High-Wired

by Andrea Frazer

  Today Groves had brought her instrument into work, as her husband and children were away, and she planned to go back to the DI’s house that evening for a bite to eat and an attempt at the lively jig duet that Hardy had come across. She had nothing to go home to apart from the au pair, Gerda, and she didn’t really get on with the woman.

  Hardy was also looking forward to this, as her husband was out on a gig tonight with his band, and she knew he would not be home until the early hours. She hoped with all her heart that this accident didn’t tie them up for too long. OK, so people had died, but that was hardly her fault, and she had been looking forward keenly to having a tootle on her flute.

  It was November, and thus already dark when they arrived at the site of the collision. In one car was a lone man, the one who was, even now, being cut free by the fire service. An ambulance crew stood by, awaiting his release. In the other car had been two mothers with their young daughters in the back seat. Without the restraint of seatbelts, the girls hadn’t stayed there very long and, on her final fatal journey, one of them must have severed a major artery, thought Hardy, as the scene was liberally painted with a coating of blood. As Groves masked a retch with her hankie, Hardy had the irreverent thought that it was difficult to tell whether this scene represented an accident in an abattoir or a modern installation art exhibit.

  The deceased women had probably given in to pester power, and presumably had not insisted that their two daughters wore their seatbelts. The head-on collision had catapulted the girls forward, across the front seats, breaking their mothers’ necks. They were dead, as was one of the little girls, but the other had been through the windscreen and had landed sprawled on the bonnet of the other car. She had already been conveyed to the ICU of a hospital in the larger nearby town, and the meat wagon was on its way to remove the three less fortunate travellers to the mortuary.

  ‘God, the pity of it!’ whispered Groves, her face a mask of horror.

  ‘Should’ve got the little bugger to buckle up, then. There are no excuses in a situation like this,’ said Hardy. She had long since hardened her heart to the consequences of such simple human errors.

  ‘How can you be so cold?’ asked Groves, staring at the DI as if she had suggested breeding children for food.

  ‘How many adverts have there been on the telly about this sort of thing? Why don’t people learn? This was an accident waiting to happen and, this time, it did. End of story.’

  ‘I wish I could think like that.’

  ‘If you don’t learn to, you’ll not last much longer in the force.’

  ‘It’s not a force now, it’s a service,’ said Groves to her senior officer, momentarily distracted.

  ‘Bollocks!’ Hardy replied. ‘How can a service hunt down crooks, arrest them, and put them away? There’s more force than service in that, when you look at it from our point of view.’

  ‘I don’t think our thoughts count anymore. It’s what we are to the public.’

  ‘More’s the pity. When I was little, kids were scared stiff of policemen. Now, they jeer at us – cock a snook at us as if we were a joke. We’ve had our powers so reduced that we might as well be a branch of the Mothers’ Union, for all we can do about most of the little sods in this town.’

  ‘True,’ Groves mused, then pointed as a vehicle approached with lights flashing. ‘Here comes Traffic. We’re here out of necessity, but do you think we can just hand over to them now?’

  ‘Watch me and weep.’ Hardy approached the newly arrived car and leaned through an open window to explain the situation, withdrew her head and turned towards Groves. Her thumbs went up in the air as she wandered back over. ‘All sorted. They’ll make the necessary arrangements to get the road cleared, and the sergeant will go to the women’s houses and break the news.

  ‘They’ve already radioed through to the Drugs Squad, and asked them to attend, so I think we can leave the rest to them. Let’s get back to mine and see what the old man’s left us for supper.’

  ‘Your husband cooks?’

  ‘You bet he does. Cleans, too. He may be in a band and need to practise, but he’s retired, and he’s got to do something else to keep himself busy or he’d go mad – either that or I would. There are two of us grown-ups living there, and he’s the one with the free time to wield the vacuum cleaner and the polishing cloth. I did it all when the kids were little and we were both working – now it’s his turn. Fair’s fair.’

