Scar Tissue

by Judith Cutler

  Other people didn’t have my problem. A waitress ferried plates piled high. I don’t think I’ve ever smelt better chips. I ate my crisps slowly and wondered where Paula was.

  I was just re-reading the blackboards for the fifth time, planning an ideal menu, when the door opened. It was hard not to throw myself into her arms. But she wasn’t touchy-feely at the best of times, and now she looked ready to repel all comers.

  ‘I ditch my date, drive hell for leather to Fullers, and find – nothing! What the hell’s going on?’

  Paula, swearing!

  ‘When you say nothing, do you mean nothing? No one? No cars? Nothing?’

  ‘Zilch. Zero. Big round nought. Since we’re in spitting distance of France, rien. OK?’ She sat down, helping herself to my crisps.

  ‘No sign of anything,’ I repeated, but to myself. ‘So where did everyone go? You see, Todd was anxious about my going priest hole hunting on my own. I said he’d be better keeping obbo. That’s why he called you, to come with me.’

  ‘Not to sit in the warm and dry with him? Shame. Meg would never have forgiven me, of course. Then I might have had to look for yet another painter.’ She sighed.

  ‘I’d buy you a drink, but all my money’s back at the hotel.’

  ‘Well, we could have a drink on the police if we went there. You might have to change first,’ she added. ‘You look as if you’ve been dragged through the proverbial hedge.’

  ‘Real bush, anyway.’ I started on a resume of my evening.

  Halfway through, she raised a hand. ‘Hang on. It sounds as if I’d better have my drink here.’

  It took her a few minutes to get served. By the time she’d got back I was ready to agree with her.

  ‘You mean you don’t think the hotel’s safe for me?’

  ‘I meant it sounds as if it’s going to be a long story. OK.’ She sipped her iced water and listened. At last she said, ‘I think you might be right. I think the hotel might not be a safe place. But then, where is? If the police can charge your room to someone else’s account, can arrest a pop megastar and chase you down a smuggler’s passage … Hang on – did you say you had to push the trapdoor up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it was bolted on the inside?’

  ‘Good job for me it wasn’t bolted on the outside!’

  I might not have spoken.

  ‘Was there a ring or handle or anything on the outside? Caffy, you didn’t notice, did you?’ I might have spilt a whole can of paint on someone’s best carpet, she was so scornful.

  I thought, staring at the hands that must have put the trapdoor back. If there hadn’t been a handle, I must have held it by the edge opposite the hinge and pulled my fingers away very sharply to let it close. That, or crush my fingertips, and I hadn’t done that. But short as I kept my nails, three were broken. ‘There was a sort of rebated cut into it,’ I said. ‘Nothing very obvious at all. And no means of locking it from the outside. I thought I might have to sit on it for a very long time.’

  ‘Sounds as if it was used for getting out, not in,’ she mused. ‘Or only getting in with the co-operation of someone inside.’

  ‘Where does that get us?’

  ‘I just like to have these things straight in my mind.’

  I couldn’t argue. But I would have liked to strangle her. ‘What do we do now you’ve sorted it out?’

  She lifted an eyebrow, and counted the options on her right hand. ‘Go back to the hotel, where we may be met by a police reception committee. Go back to my place, where we may find the same, and which is in any case rather occupied.’ Without giving me time to ask who was occupying it – imagine, our Paula with a fellow (or a fellowess; try how we might, none of us had ever managed to suss out that aspect of her) – she continued, ‘we could try Fullers, and sleep in your eyrie.’

  ‘That’s out. I took all my stuff and put it in Todd’s car. Which is now –’ I shrugged.

  ‘Your flat?’

  ‘Someone’s cut off the power.’

  ‘Trev?’

  ‘Cold and think of the secondhand paint fumes.’

  ‘You’re a proper little ray of sunshine.’

  I couldn’t deny it. My feet were sore after my trip round Tourist-land in sandals. My legs ached after the tunnel steps. My arms wished they didn’t belong to my shoulders. I was still dog-tired and still bloody hungry. Another plate of chips, this one also bearing steak and other wonders, went past. ‘What we could do,’ I said at last, ‘is get on your phone and dial all the numbers we know. We must be able to talk to someone.’

