The Work of a Narrow Mind

by Faith Martin

  But although, along with Wendy, he’d worked with Hillary and helped solve their last murder case, she knew that there was far more to Jake Barnes than he was letting on.

  ‘Guv,’ Jake said now, giving her his usual slightly shy, quiet-but-confident smile.

  Hillary quirked her lips at him and moved her glance back to Jimmy, who nodded slightly. He obviously had something to report to her, and she nodded back that she understood as much.

  She’d asked him to keep an eye on the new boy, or the Boy Wonder as Wendy had cheekily dubbed him, and wondered exactly what it was that Jimmy had now got on him.

  Well, time would tell. First things first.

  ‘I’m just off to see the new boss. Is he in?’ she asked the old sergeant.

  ‘Guv, I think he’s in with Steven. I heard voices in his office when I passed,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ It was Wendy who spoke, looking up eagerly from her lap top. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Haven’t clapped eyes on him,’ Jimmy said laconically.

  ‘Damn. I hope he’s nice,’ Wendy said fretfully. ‘It’s horrible if you’re lumbered with a boss you can’t get on with. Not that I’m saying that I can’t get on with people, mind,’ she added anxiously.

  ‘Well, I’ll report back and let you know,’ Hillary promised with a wry smile. And so saying, she turned and walked smartly towards Steven’s office.

  Steven Crayle had got in to the office early that morning, and wasn’t surprised to find Roland Sale arriving not long after him.

  He’d approved of Donleavy’s choice to take over his old role at CRT, on paper at least, liking what he’d read of Sale’s past record, and now that he’d spent nearly an hour talking to the man in person, he saw no reason to change his mind.

  Sale still lived in Aylesbury, where his wife was too settled to want to move. But the commute wasn’t that bad, and the superintendent certainly spoke fondly of his wife, Joyce, and was clearly prepared to do things her way. Divorced himself, Steven readily admired any married couple who managed to stick it out these days, let alone when one of them had a job like theirs.

  At 58, Sale was around five feet ten inches tall, with brown-turning-to-grey hair, hazel eyes and a slim build that was just beginning to show signs of developing a bit of a gut. He was dressed in an old, but respectable grey suit, and he looked comfortable sitting in Steven’s office. Which was just as well, since it was soon to be his own. A second desk had been brought in temporarily, so the two men could work in tandem as Steven showed him the ropes.

  ‘So that’s all the admin sorted,’ Steven said now, shutting a folder and handing it over to him. ‘It’s all on the computer, of course, and the secretaries will help you out if you get bogged down. The committee meetings can be a bit of a pain, but actually there’s less paperwork than you might think.’

  Roland Sale nodded. ‘That’s fine. Everything’s clear so far. And I understand how tight the budget is for this place. I thought we were squeezed, but what you managed to accomplish down here on so little is an eye opener. So tell me about the team – how does it work, having mainly civilians reporting to you? I have to say, out of all the things that I’ve heard so far, that’s what’s worrying me the most,’ he admitted openly.

  ‘Yes, it’s not totally like running an active investigation unit,’ Steven agreed. ‘On the other hand, in many ways it is. First off, your primary investigator is ex-DI Hillary Greene. You’ve seen her solve rate. It speaks for itself.’

  ‘Yes. Very impressive. She’s a bit of a legend in these parts, or so I hear,’ Sale said cautiously.

  Steven smiled a shade grimly. No doubt, before accepting the post, Sale had done his homework. And he wasn’t surprised that he must have had mixed reactions when looking over Hillary’s personnel file. ‘We’ll come back to her later,’ he said cautiously. ‘Let’s start with Jimmy. Ex-sergeant, good, steady man.’

  They spent some time discussing Jimmy’s history. ‘And there’s no doubt that both of them see Jimmy as Hillary’s wing man,’ Steven concluded. ‘They’re tight, and work well together. And between them, they train up and work the wannabes, as Hillary calls them.’

  ‘Yes. I’m not sure I like the thought of untrained youngsters working cases,’ Sale said flatly.

  ‘Me neither,’ Steven agreed just as flatly. ‘But with all the budget cuts, it was either them or no one. Actually though, apart from a few hiccups, it’s been OK. Sam Pickles is going to make a first-class officer in a few years’ time, and of the two we’ve now got, both look promising, in different ways.’