  ‘I’m dying to meet him,’ said Groves, as if this represented a rare treat for her, ‘but I don’t even know his name.’

  ‘Everybody calls him Hal, but his full name’s Hallelujah Martin Luther King Hardy. How’s that for a handle?’

  ‘Good gracious! Whatever was his mother thinking of?’

  ‘If you stay on for a bit tonight, you might meet him and work that one out for yourself. Are you going to stay over?’

  ‘I hadn’t planned on it.’

  ‘Well, I suggest you think about it. We’ve just witnessed a very nasty accident, and I propose to open at least one bottle of wine with supper, and the same again when we have a go at this duet. Are you on duty tomorrow?’

  ‘No. I’ve just got some paperwork to catch up with.’

  ‘I’m not due in till the evening, so I suggest you phone your au pair and tell her you won’t be back. We’ll nip back now and get our cars, and I expect I’ll be able to hunt you out something to wear in bed, even though it’ll be far too big for you.’

  ‘Do we have to go back to the station? I won’t need my car until I’m going in later in the day: it’s not as if I have anything much to go home to.’

  ‘Come on. I heard you had a fabulous barn conversion.’

  ‘With nobody in it but the au pair, and I don’t really like her if I’m being honest. We’ve got nothing in common, and if I do want to talk about something, she pleads a lack of understanding of English. She can speak it well enough when she chooses, though. Without the children’s presence, I don’t much want to spend any time there.’

  ‘Would you like me to drop you off when I go in late tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ replied Groves gratefully. She’d worked in a station further along the coast before she was transferred to Littleton-on-Sea and moved house, and she didn’t have many friends locally. She and Hardy had worked their first case together very politely and formally, but the recent realisation that both of them were enthusiastic novice flautists had sparked off a warmth in their relationship, and made them sisters in arms against the mysteries of those shiny metal tubes with all the little holes.

  ‘And I think you could call me Olivia when we’re not in the office, especially if we’re going to be socialising together over supper.’

  ‘Thanks … Olivia. Then you’d better call me Lauren. I am looking forward to this duet.’

  ‘Me too. Hey, do you know what I heard that little rat Redwood doing the other day when he thought we couldn’t hear?’

  ‘No. I never heard anything derogatory.’

  ‘I heard him whistling the theme tune from the Laurel and Hardy films under his breath.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Have you ever thought about what we look like side by side? And if you examine our names, you’re Lauren – not quite Laurel – and I’m Hardy. Ha ha, very funny. The next time Traffic’s short of a body, he can go along and help out, and I hope it’s on a freezing cold day with driving rain and sleet.’

  ‘Blasted cheek of the man!’

  Olivia Hardy turned the car in the direction of her home and mused on the surprising things that could turn a professional partnership into a friendship. In their case, it looked like the flute might prove to be the catalyst, and she felt it would be nice to have a decent relationship with her working partner. Her previous one had been nearing retirement and taciturn to the point of almost complete silence. She had never got to know him, having found their working life together very barren and lonely.

  It had not been p
ossible to form any sort of friendship with other officers at the station because of a lack of compatible senior ranks. Often abrupt, she knew she could appear aloof at times, not willing to settle for the shallow matiness that her male colleagues seemed to accept – more a cult of the penis than a recognition of ability, she felt. A DS, though, would be considered suitable as a friend as well as colleague, especially as they were both women.

  After about ten minutes, she pulled off the main road on to a small side road and, after four hundred yards, turned right on to a narrow driveway. ‘This is it,’ she said, braking at the front of a long, low thatched property with leaded lights.

  ‘Oh, how pretty!’ exclaimed Lauren, climbing out of the car to have a closer look. ‘It looks like you even have roses round the door in the summer. How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Almost all our married lives. Hal’s parents didn’t want to sell it, but they did want to retire from the NHS and go back home. We live here for now, and if they come back, they’ll live here again. If they don’t, well, it’s here when they drop off their perches. We’ll sort something out if and when the situation arises.’