  ‘That could take a long time. And my supper’s waiting for me.’

  ‘And your supper date? Oh, Paula, do tell.’

  Just as I managed to whip up some enthusiasm she turned to me and said, ‘It’s none of your business. Not yet,’ she added, her face softening a little. ‘Early days.’

  I nodded. ‘There aren’t all that many numbers. And it’d be quicker for you if someone could pick me up here and let you scoot off.’

  ‘Instead of the round trip to your hotel – which may or may not be a good idea. OK. Who first?’

  ‘Todd. I want to know that he’s all right.’

  She dialled, pulled a face and held out the handset. ‘You’d better leave a message, then.’

  All in one breath, I said, ‘Todd, it’s me. I’m fine. I hope you are. Can you call on Paula’s mobile?’

  ‘I’ll try Jan.’ Bless her for knowing I’d rather not talk to Taz. She held the handset for another message.

  ‘Sid?’

  ‘Sid!’

  ‘He must have some idea what’s going on.’

  ‘But he’s on their side, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not necessarily. He managed to get into work today and was very worried about you – when he’d got over being pissed off at you for leaving him at the William Harvey.’

  ‘I left his keys. What more did he want?’

  ‘A spot of TLC. I told him you only did TLC for buildings.’

  ‘He may have been worried about me because he’d planted that bug.’

  ‘You know, I never checked this bag. A bit busy.’ Then and there she tipped the entire contents on to the table. Paula – lipstick?

  But there was nothing more sinister.

  ‘I wonder what shifts that Sherree works,’ Paula mused. ‘Because she might be a source of information.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘She was off-site much earlier than this last night. Do you think it’s worth a try?’

  ‘What else have we got? There can’t be all that many Sherree Wagfords in the phone book.’ She cadged one from the landlord, plus more water, tomato juice and crisps. Another, braver man might have suggested she was expecting a lot for very little.

  Once more she thrust the phone at me. ‘Go on. Your gig.’

  The whole conversation would involve very delicate negotiation, I could see that. And to be honest – and when am I ever anything else? – I didn’t know how to broach the goings on at the police station.

  I’d reckoned without Sherree, however. Hardly taking time to register who I was, she burst into a hectic description of the chaos at the police station. Chaos sounded good.

  ‘What’s up, then?’ I asked.

  ‘It seems they were after some woman who’d messed up some operation for them, then it seems they shouldn’t have been involved in the operation after all, and there’s talk of suspensions and arrests and the internal investigation people are coming down and goodness knows what. Who did you say you were?’

  ‘The girl who helped you out with that drunk last night.’

  ‘That nice … why, you must have left your pen in my bag. And that’s what’s set all this off. Tell you what, there’s ever such a lot of people looking for you.’

  ‘Really? And which lot of people do you think I ought to let find me?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I’ve never seen Paula move so fast: perhaps she wanted to salvage what very little was
left of the evening. She drove her hatchback like Attila the Hun late for an invasion, charging round country lanes as if they were a racetrack – quite unlike her usual sedate self. She plunged us into the middle of Ashford, heading round the back of the police station to the parking spaces by the library. Talk about déjà vu. The police station car park must be full: Todd’s Range Rover was parked there too, the bike still in the back, one of the wheels turning idly. No sign of Taz’s Ford. There were also a number of unmarked plush cars, which didn’t look as though they belonged to librarians.

  Paula had obviously meant to drop me off and speed off home – to whoever. But, leaving the engine running, she got out, transferring weight from one leg to another and back again, like a toddler wanting a wee. Goodness knows she deserved a private life, but I’ll admit I would have liked some moral support.

  We turned to each other. ‘Look,’ we said, at exactly the same moment. We giggled.

  I managed to jump in first. ‘Have you still got those photos and the rope fibres safe?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, go home and sit on them. You never know,’ I added, meaning to say it darkly, like in books, meaningfully.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘How I shall be treated in there. And if there’s evidence they don’t know exists –’

  ‘Do you want me to bring it back straightaway?’ She sounded burdened and put upon but I knew she would if I asked.

