Hard Time

by Maureen Carter

  The spoon froze halfway to Bev’s mouth. Jenny Page had lost her mother too. A daughter had died at birth. And now her son’s life was in danger. Bev closed her eyes. How much of a battering could the maternal bond take?

  How far would Jenny Page go to get her son back?

  The cornflakes lost their appeal. Deep in thought, she slipped the bowl on to the bedside table. Jenny hadn’t said a word to Bev about the stillbirth; she’d not exactly opened up about her mother’s death. Then again, Bev hadn’t been able to get near Daniel’s mother for days.

  She reached for a notepad next to the lamp. A minute later, the to-do list had a new top line. If the Pages were deliberately keeping the inquiry in the dark, a few checks first thing might just shed some light.

  THURSDAY

  39

  Edgbaston wasn’t on the way in to work for Mac Tyler, but he generally followed through on what he said. He had an eye for detail and despite the borderline scruffy appearance was a sharp cookie. The lumberjack-wannabe look was deliberate. People often underestimated him; it was well sweet when they came a cropper.

  Mac had no reason to suspect the elusive Stephen Cross was anything other than a witness, a pretty unreliable one at that. But the fact he’d not bothered to make any return calls bugged the DC. Showing a bit of common courtesy didn’t hurt, did it?

  He cruised past Cross’s pad a couple of times to suss signs of life. One more lap and he’d pull over, pay a personal call. He’d finish the bacon roll first before it got cold. Priory Rise was more muesli-and-smoothie territory. The DC cast a few envious glances as he drove, reckoned his finances could just about stretch to a garage. Make that a kennel. Still, at least his imminently ex-missus had agreed to let the boys stay this weekend.

  He glanced in the rear-view mirror, caught sight of a fit-looking lass coming out of one of the houses near Cross’s place. He gave a low whistle. Even at this distance she was well tasty, legs up to her ear lobes. He drove on, taking in the sights. Summer was good for tottie: high temperatures, rising hemlines; great for bird-watching.

  His face froze; the three-point turn was fluid and fast. The woman hadn’t emerged from a house near Stephen Cross’s. It was his place. And unless Mac was very much mistaken, the bird he’d fancied a minute ago was one he’d spotted before.

  “Laura Foster?” Bev’s voice was so high-pitched it went off the register. Throat cleared, she tried again. “Laura Foster? You sure?” Another early bird, Bev had been busy catching worms of her own when Mac called. But it looked as if her DC had netted a big one.

  “I was,” he said. He’d given chase, but Ms Foster – if that’s who it was – must’ve had wheels round the corner. He told Bev he’d tailed a Porsche for a couple of miles, thinking Laura was driving. At Fiveways roundabout, he’d clocked the face properly. Turned out to be some cocky bloke who gave Mac the finger for giving him the eye.

  The DC was now on his mobile standing outside Cross’s executive pile back in Priory Rise. Short of a battering ram, he wasn’t going any further. No one had answered, let alone admitted him, despite repeated hammerings. Mac’s activities were attracting more attention from a man across the road dragging an ancient spaniel and the woman at number eight who was a dead ringer for the Duchess of Cornwall.

  “And now?” Bev sucked a biro, thoughts racing. What was Richard Page’s right-hand woman doing with Stephen Cross? Cross hadn’t given them much, but he was the only witness they had to what could have been Daniel’s kidnap. “You still sure?”

  Mac hesitated. Wished he’d focused more on the face. “Wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “Shit.”

  “What does Cross do?” Mac asked.

  “Architect. He’s not a client of Page’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.” The ad agency list was on her desk; she’d already double-checked. She’d run Cross’s details through criminal records days ago; they’d come out clean. “Even if he was on their books, why would she pay a home visit? And so early?”

  “Working breakfast?”

  She snorted, didn’t buy it.

  “Bit of how’s your father?” Mac suggested.

  “Shagging?” Her lip twitched. For an old lech, Mac didn’t half mince his words.

  “Tres eloquent.”

  Didn’t matter how you put it, she doubted Cross put it anywhere near the female of the species. “I’m sure he’s gay.”

  “Maybe he just hadn’t come across the lovely Laura when you saw him.”

