Power on Her Own

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Not much of a kitchen. Not like this.’ Kate looked around her.

  ‘This my husband’s redundancy. Twenty-five years a teacher and – she drew a finger across her throat. ‘But then he walks straight into another job, and hey presto! Like it?’

  ‘Lovely. Gives me ideas for mine. Aunt Cassie’s been really kind – she’s given me the house, you see.’

  Mrs Mackenzie looked at her sideways. ‘Well, there’s gifts and there’s gifts,’ she said. ‘When I was a girl in school, they made us learn these poems. There was this one about an albatross.’

  The tired, damp smell hit her as soon as she opened the front door. Neglected house plus old person smell. She’d met it in countless houses; she’d never thought she’d live in one smelling like it. At least it wouldn’t smell like that when she’d finished with it. The trouble was, knowing where to start.

  The kitchen. She couldn’t live without a proper kitchen. Aunt Cassie had survived with a minute kitchen and a scullery. Knocking out the wall between them would make a lovely long light room. She could picture it now: a working surface there, the sink where it would catch the sun. And a nice round table in that corner by the radiator. Pale green and a warm coloured wood. And some pretty tiles. All she had at the moment was an old brown porcelain sink in the scullery, complete with a splash-back that looked like Challenger coming in to land, minus a few tiles. Kate supposed she could risk the stove, but was reluctant, on grounds of hygiene, for one thing. Arthritic joints don’t take kindly to wielding a Brillo pad. No such thing as a microwave, of course: she’d have to eat the tikka cold. At least what it lacked in thermal power, it made up in spice. She’d go to that chippie again.

  And then to bed. She was making do with an inflatable mattress and sleeping bag on the living-room floor until the builders had sorted out the plaster in the upstairs rooms: during the hurricane Cassie had lost a chunk of roof, which she’d had to have repaired. But apart from having the plaster directly underneath patched, she’d never wanted the mess of having the rest of the ceilings skimmed. That was Kate’s priority: to get the upstairs into a state where it could be decorated. And the problem was the money it would take. The house she and Robin had shared in Croydon had been in her name, while he’d paid his way with household expenses. Until she’d sold it, she couldn’t afford the £10,000 or so it would take to knock this house into shape. Or at least until she’d got a regular tenant.

  The more she tried to sleep, the faster the problems marched across her eyes: the guttering, the garden, the bathroom, the front wall. And the wiring. That was her first priority. Aunt Cassie had admitted that when you turned some switches on, there was a smell of hot rubber. And then there was the matter of that boiler …

  At least there was still some whisky left. Tomorrow she’d check out Sainsbury’s own brand. Except it was well into tomorrow already, and still sleep was no nearer.

  And then she slammed the whisky glass down and peered at the cut on her leg. Glass? She’d have noticed broken glass when she’d laid the girl on the ground. Wouldn’t she? Pulling her clothes on, bloody trousers and all, she knew she had to go. And knew, just as well as she knew there was no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, she’d find no glass.

  One of those lads had used a knife on her, hadn’t he?

  Chapter Three

  ‘So the good news is the kid’ll live,’ Harvey announced. ‘The bad news is he’s deeply traumatised. Still not speaking. Crying. Sucking his thumb. Wetting the bed, dirtying himself.’

  Anger sizzled round the room.

  ‘Is there – sexual interference, Sir?’ Kate asked the question first.

  ‘No doubt about it,’ Harvey replied. ‘Abnormally bad damage to the poor little bastard’s anus and rectum.’ Looking round the team, he added, ‘There isn’t one of us wouldn’t want to crucify the bugger that did it. Now, I reckon paedophiles don’t hunt alone.’

  ‘Isn’t that down to Vice, Gaffer?’

  ‘Darren Goss lives in Newtown, Selby. Newtown’s our patch. We’ll be liaising with Vice, of course. But we’ll be working our arses off here to sort it. Right?’

  ‘All of us, Sir? They did say that Miss Power wouldn’t be out on the streets with the rest of us.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Power will be working back here, Selby.’

  ‘All the time, Sir? Coming in at eight, like the rest of us?’

