High-Wired

by Andrea Frazer

  Dripping and tense as they were, it was Olivia who volunteered to knock at the door, for there was no bell. To their surprise, it was answered by a tall, lean man with long hair and in tatty clothes, who looked like a modern-day hippy. He remained mute, just staring at them, until Olivia broke the silence with, ‘We’re here to see Hibbie.’

  He was in the middle of saying that there was no one by that name there when a cry from behind him of, ‘Mum!’ sounded, and their elusive daughter slipped through to the front by the simple tactic of ducking under his arm.

  Now the man became vocal. ‘She’s left you and she’s never coming back,’ he declared confidently. ‘She’s with me now, and she doesn’t need or want you anymore.’

  Completely against the run of his statements, Hibbie threw herself into her mother’s arms, and drew in her father and brother, clinging tightly to them as if they were saving her from drowning. Then, without a word, she pulled herself away and stood next to Michael, who put his arm possessively around her shoulders.

  ‘She’s made her choice, and she’s with me now. She doesn’t want to live with you anymore. She’s like a little bird that needed its freedom,’ he said with a maddening grin of triumph on his face.

  ‘Are you working, Little Flower?’ asked Hal, his face serious and concerned.

  ‘I’ve got three jobs,’ she said with an air of defiance.

  ‘What do you do?’ Olivia had decided to leave this bit to Hal, who could remain calm more easily than she could.

  ‘I clean in some offices from six to seven thirty; at eight thirty I start in a local factory, and I get off at five. Then, at seven, I go on shift at a local pub.’ She was definitely defiant.

  ‘Well, at least ask us in for a cup of tea and a sit down after we came all the way down here’

  As she stood aside to let them in, she said, ‘We haven’t got any tea. Or coffee,’ and just shrugged her shoulders. ‘I’ve got to get something to eat before I go in for my shift,’ she added, heading for what was evidently the tiny kitchen.

  ‘Then I’ll come through for a drink of water, if you don’t mind,’ announced Olivia, scurrying after the tiny figure of her daughter, shoulders bowed, her head sunk down on to her chest. She could hear Hal back in the bed-sitting room asking Michael what job he did.

  Taking the opportunity to be alone with her daughter, she firstly opened the wall cupboards to see what sort of food stock she had in, only to discover a lone packet of rice, a packet of noodles, and a tub of gravy granules. ‘Is this all the food you have?’ she asked, incredulous. Hibbie had always been very fussy about what she ate.

  ‘We haven’t got any money,’ the girl answered in an exhausted voice. ‘We had to find a deposit for a place of our own before we could move in, and everything I’d earned went on that.’

  ‘And what does Michael do while you’re working three jobs?’

  ‘He’s unemployed at the moment,’ she replied defensively.

  ‘I asked what he did, not what he didn’t do,’ Olivia shot at her.

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Hibbie wailed. ‘He just sits around watching cartoons on the television.’

  She rushed into her mother’s arms, to be enfolded the way she used to be when she was younger. ‘Hibbie,’ crooned Olivia softly into her daughter’s ear. ‘I’ve tidied your room, changed the bedding, put up a small Christmas tree for you, and Mr Bo-Bo’s lying on the bed waiting for you to come home.’ She felt that Mr Bo-Bo was a bit of a low blow, one that may have finally lost its power to affect her daughter, but she was wrong.

  ‘I want Mr Bo-Bo,’ Hibbie sniffled, like the small child she once was, what seemed like such a short time ago.

  ‘Will you come back with us? I’m sure I can persuade the office to take you back.’

  ‘Yes, Mum, only …’

  ‘Only, what?’

  ‘Can I have a kitten for Christmas?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ replied Olivia, breaking the ‘no pets’ rule that had reigned for so long in their household. ‘You can have a baby elephant, if you want, as long as you come home.’ Olivia was now in tears, and held on to her daughter as if she would never let her go again.

  ‘I don’t fancy a baby elephant,’ the girl replied, with a tiny giggle, ‘but a kitten would be fabulous. Mum?’

  ‘What, my darling?’

