Cold Pursuit

by Judith Cutler

  ‘So you’re the Reverend J something-or-other Falkirk?’ Fran sounded doubtful: there was no odour of sanctity about her, not even a dog-collar as far as she could tell.

  ‘Janie. And you are?’

  Fran flipped open her ID. ‘Fran Harman.’

  Janie Falkirk narrowed her eyes. ‘A Detective Chief Superintendent? Out on the beat, are you? Are they short of PC Plods? Ah yes, of course they are: that’s why we never see one round here.’

  ‘I’ll get on to that,’ Fran assured her. ‘Actually, I was looking for you.’

  ‘Not for speeding in my Beamer on the M2 again!’

  ‘Don’t you just wish? Alas, I need information about someone in your flock.’

  In contrast to the church, the vicarage was a huge sprawling Edwardian edifice. ‘A bomb got the church, but not this. I could wish, in the cold, that it had been the other way round. Actually, all the time. The church was Norman, very lovely, by all accounts. This pile could never have been anything except a refrigerator. I inhabit the kitchen, as the only place I can afford to heat, if that’s OK by you?’ She slipped off her a hand-knitted scarf, revealing under her duffel coat a polo-necked jumper that either supported her chin or became another one. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’

  There was not a mod con to be seen, though perhaps the scullery was large enough to accommodate a washing machine and a fridge, even a freezer. But there was something pleasing about the wooden slatted drying rack hanging from the ceiling and the big rectangular table, once scrubbed by armies of minions and now by this practical-looking woman not much shorter than herself. Everything about that round, slightly pugnacious chin and the strapping frame inspired confidence. Perhaps that was why Dilly and Daniel worshipped in such an unfashionable place, when she’d have seen Daniel as very much a cathedral man.

  ‘Now, how can I help you?’ From somewhere – how could such a sturdy woman move so silently? – Janie produced a tin of shortbread. ‘I’ve got to be out in half an hour, so we can’t settle for a nice chat, not this time, anyway.’

  No unnecessary explanation. Fran liked that in a person. ‘We speak in absolute confidence?’

  ‘Is there any other way?’ Janie sounded amused rather than pious.

  ‘One of your congregation is being stalked. There’s no reason to believe the stalker is known to her, but I’m checking all eventualities.’

  ‘You? Aren’t chief supers a bit like bishops? Desk bound?’

  ‘The victim is high-profile, so the officers dealing with it are strictly need to know.’

  ‘High profile? Are we really talking about St Jude’s, Ms Harman? We have a congregation barely reaching a score most of the time, and many are known to the police in quite a different way.’

  ‘The young woman in question came to the Alpha Course about a year ago. Dilly Pound.’

  ‘Ah, before she became the face of crime on TVInvicta. So she did. And that man who’s since become her fiancé, I understand.’ She crunched her face and snapped her fingers in an effort to recall his name.

  ‘Daniel. Daniel McDine. You don’t sound very enthusiastic about him.’

  ‘It’s not I who am engaged to marry him. Neither worships here any more, I’m afraid. I think they prefer the anonymity of the Cathedral, and who can blame them, now she’s public property.’

  ‘Funny – he implied he still came here. But – since your time is limited—’

  ‘I’m due at the prison, Ms Harman. Not a very flexible institution.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Do you keep records of people who come on your courses? Names, addresses?’

  ‘We tend to know regular attenders, but people drop in off the street, and some distinctly prefer anonymity. Who are we to argue if they just give a Christian name? Some might not even have addresses – we’ve had people sleeping rough come along, more for the warmth and the tea and bikkies than for God’s word, I suspect.’

  ‘Why don’t you chuck them out?’

  Janie shook her mop of hair. ‘Chief Superintendent, that’s a disappointingly conventional question. You wouldn’t expect the Sally Army to throw out street people: why should we? Remember what Christ said about the poor.’

  ‘Not that bit about them being always with us,’ Fran laughed.

  ‘Touché.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘You look up all the other references yourself, as penance.’

  It might have been a joke, but Fran suspected the intention was not. ‘I just might. They may turn out to be the reasons I joined the police,’ she said seriously. ‘Now, would you recall – I’m aware that this is a stupid question, but bear with me – would you recall any oddballs on that particular course? Any man obviously attracted to Dilly?’

