Changelings

by Jo Bannister

  He was nodding, his chin on top of her head. ‘He’d be proud of you. Donovan. He’d be proud of you getting on with the job.’

  She looked up at him. ‘Brian, this is going to sound silly.’

  He smiled sombrely. ‘But?’

  ‘But … I want you to be careful.’

  His eyebrows rocketed towards where his hairline used to be. ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because I need you to be. Because I’ve lost enough. Because this whole stupid town’s jumping out of its skin, anyone could get hurt now just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because if anything happened to you there’d be no one to hold me.’

  He dusted a feather-weight kiss on to the top of her head. ‘I’ll be careful,’ he promised.

  II

  1

  On Friday morning Liz hitched a lift to Castle High with Brian because she wanted to hitch a lift from the school with someone else. She didn’t explain this very well. Brian thought she was still concerned about his safety. It was forty years since he was last taken to school, by his mother.

  After he’d gone inside Liz waited at the school gates.

  Miranda Hopkins drove an under-powered white 4x4 that was fine for watching hockey matches from but would have been no good at pulling a sheep out of a ditch. Running late, she didn’t bother to park, just pulled up long enough for Saffron to get out, trailing her books and her sports kit behind her.

  But before she could drive off the passenger door opened again and Detective Inspector Graham climbed in. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said; but Ms Hopkins heard it in her voice that actually it didn’t matter whether she minded or not.

  ‘Er – no, of course not,’ said Miranda, startled. ‘But I’m going to work, I don’t know how you’ll get back.’

  ‘I’ll call a taxi,’ said Liz shortly.

  Miranda eyed her passenger sidelong as if to reassure herself it was the same detective she’d spoken to earlier, so altered was her manner. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Liz baldly. ‘Somebody’s died.’

  ‘Ohio …’

  Liz cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Why so surprised? It was always going to happen. You can’t blackmail people without threatening them with something. If they won’t pay up, you have to carry out the threat.’

  ‘Will they pay up now?’

  Liz’s hazel-green eyes flared. ‘Now there’s an interesting question! Not who died, or how, but what about the cash?’

  Miranda felt herself bridle. She wasn’t used to being treated like this, and she didn’t like the feeling that it was personal. She seemed to be being accused of something.

  Miranda Hopkins looked like a faded hippy but under the cheesecloth and dirndl lurked a soul of steel. Being a single parent isn’t an easy option. Doing it well, and at the same time succeeding in a demanding job, takes intelligence, application and inner resilience. She had the confidence to stand up for herself against tougher opposition than a CID officer having a bad hair day.

  Her voice was clear and steady. ‘Inspector Graham, are you under the impression that what’s happening in this town has something to do with me?’

  Liz declined to answer. ‘Do you work with cholera?’

  Miranda stared at her – for so long she almost crashed the car. She pulled into the side of the road. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a simple enough question. You work with botulism: do you also work with cholera?’

  ‘No,’ said Miranda, clinging on to her patience. ‘Not at present. I have done.’

  ‘So you’d know how to get hold of some.’

  ‘I’d know how. That’s not the same as saying I could get hold of some. There are security procedures, it’s not considered a great idea to have people wandering in and buying a bag of Vibrio cholerae as if it was sweeties!’

  ‘You’re not just people,’ said Liz roughly. ‘You’re a scientist employed by a reputable company working in the field. Are you telling me you couldn’t get hold of the stuff?’

  Miranda thought for a moment. ‘Maybe I could. In the unlikely event of wanting to.’

  ‘A million pounds is a fair incentive.’

  The technician gaped at her. ‘You do! You think I’m behind this. You think I terrorized half the town, my daughter included, and now I’ve killed somebody. Who, anyway? Who am I supposed to have killed in order to extort a million pounds from the good people of Castlemere?’

  ‘My sergeant,’ said Liz.