  ‘Most of you aren’t trying to ID a rapist, Selby. That incident in Kings Heath: Power was the officer on the spot. Well done, by the way, Kate.’

  ‘Right place, right time, Sir,’ Kate mumbled. It was nice to be praised, provided it didn’t set any of these sensitive backs up. And, for goodness’ sake, it was what she’d joined the Force for, helping people.

  Harvey was speaking again. ‘Most of us have hands with ten thumbs. Kate’s been on a couple of courses: her fingers should be speedier than ours. She’ll be far more use here than on streets she doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘But –’

  Couldn’t the stupid bastard sense he’d gone too far? She wouldn’t have wanted Harvey to turn on her like that.

  ‘When I want your advice, Selby, on how to organise my team, rest assured I’ll ask for it. Now, this is how I propose to rota you all –’

  Routine. She’d never liked it. You join the police because you want something better. And there you are, stuck at a computer all day. Two computers: she was jotting information she’d picked up from one directly on to another to pull together later.

  The trouble was that Harvey had been right. Her typing speed plus her trained eyes should make connections. Would, when her hands found their rhythm at the keyboard.

  ‘Here: what do you make of this?’ Colin Roper said, perching on the corner of her desk and smiling down at her. He was about her age, she supposed, blond and fine-featured. ‘The report from the hospital says the kid still isn’t talking.’

  ‘They’ve tried all the stuff with sexually explicit dolls, have they?’

  ‘All he wants is his teddy, poor little kid.’

  Like Robin’s kid – she stopped herself short. No matter how hard the job made you, there were some things you couldn’t take. Blinking back tears, she stared at the sheet of paper Roper had given her: ‘What’s this about a duck?’

  ‘It’s what he’s muttered in his sleep a couple of times.’

  ‘Has he got a duck? Did he ever have one?’

  ‘You mean real or a toy?’

  ‘Either. What’s the mother say?’

  ‘Sally and I are just off to talk to her again, go through his toy cupboard and any photos they might have.’

  ‘We could have a whip round. Get him a new one.’

  ‘Nice idea, Kate,’ said a new voice.

  She jumped: she hadn’t realised Harvey was in the room.

  ‘Get an envelope going. Start it off with this.’ He dug in his wallet and flicked a tenner at her. ‘Don’t forget to write my name down and tick it, will you?’

  ‘Afraid of getting asked twice, are you, Gaffer?’ Colin asked. ‘Look, there’s a moth flown out!’

  ‘That’s me. Scrooge is my middle name.’ He made a show of closing his wallet and stuffing it away. ‘What are you on now, Kate? Anything on MDisk?’

  ‘Nope. I’ve checked all the tagged addresses: there’s no one in the neighbourhood, no family member or friend with a history of domestic violence or child abuse.’

  ‘NCIS?’

  ‘Same again. No one on the sexual offenders database with paedophile habits like this bloke. I’m just about to start on STATUS.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re going to get that envelope round –’

  But Kate had a shrewd suspicion that Harvey had an ulterior motive: he wanted her established as one of the team as quickly as possible. Whatever the reason, the envelope was impressively heavy when she handed it to Sally who’d offered to pick up the toy on her way home.

  Her back and shoulders were so stiff she thought she’d nev
er stand straight again. But she mustn’t stretch too obviously: that would be to invite Selby to offer a massage. There’d been enough stress for one day. Not that it was over yet. There was still Aunt Cassie to deal with.

  No, that was unfair. She’d got to go and visit her, that was all – to take her some fruit and the evening paper. And it spared her going home to that house without Robin. And Aunt Cassie was good company – as she frequently observed, her brain was still functioning: it was just the rest of her that incommoded her. It had been Aunt Cassie’s decision to go into a swish retirement home, and Aunt Cassie’s decision that Kate would have her house. Looking at it, no one would ever have dreamed that Cassie had money in the bank. Not just the bank, but a number of building societies, a great deal of shares and several very lovely diamond rings. A choker and several sets of earrings had been discreetly disposed of.

  ‘There’s no point,’ she’d said, fidgeting with two of the rings, loose on the flesh between her swollen joints, ‘in being the mistress of a man in the jewellery trade unless you show it.’

