Hidden Power

by Judith Cutler

  Rod had told her he loved her. And the phone had died. So why hadn’t he used a landline as soon as he could? He must have known how anxious she’d be. She couldn’t try just once more, could she? At this hour of the night?

  What if he was on a case? Nonsense, policemen of his rank didn’t put themselves at risk. If he was working overnight at Lloyd House or wherever, the one thing you could guarantee in a police building was plenty of phones None of it made sense.

  At last she tried his landline again, ending the connection as soon as the answerphone cut in. If she redialled quickly enough she might confuse the machine and force it to ring out. She did. It did. But although she counted fifty rings, Rod still did not answer.

  Chapter 16

  There was still no reply from either of Rod’s phones at six thirty. She left brief messages. Struggling to keep calm, hating herself for losing her grip so quickly, Kate rang his direct line at Lloyd House, Birmingham’s police headquarters: there was an automatic answerphone there, too. She left the sort of message that wouldn’t embarrass him in front of a third person. But while she could select appropriate words, she’d less control over her voice. As for a return contact number, Earnshaw’s would have to do.

  Dressed, and forcing down the dense bread, she left a note for Earnshaw herself: it involved so many crossings-out she eventually simply drafted what she wanted to say and copied it out neatly, as if it were a homework assignment.

  Ma,

  I’m very worried about my friend in Birmingham. I’ve left messages but had no reply. I can’t take or make calls at work. Would you try the number? If you have no success, could you try the other office numbers?

  Thanks.

  PS Wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important.

  That would have to do. She hadn’t time for anything more artistic. In fact, it was a good job Earnshaw’s cottage was much closer to Cockwood than the Newton house or she’d have been late.

  It was a lovely, still morning, the Exe silent under thick sea mist. Another time, another day she’d have pulled into a lay-by to enjoy it. Maybe later. But she’d enjoy nothing, stop nowhere, till she knew Rod was all right.

  If only, the work were harder—if only she had to think about it while she was doing it. But even if she’d been working on the toughest case, she wouldn’t have been able to switch off the pain, sharp as toothache, in her head. Hell, she was behaving—feeling!—like a lovelorn teenager. He was working; he couldn’t return the call on anything except Earnshaw’s number in case he put her at risk. Logic.

  At least it had been easy enough to work out her excuse for looking so rough. It was pat when Gary Vernon looked swiftly up at her as he tackled his morning’s mail. ‘Kate—whatever’s wrong?’

  ‘Oh, Craig—what else? He’s only gone and walked out on me.’

  ‘My God—nothing to do with us holding you up last night, I hope?’

  ‘No. Something Ma said over the phone. His dad had had a go at him, too: I arrived in the middle of that.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Wait till he gets it into his head to come back, I suppose. If he doesn’t, then we’ll have to sell up. I might even go back to Birmingham—my friend reckons there’s a job waiting for me there.’ Which was true enough.

  ‘How will you manage in the meantime?’

  ‘I’ll be OK. His parents are ever so good: they’ll see me all right. Funny, I think that’s what gets to him—them being so nice to me, and criticising him.’

  ‘Could you do with a few extra hours, Kate? I know it’s up to the agency, really. We’re supposed to take whoever they send. But I’ll have a word. You’re the best cleaner on site by several miles. I’d love to get you on the weekend shift: one or two of the owners have been complaining about the level of cleanliness.’

  ‘What’d it involve, Mr Vernon?’ she asked cautiously, her heart pounding with excitement.

  ‘The same early-morning start—no, I tell a lie…You’d start at nine, and have to be clear by eleven. You’d be responsible for—I’m not sure whether it’s six or seven units.’

  ‘Seven? That’s a lot in three hours—if you want them done well, that is. How big are they?’ Let him show them to me! Please let him show them to me!

  Vernon looked at his watch. ‘I suppose I’ve just got time to take you over… You don’t mind working over to make up? I mean, it’s not going to make things worse with you and Craig, is it?’ He reached for his jacket.

  ‘He’s working all day—if he remembers to turn up, that is. He says he’ll be coming round to the house this evening to pick up some things.’

