Power on Her Own

by Judith Cutler

  He stopped short when he saw her. His mouth tightened.

  ‘Brayfield Road Baptist Church Boys’ Brigade may have had child abuse incidents about ten years ago,’ she said flatly.

  ‘What!’

  She couldn’t tell whether his explosion was anger at her persistence or interest. He stared coldly for a moment, and then gestured with his head. His office. He closed the door behind them.

  ‘And it seems someone’s busily circulating dirty pictures now,’ she continued. ‘Which was how it started first time round. Photos, then rumours about one of the others interfering with kids at camp. My next-door-neighbour’s lad left the chapel round about that time – something happened he won’t talk about.’

  He walked to his desk, sitting heavily. He gestured her to a chair. She chose the hard one.

  ‘This is stuff you’ve uncovered through your football coaching, is it?’

  ‘An adult told me – don’t worry, I haven’t muddied any waters by trying to talk to the children.’

  He nodded. A grim smile softened the rigid line of his mouth. ‘At least that’s one thing you haven’t put your foot in. These things have to be handled with extreme care. One false move from us and we blow the case before it even gets to court.’

  ‘I was going to contact Gail this morning, Sir.’

  He nodded. ‘What else have you done?’

  ‘I’ve asked Giles – you remember –’

  ‘Yes, the minister you’re staying with. Yes?’

  ‘I’ve asked him to dig out the records for that period. In fact, I’ve asked him to phone me as soon as he’s found them. I said I’d go and collect them.’

  ‘Anyone else involved?’

  ‘Maz, his wife. They wanted me to talk to Paul –’

  ‘You haven’t?’ he broke in. No, Paul wasn’t his favourite person.

  She shook her head. ‘He’d muscle in, wouldn’t he? Has to be in the thick of things, Paul. Fingers in every available pie –’

  ‘– and a few others. Good. Will they be discreet – Giles and Maz?’

  She hesitated. ‘I hope so. I laid on the need for confidentiality quite thick. But Maz and Paul are very close: she was offended that I wanted him kept out of it. I felt very bad – she and Giles have been so good to me.’

  Graham nodded. He got up again, heading for the kettle. The water bottle was empty, the cups dirty. ‘Which will you tackle?’ he asked, managing a faint smile.

  They were standing side by side waiting for the kettle to boil. ‘At least Reg Tanner and I seem to have escaped the bug – we ate out on Monday lunch-time. He showed me all his wedding photos.’

  Graham nodded: ‘Sound bloke, Reg. Been a sergeant far too long. I gather Sally’s had a miscarriage, poor kid. She’s unlikely to be back before her notice runs out. There’s a new lass coming up soon. Keep an eye on her, will you, Kate? Any hint of any rough stuff – I want to know. Whoever’s involved. OK?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anything else I should know?’

  Selby? She didn’t want to snitch until she’d had one more go at him.

  ‘There is, isn’t there? Look, Kate, I’m running this show –’

  ‘I know. But I’ve started to deal with the – the issue. I’d like to see it through if I can. But if I can’t –’

  ‘OK.’ He dabbed his hand on the kettle. ‘This is taking a long time to boil. Don’t say it’s packed up.’

  She picked up the trailing cable. ‘I think it helps if you put this end in a socket – Sir!’

  Selby was going through files with a pencil when she returned; perhaps she’d been mistaken about his mouse activities earlier. She was glad she’d said nothing to Graham. She still couldn’t work out the reason for his over-reaction, his fury. It seemed so personal. Perhaps Colin could enlighten her. Not yet, though – she’d got to get an envelope started for poor Sally. She’d ask Reg if he’d mind organising it – he was the sort of kindly uncle figure to screw the maximum out of reluctant fists. OK, he’d probably be quite maudlin in his approach – but a bit of sentimentality in the matter of lost babies wasn’t inappropriate.

  By eleven Giles still hadn’t phoned.