  Perhaps leaving a house with dodgy wiring and a central heating boiler leaking gas – the heating had been installed twenty-odd years ago when one of Cassie’s premium bonds had come up – you managed to accumulate enough money to keep you in a private home, which was where, a couple of weeks ago, Kate had been summoned to meet her aunt’s solicitor. The dapper little man had sat easily in one of the Parker Knoll visitors’ chairs: presumably he was more used to relieving old ladies of part of their fortunes than Kate was to accepting gifts like this. Aunt Cassie reclined on a day bed, and gestured. Although every joint was hugely swollen, the index finger and thumb driven to wild angles, the gesture was still an autocratic waft.

  ‘There, Kate dear, all you have to do is sign. Yes, it’s all legal. Mr Robson has seen to that. All I have to do is live long enough for you to enjoy the tax benefits – isn’t that correct, Mr Robson? Seven years! Well, I’ll do what I can.’

  No one – least of all her aunt – had ever asked Kate if she wanted to be saddled with the house, or indeed, its overgrown garden.

  ‘Now you needn’t worry about that house of yours – she’s got a place in Croydon or somewhere.’ The old lady made it sound like Outer Mongolia. ‘Have a skip for all my old furniture. I can’t believe even one of the charity shops will want it. And burn the carpets – they’re no better worth. Just there – is that right, Mr Robson?’

  This time Aunt Cassie was in bed by the time Kate reached the home: ‘And is there any hint of pee when you come in? Because that’s how you can tell a good home from a bad one. The bad ones all smell of pee. The good ones don’t. So I shall rely on you: as soon as you detect the slightest whiff as you come in the entrance hall, you tell me. I shall see something’s done about it. Or I shall move. Mr Robson tells me I’ve enough money. What about you? Got a tenant for that house of yours yet?’

  She realised Aunt Cassie was waiting for an answer. ‘Not yet. But –’

  ‘I thought not. Here.’ She pushed a fat envelope across her bedside cabinet. ‘Go on, take it. Mr Robson tells me I can afford it. You can pay me a nominal interest – purely nominal – if it makes you feel better. And you can pay me back when the money comes through. No, don’t open it now. Talk to me a little more.’

  ‘But –’ Cassie’s eyebrows stopped her. ‘Thank you – if you’re really sure.’ Kate took the envelope. There were so many age blotches on her aunt’s hand you couldn’t tell where one started and another finished. Tonight the joints looked red hot with pain. But she still managed to do the Telegraph crossword, using ball-points in a fat holder it had taken Kate only a few minutes to run down, thanks to the disability shop just down the road. Aunt Cassie had sniffed with disdain; she liked to be the one to give presents, apparently. But she’d used it ever since.

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Now, tell me. What is happening to the house? Chapter and verse, please.’ Aunt Cassie laid those tortured hands carefully on the counterpane, closed her eyes and tipped back her head.

  Kate spoke as if she was telling her great aunt an adult bedtime story. She could always let her voice tail off if the old lady drifted off to sleep. ‘The first thing is the garden. I’ve had to have those sycamores cut down, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Quite right. The roots would be getting under the foundations. What about the ash tree?’

  ‘Now the sycamores have gone, you can see they were pushing it to one side. I think I may have to have a tree surgeon in.’

  ‘All these fancy names. Tell me, do they wear green gowns and ask for scalpels? I think not. A chain saw and wellies, in all probability. What did you do with the wood from the sycamores? You should have got a good price for the logs. All these people with their Agas.’ She opened her eyes wide. ‘You didn’t, did you? What – a bonfire or a skip?’

  ‘A skip. Two, actually.’

  ‘You young people call yourself green and save paper bags, but you can’t manage the real thing, can you, real recycling?’ Her aunt tutted sharply, and it was some time before her face fell into repose. ‘Which bedroom do you occupy?’

  Kate jumped. ‘I’m still in the living room at the moment.’ Better a single air-bed than a half-empty double bed. Would there come a night when she slept through, not waking to snuggle up to his back?

