by Rebecca Tope
‘So why wasn’t he seen?’ Den asked boldly.
‘Not for want of trying, I can tell you. This’ll be the fifth attempt. If it fails this time, we’ll call for reinforcements. It’s a boy, seven years old.’
Den didn’t need to ask any more. Boys, rightly or wrongly, were not protected with such vigour as girls. And a child of seven, although vulnerable, was regarded as less urgent than an under-five. Seven-year-old boys could generally stand up for themselves, at least to some extent. This was the pragmatic state of affairs; far from ideal, but true just the same.
He and Jenny drove off to investigate the case, each trying to reassure the other that there was no need for much concern. ‘People very seldom hurt their own kids,’ Jenny said. ‘It’s more usually step-parents or someone a bit more removed.’
‘Right,’ Den agreed. ‘Although …’
‘Yeah. Sometimes it’s the mother who bashes the brains out of a month-old baby. Or tortures it with cigarette burns. Some people are too sick to be allowed near their own children.’ Jenny was thirty-one, fair-haired and nervy. To Den’s eyes, she wasted a lot of time trying in vain to get organised. She lost files, left the office without important documents, and panicked easily. One of Den’s regular tasks was to keep her calm and find things for her.
‘I did try to see this little chap, you know.’ She turned to him with a frown. ‘I even got into the house and had a look for him. His mother said he was playing with his friends on the rec.’
‘He probably was, then.’
‘Well, I couldn’t see him in the house. I mean – what’re we supposed to do?’ It was a familiar howl of frustration at the impossible role society was asking them all to play.
‘We do what we can,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’ll be OK.’
And, rather to his surprise, it was. The woman who answered the door to them was tidily dressed, not unduly defensive, and even came up with a smile.
‘He’s at school,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you checked?’
‘He was away yesterday,’ Jenny said.
‘Well, he’s there today. I took him right into the classroom. He had a cold yesterday. Really, he’s fine now.’ She stood in the doorway, neither inviting them in nor obstructing their way. ‘Go and see for yourselves. Though try not to make him feel an idiot in front of his mates. There’s been enough of that already.’
Jenny was gracious. ‘Well, sorry to bother you,’ she said.
‘It’s no bother. I’m glad to see you’re doing your job. But I’ve got nothing to hide, believe me. I can see it must have looked a bit odd, when he got those bruises, but Harry’s not one for your register. I look after my kids, even if there are a lot of them.’
They went back to the car. ‘Wasn’t she a bit too good to be true?’ Den queried.
‘Maybe. We’ll go to the school then, shall we?’
‘Couldn’t we just phone them? They ought to have let us know he was in today. If the teacher says he’s OK, couldn’t we leave it at that?’
Jenny chewed her lip. ‘Gibson said I had to personally view him. Preferably without clothes on.’
‘He knows that’s out of order.’ Den was indignant. ‘You need a doctor for that.’
‘Yeah, I know. He wasn’t being serious. Let’s go back, and phone the school, then.’
Jenny spoke to the child’s teacher, and was assured that he was energetic, cheerful, noisy and clean. As far from an abused or neglected child as anyone could be, the woman said. The file was signed, closed and placed in Jenny’s OUT basket.
It was one of many such inconsequential visits, which Den always found unsettling. Police work had often been the same, of course, which only made him feel more strongly that he’d dived into a cul de sac, and needed to find some direction for himself as a matter of urgency. At least he’d been paid a decent salary in the police.
All of which took Den up to within half an hour of his lunch break, with nothing accomplished, no sense of purpose or satisfaction, and a growing desire to get outside and do something to assist the investigation into Peter Grafton’s murder. He came to a decision.
‘Mr Gibson?’ He put his head around the door to the boss’s partitioned-off cubicle. ‘Do you think I could have the rest of the day off? I can’t see that I’m needed here at the moment. Actually, it might be as well to have the rest of the week. Would that be possible, do you think?’
‘Paid or unpaid?’ The man fixed him with an unresponsive stare.
‘I do have some leave owing. I’d assumed it would be paid.’
‘Supposed to give notice for that.’
‘Yes, I know. But nobody else is away this week. It’d probably suit you better for me to be off now.’
‘Don’t tell me my job. Go on, then. But I’ll expect you back here first thing Monday morning.’
‘Right you are.’ Again the ghostly sir hovered in the air.
He made directly for the Town Hall, where the fact that they were now a full week on from the murder was causing some concern. Den found Hemsley running his fingers through his thinning hair and shouting at a female Detective Constable. There was little sign of activity, and Den thought he detected signs that the Incident Room would shortly be dismantled and removed, leaving Bradbourne to resume its bric-a-brac markets and charity coffee mornings in peace.
‘Den!’ The Inspector’s enthusiasm was born more of desperation than genuine pleasure. ‘Got any breakthroughs for us?’
Den shook his head ruefully. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘This is not good,’ Hemsley grumbled. ‘A man gets himself struck down in the open street, broad daylight, peaceful little market town, and nobody sees a thing. It’s bizarre.’
‘Whoever did it has to have been in one of the buildings,’ Den said. ‘Or possibly in a passing car. Has anybody thought of that?’