  It seemed odd, disclosing this sort of personal information to a colleague, but as she intended to extract some personal details from the DS, it seemed only fair. It would certainly be nice to have a friend in her work colleague, as there weren’t many people comfortable about a friendship with a member of the police force – damn, service – whoever they were. There was always that slight discomfort there that they had to be on their best behaviour all the time. She, too, was looking forward to having a partner in her wrestle with that difficult instrument, and tonight would be the highlight of her week.

  As they entered the cottage, Lauren exclaimed with pleasure, ‘This is absolutely charming. You must be very happy here.’

  ‘We are, for now. Now, let’s see what Hal’s left us for supper.’

  Hal had left them a pot of spicy lamb stew and a pot of rice to be heated in the microwave, so it wasn’t long before they sat down to eat, with the first of the glasses of wine they would consume that evening.

  When they had cleared away the plates and opened another bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc, Olivia got out the two copies of the duet she had found and asked Lauren if she would be able to play her part through on the upright piano which nestled against the far wall of the small dining room, never giving a thought to whether she would be capable of doing so.

  ‘No problem. Lead me to it,’ she replied enthusiastically, and Olivia smiled as she realised that her colleague was beginning to relax under the benign influence of the wine, and certainly could handle going through her part on the old Joanna. They stood in front of the instrument with a copy of the jig on the hanging music stand, and made a good fist of playing it through at a fair lick, Olivia taking the top part, Lauren the lower one.

  ‘I don’t think I can go that fast on the flute,’ admitted Lauren.

  ‘Me neither,’ replied her boss, with a heartfelt sigh of relief. ‘What part do you want to play on the flute?’

  ‘Can I take the lower part? Only I’ve noticed a couple of high Ds in the top part, and I can’t blow them yet.’

  ‘Well, I can just about manage that. How are you in the middle register?’

  ‘A bit shaky. I don’t really seem to have the confidence.’

  ‘Well, I’ll open another bottle of wine, and we’ll extract such Dutch courage as we can from that.’

  Lauren had brought her flute in with her, opened the case and began to fit it together. ‘I’ll just get mine,’ her hostess said, and went into another room, coming out with her instrument already put together. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I can’t always be bothered to put it away when I’ve finished with it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare leave mine out. That interfering, nosy au pair would no doubt have a go at playing it, and she’d probably break it, then deny all knowledge of what had happened.’

  ‘Here’s to making sweet music together,’ said Olivia, handing her sergeant another full glass, and they toasted each other and music in general, before both taking a goodly swallow. Music stands had appeared from nowhere, and as they settled down, the DI announced, ‘It’s in 6/8 time. I come in first, so it’s me after five, then you join in.’

  They played through the piece very slowly, inaccurately, and with lots of minuscule breaks for swearing. ‘The only time I use bad language is when I’m sight-reading music,’ confessed Lauren, and Olivia knew exactly what she meant.

  After a couple more attempts, trying to increase the tempo each time, they were both helpless with laughter, and Olivia refilled their glasses. ‘And now for the best bit: I set my little sound-activated tape recorder on the table, so we can listen to ourselves from a more critical position.’

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘You’ll find it funny. I used to do this with an old schoolfriend with piano duets, and we used to laugh until we cried when we heard what we were actually like. Keep an open mind.’

  When the front door opened later to admit Hal, they were both helpless with mirth, and didn’t even notice his arrival until he spoke.

  ‘What’s tickling you two ladies’ funny bones?’

  Lauren reacted with shock, whipping round her head to look at the large black man who filled the small doorway from the hall. ‘Who …?’ she cried, only to be cut off by her inspector.

  ‘Hello, Hal. This is Lauren, my DS. We were just sight-reading a flute duet, and I recorded our efforts. We’ve just listened to the tape and it was hilarious.’