  He ushered her through the office door, locking it carefully behind him. ‘You could do with making yourself scarce, then.’

  ‘That’s what Ma-in-law says.’

  ‘Is that where he’ll be staying?’

  Christ. She’d nearly said he’d be staying with his father! But the myth was that he worked away from home a lot. All the same, there was a distinct plot-hole there. Any day now Knowles might find himself moving into Earnshaw’s cottage!

  ‘With one of his rotten mates, I should think. His parents’ll pass on any messages. And they’ll be having another go at bringing us back together.’ She sighed wearily.

  ‘But you’d rather go to Birmingham? It’s a big, impersonal place for a country girl, Kate.’

  An alarm bell. ‘Do you know it, Mr Vernon?’

  He opened the main door. The complex looked idyllic in the autumn glow. ‘Quite well. I’ve got…I’ve got some business contacts up there. They do a good curry, that’s one thing I’ll say for Birmingham.’

  ‘My friend says there’s lots of jobs coming up there. Some new development—The Pillar Box or something,’ she said doubtfully. ‘And Millennium Park.’

  ‘The Mail Box, Kate! The Pillar Box! Oh, dear! And I think you’ll find it’s Millennium Point.’ She’d never known him laugh so easily. But he’d given something away. He knew his Birmingham. What a good job Rod had come down just the once…

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right? Would you rather go home?’

  ‘Honestly, I shall be fine, Mr Vernon. Honestly. I’m much better working. And the chance of being out of the house at the weekends too, not to mention the chance of a bit extra in the wage packet…’ she tailed off encouragingly.

  They were halfway across the central courtyard, which looked distinctly out-at-elbows, the low sun highlighting a crop of dandelions.

  ‘You know, it’s a real shame Craig and I aren’t speaking—because, to be honest, he’d make a much better job of this than whoever’s doing it now. Look at those weeds. And the moss in the lawn.’

  ‘Would you really want him working at the same place as you?’ Vernon asked, bending to tug at a dandelion, and coming up with leaves but no root.

  ‘Funny: I wouldn’t really mind, not really,’ she said, wondering why she was going to this trouble for a man she loathed, and telling herself it was her duty. To be honest, she felt guilty for reacting with such hostility earlier: a bit of lateral thinking like this could have saved everyone a lot of sweat. Except, of course, she still wouldn’t have trusted Craig to stick to his job and not act as if he were an SAS sergeant on particularly active duty. ‘After all, we’d be on different shifts. I’d be going home as he came in.’

  Dusting the earth from his fingers, Vernon shook his head. ‘The last thing we want is domestics on the site.’

  Domestics? Police shorthand for domestic disturbances? How come Vernon was using the term?

  ‘No. Of course not. Oh,’ she gasped, as he let her into one of the apartments, ‘isn’t this nice?’ It was. It was an exact replica of those near Oxford. An extremely desirable residence. ‘How much would this set you back, Mt Vernon?’

  Wrong question. ‘It’s not as straightforward as that,’ he said, flushing. ‘And I’m afraid the information is confidential to potential buyers.’

  ‘And you can’t say I’m one of those
!’ she laughed. ‘Not me and Craig! Tell you what, though, Mr Vernon—it’d be a pleasure to clean a place like this. Look at that lovely little bathroom! And the kitchen! Are they all as nice as this?’

  ‘Well, this is one that’s been refurbished. They’re not all quite up to this standard. But they will be in time. Maybe you’d better see what’s involved with the other ones. The bedroom’s through there.’ But he didn’t open the door to show her. Instead, he opened the front door. She waited, docile, while he locked up. He set off at a gentle pace down a path to the sort of corner she recognised from her weekend in Hythe. Here the moss wasn’t confined to the grassed area—it really wasn’t worth the title lawn—but covered the flagstones as well.

  ‘Hey, isn’t this a bit dangerous? It must be ever so slippery after rain!’ she said.

  He looked at her sharply.

  ‘My gran always used to get me to scrape it off her back path,’ she added. ‘Don’t know why. Like a mountain goat she was. But she had this thing about slipping and breaking her hip and dying of pneumonia.’

