Hidden Power

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Plymouth. Oh, you people from the Met think tough stuff stops at Watford. But I tell you, you want to try it down there. Rougher than a bear’s arse. Kids involved, too.’

  ‘How long were you down there?’

  ‘Long enough. Then they put me back in fucking uniform up in Bristol.’

  ‘We’ve borrowed him same as we’ve borrowed you,’ Earnshaw put in.

  ‘Talk about culture shock,’ Kate prompted.

  ‘Yeah. But it’s all part of the job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Suppose so. Incontinence pads, paedophiles, raids that go wrong and kill your partner. All part of the job.’ She kept her voice at its driest.

  The silence deepened with the dusk. Craig stared through the window at whatever demons beset him. Kate saw hers in the dregs of her coffee: a dead lover, dead hopes. Except that one hope burned, however grey the mood. Rod. She managed to brace her shoulders and look up, ready to smile at Earnshaw. But it seemed that she had her own ghosts: Kate had never seen her look so old or vulnerable.

  She might have to take another risk. She’d certainly put herself in Craig’s hands if she did. ‘I got this phobia,’ she said. ‘Maggots. The sort that eat up bodies. So badly that when someone sent me maggots through the post I had to see a shrink.’

  Craig didn’t move. ‘Waste of time. All this counselling and stuff. If a kid falls over and cuts its knee it’s supposed to need counselling. And you do, if you see it.’

  ‘You take me fishing and see if it’s a waste of time.’ Kate laughed. ‘I haven’t got to the point where I can warm maggots in my mouth, but I can watch while you do.’

  Earnshaw pulled herself together, the effort palpable. ‘Wouldn’t be a bad idea if you did go fishing together. Or did something together. Give a bit of authenticity—’

  ‘“To an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative”,’ Kate concluded for her, surprising herself with a memory of school Gilbert and Sullivan. ‘Oh, we’ve been very good on the verisimilitude when it comes to the antipathy and hostility stuff—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake! You swallowed a fucking dictionary? She’s like this all the fucking time, Guv.’

  ‘And you’re like a kid whining to his mother,’ Earnshaw snapped.

  ‘Which is what he’s supposed to be,’ Kate observed, quietly. ‘OK, I do have difficulty staying in role when I’m with you people. But I do my best when I’m with people who only know me as Kate Potter. You know the line—I may be under-educated but I’d still have been bright enough to get CLAIT, if only I hadn’t had RSI. Well, that’s what the Vernons are happy with. The more immediate problem seems to be how far I push. And if I’m the one doing it, surely I have to be the one to decide. And before you say anything, Craig, I’ve managed to persuade Vernon that you’d maintain his grounds better than whoever does it now. He’s not happy with the thought of us having marital bust-ups in public, but I pointed out that we wouldn’t be at the complex at the same time. So he may buy it. Give me a little more time—’

  ‘You’ve had bloody weeks!’

  ‘But I’m quite sure he wouldn’t buy the idea of your coming round to his house while I’m baby-sitting. I wouldn’t, if I were a parent.’

  ‘What if I just turned up?’

  ‘I wouldn’t let you in. In fact, if the kids were still up, I’d call the police. Whatever the parents may or may not be involved in, the kids are completely innocent and I won’t have them involved in any way. Period.’

  Earnshaw seemed to see the coffee for the first time. A skin had formed. She poked a thick index finger at it, but gave up. ‘Get me another, will you, Craig? Or you, Kate—you’ve been resting your bones a long time. Off you go.’

  God, she had as much tact as a rhinoceros. Nonetheless, Kate got to her feet. ‘What about you, Craig?’

  ‘All right.’ Not looking at her, he thrust his half-full mug in her general direction.

  ‘What I’m still not happy about,’ Earnshaw began, as if Kate hadn’t again spent five minutes longer than necessary in the kitchen, ‘is this bike business.’

  ‘Any ideas, Craig?’ Kate asked conscientiously.

  ‘I might if I knew what the fuck you were talking about.’ Kate explained.

  ‘You can handle that thing, can you?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘I told you. I passed my test when I was seventeen. But I could have done without being pushed down that bloody hill. I was this close to coming off. All I could see in my mirrors was his bonnet. With the wretched man’s face snarling at me for good measure. Except when he was laughing.’

