“I don’t give a flip what that spade-bearded little monkey has to say.” Stark’s voice was like a cracking whip. Though he stayed rooted where he stood, Heln’s chair rolled back almost an inch. “I wouldn’t buy snake oil from the gormless tosser, much less an educated opinion…about anything.”
Heln stood, pushing his whitened knuckles against the desk-top. “You are speaking about a man well regarded by his peers, and a personal friend of mine.”
“And a manky wanker, to finish out his list of virtues.” In for a penny, in for a quid, Stark thought. When digging a grave, no use going half-measures. “As far as him being your friend, I don’t know whose problem that is, but it isn’t mine.”
“You’re very close to insubordination, Sergeant.” The cords in Heln’s neck stood out and his words escaped through gritted teeth. “That would negate any number of letters of commendation falsely placed in an already-dubious record.”
Stark shrugged. “Wouldn’t do me any harm. I’m just the bloke who maybe got sacked by the Yard, got sent to Coventry for reasons unknown, and for penitence has to carry a cross-eyed-bear named Ravyn. Insubordination might even make my stock rise.” He paused. “Of course, it’s just you and me here, mate.”
Heln’s eyes narrowed to accusing slits at Stark’s impudent familiarity, but he held silent.
“On the other hand, me knowing what your little friend said about Mr Ravyn, it might make people wonder about their own secrets.” Stark shook his head. “Not good, sharing information like that with a lowly sergeant. Might even be a law against it, if I recall the classes I took at Hensley.”
“Police College?” Heln sneered. “I’m a qualified solicitor.”
“Good for you, sir.” Back when he had been fast-tracked into the CID, Stark had been told that studying for the bar was almost as important for promotion as joining the Masons. “I bet you know the secret squirrel handshake too.”
Heln sat. By degrees, crimson drained from his face and his breathing slowed. “Throwing in with that dinosaur Ravyn was a cardinal error. You should have taken the opportunity offered.”
“Grassing on him?”
“Telling us what’s left out of reports and what’s not committed to recordings—small things,” Heln said. “Did you tell your wife how you did yourself out of any hope for promotion? What does she think of your misplaced loyalty to Ravyn?”
Stark had not told Aeronwy everything. With her pregnancy well along, he did not want to further burden her. It would be a difficult enough birth, so family history suggested and their doctor had confirmed, without adding his worries to hers. Also, he feared she might think him a fool. After all, what was Ravyn to them?
“I am disappointed in you, Stark,” Heln said into the silence. “When you fell from the Met into Hammershire, I thought, ‘Here’s a bright young chap trained in the latest techniques, indoctrinated in socially progressive principles.’ I did not know the reason for your transfer—still don’t—but I was willing to overlook all for your help in modernizing the Constabulary. Then I learned you were an old-fashioned copper with a nick-the-villains-and-sod-all-else mentality. Still, I thought there might be a place for you, if you could help knock off Ravyn.” He shook his head. “Brutally disappointed.”
“You and me mum, sir,” Stark said with a tilted smile. “Can’t please everyone. If that’s all…”
“Get out.”
Stark got.
* * *
It was criminal to delay, in any way, the search for a missing child, at least in Ravyn’s opinion. Time was always of the essence. Far too often, he had seen hesitation bring tragedy. Heln, however, had not solicited his opinion, and never would. The reality was that every objection he might raise against this short delay Heln could dismiss. The hunt for the child was already underway, and neither his nor Stark’s presence was likely to bring a conclusion any sooner.
Still, standing at a window that overlooked the car park, Ravyn chafed to be on the hunt.
Only a moment, Heln had said. Ravyn had to believe him. The superintendent was always a man of his word, when there was more than one witness. But it was becoming a very long moment.
He knew from bitter experience that chaos could scatter facts and expectations to the winds. The resident constable of Knight’s Crossing lacked the experience Old Dorry would have brought to the task. He was a decade or two past his sell-by date when he gave in to the inevitability of retirement, but nothing and no one would have deterred him from doing whatever he had to do.
Ravyn did not know PC Ware, but he had glanced at her file after she was chosen as Dorry’s replacement. Her test scores were no better than the other seven applicants, but she was actually from Knight’s Crossing, the real reason for votes of confidence from ACC Ramsey and Chief Superintendent Henderson. It would be hard enough replacing Dorry, who had looked after Knight’s Crossing for a half-century, without bringing in an outsider.
Letting Ware lead the search for the child was, loath though he was to admit it, a good idea. As usual, Heln took a good idea a step-and-a-half too far. No matter what Heln thought, or Ware wanted, she could not do it alone. They would give her as much credit as she needed, but she might never fill Dorry’s enormous shoes, never be seen by the villagers as anything but a raw upstart.
“I thought you’d be halfway to Knight’s Crossing by now.”
Ravyn did not turn from the window. “Waiting for Stark.”
Assistant Chief Constable Karen Ramsey said: “Oh?”
“Superintendent Heln,” Ravyn explained.
The tall, silver-haired woman looked down the corridor. “What are they discussing, Arthur?”
Ravyn shrugged.
“I think you might be putting too much trust in Stark.”