  ‘Hmm. I can see why Commander Donleavy appointed Jake Barnes. Is he really worth that many millions?’

  Steven grimaced slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘The top brass liked his profile, obviously. He’s media-smart, and just the sort of role model they were looking for. His joining the CRT in such a junior role was something of a coup for the PR team.’ He picked up Wendy Turnbull’s file, anxious to get off the subject of Jake Barnes.

  Not long after Barnes had joined up, Hillary Greene had found him snooping on her computer. She hadn’t been surprised. From the first moment she’d met him, she’d sensed the man had some kind of hidden agenda. And, what’s more, she’d persuaded Steven to keep quiet about it, until they could figure out just what it might be.

  That hadn’t sat particularly well with him, but he had learned to trust Hillary’s judgement and instinct. And she was right when she said that they needed to gather more proof and evidence before going to the top brass with it. Nobody was going to thank them for tarnishing the gilt on the brass’s new golden boy, after all, and , as Hillary had also pointed out, if Barnes was up to something illegal, as opposed to just being an inveterate snoop, then it was their job to catch him in the act.

  Crime prevention being, sort of, the point.

  So they’d had one of the technical boffins set up a tracker on her computer, so that they could keep tabs on whatever it was that Barnes was looking for on her computer system. So far, though, he hadn’t accessed it again. Hillary had also asked Jimmy Jessop to keep a tight watch on him, and he was regularly reporting back to Hillary.

  So, given the fact that Steven didn’t feel particularly comfortable playing things so close to his chest, it was hardly surprising that he felt guilty about keeping Roland Sale in the dark. After all, in two weeks’ time, Jake Barnes would be Sale’s problem. Not Steven’s. Or even Hillary’s - not officially. And if it all blew up in their faces, it would be Sale who’d take the majority of the flack - the brass being notoriously clever at passing the buck.

  At some point he’d have to have a word with Hillary about bringing Sale fully into the loop even though he already knew that she wouldn’t like it. With a sigh, Steven Crayle contemplated the stormy weather that they had ahead of them. He was already feeling distinctly jittery as it was, waiting for her to give him some sort of clue as to how she felt about them getting married.

  Forcing his mind back to the task at hand, he picked up another folder. ‘Now, Wendy Turnbull is a very different kettle of fish. But she has something about her,’ he said with a smile, tossing across the file. Sale caught it neatly.

  Ten minutes later, they’d finished discussing the two newbies, and the talk returned inevitably to Hillary Greene.

  ‘So, what’s she like?’ Roland Sale asked, accepting the mug of coffee Steven handed over to him.

  Sale had already noticed that the younger man had made it from his private stash of Columbia beans that he kept locked in his top drawer, and the high-quality brew seemed typical of the man himself.

  In his mid-forties, Acting Chief Superintendent Steven Crayle was dressed in an impeccable dark-blue suit, with a maroon and pale-blue tie. He was tall and lean, and looked like the sort who kept himself scrupulously fit by playing energetic squash or something equally athletic. He had crisply styled dark hair and dark eyes, and was well barbered, and smelt of something expensive and tasteful. Perh
aps because he was not a good-looking man himself, Roland Sale knew that women would instantly be attracted to Crayle. He was what his Joyce would have called a fox.

  But for all that, Sale wasn’t fooled by the well-manicured elegance of the man. He’d read enough about him to know that his latest promotion was only the latest in a long line and, from their conversation so far, he could tell Crayle had a mind as smart as the rest of him. He was also tough and incisive, which came as no real surprise to him, given the CRT’s great record so far. Although, if there was any truth to the rumours, that wasn’t all down to Steven Crayle. Hillary Greene had to take some of the credit.

  ‘I mean, the woman as opposed to the legend,’ he said now quietly. ‘If she’s the best weapon in the arsenal, I need to know what I’m dealing with here. So please, be honest.’

  Steven smiled, wondering just how much Sale had found out or guessed.

