Power on Her Own

by Judith Cutler

  It was too late to think about cooking. They’d phoned Jenny’s friend’s mother from Kidderminster – yes, Jenny would be delighted to stay over. So they went straight to a balti restaurant. The genial waiter, who might have been the brother of the jolly man who served Kate with monster chicken tikka naans, gently steered the boys away from the hottest options, and then encouraged them to try kulfi for their sweet. The only thing that Kate lacked was a drink. The restaurant was unlicensed, and Paul was so reluctant to dive into Safeway for a pack of lager Kate felt she couldn’t press the case. In any case, wasn’t she supposed to be above the need for alcohol now? And the restaurant had good bottled water: she should be grateful for that. What she wanted, and wasn’t going to get, was a chance to phone Graham. It occurred to her at last that Paul might be sticking to her at least as hard as she was sticking to him.

  They knew the boys would natter before they went to sleep, but Kate and Paul insisted that lights would be out at ten, and that absolute silence was required by ten-thirty. Kate had a suspicion that their parents might have preferred the cut-off point to be at least half an hour earlier. And in fact, when they went up to switch the lights out, they found both boys fast asleep. Paul leaned over them with enormous tenderness, kissing Tim so lightly he didn’t wake.

  Paedophilia, Kate recalled sadly, originally meant the love of children.

  She wanted to phone Graham about that train set idea. She made an excuse to go to her bedroom, but even as she dialled one ear was alert for sounds in the corridor outside. Remembering the routine, she tapped one four one before his number, and prepared to end the call quickly. But it was he who answered.

  ‘Glad you called,’ he said. ‘How was the railway?’

  ‘It’s given me an idea.’ She explained briefly.

  ‘My God. You could just be right, couldn’t you? Funny, a couple of interesting things have been thrown up by our surveillance. Fill you in tomorrow.’ His voice dropped and he spoke very rapidly. Mrs Harvey was no doubt getting out of the bath sooner than he’d expected. Or whatever. ‘Now, your neighbour, Mrs Mackintosh wants to talk to you – something she wouldn’t talk about to anyone else. Can I give her your number? It’s something that came up when they were trying to find if Royston had been abused.’

  ‘Had he?’

  ‘I’d reckon. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But Mrs M has something else on her mind. And she wants to talk to you.’

  ‘It’ll have to be by phone, won’t it? And, it’d be better face to face, if it’s what I think it’s about.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Do you remember I interrupted a rape?’

  ‘Pretty well your first day here. And were stabbed, as I recall.’

  ‘Hardly enough damage to call it a stab. Mrs Mackenzie – Zenia – dressed it for me. And the latest rape victim had a similar tiny stab. I’ve got a terrible feeling it might have been made by the same weapon.’

  ‘Stanley knife? Something like that?’

  ‘Yes. The sort of thing any household would have. Christ, Graham, it’s bad enough for me putting pressure on Maz – I literally wouldn’t have survived without her, you know.’ She would risk it. ‘I was getting a drink problem. If she hadn’t have taken me I’d – but she did. But Zenia – God knows what it’s like to worry about shopping your own son. Only son.’

  ‘Do you want to take the call?’

  ‘I can’t let another woman down. Oh, Graham, have you any idea how long it is since I went to see Aunt Cassie?’

  ‘Tell you what, I’ll pop in myself for five minutes tomorrow morning. On my way into work. I’ll tell her it’s all my fault you’ve been working so hard. Cope’s back in the land of the living so he can take charge for a bit.’ And the phone went dead.

  All they’d been talking about was a couple of serious crimes! Couldn’t the woman understand that police officers’ work didn’t end at five o’clock, and that some officers just happened to be women? She sat on the bed staring at the silent phone.

  She snatched it so quickly it hardly rang.

  ‘Kate Power.’

  ‘Kate – it’s Zenia. Can’t I see you? I got such problems, man.’

  ‘I’m actually on a job now, Zenia. But Graham said you needed to talk to me. I know the phone’s not very –’

  ‘Better than nothing. It’s advice I’m wanting.’ Her accent was much stronger over the phone. ‘That social worker – she was very good, very good indeed. I never thought anyone’d get through to my Royston. Well, you’ve seen him. Anyway, he’s promised to see her again, talk to her if he remembers any more. I think he remembers, all right. Just not ready to say it yet. But I come on him in the kitchen, in his dad’s tool kit. And he’s got this knife. And I’m afraid he’s going to do himself harm. When he sees me, he puts it away again – some excuse about wanting to sharpen some pencils for school.’

