A Question of Despair

by Maureen Carter

  With the accent on lying.

  ‘Yes, he’s definitely been in with her.’ Raj Choudry tapped one of the photographs lying side by side on the bar. Sarah and Harries exchanged glances. In the background, white cloths billowed as a couple of waiters laid tables. The subtle fragrance of spices was laced with the heady perfume from lilies crowding half a dozen huge glass vases.

  ‘You’re absolutely sure about that, Raj?’ Sarah crossed her fingers at her side.

  ‘No doubt. I have a good memory for faces.’ He lifted his gaze to her. ‘Especially pretty ones.’

  Harries sniffed. ‘Can you remember when it was, Mr Choudry?’

  ‘Yes. It was the night I told you about. The time she made the joke about the baby coming early?’

  Sarah did a rough calculation. If Karen had been heavily pregnant, the visit must have been around fourteen months back. So Michael Slater had been lying too. He said he’d not seen since Karen since they broke up a couple of years ago.

  ‘And they’ve not been in since?’ She stepped to one side as a waiter sidled past to reach something behind the bar.

  ‘Not that I’m aware.’

  ‘He was in a couple of weeks ago, Mr Choudry.’ The waiter nodded at Slater’s photograph. ‘That night your wife was poorly.’

  So smooth-talking Raj was spoken for. ‘Was he with anyone?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Yeah. Skinny girl. Long brown hair. Sour-faced.’ The waiter gave a gap-toothed smile. ‘Know what I mean?’

  Almost certainly. Sarah pulled a newspaper out of her briefcase. Karen Lowe’s picture was on the front page. ‘This the one?’

  ‘That’s her. They were having a right ding-dong.’ He winked. ‘Know what I mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t prove anything, boss.’ Harries had just parked the motor outside Slater’s house in Edgbaston. Strike while they had an iron hot or not, was Sarah’s thinking. On the way over, she’d put in a call to Baker to keep him up to speed, the chief was still in a review meeting, she’d left a message.

  ‘It proves he was lying, David. If he lied about not seeing Karen . . . who’s to say he’s not lying through his teeth about everything else? Know what I mean?’ They exchanged a thin smile. The waiter’s every line had finished with the same four-word catchphrase. And the questioning had continued a while. Apparently Karen had stormed out of the restaurant, leaving a sheepish Slater to settle the bill. Releasing the seat belt, Sarah said, ‘I loathe liars.’

  ‘They go with the territory, don’t they, boss?’ He locked the motor, eyes squinting in the sun.

  ‘So? I still hate them.’ They made a difficult job almost impossible. It was a constant game of sorting truth from chaff. Cops end up doubting everything and everyone. Even themselves sometimes.

  No one answered Harries’ first knock. ‘Not likely to be in, is he? Didn’t you say he works at Aldi?’

  ‘Yeah, but his parents might be. If not, we’ll shove a note through the door.’ That might stir things up a little in the Slater household. She felt no compunction to keep mum any more about police interest in their son. His mendacity meant that courtesy had been forfeited. She was already scrabbling in her briefcase for a card when Harries hammered again.

  ‘You after Mikey, then?’ Wafting smoke signalled the re-emergence of the neighbour from hell. Sarah wondered if the ciggie was surgically attached.

  ‘We might be,’ she said. ‘Do you know where he is?’ And what the frig is it to you?

  ‘It’ll be ’bout that girl.’ Sallow jowls quivered as she nodded sagely.

  ‘What girl?’ Sarah asked casually.

  ‘You’re the old bill, ain’t you?’ She waved the fag at Sarah. ‘I seen you on the telly. So you ain’t chasin’ parking tickets.’

  Tempted to shove the ciggie where the sun don’t rise, Sarah tightened her mouth working on a response that didn’t include the word ‘off’.

  Harries had one already. ‘What girl’s that, Mrs Carver?’ And treated the woman to a warm smile. Sarah cast an askance glance. Her memory for names was good, but that was A*.

  ‘Her whose babby’s been killed. Karen, innit?’ Despite the upward inflection, it was more statement than question.

  ‘Sounds as if you know her?’ Harries with another smile.