  In Miranda Hopkins’ eyes shock gave way first to understanding, then to compassion. The eyes of a murderer? Liz hoped so, because then Donovan would be avenged; but the cool spot in her head where she was still thinking rationally had its doubts. Anyone can lie. Someone who could plan and carry out a scheme as cold-blooded as this one could probably lie convincingly. But compassion is a hard thing to feign.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Miranda Hopkins softly.

  ‘Is that a confession?’ demanded Liz. She regretted it as soon as the words were out. If she was talking to the killer it was a stupid thing to say; if she wasn’t it was crass.

  Miranda shook the cloud of fair hair. ‘No. I really don’t have anything to confess to. I’m sorry that you’ve lost someone who mattered to you.’

  ‘Donovan?’ said Liz, and it was half a word, half a snort. But in time she heard herself doing it again: trying to lessen the loss by denying what he’d meant to her. That’s what they’d do at Division when the word got round. Shocking business, they’d say; but still … you know … Donovan? And then they’d add: I suppose, if it had to be somebody … She owed him better than that. So did Division, actually, but he wouldn’t have expected much from them.

  She shut her eyes a moment and breathed deeply. Then she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said simply, the bitter edge gone from her voice. ‘Yes, he did.’

  Back on the road, Liz resumed her questioning. But the anger that had fuelled it was gone. She hadn’t dismissed Miranda Hopkins as a suspect, but she was calm enough now to realize she didn’t know enough to hold an opinion.

  But if the woman was a less than persuasive suspect she might still be a useful witness. ‘Since you’ve worked with cholera, tell me this. How easy would it be to infect someone?’

  ‘Easy enough,’ said Miranda, ‘it’s a resilient little bug that thrives anywhere there’s warm weather and bad plumbing.’

  ‘But not in Britain. You’d have to go abroad?’

  ‘Or culture it, from samples taken from a patient or contaminated food or water. Give them a nice agar plate and just the right degree of heat to make them comfy – and then stand back because when these things take hold they spread. It wouldn’t be difficult. It wouldn’t take a lot of technical know-how.’

  ‘Could it be delivered in a flu remedy?’

  ‘Depends on the recipe. Enough antibiotics would kill it, but a basic fruit juice and sugar cough mixture would do fine.’

  ‘How stable would it be? Could it live in the bottle for a few days?’

  ‘Inspector, cholera didn’t get to be a major cause of sickness in large parts of the world by being picky. It isn’t a smart bomb of a bug, more a howitzer: fill the air with shrapnel and some of it’ll hit something.’

  Liz nodded slowly, absorbing and extrapolating. ‘Dr Gordon talked about a one per cent mortality rate. So choosing cholera may not mean the blackmailer intended to kill – in the way that it would if he’d used, say, arsenic.’

  Miranda shook her head. ‘It’s easily treated and recovery is fairly rapid. The main danger is in areas without modern facilities. In Britain today you’d have to try pretty hard to die from cholera.’ She stopped abruptly, catching her breath. ‘I’m sorry, that was – clumsy.’

  It was, but it was important. It changed Donovan’s death from murder to manslaughter. Did that make it better or worse? It made it partly his own fault; or at least a risk of the lifestyle he’d chosen. Donovan’s main weakness was the same as his greatest strength: he was a loner. He lived
alone, he took holidays alone. When he got sick there was no one to help. When he fell in the canal there was no one to pull him out.

  Liz had never been entirely sure how much of that was from choice and how much was simply that he’d been no good at relationships. He’d never seemed to have much time for people, not as individuals. He’d do whatever was necessary to protect The People because that was what he was paid for, but people with a small p had never really interested him. Liz suspected it was because he hadn’t understood them very well. She wondered if he’d opted for loneliness because it was easier than trying to play a game whose rules no one had explained to him.

  ‘Inspector,’ said Miranda Hopkins gently. When Liz looked at her, momentarily surprised to see her there, she was proffering a tissue.

