The Judas Sheep (7 page)

‘Get in the back seat,’ Parrott responded.

They undressed the lower halves of their bodies and embraced. Parrott tried to kiss her, but she turned sideways and he roughly mouthed her ear. She went through the preliminaries like a robot, making moaning noises and arching her back as if this was the lover of her life in a cheap B-movie. Parrott’s coat was draped over the back of the driver’s seat and she explored it with her free hand. There was something in one of the pockets. She flicked the button open and delved inside. It was a watch, made from a warm smooth metal. It felt expensive. She put her arms more tightly around him, faking interest in his attentions, and slipped the watch over her wrist. That would do for a nice little bonus – she’d give this one his money’s worth. Her hands wandered downwards, feeling for him, so she could help him enter her.

It was a disappointment. She was going to have to earn her fee tonight. ‘Who’s been working too hard?’ she cooed. ‘Relax, everything’s all right.’

But it wasn’t, and he didn’t look the sort who’d pay her for nothing, even if it wasn’t her fault. She poked her tongue in his ear and said: ‘Tell me what you like best. Tell Danielle what turns you on.’

His hands fell to her waist and started to grope their way under her sweater. He’s a tits man, she thought, with relief. He’s just a bloody tits man.

But the big hands didn’t stop at her breasts. They skimmed over them and up through the neck of her jumper.

‘What do …?’ she protested, as his fingers tightened round her throat, choking off the rest of the question and, a few desperate seconds later, the rest of her life.

Reginald Arthur Smith, better known as Rats, had the last laugh. He rang his agent as I drove him to the station and told her about Mrs Norris’s disappearance. Next day, the UK News, known as Yuk! News to its enemies and emulators, claimed a front-page exclusive. A few weeks later they were to print the full Rats story, with pictures, allegedly paying him about twice my annual salary. I wouldn’t care if I could sleep at nights, but I can’t.

Gilbert banned me from the Thursday-morning meeting, telling me not to come back until I had a note from the doctor. He changed his mind as soon as he saw the story in the paper, and I spent the rest of the day with our press liaison people and talking to the media. I repeated: ‘At this stage of our enquiries we have not established a link between the disappearance of Mrs Norris and the death of Harold Hurst,’ until I almost believed it. Now that the story of the Vanishing Lady was public knowledge, we had to capitalise on it, so we asked for their help. Norris issued a statement about the stress he’d been under, appealed for anyone who knew anything to come forward, and fled to America on business.

Annabelle had never been to my house. I’d first met her about four years earlier, when she was newly widowed, and my clumsy advances were about as welcome as an
old flame at a will-reading. Things were moving fast, though, and now we were getting on really well. But she couldn’t forget that she was the widow of a bishop, and the thought of having a strange car parked on her drive all night, with the neighbours listening for some man scraping the ice off the windscreen before he left for work, really disturbed her. I didn’t mind. I probably loved her all the more for it.

It would just have to be my house. And my house was a dump. I neglected it. The same way as I neglected everything except the job. The same way as I’d neglected my first wife, until she upped and left me. One of the reasons I’d thought about retiring, finding something else to do, was because I was determined not to make the same mistake twice.

It was a common-enough scenario. Maybe it’s a special occasion – anniversary or birthday. A table is booked or someone has toiled over the stove all day. The clock says six p.m. and you are comforting a family whose home and life have been wrecked by burglars while they were at work. These people are strangers, and the person you love is waiting for you. The SOCO is on his way and you know he hasn’t seen his kids for a week. You have to decide who to hurt, and it isn’t easy.

I called in the DIY store and picked up some colour charts and a pack of vacuum-cleaner bags. At home I surveyed the task and decided that ruthlessness and military precision were called for. Stage one, throw away everything that hasn’t been used or read in the
last twelve months. I filled the wheelie-bin and a couple of plastic bags. Next I dusted, finishing off with the long pipe on the vacuum, reaching into all the crevices and corners, rendering several spiders homeless.

Finally I hoovered every carpet in the house. At ten o’clock I poured myself a well-earned shandy and looked around. The difference was unbelievable, and I resolved to keep up with it. Little and often, I told myself.

The phone rang just as I stepped into the shower. I dried my hands on one of the fresh towels I’d put out, leaving filthy marks on it, and dashed downstairs.

