A Narrow Return

by Faith Martin

  ‘Hello?’

  He hadn’t heard the voice in years, but he recognized it at once and his heart began to beat again. It was the second time that day it had had so much exercise, but this time it had nothing to do with fear or apprehension.

  ‘Hello. It’s me. Phil.’

  There was a moment of complete surprised silence, and then, ‘Phil? Cleeves?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this, but I had to talk to you. I had a visit from the police today.’

  For the next ten minutes he spoke, awkwardly at first, but then with growing confidence. Finally, after listening to what the other caller had to say, he sighed in a mixture of relief and exasperation.

  ‘No, I know her murder doesn’t have anything to do with us,’ Phil said somewhat impatiently. ‘But don’t you see? With the case being re-opened and all, they might just bumble around and step on our toes. They’ve already been to the school. Who knows what they might do next. I just don’t want to get involved, that’s all.’

  He listened and sighed. ‘I know I’m not involved now. But things have a way of becoming … well, dangerous. For both of us. I think it would be a good idea if we got our stories straight. Just in case we need to make a statement at any time. Yes. Right. OK. Fine, I’ll do that. In the meantime, I think it’s best if we don’t get in touch again. Yes! I know I called you. I’m just saying, this should be the only time we have any contact.’

  He glanced around at the noisy bar, suddenly feeling old and vulnerable.

  He felt, in fact, like shit.

  ‘Yes. OK. I…. Look, I’m sorry, right?’ He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, feeling equal measures of nostalgia and regret. ‘What for? Just … for everything. That’s all. OK, bye. Yes. Bye.’

  He hung up and moved stiffly to the bar. There he ordered himself two more gin and tonics.

  Tonight, for the first time in quite a while, he felt like getting extremely drunk.

  The weekend passed uneventfully. On the Saturday, Hillary gave Puff a thorough clean, inside and out, and got a load of shopping in. She also retrieved her push bike and secured it onto the roof rack on top of her narrowboat.

  She had Sunday lunch at the pub, and spent a few hours putting the final finishing touches to her novel.

  During her ‘retirement’ she’d written a police procedural whodunnit. It wasn’t even based loosely on any of her cases, being purely fictional, although the DI heroine might have had a passing resemblance to herself.

  Apart from being a blue-eyed, svelte blonde, with a neurosurgeon husband and adorable twins, that is.

  It had been fun, and dotting the last few ‘I’s’ and crossing the final ‘T’, she finally made up her mind to send it to a publisher.

  It would probably come back with a nice little bog-standard rejection slip, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  On Monday morning, she stopped off at the post office to mail her manuscript off to a large, popular publishing outfit that specialized in crime, and then drove on into work.

  As she spied the HQ building looming up, she heaved a heavy sigh. Her first task of the day was not going to be pleasant.

  She parked and walked down into the basement, going straight to Steven Crayle’s office.

  In her bag, she took out the card, then tapped on the door.

  If she’d been in one of those television programmes she so despised, the last thing she’d do is tell her boss that she was being stalked. For some reason that totally escaped her – TV heroines were always doing daft things like that. They either wanted to prove they were as tough as the men, or that they didn’t need anyone to sort out their problems for them. As a consequence, they usually ended up at the end of the episode in a nail-biting position whereby their male colleagues had to rescue them from the mad hatchet man. Or whatever.

  In real life, of course, it had to play out differently.

  ‘Come in.’

  She opened the door and walked in.

  It was still early, but she could see at once that the superintendent had already been in and working for several hours. His suit jacket was slung over the back of his chair, his tie was loosened, and he had his shirt sleeves rolled up. Paperwork was in the process of passing from his IN tray to his OUT tray.

  She remembered the routine well.

  His dark hair flopped in two wings over his forehead, making her fingers itch to push them back. She told her fingers to forget about it.

  ‘Si … Steven,’ she said blandly, when he glanced up at her.

  She put the card on his desk and he stared at it for a moment. What the hell? A Valentines card?