“His nature does not get along well with Heln’s,” Ravyn said.
“You can’t always know what a man keeps in his heart,” she said. “A man’s nature is not always what it seems.”
“I believe in what I can see.” He glanced at her. “The trick is to see beyond the masks that other people don.”
She uttered a small laugh. “Only you saw past that chip on my shoulder. If you hadn’t, I might never have made the jump from police constable to detective constable.”
“As usual, you give me too much credit and yourself too little, Karen,” he said. “You’d have made your mark, sooner or later. It had nothing to do with me, everything to do with you.”
“At least I didn’t fall into the trap of being fast-tracked.” She paused. “Has he told you why the Met transferred him?”
“Not yet,” Ravyn said. “He might never.”
Ramsey let out an exasperated whoosh. “If you want, I can ask Sir Geoffrey what he was told about…”
“No need,” Ravyn said. “But thank you.”
“The mother called the Chief Constable,” Ramsey said. “On his private line. Few have access to that number.” When no response was forthcoming, she added: “It all rolled downhill to Heln. I told Henderson I wanted you and Stark on the case.”
“We shall do all we can,” he said. “As usual.”
A door opened and Stark stomped out.
She touched Ravyn’s arm, murmuring: “Be careful, Arthur.”
Chapter 2
Constable on Edge
PC Hillary Ware gave the yobs their marching orders. She lacked the wary respect they had accorded old Albert Dorry, but even a ponce like Lebbie Rodgers knew she need only call Stafford on her mobile to summon enough rozzers to manhandle them all.
When Rodgers and his mates ambled toward the Broken Lance, peppering their exit with ribald comments about the new resident constable, the hangers-on also drifted off. They would gladly watch their shenanigans, even egg on the yobs, but would take no action on their own if they could not surrender personal responsibility to the anonymity of a mob.
Finally alone, Ware glanced back at Venture Cottage. The edge of a curtain swung into place. There was no evidence again
st Henry Winsell, but he had become the focus of suspicion for a few in the village. He was not the only newcomer in Knight’s Crossing these days, but his newness (resident only seven years), combined with his quirks and eccentricities, made him an easy target.
Poor old sod, she thought. If only he wasn’t so, well…queer.
He had no visitors, rebuffing those who tried, and he rarely went out, just on foggy nights while the village slept. He let Ware search his cottage, did so willingly. She sensed his anxiety, but felt it stemmed from his fear of the outside world, not any guilt.
She hated to leave. Eventually the yobs would return, shouting taunts, inciting others against the inoffensive little man. She had suggested a brief absence from the village, but Winsell paled at the thought, nearly fainted at the prospect of walking in the open day.
Ware lingered as long as she dared, then returned to the search. Had she an extra body, she would have detailed someone to keep watch, but she did not have enough searchers as it was. Her main concern was to find Harold Drinkwater, and if that meant leaving Winsell to fall back into peril, that was the way it had to be.
She contacted the search parties on her radio, but one did not respond, the group detailed east of the village. Probably dropped and broke the blasted radio, she thought, putting the car into gear. Or maybe off swigging a flask. On the other hand, the old Stryker place was out that way. Most of the group were outsiders, but even they had heard stories. Fear, she knew, was infectious.
Her mobile chimed. She swore as she one-handed it open, then swore again when she saw the caller’s name on the screen. She took a deep breath, then thumbed the accept button.
“PC Ware.”
“What the hell have you done, Ware?”
Ware nearly dropped the mobile at the blast of noise in her ear. She hit the brakes, then swerved off the path onto the verge.
“Superintendent Heln,” she said, then felt like a fool. “What do you mean, sir? I haven’t…”
“I told you to handle this case on your own.”
She held the mobile away from her.
“I am, sir,” she replied. “I’m on my way now to check on…”
“I go out on a limb for you, give you a chance that no one else would, and you repay me with treachery.” Heln’s voice had started loud, but now he was practically screaming. “Stab me in the back, will you? Damn little Judas bitch!”
She switched off the engine. “Sir, please calm down. Truly, I do not know what you are talking about.”
“You know full well.” His voice had changed from a shriek to a growling monotone. “You went over my head. When I turned down your pathetic plea, you called the Chief Constable.”
“I did no such thing, Superintendent.”
Silence reigned at the other end.
“I am handling this case with the resources at hand,” she said. “I am doing exactly what you instructed. I have not talked to anyone in Stafford, except you.”
“You haven’t?”
“No, I have not, sir.” She tried to sound indignantly respectful.
“Then, how did the Chief Constable hear of this case?” Heln demanded, his wrath now tinged with doubt. “If not you, who?”
“I can’t say, sir,” she said, “but it wasn’t me.”
“No?”
“Sir, I’ve been too busy coordinating searches and keeping the peace to do anything else,” she explained. “You told me what you expect of me. Fair enough. I’ve done what you said.”
“I was told someone called Sir Geoffrey on his private line.”
“I have never called him or his office.”
“Then you told someone to…”
“Sir,” she said, her tone sharp. “I did not ask anyone to call.”
“Perhaps someone you gave the number to?”
