Cold Pursuit

by Judith Cutler

  There, another topic for post-retirement study. Not just local history, industrial history too.

  So what made a man give up his career to dedicate his life to running a sad, graffiti-covered place like this? His career, and an attractive, adoring young woman.

  Assuming, of course, that he had.

  Stephen Hardy – it seemed he preferred the full version of his Christian name these days – sat her in a chilly office at the back of his church. He explained at some length that the four-bedroom detached house that he gave as his address was really his wife’s, and with two children it was hard to find a spare room for confidential business – which she’d stressed this was. To save the parish money, they’d rented out the proper vicarage.

  ‘Of course, the children are at college and university these days,’ he said, biting his lip, as if catching himself out in a lie. Or was it simply worry about the expense? He seemed the sort to worry. Slender to the point of thinness, he hunched his shoulders not so much against the cold as against life itself. Could Dilly really have fallen passionately in love with this man, painted in watercolours, not oils? Had the head she loved already been half-bald, the skin pale, the mouth girlishly pink? Had he already worn spectacles, the sort that darkened against the light?

  Sipping from a thick mug, the sort that always seemed to retain someone else’s lipstick round the rim, she said, ‘It’s about someone from your college days I want to talk.’ She shifted slightly in her chair so she could get the best view of his face as he reacted, which was with predictable horror and disbelief in face and voice alike.

  ‘Surely no one I knew there would be in any trouble! Ordained priests!’

  ‘Oh, Mr Hardy, you’d be surprised,’ she countered, with a lopsided grin that could have been cynical or sad. ‘Think Catholic priests and choirboys. But at least the dear old C of E doesn’t demand celibacy of its clergy.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. He looked more puzzled than alarmed. ‘Look, is this one of those standard police enquiries into someone’s possible criminal records? Because I’d have thought your computer files might be more reliable and less time-consuming.’ Now there was distinct resentment in his voice.

  She shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t ask a Chief Superintendent to do that.’ She flipped her ID again. ‘I’m speaking to you because, as I said when I phoned, we have a very confidential case in train at the moment. As far as I’m concerned, if I’m satisfied by your answers to some of my questions, this conversation will never go beyond these four walls, apart from a report to my superior officers – in this case, the Chief Constable himself and an Assistant Chief Constable.’

  ‘What about my wife?’

  She asked as smoothly as she could, ‘Aren’t there some conversations here that share the secrecy of the confessional?’

  ‘Apart from those, I tell her everything.’

  ‘Everything?’ she asked gently. ‘You don’t belong to the school of thought that says that some personal secrets are best kept to save hurting your partner?’

  ‘Partner! My wife, Chief Superintendent.’

  In most circumstances she wouldn’t have bitten. No doubt it was because part of her still smarted because of Mark’s decision, however much she might try to sympathise with his reasons. As it was, she snapped, ‘And would you tell your wife if you were stalking your former mistress?’

  Those pretty rosebud lips went white. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he demanded furiously, slamming down his mug and standing up. ‘How dare you!’

  ‘Please sit down. If it’s not you, someone else is. Someone is stalking a Ms Dilly Pound. You do know her, don’t you?’

  ‘Delia Pound?’

  She nodded. Delia, not Dilly. At least it was more appropriate than the Delilah they’d speculated it might be. When had the change happened?

  ‘Know her? Knew her. Once. A long time ago.’ He turned in apparent fury. ‘Why does she say I’m harassing her now?’ But he wilted under her gaze and resumed his seat.

  ‘She doesn’t. Not specifically. But someone is. And it’s standard practice to talk to people with whom the victim may have had a romantic entanglement.’

  He stood again, pointing backwards. ‘She is in my past, Chief Superintendent. And may God forgive me for having let her into my life at all.’ He was either totally sincere or a very fine actor.

  Fran might have been inclined to believe the former. But she had seen so many of the latter she had to press him further. ‘Do you ever visit London in the course of your work, Mr Hardy?’