  “Fast fucking workers, then,” Bev drawled. No, if Mac really had seen Laura leaving Stephen Cross’s place there had to be another reason. She’d just not come up with it yet. Not when she was still trying to get her head round the worms she’d unearthed.

  “What now, sarge?”

  She sighed. No sense staking out the place. Couldn’t afford to lose a body for one thing. “Best get to the agency. Hear what Ms Foster has to say.” Phoning wasn’t an option. If Laura had gone straight to the office, she’d be wearing the same gear. Might help Mac make the ID. And for anyone with something to hide, lying was a lot easier at the end of a line.

  “Mac?” All she could hear was a dog barking and muffled voices in the background. She tapped the biro; at this rate she’d miss the brief. She assumed the heavy breather now offending her ears was Mac. “What was that all about?”

  “Sorry, sarge. Some nosy twat over the road reckoned I was casing the joint and called the cops. I nearly got arrested.”

  At about the time Mac was evading arrest, there was no such get-out clause for Harry Maxwell. Control was on the phone to Byford: two uniformed officers acting on a tip-off to the hotline number had picked Maxwell up in a not-so-safe house in Handsworth. The crime boss was in the back of a police car on the way to Highgate, threatening to sue the arse off everyone from the Chief Constable down. The steer must have come from someone in the know. Maybe there was honour among thieves and pimps. And porn chiefs? Byford allowed himself a raised fist and a silent gotcha. A slow smile spread across his strained face as he replaced the receiver.

  Julia Tate had been hanging on for six minutes and fifteen seconds. The phone dug into her neck. She tapped nervous fingers on the kitchen table in time to a perfectly dreadful recording of Vivaldi. The old woman sighed, but supposed even a muzak version of the Four Seasons was preferable to the tinny singsong voice that kept telling her how important her call was to them.

  “Vital, obviously,” she drawled. She slammed the receiver on the rest, cradled her chin in her hands. Maybe it was God’s way of telling her not to interfere? She sighed, reached for her cup, took a sip and grimaced. Even the Earl Grey was stewed now. She’d have coffee when she popped into Highgate.

  Chores first. It was important to stick to a routine. She flicked surfaces with a duster, reflected on her frustration. It wasn’t the first time she’d failed to get through. Fobbed off and cut off, she was now thoroughly browned off. Social services was a misnomer in Julia’s book. The only real person she’d spoken to had been both condescending and incompetent. He couldn’t help blah blah, she’d been transferred to the wrong department blah blah, she needed to contact blah blah. And then the call had been disconnected.

  She swept the carpet with a glance; the hoover could stay in the cupboard. She wandered to the window: next door’s drive was empty. Were they out? Should she knock again? Since the scream yesterday afternoon, she’d heard nothing. Was she seeing mountains where there were only molehills?

  Julia folded her arms, stiffened her resolve. She would not be cowed. She knew what she’d heard and she’d rather make a fool of herself than do nothing. A few minutes later, she slipped through the front door wearing her new purple suit. It was important to maintain standards. She needed to pick up a few bits and pieces from the shops, told herself she had to pass the police station anyway.

  The early brief had already kicked off when Bev crept into the kidnap room. Byford, pacing in front of the whiteboards up at the front, registered her
late arrival but didn’t acknowledge it. She raised a hand in mute apology, sank into a hard chair at the back, glanced round at the troops. It was 8.22, day seven of Operation Sapphire and the squad looked dead on its feet. Missed sleep, skipped meals, lost chances. She knew the feeling. Her broken night and still dodgy insides were exacerbating the low-level but on-going exhaustion that went with every major inquiry. Ironic, really, she mused. As cases dragged on and they needed every cylinder operating, batteries were on the way out. Nice metaphor, Bev.

  “Get out there... question of time... do your best...” The guv sounded dead chirpy, obviously trying to instil a bit of positive energy.

  She tugged at the hem of her favourite skirt, pencil-cut steel-blue; it had cost a bomb and was hauled out of the wardrobe when she needed a boost. She thought of it as sartorial adrenalin. Thank God the hormonal variety would kick in when the time came.

  Couldn’t be soon enough. They’d been at it seventy-odd hours and had little to show but slumped postures and dark shadows. Something pervaded the air, too, something she sensed, could almost smell. Fear: fear of failure.