  ‘Her fiancé apart, you mean?’

  ‘An oddball? That’s a bit unkind.’

  ‘We are talking in confidence, are we not?’ Janie chortled. ‘OK, let’s just call him a control freak.’

  ‘Agreed. But the logistics of the stalking make it hard to put him in the frame, much as I’d like to.’

  Janie frowned. ‘I don’t remember any poor souls that might turn to stalking. Have you tried Dilly’s writing group? I seem to recall from my own attempts to write the Great British Novel that such things attract what you might call psychic cripples.’

  ‘I didn’t know she went to a writers’ group.’

  Janie shook her head. ‘Maybe I’m mistaken. Maybe it was someone else. Senior moments, Chief Superintendent. But, tell you what, I’ll have a wee root round in the records and if I come up with anything I’ll contact you on the instant.’

  TVInvicta in the form of Huw Venn greeted her like a long-lost cousin, but had no mail to pass on. ‘We’ve hired a bodyguard to accompany her when she has to go out for a story, ’ he beamed, settling behind his desk, hands across his stomach. ‘He accompanies her right back to the office. And if you want, he can drive her back to her home. She’s a very popular part of our team, both with viewers and her colleagues.’

  Surprised by such a headmasterly encomium, delivered as if it were a job reference, she smiled quizzically. ‘It’s good to see such cooperation, Huw. I don’t suppose you’d like an exclusive story when everything’s done and dusted? If one were on offer?’

  ‘I think we might, you know. If one were on offer, of course.’ He stood. ‘Coffee? I’ve a new machine I’m dying to have an excuse to try out. Or is it a capital offence to blow up a Chief Superintendent, even by mistake?’

  ‘Probably. But we could risk it. Tell me, is Dilly around?’

  ‘Out on a job with her new guard. I bet her miserable fiancé won’t like that, not if he didn’t like her spending the night with a lovely young policeman,’ he added, in full nudge-nudge-wink-wink mode. Now, how did he know about that? ‘Do you know what she sees in Daniel, Fran?’ He passed her what smelt like a very good espresso.

  She shook her head, almost repressively. ‘Who knows what anyone sees in their partner? Oh, this is excellent. Thanks.’

  But he didn’t take the hint. ‘Partner! Don’t let him hear you use that term! He’s a proper fiancé! Oh, I wish we could find her a really nice young man.’

  ‘Nailing her stalker’s all I’ve got on my mind at the moment. Now, is she likely to be back soon? If not, could you ask her to call me when she has a moment…’

  A Post-it greeted her on her return:

  Guv

  We’ve sorted the website

  T and H

  Three minutes later she was in the Incident Room, greeted by Tom, seated in front of a screen currently showing nothing but a screen-saver, and Harbijan, standing hands-in-pockets beside him.

  Harbijan shifted his feet. ‘Guv – some of it’s not very nice.’

  ‘Come on, lad, I was in Vice for three years – I bet there’s nothing much here I’ve not seen before.’

  ‘Well, here you are.’

  Tom fiddled with the mouse. Adjusting her glasses, Fran peered over his shoulder at the
screen. ‘Bloody hell! That is pretty hardcore stuff! Now, why should a teenage girl refer me to this site?’

  ‘The visual equivalent of get stuffed?’ Harbijan ventured.

  She straightened. ‘Well, someone certainly is. And in a rich variety of ways.’

  Her laughter was cut short. To think that thirteen-year-old Tash must have seen this…

  ‘Or did she want you to see something on it?’ Tom pointed. ‘Those heads – they don’t match the bodies. They’re too young, surely. That guy there – with the dog. Look at this! Body courtesy of a lot of time in the gym, face of a weedy little chap.’

  Her stomach turned. That face was dreadfully familiar, though she’d not seen it recently. It couldn’t be Rob Tanner’s, could it? Could it? Best to say nothing yet. Not until she’d shown the video to Jill.

  ‘And this kid? An ordinary teenager doing that with that particularly well-endowed young man?’