  ‘Managed to ID him yet? You bloody haven’t, have you?’

  ‘Hard to know when she could have done, Craig. Or where, come to that. She can’t go swarming up to the front desk and asking to see the mug shots, can she?’

  ‘We must be able to get them on line. Or at least get the e-fit guys round to this place.’

  Now Craig was engaged it was possible to see what a bright young man he must have been. Before—well, before whatever it was that turned him into his present boorish self.

  He managed a bleak smile. ‘We could even meet up down at the pub. That’d look as if you’d done your job well—Ma.’

  Chapter 21

  The nicest thing about Devon—scenery and climate apart—Kate decided, must be its pubs. There was the attractive place where they’d eaten on Sunday. Now they were in a tiny place, the snug living up to its name with room for just half a dozen tables. The trouble was that it was too snug for their purpose. They could have done with a big impersonal chain pub, with everyone’s attention on a wide-screen soccer match, so that no one would take any notice of an earnest group in the corner, huddling over what were clearly not shots of Granny in the Costa del Sol.

  Kate had no special preconceptions of what the e-fit artist might look like, but Mona Kearney wouldn’t have fitted any of them. Inevitably introduced and referred to as Lisa, she looked more like a librarian than an artist, studious behind heavy-lensed spectacles. Why on earth hadn’t she gone in for contact lenses, or at least those thin lenses you could get these days? To make matters worse the glasses kept slipping down her nose, so every sentence was punctuated by a quick jab from her index finger. She could have been anything between forty and fifty, with flyaway blonde hair coarsening to grey, but still worn in a teenage shoulder-length pageboy. Perhaps fifty was nearer the mark: although she was still slender, her waist was thickening, with a hook and eye pulled to danger point on her waistband.

  If Kate had expected her to whisper, she was mistaken. The woman bellowed a request for vodka and tonic. Craig, frowning, lifted his eyebrows as if asking the other women for their choice. But Kate thought it might equally have been in shock. Even Earnshaw was disconcerted. Mona’s resonant, ‘Nice to meet you, Kate,’ told them they’d not underestimated the problem. Lisa had to be muted before she could say anything else. Another inadequate briefing, damn it.

  Kate jumped in. ‘Good to meet you too, Mona. But I think we should have a quick drink here and then head back home to talk over this idea of Craig’s. In fact, we could send him to the office for whatever you drink, while we go on ahead.’

  ‘But I told my husband to meet me here,’ Mona objected. ‘I don’t drive, you see. In any case—’

  ‘What time will he be here?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Oh, about ten thirty.’

  ‘In that case—my goodness, we’ve only got forty minutes—couldn’t you phone him? Tell him to come round to our place?’

  ‘No mobile.’ She mimed a phone at her ear.

  As one, Kate, Earnshaw and Craig produced theirs. ‘No. Him, not me.’ Still fortissimo.

  Craig leant forward, putting her drink in front of her. ‘Look, Mona, love: we’re supposed to be having a nice quiet private chat, aren’t we? I thought this’d be just the place, but I was wrong: it isn’t. Why don’t you and Kate go back to ours, soon as you’ve finished this, that is, and I’ll hang on for your husband. Ma here’ll go with y
ou.’

  Mona shook her head emphatically. ‘You don’t know him. He doesn’t know you.’

  ‘There must be some way I could recognise him,’ Craig said, containing his anger—but surely only just.

  ‘He’s just—ordinary, like me,’ Mona declared.

  ‘Look—you’re an artist. Draw a little picture.’ Craig produced a scrappy bit of paper.

  ‘Not any more. Been de-skilled, haven’t I? All this computerisation.’

  ‘OK. A rough sketch. And tell me any—er—distinguishing features.’

  Despite her protestations, Mona’s few lines suggested an anxious-looking man with little hair. Kate was sure she’d pick him out in a crowd, let alone a half-empty bar. Earnshaw downed her G and T as if it were water. Kate’s wine might just as well have been. But at least Craig had tried. She caught his eye and raised her glass in an ironic toast. He grimaced back.

  ‘Anything else I need to know?’ he urged Mona.

  ‘Well, he’ll have Eveline with him, of course.’ At last Mona sipped her drink.