  ‘Can I have a listen, too?’

  ‘Course you can,’ replied his wife, and played the recording for a second time.

  Hal was suitably amused, and was finally formally introduced to Lauren. ‘Hal’s a musician,’ Olivia explained, thinking this might go part of the way to explaining why he was in a brightly coloured shirt covered in images of parrots.

  ‘What do you play?’ asked Lauren, still confused.

  ‘The steel drums. I’m originally from Barbados. I used to be a teacher, but I took early retirement and now I just do what I love best, which is playing in steel bands all over this part of the coast.’

  Lauren was thunderstruck. She’d never imagined such an interesting and exotic husband for her outwardly conventional boss: no suited businessman for the inspector but this gaudy peacock of a man. Lauren realised she had led a sheltered life, and had grown up in a protective Middle England bubble which had shaped her expectations of others.

  ‘If you want to come upstairs, I’ll show you my kit, after I’ve lugged it back up there. Give me about half an hour, and I’ll have a glass of that wine, too, honey. Entertaining’s a thirsty business.’

  His wife poured him a generous glassful, which he downed like it were water, then went to open yet another bottle. ‘You didn’t think you’d get an early night, did you?’ she asked her new friend. ‘Once he’s shown you his kit and let you have a go, he’ll want us to play the duet again so that he can busk a piano accompaniment to it.’

  ‘I had no idea you were so interested in music.’

  ‘What good would spreading that abroad do in our job? Someone would only find a way to ridicule my interest, and they’ve got enough to work with, with my rotund figure and my … casual dress sense – not to mention my name.’

  ‘You don’t sound very bitter about it,’ said Lauren, bemused by the DI’s relaxed attitude.

  ‘While they’re having a go at me, they’re leaving somebody else alone. I’ve got the skin of an elephant as well as the figure to go along with it. What they don’t know is that I also have the memory of one, and I’ll get my own back at some unspecified time in the future. I’m just biding my time for now.’

  A loud holler from upstairs interrupted their discussion, and Olivia led Lauren upstairs to play with her husband’s second-favourite toys.

  After half an hour of drum demonstrations, and a quasi-lecture about how the instrument had evolved
and attempts at playing the drums herself, Hal finally bellowed, ‘Where’s that bottle of wine? And is there any of that stew left? Me stomach thinks me throat’s cut. Chop chop, woman. You’re starving your husband to death, not to mention giving him a bad case of lack of booze.’

  The three of them went back downstairs, glasses were filled, and Hal served himself a plateful of the remains of the supper, eating it standing up without bothering to reheat it. As he ate, he began to tell Lauren about his parents, and why they’d left the cottage.

  ‘They were both dentists, working on the NHS and privately. They bought this place when they were first working here and it was in a bad state of repair. Gradually they renovated it, and when it was finally finished, the opportunity arose for them to retire.

  ‘They moved back to Barbados. That was years ago – I’m an only child – and they seem to be quite happily settled there. I can’t really see them coming back, but we’re keeping the home fires burning in case they have a sudden urge to move back to the grey and rainy climes of Britain.’

  ‘Fat chance of that happening,’ his wife commented, heading towards the kitchen with a corkscrew in her hand, her gait a little unsteady.

  As she returned with yet another bottle of wine, Lauren asked a little tentatively, ‘I don’t see any signs of your children. I understood you had two.’

  Olivia sighed deeply as she filled their glasses again. ‘We do. Hibbie decided to leave school, much to our disappointment as we wanted her to go on to university. She’s now doing a course at college, an admin qualification, and has a job a little further along the coast. Benjamin has just started at college. We just didn’t go into their rooms when we were upstairs and, to be honest, they’re hardly ever at home these days. They’re sixteen and eighteen, by the way, Ben’s the elder.’

  ‘What’s Hibbie short for?’ asked the sergeant, not being able to unravel the source of the diminutive in her slightly befuddled state.