  ‘Hmm. You’ve got to make it your own, Kate. But I suppose if you’ve got to have workmen traipsing round upstairs, you might as well stay put for a bit. By the way, there’s enough money there for the bathroom. Comfortless place. You won’t be able to do much with it, of course, it’s too small. But I’d appreciate a few of those instant photographs – what do they call them? Polaroids? Just to see how you’re getting on.’

  That meant getting a camera. She and Robin had had a succession of cheap ones – a waste of money, of course, and the results were never very good. That’s why she had no decent photos of Robin. It wasn’t the money she begrudged, not with this fat envelope in her hands, but the time. Police work wasn’t something the corners of which could be cut. Overtime was the norm. Her days would stretch into evenings, into nights when a major case occurred. She felt the envelope again. The least she could do, wasn’t it, buy a camera?

  Her aunt drifted into a doze, and the Evening Mail slipped towards the edge of the bed. Kate fielded it. Glancing at her watch, she thought she’d stay just ten more minutes in case Aunt Cassie woke up. She scanned the headlines and turned to the letters.

  ‘I was talking to Mr Elford today.’ Aunt Cassie spoke as if she’d never paused. ‘The minister. Brayfield Road Baptist Church. He came to do his duty, I suppose. Sat where you’re sitting and talked my head off. As if I’d been to chapel in years. Anyway, he said their organist’s been taken ill. Did I know anyone. I told him he must be crazy, expecting me to be up-to-date in things like that. I suppose he only said it to make conversation, which was dragging. But then I remembered: so I told him you’d help out for a couple of weeks, just until they found someone permanent, of course. So he’ll be phoning you later. What time is it? Nine? You’d better dash off, my dear.’ She proffered her cheek for a kiss.

  Kate laid her hand briefly on her forearm, and kissed her. It wasn’t until she was in the thickly carpeted corridor that she let herself lean back against the wall, eyes closed. What a pity Cassie was one of that lost generation of women whose careers never matched their abilities. The old woman would have made a wonderful general.

  Almost as soon as she’d let herself in, there was a knock at her door.

  ‘Mrs Mackenzie! Come on in!’

  ‘No, girl, I haven’t come to take your time. I thought you could maybe fancy some of this.’ She pushed forward a covered casserole. ‘Peas and rice. Since you can’t be cooking.’

  ‘That is kind of you – are you sure you won’t step in?’

  ‘Just out of the rain. Lord, Kate: the smell!’

  ‘Old ladies and wet plaster. And the dust of ages.’

  ‘You sure got t
hat, all right.’ She hovered. Something was worrying her.

  To fill the silence, Kate said, ‘I shall have to get a skip for most of the stuff. Charity shop wouldn’t look at it.’

  ‘No, but an antiques dealer might. You talk to my Joseph. He know these things. Hmm.’ She peered at the over-mantel.

  Better say something else. ‘The leg’s going on fine, thanks to you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nothing. That business up Heathfield Road: that where it happened? That girl? It was on TV.’ Her voice was sharp.

  ‘I was just on my way from the chippie. Heard a scream. Thought I’d better do something.’

  ‘And they pushed you down? On to some glass?’

  What was she trying to find out? ‘By the skip,’ Kate said, non-committal. ‘But it’s all in the hands of local CID, now. Hope they get them.’

  ‘Did you see them? I mean, you were close, weren’t you?’

  The woman was worried, wasn’t she? Worried enough to ask risky questions. Surely she couldn’t suspect her own son? Honesty might be the best response. It usually was. ‘Only the back view. I was on the ground. Not much to go on. I hope the poor girl will be more use than I am.’ Mrs Mackenzie nodded. ‘She all right?’

  ‘She was sixteen. She was raped. How all right can you be after that?’

  It was terribly hard to yell at anyone who began a phone conversation with the words: ‘I’m sure you wish me at the devil, Miss Power, but I promise you it wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I was only trying to fill up a silence.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘And I have got the feelers out for anyone who could – I suppose, just until I find someone, you couldn’t consider it, just for a couple of weeks?’

  ‘I’m not really what you’d call a Christian.’ Not on speaking terms with God. Not now.

  ‘I don’t ask you to pray, just to play. You’d be a god-send. Please.’

  ‘I couldn’t do both services.’