  Three pairs of eyes willed her to swig it. She sipped again. ‘I’ll stop off at the off-licence then,’ Earnshaw declared. ‘A supply of vodka and tonic, Mona, and wine for Kate. Craig?’

  ‘I’ll help Kate out with the wine,’ he said.

  If Earnshaw noticed his concession, she didn’t show it. ‘See you all later, then.’ And she stomped off.

  Mona blinked. ‘Oh, I’d better polish this off then,’ she told the assembled masses. And suited the deed to the words.

  They managed to wait until they’d closed the front door on Mr and Mrs Kearney and Eveline before they collapsed into gales of laughter, Earnshaw leading the way.

  At last, she sat on the stairs, holding her sides, while Kate brought her a glass of water. She waved it away.

  ‘Who’d have thought,’ she began, trying to lever herself up but succumbing to another paroxysm, ‘that the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary would employ an Irish-born foghorn with a deaf husband? And they’d have a bloody hearing dog called Eveline? Why Eveline, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘“Out of Joyce”? I thought that was how they talked about racehorses,’ Craig said, suppressing giggles.

  Kate drank the water herself and propped up the front door. ‘Kearney: that’s an Irish name, right? And despite those strange vowels, he sounded quite Irish. Maybe it’s to do with James Joyce.’

  ‘Well, who the fuck cares, when all is said and done?’ Craig sank to his haunches at Earnshaw’s feet. ‘At least you got her to do a sketch of that Range Rover bastard.’

  ‘She was amazingly accurate, too, once she got going. Poor woman, having to shout like that all the time.’ But Kate was more giggly than pitying.

  ‘And poor bitch, having to answer to that poncy name!’ Craig hooted, ambiguously.

  ‘Oh, Craig, don’t start me off again,’ Earnshaw implored him. ‘Just when I thought I’d be able to breathe again one day.’

  Kate tried again. ‘And poor bastard needing a wife to shout and a bitch to lead him around.’

  ‘Good job it isn’t the other way round!’ Earnshaw howled. At last, pressing the heels of her thumbs against her eyes, she said, ‘I thought she’d do something with a computer. You know, these eyes: click. This nose: click. This left ear: click. And then an extra big click to put them all together.’

  ‘You’d end up with a bloody Picasso if you weren’t careful,’ Craig hooted. ‘Your way, anyway. No mouth and only one ear!’

  ‘But,’ Earnshaw objected, ‘we know the man’s no oil-painting!’

  That started them off again. Nothing especially funny. Not enough booze to make them giggly. But a mateyness Kate associated with her time at the Met. And with Colin and the Birmingham crowd.

  At last Earnshaw shoved out both arms for them to haul her to her feet. ‘Come on, young fellamelad. Time to let Kate get her beauty sleep. You’re all right meeting Whatshername at my place tomorrow, Kate? Bringing photos that look like chummie?’

  ‘So long as you can provide me with earplugs,’ Kate agreed.

  Kate hadn’t bargained for Vernon’s colleagues to be infesting the place for a second day, of course. But at least someone had slipped through her front door at an unconscionably early hour a couple of little bugs, one for Gary Vernon’s desk, the other for the cleaner’s cubby-hole. There wasn’t any obvious cover-for the latter—no shelves to conceal it under, not on the wall nearest the conference room, at least improvising, she propped the box of vacuum cleaner bags against the wall, and tucked the bug out of site on the skirting board. Then she whizzed round the conference room as if her life depended on it, chastened suddenly by the thought that it just might. There. Perfect. She even had time to add water to the flower vases before she vamoosed. Today she would spend extra time in the bar and the loos: she could always dive into a cubicle if necessary.

  And it was. She was giving an extra polish to the mirror in the Gents’ when she heard the outer door open. She dived. To shut the door or leave her rear view on show to indicate a female presence? Door shut, she fancied. But she hummed ‘Don’t cry for me, Argentina’—while she cleaned.

  ‘If that’s you, Kate, stay where you are for a bit. Avert your gaze!’ Gary sounded as if he were in a good mood. So long as he didn’t get round to feeling under his desk he’d stay that way.

  ‘OK, Mr Vernon.’ She made sure her voice was muffled by the loo bowl.

  ‘So Mike’s pulling out, is he?’ Vernon continued, his voice more confidential.

