Staying Power (12 page)

Selby, an indefinably cocky air about him, was clicking away so assiduously with his mouse that Kate wanted to pounce, there and then. But she didn't want to sink to his level and humiliate him by bawling him out in front of anyone else, and in any case, maybe she should be finding out what ailed Fatima. It could be sheer hunger. She sniffed. There was a strong smell of food in the room – cheese and onion sandwiches, and something fried. A sandwich at your desk was one thing, chips and burgers quite another. But so far as she knew there were no rules apart from those of courtesy and common sense. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, loud, crude complaints if someone's tuna on brown was deemed too smelly.

Anything was too smelly for someone on a dawn-to-dusk fast.

Hell, she'd taken food so much for granted. Should she have salad or a portion of chips with her meal? Why not both? Pile them on! And there was this woman allowing herself not so much as a glass of water, never mind whether it was still or sparkling or plain Severn-Trent H
₂
O.

Still, it was no good appealing to Selby's non-existent sense of humanity. No good either going over his head to Cope, who probably thought a thick pork chop with crackling would do Fatima good.

It would have to be something to float when she and Graham had another moment.

Meanwhile Fatima was digging in her desk. ‘A couple of messages for you, Kate.'

‘And she hasn't lost either of them. Bloody hell, this must be a first!'

‘Shut it, Selby. Anything interesting?'

‘Two. Harry Carter says someone's phoned and will you go down. The other was from a man who didn't give his name but asked you to call back.' Fatima waited until Kate was between her and Selby. ‘Pat the Path.' she mouthed.

‘Probably the Chief Constable – only Fatty's forgotten his name,' Selby offered.

Kate clenched her fists. ‘You're way out of line,' she said, rounding on him. ‘Way out. For God's sake, man, can't you remember the simple rule that you always support your partner? If you can't rely on each other in the bloody office, how can you trust each other in life or death situations? A bit of decent, human loyalty, please.'

‘Ma'am.'

Damn the man. Impossible to tell how much submission, how much insolence the single syllable carried. And here were some of the others coming into the room. She didn't want a yelling match in front of them. If she didn't lose dignity, he'd lose face. Neither a good scenario for the squad.

She held out her hand for the notes. There was no doubting the anger in Fatima's eyes.

Trusting she could lip-read, Kate mouthed, ‘The loo. Five minutes. OK?'

Pat the Path.'s answering service invited Kate to leave a message. She did. Then, picking up a couple of quite irrelevant files, she strolled out of the office, fetching up in the loo. The evil lighting made her hair look green and increased the swelling under her eyes to the size of weekend bags. Some of the skin round her lips and nose was flaking badly: she scraped at it irritably. She was so engrossed that she jumped when the door opened. Fatima, of course.

‘I don't want any favours,' she said, before she'd shut the door properly. ‘Ramadan is a time of temptation. We choose to undertake the fast. We don't expect other people to fast. Or even to be particularly considerate,' she added, breaking into a faint smile.

‘But not to leave coffee on your desk or to wave food under your nose.'

‘It shouldn't matter.' Fatima's face was stubborn again. It wouldn't matter. But—'

‘But?' What else has he been doing, Fatima?'

Fatima wouldn't meet her eyes in the mirror. ‘Let's just call it violating my personal space.'

‘Groping you!'

Fatima turned away, shaking her head. ‘Not quite.' She turned abruptly. ‘Look, Sarge, I don't want to make a big deal out of this. OK?'

Kate looked straight at her, holding her gaze. ‘If it's not a big problem we don't make a big deal out of it. But you looked awful in there just now and—'

‘I just felt a bit sick. You get used to it.'

‘The smell of food or something else that stinks? Look, Fatima, I meant what I said in there. Out there we have to trust each other with our lives? How can you function as partners if Selby's bullying you?'

‘How can he trust me if I grass on him?'

