Still Waters

by Judith Cutler

  Fran’s encounters with colleagues in the canteen or elsewhere might have looked casual but rarely were. Today when she saw DI Jon Binns lurking by the water cooler, she found that she too was thirsty, although she’d just downed a mug of tea.

  Jon Binns had moved from forensic accountancy into the more general area of CID, where he had attracted Fran’s attention for his loyalty, occasionally misplaced, and his acumen. He also seemed to like her as much as she liked him, and even if passing the time of day with him didn’t elicit the information she needed she wouldn’t consider it time wasted.

  Pleasantries exchanged and over, she said bluntly, ‘Jon, I need to pick your brains. You’ve got a business degree, haven’t you?’

  ‘Fancy your remembering that!’

  Fran usually did recall things she might find useful one day, but she grinned noncommittally, implying, she hoped, that she always took an interest in promising young officers’ backgrounds.

  ‘Tell me, why should a firm risk failing to respond to customers’ letters and calls?’

  ‘They probably don’t think it’s a risk at all. People aren’t persistent.’

  ‘People like me are persistent. People like me smell rats if Customer Relations never phone them back.’

  ‘You needn’t always. It can simply mean that the firm doesn’t employ enough poor drones to respond to all their complaints.’

  ‘Not that it doesn’t care?’

  ‘It’s all to do with balancing variables, guv. And very few customers are going to make a fuss if no one rings back.’

  ‘OK, so you give up phoning and write. And still nothing happens. What than?’

  ‘Someone makes a stink. Goes to the media. And then things start to happen.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you thinking of a specific organisation here? Because I’d have thought a call from someone like you, speaking with the authority of your rank, would work wonders.’

  He was good, this lad. The authority of your rank! What he meant, of course, was that Fran could bully her way through most situations. She smiled silkily. ‘So you think I should give Invitaqua one of my grade one bollockings?’

  ‘Invitaqua? Aren’t they in the process of being sold?’

  She rounded her eyes encouragingly.

  ‘They’ve not been a UK company since privatisation, I know that, and I’ve an idea they’re owned by some German-based multinational, which is now selling it off to some offshore holding company. Venture capital… Do you want all the details? The story was in the FT the other day – I can look it up if you want.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s necessary, thanks, Jon. But the gist of what you’re saying is that they’re currently in a sort of financial limbo—’

  ‘That’s right. It’s no one’s baby at the moment, and all people are interested in is the price of shares. But that shouldn’t affect the day-to-day running of the company.’

  ‘I should hope not – it’d be bad if they turned the taps off until they’d completed their negotiations.’

  ‘What were you going to complain about, guv?’

  ‘The village water supply tastes odd and smells a bit, some people claim. Would it reduce the share price if there was a water-quality scandal?’

  ‘Only if it was big enough.’

  ‘So they might be covering something up until the deal goes through?’

  He looked her straight in the eye. ‘I don’t see them covering you up, guv.’

  ‘Like a noisy budgie in a cage? I should like to see them try!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Reaching at long last for the file that Mark had asked her to read, and this time getting to the stage where she even checked her pencil was sharp, Fran was again interrupted by the phone. It was Simon Gates’ secretary, inviting her to yet another meeting.

  ‘This afternoon? Sorry, I can’t possibly. Would you send Mr Gates my apologies and tell him I’m tied up with a job for Mr Turner?’

  Two minutes later the phone rang again. It was Gates himself.

  ‘I wouldn’t have requested your presence if it hadn’t been essential,’ he said without preamble.

  An essential meeting with no prior preparation? Surely not. All the same, she temporised. ‘We’ve got a case coming up for appeal shortly. Mark wants me to check the validity of our case before the CPS start picking holes in it.’

  ‘Such reviews are Henson’s responsibility.’