  He stared at it, then at her, then at it again. Finally he smiled. ‘Well, I’m flattered, Hillary, and all that but—’

  ‘Sir,’ Hillary said flatly, in no mood for fun and games. ‘I think I’ve picked up a stalker.’

  Crayle’s smile instantly vanished.

  ‘A few days ago someone stole a comb from my locker,’ she stated flatly. ‘Then they left a vase of roses on my desk here. Then Friday night, I found that on top of my narrowboat,’ she nodded down at the offending card. ‘And someone had been inside. Nothing was missing, but things were slightly out of place.’

  Using a pen, Crayle pulled the padded heart towards him. ‘I’ll get Handley to run it for prints. But if it’s someone on the job, it’ll be unlikely he was stupid enough to leave prints.’ He paused for a moment, and then looked at her.

  ‘You do think it’s someone on the job, right?’

  Hillary sighed and shrugged. ‘How many civilians have access to the locker rooms down here?’

  Crayle nodded. ‘Not many. Cleaning staff?’

  Hillary nodded. ‘The padlocks on both the locker and the Mollern were picked. Ex-cons?’

  ‘You’ve put a fair few behind bars, but none of them would be employed to work here. I know the recruiting regime can be a bit lax, though.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’d better go through the files.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘My ex-sergeant, Janine, she had a stalker once,’ she mused. ‘Turns out it was a PC right here in the station.’

  ‘You think history’s repeating itself? What was his name?’

  Hillary gave it to him.

  ‘I’ll check him out. But it’s unlikely to be the same man.’

  Hillary knew that too. It was unlikely, after the scare she’d put into him, that he would be looking at her as his ‘true soulmate’.

  ‘OK, I’ll requisition a camera. We’ll hide it and keep it fixed on your locker, that way if Romeo tries the same trick twice, we’ll get a visual on him,’ Crayle said. ‘Want me to set one up in your office?’

  ‘Hell no,’ she said quickly. The thought of knowing that Steven Crayle could be watching her at any time of the day without her knowing about it would send her blood pressure sky-rocketing.

  ‘OK. We’ll find him. But I don’t have to tell you that it might take a while. If he’s done this sort of thing before, he’ll be careful. And in the meantime, you know the drill.’

  Hillary smiled crookedly. ‘Be alert. Don’t go out alone at night. Have a digital camera with me at all times, and take discreet pictures of anyone I see hanging around. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.’

  Crayle grinned. ‘OK, granny, here endeth the lesson on egg-sucking.’

  Hillary nodded with a wry smile, and walked to the door. Crayle watched her go, and then stared down morosely at the Valentine’s card.

  So the flowers hadn’t been from a lover. He felt glad about that. On the other hand, a stalker was bad news. There were stalkers, and there were stalkers. Some could be fairly harmless, some could be pests, and some real head-cases who could turn out to be murderously dangerous.

  And the thought that someone, and probably a cop at that, had Hillary in their mentally-deficient sights filled him with a mixture of anger and dread.

  As Hillary had done less than forty-eight hours ago, he swore roundly and with
feeling.

  This was just what they needed.

  ‘Jimmy, I want you to get cracking with the warrant,’ Hillary said, a few minutes later. ‘Then I want you to take Sam and Vivienne to collect the DNA samples from both of the Burgesses. It’ll be good practice for them. It’s time they had some practical experience of chain of evidence.’

  ‘Right, guv,’ Jimmy said. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going back to Jenny McRae,’ Hillary said. But although Jimmy looked a question at her, she didn’t elaborate. The truth was, she was stuck at a dead end, and when there was nothing else to do, a second interview with a witness was better than twiddling your thumbs.

  But she didn’t want to tell her team that. Just because she was disheartened, didn’t mean she fancied company in her misery.

  ‘Oh, you’re back,’ Jenny McRae said flatly, when she answered the knock at the door and found the redheaded police woman on her doorstep. She didn’t sound particularly welcoming.