  ‘Can we go home now?’

  ‘Nothing in the world would give me greater pleasure than to bring you home and put all this sordid business behind us.’

  ‘I thought he loved me, and I thought I loved him, but he just wants someone to live with him and pay the bills.’

  ‘That’s a valuable life lesson you’ve learnt. Don’t forget it. I don’t want you doing anything like this again. It’s just about broken your father’s heart. It just about killed all of us, especially after what we’d been through with Ben.’

  ‘What about Ben?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later, or, better still, he can. Now, come along,’ ordered Olivia, still with her arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

  They walked back into the bed-sitting room and announced to Michael, Hal, and Ben that they would be going now, headed for home. Michael stood up abruptly and whirled round to face the enemy, his girlfriend’s mother.

  ‘She’s not going with you. She’s staying here. We love each other,’ he shouted, raising his arms into the air threateningly.

  ‘No we don’t,’ Hibbie said in a small voice. ‘You just want someone to earn the money, wash, cook and clean for you. What you really need is a servant or your mother.’

  ‘Don’t you mention my mother,’ he screamed, betraying a raw patch in his past. He made to advance on Olivia and Hibbie, but then, Hal stood up, towering over the skinny young man with hatred in his eyes, and a determined expression on his face.

  ‘You will not lay a finger on any member of my family,’ he said in a calm but authoritarian voice; the one he had used to control many an unruly class in his teaching days. Michael stopped in his tracks, and Olivia made good her opportunity to rush Hibbie towards and out of the front door, closely followed by Ben and Hal, still looking over his shoulder to make sure that Michael didn’t try to follow them.

  As he, as last man out, reached the comparative safety of the pavement, a heavy glass vase shot over his head and shattered on the paving stones in front of him. ‘To the car,’ he shouted, rushing away from the house, the four of them in a tight little bunch. When they were in the vehicle, he started it with all speed, and left the dingy street with a scream of tyres, noticing that Michael had been running down the road after them. The sooner they were out of this neighbourhood, the better.

  On the back seat Olivia sat with Hibbie cradled in her arms. ‘Why did you go. my little Hibiscus Flower?’ asked Olivia in anguish. ‘I always thought that you were such an old head on young shoulders, and we trusted you.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum, I just don’t know. At the time I thought it was romantic.’

  ‘But why didn’t you confide in us? You know we would have supported you if it meant that much?’

  ‘I just don’t know Mum,’ sobbed Hibbie. her shoulders shaking. ‘I don’t think I even can talk about it. It’s too raw.’

  ‘Whenever you are ready, my love, you know we’ll be there for you.’

  When they got back to the cottage, Hibbie went straight up to her room and cried solidly for two hours. Olivia and Hal left her to it, knowing that she needed to get it out of her system. When she had quietened down, Ben went up and sat in her room talking to her for the best part of another hour, then Olivia heard her go into the bathroom as Ben descended the stairs and asked what was for supper.

  ‘How is she?’ asked Olivia.

  ‘She’ll be fine. She’s just had a bit of a clash with the big bad world, the way I did, and now, like me, she’s come to her senses.’

  This was the best news Olivia had had for some time and, vowing that she would spend more time with her kids and less at the station, she went
off into the kitchen humming, only to find that Hal had already put a full casserole dish in the oven and was preparing vegetables.

  ‘It’ll be ready when we are,’ he said, followed by, ‘Do you fancy a celebratory glass of wine?’

  ‘I really do, and I think those two deserve one too. This has been a hard lesson for me, but I must get my priorities sorted out before they’ve flown the nest for good, and my job as a mother is over.’

  ‘Mothers can never retire: their job is never-ending,’ he said with a twinkle, a corkscrew in his hand. ‘Just think of them in about ten years’ time, needing babysitters, someone to take the grandkids for the holidays. You’ll be busier than ever.’

  ‘Hope so,’ she replied, taking her glass and raising it in a toast.