  Surely he knew about Henson’s heart problem? Lest he hadn’t, she spelt it out. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Henson was off sick for some months after major heart surgery. OK, he’s back now, but he’s still very much on light duties, and he’s only on seventy-five per cent of his hours.’ With the connivance of both the chief and Cosmo Dix, head of Human Resources, Fran, who’d had to take over a case or two from him, had continued to stand by to pick up odd bits and pieces so that Henson wouldn’t be under too much pressure. ‘So I support him whenever—’

  ‘I’ll expect you at three, DCS Harman.’ He cut the call.

  The bastard. Double bastard for betraying her belief in him.

  Even she had to respond to direct orders, so, with great reluctance leaving the file behind, she took herself off to the meeting. Predictably it overran lamentably and predictably made not a jot of difference to the sum total of things. She’d have done more for the world by touting a collection box outside Sainsbury’s for the Police Benevolent Fund.

  Two hours later, then, gasping for a cup of tea, on her return to her office, she was greeted by an A4 internal post envelope. Forget the tea! A quick look inside told her it was what she’d been awaiting for some time, the background information on the Alec Minton suicide. She knew local CIDs were overburdened not just with cases but with the concomitant paperwork; all the same, Pete Webb had been decidedly dilatory. She glanced at her watch – it was now nearer seven than six. Mark would be waiting for her. Hell’s bells, they were supposed to be meeting Maeve and little Bill at eight. All the same—

  ‘No you don’t,’ Mark announced, popping his head round the door just as she lifted the flap.

  She dropped the envelope guiltily on the desk.

  ‘If you open it now, Fran, you’ll still be here at midnight, scribbling here, jotting there.’

  ‘And of course, I’m not supposed to be looking at cases – I’m Meetings Woman now.’ She explained, watching Mark’s face tighten with anger at having his own request countermanded. ‘I can’t even wipe my damned nose without having to minute it or write a paper about it. And I thought Simon was good!’

  ‘He was at the rank he was on when you met him. He’s just like practically everyone else at his level – promoted just beyond his capacity. And he knows it and makes up for it by making everyone else work three times as hard as they ought simply to cover his back.’

  ‘You never do. And you’re also answerable to the chief direct.’

  ‘I have a wonderful team, and a guv’nor who insisted that dealing with a spot of real crime from time to time was good for one’s brain and kept one in touch with the workers.’

  She shook her head. ‘That cock won’t fight. He’s got the same guv’nor and pretty well the same team, plus you as support.’

  ‘Or me looking over his shoulder, as he may see it.’

  She would rather blame herself than Mark. ‘Perhaps I overestimated his abilities.’

  ‘If you did, everyone else on his career path has too. We shall see. Meanwhile, why don’t you have a word with the chief, Fran, and get him officially to support your position as Henson’s backstop – yes, in writing for preference – before Gates gets you back into uniform.’

  ‘What did you say?’ she gasped, not knowing whether to be furious or afraid.

  ‘No, don’t panic – it’s only a feeling. I suspect Gates doesn’t like anomalies of any sort,’ Mark explained, ‘and your position isn’t exactly regular.’ They exchanged a smile – it was he who had suggested it, after all, at which point their relationship had burgeoned. �
��Now, hadn’t you better nip off and change? We don’t want to be too late.’

  All the same, when she returned, no longer severe in a trouser suit but almost flirty and feminine in a calf-length skirt, he had fished out the photocopies and spread them on her desk.

  ‘Mine! Mine! Gimme!’

  He held a fistful behind his back. ‘You’ll have to pay with a kiss first…’

  ‘I’m getting too old to eat so late,’ Mark admitted, reaching across the dressing table for the Rennies.

  Fran begged one too. ‘I forgot when I agreed eight that Maeve has never arrived early in her life, and that she likes a good chinwag before she so much as opens the menu. And the service was slow, you must admit that.’

  ‘Slow! Like tortoises on bromide. And all of us coming back here to fill those special sterile bottles of hers with water whilst under the influence of whisky didn’t help.’

  ‘And neither did Bill wanting an attic-to-cellar guided tour as if he was on a National Trust outing. Or casing the joint.’

  ‘But Maeve did say she’d get someone to run preliminary tests at the reservoir tomorrow if our water showed the merest hint of anything dodgy. So the evening was mostly a success.’

