But For The Grace

by Peter Grainger

  They were at the display boards, taking down the pictures and notes for the files when the door opened and Wilson walked into the room. Smith nodded briefly and looked away – few words had passed between them since last year’s trouble. Murray pulled some sort of face at Smith and turned back to his own board. Obviously it was Waters that Wilson had come to see, and to the young man’s credit, now that he had worked in both teams, he seemed to have found a way of operating in both without causing offence to the other side. Wilson went over to the board that Waters was clearing and spoke to him.

  “Chris, we’re having a few beers tonight at The King George – a bit of a celebration. You’re invited, they asked me to come up and let you know.”

  And, thought Smith, it’s a perfect opportunity to come and have a look, and probably a laugh, at this investigation which has gone nowhere…

  Waters thanked him and said that he’d be there. The conversation dropped a little and Smith made a point of not trying to listen in – but then he heard a question and surprise in Water’s voice – “Really?” – and then, “DC?”

  Smith walked across to them.

  “DC? Sergeant Wilson-”

  “It’s John, for God’s sake!”

  “Sorry. John thinks he recognizes a face on this board.”

  Waters was clearing the board upon which they had put up the photographs of the staff and residents of Rosemary House. Smith took a guess and pointed to the image of Kipras Kazlauskas – “This one?” They could have been wrong about him.

  “No.”

  Wilson raised a hand and pointed to the picture of Ralph Greenwood.

  “Really? A very old court case, maybe.”

  “No, not the old boy. The girl behind him. I remember her.”

  Wilson had been part of a raid on a party the previous summer. Lots of youngsters celebrating the end of sixth form and college, lots of eighteen and twenty year olds but it had been at a private house out in the country, owned by some player in the film or music business. They’d had a tip-off days before, someone with a grudge most likely, and a dozen or so officers had gate-crashed the affair on a Saturday night.

  Wilson spun it out a little for Waters’ benefit but Smith said nothing and waited for the bottom line. Wilson saw and cut it shorter than it might have been.

  “She was there. There was a houseful and I won’t describe what was going on upstairs but she was in the room where we had several in possession of Class A.”

  “What exactly?”

  Wilson said, “There was plenty of coke being used. But a couple of them also had H in their pockets – no doubt that was for later. They were charged, you can look it up.”

  “Was the girl in possession? We’ve checked and-”

  “No, she was clean.”

  They all looked again at the photograph, the girl laughing into the camera, her hands on her grandfather’s shoulders.

  “What makes you sure it’s her? I’m not being funny, Wilson, but it’s not the best of pictures.”

  Wilson was obviously so sure of himself that he felt no need to take that personally.

  “First, a very pretty blonde, distinctive, and second, she was as arsey as they come.”

  “How?”

  “Knew her rights and made sure everyone else in the room did. Started shouting out legal advice!”

  Smith nodded and looked at Waters.

  Then Wilson said, “That’s why I cautioned her for knowingly associating, to shut her up.”

  “You did what? You cautioned her? There’s nothing on the system, we checked at least twice.”

  Wilson shrugged. “I’d have put it in, along with several others. They’ll all be there. You can check… If that one didn’t get on, it’s the system. It isn’t perfect, you’ve been here long enough to know that. She had a funny name, I can’t remember it but… I’ll find my old recs if it’ll help you out, DC!”

  He was walking away now, heading for the door and smiling, on a roll.

  Smith said, “Wilson?”

  “What?”

  “Thanks.”

  He had said from the beginning that this case would never have legs unless somebody told them something; that the someone had turned out to be Wilson was an irony that he would dwell upon some other time. As yet they could not be certain that it was the same girl, of course, but what were the odds? ‘She started shouting out legal advice’, Wilson said, and Smith had no doubt that Ralph Greenwood would have taught his granddaughter legal survival skills the way other grandfathers teach their grandsons the art of fishing. Waters had said, hadn’t he, that she was their best bet and now here she was, knowingly associating with people using Class A drugs – anyone who can get hold of cocaine can get hold of heroin. It was a direct link between the world of wild parties and the quiet suffering of Joan Riley’s last days but proving anything now would still require considerable thought and even more luck than they had just had.

  They went back to Waters’ computer and searched the database again – and again nothing. Wilson had many faults, and in their wonderful time together Smith had probably told him every one to his face, but he was not normally careless with routine procedures. It was John Murray who suggested just entering the surname. There were a few more than Smith expected; Maitland was not as uncommon as he had supposed. They worked through the list and had found her in less than five minutes but she was present as ‘Aster’, not Astra. A spelling mistake? Simply misheard? The girl herself being clever? It made no difference – against her name was the caution that Wilson had given her, and her address in Lake was the same as the one that they had found for her when checking the visitor’s book at Rosemary House. Smith remembered his interviews with Ralph Greenwood. The only times he had seemed on edge had been when his granddaughter had been mentioned and now that made sense. If Smith was right, she had told him about her caution and Ralph had realized that this was, potentially, a weak point in what they had done or were planning to do. And then Smith wondered whether that moment, after all, the moment when he realized that his granddaughter knew such people, had been the moment at which the thought had first occurred to him. It was possible… But there were many other possibilities.