  His colour came and went. ‘I’ve been on a course recently, as it happens. But what that has to do with poor little Delia Pound I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Could you give me details, please? Just the dates and where you stayed. Oh, and the name of the person running the course.’

  ‘This is beyond belief! How dare you come in here and – and imply—’

  ‘Sit down. Please. Look, Stephen, someone is committing an offence. Stalking, alas, as I’m sure you’re aware, all too often leads to other, more serious crimes against the victim. Physical as well as psychological harm. If it’s not you, and I’m quite prepared to believe that—’

  ‘Dashing up here to check up on me! Why not accuse me outright?’

  What had happened to the quiet, reasonable middle-aged man she’d pitied?

  ‘Because I’m quite literally trying to eliminate you from my enquiries. Please believe me.’

  ‘And Delia—’ He clamped his lips shut.

  She relented. ‘—Is almost certain the criminal isn’t you.’

  He pulled off his spectacles and opened his eyes wide. They were an amazing blue. Was it they that had first attracted Dilly? And then he smiled, the sort of pure tenderness that turned her heart over. The poor man still loved Dilly. As much as she loved Mark, and he her, marriage or no marriage. Surely he’d want to know about Dilly’s feelings, what she was doing, if she was married? Knowledge in this case might be power, but it was certainly pain. Unless asked direct, she would say nothing.

  ‘Thank God,’ he said. He rummaged furiously on his desk, then through the baskets of an old wire filing stalk, the likes of which she hadn’t seen since she was at college. ‘Here.’ He thrust a crumpled A5 brochure at her. ‘All the details: subjects, course tutors, everything. Two weeks’ residential.’

  ‘And when did you come back?’

  ‘Last weekend. You’re looking very serious. Is that when the stalking started? When I went on the course? No wonder you wanted to talk to me. Don’t you want me to do a DNA test, too?’

  ‘At this stage that’s hardly necessary.’

  He was on his feet again, only the smallness of the office preventing him from pacing. He turned. ‘What’s the bastard doing to her?’

  She’d not expected such a term from a clergyman but didn’t remark on it. ‘You know how it is with stalkers – they move on from one thing to another,’ she said, knowing he’d spot the evasion.

  ‘What got him on to her, do you think?’

  Poor man, he was fishing for news of Dilly without daring to ask. ‘I think he saw her on the TV news. Usually she reports for a local channel, but a piece she did went national.’

  He sat down heavily. ‘TV! Are you sure we’re talking about the same Delia Pound here?’

  She wanted to give him something to comfort him. ‘She said she needed strength to move on from the theological college, and found it. She took a degree in journalism and fetched up in front of the camera.’

  ‘Which region?’ he breathed. ‘No, I – but you said you were from Kent, didn’t you?’

  ‘I think I need to ask her permission before I pass on any details. Any at all,’ she said, trying to forestall the inevitable enquiry. She didn’t want to be the one to tell him that Dilly was teetering on the edge of marriage, if scarcely diving into it. She got to her feet. ‘Very well, Mr Hardy. I promise I shall only contact you again if I really need to, and only here, not at home. And I repeat my undertaking
to tell no one except my superior officers.’

  ‘What about Delia? Will you tell her I’m in the clear?’

  She picked up the leaflet. ‘As soon as we know you are.’

  The theological college where Stephen and Dilly had met was housed in an elegant Georgian building in Edgbaston, a suburb oozing money and status. At least part of it was housed there. Other, less lovely buildings had been tacked on to the back and sides, presumably in pre-town planning days.

  She handed over her card to a warmly efficient receptionist. With the minimum of fuss and wait, she was shown straight into the principal’s room, lit by a sudden burst of watery sunlight, unkind to the furniture and fittings but generous to the very handsome occupant’s patrician features and silver hair. It couldn’t have been stage-managed better.

  ‘Delia Pound?’ Dr Barlow’s eyes widened. ‘I’d have thought she was the last woman on God’s earth to be stalked. Wee tim’rous cowering creature: that was our Delia.’