  ‘And did she?’

  She shook her head. ‘Food poisoning. Always saved scraps and never remembered to pop them in the fridge.’ That was how Cassie had described Gran’s end, at least. He nodded, but she had a sense that she’d somehow said the wrong thing. Which was interesting, wasn’t it? How had an innocent remark come to irritate him like that? Best not to pursue it but to stand aside and let him unlock the nearest door.

  Damp. There was a distinct smell of damp. But she mustn’t sniff, or show any signs she was critical. She followed him round the place: it was no smaller than the fresh new place she’d just admired, but the use of space was nowhere near as good. The furniture was older and no doubt heavier, and there were more crevices in the kitchen and the bathroom.

  Vernon laughed ‘Nothing to say? Well, isn’t silence supposed to speak volumes? Don’t think much of this, do you, Kate?’

  ‘It’d take a lot longer to make it look anything like,’ she said. ‘Twice as long, I’d say. But that’s what cleaners are for, isn’t it, to make things look the best they can?’

  ‘You’re not a very good liar,’ he laughed.

  Aren’t I? The little you know… But she felt a shit. ‘What are the bedrooms like?’ she prompted.

  ‘This is a small family unit, so there’s a double bedroom for the parents, and a bunk-bedroom for the kids.’

  ‘But there’s only one bedroom in the other place.’ And why hadn’t he shown it to her?

  ‘There are different types of apartment. We’re trying to move a little more…upmarket. And a lot of people are put off by other people’s kids, apparently. So we’ve knocked down internal walls in the one you saw to give just one, much larger bedroom: remember? I daresay that’s what’ll happen to this if the owners ever decided to sell.’

  ‘But it must take a lot of doing—to persuade, what, twenty or thirty owners they all want to upgrade or to sell back to you.’ She’d definitely said the wrong thing—or had she? He was looking at her with something strangely like approval. ‘Come and see what we’re trying to get rid of—I’m not terribly proud of these, I can tell you. This is the children’s room—you can imagine what my Elly would say if she had to stay in it!’

  ‘Or Peter for that matter,’ she agreed, watching My Little Pony gallop across the restricted meadows of the walls.

  ‘And back here’s the adults’ room. Not much luxury, is there?’ He plumped down on a hard single bed.

  She allowed herself a long appraising gaze round the room, as she ran a finger along the top of the wardrobe. She showed him: it came up grey. She was observed by a tiny camera.

  ‘I can tell which you’d rather clean,’ he continued. ‘OK, Kate—I’ll have a word with the agency, but where they roster you is up to them. Tell you what,’ he added, locking up and setting back up the slope—walking quite gingerly, she noted, ‘Julie’s a bit low at the moment. If I can book up the odd meal, would you be happy to sit the kids?’

  ‘Oh, I would. But’—she allowed herself to wriggle awkwardly as if embarrassed by the hint of charity—‘I…I can manage, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure you can. But I know a good worker when I see one. Now, there are some senior managers coming down tomorrow—’

  Where from? Hythe? Oxford? ‘So you’d like me to do the conference room today, not Friday. No problems, Mr Vernon. In fact, I’ll make a start now. There’s no call for me to rush home, is there? I’ll make sure it does you proud!’ No reason? She didn’t want to dash back and find what was happening to Rod. ‘Tell you what—are any of the bosses likely to pop into your office? Because it could do with something to brighten it up. Those plants…the fern’s not as ill as it was, but even Baby-Bio takes a bit of time to work—’

  ‘And, as the saying goes, miracles take a little longer.’ He fished in his wallet and came out with a tenner. ‘Would that be enough for another plant?’

  ‘Plenty. Should get some cut flowers as well—they’d look nice. Unless you’d rather have them in the conference room?’ Any PA worth her salt would have organised that, of course. But the woman, whoever she was, didn’t seem to be much in evidence. One day she must make sure she hung around long enough to meet her.

  He flashed another flyer at her. ‘When will you get them?’

  ‘Tesco opens twenty-four hours now: I could pick them up on the way in. Tell you what though—you couldn’t borrow a couple of vases from Mrs Vernon?’

