She's Fallen

by Alex Clare

  The taxi pulled up outside the police station, the cabbie making a point of changing the meter to a higher rate. With no energy to argue, Robyn accepted the addition to the fare and reached her wallet from her bag. When she opened it, there were no notes, just a few loose coins. She must have bought a lot of drinks last night.

  ‘Ah, do you take cards?’

  ‘What? No, no cards. Cash only.’

  ‘OK, I’m sorry about this. Could you drive me to a cash point?’

  ‘You have no money?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, I have money. Just not on me.’

  Her phone rang as the cabbie made a pantomime of reversing before shooting onto the roundabout, sending Robyn slamming into the door. She shut her eyes and let the phone ring out. The man kept up a constant stream of indistinguishable words under his breath until they screeched to a halt outside a bank. Robyn clambered out gratefully: the cabbie got out of his own door and loomed by her shoulder as she inserted her card.

  She stood up straighter: annoyance was a great cure. ‘Do you mind?’ Her fingers hovered over the keypad until he turned away. The journey back to the police station passed in silence. With the new notes, Robyn didn’t have change, even for the inflated fare and sat, resolute, while the man huffed over counting out coins. Walking up to the front entrance brought back memories of the angry mob and she quickened her pace. The lobby was empty apart from one person standing by the desk, his back to the entrance.

  Robyn felt a lurch in her stomach and forced her raw throat to swallow. The close air of the lobby had brought a taste of sickness back into her mouth.

  The desk sergeant put down the phone. ‘Ah, there you are ma’am. I was just trying to call you. Here’s DI Bailley now, Superintendent.’

  ‘Bailley.’ Although Fell never seemed to look directly at anyone’s face, Robyn could feel his appraisal of her appearance. ‘I looked in at the CID room and you weren’t in yet.’ Fell frowned. ‘I trust you are aware of the complaint made against the Lady Ann investigation?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She tried to make her voice sound brighter than she felt, then worried that she would sound flippant about the complaint.

  ‘I am meeting the family at noon and I need to know beforehand what has been done and what you intend to do.’ Fell glanced at his watch. ‘Do you have enough to make a conviction stick? I do not want to give the family false hope, particularly when it is not even clear whether they will press charges.’

  The room seemed very hot. Robyn licked her dry lips, tasting a bitter tinge. ‘Not yet, sir.’ She continued before Fell could speak. ‘However, we are expecting the forensic report this morning which should give us enough to decide whether a conviction is possible.’

  ‘Very well.’ Fell picked up a slim attaché case. ‘I am due at the Town Hall now for the council meeting. Mr Johar has agreed to meet there. You will join me at eleven forty-five for a briefing.’ He walked out of the front entrance.

  The desk sergeant let out a long breath. Robyn was focusing on getting inside and finding a toilet. She had to wait as a large group strolled out through the inner door, feeling more and more certain she was going to be sick again. Someone called a greeting: she managed a small smile. In the corridor, a cleaner was sweeping the lino with a broad brush, a pile of full bin bags beside him. She dodged him and wrenched open the door to the disabled toilet. A waft of chemical pine hit her and she made it only as far as the sink. The bile seemed straight from the bottom of her stomach and she hoped no one had heard her retching. After she had washed her face, the sink and the cuffs of her jumper, she took time to put on her make-up. It had become her armour to face the day. With the nausea under control for the moment, she decided she needed something in her stomach.

  In the CID office, the only person around was Graham, his feet up on the desk. When he saw Robyn, there was a studied pause, before he removed his feet one by one and then stood up. ‘Bacon sarnie, good idea. Think I’ll do the same.’ He stood up, moving to the door. ‘By the way, Ravi called in sick this morning.’ He twisted the handle. ‘He didn’t say exactly what was wrong – I reckon he’s been given an earache.’ He pulled open the door.

  Robyn forced her thoughts into order. ‘Graham, hang on. Do you think this is connected with what we heard on the radio yesterday?’

  Graham kept moving. ‘It was Chloe he spoke to.’ The door swung shut behind him.