  ‘If he doesn’t get his finger out, we’ll turn up with a search warrant,’ Graham said, half sitting on her desk. ‘Can’t have him sitting on vital evidence.’

  ‘He’s a friend,’ Kate said.

  ‘OK. Well, you go round and offer to help. Collect the lot, if he hasn’t time to sort it out. We’ll sort it here.’

  She nodded. ‘Now?’

  ‘Try ten minutes ago.’

  It made sense to go back home first, to collect her car, just in case she did have to take the whole caboodle into the city centre. Now she came to think of it, she’d no idea how much was involved – a single file or a whole cabinet-full.

  She looked in despair at the cars parked solidly along her street: it would take her five minutes to get out of her space. Not that the car was in front of her house. She’d no idea who that privilege was reserved for. Damn, there was a scar on her front bumper she hadn’t noticed before. She did a slow circuit – yes, now she came to look at it, there was a scar on each corner. None hers, she was sure of that. People parking by touch.

  She might as well go and check on her post and answerphone now she was here. The door wasn’t dead-locked – Alf must be working.

  ‘You look as if you could do with a cup of tea!’ he greeted her. ‘Quite washed out, you look. Here – have a biscuit.’

  She took one. ‘How’s things?’

  ‘Well, fine and dandy, once we get that surface. I been doing your security light. Just screwing down the floorboards now.’

  ‘Find any diamonds?’ She explained.

  He looked awkward.

  ‘Alf?’

  ‘Did find summat,’ he said. ‘Not diamonds, though. Not – not very nice, really. I was going to put it on my next bonfire.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘Don’t like to show it to a lady. Not nice at all.’

  ‘I’m not a lady, Alf. I’m a policewoman. We get to see lots of nasty things.’

  He shook his head. ‘Fair turned my stomach.’ He burrowed in the back pocket of his overalls. ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He slammed a photograph on his saw-horse. ‘There. See what I mean?’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Alf watched while she evicted a seed catalogue from its polythene envelope, and slipped the photograph in its place.

  ‘You won’t be throwing that book away?’ he asked indignantly. ‘Not with the state the garden’s in!’

  She shook her head. ‘Fancy a coffee? I reckon I could use one.’ She tapped the photograph as an excuse. Perhaps it wasn’t an excuse.

  They stared at the frozen images of the man and the boy. At last Alf turned it face down. ‘That coffee,’ he said.

  He swilled mugs under the outside tap and poured from his flask.

  ‘I guess the front room’s the most civilised,’ she said. It was the second time this morning she was having difficulty making her mouth work.

  He raised an eyebrow, but followed.

  ‘That Paul’s done a decent job,’ he said, running a critical thumb down the window frame. ‘Mind you, he ought to have done, the amount of time he’s taken. Must have used a brush with two bristles.’

  ‘He’s been here a lot, then?’

  ‘Afternoons, mostly. Some dinner times. Thought he’d got a job to go to.’

  Kate nodded. ‘Works slowly, you said?’

  ‘Glad he’s not one of my lads. He’d take a month of Sundays to finish a job. Mind you, he says he’ll be back to do your ceiling. Arse-ended way of doing things.’

  ‘Right.’ She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to say aloud. Her head, on the other hand, was ringing with things she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘You all right? Fancy a biscuit?’ He produced some from the bib of his overalls
.

  She sank on to a flat-pack ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t want to let that sort of thing get to you. Saw a lot worse in the Army. Mind you, that was pictures of men and women.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Makes you wonder what goes on in these people’s minds.’

  She nodded. What went on in the mind of someone who’d give up lunch-time and afternoons to paint a front window frame slowly; to sort out a front but not a back garden.

  ‘What sort of time would he come to do his painting?’ she asked.

  ‘Funny. No one in their right mind’d come then. Parent-time. You know, this morning, it took me twenty minutes to get into your road, let alone park. Just as bad in the afternoon. The mothers start arriving before three: want to chafe the fat, I suppose. And he comes then. God knows where he parks. It’s like the bloody dodgems. Someone smashed into my ute the other day. Well, did her more damage than me.’