‘Hello,’ I said, trying to wrap myself in the towel using only one hand. ‘Hello, Charles. It’s Annabelle. Have you been out?’

‘Hi, Superwoman! This is a pleasant surprise. No, I’ve been in all evening.’

‘Oh. I’ve tried ringing several times, but there was no answer.’

‘Sorry about that. I’ve had the vacuum on, catching up with my cleaning. It’s a bit noisy.’

‘What a pity. You should have given me a ring.’

‘Why, would you have dashed round to help me?’

‘No, but I could have loaned you a quieter vacuum.’

‘Listen, lady,’ I drawled into the phone. ‘In any relationship there’s only room for one comedian, and it’s me. Understood?’

I heard her giggling at the other end, and in my mind I could see the dimples in her cheeks and her nose
wrinkling in the way that gave me an unfamiliar ache in the sides of my jaw.

‘Charles,’ she said, stifling her laughter.

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘I’ve rung to tell you that I think I’ve got a job.’

‘A proper one, paying money?’ She worked hard for her charities, but they didn’t pay her anything and I knew she was having to be careful.

‘Yes. With a salary.’

‘Hey, that’s good news. Congratulations. Tell me all about it.’

‘Heard about it on the old girl network. Someone I know is pregnant, so she’ll be taking maternity leave from April, and probably won’t go back after the baby is born. And I can have her job. Guess what she does?’

‘Er, test pilot at the supermarket trolley factory?’

‘No. She’s a researcher for Tom Noon.’

‘The MP?’

‘The one and only.’

‘Wait a minute!’ I demanded. ‘Wait a minute! This MP’s researcher is pregnant and now he wants you as her replacement. Over my dead body!’

‘Have you seen him?’ she laughed.

‘Have you seen all the others?’ I countered.

‘Actually, he’s a sweety, but I think you’re safe.’

‘Good. I’m happy for you. Well done. I’m a bit worried about your job security, though. They had to have about ten recounts at the election, didn’t they?’

‘Ah, yes. He won by sixty-two votes, but he
overturned a government majority of nine thousand to win the seat.’

‘Mmm. And the way things are going with this lot he’ll probably wipe them out, next time.’

‘Hopefully. But I haven’t told you the best bit.’

I hitched the towel up again. ‘You mean there’s more?’

‘Yes. Apparently he’s a close friend of Andrew Fallon.’

‘The Leader of the Opposition?’

‘We prefer to call him the Prime Minister-in-waiting. They worked down a coal mine with each other, or something.’

‘Nearly, but not quite. He was Fallon’s fag at Eton.’

‘Was that it? Well, when I told him about my Africa trip he said that Andrew would be very interested. One of Fallon’s hobby horses is the exploitation of the Third World by the tobacco industry. He was a founder member of FATE, the Forum against Tobacco Exports, and is violently anti-smoking and everything to do with the industry.’

‘I was wondering if this affected your Africa trip.’

‘No problem. Or hakuna matata, as we say in Swahili. Mr Noon thinks I might be able to combine some research for Mr Fallon with my charity work; maybe even receive a little sponsorship. The thing is, I’ve been invited to Westminster in the near future, for an audience with them both. Isn’t it exciting?’

‘It sounds it. Listen, Annabelle, I’m really pleased for you. Maybe we should have a celebration.’

‘Well actually, Charles, I was wondering about this
trip to Cornwall. Do you think we could settle on some dates in the near future, just in case I’m asked when I can be available? If I’m still invited, of course.’

It was crunch time. Annabelle or the job? In the cold light of my kitchen it was no contest, but when I was back in the office, with the phone ringing and the paperwork piling up and a suspect waiting in an interview room, would I be able to turn my back on it? I’ve never been good at walking away from anything. I said: ‘Right, I’ll see what I can arrange. Oops! Hold on a second.’

‘Charles? Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Sorry about that. My towel slipped off.’

‘Your towel?’

‘Yes. You dragged me out of the shower.’

‘You mean you are standing there with just a towel round your middle?’

‘And it’s a very small towel.’

‘Ooh! I’d have come round if I’d known.’

‘Annabelle,’ I intoned in my most serious voice. ‘Will you make me one promise?’

‘Yes, Charles, if I can.’ Now she sounded serious.