  ‘Damn it!’ she said fiercely; but she took the tissue. She hadn’t realized that tears were spilling on to her cheeks.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ said Miranda softly. ‘We’re women: we cry more easily than men. We feel more. The price is worth paying.’

  When Liz joined the police force there were senior officers who spoke openly against women taking a full and equal role on the grounds that (a) they’d fall in love with the suspects and (b) they’d keep bursting into tears. Success had meant proving them wrong: showing she was not only as good as any of her male colleagues but also as tough. In twenty years the only other person she’d cried in front of – apart from Brian – was Frank Shapiro.

  And she was embarrassed. Perhaps Miranda Hopkins was no more than the bystander she had at first appeared. But she was still a stranger, and ambitious detective inspectors don’t break down in front of strangers. Lamely, by way of explanation, she said, ‘It keeps hitting me.’

  ‘Had you known him long?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Longer than some marriages.’

  Liz managed a smile at that. She’d never thought of Donovan as husband material; as far as she knew, neither had anyone else. But it wasn’t a stupid remark. This was a perceptive woman: she understood people, how they felt and what made them tick. A useful talent for a blackmailer, of course … But no. Blackmail is of necessity a cold, ruthless and uncaring business, and in all the English language it would be hard to find three adjectives less applicable to Miranda Hopkins. She just wasn’t a credible suspect for this kind of crime.

  Miranda said seriously, ‘You need to talk about it.’

  Liz shook her head, put the tissue in her pocket. ‘Possibly,’ she said, ‘but not to you.’

  ‘I wasn’t offering. And not to your husband either, or your colleagues. A professional: a priest or a counsellor. Someone you can shut the door on at the end of the session and never see again if you don’t want to. But you’re hurting and you need to talk about why. You need closure.’

  Liz shook her head again, stiff with resentment. ‘Thank you for your tissue. But you can keep your advice.’

  Miranda shrugged and gave up. ‘Do as you think best. But this is where I work: can I go in or are you arresting me?’

  She’d stopped outside the gates. Liz opened the door. Half in and half out she paused. ‘Any arrest right now would be premature. I don’t know who killed Sergeant Donovan, Ms Hopkins. But I’m going to find out, and I’m going to make them pay. That’s my idea of closure.’

  She called for a taxi. Waiting for it she wandered back up the River Road.

  You need to talk to someone, Miranda had said. But keeping her feelings to herself was more than a habit now, it had become ingrained, as much a part of her as her fingerprints. Yet she was aware of a debt of honour owed to the dead man. If she couldn’t tell anyone else what he meant, who he was, she could at least confront it herself. In the privacy of her own head as she walked she formulated words she would never say aloud.

  He was a difficult man, bad-tempered, bloody-minded and mule-stubborn, she thought; and I’m going to miss him for ever. He wasn’t the best copper I ever knew; he wasn’t the best man. He just might have been the most honest. People always reckoned he was a maverick, but that wasn’t it. He was just trying so hard to do a good job that sometimes he crawled out on a limb – so far, sometimes, he didn’t hear the sound of sawing.

  But his heart was so much in the right place you couldn’t stay angry at him for long. He was never too tired to do his job, never too scared, and he never made a distinction between those who were worth the trouble and those who weren’t. He was a good policeman and a decent human being. And I wish I’d said some of this to him while I had the chance.

  The taxi hove into sight: Liz raised a hand to hail it. Oddly enough, her heart felt lighter already.

  When she got back to her office she collared Dick Morgan, who’d received by default the promotion he’d always avoided and taken over Donovan’s desk. He was the only candidate: Mary Wilson had the makings of a sergeant but not yet the experience, Scobie had the experience but not the wit. The jury was still out on whether Scobie qualified as Homo Sapiens.

  ‘The cholera bug could be cultured from someone carrying it,’ she told Morgan. ‘Get on to the hospital, see if there have been any cases through there in the last few months.’

  ‘How many months?’ asked Morgan, who didn’t like being caught using his initiative.

