‘To say nothing of the coaches like Jason, who don’t earn if they don’t work,’ she added.
‘Tell you what, Kate,’ he said, pulling himself to his feet, ‘I could wish it had been Josephine Public, not you, who’d found her. The next few days would have been a lot easier.’
‘But – if we’re right – the ensuing ones would be a hell of a lot worse.’
At last, leaving him to radio back to his colleagues in Kings Heath, she went out into the foyer, where Jason was still waiting. He’d brought out her tennis bag, the tracksuit tucked into the handles. Kate dug in her bag for her purse and the lesson fee. When he demurred, she said flatly, ‘You managed to get here at seven. Don’t tell me you don’t deserve the lesson fee for that alone!’
‘Well …’ He took the money, obviously embarrassed. ‘What if you just booked another lesson for later this week …’
‘No: I’d better stick to the usual Tuesday date. I’ve got a nasty suspicion this is going to be a heavy week,’ she said. ‘For me; for you; and for everyone at the Centre. Once the Press get hold of the fact that a corpse lay undiscovered at Brayfield Centre overnight, they’re going to want to talk to a lot of people. And my colleagues over there just might, too.’ She nodded at the influx of police personnel. ‘Just to kick off, though, Jason. Were you here last night?’
He shook his head. ‘I was coaching over in Handsworth.’
‘So you’ve got a nice lot of witnesses?’
‘About twenty – it was a very busy night. Everyone thinking they should be playing Davis Cup tennis! You should see the courts in Wimbledon fortnight!’ He smiled shyly: ‘Look, I’ve organised a cup of hot chocolate for you.’
Not from the machine, either.
‘I got them to put in extra sugar. Shock,’ he explained, as she raised startled eyes. ‘You know, the body.’
She swallowed her remarks about seeing worse sights every day with the first mouthful of chocolate. It was good, and there was no point in offending the person who’d procured it. In fact, it made a nice change to be treated as a human, who could feel frail in the face of such events.
Time to go into work. The full back-up team was now on the scene. There was nothing to do except drink her chocolate and go. It was all in other people’s hands. Nonetheless, as she left the building she spoke to the woman on Reception: Sylvie, her badge said. ‘Was it busy here last night?’
Sylvie shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Don’t you get to know the regulars?’
‘Yes, but it was the relief manager on last night. The regular manager’s off sick.’
‘So when will the relief manager be back in?’
‘In about three weeks! He’s going to fly straight off to see his mum in Jamaica. His flight left – what, half an hour ago.’
Kate leaned her head against the car roof. She didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave a case like this. But she had no option. She let herself in slowly. She’d not been to see Simon for a bit. What about a nice quiet chat with him while the traffic eased?
He was just opening his Big Issue bag when Kate reached Sainsbury’s. She grinned at him, but didn’t stop to talk. She’d whiz round while it was relatively quiet. He knew, of course, that whatever she shoved in her basket would include stuff for him, but he always seemed pleased to see her for her own sake. At least, that was what she told herself, as she picked up high-protein snacks and the milk chocolate he loved.
As she bought her Big Issue, she handed him a couple of folded notes. ‘I’m after a favour. And it may involve you lubricating a few throats,’ she explained as he stared at them. ‘Not necessarily the cleanest or the youngest throats.’
‘Go on.’
‘These warehouse fires – you know we found a body last week.’
‘Poor bastard.’
‘Quite. Except it was a woman. And we can’t get a handle on her. Any chance you could ask the odd question at the hostel?’
He nodded. ‘I hate it, Kate. I’d rather be back in my little squat. The coughing. Other folks’ nightmares. I like a bit of privacy.’ He smiled, his face suddenly transfigured. ‘But I’m still alive. Thanks to you. And you never know – things might look up.’
If only she could make him a firm offer, hard news for hard cash. ‘I’m sure they will. Just hang on in there, Simon. Just hang on in there.’
Chapter Seven
Rowley pushed her sandwiches aside and looked quizzically at Kate: ‘No, don’t apologise. At least, not to me. It seems you’ve ruffled the odd feather down at Kings Heath nick. Or at least, one Guljar Singh Grewal has. Acting, I’d say, with a bit of a push from you.’ She gestured Kate to a seat.
