Power on Her Own (16 page)

No slinging them back; no pointing out they'd got sick bastards out there ruining and maybe ending young lives. Just routine until Graham arrived. Pulling the papers towards her, she sighed. Looked like another morning on the phone.

She heard Graham's brisk, light footsteps coming down the corridor. She was smiling her professional smile when she looked up, but as he came into the room, she could feel her dimples insisting on making an appearance.

‘How's it going?' he said, coming to peer at her computer screen.

‘The pharmacy break-ins, Sir? I think we –

‘Bloody hell, woman – I thought we'd got a murder on our hands. Don't you have a sense of priorities?'

She shrugged. Still without saying anything, she reached in her tights drawer, and handed him the memo-pad, slanting it so that the sun fingered the impressions in the paper. He took it in silence, tilting it backwards and forwards. Then he looked her straight in the eye. ‘My room. Five minutes,' he mouthed.

She nodded. He took the pad with him.

Tapping at his door, she found him at his desk, head bent over a sheet of paper.

He looked up briefly, then returned to his task – scraping a pencil lead into fine dust. ‘Shades of Biggles,' he said tersely. ‘There.' He tipped the graphite on to her pad, shaking and blowing so it filled the indentations.

WPC Harjit Kaur: definitely no ball.

Graham looked at her: ‘I'm sure this means something to you!'

She sat down, nodding. ‘The lorry driver who ran over young Danny was convinced he was chasing a ball. His parents are equally convinced his ball was in his toy rack, and if he'd got another he must have nicked it. What I'd have liked to do was check the local shops, just in case.'

‘But you don't expect any of them to have lost one on Thursday?'

‘No. Not now the result of the PM has come in. I think someone – mutilated – him, and wanted him dead. Pushed him under that juggernaut and sent a ball bowling along as well.'

‘Quite an imagination you've got, Kate.'

She nodded. ‘I know. But there's the hard fact that the two men who dialled nine nine nine beat it as soon as we turned up. Harjit Kaur.'

‘The woman the message is from.'

‘I hoped to speak to her in person. Forgot to phone her last night, I'm afraid. But at least she was on the ball enough to phone me. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.'

He gave a bark of dry laughter. ‘Sounds as if you could use a cup of tea.'

She got up to make it, but the kettle was empty. ‘Back in two ticks.' She took the large polythene bottle, his back-up supply, too.

As she headed for the loo, she wondered how much more she should mention. Was it grassing? Or was it what a loyal officer and friend – friend! – should do? She rolled the word round her head. Well, that was how she thought of Graham, but she'd really been thinking of Colin. Funny how things got mixed up when you weren't thinking about them properly. She washed out the bottle and kettle, and then filled them both. Before she left, though, she put them down so she could tuck up her hair which was escaping from the clips. That was better. No point in looking a total mess.

The room was empty when she got back, the door ajar. She plugged the kettle in, and noticed the mugs. Dirty. Another trip to the loo.

Graham was back when she returned. He was by the kettle, flourishing a plastic cup of milk. ‘Sorry: should have washed those before I went.'

‘Was it a good course?'

He selected an Assam tea bag. She nodded – she'd share it.

‘Not bad. Someone dropped out at the last moment and my name must have come out the hat. Crowd control. May be useful one day, I suppose.' His smile was ironic. ‘Come on, Kate, what's been going on? Young Colin's out there with a face like a wet week. Any reason?'

‘Only that he didn't get a place on a course.'

‘And someone else did?'

She nodded, fishing his tea bag out and dropping into the other mug. He dribbled in milk.

‘And?' He wandered over to the window.

‘Someone took a file off my desk. By some stroke of good fortune I'd prepared two. And I've kept the information not just on my computer but on two disks, one of which is in my desk, the other at home.'

‘That's dodgy, Kate. Taking stuff home. Could lay yourself open to suspicion there.' Then his smile erased the grimness. ‘Though of course my room was locked, and my desk ditto. Hmm. I don't like this.'

She stared at the traffic in the street below. An ambulance was trying to push its way through. Another sick kid maybe. Another Danny or Darren.

‘You may not like something else I did. I left some bait. I left the computer file number on each sheet, and then told the officer in question I was having trouble with my computer. Maybe the file will wipe itself, Sir.'

‘Witness?'

‘Another officer. Absolutely reliable. Though he might not like what I'm doing, either.' No, Colin had enough problems of his own.

He said, so quietly she could hardly hear, ‘Leave your tea and go and sit on the hard chair. Fast.'

She obeyed. Had her hands in her lap looking penitent by the time the door was fully open. Cope.

‘– if it keeps playing up, get it seen to, for goodness' sake,' Graham was saying. The man deserved an Oscar. ‘OK?'

Dismissed. Well, she'd had a sip of tea. She nodded, and was at the door herself, held for her by Cope, when Graham added, ‘I'll talk to you about the other matter later. Did you fix transport?'

‘Yes, Sir. All arranged.'

No, she wasn't proud of being part of a conspiracy, but her pulse was racing with excitement. Never could a series of routine phone calls about attempted break-ins have been made with a warmer, more concerned voice. Yes, she was beginning to love her job again.

Alf backed his pick-up carefully into a space a few inches too short for it. Kate smiled grimly: on a Saturday afternoon in her road, most parking spaces would be too short. Graham merely parked on the yellow zigzag lines by the school gates. The two men wrestled the double mattress, heaving and wobbling as if in the throes of a giant passion, off the pick-up and into the house. They dropped it in the tiny hall and caught their breath.

Graham peered. ‘Where are your stairs?'

‘Through the living room. Before you get to the kitchen. And there's a very sharp bend.'

‘May need me tow-rope – tie it up, like.' Alf disappeared.

‘Kate: are you seriously telling me you've been trying to do a day's work while coping with this lot?' He looked at her and the house with infinite concern.