  ‘Silly sod. Just when he could do well for himself. Parker won’t like it, either.’

  Kate froze. She knew that voice. Sebastian from Hythe. There was no hope that he wouldn’t recognise her—as she’d told Sue, in her experience people tended to remember people they disliked as readily as those they liked. More readily, perhaps. Watching Rod annoy him had been good fun, but not the wisest policy. OK, she looked very different from when they’d last met—the awful hair, the ugly tabard uniform, scruffy jeans and cheap shoes—and her voice sounded different. But people like her—and like Sebastian—were rarely fooled by superficial changes. They looked for eyes, mouths—and, yes, listened to voices.

  The urinals flushed. Taps ran. Vernon called cheerily, ‘You can come out, now, Kate’ But there was no sound of retreating footsteps.

  ‘Well, Mr Vernon, seeing as I’m in here, I might as well make use of it, mightn’t I?’ she called as pertly as she could. ‘See you this evening, about seven!’

  ‘OK. Don’t be late, will you? Not that you ever are. She’s the sort of girl,’ he added, obviously to Sebastian, ‘I’d like to recruit on to a full-time contract. Hard-working, rel—’ And the men had left.

  Kate, still buying time, suited the deed to her earlier words. Now it might be safe to leave.

  She made one more foray to Vernon’s room. This time the shredding collection was much more interesting—faxes had come through for other delegates. She stuffed a hefty wad down her trousers, and grabbed some ordinary waste paper to bulk out the little she took along to the office. But here she was clearly out of favour. Girl wars! Not being spoken to because you refused to make the delegates coffee and carry it into the conference room, when they were paid—however inadequately—to do it themselves. Any temptation to offer to help this morning went out of the window. She got rid of her burden, hopped on the Honda, and looked ready to take off. But who could resist such an interesting collection of number plates? Pity she’d been too scared to do a proper job collecting them all yesterday. She jotted down as many as she could from her position astride her bike: no, she wouldn’t scribble, lest they couldn’t be read. Then she tore an unused page from the back of her notepad and wafted it into the air. Chasing after it—what, Kate Potter leave litter?—gave her the chance to record some more. There. Almost a complete collection. Her only regret was that there wasn’t a familiar Range Rover sitting waiting to be ID-ed. She’d have cleaned the number plate specially.

>   When she arrived at The Hollies, Kate found Mona sitting in a Peugeot out in the lane. This time she had come properly equipped, with a laptop computer to die for. There was no sign of Earnshaw: she was no doubt doing whatever Devon DCIs were supposed to do to earn their corn.

  Mona was noisily reluctant to accept hospitality in Earnshaw’s absence. But Kate insisted that until she’d had a caffeine fix she couldn’t put her mind to anything.

  ‘I had a look through myself,’ Mona said, opening the laptop on the kitchen table and bringing up the programme. While the computer chuntered to itself, she eyed the would-be Gaudi architecture on the draining board ‘Phone point? Ah.’ She plugged it in. ‘I wondered if this might be the guy,’ she said at last.

  Kate set down the cups by an almost empty china milk jug and peered over Mona’s shoulder. ‘Might-be. But your sketch looks much more like him than this photo does.’ Pulling up a chair, she paged slowly down. ‘No, none of them captures the menace of the guy. Perhaps I need to see him in my mirrors, right behind me,’ she joked.

  ‘Try it’ Mona sounded dead serious. ‘Have you got a mirror? Go on, try. It might jog your memory, you never know.’

  As much to humour her as anything, Kate did try. And got nothing. Then she picked up Mona’s original sketch and repeated the process ‘No, this version—hey, I didn’t realise—I’ve got his eyebrows the wrong way round. It’s this side that’s thicker, with all those stray curly Denis Healey hairs.’

  Mona rubbed out and added in. ‘I think I ought to scan this into the computer. See if we can get the e-fit to match the sketch.’

  ‘Fine. Shall I see what Earnshaw’s got in the fridge, by way of lunch?’

  ‘But—oh, surely we can’t. A DCI’s—’

  Kate laughed ‘Well, we can hardly turn up at a restaurant together—a lavatory cleaner and a police artist. On the other hand,’ she added, peering into the ice-encrusted depths, ‘it’s a bit academic whether we raid it or not. Look—Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.’