  ‘So you can’t think of any student or member of staff who might have carried a torch for her?’

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘This college isn’t like a university full of testosterone-fuelled young men –’ he dropped his eyes to look at her card ‘– Dr Harman. Most of our students are mature men or women; many have families. All are called by God.’

  She nodded. To object would be to compromise the sad lovers’ confidentiality. ‘It was a very long shot. Thank you for your time.’ He kept her card, but she found herself hoping that later he would shake his head at it and flip it into the bin.

  Several hours later, she was back at Lloyd House, in the foyer meeting Mark and the Chief again. At the Chief’s suggestion, she had stowed the car in an official parking slot, on the principle that if you had rank you might as well pull it occasionally. All three set off on foot through the rush hour to find something to eat before they ventured south.

  Mark turned back. ‘Hang on. Have you left everything out of sight?’

  ‘What everything?’ Fran didn’t move.

  ‘The goodies you’ve bought. I thought you were going to hit Selfridges!’ He looked at her face. ‘Fran, what’s the problem?’ he asked so that only she could hear.

  ‘No problem,’ she responded. ‘While we’re talking about concealing items, why don’t you both sling those clothes carriers in the boot? There’s no point in carting all those silver buttons around. And since we’re in the UK’s curry capital, perhaps we should go and try the local cuisine?’

  If he’d hoped the Chief wouldn’t notice her overbright tone, he was disappointed. He wasn’t a man to miss much, was he?

  But Fran was deep in conversation with a youthful passing constable. Was he one of her protégés? He couldn’t remember very many Asian officers passing through Kent. All the same, they were clearly getting on like a house on fire – he could hear the lad’s rather high-pitched giggle as he pointed into some vague distance. Soon, waving at each other in half-salutes, they parted company, and Fran returned briskly to the two men. ‘According to Constable Nazir there, we can’t get any decent curry in the city centre. Ladypool Road, that’s where we need to go. But he says we need to kill at least an hour before we set out.’

  ‘In that case,’ the Chief said, looking at his watch, ‘I suggest a quiet drink for the three of us and a snack and a taxi for me. I hear there’s a talk this evening at the Barber Institute, out at the University, about the Florentine School and perspective. Unless you two would like to come too? The galleries themselves are worth a visit.’

  Much as he’d have liked to get Fran to himself, polite acquiescence in an evening neither would have dreamed of undertaking for their own pleasure seemed called for.

  The galleries were indeed wonderful, deserving far more than the sprint round that was all they had time for before the illustrated lecture, which lasted a couple of hours. The snack was now more than a distant memory, and Mark’s stomach had offered a tentative rumble, but the Chief was keen that they head straight for the motorway and home, rather than return to the Ladypool Road.

  It was Fran who stood her ground. ‘I wouldn’t be able to look PC Nazir in the eye again if I had to confess we’d never tried his cousin’s restaurant, sir. He promised the biggest, fluffiest naans in town. And a doggie bag for everything we couldn’t eat.’

  So it would be after two in the morning before they could speak privately. During the meal, the Chief talked, more interestingly than the lecturer, about Renaissance art.

  It wasn’t until they’d regained the car, still safe after a bit of ad hoc valet-parking by Nazir’s cousin’s son, that Fran could update them about Stephen Hardy. She took the wheel, maintaining, once they’d reached the M40, an absolutely legal and equally irritating seventy every inch of the stint she’d volunteered for. Mark felt honour-bound to take the next stretch, which he suspected would take them mysteriously to the Chief’s front door.

  At the change-over, at Oxford services, the Chief asked, ‘Will you be checking this course of Hardy’s?’

  ‘Low key, not terribly high priority,’ she replied, retiring to the back seat. Mark hoped she’d manage to doze. Instead, she was going to have to lean forward to hear and reply to the Chief’s questions.

  At last she reprised the case to everyone’s satisfaction. He hoped. As an act of conversational vandalism, he switched on the radio. Let Classic FM do its bit and soothe them.