She wasn't sure how to react. She tried smiling: ‘It's getting better every day. But I told you I was staying at the Manse: this is the reason.'

‘No place to call your own, and you've come in to work to be subjected to bullying and harassment.' He shook his head ‘Yes, that's what we need. Excellent. Have you somewhere flat we can lay this, Kate? Like a floor?' He looked in at the front room and shuddered.

‘Living room. It's not too dirty – they found rot and insect infestation and had to put in a new floor.'

Alf sniffed. ‘Got a clean dust-sheet in the cab.' He trudged off to get it.

Graham inspected the new door, the old mantelpiece. ‘I suppose – one day – but Kate, why on earth didn't you show some sense?'

‘I was a bit low on sense altogether. Maybe it's coming back. And the good news is I've let my place in Croydon. And the tenant may even want to buy. So my funds are thawing. Not that Cassie hasn't been extremely generous –'

‘Given you a pig in a poke, more like,' Alf said.

Between them they trussed the mattress.

‘Bit of good stuff this,' Alf said. ‘This weight's springs – none of your foam rubber. Good for your back, Kate.'

‘But not for yours or Graham's trying to get it up those stairs.'

As if on cue, before either could protest, a man's voice called from the hall. ‘Kate? Anyone at home?'

‘Must have forgotten to shut the door,' Alf muttered.

Paul erupted into the room. ‘Hi, gorgeous. I kept my promise: tickets for Symphony Hall tomorrow. Oh.' He paused theatrically.

‘Alf Graham. Paul.'

They shook hands solemnly.

‘Wonderful timing, Paul. You're a rugby man, you say.' Kate gestured. She was relieved. Alf might be tough, but he wasn't young. And Graham had those rounded shoulders which must put his back at risk if he tried hefting anything as heavy as this.

The older men hadn't been exactly fulsome in their welcome: she thought she'd heard Alf sniff with what seemed horribly like disapproval. And Graham wasn't exactly a bundle of smiles. She hadn't got an outbreak of antler-locking on her hands, had she? Well, if they all wanted to show off their masculinity, there was no better way than getting the mattress round that awkward bend without damaging her nice new paint. And their backs.

She appointed herself guide, peering down at them from the landing. Alf joined her, reaching down to steer. Graham and Paul combined their efforts underneath. And within moments they were stuck.

‘Hang on!' Alf leaned down and tightened the rope. ‘Not so fast, young fellow-me-lad – never heard the one about the tortoise and the hare? Well then. Nice and easy. Let us old uns set the pace.'

Kate had spread the old springs with a thick – and even older – blanket: she didn't want this mattress damaged. And although she'd dusted and indeed wiped the springs and the frame, it would never be pristine again. She held it flat while they laid the mattress down, and straightened it as they untied the rope. Yes.

‘Perfect. Thank you all so much. Now, I think you all deserve coffee.'

‘Coffee? I can think of better things! But perhaps we'd better wait until we're on our own.'

Alf raised an eyebrow.

‘Like that guy going for a walk in the snow, it may be some time. I see you've started on that fence, Alf.'

‘Got the weather for it, haven't we? Don't mind a bit of overtime on a day like this.' He led the way downstairs. Graham made sure that Paul went next. Kate was left to bring up the rear.

She organised them onto deckchairs the canvas of which made her fear for their lives it was so thin, leaving them to what would no doubt be laddish chat if Paul had anything to do with it. Or would he leave them to it, on the pretext of helping her? Yes: so she'd better beat him to it, by scooping everything on to a tray as fast as she could.

But the footsteps on the path outside were Graham's. ‘Anything I can do?'

‘In the short term, open these biscuits. In the long, we may have to devise a way of getting rid of Paul, there. Sticks like a leech.'

So it was foolish of her to mention later that she was going to visit Cassie that evening.

‘That's the old lady that Maz is so taken with?' Paul asked.

‘That's right. My aunt.' She raised her mug at the chaos of the garden, which probably exceeded that of the house at its worst. Or maybe not. But it was bad enough. Cutting the sycamore trees down had crushed any grass and shrubs that might have survived the recent years of neglect. The shed was on its knees, ready to collapse. ‘Funny to think that my childhood memory of this garden is of a fairy-tale garden. Pretty little paths, edged with fancy bricks. Secret places under trees.'

‘Plenty of them,' Alf said. ‘Now, if you'll excuse me' – he set his mug on the tray and returned to his saw horse. ‘Only I want to have a clear run tomorrow – I don't want to leave you with no fence any longer than I can help. News soon gets around.'

‘Ah, but you'll be guarding the place again tonight, won't you? Now you've got a proper bed?' Paul prompted her.

‘If you want my opinion,' Graham said, sounding like a caricature of a policeman, ‘you'll give that mattress a good airing before you sleep on it. It's been in my garage for months.'

‘But I bet it's a very solid garage,' said Paul.

‘Don't want you going down with rheumatism, Kate,' Alf said. ‘Now, I'm afraid I need your room more than your company.'

‘And we need to talk shop, Kate.' Graham got to his feet, folded his deckchair and Alf's, and held his hand out for Paul's.

‘No, I'll hang them back in the entry on my way out.' So he could take hints. ‘What time shall I pick you up tonight, Kate?'

‘Tonight? I thought it was tomorrow we were going out? He's got tickets for Symphony Hall – can't wait to see it, I've heard so much about it,' she said to Graham, conscious that she sounded as if she was offering the excuse she was.

‘Yes, but we're seeing Cassie tonight. If she's agreed to let the Brigade kids visit her, the least I can do is thank her. And I can hardly swan in when you're not there.'

That was true.

‘Are you going anywhere near the Manse? Because you could tell them I shouldn't be late.' She rather thought honours were even.