‘Me, Gaffer?’ Kate personified wide-eyed innocence. ‘No, all I did was find this woman’s body in the showers. And notice that someone – possibly, just possibly with the intention of making it hard to pinpoint the time of death – had Blu-tack’d the hair-dryers on. So it was nice and cosy in a room Scott of the Antarctic might normally have shivered in. It was actually Guljar who noticed that the centre’s computers were down. And he who checked that no one had got round to reporting the woman missing. It just seemed a bit funny to us, that’s all.’
‘Funny enough to warrant a top-price autopsy instead of a bog-standard one? It’s upset my opposite number, Kate, that’s the problem. And he wants me to give you a flea in your ear.’ She leant forward, arms on desk, more like a headmistress about to give careers advice than a DI about to give a bollocking.
‘And are you going to, Gaffer?’
‘Well, I asked him a question or two, as it happens. Like had they found out who the lady in question was. And they’d got no idea. I take it you didn’t check her sports bag.’
‘I didn’t want to tread on anyone’s toes, Gaffer,’ Kate said virtuously. Then she grinned. ‘But Guljar did, of course.’
‘Fair enough. What would you have looked for if you had?’
‘Car keys with a helpful fob. House keys ditto. After all, I didn’t see a handbag, and she was a bit grown up for a name-tape in her coat.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Anything to give us an idea who she was.’
‘And there was nothing?’ Rowley shook her head.
‘Not even a bus pass!’ Why was Rowley banging on about elementary police work? And now she was waving a half-eaten sandwich to prompt Kate to continue.
Which she did. ‘So we have an anonymous woman who hides her identity and walked to Brayfield Centre. Or paid cash on a bus. And had no money to buy a drink or get home.’
‘Yes, we’re on the same wavelength. And so, by the time I’d asked the same questions of our young colleague in Kings Heath, was he. Not that he liked having to accept advice from a woman he clearly sees as in her dotage,’ Sue said grimly. ‘Anyway, I think we might get our forensic post mortem. Want to be there?’ she asked, ultra-casually.
Since Christmas, every time there’d been a stiff, someone had wanted to know if Kate wanted to watch Patrick Duncan cut it up. The news had evidently got round very quickly that Kate and he were no longer an item. The joke was wearing distinctly thin but Kate would not bite.
‘Not our stiff,’ she said, equally casually.
‘True. OK, off you go. Just one thing, Kate,’ she added mock-wistfully, ‘you couldn’t change your tennis lesson to another day? Only Kings Heath seems to like its crime on Tuesdays.’
Kate got to her feet, grinning at the pallid joke.
Sue shrugged. ‘Which reminds me – any news of the old dears and their budgie?’
‘I’ll have to ask Guljar for an up-date on the lorry business. But I’m sure they’ll get a tidy sum from the driver’s insurance. Well, his or his employer’s. The daughter’s a barrister: I wouldn’t like her on my trail! Anyway, her parents – and Billy the budgie – have settled in OK: I had a postcard yesterday morning. They tell me they’re going to take their daughter’s garden in hand.’ And Kate was pretty sure that she would
have a round tuit, whatever that might turn out to be, ready and waiting for them.
‘A charity! All that land owned by a charity! The same charity!’ Kate must have sounded as incredulous as she felt. She pulled up a chair to Colin’s desk and waited for more.
Colin nodded. ‘Yes. A charity. An old and respectable one, too. You’ve heard of Anna Seward?’
‘No,’ Kate said blankly. ‘Should I have done?’
Colin flung his hands in the air, presumably to catch his eyebrows. ‘Goodness me! Never heard of the Swan of Lichfield? Well, I suppose you southerners are a pretty ignorant tribe.’
‘OK.’ Kate was going to have to indulge him, wasn’t she, if she wanted to get at the kernel. ‘Who was she?’
‘She was a poet. Born that place in Derbyshire where they had the plague. You know, “Ring a ring o’roses”.’