  Hillary didn’t take it personally.

  From the back of the tiny flat, Hillary was sure she could hear children’s voices.

  ‘Kids in school, Jenny?’ she asked, as the younger woman, who, at gone ten in the morning was still dressed in pyjamas and a dirty housecoat, led her into the kitchenette.

  ‘Yeah, course,’ Jenny lied. ‘Cup of coffee?’ she then asked, so loudly that she was almost shouting.

  The sound of childish bickering abruptly ceased.

  Hillary declined. She watched Jenny make herself some toast, and wandered over to a grimy window.

  ‘I’ve talked to Lucy,’ she said. ‘I got the feeling that she knew about your mother’s lovers,’ she said, deliberately bluntly.

  Jenny, in the act of putting jam onto some toast, froze momentarily, and then shrugged.

  ‘Lucy likes to give the impression that she knows everything.’

  Hillary smiled. ‘Sisters, huh?’

  Jenny shrugged.

  ‘Do you see much of your Aunt Debbie?’

  Again Jenny shrugged. ‘Not much.’

  ‘But she helps you out from time to time?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘What about Peter?’

  Jenny snorted. ‘He wouldn’t give me the drippings from his nose. He said he’d get me into rehab once, as if he was doing me this great big sodding favour. I told him, I didn’t want rehab. I just wanted some cash for a score. I haven’t seen him since.’

  Hillary nodded, then remembering the assignment she’d given Sam and Vivienne, said, ‘Have you remembered what sort of trouble he was in at school?’

  Jenny bit her toast and chewed, frowning fiercely.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You said he and your mum were arguing about some trouble at school. This would be the summer time, just before she died.’

  ‘Oh that. I don’t know. Something about one of his teachers. He was being bullied, or something. I don’t know. She was going to sort it out for him, and Peter didn’t want her going anywhere near the school. Can’t blame him. You make a fuss, and you only get picked on more.’

  ‘Can you remember which teacher it was who had it in for him?’

  ‘Nah. His French teacher, I think. Or the geography teacher. Or maybe it wasn’t one of the teachers, but a gang of kids, and the teacher was trying to help him. Anyway, it was no big deal. Mum would have sorted it out.’ She suddenly stopped chewing as she suddenly realized that, actually, her mother had never had the opportunity to sort anything out.

  She swallowed hard, and threw the rest of her breakfast into the bin.

  ‘Your sister is moving into a new flat,’ Hillary said quietly. ‘She seems to have come into some money recently. She talk to you about that?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jenny said. ‘It’ll be some man. Paying for it, I mean.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘Do you think she learned that from your mother?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jenny said, bristling.

  ‘I mean, do you ever remember your mum having more money to spend sometimes? Did she have pretty jewellery that your father didn’t buy her, for instance?’

  ‘Oh that,’ Jenny said dismissively. ‘No, nothing like that. Lucy’s a tart. Mum wasn’t.’

  When Hillary got back to HQ she filled in her morning’s work in the murder book and began to read it from start to finish. It was something she periodically did whenever she was stuck for something to do, and she was glad that she did.

  Because the first thing Sam had done on coming in that morning, whilst she’d been talking to Steven Crayle about her secret admirer, was fill in his contributions to it as well.

  And in light of her conversation with Jenny, there was one particular item in it that stood out as deserving more of her attention.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hillary walked through to the communal office, but apart from Jimmy, it was empty. This wasn’t all that unusual, since both the younger members of their team had other commitments. It was something she was finding it hard to get used to.

  ‘Where’s everybody?’

  ‘Sam’s in a class at uni, and Vivienne’s working on something for Sergeant Handley.’

  Hillary sighed. ‘I didn’t realize we had to share them with the computer nerds as well.’

  ‘We don’t normally, but they’re short staffed with some big fraud cause, and need more hands on keyboards.’