  ‘Mine’s got a few scars.’

  ‘Nice little motor like that? That’s a shame. Look, the wife’s brother knows a bit about cars – might be able to tidy it up a bit.’

  ‘Would you ask him? It’s nothing serious –’

  ‘Don’t want to let it rust. I’ll have a word.’

  ‘So you’ll have to talk to Paul after all,’ Maz said. ‘Giles turned over the whole of the loft – got absolutely filthy. My goodness, it’s time we threw some of it away – the ceiling’ll be coming down if we’re not careful. Then he remembered: Paul had this idea of writing a history of the Brayfield Baptists BB. Golly: what do they call that? Alliteration?’

  Kate’s smile was perfunctory. Or was it just that her face still wasn’t working?

  ‘Fancy some lunch?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’d better be getting back. We’ve got this bug at work – half the squad’s off sick.’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll get on the phone to Paul – get him to drop it round to you. That’d save you some time.’

  ‘No – honestly, it’s all right. I can pop into his college and see him there.’

  ‘If you can find him! Seriously, you mustn’t interrupt his classes. It’s almost as bad as interrupting a service! And he never answers his college phone – he says he’s tied up with students all the time. I might as well have a direct line to his answerphone. I’ve got to talk to him about this weekend – he’s coming over to look after the kids while Giles and I have a sinful break. I won this prize, did I tell you? In Manchester, of all places! I’ll tell him then.’

  ‘Does he need to? I shall still be here, after all.’

  ‘No arguments. You look washed out enough as it is without looking for extra work.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gaffer. I’ve really let you down.’

  ‘I don’t see why you’re making such a song and dance about it, Kate. So what if she phones him? All you’ve got is a busy-body knowing a bit more than we’d like him to know. I’d much rather he didn’t go shoving his oar in. But I have been known to put the fear of God into people.’ He smiled. She suspected this was his way of apologising.

  She shook her head. ‘There’s much more, Graham. It was Paul who scrabbled round under the floorboards to fish out Cassie’s diamonds lying flat. I thought I heard something fall then. In fact, he even checked his organiser to see if he’d lost anything. Alf found this under the same floorboards when he put in the wiring for my security light.’ She laid the photograph on his desk. ‘And before you say any one of Alf’s lads could have left it there, you ought to know something else. Paul’s turned his attention from my front garden to my front window. And the times he finds it most convenient to appear at my house are lunch break and the end of afternoon school.’

  He nodded. ‘Go on.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’d rather you worked it out. Maz is my friend.’

  ‘We’re not talking about Maz, here. We’re talking about Paul. Come on, spit it out.’

  ‘If we’re looking for a paedophile, Graham – I think Paul might just fit our bill.’

  He’d taken charge of her, making her coffee and feeding her sandwiches from the neat little lunch-box his wife had packed.

  ‘We’ll go and get something else in a few minutes. Not from the canteen. But you’re like a ghost, Kate – I don’t want you passing out all over me.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me these days.’

  ‘Seen the shrink yet? It’s all right. I’ve a full report on that item in your post. Cope had prioritised it. Not that any of us expect to get much from it. God knows we’ve got little enough so far.’

  ‘Not even a box of files.’

  ‘Not even a box of files. But I’ll get Selby and Roper round there – a pleasant little reception committee. Unless you want to be involved?’

  ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish, like the man said. All he needs to know is that we’re conducting a possibly routine enquiry into something that happened ten years ago. I’d like to take Colin along with me, if I may.’ She ran through the scenario in her head. It didn’t seem unmanageable. And then she remembered what Maz had been saying. She put her sandwich down, half got to her feet.

  ‘Kate?’ His hand on her arm, he gently pushed her back into the chair.