  ‘Why does nobody tell me what is going on?’ Robyn felt a fool for talking to an empty room though at least anger was better than sickness. She sat down at her desk and downed a couple of tablets. A half-hearted look at her emails told her there were more than the day before and there was one with an urgent flag titled Submission of budget.

  Chloe walked in. ‘Morning, Guv. Hope you had a good time last night. Wasn’t Lorraine great?’

  The last thing she felt she could cope with was Chloe’s enthusiasm. ‘Yes. Look, something’s come up: Fell is seeing Shazia’s uncle in a couple of hours and wants a briefing. What did Ravi say when he called in?’

  ‘He couldn’t talk for long. He really sounded like he’d had to sneak away to make the phone call.’ Chloe sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. ‘He said everything kicked off yesterday evening. Shazia’s father is the youngest of the uncles, Ravi’s uncle I mean, his mother is the only sister …’ She stopped, breathed. ‘I’m not making any sense, am I? Start again. There are four of them, three brothers and a sister, all married with families. Durbesh Johar is the eldest brother so he’s head of the family and what he says seems to go.’ Her knuckles whitened. ‘And that’s specially when it comes to a woman. Now everyone’s giving Ravi grief and it’s all because his uncle isn’t keen on having the family talked about in the press because they think it brings shame but they’re not thinking about what help having this sort of thing exposed could do for others.’

  There seemed to be nothing Robyn could do except let Chloe’s anger burn itself out. ‘Did Ravi say whether the family will press charges?’

  ‘He doesn’t think they will.’ Chloe hugged her knees. ‘He sounded really down about things.’ She held up a sheaf of paper. ‘Pity because the crime scene report has just come through.’

  ‘Anything we didn’t know?’

  ‘Eldon’s clothes were clean. The room showed evidence of multiple occupancy, skin, hair and toenails.’ Chloe scrunched up her face. ‘Yuck. There was semen found on the sheets which we can test against Bartholomew’s.’ She put down the report. ‘I suppose you’ll just say the evidence confirms his version of the story.’

  ‘What else?’

  Chloe turned a page. ‘It was Shazia who was sick in the toilet.’

  Robyn tried to quell her returning queasiness with a sip of tea.

  ‘Also signs of her presence in the bed, skin and hairs. It was her blood and it was arterial rather than menstrual, which means she was cut with something.’

  ‘Dr Brockwell said the room suggested violence. Have you got pictures? If Ravi’s not here, put them up on the board.’ Robyn was having trouble keeping her eyes open. ‘When you’ve got them up, think about where everything is and how it got there.’ She positioned the budget in front of her to make it look as if she was working.

  This brought a couple of blessed minutes of peace as Chloe stared at the pictures, finger tracing the position of each item in one picture before moving onto the next. ‘How about this, Guv? He – Bartholomew – is let into the room and tries to push Shazia onto the bed. She runs away and the only thing to hide behind is the chair. After a struggle, he breaks her grip and throws the chair away. Then he grabs her, drags her to the bed and in the struggle, she kicked things off the bedside table?’

  ‘Good.’ She looked up, wishing she hadn’t as there was a hint of the nausea returning. ‘We’ve got one explanation. Now think of another.’

  Chloe blinked a number of times. ‘Don’t you think I’ve got it right?’

  ‘I do.’ Robyn sighed. ‘I’ll say it again, we have
to start thinking like the defence team. So how about this? Bartholomew comes up to check she’s all right. Shazia answers the door then goes back to bed and invites him in. She’s up for anything, the bed isn’t enough so they end up using the chair, which gets knocked over and the things on the table are kicked off in passion.’

  Chloe was paler than usual. ‘This is vile.’

  ‘This is what we’re up against.’ They looked at each other for a moment.

  Graham walked in, settled down at his desk and unwrapped his sandwich, the paper rustling.

  ‘OK, can you go through the report and give me something to tell Fell? Think about all the variants you can and lots of reasons why your scenario is the only possible one.’ Robyn tried to put encouragement into her voice as Chloe was looking gloomy. She turned to Graham. ‘When you’ve finished breakfast, let’s talk about the next steps with the Newman case.’