  She waited until Byford threw it open, then chucked in Mac’s two penn’orth about Stephen Cross and Laura Foster. It didn’t set proceedings alight; mild interest was as far as squad reaction went. “Mac’s on his way. Should hear back any time.”

  Byford was already gathering papers. “What’s your thinking, Bev?”

  She still couldn’t see a connection; hoped that in the absence of anything else she wasn’t making too much of it. “Not sure, guv.” She ticked points on her fingers. “Laura Foster knows the Page family, works with Daniel’s father. Stephen Cross tells us he witnessed what could have been the kidnap.”

  “Was he lying?” Byford asked.

  “But why?”

  “Ask him. Get uniform to bring him in.”

  She nodded. Made sense; it might involve hanging round and she didn’t have time.

  Byford was in a hurry too. She caught up with him in the corridor. “Guv?”

  He didn’t need to glance round. “I’m in a hurry, Bev.”

  “What’s your definition of ‘years ago’?”

  Maybe it was something in her voice. He stopped, met her gaze. “What’s your point?”

  It was something Jenny Page had said during their first meeting. The words had returned to Bev during the early hours and were still bugging. “If someone told you something happened years ago, what’s that in your book? Five? Ten? More? Less?”

  Byford shrugged. “Strictly speaking, two. But people generally mean more.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. That’s my take.” So she’d run a few checks on Jenny’s mother.

  “Can you walk and talk at the same time?” Byford asked, nodding down the corridor.

  “Chew gum and everything, guv.” She fell into stride with the big man. “See, Jenny Page said she lost her mother years ago. But I checked: it was less than two.”

  Dorothy Hamilton had died in the same two-up-two-down end-of-terrace Bolton house where Jenny had been born. Broken neck was on the death certificate. The Bolton Evening News had been slightly more forthcoming: a few pars in the archives on the website reported that Dorothy had fallen downstairs. Body found by the milkman.

  Byford halted outside his office. “Maybe they weren’t close. Jenny could’ve left home when she finished school, not kept in touch. Sad. But these things happen.”

  Possible. But there was another discrepancy. “There’s something else, guv.” She wasn’t even sure why she’d checked; it certainly hadn’t shed any light. “I can’t find a death certificate for the baby she lost.”

  His fingers were on the door handle. “Well, you know who to ask.”

  “I’m asking you, Maxwell.” Byford and the crime boss were in Interview One. The e-fits of Doug Edensor’s alleged attackers on the metal table between them. “Who are they?”

  “You don’t have to answer that question, Mr Maxwell.”

  Byford stifled already pent-up fury. According to Rumpole over there, Maxwell didn’t have to answer a call of nature. The lawyer, Edward Cornwell, was smooth as Queen’s silk. He could have tutored Houdini; show him a loophole, he’d jump right through. Elderly and prissy, Cornwell had been Maxwell’s brief for fifteen years.

  “What, exactly, are the charges, superintendent?”

  “Mr Maxwell is helping police inquiries.” Or not. Byford sat back, arms crossed, lethal stare fixed on the crime boss.

  “So he’s free to go whenever he chooses?” Silver hair, light grey suit, not an ounce of spare flesh on the lawyer’s six-foot frame.

  “Leave it, Ted,” Maxwell drawled. “Let’s get it over with. I want this bastard off my back.” Byford suspected the casual sprawl was an act. Damp crescents darkened the armpits of Maxwell’s blue shirt; beads of sweat showed on his sallow face, even through patchy stubble that peppered both chins.

  “As long as you know, superintendent.” Cornwell adjusted half-moon glasses, made a note on a legal pad.

  “Take another look, Maxwell.” The detective shoved the likenesses closer. “I’m told these goons are on your payroll.” Byford was looking too – for every reaction, the slightest tic, the tiniest flicker.

  “Says who?”

  “A witness.”

  “Yeah, right.” He lit a cigar, took his time, sneered through the smoke. “Never seen them before in my life.”

  “What about these, then?” Byford opened a file, pushed more paperwork across the desk: photocopies of the death threats sent to Robbie Crawford and Doug. The cigar halted fractionally on the way to Maxwell’s fleshy lips. Cornwell leaned in, muttered a few words in the crime boss’s ear.

