Burying the Past (25 page)

‘I'm bloody driving. And talking while I drive. And you're going to listen. Think about it.' The pace he was setting along the corridors, she'd have to talk while she had breath. ‘You've been to the pub. OK, not much drink, but if it goes pear-shaped, how will it look? Drunken officer burgles own home. Great. Just great. I do not, repeat not, want you to do this.'

He paused by the door to the car park. ‘Do you think I
want
to do it? Do I have an option? I'm more than broke. And if I allow her to go on growing pot – as I have reasonable grounds to believe she is – I'm culpable. Right? On the other hand, if she's just pumping fan heaters out of open windows, to make me look a fool, how would that go down with everyone? I'd be a laughing stock. And someone would leak it to the press, you mark my words.'

‘Just leave it to Dave to go in and check, then.'

‘That's not you speaking, Fran – neither of us has ever led from the back.'

‘I do know you can't just go charging in – not after everything Ms Rottweiler's been doing. Look, pull back Dave and get another old-stager, someone like Don, to go in. You could trust him with your life.'

‘Fran: just drive. And I'll make a call or two. OK? Drive. Please,' he added belatedly.

Dave's hire car was outside Mark's house, every room of which was brightly lit.

Mark groaned. ‘That's where my electricity's going – to light up the place like Blackpool illuminations. It's just her getting at me.'

Dave was striding up and down outside the house, from time to time banging with all his might on the windows.

‘You need a Plan B, Mark,' Fran said. ‘You daren't go along with this forced entry idea – and I must stop you. Tell Dave, for God's sake. We'll get our colleagues on to it when we've all had a night's sleep.'

‘You may be—' He stopped abruptly. ‘Now what?'

Dave came hurtling over. ‘Quick. I just called triple nine. I heard a scream. I heard a woman scream. I tell you he's attacking her again, the bastard! The door's locked – I tried it, don't think I didn't. Shall we rush it again together? Have you got one of those ram things?'

‘Nope. And if I had I couldn't let you use it. Fran and me – it's our job. Fran – the old Ways and Means Act, eh?' He stripped his jacket, ready to charge the door as he'd done so often years back. But he stopped short. Where the hell was Fran?

She was back at the car, talking rapidly into her radio, alternating it with her phone. ‘Thanks to Dave, the cavalry's already on its way,' she announced, cutting both calls. ‘Yes!'

The street came alive with noise and light, and suddenly he had to act with authority, either that or let Fran take the lead. His arms and voice worked of their own accord as he directed half the team round the back and reminded everyone that children would be in the house, if not in bed asleep. And that the woman whose scream Dave thought he'd heard was pregnant.

Only one of the team recognized him – even as he told them he was the house owner, he took that as an indictment – but most knew Fran by sight. After all, she'd been the one to go round as many nicks as she could, making sure they knew about policy first hand. She'd trained up the sergeant who was taking the lead with the raid. He felt like an outsider; just a taste of what it would be like when he retired, of course.

Worse, he realized he'd seen more raids like this on TV than in the flesh, certainly in the last three years.

Yelling like film cliché Apaches, the team streamed into the house. Suddenly, a couple of paramedics erupted from their ambulance and hurtled after them.

He was following when a gentle hand touched his arm. ‘Goodness,' said Cosmo quietly. ‘What fun they're all having. Have they got those clever little tasers? Will they use them?'

‘What in hell are you doing here?' He tried to shake free, but the hand was now gripping with surprising force.

‘Fran thought conceivably we might need some spin on this. And for spinning, I'm your man. I know – I know: it should be the PR folk. But can you imagine them stirring at this hour, when they're mourning their departed comrades? And I'm very fond of you – and especially of Fran, as it happens. I was so peeved when old Adam got in first with his bid to lead her up the aisle. Ah, who's that?' The paramedics were stretchering someone out.

This time Mark did run forward. ‘Sammie – my darling Sammie – what's the matter? It's Dad here – Dad.' He took her hand. She shook it off.