  ‘When Commander Donleavy first told me he’d appointed her, I wasn’t best pleased,’ he admitted, deciding to be up front and honest about it. Well, reasonably so. ‘Not that I was worried about her ex, Ronnie Greene, you understand,’ he put in quickly. ‘An internal inquiry team had already cleared her and found her totally innocent of having anything to do with that animal parts smuggling ring he had set up. Neither did she see a penny of that bloody fortune he made. Besides, that was all ancient history by then. He’d been killed in that car crash years before she came to us. Besides, her work ethic was well known, and her solve rate has always been through the roof.’

  Sale nodded.

  ‘But after taking that bullet for Mellow Mallow, and then sticking by her sergeant through all that later trouble, she was something of a superstar as far as the rank and file were concerned. And all that baggage wasn’t something that I particularly wanted to deal with,’ Steven swept on, taking a sip from his own mug of coffee.

  Again Sale nodded. ‘Her sergeant, Janine Tyler, was married to Superintendent Mallow, wasn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Steven agreed. ‘And when her husband was shot and killed, she then killed the man responsible. Acting in self-defence of course,’ Steven added, with absolutely no inflection in his voice whatsoever.

  ‘Right.’ Sale let that sit for a moment. ‘But she contacted Hillary right after the incident, and DI Greene went out to the scene, even though she was no longer Janine Mallow’s superior officer. And Hillary’s boss made certain accusations that she’d covered up something about it.’

  ‘Yes. But that was never proved,’ Steven said flatly and a shade coldly, and then felt the need to warn him. ‘Her old boss later got transferred. To Hull.’

  Sale winced and rubbed a finger thoughtfully across his chin. ‘To Hull, huh?’

  ‘To Hull,’ Steven confirmed blandly.

  Sale sipped his coffee and let the silence settle a bit. He was no fool and knew just what he was being told. ‘I did hear back from my contacts, that Commander Donleavy really rates her as a detective. He didn’t like it when she retired, I gather?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Steven said. And then had to smile at the understatement.

  ‘And when she came back he made sure that she got the top spot here,’ Sale pressed, just to be sure that he’d got the political lay of the land right.

  ‘Yes. Of course, her record alone made that inevitable, so nobody cried foul. But when the commander told me to give her only the cold murder cases,’ Steven admitted, with a small grin, ‘I have to admit, I wasn’t happy to have my hands tied. So I found the coldest, deadest cases and handed them over, knowing damned well that she’d have to end up with egg on her face.’

  ‘Didn’t she complain?’ Sale asked curiously, and looked surprised when a wide smile crossed the younger man’s handsome face.

  ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about Hillary,’ Steven said softly. ‘First, don’t assume – like I did – that she’ll fail to close even the deadest of dead-end cases. She’s that good.’ He ticked off another finger. ‘Secondly, always bear in mind that she sees any set-back as a challenge. And third – she’d rather have all her teeth pulled, and without the benefit of Novocain, before she’d be caught dead complaining or whinging about anything.’

  Sale smiled. ‘Got it.’

  ‘Now I tend to hand her the cases that really stick in my craw, knowing that there’s a damned good chance that some murderous bastard who thought he’d got away with it, is finally going to get what’s coming to him. For instance’ – he shuffled through the files and produced one from the stack – ‘a young mother of three, killed in her own kitchen.’

  Sale winced. ‘I hate those kinds of cases.’

  ‘Exactly: we all do. This is another case in point.’ He tapped a finger on another buff-coloured folder. ‘A young man, a student at one of the Oxford colleges still in his teens, who should have had his whole life ahead of him. And then there’s the last one she closed, a thirty-something chap, by all accounts a thoroughly decent sort, who left behind parents devastated by his loss. She solved them all. Of course, you don’t have to do the same thing: you can hand her cases on whatever basis you see fit.’

  Roland Sale nodded thoughtfully. ‘I rather like the way you go about it.’

  Steven smiled acknowledgement. ‘Speaking of which, my last case of choice for her is this.’ So saying, he picked up a folder and opened it.

  As he did so, he heard a sharp rap at the door, and called out, ‘Come in.’

  Roland Sale looked up as a woman entered the room. She had a very attractive, maybe rather old-fashioned hour-glass figure, and was dressed in a no-nonsense blue suit. She had that shade of reddish-brown hair that Sale had always liked, and a pair of beautiful but laser-like pale-brown eyes that instantly zeroed in on Steven.