  ‘Sure. Kate, you’re a good girl. I know you won’t let me down.’ She nodded modestly, just as if she wasn’t saying, under her breath, ‘I just hope one day I don’t have to send you down.’

  Kate forced herself to vac and dust as conscientiously as if she were Kate Potter desperate to impress and to earn extra pounds. At least now she had something else to think about besides Rod: the visitors. Was there an attendance list anywhere? She headed back to Vernon’s room, just to give it one more flash over, as she’d put it.

  Just as she’d finished with the vacuum, he’d taken a phone call. Unusually, he’d hunched over the phone, which she took as a sign that he’d prefer her room to her, company.

  Grabbing both bins—his ordinary waste and paper destined to be shredded—she made a great show of scuttling silently away. Praying that the call would take a good long time, she rifled through the confidential material as quickly as she could. More about office plants Definitely suspect As for the rest, she fished a couple of sheets of accounts out and stowed them with the plant memos, before strolling into the office, nodding to the couple of girls languidly stirring coffee closer to their keyboards than was sensible and switching on the shredder. Hell! Something she’d missed. Something about security camera installation. Under cover of dropping a fistful, she fished it out, shoving it deep into her overall pocket. But it didn’t lie flat. If she wasn’t careful the bulge would betray the rest of her pilfering. Nothing for it. Grabbing her stomach as if she were unwell, she dashed to the loo. There. Everything stowed in her bra.

  ‘You all right?’ one of the girls—a redhead of about nineteen—asked as she returned. ‘Tum’s playing up a bit—I had this row with my bloke last night and it always goes to my stomach.’

  ‘And mine,’ Redhead sympathised. The other woman was on her feet looking out of the window. On her way there, she could have read any of the wad of papers Kate had abandoned. Guilty, as if she really had the interests of Sophisticasun at heart, Kate said, ‘I shouldn’t have left these lying around—you won’t tell, will you?’

  ‘Not if you don’t. Pity you came back so quick: we might have read them through and found how much pay rise we were getting. Or the boss, more likely. Tell you what—tomorrow, you have another tummy ache only make it last longer.’

  ‘Give you the chance to have a good read, you mean?’ Kate giggled.

  ‘Why not?’ Window Woman asked—she’d be a couple of years older than Kate, but doing her best to look sixteen. ‘Isn’t as i
f they pay us enough to keep their secrets, is it?’

  ‘You’re full-time, are you?’ Kate settled back on the edge of Redhead’s desk, apparently ready for a girlie gossip.

  ‘No. Agency, like you. But we’re on long-term contracts, which means we get better security but get paid less.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  Window Woman snorted. ‘I wish! No, the nicer they are to you, the meaner they’re going to get. “Would you mind just doing this? Would you mind just doing that?”’

  ‘And you’re not supposed to mind doing it—or mind not getting paid for—doing it,’ the other woman said. ‘I’m Tina, by the way, and this here’s Mandy.’

  ‘Kate.’ She smiled at both of them. ‘So have you been working here long?’

  ‘About nine months. Both of us. Tell you what, we always have a cuppa about this time—you could join us!’

  ‘Thanks. Goodness, I’d better be getting these bins back to Mr Vernon—he’ll be wondering what’s happened to me! But tomorrow would be grand. See you!’

  Mr Vernon might still have been on the phone, but he’d clearly registered Kate’s absence. He raised an eyebrow and touched—his watch. Kate mimed a bad stomach. She was wondering whether to add a little artistic extra, and mime spewing when whoever Vernon was speaking to cut the call.

  ‘And I’ve got a confession to make,’ Kate declared, before Vernon could draw breath. ‘I…had to go just when I was about to do the shredding, and I left stuff lying around till I got back. I really am sorry, when you’ve been so kind to me and everything.’

  He got up, face thunderous—but with fear or anger she couldn’t tell.

  ‘When I got back it was all just as I’d left it, honestly. And I’m sure they wouldn’t look. Mandy and Whatshername! Not if they knew they shouldn’t.’