  ‘Excuse?’

  ‘It’s his face. It’s not the truth, Kate.’ Zenia’s voice shook. ‘Anyway, he went out. This’d be seven-seven-thirty. And I wondered where my boy might be going where he’d need a knife. And I remembered that cut, Kate.’ She was sobbing, now. ‘And I remembered that black girl that was raped – the papers say she was stabbed. And that knife! It’s stained, Kate! What shall I do?’

  What indeed?

  ‘Is he at home now?’

  ‘On a Saturday night? You got to be joking. I’ve hidden the knife, Kate. Locked it away.’

  ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions, Zenia. Why don’t you just wait till tomorrow, and talk to him? Even if he were involved in those rapes, it doesn’t mean he used the knife.’

  ‘Better to stab someone or rape them?’ Zenia’s voice rose alarmingly.

  ‘Maybe neither. Talk to him, love. And if he has done anything, whatever it is, it’s better if he turns himself in. You can go with him, you and Joseph. But it’s much better if he does it himself. Honestly.’ She waited for a moment which seemed to become a minute. ‘I wish I could be with you but I can’t, Zenia. This case I’m on – it’s a matter of life and death. And I shall be stuck on it all day tomorrow, or I’d be round, I promise you.’

  ‘It’s that business with the church, isn’t it? Oh my God, Kate – what harm we do each other.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Kate played through the whole service on automatic pilot: she neither knew nor cared whether the choir was with her or following half a bar behind. Zenia hadn’t phoned again, nor had Graham. She still had no idea what the interesting leads might be that surveillance had thrown up. This was without doubt the worst assignment she’d ever had – cut off from all the action and with no support. She reasoned with herself: it was far less tricky than working undercover. She had to trust her colleagues. Hadn’t they planted listening devices so she could sleep?

  Tim and Marcus overslept, and she’d had to call three times before they’d appeared for their sausages and bacon – also organic, accordingly to a tetchy Paul. He’d taken a couple of phone calls while she was frying eggs, neither of which he assured her was for her. Whoever they were from, they hadn’t improved his health or temper.

  The boys had agreed with some reluctance to go to church, on the grounds that it wasn’t Giles who would be taking the service. It was part of Marcus’s contract with the Boys’ Brigade that he should turn up regularly, and Kate told Tim not to be parochial, a word he enjoyed when he’d looked it up. Paul didn’t back Kate, but there was a general assumption that he’d be going. Marcus and Kate took tracksuits to change into.

  At this point Kate realised the flaw in her plans. Tim wasn’t in the BB, was he, nor was he sufficiently keen on football to join in training as a treat of sorts. And she’d made it abundantly clear to Paul that she preferred his room to his company at training sessions. Hoist with her own petard. As soon as she was able she slipped upstairs to phone Graham’s number – at work, this time. It rang and rang. Next she tried the extension on Colin’s desk. It might have to be Graham’s mobile, af
ter all. But then it was answered, by Reg Tanner. She passed a message on as tersely as she could – they were all waiting downstairs.

  ‘Leave it to me, sweetheart. You can’t maintain surveillance and the suspect needs to be tailed. Right? Right!’

  They were just leaving when the Manse phone rang. Doug Fulton, asking for his son.

  ‘I’ll be able to go to soccer practice, won’t I? I mean, I haven’t got to see them straightaway?’

  A muffled murmur.

  ‘Yes. But I’ve got to train, haven’t I? … We’re supposed to be having dinner here, Dad. Steak and ice-cream.’

  This time the murmur was less muffled.

  ‘A real pub? Steak there? OK.’

  ‘Well?’ Kate prompted, when he seemed about to walk out of the door. ‘Well? Have you got a brother or a sister?’

  He turned. ‘I think it’s a girl. Or it might be a boy.’

  ‘Ever had your neck wrung, Marcus? What’s its name?’

  He pushed out his lower lip. ‘Ah. Emma.’

  ‘And is your mum all right?’

  ‘I suppose so. Look, aren’t we going to be late?’