  Mrs Carver held the fag aloft. ‘I’d see her on the doorstep sparking up, so I’d come out and have a little chat, put the world to rights.’ She took a deep drag then smiled showing tea-coloured teeth that needed correcting too. ‘It’d be more ’n yer life’s worth to light up in Irene Slater’s place. Mind, we’re a dying breed, ain’t we?’ The cackle at her own wit turned into a coughing fit.

  Sarah felt like hastening her demise. Mrs Carver was typical of a certain kind of witness, usually elderly, often lonely, who enjoyed the unaccustomed attention and was in no hurry to relinquish it, or the information they held. If they did. Sarah’s nod at Harries to continue the questioning was barely perceptible. Mrs Carver had clearly taken a shine to the young detective who’d not only remembered her name but was giving the impression her every pronouncement was a pearl. Unwittingly or not, the old bat had already landed Michael Slater further in the mire by catching him out in at least one more whopper. He’d never brought Karen home? Yeah right.

  ‘Irene’s Michael’s mum? And she wouldn’t let Karen smoke in the house? That right, Mrs C?’

  Mrs C? Talk about charm offensive.

  ‘Didn’t know, did she?’

  It was like pulling teeth with blancmange pliers. Sarah gritted hers.

  ‘How come?’ Harries prompted.

  ‘It was all on the QT. While the cat’s away, eh?’ She flicked the butt into the long-suffering hedge. ‘She don’t like him having girlfriends. ’Mong other things.’

  Sarah glanced round. A lilac-haired woman was shuffling past pushing a shopping trolley with wonky wheels. ‘All right, Flo? How’s it going?’ The woman had to make do with a wave. Flo Carver had eyes only for the young bill. ‘Come inside, ducks. Don’t want every Tom, Dick and Harry earwigging, do we?’

  Forty minutes it took. Forty minutes of desperately trying not to inhale too deeply. It wasn’t just the aggressive smoking: Flo Carver had six maybe seven cats. How many had marked their territory was anyone’s guess, but what with all the feline pee and fag smoke it was an olfactory ordeal. The old woman’s sense of smell must be shot to shit. The detectives emerged with streaming eyes and clothes that needed dry cleaning.

  They also had what could be the goods on Michael and possibly the low-down on the Slaters: Irene and Max were early sixties, retired, reclusive, Michael an only child. His late arrival had come as a shock, they hadn’t wanted kids. Spare the rod and spoil the child? That was never going to happen. Apparently they kept him on a short leash and treated him accordingly. Like a dog if Mrs Carver was to be believed. All this she’d apparently picked up from Michael over the years. Mr and Mrs Slater didn’t mix, thought themselves ‘too posh for folk round here’. Since Mikey was a young lad, Flo Carver had taken pity on him, told him her door was always open. ‘Like a second mum’, was stretching it a bit, Sarah suspected, but the old woman spoke of Michael with genuine warmth. Many a time, Mrs Carver said, she’d been on the point of phoning social services. But he always had an excuse for the bruises and finger marks, begged her not to make trouble. As far as she knew Karen was Michael’s first and only girlfriend. His parents had tried putting the kibosh on the relationship. But he’d rebelled probably for the first time, kept seeing her even though they’d threatened to chuck him out on his ear. Even a worm will turn was the way she described it. And the baby? Was it Michael’s? That she didn’t know. She’d not set eyes on Karen for over a year, hadn’t known she was pregnant and Michael hadn’t breathed a word. What about his parents? Would they have known? She’d hoped to God, not. If they had any idea he’d fathered a kid the wrong side of the blanket, his life wouldn’t be worth living.

  ‘Sounds like something out of the Victorian era.’ Harries
checked the driving mirror, took a left. ‘What do you think, boss? Is Mrs C on the level?’

  Sarah shrugged. Some of it sounded pretty self-serving and self-important. But she couldn’t see any reason why the neighbour would fabricate the story. ‘She could be grinding an axe, I suppose. Clearly she’s got no time for the Slaters. What was it she called them?’

  ‘Bible-bashing God-bothering, ignorant bastards.’ He sniffed. ‘Not all they bashed if half what she said was true.’

  ‘Never know what goes on behind closed doors, do you?’ She recalled the inside of the house, the religious samplers, the huge Bible, the dark heavy furnishings, thought how stark and forbidding the place must’ve been for a young boy. Flo Carver’s home for all its faults and filth was probably a welcome bolt-hole.

  ‘She seemed fond of Michael,’ Harries said.