  ‘It’s now one-thirty on Friday,’ she said. ‘And Paul’s looking after the three Manse children all weekend.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Graham looked at her hard. ‘Are you afraid he’ll try to interfere with any of them?’

  Kate got to her feet, ringing her hands. ‘No. Yes. I don’t know. He loves them, there’s no doubt of that. The classic favourite uncle.’

  ‘Is that what they think?’

  ‘They love him. But he does touch them, try to get close to them. And they don’t like it. Maybe it’s just because he doesn’t fully realise they’re too old for cuddles. Or maybe there’s something a hell of a lot more sinister. The younger daughter has nightmares. She wakes screaming,’ she added flatly.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. You’ll be there as usual, this weekend, won’t you, Kate?’

  ‘But I sleep at night!’

  ‘And no doubt he’ll go home at night.’

  ‘And I can’t be with them all the time!’

  ‘Hey, calm down. Let’s try to work this out. Is there a match this weekend?’

  ‘Against Halesowen. I’ll invite him and the kids. Whether they’ll want to come –’

  ‘Miss seeing your first home win? Of course they’ll be there.’

  ‘But what about the rest of the time?’

  ‘Safety in numbers, I’d have thought. So what we have to worry about is if he splits them up.’

  ‘Which can only be at night, surely?’

  ‘Possibly. I don’t like this. Leave me to think it through. I think my brain got addled when I knocked my head. You and Colin go and get the files. When you get back we’ll scan them fast as we can. We’ve got to get the Family Protection people talking to the boys in the Brigade – find the source of this –’ he flipped the photograph with his index finger – ‘assuming, of course, that they have the same source. Which I think, for the moment, we must. I take it the current files are available?’

  ‘Giles’ll have those. You’ve got his number?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And there’s Royston, my next-door-neighbour’s son. He left the BB for some reason his mother couldn’t – or wouldn’t – tell me. In fact, whatever it was, the whole family stopped going to the Baptist church. Might be worth someone talking to him, too.’

  ‘Right.’ He made a note. ‘Off you go then. I don’t need to tell you to be careful.’ He smiled, but dropped his head and was already writing when she closed the door of his office.

  Colin hauled on the hand-brake and stared at the college carpark barrier: ‘How do we get in here then? Told you we should have come in something more official than this.’ He patted the steering-wheel of the unmarked Rover. ‘We could have dumped it on double-ye
llow lines.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Here’s someone now. Except he could be a job’s-worth.’

  The ID worked, however, and they were soon nosing into a slot. There were quite a lot of free spaces.

  ‘Looks like your educated elite don’t work Friday afternoons,’ Colin said.

  ‘Ah – this is the management section. Looks as if the plebs are still toiling away. Let’s hope Paul’s one of them.’

  They locked up, walking briskly towards the entrance. Students singly and in groups drifted around. Many of the girls were swathed from head to toe in black. Kate thought of her rape victim. The men were nothing like so self-effacing, jostling and shoving.

  A middle-aged receptionist ruled the foyer. She smiled, checked their IDs, asked them to sit and offered them coffee. They shook their heads, and sat, staring at their hands.

  ‘You’re not happy about this, are you? Best let me do the talking, maybe,’ Colin said.

  ‘Might look a bit unnatural. After all, I know him quite well. Ah!’

  The receptionist was returning. They got to their feet, smiling.

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. Mr Taylor left for a dental appointment ten minutes ago. He’s unlikely to be back.’

  ‘We’d like his address, then, please,’ Colin said. ‘This is a very urgent matter – a matter of life and death,’ he added, persuasively.

  The receptionist bridled. ‘I’m not at liberty to disclose such information. I’ll have to refer you to Personnel.’

  Who were at lunch.

  ‘Come on, Kate – you must have some idea where he lives! You’ve been out with the man!’ Colin flared his fingers in frustration.

  ‘Isn’t it odd? The question of going to his place never arose. No problem, anyway. I’ll phone Maz. I’ll have to grovel and say I should have taken her advice in the first place.’