How many times had Kate used the same specious argument to Graham? No wonder he'd been angry. She pushed her hands through her hair in exasperation before trying again. ‘You'll tell me – please – if things get any worse. Not because I'm “Sarge” but because I—' She tailed off. If she'd said,
I'd like to be your friend
that would have all the wrong connotations. The most brutal of the men she'd worked with had thought all women officers were bikes or dikes. Selby might even have suggested to Fatima that Kate was one of the latter. She tried again. ‘Because I believe in what I'm doing and I don't like little fuckwits like Selby giving the service a bad name.' God, she sounded pretentious even to her own ears. ‘Sorry,' she added lamely.

Fatima looked uncomfortable, as well she might.

Kate tried one last tack. ‘I also think the service is the better for having women in it. The woman who you replaced left. Altogether. I don't want you to leave. Or the next woman in the squad.'

This time Fatima smiled faintly. ‘If it gets any worse … But she didn't promise to tell her.

The message Harry Carter had for her was much clearer, in tape quality and in content. They listened to it in the room set aside for the incoming calls, a minute or two from the front desk. A woman's voice said, ‘Good morning. If you want to know who was responsible for Alan Grafton's death, ask Howard Sanderson.'

‘That's it.' Harry said. ‘Time I went back to my desk, love.'

‘It's a lot,' she said, walking back with him. ‘Middle-class, probably white, well-educated. An accusation against a possible killer. Harry, I could kiss you. Giving up your lunchtime like that.'

‘I'm only the messenger,' he said. ‘I mean, it was young Mandy on the switchboard who picked them all up. Like I said, she's a bright kid. But that doesn't mean I won't take you up on your offer when there's no one around.' He grinned, looking over her shoulder.

‘Won the pools, Kate?' It was Graham, winking at Harry and then smiling at her with an almost frightening intensity, given the lightness of his words.

‘Better,' she said. ‘We've got a lead in the Alan Grafton business.'

‘Some woman says that one Howard Sanderson killed him,' Harry added.

Should she correct him? Or would it be pedantic? She compromised. ‘Or can help us with our enquiries,' she said dryly.

‘Funny thing,' said Harry, with the air of someone pulling a rabbit from his hat, ‘her voice sounds ever so like that woman we've had on the blower before. The one we were talking about, Kate.'

‘Why didn't you tell me before, Sergeant?' Graham demanded, his face rigid once again. ‘OK, Harry – give me the tapes.'

Graham took the stairs two at a time. Kate followed a pace behind, as if he were royalty. He didn't speak until they reached his office.

There wasn't any question about which chair to take. Kate stood.

‘Other tapes? Other tapes? There's something going on here that a civilian receptionist knows about that you haven't bothered to tell me?'

‘Or DI Cope hasn't bothered to tell you,' Kate said quietly. ‘He was going to try to authorise the funds to have the tapes improved. As it was they were virtually inaudible.'

‘And?'

‘And he hasn't told me what the current situation is.' One of them had to defuse the situation, even if it meant taking a risk. It had better be her. She went over to the kettle. Empty. At least there was water in the plastic bottle. ‘Tea or coffee?'

He flung over to the window: had he been a teenage girl she'd have called the movement a flounce. She could see his knuckles whitening as he gripped the sill. OK. Herbal tea: something to calm him down, even though she found it disgusting. Leaving the tea bag to stew, as he preferred, she placed the mug beside one of the pots of geranium cuttings. He left it where it was.

So did she tiptoe away like a nurse leaving a patient? She had an idea he wanted to be alone with a capital A. Or she could confront him? Risky, in the circumstances. Or she could embark on a possibly futile wait, knowing, meanwhile, that waiting for her out there was an office full of paper she ought to be sifting through. Or some tapes to listen to.

She took the first tape from where he'd abandoned it, the corner of his desk, and slipped it into the tape-recorder on one of the filing cabinets. ‘Good morning – I want—' That was all. Then the next two. Much the same. Then the most recent. ‘Good morning. If you want to know who was responsible for Alan Grafton's death, ask Howard Sanderson.'

‘Any idea where she was calling from?' he asked, as if he'd never hurtled up the stairs in fury.