  ‘Not unless I phone you. If anything goes really wrong, you may have to take it to the media. And there’s that MP, Chris Someone, who investigates miscarriages of justice.’ Provided I was still in one piece to experience the miscarriage, of course.

  We hugged. Not at all a Paula-ish thing to do. She must be anxious behind that calm smile. Then she flashed an urgent look at her watch, and she was away.

  Straightening my back and shoulders – hell, they felt as if I’d been heaving coal – I walked purposefully round to the police station front door.

  If it had been chaos during Sherree’s shift, it was completely calm now. Not so much calm as deserted. No one at all in the reception area. No Sherree substitute to introduce myself to. Not even a bell to ping to announce my presence. I retired to the seats to read those educational posters all over again.

  And again, and again. Where the hell was everybody? Had they abolished crime in Ashford? Or was it all committed behind the locked doors of the administrative area? Ten minutes passed. Paula was only half an hour from whoever and their spoilt supper. I wished I’d asked her to stay.

  Domestic violence. Animal passports.

  And the outside door flew open to admit –

  ‘Jan!’ I flung myself into her arms.

  I think she’d rather I hadn’t. She wasn’t on her own, you see, but followed by a couple of very suave-looking men – the sort who look as if their wives polish them before they go out in the morning. But she hugged me reassuringly before she pushed me away, and introduced me as if the men’s names might mean something. Thanks to Meg and her news programmes, one did. He was a long-haired barrister whose sole mission in life seemed to be to irritate the Establishment, so off the wall were the cases he took on. I recognised his face as well as his name. I couldn’t place the other, a shorter man with hair cut viciously short as if to disguise the fact it was very thin. But it was he who shook my hand with a friendly smile, not like the other who seemed to be expecting something like a curtsey, for all his left-wing credentials.

  I hardly expected them to join me on the plastic chairs, nor did they. Marcus, the one I recognised, was tapping away at his mobile as if his life depended on it; James, the other, held a quick but muttered conversation with Jan. I tried to pick up what they were saying, but failed. I wasn’t about to interrupt: I had the strongest suspicion that lawyers wouldn’t do gigs like this for free, even for a mate. At their rate per minute, I didn’t want Jan picking up an even more enormous tab than she thought vital.

  When at last there was a nice little pool of silence to drop my stone in, I said, ‘I found about ten kilos of cocaine at Fullers. I don’t suppose it was for personal use, Jan?’

  Three legal eagles turned as one.

  ‘In a priest hole in the library,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stay to investigate because the police were just dragging Todd away with them.’

  ‘You let him go?’ Jan exploded.

  I put a pleading hand on her arm. To her infinite credit, she didn’t shake it off. ‘Wasn’t anything I could do,’ I protested. ‘And we’d promised each other that if one of us was in danger, the other would save his or her skin. So I escaped down a tunnel and ended up near the Military Canal. And Paula brought me here. No, she couldn’t stay – she had to get back to her new squeeze.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Jan asked, to my amazement plumping herself down beside me, apparently ready for a comfortable natter. ‘Lesbian chic? Or grunge?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It may even be a bloke. We’ve never talked about such things,’ I added.

  ‘Nor even speculated?’

  ‘She’s my boss and my friend,’ I said, writhing with embarrassment and wishing I didn’t sound such a prig. I added more loudly, ‘and she has another set of the photos Taz gave to Moffatt. And another fibre of rope.’

  ‘Lezzy or not, she’s beyond rubies or pearls or whatever,’ James said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And she took me on without making a song and dance about my past. I take it Jan’s filled you in? Good.’ It spared me another repeat of the gory details. Maybe one day I wouldn’t mind.

  ‘Todd’s still here?’ Jan asked, rather late in the day, I thought.

  ‘He may be, his car’s still here. Or I suppose they may have taken him to Maidstone, the county police headquarters. Jan, I’m so sorry to have involved you in all this,’ I told her quietly, gripping her hand reassuringly. She returned the pressure.