  ‘She can’t be more than twelve, thirteen at most!’ Harbijan sounded as outraged as she felt.

  ‘What does it feel like to have your face kidnapped?’ Tom demanded. ‘And to be put in that sort of sexual position? And to have all your mates sniggering about it?’

  She leaned back. ‘Bullying, that’s what this is. A vicious variant of that happy-slapping scam you’re working on. Any chance you could save all this as evidence and still close down the site?’

  Harbijan said, with a patience she thought commendable, ‘That’s what we’ve done with all the other sites, ma’am. Trouble is, knock out one, you get three more.’

  ‘Do you want to see the rest, guv, or have you had enough?’

  ‘Just save it all for me on something portable. There’s someone else I want to see this, for reasons I can’t explain, I’m afraid. Not yet,’ she added. She didn’t want them to feel excluded unnecessarily. ‘Strictly need to know stuff.’

  ‘D—’ Tom blushed scarlet, as well he might.

  ‘No. Another strictly need to know,’ she said firmly. ‘And if you can find out the school the perpetrators of that vile stuff go to, I want to know immediately – before you even think of contacting the head, or whatever Jill’s policy was.’

  ‘Also need to know, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, Harbijan, do call me guv. Otherwise I feel like the Queen. And yes, please. Definitely need to know only.’

  Tom was hovering near the ladies’ loo when she emerged. ‘Dilly, guv. She now tells me she thinks someone stole her credit card, like. One she kept locked in her desk drawer at home “just in case”. And someone changed her toothpaste tube for another make.’

  ‘Not Daniel thinking hers wasn’t upmarket enough? Sorry, just joking. Anything else missing or disturbed?’

  ‘She thinks someone had been through her undies drawers too. Clean ones, this time. “Daniel likes her to leave everything tidy”,’ he added in an irritated mimicry of Dilly at her most supine.

  ‘Even knickers? In places he shouldn’t be looking?’

  ‘Especially things in places he shouldn’t be looking. And now the credit card’s back, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Do we have an exact sequence of events?’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s what I asked her for. But she only thought to tell me an hour ago, and I was too busy to press her. Trouble is, you don’t know whether to be kind to her or shake her for being so bloody stupid!’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ‘I’m not telling you how the rumour reached me, Chief Superintendent. What I want to know is if you know about it and if it has a foundation in fact.’

  Fran stood at attention. If the Chief Constable wanted to be formal, she wouldn’t argue. They both knew that she could have been lying in the sun somewhere, had it not been for his pleas for her to stay, and they knew equally well that his strings were being pulled by the Home Secretary, who expected him at the very word drugs to huff and puff with the full force of rank behind him. Sooner or later he’d simmer down. She hoped so, for the sake of his post-lunch digestion. That apart, the quicker the better: she had real policing to get on with.

  Meanwhile, all her years in the force meant she faced him across the acres of polished wood with more anxiety than she cared to admit. He was so good at being fierce she replied with great formality, ‘Sir, I would stake my reputation on DCI Tanner being as drug-free as you or me.’

  He took a couple of paces, then spun on his heel. If only he’d get on with this mandatory yelling so that she could get back to proper work.

  ‘How else would you explain a perfectly fit woman falling down the stairs and injuring herself?’

  ‘With respect, sir, it’s not impossible. As you know, teenage children and tidiness are hardly synonymous,’ she ventured, though she suspected that the Chief Constable had begotten and bred a paragon of virtue, ‘and she believes that she tripped over something when her arms were full of bedclothes. Her injuries are certainly consistent with such a fall.’

  ‘It’s not the fall I doubt, Chief Superintendent, it’s the cause. I understand she’s come in smelling of cannabis on a number of occasions. And that perhaps she’s used other substances too.’

  Which evil, conniving little toerag had come snivelling out of the woodwork with this? ‘As it happens, Sir, ACC Turner and I went to visit DCI Tanner at her home on Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. There were bruises on her arms, but not needle marks. Heavens, she doesn’t drink, so I can’t imagine her even succumbing to a quick spliff.’

  ‘So how would you explain the bruises?’

  ‘They were as if someone had gripped her too fiercely. She claims her husband is a passionate man. I suspect there may be another explanation, which I am trying to discover.’