‘You’re losing me, Colin.’
‘OK. She lived most of her life in Lichfield. Doctor Johnson was a fan. You’ve heard of him?’
‘Might just have done.’
‘And Sir Walter Scott published all her poems posthumously.’
‘Good for him. Though personally I’d rather have my five minutes of fame while I’m alive.’
‘And she had a sister, who died young. Sarah.’
‘Have you been mugging all this up for Mastermind?’
‘Did a project on her at school. Now, Sarah was very bright, and Anna herself a bit of a blue-stocking. So when Sarah dropped off her perch, Anna decided the most appropriate memorial was a school for young women. A good one. So she set up this charitable foundation to fund it. And several other schools. There are Seward Academies – nothing as vulgar as a school, you’ll notice – in several towns round here. Walsall, Wolverhampton, Lichfield itself, of course, Tamworth.’
‘What about Birmingham?’
‘Oddly enough, no. They own a lot of land in the area, but no schools.’
‘Why “oddly”?’
‘Because education in Brum’s always been dominated by boys’ grammar schools. Until they spotted the implications of equal opportunities legislation, there were about ten boys’ places to every one girl’s. So you’d have thought a chain of private grammar schools would have been the answer to a whole lot of maidens’ prayers.’
‘“Maidens’ prayers”?’
‘Just a Black Country expression.’
Kate nodded absently. It was either that or yell. Finally she settled for a bit of irritation. ‘Colin: where’s all this going? So why do they own land, not just schools? And why in Brum?’
‘Not much of a capitalist, are you? They need property and investments – I bet they’ve got land all over the country, not just here – to bring in income in ground rents to fund the trust. They’ve got to maintain the schools and pay the teachers.’
‘So the girls don’t have to pay?’
Colin roared with laughter. ‘Not much, they don’t! Only about two thousand a term, give or take the odd hundred.’
‘Jesus! Where did you find that out?’
‘Saw an ad in the Evening Mail the other night.’
‘Well, we know there’s money in education. So I suppose these are particularly high-class establishments with state-of-the-art everything. And what the fees don’t cover, the ground rents do. Any idea what else they own?’
‘What sort of else?’
Kate pulled a face. ‘No idea. What do organisations like that usually own? Buildings? Pictures? You wouldn’t care to find out, would you? Just so we know where we are when we start talking to them.’
‘Talking to them?’
God, where was he today? ‘Well,’ she said with irony, ‘all these embarrassing fires are on their land. They might just have a view. Hi, Fatima! Come and join us! Colin’s just about to put the kettle on.’
Colin pulled a face, and himself to his feet. ‘Yes, boss. Tea or coffee, Fatima?’
‘Tea, please.’ She bowled a lemon at him, overarm. It spun in the air. ‘Black, with a slice of this, please.’
‘You’re not slimming or anything, are you?’ Kate demanded.
‘No. Just that the milk supply’s been a bit irregular and the shop down the road’s open all hours.’
‘Like Ronnie Barker’s?’ Colin asked.
‘No, like Safeway. OK, Gaffer,’ Fatima continued, ‘I’ve checked the A. and E. department at all the hospitals within the West Midlands. There are no young people with burns or possible explosion-related injuries.’
Kate looked at her. ‘No young people. What about older ones?’
Fatima blinked. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to know that.’ My God! First Colin and now Fatima! ‘But,’ she continued triumphantly, ‘before you hit the roof, I did ask, just in case. And there was one, in the Burns Unit in Selly Oak. A middle-aged guy. Art-dealer.’
‘And why did he end up there?’
‘He was trying to light his bonfire.’
Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you believe him?’
‘He wasn’t in a position to talk to me. Very bad facial and chest burns. Admitted early last week. Still seriously ill.’
‘Did you get an actual time and date of admission?’
Fatima shook her head, biting her lip.
‘I know the theory was that our arsonist’s likely to be a teenage hell-raiser! But get on to the blower to them – I like dotting i’s and crossing t’s.’
‘Or drinking them.’ Colin placed a mug on her desk. ‘There you are, Kate. And Fatima.’