  It was all they could do to prevent Waters heading for the door. Smith stopped him with who, what, where, why and when – every question needed to be answered if they were to make the most of this break. Who needed to be involved? Allen was already in Leicester – absolutely the best place for him, Smith said. Reeve was not in the building but she answered her mobile and agreed immediately that they had enough suspicion to bring the girl in for an interview – an interview at which she wanted to be present.

  One by one, they worked through all of Smith’s questions from as many angles as possible. It took more than two hours, three more cups of tea and several stale Danish pastries from the canteen. All that remained was the decision as to when they would bring in Astra Maitland – tonight or tomorrow morning? If they went for tonight, it would mean a late finish for everyone and Smith would have to sign off on more overtime; tomorrow would be more civilized in every way but… But the momentum had swung their way for the first time in this business. Smith checked with Murray that Maggie was OK at home alone for an evening, and then he told the two of them to fetch the girl straight away.

  Waters asked if he should sign out handcuffs just in case.

  “John, can you believe this? He’s done one fetch and now he wants to put cuffs on. Chris, I reckon what you should do is put those pink furry ones you’ve got under your bed in your pocket, just in case.”

  Waters did not blush as he would have done a few months ago. Instead he said, “No good, DC – we lost the key.”

  “Bloody hell – you haven’t still got someone chained to the bedpost, have you? John, you’re in charge. Do not arrest this girl unless she absolutely insists on it.”

  There had been no answer to their knocks at the front door but the place did not feel deserted to Murray. Round th
e back, he had pushed at the French doors and Waters had asked whether they would have gone in if it had been open – but it wasn’t, so there was no point in discussing that. All the windows were closed but it was still January. Inside, through the kitchen window he could see that the gas boiler was alight and heating something, and there was a little condensation on the window itself, which probably meant someone had been in there recently. Beyond the kitchen doorway was a dim light in some sort of hallway. Oaklands only had big houses like this one – it must have five or six bedrooms – and Murray wondered idly, as one always did, where the money came from, but then DC had said that Greenwood himself was probably minted, and some of that might have gone into his daughter’s place. No-one had mentioned the son-in-law, though. The thoughts ran on in the background as Murray methodically worked his way round the house, and then they were back on the drive. Normally he would have knocked and asked a neighbour but the gardens were so large that the nearest one was at least fifty yards away through various shrubberies and herbaceous borders.

  “DC? Thought I’d better ring. The lights are on here but nobody’s home.”

  “Quel surprise. Lights on? Just nipped down to the takeaway?”

  “I can’t imagine the takeaways do a big trade with a place like this. I’m wondering where we’re going to put a baby and this place has en suites to spare.”

  “I reckon you’ve got communist tendencies, John. What’s your feeling?”

  Murray looked back at the house.

  “Someone will be about sooner or later – they haven’t left the country. If you want me to wait, I don’t mind, and Waters needs something to take his mind off his girlfriend being away. As long as he doesn’t get frisky with me in the car.”

  There was a pause – he could see in his mind’s eye the frown, the slightly narrowed eyes as calculations were made.

  “No. Come away and go home, there’s no danger of anyone getting wind of what we know. Can you do half past seven there in the morning, with Boy Wonder? I’ve always found seven thirty in the morning very productive. And you might miss some of that morning… Anyway, I’ll be in here at the same time. If we don’t find her home, we’ll have to tackle the Uni. We’ll send Waters in there first with his certificates.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Well, DC, she almost insisted on being arrested.”

  Murray went on to explain what had happened earlier that morning. Astra Maitland had answered the door at half past seven, fully dressed and about to leave – her red Yaris had been warming up in the drive as they arrived. When they invited her to come into the station to talk about matters relating to her caution last year, she had laughed and not very politely declined; as far as she was concerned, it had been a trivial matter that was over and done with, so unless they had something more serious to discuss, she would rather go to college. Murray had said that it would be in her interest to clear the thing up sooner rather than later, to which she had replied that she doubted whether they were here for her benefit – did they intend to arrest her if she continued to decline their kind offer? Murray had then said, well, yes, he probably would…

  Smith said, “Testing the water. She wanted to know how strong we think our intelligence is, that’s all. I’ll bet she then changed her mind and came quietly.”

  Murray nodded.