  Hillary nodded philosophically, then smiled, a cat-contemplating-the-cream sort of smile. Jimmy found it fascinating. ‘So Handley owes us a favour then?’ she asked slyly.

  Jimmy grinned, instantly catching on. The more he got to know his new boss, the better he liked her. ‘Planning on calling it in, guv?’

  ‘I might be. I’ve just been reading young Sam’s account of his visit to the McRae children’s school.’

  Something in her voice made Jimmy glance at her sharply. ‘Found something?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. Something in it struck me as possibly relevant. Have you got Sam’s mobile number?’

  ‘Sure.’ He rattled it off as Hillary punched in the numbers on her own phone. It rang twice and was quickly picked up.

  ‘Yeah?’ the voice was Sam’s but pitched low, and she realized he was probably in a lecture. She squashed any feelings of guilt quickly.

  ‘Sorry Sam, it’s Hillary. Sorry to bother you like this, but I’ve just got one quick question, then I’ll leave you to it. This Phil Cleeves, the school teacher you spoke to yesterday. Would you say he was good looking?’

  Watching her, Jimmy’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  There came a soft snort on the other end of the line. ‘Well, Viv thought so,’ Sam said grumpily.

  ‘Thanks Sam, that’s all I needed to know,’ Hillary said, and hung up promptly. She frowned thoughtfully then glanced at Jimmy. ‘Fancy going back to school, Jimmy?’ she asked softly.

  ‘I should bloody cocoa,’ the old man said. ‘Best days of your life, my arse.’

  Hillary laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let them keep you in after class.’

  Phil Cleeves was in the staff room when they arrived, it being just going on for the end of the lunch hour. The room held only two others, who both looked up curiously as Phil quickly ushered them outside.

  ‘Sorry about that, but you wouldn’t believe the gossip mill in this place,’ Phil said, as he led them out into an open area opposite the school playing fields. ‘I’ve already had several queries from the head and the deputy head about the police visit on Friday. The last thing I need is for them to think my being questioned by the police is going to become a habit.’ A brisk wind was stirring, but the sun was out, and Hillary tucked her hands into the pockets of her jacket as they started to casually stroll across the grounds.

  Hillary studied the geography teacher briefly. She could understand why he’d be attractive to Vivienne, who was obviously going through an older man phase. Although in his fifties, Phil Cleeves still had a lean figure, and was lucky enough to possess the kind of
facial features that aged well.

  Jimmy, remaining silent, wondered what the guv had in mind.

  ‘My colleagues spoke to you before the weekend, I believe, about the Anne McRae murder case,’ Hillary began.

  ‘Yes. I assumed that was what this was about,’ Phil said, with a brief smile. ‘I can’t think what else about me would interest the police.’

  The instant he’d said it, he wished he’d kept his big mouth shut. At least he managed to stop himself from letting the sickly smile that wanted to come to his face show itself.

  Hillary nodded. That was twice now he’d indicated how unhappy he was to be the object of police attention. There was probably nothing in that, of course. Professional people often didn’t like to have attention drawn to them by the forces of law and order. Their reputations, perforce, had to mean a lot to them. But it still made her wonder if there wasn’t something about the man that protested a shade too much.

  ‘I’m sorry if it’s awkward for you, sir, calling on your place of work. If you’d like, I can have a word with your superiors – inform them that you’re simply giving us information that might be useful to us. If it wasn’t you, it could just as easily be another teacher who was around during the right period,’ Hillary said, somewhat less than truthfully.

  Phil sighed. ‘No, don’t bother. They already know that – the head’s secretary told them what you needed. It’s just that, like I said, it’ll be all over the shop by the end of the day that you’ve been back. I’ll have hoards of 12-year-olds humming the theme tune to The Bill for weeks to come whenever I pass by.’

  He laughed.

  Jimmy and Hillary smiled obligingly.

  ‘I just wanted to clear up one or two things, that’s all,’ Hillary carried on smoothly. ‘You taught all three of the McRae children, at various times, or so I understand?’