  ‘Seemed pretty taken with you too.’ She winked. ‘Had her eating out of your hand.’ The groan was synchronized. It wasn’t a thought to hold. ‘You’re right though, David. She obviously has a lot of affection for him.’ Would that include covering his back if she thought he’d done something wrong?

  ‘I wonder if the feeling’s mutual?’

  It was a question they might put. Once they tracked him down. According to Mrs Carver, since the detectives’ last house call, she’d not seen hide or hair of Michael or his parents.

  FORTY

  ‘He’s not been into work this week either.’ It was the late brief, a less than animated squad. Sarah had just wrapped up the current state of play on the Karen Lowe-Michael Slater connection. Baker in shirtsleeves and open collar had taken his customary perch on a desk at the front. He’d already précised Operation Bluebird, assigned actions and announced numbers would shortly be bolstered by a dozen officers seconded from stations across the city and a further six back-up civilian staff. Detectives were restless, shuffling about, they’d sat still for far too long.

  ‘You’re thinking he’s done a runner, Quinn?’

  ‘Hard to tell, chief. He’s taken unscheduled time off before.’ Though according to Slater’s boss at Aldi he wouldn’t get the chance again. When he did go back, someone else would be shelf stacking.

  ‘And the parents?’ Baker swigged water from a plastic bottle.

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Again, the neighbour says they’re away quite a bit. They go on religious retreats apparently and they spend a fair bit of time in Cumbria. They own a fixed caravan up there. Could explain the apparent disappearance.’

  ‘But you don’t think so?’ Despite the seeming indifference, he’d picked up her unease.

  ‘It’s the timing I don’t like. Seems hell of a coincidence.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘I wish I knew, chief.’ She blew her cheeks out on a sigh. ‘Fact is Michael Slater is the only man we know to have had a relationship with Karen Lowe. She could’ve had a string of lovers, but he could be Evie’s father. They both deny it like there’s no tomorrow and they both claim they’re not seeing each other any more. Now that could be the truth, or it could be because Michael’s parents would go down on him like a ton of bricks.’

  ‘And he’d care because?’ Baker’s tone was derisory. Not surprising, a lot of youths cops came across would sell their granny for a fiver, dissing parents was the default mode. She relayed to the squad what she’d heard about Slater’s background, upbringing, alleged abuse. Probably unconvinced, Baker waved a get-on-with-it hand.

  ‘Either way Karen and Michael were spotted two weeks ago in a local restaurant having quote: a right ding-dong. Whichever way you look at it, they’ve been spinning a web of lies.’

  ‘And?’ His swinging leg suggested he was less than rapt.

  ‘It’s possible the parents found out, put two and two together.’ She hesitated. The mental scenarios she’d run seemed almost too far-fetched to put into words. Had Micha suddenly cracked? Decided he’d had enough of his parents’ bullying? Was it possible he blamed them for what happened to Evie because if he’d not been forced to hide Karen’s existence, he could’ve been there for her and the baby? Had he snapped and taken them out of the picture? Or was it vice versa? Flo Carver had dithered in the past over whether to call in social services. Had the Slaters’ heavy-hand come down too hard and a thrashing gone too far?

  Baker sniffed. ‘So you reckon he’s chopped them into little bits and buried them under the patio?’

  A couple of squad members sniggered. Baker was taking the piss, but clearly giving it some thought too, was on a similar page.

  ‘No patio, chief.’ She said deadpan. ‘Your guess is good as mine. They could be anywhere.’

  ‘As could the lad.’ Baker ran a hand over his face. ‘Is there enough for a warrant?’

  Three adults with supposedly sound minds, missing less than a week? She turned her mouth down. ‘Can’t see it, chief.’

  ‘No nasty smells? Whingeing neighbours?’ Tapping the side of his nose, he added unnecessarily, ‘If you get my drift.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘No.’ And if there were it would take years before any stench breached Flo Carver’s nasal passages. On the other hand, the woman might have her uses. ‘Leave it with me, chief.’ She glanced at Harries. The task she had in mind would suit Prince Charming down to the ground.

  Baker got to his feet, wandered over to what was now a line of whiteboards. ‘Big question is: where does this fit with the inquiry?’ For the umpteenth time he gazed at a mishmash of pictures, street maps, markers, handwritten notes. Lines added in felt tip ran between some exhibits. He turned, sank hands in pockets. ‘We’ve got two dead babies, Quinn.’