“I’ve never given anyone the Chief Constable’s number, public or private.” Technically true, she thought. Once she was out of the office, anyone could search her desk. Knight’s Crossing was not a village known for locked doors. He did not immediately respond. “Sir, how would I even know his private number?”
“I suppose so.” His voice was still laced with suspicion.
“They wouldn’t come to me anyway, sir,” she said. “They all know me because I’ve lived all my life in Knight’s Crossing, but there’s no one here who believes I’m even a patch on PC Dorry.”
“Ignorant old git, I had forgotten about him.”
Ware held back a relieved sigh.
“I suppose he’s still bitter, being put out to pasture,” Heln mused. “He might feel justified tossing a spanner in the works.”
“He’s old and set in his ways.” Ware closed her eyes and sent a plea for pardon heavenward. “Of course, he’s retired, so there you are. He can do what he wants…not saying he did anything.”
Ware listened to the brooding silence at the end of the line. She hoped it did not portend retaliation against a man who had done nothing since his retirement but try to help her.
“I’ll let it go,” he finally said. “It wouldn’t look good if…” He paused. “The old man must be humoured, for now.”
She was uncertain which ‘old man’ Superintendent Heln meant, but was certain she did not want to know.
“All right, PC Ware.” His voice now lacked any trace of rage or malice. “Two detectives from CID are being sent to you.”
“I don’t understand, sir,” she said. “Just two? What about…”
“No matter the source of the call or its intent, the result is you appear incompetent, totally underwater,” Heln said. “I was told by Chief Superintendent Henderson to send someone from Professional Standards to look into your handling of the case.”
“Professional Standards?” Her heart dropped to her stomach. Inquisitors from that office of the constabulary were known for chopping off heads, with or without cause. “But you said…”
“Fortunately for you, I intervened, again,” Heln said, cutting her off. “I prevailed upon Chief Superintendent Henderson to allow me to handle this in my own way.”
“Thank you, sir.” She frowned. “From CID, you said?”
“Yes, I stressed your newness in the job and the nature of the case,” Heln said. “I suggested it might be more helpful if we sent someone who might assist you rather than judge you.”
“I admit I can certainly use all the help I can…”
“Nothing has changed,” he snapped. “The detectives will still assess your performance, your ability to utilise resources. To your benefit, the evaluation will be conducted by experienced detectives, not desk-bound bureaucrats looking to advance their own careers by sacrificing yours.”
“What do you want me to do, sir?” As she asked the question, she imagined the little man smiling. He knew he controlled her, and she had just confirmed it. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Carry out the orders I gave you earlier,” Heln said. “Solve this case on your own. Find the boy, preferably alive, but find him. Do not ask for help. It will be seen as a sign of weakness. I cannot help you if you are weak, cannot advance your name to the right people if you do not present yourself as a strong woman. I will not waste my time on a weakling. As far as I am concerned, the weak can perish. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “May I ask who is being sent?”
“DCI Ravyn and DS Stark.”
“A chief inspector?”
“DCI Ravyn will show you no patience,” Heln said. “He is a dinosaur, a relic of the past, prejudiced against women. Be on your guard with him. Don’t misunderstand me—Ravyn is an excellent detective with an enviable success rate, but his ideas are archaic, out of step with modern times. He still sees police work as being a matter of Us versus Them, a game of Coppers and Villains. He is not progressive, and you know what that means in today’s world.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Forewarned is forearmed, if you take my meaning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sure that…”
“I am not saying that Ravyn actually sees you in that light.”
“No, sir?”
“But some might think so,” Heln said. “If a possibility exists, it is best to be wary, don’t you think?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“For your own sake, see that you do.”
“What about the other one, sir?” she asked. “The sergeant?”
“Be at your most cautious around that one,” Heln advised. “He is not to be trusted.”
“But…”
“An outsider, not from around here,” he explained. “Strappers, you call them. Sergeant Stark worked at Scotland Yard before being sent down to Hammershire.”
Ware was surprised. “He was with the Met? I don’t understand why anyone would choose to…”
“You misunderstand me, Ware,” Heln cut in. “He did not come to us on his own. He was sent. He got sacked.” He paused. “Well, not sacked exactly, but the Met did not want him. Normally, he might have been dismissed, but he probably knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, so their problem became ours.”
“What did he do?” To her, Stark sounded like a most dangerous man to have poking around in her back yard. “If I may ask?”
“No, you may not.” His tone was sharp, almost accusatory. “The reason for Stark’s dismissal from the Met is known only to a few. We prefer to keep it that way. But do watch him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Discreetly.”
“Of course, sir,” she said. “I appreciate the heads-up.”
“I have probably told you too much, but I felt it unfair to cast you into turbulent waters unprepared.” He paused. “Need I say, this information is to be held in the strictest confidence?”
“Yes, sir.” She added quickly: “No, sir, I understand. I will not say a word to anyone about this.”
“Ensure you don’t,” he said. “As you may have surmised from my…” He cleared his throat. “…earlier intemperance, I consider betrayal the worst offence a police officer can commit. By the same token, I reward loyalty.”
Murderer in Shadow Page 3