  ‘Not for my tum.’

  ‘Nor mine. No dessert next time, anyway.’

  ‘No dessert ever, ever again…’

  Considering how long it had taken Pete Webb to get the material on the Alec Minton case, there wasn’t much of it for Fran to look at when she arrived at her desk on Wednesday morning. Half of Fran wanted to shake his officers for such perfunctory reports. The other half agreed with what she was sure had been the tacit, possibly even the open, decision of the investigating team: it had been a suicide and the sooner they could report their findings to the coroner the sooner they could get on with investigating some real crime.

  The information they’d gathered gave a bald outline of his life. Alec Minton had been born sixty-three years ago in Leicester. After secondary school he’d been employed as a clerk first by Leicester City Council, where on day-release he’d studied and obtained appropriate qualifications. After ten years or so he’d moved to Birmingham City Council, and thence to South Staffordshire Water, where he’d steadily progressed up the promotion ladder. He seemed to have taken no further courses or exams. He’d not married, and sold his parents’ house on their death to buy his own in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham. When the Thatcher government had forced privatisation on the utilities, he’d finally left the Midlands and headed to Manchester City Council. In nothing like a top post, he’d retired at the age of sixty, settling, as many other people his age did, in Hythe, where he’d joined the library and the bowls club.

  Why had he bothered killing himself? In his place Fran would have simply died of boredom.

  And why had he gone to a hotel to do it?

  His bowls club colleagues reported him as having a very equable temperament, surrendering to neither of the impostors, triumph and despair. Only once had they ever seen him lose his temper, but it was agreed it was fully justified. He’d apologised to the committee. His neighbours said he was the ideal man to have living above or below, he was so quiet. His car service log was up to date.

  ‘Alec, Alec. What secret propelled you to your grave?’

  ‘Talking to yourself, Fran? Not a good sign.’

  The chief! Fran was on her feet in a second.

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ he said, waving her down again. ‘On second thoughts, you wouldn’t have a cup of tea on offer, would you?’

  ‘Tea or coffee,’ she said. ‘And some home-made biscuits.’

  He settled himself with the air of one who intended to stay for some time. Bother him. The rest of Alec Minton’s file apart, she only had half an hour before the next bloody Gates meeting and had meant to prepare for it properly, in the hope that the benefit she got from it might be proportional to the effort she put in.

  ‘You weren’t on the interview panel for the DCC post, were you, Fran? Coffee, please. No, some of your nice soothing green tea.’

  ‘No, of course I wasn’t! I’ve sat on more appointment panels than I can shake a stick at but never for posts above me!’

  ‘Ah,’ he said gloomily, staring at the straw-coloured liquid in the mug she set before him. Perhaps it had been his choice that made him so downbeat.

  Sighing, she sat and waited. To prompt him she fished out the tin of biscuits. ‘Don’t for one moment think I made these!’

  He smiled. ‘Young Tom Arkwright’s auntie?’

  It was his memory for details like that that earned him not just the respect but affection of his officers. Less liked was his habit of quoting Shakespeare at apposite moments.

  ‘Tom still thinks he needs to look after me, sir. He drops by for a natter when he gets his weekly consignment.’

  ‘You enjoyed working with him, didn’t you?’ He smiled.

  ‘Very much. He’s a nice kid – should go far. In fact, he’s about to take up his first posting as sergeant down in Ashford.’ Where was this going?

  ‘You’ll miss the biscuits then.’

  ‘I shall have to make an effort to bake my own.’ And why not, now she was back in her own kitchen at weekends instead of being overawed by Tina’s?

  He chewed appreciatively and sipped with less enthusiasm at his tea. ‘Gates is running a pretty tight ship, eh, Fran?’

  ‘Wall-to-wall policy meetings, sir. Just what the Home Secretary ordered. And just as Gates has nailed one document, the Home Office changes its mind and we’re supposed to be focusing on something else – business as usual, in other words.’