  James said, with a serious smile, ‘If Fullers is being used for drug-smuggling, Mr and Ms Dawes would have been involved sooner or later, I’d have thought.’

  Marcus, meanwhile, had finished his call and was banging hard on the counter. I almost expected him to yell, ‘Shop!’

  Nothing. Somehow I didn’t expect him to settle down to read posters.

  He might have had to had the outer door not opened again, this time to reveal a couple of police officers with a great deal of silverware on their uniform considering how young they were. Although Jan got to her feet, holding out her hand and addressing them as Mr Parnell and Mr Gates, they only managed a nod, and ignored the rest of us, marching authoritatively to the door to the admin area. They were confronted, of course, by a touch-button lock. And they didn’t know the code.

  There was nothing for it but to exchange frosty greetings with Jan’s lawyer mates, and ponder the next move.

  ‘Since there’s no one front of house,’ I said, ‘and there hasn’t been any sign of anyone for fifteen minutes or more, maybe someone should go round the back and knock on the back door. Or a window. Don’t look at me,’ I said. ‘I do it, I get arrested, and that’s the last you see of me. I’d have thought with your insignia you’d be all right.’

  Jan flashed me a warning, but what the hell? I was tired, I was hungry, I was getting cold and the salt in the tomato juice had made me thirsty. I’d done all the work and taken all the risks and I wasn’t about to be anyone’s door monitor.

  ‘You may have to knock hard,’ I added, ‘to be heard above the noise of the shredders.’

  The policemen went off together; after a while, the admin door opened and one reappeared, the one with baby-blond hair and hardly any eyebrows. Parnell? He gestured the lawyers in. ‘Hang on, young lady. I’ll send someone out to deal with you.’

  ‘I don’t want to be dealt with,’ I said, already halfway through the door. ‘It’s my turn to do a bit of dealing.’ I wished, as I thought of all that coke, that I’d chosen a different word.

  I don’t know what I expected to find: a huge room full
of people looking like red-robed operatives of the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps. In fact, I found the rabbit-warren of corridors and plain rooms like the one I’d originally been interviewed in. I wasn’t the only one at sea, of course: it took one of the policemen – Gates, the mouse-haired one with wide shoulders and a peachy little bum – to stride purposefully thought some double doors I’d not noticed and up a flight of echoing stairs.

  Parnell kept us back. Not unpleasantly, but definitely. We heard footsteps and slamming doors. Some shouting.

  Gates returned, shadowed by a couple of anxious-looking uniformed officers who looked as if they were already working out their excuses. ‘It’s chaos up there. You were right about the shredder, young lady. It’s going to take weeks to put the evidence back together.’

  ‘Todd?’ Jan and I asked as one.

  ‘We’re fixing his release now.’

  ‘But why, may one ask, was he arrested in the first place?’ Jan was no longer an anxious wife but an authoritative lawyer.

  Gates checked a file he’d acquired from somewhere. Eventually he had to admit it, though. ‘Some minor traffic infringement.’

  ‘In other words, a trumped-up charge?’

  He nodded. ‘It seems to me –’ he turned to acknowledge a contingent of uniformed officers storming into the corridor, plain-clothes officers in their wake – ‘that you may as well let the Fifth Cavalry here do what they have to do. Go home and we’ll talk in the morning.’

  Jan and I now shook our heads as one.

  I spoke first. ‘Todd: you have to get him out of wherever he is. Now.’

  ‘Once someone’s been arrested there are procedures –’ he began.

  A look from Jan, augmented by the expensive smiles and upraised fingers of her colleagues, cut him off short. Parnell took the hint and a spare officer and disappeared.

  Nicely in the ascendant, I added, ‘Then there’s a bike in the back of Todd’s Range Rover that has to be got back to its owner in the next hour. Seriously. You come off a tedious twilight shift and your wheels aren’t there: it’s not funny. The owner’s a skinny lad working as a skivvy in the kitchen. His name’s Mal.’