  She held out empty palms. ‘Still working on that, chief.’ The Lowe-Slater connection was evident if not complete. But where did Harriet’s abduction figure? She’d asked a couple of detectives to establish what, if anything, linked the Slaters and the Kemps.

  Baker nodded. ‘And Karen Lowe? She got anything to say for herself?’

  Sweet FA at the moment. ‘She’s not at home either, chief.’

  ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been chasing you all day.’ Sarah’s voice was clipped. Just for a second, she’d been tempted not to answer the phone. Gone eight, she’d been halfway to her office door when it rang. Getting home had been more on her agenda.

  ‘I’m here now, and all yours.’ Caroline King had put in the call. It was known in the trade as back-covering. Bob Grant had viewed the package featuring Karen Lowe and insisted, as the reporter knew he would, that Sarah Quinn be given the right to respond. ‘What can I do you for, inspector?’ Her voice oozed jocular mateyness.

  ‘It’s more a case of what I can do you for.’

  Caroline laughed. ‘That’s a joke, right?’ Wished she could see the DI’s face. Keeping her sweet was crucial.

  ‘The Kemps. Illegal entry. Impersonating a doctor.’ Caroline heard tapping: presumably Quinn’s digital accompaniment. ‘Concealed camera. Secret filming.’

  ‘Hey, back up. They were happy to go on record.’

  ‘And if they’d told you to get lost? I’ve no doubt you’d have sneaked a few shots anyway.’

  Natch. ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘OK.’ She tried keeping the exchange light. ‘So what now? Are the boys in blue coming round with batons and handcuffs?’ Kinky. Actually that might not be a bad idea. Except the cops hadn’t got a case: the legal grounds were too shaky. They both knew that. Caroline reckoned Quinn was kite flying.

  ‘I’m issuing a warning, Ms King. Be under no illusion. Play another trick like that, and there’ll be a formal complaint.’

  Ooh, I’m quivering in my Manolos. ‘You got it, inspector.’

  ‘Where did you get it, Ms King?’

  ‘Uh?’ She knew exactly where the cop was coming from.

  ‘You knew where to find them.’

  ‘Come on, you gave it away at the news conference. I saw it in your face.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Room number. Blood
group. Inside leg. Where do you get your information?’

  ‘I say again, I can’t reveal my sources.’

  ‘Has the piece gone out yet?

  ‘They’re using it tonight, I think.’ Caroline glanced at her watch. In one hour forty-five minutes exactly.

  ‘I’ll watch with interest.’

  ‘While I’ve got you on, inspector . . .’ Wheedling.

  Deep sigh. ‘Make it snappy, OK?’

  ‘Sure. Karen Lowe.’ Nice, non-committal. Caroline could almost hear Quinn’s eye-roll.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re still banging on about that?’

  ‘Yeah. As I say it’s important.’ Particularly when in less than two hours a report containing emotive and damaging criticism of Quinn would be seen by God knew how many millions of viewers. Bob Grant was uneasy; he’d never yet been landed with a law suit. But the editor had only ordered Caroline to contact Sarah, not what words to use.

  ‘Look, I’ve told you a million times. I’ve said all I’m going to say on the subject.’

  ‘Is that a no comment?’

  ‘It’s a no further comment. Unless . . .’

  Thank you and good night. Caroline cut the connection and punched the air. Soon she’d be in a bar downing a large gin. She’d just had the tonic.

  Pensive Sarah replaced the receiver, perched on the edge of her desk, picturing Caroline King. Superficially, the reporter had changed little since their first meeting. On the few recent occasions they’d been face to face, Sarah had clocked the odd white hair nestling in the signature black bob, faint lines edging King’s eyes. She ceded, though, the reporter was in good shape and didn’t appear to have lost her edge.

  For years now the two women had kept their distance, drawn together intermittently by their jobs, the same jobs that had brought them together. Both based in London back then, it was inevitable they’d work some of the same cases. At first they kept the relationship professional: crime fighter and crime writer; came across each other at crime scenes, news conferences, court rooms. They were young and ambitious in jobs where women were often regarded as decorative, dumb or dangerous. Now and then, they’d hook up socially over a drink. The risk was that chat about bloke-ism at work could spill over into details about the job itself.