  ‘I don’t know. See what they offer you and ask if it was recent enough to be relevant.’

  He was going, ground to a halt in her doorway. ‘Guv?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Do I have to use the skipper’s office?’

  It sounded pathetic but actually Liz understood. She’d felt the same way about moving into Shapiro’s office after he was shot; and worse about seeing his stand-in using it. ‘It’s only a room with a desk in it. Donovan’s not going to need it again.’

  ‘You’ll need to bring someone in. Maybe we should leave it for him.’

  Liz frowned. ‘Dick, right now the last thing I need is a new sergeant. You won’t get stuck with the job, I promise. But it’ll be a weight off my mind if you’ll do it till we’re out of the woods. And yes, that means using the sergeant’s office. Everything you’ll need is in there, it’s where your calls will be sent. Just – do it. It isn’t haunted. You’re not going to hear the faint ghostly hum of a motorcycle engine if you’re working there late at night.’

  He managed a wry grin. ‘He won’t come back as a bike engine. He’ll be a disembodied voice by the coffee machine going, “Who’s got me fecking mug?” ’

  Slowly, slowly, they were coming to terms with it.

  Morgan phoned the hospital. But Dr Gordon was unable to offer him anything helpful. The last case of cholera they’d had was over a year ago: it was hard to think that was relevant.

  ‘What about the Wingrave sample?’ asked Morgan. ‘Anything helpful there?’

  Dr Gordon made embarrassed noises. actually, there’s been a bit of confusion at this end. The path lab said they’d rerun the slides and get back to me. They’d done the wrong tests or something.’

  To DC Morgan this seemed no more than par for the course. From the start this had been one of those investigations where anything which could go wrong inevitably would. Discouraged, he put down the phone and sat alone in his office – Donovan’s office – and wondered what he could usefully do next.

  ‘Coffee,’ he decided. But he went next door to the squad room to fetch his own mug.

  Where Donovan was he had no need of a mug. Neither hunger nor thirst troubled him. Time passed without leaving any wake, and the only sensation he knew of was a terrifying lightness, as if he might float away and be lost. Once, just once, he opened his eyes and the fairy was there again. Except of course that he didn’t believe in fairies.

  A thought struck him. Maybe it wasn’t a fairy: maybe it was an angel. He looked again, critically. It didn’t look much like an angel, though he wouldn’t have claimed to be an expert. Another, and worse, thought struck him. It looked like an imp.

  He shut his eyes again, and thought that this wa
s one of those occasions when playing dead made a lot of sense. In fact, it was quite possibly the only game in town.

  2

  If there had been any clues to investigate, any suspects to chase, they’d have been out there doing it. It wasn’t a good sign that Castlemere’s senior detective and his deputy were both at Queen’s Street at the same time.

  But since they were they took the opportunity for a little brainstorming. It was a technique that they’d refined over the years, that had served them well enough in the past to be worth a try now. Any time they seemed to have exhausted all possibilities, explored all lines of enquiry and hit the buffers at the end, it was worth getting together and just batting ideas between them. Sometimes they found they knew more than they thought.

  ‘Blackmail,’ said Shapiro, going back to basics. ‘At least we have a motive: he’s doing it for one million pounds. So he’s ruthless and he’s greedy. And he’s an arrogant bastard. He thinks he’s cleverer than us. He thinks he can pull this off, and go back to whatever it is he does when he isn’t blackmailing towns, and we’ll never find him.’

  ‘Can’t think what’d make him think that,’ murmured Liz.

  Shapiro twitched her a smile. ‘He mustn’t know us, Inspector.’ The smile died. ‘Except that he will do, won’t he?’

  ‘He will?’

  ‘I think he’ll have made sure he does. He knew when he started this who the opposition would be. He’s done his homework in every other respect, damn sure he’s studied us too.’

  It was an uncomfortable feeling, like being spied on. This man that they still knew almost nothing about had made a point of knowing about them. What they were capable of; what to expect from them.