  He sat down abruptly, waving a hand at the chair opposite. ‘You’re on to it already?’ His hectoring tone was replaced by his private voice. Any moment now they could stop playing games.

  ‘Mark and I, sir. I didn’t want anyone else involved. As soon as I picked up – and tried to quash – the first rumour. Off the record, it’s one of her kids, guv. And I reckon she fell because she was pushed. And I think we shall find that if her son is taking drugs there are some extenuating circumstances.’ She leant forward confidentially. ‘You couldn’t just slap down whatever lowlife grassed her up and leave it in my hands – and Mark’s – for a bit?’ It would give her time to check the MisPer file again – there’d been nothing earlier. So perhaps Rob was safely at home, in which case Mark had been right not to let her interfere, or perhaps for some weird reason Jill didn’t want to involve any of her colleagues.

  The Chief was smiling. ‘So long as you sort it, Fran. Good and proper. Now, what’s the news of the delectable Dilly?’

  She briefed him as swiftly as she could. He seemed affable enough, so she asked, ‘There’s a rumour about other sexual assaults, sir. Can you tell me what’s new?’

  ‘I thought you were off that investigation?’

  ‘I am. Technically it’s nothing to do with me. But as a woman I’m interested. I went for a solo prowl round Ashford the other night.’

  ‘Solo?’ he repeated sharply.

  ‘I had to be there for something else. I found it’s a very scary place when you know our friend could strike again at any moment.’

  Before he could say anything, his secretary tapped and came in. The Chief Constable of Sussex was in the building, and had been waiting five minutes already.

  ‘We’ll talk more about this,’ the Chief said, grabbing his jacket. ‘Meanwhile, Farmer’s doing a full briefing any moment now. Why not gatecrash?’

  Joe Farmer was in mid-spiel when Fran made her way into the Incident Room. ‘…no more minor attacks just out of range of CCTV cameras,’ he was saying, ‘since the end of last week. What we have had is three far more serious attacks, in full view of cameras. The trouble is that one has been committed by George W Bush, one by Tony Blair and one by Margaret Thatcher – those hideous face masks, in other words.’

  Fran caught Tom’s
eye. Could this be the breakthrough they all needed? He responded with a particularly curly thumbs-up.

  Others were less enthusiastic.

  ‘Bloody hell, you’d have thought shafting entire nations would be enough!’

  ‘Nah, he wouldn’t have the brains to dodge the cameras.’

  ‘Silence!’

  But the titters continued. Someone, sotto voce, was wondering what other world leader might enjoy a spot of sex.

  As much to re-impose discipline as anything, Fran put in, ‘It’s as if he’s taunting us.’ Then she wished the words unsaid, because it wasn’t her meeting and she shouldn’t be anything more than an observer. Having said that, however, she might as well continue. ‘He must know we’re bound to have realised he knows the whereabouts of every single CCTV camera—’ she broke off to eye-contact Binns, who blushed to his ears and shook his head in a small but decided negative ‘—in the county, so he’s changing his MO. But surely lots of people will have seen such – er – eminent people wandering round the streets of—?’

  ‘Maidstone and Ashford, guv,’ someone put in.

  A young woman shook her head. ‘Party nights, Fridays and Saturdays. Kids getting bladdered and puking in the streets. Lots of people wear party gear. They wouldn’t remember the odd fake politician.’

  ‘So where did he put on his masks?’ Fran pursued. ‘No, don’t tell me – out of the range of any CCTV cameras.’

  Binns got up and silently left the room.

  ‘It’s got to be the same guy, hasn’t it?’ the young woman insisted.

  ‘We’ve no evidence of that, Sue,’ Farmer said, earning points from Fran for learning names so quickly. ‘None at all.’

  Sue didn’t permit herself so much as an eye roll. Fran did – but only in her head.

  She could think of no tactful way of putting it. ‘I know it’s a mammoth task, but surely if we checked the CCTV of all the shops in the area that sell those masks we might get something.’

  Farmer cast a venomous look in her direction but could hardly argue. But he was going to. ‘Which of your team can you spare to do the footwork?’ he demanded waspishly.