with her identity,’ I said ungenerously. ‘Anyway, there was a full house in the English class this morning. Everyone should now be able to go shopping and pay and not run up big bills on their plastic. And no doubt the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We’ll check it out tomorrow – yes? – and if she’s still eating top-of-the-range sandwiches—’
‘You can tackle her. I’m going up to town tomorrow.’ Something in her intonation suggested she wasn’t going to paint Birmingham red. ‘My father’s coming over to meet your Foreign Secretary, and I shall be hosting a reception for him on Saturday.’
‘So there it is,’ Chris said, swallowing a yawn and sliding our halves of mild on to beer mats. We’d chosen a pub that was quiet enough now, though trendy kids would no doubt be taking it over later. ‘A whole street full of vandalised cars, but yours is – as far as they can see – the only one with more than superficial damage. Funny thing, that. Who’ve you annoyed this time, Sophie?’
I gestured my thanks with the glass and took a mouthful before I answered. ‘As far as I know I’m everyone’s best friend. Maybe whoever got busy with the paint stripper got interrupted before he could attack all the other brakes, too.’
‘Maybe.’ Chris did not sound convinced. ‘I suppose yours was one end of the line. Good job Paul was so conscientious.’
I nodded. ‘He did say it would have been a slow leak, one I’d probably have noticed, not one that would have put me at immediate risk.’
‘Enough risk for him to get you off the road. OK, they’ll be pursuing all lines of inquiry, of course, I should imagine.’
‘It’s at times like this you’d like to leap from behind your desk and start solving crime, isn’t it? You’ve got that wistful expression,’ I explained.
‘The consolation is that the better I do my job, the better others can do theirs. And as DCI I’d never have been involved in simple criminal damage – not unless it proved to be something more serious,’ he added meaningfully. He yawned again.
But he wasn’t going to get another invitation to stay at my place. It was not to become a habit.
I was tired too. And miserable. Still no news from Mike. Tonight I’d phone him to see what was going on, even if it did look like checking up. After all, I needed to sound him out about using his sponsored team car while mine was off the road. I knew what he’d say, of course, that there was no point in my hiring a car when there was a perfectly good one sitting in his garage. I, on the other hand, was not so sure I wanted to make his sponsored car a target for whoever might – or might not – be after me. Perhaps if I made a point of garaging it every night?
‘What are you going to do about transport?’ Chris asked.
I blinked. I did wish our minds wouldn’t do that. ‘Borrow Mike’s car?’
‘With all those logos all over it? You must be off your head. And no talk about cycling, either.’
‘Buses take all day,’ I grumbled. ‘And though it was very kind of you to pick me up tonight, Chris, we’ve both got too many commitments for me to rely on that.’
‘Does your insurance policy allow you to hire a car?’
I shook my head. ‘When I was at William Murdock I could always cycle or use buses: there was no need to rely on four wheels.’
‘Can you afford to hire one?’ His tone was remarkably delicate.
‘I can’t afford not to,’ I said, dodging the issue.
‘Get something small and unremarkable.’ He looked at his watch.
I drained my glass. ‘Could you drop me off on your way home?’ I asked.
If he’d hoped to use my spare bed, he didn’t show any disappointment. In any case, perhaps he didn’t wish to test my theory about the brake hoses by leaving his car anywhere near my house.
So now I could relish my conversation with Mike in private. He’d left a message on my machine, asking me to call him back.
To hell with the expense: I wanted a natter. I poured out my troubles one by one, aware even as I did so that they were nothing compared with the ill-fortune of Mike’s team. From his sympathy you’d never have guessed it, however.
‘What I can’t understand,’ he said at last, ‘is this business of Malaysian students not having much English. When I’ve stopped over there, I’ve always found their ability to communicate embarrassingly good. The same with Singaporeans. And, believe me, Singaporeans don’t go in for petty theft unless they’re absolutely desperate; not with their legal system.’
So what was going on? Was Lola imagining things, after all? But it was too expensive to speculate, so I asked what he’d been up to. Apart, I hoped, from missing me.
‘I’ve checked all three universities in Melbourne,’ he announced, ‘and can’t find any record of a thesis by Carla Pentowski. More to the point, when I asked at the registries, they had no record of any Carla Pentowski ever having attended.’
‘But—’
‘I even got them,’ he continued, anticipating my question, ‘to search their computer records simply for Carlas, just in case she’s simply changed her surname, and, guess what? There are no Carlas who could possibly have a background appropriate to the thesis she’s supposed to have written.’
‘Not at any of them?’
‘I checked them all. There’s no thesis of that title at any of them, either. What do you suppose that means, Sophie?’