‘Promise not to say anything like that again. Unless, of course, you mean it.’

‘Oh. Yes. I promise.’

I was happy for her, but I was also struck by the unfairness of things. Annabelle had a better brain than anyone else I knew. As a seventeen-year-old she should have gone to Oxford, but worked in a refugee camp in Biafra instead, and later she’d mixed with the highest
and the lowest in the land with equal grace. Noon and Fallon should have been working for her, not the other way round. She was worth more than the two of them added together.

Annabelle was tall and striking-looking. She created a bold impression, but she’d lived in someone else’s shadow for too long. She undervalued herself. I resolved to do my best to steer her through the doldrums, and into the trade winds at the other side, even if they did blow her towards Africa. Who knows? Maybe I’d look good in a safari suit.

And then I wondered if her going out with the
longest-serving
Police Inspector in the North of England was a symptom of that same reticence, and that thought made me sad. When I closed the bedroom curtains I noticed the first flakes of snow sliding down the window.

I made it to my next appointment. Sam Evans, the Police Surgeon, peered at me over his half-spectacles and asked how I was.

‘Me? I’m as healthy as an aardvark,’ I replied. ‘How are you?’

Sam looked in pain, as if his hernia had hiated. ‘An aardvark? Why an aardvark?’

I smiled smugly at him. ‘It was just the first thing that came into my encyclopaedic mind,’ I said.

‘I see,’ he replied gravely, and made a note. I found it worrying, as if I’d just declared some irrefutable symptom. ‘And how are you sleeping?’

‘Sleeping?’

‘Mmm. You know – put your head on the pillow and lose consciousness, that sort of thing.’

‘Oh, so-so.’

‘I take it that means not very well?’

‘I’ve never been a good sleeper.’

‘Mmm. Any more dizzy spells?’

‘I didn’t have a dizzy spell; I stumbled.’

‘You fell down a flight of stairs, and told me afterwards that you’d had a dizzy spell.’

‘I didn’t think you’d attach so much importance to it.’

‘Well, I do. Classic symptom of stress. There are others there, too.’

‘What others?’ I demanded.

‘That’s for me to know; I’m the doctor. How’s your appetite?’

‘Great. I eat everything that’s put before me.’

‘Good,’ he said, nodding. ‘So jump on the scales, let’s have a look at your weight.’

‘Aw, come on, Sam!’ I protested. ‘There’s a murderer out there. I’ve been working a week – all I need is a note from you to make it official.’

‘Get on the scales.’

I took my jacket off and stood on the scales, glowering at him. Sam moved the slider across. ‘You’ve lost three pounds since last time,’ he told me.

‘I had my long Johns on.’

We sat down again and Sam took a pad from a drawer and unscrewed the top of his fountain pen. He
said: ‘In my professional opinion you should have some more time off. But I’ll leave it up to you. What do you think?’

I pursed my lips and drummed my fingers on his desk. I had the feeling that I was at a crossroads. ‘You’re right,’ I admitted. ‘Deep down, I know I’m not a hundred per cent, and when I’m like that I make mistakes.’

He started scrawling on the pad. ‘Good. Glad you can see sense. You know what they say about the graveyard being full of indispensable men. This life isn’t a practice run, Charlie, it’s the real thing.’ He slid the note across to me. ‘Here, I’ve given you another four weeks. And I still think you ought to see the force’s counsellor.’

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ I replied, folding the note and putting it in my wallet.

‘Fair enough.’ He sat back, relaxing now that the formalities were over. ‘So what will you do with yourself? Some more painting?’

‘No, not really. Gilbert has offered me the loan of his cottage in Cornwall, so I might go down there for a couple of weeks.’

‘Smashing, just what you need. Tell you what – why don’t you invite that rather attractive lady that I’ve heard you’re walking out with? Do you both good.’

‘Gosh!’ I exclaimed, clapping a hand to the side of my head. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

From the doc’s I went straight round to Heckley police station. First call was in the typists’, where I ran off a couple of photocopies of the sick note. I breezed
into the CID office and handed them out. ‘Sick notes,’ I announced. ‘Four weeks for ten quid. Guaranteed authentic, no offers.’

Dave Sparkington tilted his copy towards the light and studied it. ‘Malingering? What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Eh?’ I examined the original. ‘That says malignant,’ I declared.