  ‘Mh-hmm-hmm.’ Graham’s reply was through a mouthful of bacon.

  Robyn looked around. Lorraine’s bag was on her desk. ‘Anyone know where Lorraine is?’ ‘She got asked to join a conference call on the drugs operation.’

  Chloe looked at her watch. ‘Must have been about fifteen minutes ago.’

  ‘OK, thanks for letting me know.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Robyn saw Graham pause just before he took a bite, then put the food down. Her phone rang. ‘Morning, Matthew.’

  ‘Robyn.’ Matthew sounded impatient. ‘Didn’t you get my email? You know I’ve got a suspect for the attacks in the cells? Picked him up last night loitering halfway up Albert Avenue on the way to Upper Town.’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Robyn ignored a stab of headache. ‘We’ll be right down.’

  23

  The cells corridor was empty, which was unusual. The custody sergeant directed them into an interview room without a word.

  ‘You’re a ray of sunshine today, Martha. What’s up?’ Graham leaned on the door frame blocking the sergeant’s exit.

  Martha lifted just her eyes to his face. ‘We’re all under bloody review. Those women from Saturday have had the cheek to claim police brutality, never mind what they did to us, so we’re expecting the Complaints here asking questions. We’ll get to the stage where nobody dares arrest anyone. You’re just treading on eggshells the whole time.’

  Graham made a sympathetic grunt.

  The tension on Martha’s face didn’t ease. ‘They come in here thinking the worst and we’ve got to prove ourselves innocent. They treat us worse than the criminals – we have to start by assuming they didn’t do it. I’ll get your man.’ She ducked past Graham and into the corridor.

  ‘Bloody joke.’ Graham slid into the fixed chair. ‘Ouch.’ He began rubbing his knee. ‘I hate these interview room chairs. They’re designed for a nursery, there’s no room to put your legs.’ He looked over to Chloe. ‘It’s all right for you.’

  ‘We need to take this carefully.’ Robyn felt hair falling over her eye and resisted the urge to run her fingers through it. ‘We don’t have any forensic evidence, so we need to establish the facts.’

  ‘You want to be good cop?’ Graham flexed his leg a few times. ‘I think I’ve got a dead leg.’

  ‘Why don’t you lead?’ Robyn tried to get thoughts to move across her brain. ‘Chloe, you observe. I want to keep an eye on his reactions.’

  The door opened and a stocky man shambled in, the policeman at his back keeping a distance, followed by a young woman in a dress printed with coloured swallows who Robyn recognised as one of the duty lawyers. The man hesitated, looked around. His eyes were a watery blue.

  ‘Sit down.’ The constable pointed. ‘There. On the chair.’

  The man slid into the seat, the lawyer perching on the far edge of the chair next to him. Although both were wearing black, the bright birds lifted the woman’s dress, the matt cotton of his sweatshirt and jogging bottoms seemed to suck in light and gave off a musty smell as if they had been underground for a long time. Robyn nodded to Graham to start the recording and caution the man, who sat, passive, staring at the table. The lawyer crossed her legs.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ Graham’s tone was pleasant, conversational.

  The man continued to stare straight ahead. The lawyer uncapped her pen. ‘My client has been arrested on suspicion of attacks on women. He has no knowledge of these and denies any involvement. What evidence do you have?’

  Graham took his time unfolding a piece of paper. ‘As your lawyer says, we have arrested you on suspicion of attacks. Can you tell me why you were hanging around Upper Town at …?’ He checked the page. ‘At one thirty-eight this morning?’

  ‘No comment.’

  The lawyer put down her pen. ‘And there is no reason why he should comment. He was in a public place minding his own business.’

  There was a knock at the door and Matthew stuck his head in. ‘Could I have a word?’

  Frowning, Graham’s finger hovered over the recorder. ‘Interview suspended at ten thirteen am. DI Bailley, DC Talbot and DS Catt leaving the room.’