  She was rewarded by a guffaw of dry laughter.

  ‘But he’s doing all right?’

  She made a tiny rocking motion with her hand. ‘Maybe sweeping a tad too clean, sir. If only he could time-constrain agenda items. You know my feeling about meetings anyway,’ she added, as if to temper the criticism. ‘Especially when I’ve got other things on my plate I consider should take priority.’

  His laugh was ironic. ‘I do indeed. But this is a general feeling?’

  ‘I only ever speak for myself, sir.’

  ‘Not for Mark? He isn’t feeling his nose has been pushed out, is he, Fran? I wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘Would you expect him to tell you how I feel, sir? Well, then, how can I possibly answer that?’ she asked with a conclusive grin, which, to his credit, the chief returned.

  ‘Nice to see Henson back in harness,’ he said unexpectedly.

  Mark’s warning about Gates’ intentions ringing in her ears, Fran smiled. She hoped he would not realise her duplicity. ‘Until he’s able to work a full week, you can rely on my continuing to help him out in whatever way I can. In fact, sir, I’d really like my position to be confirmed, just for the record.’

  ‘You don’t think you’d be more use giving Gates a hand? Mentoring him a bit?’

  ‘Dogsbodying for him you mean?’

  She had gone too far. The chief got to his feet. ‘I’m sure you’ll always fulfil whatever role you’re called upon to take. And no skiving off meetings, Fran – not without a very good reason.’

  ‘Sir,’ she said, also on her feet. But she spoke to an empty room. So she stuck her tongue out at the closed door. Now what? Should she see the chief again and push her point, or memo him formally? Neither was a good move, and might well be counterproductive. He was a man who always liked to think he’d had ideas first.

  Halfway through the afternoon’s meeting, even more tedious because she’d not had time to prepare at all, let alone adequately, she scribbled a note to herself. ‘Why was Alec Minton reading the Lenham Focus? Which edition was it?’ As an afterthought she added, ‘What did he look like?’ That seemed about the most productive moment of the whole afternoon. Especially when Gates, mistaking her enthusiastic jotting as a sign that at least someone was involved in the proceedings, bounced her into leading a sub-committee dealing with the needs of divisional CIDs. It wasn’t an
unreasonable move. After all, she had been compiling the information on her own initiative. But she had an idea that he was staking a claim on her, and, given the chief’s closing words, he would win. And she would become no more than his minion, no longer – in her eyes at least – a free agent.

  At last, feeling as if she bore on her shoulders the whole weight of future policing in the South East, she trailed past her secretary’s office on her way back to her own. She gave no more than a languid flap of the hand, but Pat waved vigorously and pointed at the phone. Fran responded by breaking into something more energetic than a depressed saunter, and, in the safety of her sanctum, picked up the handset.

  ‘Maeve! Already!’

  ‘Bill insisted he could smell something funny too. He’s got a wonderful nose, Fran – always chooses my perfume for me. He saves me from making the most expensive mistakes.’

  Fran made little winding gestures. One’s own middle-aged infatuation was one thing, someone else’s another, even if it was Maeve’s.

  ‘Anyway, Bill thought there was something fishy – or more probably animal! – in the supply. So I didn’t bother testing your tap water but went straight for the reservoir check – you know, with that clever portable machine I was telling you about.’

  ‘And did it—?’

  ‘I told you that they can test for conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen and temperature? Well, there was sufficient evidence to go for the full investigation.’

  ‘Excellent news! Or is it?’

  ‘It’s not very good at all, from your point of view – because it does suggest that there is some sort of pollutant. And the other bad news is that it’ll take a whole week to get the results.’

  ‘A week!’

  ‘That’s how long science takes, Fran. But—’

  ‘There’s a but?’

  ‘This is a good but. Invitaqua are required by law to take regular samples. So I can demand to see their results. And if they’ve found impurities and have done nothing to investigate the situation, we can have them on toast.’

  ‘Boiled alive in their own dodgy water would be more appropriate. Maeve, I’m so grateful.’