  When Hibbie came downstairs, she was showered and dressed in her most feminine clothes. Her hair was blow-dried into a bob and she had put on a little make-up. ‘Sorry I’ve been such a wally,’ she said, lifting her hand up to pat her hair. ‘He wanted me to have it all cut off really short, and when I said no, he got so angry that I thought he was going to hit me.’

  The shadow of tears appeared in her eyes again, and Hal rushed over to his little girl with a big glass of wine. ‘Drink that, my little Hibiscus Flower, and there’s one for you too, Ben. We’re all back together again, and nothing else matters.’ They all raised their glasses to that.

  The next day, having informed the station that her daughter was home safely, Olivia again gave the office a miss and spent hours talking to her children asking them about their ambitions, their hopes and fears, and by the end of it, she felt like she had bonded with them again in a way she hadn’t since they were quite small. She knew she’d relied upon Hal too heavily, what with his shorter hours out of the house, followed by his early retirement, and she resolved not to let that happen again. Of course, it would, but she’d spot it sooner next time, and put it right before it got out of hand.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  When Hardy got back to her office, Lauren gave her a warm welcome, asking, ‘How is everything. What happened? How did you manage it?’ Over a cup of coffee, Olivia unburdened herself of the events of the last few days, her face wreathed in smiles when she got to the bit about Hibbie choosing to come home.

  ‘It was a very harrowing experience, seeing her in such a situation, and by her own choice, too. I just hope she’s been sensible and won’t announce she’s pregnant in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s all very well running away for love, but you should be very careful who you think the rest of your life lies with.

  ‘That guy was a leech. I checked. He’s already got a record for possession of drugs – nothing Class A, but that’s beside the point. He’d have led my beautiful Hibbie in a downward spiral until she was living like a pig, old before her time through working several jobs to make ends meet. Do you know what she said he did all day?’

  ‘No,’ replied Lauren quietly, unwilling to interrupt the flow, as she knew Olivia needed to get this off her chest to someone not directly involved.

  ‘He sat around eating noodles and watching cartoons on children’s television. I don’t even know if he could read and write, and from what I’ve managed to ferret out about him he was from a very dysfunctional family. Our Hibbie deserves better than that. She’ll be more careful and not so trusting in the future, I hope.’

  ‘And how are they all?’

  ‘Ben’s glad to have his sister back, and he seems to be fully recovered now, but he’s still denying that he took the drugs on purpose. Hibbie seems very light-hearted and cheerful for someone who, only yesterday, confessed to be suffering from a broken heart. And Hal, well, he’s in a thoughtful mood, trying to work out how best to protect his chickens without seeming to. Me? I’m just a little bit older and rather wiser, but I’m glad that there hasn’t been a real tragedy over the past couple of weeks.’

  ‘I’m so pleased for you all,’ replied Lauren. ‘I’m glad you’re back now. There’ve been rumours buzzing around here, but nobody knows anything for certain. Devenish is keeping a very tight rein on information, but I believe there might be something in your emails. I’m sure you wouldn’t have been cut out of the loop completely because of how much time you’ve spent on this. People do have some loyalties, and I suspect you’ve got one or two surprises waiting for you.’

  Olivia looked round before opening her computer. ‘Have you caught the mole, yet? And where’s Colin Redwood?’

  ‘On suspension awaiting investigation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was caught trying to hack into your computer when he heard that you might have copies of emails sent to the superintendent. His mobile was seized, and there were some compromising texts on it, and some phone numbers that pointed the finger to him being our office leak.’

  ‘Good God! I hope he was well paid. He’s put his career on the line, and there’s no going back.’

  ‘Apparently he has large debts and expensive tastes,’ said Lenny Franklin.

  ‘Come on, guv,’ said Groves, ‘I can’t wait any longer. The suspense has been killing me. If I’d known how to hack into someone’s files, I might have had a go myself.’

  ‘DS Groves, behave yourself!’

  There were indeed a few very interesting and informative messages on Hardy’s mail system, and she pointed them out to Groves, who read them over her shoulder, whistling softly under her breath. ‘Well, that clinches it, but we’ve been pulled off the case,’ she said dismally.

  ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat,’ replied her boss cryptically. ‘I’ll talk to you about it later. Good God, I’d forgotten you had been staying with us. Did you get back home? I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t think about anything else but this Hibbie business.’

  ‘No worries. Yes, I’m safely back in my own nest, with no cuckoos in it now.’

  During their lunch break, safely ensconced in the privacy of Lauren’s car, Olivia outlined how she viewed their situation. ‘I got an email from Forensics confirming that tiny splatters of blood were missed in the clean-up at the boatshed. They were from all four murder victims. And there were traces from all our four suspects in the mezzanine office. I also got an email about the sweep for fingerprints in the office at the club – Hal said there’d been some sort of fuss going on the last time he played there and, whatever Church believed, he didn’t quite manage to eliminate every print.

  ‘Just before we left the building, I had a phone call from Dylan MacArthur – didn’t recognise his voice; he’d been away with a nasty dose of ’flu. And he said he’d been an absolute mug and forgotten to send me a supplementary report on Genni’s body. He said that the bite marks could be matched to the teeth of the suspects. So all we need to do is to get them to bite into an apple and we’ve got them. That, with the evidence of Genni’s blood in the boatshed, should clinch it.’

  ‘But we’ve been officially warned off,’ countered Lauren.

  ‘From the drugs investigation and the deaths of the three men, we have. But, what about the abduction, rape, and murder of a minor? That seems to me to be a completely separate incident. I don’t see how the super can moan about us going after the remaining men on that one.’

  ‘He’ll tear you to shreds.’

  ‘I don’t care. The kids of this town need protecting. No one knows that better than me, at the moment, and I want to see that any dangers that I can identify are taken off the streets and locked up for a very long time.’

  ‘You’ll lose either your rank or your job,’ warned Lauren.

  ‘I don’t care, right at this very moment. I’ve been very close to losing both my kids recently, in one way or another, and I’m starting off the rest of my life with my priorities right. If Devenish wants the guilty to get away with things, then he’s going to get no co-operation from me. Those men are as guilty as hell of four murders. If I can only get them done for one, then I’ll be satisfied. I expect the books will be balanced when the Drugs Squad winds up its operatio
n. If not, at least I’ve got those responsible for what I see as the worst of their crimes – stealing the life and future from a young girl, and devastating a respectable family unit.’

  ‘What about our drugs courier – Hanger, the man still in hospital?’

  ‘The Drugs Squad can vacuum him up themselves. He’ll talk when he’s conscious again, and maybe even that list of names he had will turn up in the wreck of his car when Forensics have finished with it. He’s not our birdie anymore.’

  ‘And I’ve remembered where I saw that Mary Mackintosh before, guv. She was up on a drugs charge at my old station.’

  ‘Look her up and send the information upstairs. It’s not on our agenda anymore,’ replied Hardy, with a sneer of scorn that they had been cast aside so easily when they were so close to the truth.

  ‘You reckon they’ll mop up the whole drugs operation in this town?’

  ‘As much of it as they can, without risking the lives of their undercover agents too much.’

  ‘For someone who’s got as many years as you under their belt, you still have a touching faith in law and order.’ Lauren couldn’t help herself.

  ‘I’d leave, the day I realised that had died. I need that belief to keep me going, month after month, year after year.

  Anyway, I’m going out now.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To buy some apples.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I know, and bad, and dangerous to know. You get Shuttleworth and one of the other Uniforms to round up our remaining two suspects, and I’ll be back to tempt them. No doubt the Drugs Squad will also pick up Mervyn Lord, wherever he’s hiding out. Us? We’re just about finished.’

  An hour later, DI Hardy was informed that Teddy Edwards, aka Woggle-Eye, and Steve Stoner, aka Flinty, had both been picked up and were in a holding cell waiting for her attentions.

  It hadn’t been an easy hour for the DI, and she had spent it mentally berating herself from getting so far away from her children that she couldn’t see what was right under her nose. She could, now, recall conversations with Hibbie about some guy she’d met and wanted to buy a present for, and also noticing that Ben had come home a couple of times in a state that she could only describe as ‘spaced-out’.