  “My client...” Cornwell began.

  Byford flapped a hand. “Maxwell?”

  “Yeah. I sent them. So what?” Cornwell tightened his grip on a classy fountain pen, but Maxwell’s words were hardly an admission; his metaphorical fingerprints were all over the originals. Maxwell stared, defiant. “They needed a reminder... of what they done.”

  “Your boy’s death was an accident.” Byford’s voice was level, quiet.

  Lazy shrug. “Like Crawford’s.”

  “How much did you pay the driver, Maxwell?”

  “I don’t have to listen to this crap.”

  “Where’d you get the insulin?”

  “What?” The surprise might have been genuine. Or ingenuous.

  “The insulin that killed Doug Edensor.”

  An eyebrow briefly arched. Byford couldn’t interpret it. “I haven’t got a clue.” Maxwell tapped ash into a tin ashtray. “And neither have you, cop.”

  “Or proof, superintendent?” Cornwell fiddled with a cuff link.

  “Tell me about the child porn, Maxwell.”

  As before in the pub, he didn’t like that. Fat fingers bunched into fists; an unhealthy flush seeped from the neck up. “Dangerous talk, copper.” Cornwell’s liverspotted hand reached out; Maxwell brushed it away, still glaring at Byford.

  “Informants are grassing, Maxwell.” Byford leaned across the divide. “I could turf Wembley with the spare.” He read a hint of panic in Maxwell’s eyes.

  “I see now.” Slow nod. Slitted eyes. “You fuckers are stitching me up. Bollocks to that.” The crime boss lunged forward, grabbed the detective’s shirt with both hands. “Go play with yourself,” he snarled. “I’m outa here.”

  Byford smiled; his barbs had hit home. “No. You’re not, Maxwell.” If he walked, he’d probably leave the country this time.

  “And the charge, superintendent?” the lawyer asked.

  Byford made a show of smoothing his ruffled shirtfront. “Threatening a police officer will do as a start.”

  40

  Phone tucked under chin, Bev hadn’t even made a start. According to Richard Page, Jenny was asleep and not talking to anyone. She ended the call. Fuck it. She’d been fobbed off once too often. She grabbed keys and bag and was heading out of the office when the phone ran
g. Mac, on the move going by extraneous engine noises.

  “Sarge. Laura Foster swears blind she was nowhere near Priory Rise this morning. Any morning, come to that. Says she’s never heard of Stephen Cross.”

  Damn. “She would, wouldn’t she?”

  Mac wasn’t brilliant at women’s wardrobes but didn’t think Laura was wearing the same clobber he’d spotted on Cross’s house guest. Not that it meant much. She could keep any number of costume changes at the agency. Bev sighed. The Cross-Foster connection – or otherwise – would have to go on the back burner for the time being.

  “OK, Mac. Meet you at the Page place, ten mins.”

  “I’m nearly back, sarge. Pick you up out front in two.”

  Kicking her heels in reception, waiting for Mac, Bev caught a bit of crossfire between Vince Hanlon and an old woman trussed up like a purple cracker.

  “She give you a hard time, Vincie?” Bev smiled, as the old dear scurried through the swing door into the street.

  “Nah, not really. Poor old thing. She’s been getting the run-around from social services. Just needed to get it out of her system.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Broad shoulders, that’s me, Bev.”

  Broad everything. She gave him the once-over, eyebrow arched.

  “Don’t even go there.” The finger he wagged was like a sausage with a weight problem.

  Bev helped herself to a humbug; Vince was addicted to the things. “Point her in the right direction, did you?” She glanced through the window. Where the hell was Mac?

  “Pointed so often, she could’ve been a sodding compass – that was part of the problem. She went off feeling a bit perkier. I gave her the number she actually needs, for one thing.”

  “Saint, you are.” Bev winked. “Vincent of the nick. Patron of old biddies.” He’d even made a few notes to keep the woman happy. Bev peered at his scrawl. “You should’ve been a doctor, mate. What’s that say?”

  He lowered glasses from his shiny forehead. “Potatoes, carrots, mince, onions and milk.” He grinned. “Not going the shops, are you?”