A paramedic elbowed him off. ‘Issues with the pregnancy. So if you wouldn't mind, sir—'

‘
Mind
? I'll come with you, sweetheart.' He looked around for Fran, but there was no sign of her and he didn't want to hold up the ambulance.

‘If you don't mind, sir—' Inexorably, they eased their way past him and stowed her inside.

‘But—' Like a kid he tried to batter on the door – only to find Cosmo beside him, linking arms with him with such campness that Cosmo must have been into self-parody.

‘My, oh my,' he cooed, his grip on Mark fierce, for all its casualness. With his spare hand he pointed at someone being forcibly led to the police van. ‘Why did I never turn to crime? Two lovely big blokes like that, one either side – heaven.' He added in his normal voice, ‘Did you recognize him?'

‘Never seen him before. Not my son-in-law.'

‘Not that tedious Lloyd, no.' To Mark's knowledge, Cosmo and Lloyd had only met once – at Tina's funeral. That was Cosmo for you, the Cosmo who knew the name of every officer he met, whatever his rank, and all about their families and friends. ‘But could he be the father?' He mimed Sammie's bump. ‘No, of course, you wouldn't know. Thank God you've got all your doings with your daughter fully documented, Mark, and with a legal eagle like Ms Rossiter too.'

For a moment Mark couldn't think who he was talking about – then he remembered the other reason why they called her Ms Rottweiler.

‘I'm resigning anyway, Cosmo. My God, what's up with Dave?' He ran faster than he knew how, faster with each of Dave's sobs. The man baying his grief to the moon morphed into his little boy with a cut knee. His arms were round him before he remembered otherwise. ‘Let me look.' The words came out unbidden.

Because – just like a little boy – he was holding out something that was broken. Comprehensively. ‘They smashed my train set,' he wept. ‘When they were growing that damned cannabis,' he added.

‘We'll get you another,' Mark said. ‘Come on, son, we've got to let these guys get on with their work. It's all right, son, it's all right . . .' Where the hell was Fran? She'd have known what to do. Never, everyone swirling purposefully round him dealing for real with matters that these days he only dealt with on paper, had he felt so redundant. Part of his brain told him he'd made a bleak pun.

Fran had never been one for children, especially young, terrified ones. If they'd cried, she might have known what to do; their total petrified silence as they clung to each other in the lower level of a bunk bed worried her far more. At least they'd have dimly recognized Mark, if not as their grandfather then as a man who'd brought along, just a few days back, a lot of balloons. Where on earth was he, when he must have known he'd be needed?

She squatted down in front of them on the filthy floor, crisp packets and Lego bricks mixed with used nappies and who knew what else. Now what? She didn't have time to spring-clean, and there might, God forbid, even be evidence in here somewhere. Meanwhile, she had to help the kids. At last, she picked up a teddy bear at random from a heap on the floor. It was dirty enough to suggest it had been on the receiving end of a lot of attention, though why being loved precluded its being clean she didn't know.

‘Who's this?' she asked. ‘And this?' Another grubby bear.

Silence.

She wasn't up to a spot of instant ventriloquism, so she made the bears whisper in each other's ears, and then in hers. She told their round eyes and embroidered smiles, ‘I'm not much good at cuddling. But I bet I know someone who is. I bet Frazer's good at hugging. And I'm pretty sure Lucilla is.' Where the poor kids' fanciful names had erupted from, she had no idea. Neither, to her knowledge, did Mark.

She made the bears nod at her, and then at each other. Then they looked enquiringly at the children. Frazer gradually accepted one of them but Lucilla shook her head and removed her thumb from her mouth long enough to mutter what sounded like Blubber.

Fran made a show of digging out all the pile of animals, one by one. At last she found another seedy looking specimen, this one with once turquoise fur, which smelt vaguely of vomit. Blubber? Blue Bear? Lucilla snatched it.

Fran eased herself into a more comfortable position. The chaos of the police raid still raged all around them, so there was no leaving the kids until she could pass them over to more expert hands. At least her colleagues knew where she was, should Mark ask – and she'd threatened them with instant evisceration should they barge into this particular room, which had the helpful notice ‘
Frazers room
' hand coloured in nursery-type scribble, Blu-tacked to the door.