  In the corridor, Matthew looked pleased. ‘Guess what we’ve found?’ He didn’t wait for them to answer. ‘When we picked this bloke up last night, we ran a check on him and found he had a car, parked just around the corner. We got one of our drugs dogs down and bingo. There was a big stash hidden in the boot, heroin, ecstasy and some legal highs. Forensics are looking at it now.’

  ‘Got the bastard.’ Graham stuck his hands in the air, revealing sweat patches under his arms. ‘Let’s see what Little-Miss-Minding-His-Own-Business has to say about this.’

  ‘This is more than a local dealer – this sounds like a supplier.’ Matthew was grinning. ‘We’ve been picking up some small fry. It’s about time we started moving up the chain.’

  ‘Are you coming in for round two?’ Graham shadow-boxed at Matthew. ‘Seconds away.’

  ‘Inspector Pond?’ Martha’s voice carried from the desk. ‘Call for you. It’s the Superintendent.’

  ‘He must have heard the good news.’ Matthew smiled. ‘Hold on before going in will you?’

  As she watched Matthew walk to the desk, Robyn felt a sinking sensation. This was a more abstract concern than the after-effects of the hangover. Although the man in the cell behind them fitted the scant physical description of the attacker, she wondered why someone who was running drugs would want to draw attention to himself by attacking women. Graham started whistling, a just-recognisable mangling of “Another One Bites the Dust”. At the counter, Matthew’s face froze.

  Robyn nudged Graham, then pointed to where Matthew had turned away, leaning both arms on the desk for support, shoulders hunching. The note died on Graham’s lips.

  When Matthew finished the call, he left the receiver on the desk. He was looking paler.

  ‘What did Fell say?’ Graham couldn’t wait.

  Jerking his head in the direction of an interview room, Matthew walked away. Graham moved to follow him until he looked back. ‘Just Robyn.’ Robyn followed, leaving Graham grousing to Chloe in the corridor.

  Matthew sank into a chair. ‘Christ, I thought this week couldn’t get worse.’ He pressed his fingers to his temples. ‘Apparently, we’ve just buggered up Operation Emerald.’

  ‘What?’ Robyn gripped the back of the chair. ‘I’ve never heard of it?’

  ‘It’s the name for a brand-new co-ordinated drugs programme. There’s going to be a directive issued not to make any local drugs arrests without central clearance. They want to trace the operation to the top so by arresting matey-boy too soon, we may have put the network on guard.’ Matthew sighed. ‘You thought Fell was angry on Saturday, well now he’s really mad.’ His gaze went to the ceiling. ‘It was a bit like when my daughter spilled tea on the gerbil, lots of chittering and scrabbling.’

  ‘Christ.’ Robyn’s head felt too heavy between her shoulders. ‘If Fell’s kicking off, this must be big.’

  ‘It was going to be announced today apparently.’ Matthew sat back, af
fecting nonchalance.

  ‘Well then, how the hell were we supposed to know?’ This had the potential to be career-threatening and it wasn’t fair on Matthew. ‘Do we need to go and see Fell?’ She emphasised the ‘we’.

  ‘No. No need at the moment.’ Matthew stopped. ‘Thanks.’ He put both hands on the arms of the chair and heaved himself up so he was sitting up straight. ‘We might get more when Fell’s met the international team.’ He caught Robyn’s look. ‘Oh, yes, we’ve upset not just our own drugs’ squad but ones in Holland and France as well.’ This smile was a hollow one.

  ‘So what do we do with him?’ Robyn jerked her thumb in the rough direction of the cell.

  ‘Oh it gets better and better. We charge him with personal possession and let him go.’ Matthew’s eyes had returned to the ceiling. ‘I think if we hadn’t taken his car to bits they would have just said let him go. So even though he’s got enough drugs to supply a festival, he gets to walk.’

  Robyn was conscious of scrutiny. She turned, catching eyes looking through the peephole, vanishing when she focused upon them. She took a deep breath. ‘This doesn’t change why we did what we did. There’s still an attacker out there. Your guys did what I asked them to do.’ The room felt hot or maybe it was her. ‘Anyway, how were we supposed to know what they were planning?’