  Sale didn’t need to hear Steven Crayle say her name in order to guess her identity.

  ‘Ah Hillary, that’s good timing. I was just about to discuss your new cold case.’

  Hillary Greene looked at her lover, then turned to the stranger in the room, who was already getting to his feet and was holding out his hand.

  ‘DI Greene. Roland Sale.’

  Hillary shook his hand with a brief smile. ‘I don’t really have a rank any more sir,’ Hillary pointed out mildly. But nobody in that room was in any doubt just how redundant those words really were.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I was just telling Superintendent Sale, here, the criterion I use when I hand out your cases,’ Steven said, with a slightly wry smile in the older man’s direction. He’d already noticed that Hillary’s eyes had gone straight to the open file on the desk between them, and that she’d tensed slightly with anticipation. A quick glance at Roland Sale told him that he’d noticed her instant preoccupation too.

  ‘Knowing your appetite for cold murder cases, I thought that the best way for Superintendent Sale here to learn how things work, is to start you on a new case, and let him see the process through. It goes without saying, that from now on, you’ll be reporting back to both of us.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Hillary agreed easily.

  They’d already discussed every aspect of Steven’s move and every possible repercussion for them. Although Hillary wasn’t feeling exactly happy to see him go, they’d both, albeit tacitly, acknowledged that, given the state of their private life, it was probably best that he was moving on. After he’d met with Donleavy’s choice of replacement, he had been able to report back favourably , which had been a relief for them both. The last thing they needed was for Hillary to be stuck with a boss for whom she couldn’t work.

  Right on cue, Roland Sale now spoke up with a smile. ‘I have to say, I’m as intrigued as you are to see what the case is and how you’ll go about working it.’ Privately, he was under no illusions that he still had a lot to learn.

  ‘Then let me summarize it for the both of you,’ Steven said, retrieving the file, but barely needing to refer to it, since he’d been studying it for the last two days.

  ‘Sylvia Perkins,’
he began, ‘was seventy-five years old when she was found battered to death in her home on the 22 February, 2010. Fingerprints at the scene and in the house were all traced back to either the victim herself, or close friends and family. There was no DNA evidence of a stranger found, so the attacker didn’t leave any trace of himself – or herself – behind. There were no witnesses to the crime either, which was, as you can see, brutal.’

  Both Sale and Hillary drew in a low, level breath, and Steven, catching Sale’s eye, nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Violent, needless death is always nasty, but we all really feel it when it’s some poor old soul who stood no chance of fighting back. The old deserve to die peacefully in their beds, with their family by, not at the hand of some vicious thug.’

  ‘Sir,’ Hillary used the single syllable to both acknowledge the truth of his point and to urge him to carry on.

  ‘Not that Sylvia, by all accounts, was particularly frail,’ said Steven, taking the hint. ‘She was still, according to her friends and family, fit and active. She still drove, for instance, only a small run-about, but it helped maintain her independence. She only used to go to the local shops, and never drove more than ten miles away from home it seems, but even so, she was no housebound, doddery old lady.’

  ‘But, from the glimpse I saw of the scene-of-crime photos just now,’ Rollo Sale said flatly, ‘she wasn’t strong enough to fight off her attacker.’

  ‘No,’ Steven agreed, dividing up the graphic and gruesome photographs of the victim in situ, and giving half of them to Hillary, and the other half to Sale. Both of them flipped through them with set, grim-lipped concentration.

  ‘Murder weapon?’ Hillary asked simply.

  ‘Not found at the scene, but it was widely assumed and believed to have been a brass poker. As you can see from this …’ He showed them a picture of a fireplace, where a largely ornamental fireside set had also been photographed. It showed a small, never-used little brass coal shovel, a hard-bristled brush in the same pristine state, and a pair of brass coal tongeus. All three hung from a roundbased stand with hooks. ‘The poker that would have completed the set is missing. According to her neighbours and family, it was generally agreed that the set was normally complete, although no one could swear to it a hundred per cent. Like a lot of old folk, she had a large collection of knick-knacks, ornaments, photo-frames and stuff, so nobody would have had any reason to particularly notice if the set was complete or not.’