At last a gentle tap on the door was followed by a woman in her later thirties. She had the nous to drop beside her on the vile carpet.

‘Pat Clarke, Social Services. I've come to take care of the little ones.'

‘Good. Is it usual to keep kids in conditions like this?'

Clarke rocked her head. ‘Post-natal depression? Alcohol? Drugs?'

‘I know. But not in a comfortable middle-class home, for God's sake!'

‘Doesn't some fat-cat policeman own it? It's quite a nice place under the filth, pardon my pun. Not that he'll be able to move back anytime soon, what with the forensics people everywhere and the decorators he'll need. Still, on his salary . . .'

‘Where are you taking the kids?'

‘Emergency foster care.'

That sounded bleak, and her response inadequate. ‘Their uncle's around somewhere, as is their grandfather, but I don't know if they'd be able to manage. Neither knows the kids at all well, and me even less.'

‘Specialist care, for tonight at least. We'll talk to family members in due course, don't worry.'

Family members
– she hated that term. Always had. Somehow it took away warmth and loving-kindness, though her own family had abounded in neither. However, in the absence of any positive alternatives Fran didn't argue. Heaving herself to her feet, she looked around for spare clothes – clean might be asking too much – but found nothing. ‘I'll carry Lucilla,' she said, ‘and that teddy – he's called Blubber. No idea what Frazer's is called. But he's not going to let it go, is he? Shall I lead the way?'

W
ith Mark, egg positively dripping from his face, closeted with Wren and Cosmo Dix, Fran got stuck into work, always the best cure for anxiety, not to mention lack of sleep: neither of them had returned to the rectory, just catnapping, when all the paperwork was done, in their respective offices. Perhaps it was good that they were apart: Fran was still more than equivocal over the way things had gone, and Mark was inclined to grumble at what he considered was her colleagues' overreaction as they broke in. She thought they'd been entirely reasonable given the circumstances – domestic violence and drug-dealing. And they'd caught a particularly low form of life, by name of Stephen Minns, red-handed. His DNA would be scattered like confetti about the place. That called for one cheer at least. He'd been charged and had bail denied by a sensible magistrates' court. It wasn't up to Sammie to press charges or otherwise – the police could now initiate proceedings themselves. Not just for GBH, of course – but for running a minor cannabis farm. To Fran's eyes, as she'd checked the crime scene with her colleagues, the damage to Dave's precious train set had seemed wilful, a positive act of destruction. No wonder he was so devastated. She had an idea that Mark would while away his new-found leisure by building a huge layout in the rectory loft. But if it built bridges with Dave too, it would be worth the effort – even if the young man would rarely play with it.

Meanwhile, with Sammie likely to be hospitalized for some time, the children were now being cared for by foster parents. Mark was inclined to beat himself up for not being able to take them in; Fran had managed not to grind her teeth at the thought of kids getting anywhere near the death trap of the rectory. In any case, she strongly suspected that if such a thing had been possible, it would have been she, not he, taking compassionate leave to look after them. And she'd have been worse than useless, far worse; apart from odd stints of babysitting for colleagues – including Mark, of course, in an earlier existence – she'd had next to nothing to do with children. Her doze in her chair had clearly proved to her back and neck that her own childhood was long years ago. At least they'd managed to get hold of Lloyd, who was as bemused by the events as all of them, but very much wanted, he said, to have his children restored to him. But what if it was true that he had beaten Sammie in front of them?

All the emotion – and perhaps the amount of coffee she'd had to sink – had left her dizzy, but much as she wanted to huddle in a corner wailing for Mark, she had a meeting to go to and, moreover, to chair. Metal theft. After all, metal theft had now become personal, a point she was swift to make as she offered to vacate the chair.

There was, however, good news. The officer injured in the train incident was well on the way to recovery. There was a universal there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God sigh. And then there was something else: the torrent of metal crime had suddenly dropped to a mere trickle, for no particular reason. With a start like that, even chairing a meeting was a pleasure. She left the room smiling.