  “Well done. Good thing she didn’t call your bluff, though. Where’s the mother? Anyone else know we brought her in this morning?”

  “She told us that mum is in Marseille on a business trip, back tomorrow. She called her from the station to tell her where she was and what was happening.”

  Smith frowned and Murray went on, “Had to, DC. She wasn’t under arrest and she knows her rights – when I said that it wasn’t really necessary, that she’d only be here an hour or so, she told me that even if I had arrested her, she would still have the right to let someone know where she was.”

  “You stayed in the room here when she made the call?”

  “Yes, and she showed me the name and number on the phone before she called it.”

  “Fair enough. How did the conversation go? Mum, I’m in the nick again…”

  “Mum did most of the talking – perhaps she’s a lawyer as well. Lots of ‘Yes, mums’ and ‘Of course I do, mums’.”

  “Well, if she is a chip off the old block, it should be interesting at least. Ma’am’s reading through the notes, she wants to start at nine. Waters can sit in. We’ll set the video to record and run live as well. You can watch from wherever the live screen is – the more eyes and ears on this the better.”

  When Detective Inspector Reeve entered the interview room, there was momentary surprise on Astra Maitland’s face, and Smith thought, no, you didn’t expect that, and you’d rather deal with men – I wonder why… The girl was uncommonly pretty, and ‘distinctive’, just as Wilson had said. Her photograph, hidden in the folder in front of him, did not do her justice; she seemed a little childlike and gawky in that but the year or so that had passed since it was taken had improved her. She was still petite, still blonde, but her figure had filled out, and her face was flawless though she wore, as far as Smith could tell, no make-up. To cap it all, she had Greenwood’s eyes as they must have looked out on the world fifty or more years ago – a sharp, scintillating blue.

  After the usual introductions and explanations of what was taking place, Reeve paused, looked Astra Maitland steadily in the eyes for a moment and said, “We’d like to start with the caution that you were given by an officer from this station last August. Tell us what you were doing at Wolverton Lodge that evening.”

  The first thing that Smith noticed again seemed to be surprise, as if this was not what she was expecting to be asked, even though Murray said that he had given it as the reason for their visit. Had she assumed that was just a pretext? Then the young woman looked at her watch before she spoke, and Smith had half-expected awkwardness and questions and evasions from the beginning – instead they got a full account of how she and her friends had celebrated leaving school, getting A level results and confirming university places. Her speech was not plummy – she was too cool for that – but Smith did not need to ask her at which secondary school in Lake she had taken those examinations. If she had not been a student at the Queen’s School he would be amazed. OK, he thought, sometimes there are coincidences – the same school at which Joan Riley had been the headmaster’s secretary for all those years, long before Astra Maitland had walked through the gates for the first time.

  “I’m sure that lots of young people were at similar parties last August, Astra, but most of them would not have involved Class A drugs, would they?”

  Reeve’s question was given due consideration.

  “Not ‘most’, I suppose, but probably more than you think.”

  “How does your mother feel about your knowingly associating with people who use those drugs?”

  “My mother is very grown up, and she trusts me to behave sensibly. Which I do. I’m quite willing to take tests and things if that’s what you want. But that doesn’t stop me from believing that all these questions should be for individuals to decide rather than for the state to legislate upon. What do you think?”

  Reeve’s approach was simply to refuse to engage at this stage of the interview.

  “What I think is that what I think is completely irrelevant, Astra. How well did you know the people at the party? Presumably you knew them well enough to know that they would be in possession?”

  “But how can knowing someone ‘well’ be defined? Some of the people there I had known for ten years or more, others for about ten minutes before your officers broke the door down. Was that really necessary? Anyway, young people at parties often take drugs, so I suppose one would call it a reasonable assumption that there would be some in the house.”

  “Are you still in touch with people from the party?”

  “Yes – I’ve said that some of them are old friends.”

  “Have any
of these people ever supplied you with an illegal substance?”

  The girl laughed as she said, “No!”

  After a short silence, Smith spoke for the first time.

  “Have you ever been supplied with such a substance by someone who was not at that particular party?”

  Astra Maitland had been preoccupied with the smartly dressed and obviously senior female officer – now she looked at the man for the first time. He was quite old, she realized, and a little down-at-heel; the cuffs of his jacket were frayed, his tie didn’t really go with his shirt and there was a shaving cut under his chin that had bled a little.

  “No. I’ve already said I will take-”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure you are very good at taking tests, but I’m not talking about recently. I’m talking about a while ago, a long time ago, when you were still a schoolgirl. As you just said, you’ve known some of these people ten years or more. So, has anyone ever supplied you with a Class A drug?”

  “What kind of a school do you think that I went to?”

  Smith smiled and shrugged.