‘One-four-one'd the first. I don't know about the others.' Well, she wouldn't, would she? Hadn't had time to ask, thanks to his tantrums. Except she had. She'd forgotten in the heat of the moment. She dialled down to Reception. No, she'd better not ask Harry for information. Just for Mandy's internal phone number.

Mandy's number was engaged.

‘All calls made about twelve,' she said, reading the information from the cassettes. ‘Two of them two minutes before the hour, one two minutes after. One spot on.'

‘I wonder if that's more than a coincidence,' he said, moving over to examine the cassettes himself.

‘And this Howard Sanderson?'

‘If it's the Howard Sanderson I know, you can't just turn up on his front doorstep and ask questions. He's got all sorts of contacts with very senior officers indeed, and is your classic pillar of the community committee man.'

‘You
know
him?'

‘Know of, more accurately.' He did not elaborate.

‘There might be more than one Howard Sanderson?' She picked up the phone books. ‘Who was it had the bright idea that Brum needed three residential volumes? And you only get one delivered, as if you only need to phone people in your immediate area. Aren't people in Birmingham South West supposed to know people in Birmingham North or Birmingham South East?'

‘Only if they're rich enough to pay for a third volume – you get a second free if you ask. Anyway, the Howard Sanderson I know of will grace yours – South West.'

She passed it to him, running quick fingers down the entries in the other volumes herself. ‘No. No one here.'

‘And only the one I know here. But there may be other Sandersons ex-directory. Check, will you? I want a complete list.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what would happen if there were only the one in the whole of Birmingham, but a look at his face, anxious, drawn, told her that this was not the moment. ‘I'll get Colin on to it, shall I?'

‘Get him and Cope in here. I want to make sure everyone knows what everyone else knows. And – Kate!'

She stopped, hand on the doorknob. ‘Gaffer?'

‘Nothing. We'll – I'll—'

No. Not an apology. Well, she'd have to live without one. But he was just opening his mouth to say something else when his phone rang. He seized it as if it were a life-line.

She closed the door quietly behind her.

‘Kate! Kate! Phone for you!' Fatima waved the handset as Kate walked into the room.

‘Hello?'

‘Kate. Patrick here. You got home safely?'

Another tart comment, bitten back quickly.
I usually do
wasn't especially conducive to building relationships, even one with a man with whom she didn't especially want a relationship. ‘Fine,' she said.

‘Good. Now, if I promise a door-to-door service, might I have the pleasure of your company again? There's a party tomorrow night – it'll be a bit of a crush but you might find it not unamusing.'

What did a woman detective do on her Saturday nights? Stay in and unpack more boxes? Wash her smalls?

‘It's not impossible,' she said, sounding, she hoped, as if she were working her way down a long list of other potential engagements and eventually choosing his.

‘Excellent. Excellent.' She could hear his dimples coming through. ‘May I collect you about nine? I'll come by taxi. Oh, and before you ask, it's not the sort of do you take a bottle to.' She could hear someone speaking to him, and his muttered response. ‘Nine, then, Kate. I'm really looking forward to it.'

‘And I am.' She held the handset from her: had she bothered to put so much warmth into her voice just for a dead phone?

Colin had heard, if Patrick hadn't. His eyebrows headed for his hairline. ‘Oooh,' he began.

‘None of that, DC Roper, if you don't mind!' she snarled, winking. ‘Now, the DCI wants you and me and DI Cope in his room. Now. Will you collect Cope? I'm going to the loo.'

Their meeting was sweetness and light itself. Cope revealed that his experts didn't think the tapes worth enhancing. The last tape was clear enough, anyway. They'd check how many Howard Sandersons lived in the area and then – on Monday – start a few preliminary enquiries. Kate would alert all the switchboard staff to the importance of the unknown woman's calls. And they should all go home and have a nice peaceful weekend because when things started up on Monday their feet wouldn't touch the floor.

‘You don't want us to get stuck in tomorrow?' Colin put in.

Kate glanced at him: it wasn't like him to want extra work, and there was something in his voice that worried her.

‘I don't think something as tenuous as this justifies the overtime. If it does build, it would be nice to have fresh minds and bodies attacking it. OK, everyone. Have a good weekend.'