‘We’ve thought of everything,’ Danny said crossly. ‘It’s not thinking that’s the issue. We need witnesses, proof, motive. We need the weapon. We need cooperation. We haven’t got anything. And the longer it goes on, the more pointless it’s all beginning to seem. We’re just sitting here pretending to be busy. Even the press has lost interest.’
Den sighed sympathetically.
‘So why are you here?’ the Inspector asked.
‘I thought I might help. I was bored. I’ve taken the rest of the week off.’
‘And what help are you offering? I do have officers, you know. Paid and trained. You’re not on the payroll, you’re not covered for injury or misdemeanours. I can’t give you any commissions of any sort.’
‘But I know some of the people,’ Den persisted. ‘And I can talk to them informally without making them suspicious. Which I’m going to do, whatever you say. It cuts both ways, you know.’
Hemsley nodded his concurrence. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.
Den’s eyebrows rose. ‘Mellow!’ he remarked. ‘Is this the new Danny?’
‘Maybe it is,’ came the reply, with a small shrug.
‘So I’ll start with Mary Thomas, shall I?’
‘Cooper,’ Danny gave a weary warning, ‘you don’t work for me any more, remember. You can go along and chat to anybody you please, but don’t so much as mention the police, or you’ll be charged with impersonation. You’re free to come and tell me anything you learn – or not. Just as you feel. If you impede our investigations, or compromise them in any way, you’re in trouble. But – and this is between the two of us – we can’t really do any worse than we are already. It’s a total blank up to now. And you’ve just about got the sense not to smudge any prints or trample on anything forensics might find useful. Be my guest,’ he said again. ‘And enjoy yourself.’
‘You took Mary Thomas in for questioning,’ Den said carefully.
‘Because she was at both scenes. Or was said to be. She denies being at the supermarket when it was bombed. She wouldn’t tell us a bloody thing, to be honest. Clammed up like a professional. I felt very much like slapping her.’
> ‘She was at the supermarket. Karen Slocombe says so. That should be good enough for anyone.’
‘Go and ask her about it then,’ Hemsley invited. ‘If you can find her.’
Den found her without difficulty in the cherry orchard. The fruit was forming in clusters on the boughs, and Den realised he’d never seen a serious crop of cherries before.
‘Unusual,’ he said, coming up to her quietly. ‘What will you do with them?’
To her credit, she didn’t jump, at least not visibly. She turned smoothly, every muscle under firm control.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Or is it afternoon?’
‘I’m sorry to intrude like this,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m a friend of Karen Slocombe’s.’
If he’d expected that to elicit a notable response, he was disappointed.
‘Indeed?’ was all she said. Then she remained standing under the tree, simply waiting for what might come next. He observed her minutely. Medium height, slim, wearing the sort of clothes you’d expect on an older woman. A skirt that looked too thick for the warm season, and a tweedy sort of jerkin over a check shirt. She looked like someone off to the point-to-point, except that her feet were bare.
He hadn’t noticed at first, in the long grass of the orchard. But now he could glimpse toes and ankles beneath the calf-length skirt and his entire impression changed. Here was a woman capable of anything. A woman without any respect for conventions, dangerous and unpredictable.
‘You lied to the police,’ he said calmly. ‘Karen heard you.’
‘Karen has it all wrong.’
‘She thinks you’re involved in some sort of secret activity, to do with food politics. GM crops, probably. You’re thought to be part of the group that trashed the maize crop last month …’
‘An eco-terrorist?’ Her eyes twinkled at him. ‘Isn’t that what such people are called?’
‘You tell me.’
‘You haven’t told me your name,’ she accused him. ‘That’s not very polite, is it?’
‘Oh, sorry. Den Cooper.’ He still had to remember not to prefix his name with Detective Sergeant, and reach for his ID card.
‘Well, Den Cooper, I really don’t understand why you’re here. You seem to want me to admit something, to make a confession to you. Can that be right?’
‘It’s right in a way. I’m not a messenger for Karen – she doesn’t even know I’m here. But I want you to understand she’s on the same side as you. She doesn’t see why you and she seem to be opposed in some way. I think she’s quite upset about it.’
‘Ah! You’re her protector. Sir Galahad. But hasn’t she got a perfectly good husband for that sort of thing?’
‘I’m not her protector. I want to know what’s going on, for my own satisfaction.’
‘And you think I’ll tell you, just like that? I don’t know you. You could be working for SuperFare itself, for all I know.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m just taking an interest, and trying to get to the bottom of what’s been going on. I’d appreciate you telling me some of the background. What is food politics, anyway? It sounds daft, when you think about it. And I’m not working for SuperFare. I’m hardly working for anyone just now.’
She stared up at his face, as if trying to decide something. ‘Are you by any chance trying to offer me your services?’ she asked. ‘Because that might be a different matter, if you are.’
‘Why? Do you need somebody?’
‘I do, as it happens. Come on in and have some soup while I tell you about it.’