  So all the way through the hymns and the readings and the sermon she was waiting for it: Paul’s casual announcement that he was taking Tim to see his anonymous friend’s train set. And she couldn’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t. Not one. She knew if she said she wanted to go too he’d find an excuse – would insist that before lunch was the only option. Knew it. And played a really violent closing meditation.

  Paul and Tim had already left by the time she had finished.

  Considering the team had done so well the day before, she worked them very hard. She had words with Leo about taking corners without having practised.

  ‘But I did, Miss. Practice. At school. I do it all the time. We’re top of the league.’

  Kate pulled a face. ‘Sorry. I’ll be telling Cantona off next when he drops by for the odd match. Well done. Right, everyone. No time for resting on our laurels. Let’s try that all over again only faster!’

  Kate never did know what order the thoughts came in. Paul and Tim. Her car: was it at the Manse or outside her house? Her house. And probably boxed in. It would take time to shuffle it out. The railway set. Reg Tanner. A lift to her house. Paul and Reg Tanner. And she was the adult in charge of all these kids with no one to deputise while she went off. Paul and Reg and Tim.

  Working the kids hard wouldn’t bring escape time any quicker. Go easy on them. Remember Marcus’ asthma. Go easy.

  For all that, she had the balls locked away and the kids ready for collection a good five minutes before time. Thank goodness for prompt parents. And damn the dilatory ones. Damn them all to hell. She paced, trying not to glare at the three lads remaining. Two, now. And then one. Marcus. At least she felt entitled to hurtle to the car as he did.

  ‘Doug: can you do me the most enormous favour? Give me a lift to my house?’

  He nodded, opened the door. ‘Problems?’ He pulled away, and drove commendably quickly. Only a few yards, when all was said and done. A few yards. Hardly time to congratulate him. And then the wretched man started to talk about her sponsoring the child at her dedication.

  ‘A sort of Baptist godparent,’ he added. ‘You’d be a role model.’

  They were opposite her house. He wanted an answer.

  ‘It’s a great honour. But I’m not –’

  ‘Please – you’ve done so much –’

  ‘It’s not that. We’ll talk about it later – right? What I want you to do now is see me out of this space. Or I shall shunt that cretin into the middle of next week.’ And she was out of the car, trailing tights and suit and handbag, all of which she dumped on her passenger seat.

  Even with Doug it took six or seven slow backwards and forwards moves. And then she was on her way.

  No sign of Paul’s car, of course. Nor of the surveillance team – would they be in the house at the back or in that tatty builder’s van? Quite a lot of unmarked vans around, come to think of it. So she wasn’t alone. And a marked car: Graham! What was he doing here?

  Slinging her car on to the kerb, she ran across.

  ‘Talk about timing. I’ve decided it’s time we went in, Kate. Despite Gordon’s reservations. There was what surveillance threw up, then you and the train sets. Then – then Paul and Tim arrived five minutes ago.’

  ‘Only five minutes? Where have they been for the last hour?’

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  ‘Who’s here?’

  ‘Everyone. Plus Kings Heath in force.’

  ‘Tanner?’

  ‘Gone off sick. Got the bug at last, it seems.’

  ‘You believe him? Graham – he knows Paul!’

  ‘Does he, by Christ! OK.’ Voices crackled over his radio. He nodded, just as if they could see him. ‘Right. You stay in the rear, Kate. Take over the kid as soon as we get him out. OK?’

  He was already out of the car. And she didn’t need to ask whether it was an order. It was. She’d missed the briefing, all the careful arrangements. This was the price she paid. Just so a few kids could score a few more goals.

  The team were moving in. She brought up the rear, taut with anxiety, despondent, angry. She was halfway up the immaculate path when the little door that no doubt concealed the dustbin in these refined parts was flung open from the inside. The bastards must have fixed an escape route. Yelling for back-up, she hurtled towards it. And to Tim and Paul who were coming out. And then there was a shout, and Tim and Paul turned – in slow motion, they all, Kate included, turned towards a big Mercedes van. It was coming up the drive, straight towards them, bull-bars at body height. Coming towards her and Tim. Aiming at them.