‘Thanks, Colin. Thanks both of you. Not that it gets us any further forward, not yet—’
The phones, which had been unnaturally quiet for some time, now rang, one on Colin’s desk, another on Kate’s.
‘Kate?’
She half-recognised the voice, but it was a very poor line. ‘Oh! Stephen! Have you got news about my buttons?’
‘Yes. I’ve been checking with some of my colleagues. One’s a real expert on buttons. D’you fancy dropping round to here in your lunch hour? I’ll stand you a sarnie in the Edwardian Tea Rooms.’
Lunch hour? Now that was a nice civilised concept. She looked at her watch. Didn’t time fly when you were enjoying yourself! ‘Sounds good. In about half an hour?’
She was just leaving the building when she heard Graham’s voice behind her. Turning, she stopped to wait for him.
He looked very tired, very grey. But his face lit up in an answering smile and he took the last four or five steps at a run. ‘Any news of your buttons?’
‘I’m just on my way to find out. Stephen Abbott – he’s in charge of finds like mine – phoned me a few minutes ago. It concentrates the mind on the paperwork, taking a lunch break. How are you?’ She hoped she didn’t sound as concerned as she felt. To cover, she asked, ‘How was your weekend? Did you get away from Birmingham?’
‘Fine. Yes, fine. This gathering tomorrow night—’
‘Gaffer?’
‘Ah, you probably don’t know. There’ll be a note on everyone’s desk by two. Rod Neville’s just heard he’s going to head up one of these MITs. He’s inviting everyone to a jar or two after work.’
‘That’ll be good,’ she said, without emphasis. ‘Will you be going?’
He pulled a face. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve really got such a lot on—’
‘Graham: you should be there. You really should. Or people will say it’s sour grapes because you didn’t get it.’ OK, sergeant talking to DCI this wasn’t. More friend to friend. Which they were. But it wasn’t always a good idea to speak so bluntly.
He stared. ‘It was always going to be just a sideways move for someone.’
‘You might know that. He might know that. But you know the smart money was on you.’
‘So whoever put it on lost it. Well, we’ll see about tomorrow night,’ he said at last. ‘I take it you’ll be going?’ He turned towards Colmore Row. ‘You know, Neville thinks a great deal of you. As a police officer.’
Kate fell into step with him.
Shoving her hands deep into her pockets – the wind was cold despite the bright sun – she grunted non-committally. It was interesting that Graham should need to qualify such an apparently innocent remark. She wouldn’t mention – not to him, not to anyone – that she suspected Neville found her attractive. It was bad enough that being on the accelerated promotion scheme gave her a reputation as a Butterfly, a PC Curriculum Vitae, without giving anyone cause to suspect she might fancy sleeping her way to the top. Goodness knew there were enough rumours about her and Graham. And she couldn’t, after that strange moment in Aunt Cassie’s room, deny the tension between the two of them. It might ebb and flow. But it was always there. Even when, maybe especially when, he was angry with her. And if his anger was unjustified, as it often was, what was the cause of it?
‘And’ – the sound of his voice made her jump – ‘as a woman. I rather think.’
She wouldn’t bite. ‘You know they call him Superintendent Smarm?’
He managed a laugh. ‘He’s a good officer,’ he conceded. ‘Good to work under.’
She might just risk it. ‘Don’t you think, Gaffer, that that could have been better expressed?’
Chapter Eight
Stephen unlocked another door deep in the entrails of the museum, ushering her through into a vast but dingy corridor. He gestured. ‘I suppose if you go backstage anywhere – even somewhere as prestigious as Symphony Hall – you get the same difference between front of house and backstage areas.’
‘Like in a stately home—’
‘That’s right. Magnificent one side of the green baize door, Spartan the other. What about at your place?’
‘Pretty much the same throughout. Executive design it isn’t. But maybe we wouldn’t want that. So long as it’s clean and decent, we’d rather the money were spent on other things.’
‘How very noble and self-sacrificing!’
‘Oh, there’s still a bit of Dixon of Dock Green in most of us,’ Kate said. ‘Most of us joined to help people, one way or another.’
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