Den realised afterwards that he ought to have known what was coming, at least in outline. A woman living alone, nudging sixty, with all her faculties, was inevitably going to have an eventful past. And that eventful past was very likely to impinge on the present and cause a variety of ripples. It was Den’s experience that the explanation for most present crises lay in things that had happened decades earlier. He was aware that time scarcely mattered at all when it came to the passions that people generated between themselves. Emotional wounds never really healed, and if they were not aired and admitted, they slowly festered until something eventually had to give.
Mary Thomas told him a story that roughly fitted this view of things.
‘I’ve lived in this area all my life,’ she began, settling herself comfortably in the big wooden kitchen chair. They both had bowls of thick vegetable soup in front of them, and chunks of home-baked granary bread. ‘It’s funny how embarrassing it can be to admit that, sometimes. As if there’s more virtue in moving around and living in a lot of different places. Makes a person sound dull, I suppose.’
Den smiled and waited.
‘I married when I was thirty. He was a widower, quite a lot older than me, with three grown up children. We had twin boys.’
Den found himself looking round for signs of twin boys, despite knowing they must be adults by this time. The idea of twin boys appealed to him much more than he would have anticipated. ‘Nice,’ he said.
‘Busy,’ she corrected him. ‘But they were bright and funny and handsome. Not identical at all, by the way. But their father died when they were ten, which was not nice at all. He was fifty-five, which was far too young to die. He’d neglected to change the will he made when we were first married, which still left everything to his older children, and although I contested it, and did get this house, it was a meagre living for a while. I can see what you’re thinking.’ She aimed an accusing look at him. ‘Why couldn’t I go out and get myself a job?’
Den spread his hands in outraged innocence.
‘Never mind. I did, as it happens, but my earnings were nothing to boast about. Anyway, I became expert at working the system, accepting whatever handouts various organisations might have available. And that included places at Christ’s Hospital for the boys.’
‘Christ’s Hospital?’
‘It’s a boarding school in Sussex. They take boys – and girls now, I believe – with brains but not much money. They wear strange old-fashioned clothes, but it’s an excellent place on the whole. It would all have been fine, except that I lost my sons in the process. They never really felt like mine after that. I went through a period of absolute rage against Michael for leaving his will the way it had been before the twins were born. I was sorry for myself and my boys, and I hated Georgina, Fergus and Ninian – my stepchildren. Even though they were as pleasant as possible throughout, they clearly believed themselves entitled to the money, and never gave me anything beyond what they were forced to.’ Den shook his head sympathetically.
‘Anyway, they all dispersed, and I haven’t spoken to any of them for ages now. They’re not relevant. It’s my own boys, Joshua and Humphrey, who concern me.’
Den began to wonder where all this was leading. Although she was speaking fast and the soup was still hot, he felt a flicker of impatience.
‘Well, to cut to the main point, they, my sons, became very political in their senior school years. They both went to the LSE and took part in political rallies and campaigns and I don’t know what.’
Ah! thought Den.
‘Joshua gradually lost interest, after he graduated, but Humphrey has been getting more and more into it. He’s been on all the big protests – and a lot of smaller ones. He’s taught himself a mass of environmental science, been to America to see what’s going on there, and is enormously committed. And he’s taken me along with him, you might say.’ She gave a rueful grin. ‘It feels as if I’ve now got at least one of my sons back.’
‘Joshua and Humphrey,’ Den repeated, almost reaching for a non-existent notebook to write down the names in.
‘That’s right. They’re twenty-seven now, which is very hard to believe. Joshua lives in Leeds with a girlfriend. He’s working in some little college that calls itself a University.’ Her dismissiveness was awesome.
‘And Humphrey?’
‘He’s based in London, but he travels all over. You never know where he might show up next. I’ve got very
good at spotting him on the news. I knitted his balaclava, so I can always recognise him.’
If you can, so can the police, Den thought. ‘So he’s an eco-warrior, is he?’
‘That’s right.’ Excitement glittered in her eyes. ‘And he needs all the help he can get.’
Den remembered that she’d said she wanted his assistance. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Not me. You’re not asking me to go and pull out genetically modified sweetcorn, are you?’
She laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘Nothing like that. Though you ought not to condemn them for it until you understand the facts.’
‘I do understand the facts,’ he said crossly.
‘Good. No, what we want from you, Den Cooper, friend of the estimable Slocombes, is intelligence. In both senses of the word. Ferret out the undercurrents for us: whether they’re onto us; where they’ll strike next – that sort of thing. But above all, I want you to persuade Karen to change her story about the supermarket. Tell her it’s absolutely vital that she should stop saying I was there. Because I wasn’t. That was not me. Karen was mistaken.’ She slapped the table hard with each short sentence. So hard that Den very nearly believed her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘You want me to persuade her?’ he echoed. ‘How am I meant to do that?’
‘She’s your friend, isn’t she? Do it in whatever way you like.’
‘We’re not actually that close,’ he began. ‘I don’t think.’
‘Oh, well,’ she shrugged. ‘Don’t get in a state about it.’
‘If I could tell her there’s a really good reason for changing her story, that might be different.’ He tailed off again, as he realised this wasn’t the case at all. ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ he corrected himself. ‘She’s too honest for that.’