  Robin throwing her clear. The bust going wrong. She remembered seeing the driver’s face as he drove at them, sheer horror at what he couldn’t stop doing because his van was out of control. But this driver, he was in control. He was smiling. Nice, friendly smile. Reg Tanner’s smile. And he was going to kill all three of them. No. Just her and Tim.

  No time to do more than try to shield Tim. Although it was all in slow motion. No time. And then a huge blow in her back, and she was lying on top of Tim, and there was a scream she would never forget.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Autumn sun was unexpectedly warm, reflected from the red-and-blue brickwork and the murky waters of the canals.

  ‘Cuts, we call them in this neck of the woods,’ Graham said, keeping his pace slow to match Kate’s. ‘You’ve no idea how much pleasure it gives me to see this part of Brum being done up. I’m never sure about Symphony Hall and I really dislike the Indoor Arena, but look at this.’ He gestured at the newly restored bridges, at the old school, now a pub where they were to eat, at the round-house that had once held not engines but horses.

  ‘I’d no idea Birmingham had parts like this,’ she said, suddenly shy. ‘I mean, things were changing when I was up working undercover, and I like the pedestrianisation and everything. But this is magic.’ She risked a smile.

  ‘And flat. Are you sure that leg of yours is OK?’

  ‘Getting better every day. All that physio. I shed the stick tomorrow – and maybe the eye-patch and the parrot! – and the strapping at the weekend. Good as new by next week.’

  ‘I doubt that. You’ll always have a weakness there – it’s the second time you’ve injured it in six months.’

  ‘Lots of quads exercises – I shall have thighs like Gazza’s.’

  ‘We can look forward to miniskirts this winter, then, can we?’ He looked away. ‘How’s Tim?’

  ‘Hard to say with such an equable child. Maz, now – she’s still deeply shocked. It’s a good job I could move out. She doesn’t know whether to be grateful to me for saving Tim or hate and resent me for what happened to Paul.’

  ‘What happened to Paul was a good deal better for the family than massive media exposure and a muck-raking trial. It was better for Paul himself than years in a h
igh security gaol being kept away from the other inmates for fear of reprisals. And then being shunted from pillar to post afterwards by Joe Moral Public.’

  ‘I don’t think she really believes he did anything wrong.’

  ‘But then, she hasn’t seen all the stuff we got off his computer, has she? Or all the little delights of that house. I kid you not, I was so sick I wondered if I’d picked up that bloody bug. And yet the people in the Porn Squad deal with even worse stuff without turning a hair.’

  ‘Apparently. How much has Reg said?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Not much, yet. A canny bloke, Reg. I had him down as Mr Nice Guy, you know. The model officer, full of old-fashioned virtues. Who comes home from Australia a couple of weeks early and buggers a kid with a toy engine and throws him in the path of a lorry so he can’t talk. It was a funny thing for you to talk about in the ambulance, Kate, someone else’s wedding photos. I thought you must have banged your head or something. But we got him.’

  ‘You would have done anyway. Pretty conclusive evidence, driving a bloody great van at an innocent kid. And a colleague.’ She stopped, staring at the water. ‘Graham – why did Paul do it?’ She heard the sounds of the impact again. Smelt the blood, the urine, the faeces. It had been a nasty, messy death all right. And she didn’t think she regretted a minute of his agony.

  ‘Throw himself at you both? Who can tell? To save Tim, certainly. That stuff he’d written about him – you’ll see it when you’re back on duty – certainly convinced me that he loved him. And you. I think if a man like that could love a woman he loved you.’ His voice was tight.

  ‘Love? I wouldn’t want the love of a man like that.’ She lowered her voice – there were others on the towpath, after all. ‘Buggering little boys! Prepared to deliver up his own flesh and blood for others to bugger! Spare me the tears, Graham. The man was a shit. OK, it was great of him to paint my window, but think what he was really doing when he was there. Eyeing up new victims.’ She stopped short.

  ‘But the pressure was being put on him by others, Kate. Bring in more boys. And he wouldn’t foul the Boys’ Brigade nest, so he was after kids from that school. In the end, someone put sufficient pressure on him to introduce Tim, at very least. The room with the train set was the start of their system. Co-operate, and you’ll see the next room. Whether he’d have let Tim progress I don’t know. But he was under enormous pressure. From Superintendent Gordon. The man who sent me on my courses, Kate, to get me out of the way when I was needed here.’