  ‘So why no mounds of goodies from the Birmingham shops?’ he asked quietly, fishing out his garment carrier.

  ‘Didn’t buy anything.’ Fran’s voice was still brittle. Was it this case that was upsetting her so much? She seemed to have forgotten the first rule of crime-fighting, never to get personally involved. Were Hardy – they’d all diligently refrained from making wisecracks about kissing – and Dilly really a pair of star-crossed lovers? Or was Fran allowing their own amazing relationship to colour her judgement?

  He took her hand and set them gently in motion. ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘I was too old. Old, Mark. I’m old.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ When she said nothing, he asked, ‘Who says you’re old?’

  ‘No one. Not in as many words. But I was looking at all these things – shoes, undies, dresses – and I couldn’t find anything I wanted even to try on, just in case. Nothing. Nothing. And then this beautiful young man swanned over and asked if he could help, as if I were some sort of imbecile unable to navigate my way round the store. And like a fool I asked if there are any clothes for someone my age. And very, very seriously, he led me over to one rail – one rail! – of knitwear.’

  Anger at the slight surged on her behalf. ‘And you let him get away with it?’

  She shook her head, the security light peering pitilessly at her features. ‘It wasn’t his fault. The stuff he’d pointed out was good but I just couldn’t face it. So I hitched up my skirt and legged it. Metaphorically.’

  ‘And that’s all?’ He laughed with affectionate derision.

  ‘It’s quite a big all,’ she corrected him sharply. ‘It’s being middle-aged, at very least. It’s being a step nearer my mother.’ This time there was a definite catch in her voice.

  Even as he responded bracingly, he knew he was missing something, but he couldn’t for the life of him have said what. ‘You’ve got thirty years to go before you’ll get anything like your mother. Nor will you, if I have anything to do with it. Ever.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Every night I watch for you, my beloved. I watch, but I don’t see you. Where are you? Where are you hiding yourself? Must I come and find you?

  ‘He’s got to make a mistake, soon,’ Jill declared, apparently ready to smash her open hand though the top of Fran’s embarrassingly tidy desk. ‘Got to. Hasn’t he?’

  It took Fran a hard blink and conscious effort to wrench her still sleep-ridden thoughts from her middle-aged Eloise and Abelard back to the sex attacker who had in the last twenty-four hours pestered – this time not
much more than that – no fewer than three young women, all in the Hythe area this time. All out of CCTV range.

  ‘Absolutely. If only he was concentrating on a particular area, we could put in a few WPC decoys,’ she added, hoping to show she was up to speed. ‘Or is he still obsessed with teenagers Natasha’s age?’

  ‘He went for a fifty-year-old the other day. So apparently not.’

  Fran suppressed a shudder. In her bravado the other evening she might have put herself at risk. Had she? Mentally she squared her shoulders. If some runt of a flasher had come her way, she knew who’d have regretted it more. But she did not wish to allude to her little adventure. ‘Do you think it’s time for a profiler? If you want, I can bend the Chief’s ear.’

  ‘What about the temporary Chief Super? Oughtn’t the idea come from him?’

  Fran tugged her hair. ‘Of course it ought. At very least I should put it to him first before I even breathed a word to you. Or you could put it to him without having consulted me? Which would give you Brownie points.’

  ‘The way he looks down his nose at me I could do with fully-fledged Girl Guide points!’

  ‘Which reminds me, how is Tash?’

  ‘She’s given up Guiding. All sorts of issues.’

  ‘But she’s still got her cricket?’

  For some reason Jill didn’t sound enthusiastic. ‘And not much else. They want her to have special coaching at Lord’s. God knows how we’ll fit that in.’

  ‘But what an honour! She must be very good, very good indeed.’

  Jill nodded, but the worry didn’t leave her face.

  ‘And how’s Rob these days? Still into the bass guitar?’

  Jill opened her mouth, only to snap it shut again. After a moment she said, ‘Actually, he’s moved on to the drums. For some GCSE coursework.’