‘I’ll be in touch the moment I know about Barton. And we’ve got to decide when’s the best time to talk to Cornfield.’
‘I phoned him about Edward,’ Jane said. ‘Apparently he’s making a bit of progress. What if we left it till Monday? Dave’s so chuffed about being able to go on his hols now this case is over he won’t mind.’
‘It’s back in Lizzie’s in-tray now – and she might well. I’m happy with Monday though. Let him enjoy his loot while he can. Right, everyone,’ she added to the room at large, ‘let me know when the booze-up is – I’ve got to go and watch a man cutting up a stiff.’ She went from one to another, shaking hands or hugging as the case might be, picked up the files and set off.
‘How urgently do you want the tests done?’ Pat asked. ‘Blood, stomach contents? Not that it isn’t all a waste of time.’
‘Oh, yesterday, day before.’
‘Not urgent at all then.’
‘No. But I think our budget might just stretch to fast-tracking them. But you really think it’s natural causes?’
‘In the absence of anything to tell me the contrary. People do die, Kate: “in the midst of life there is death”. Especially if they trot round with their reading glasses on and leave stuff lying on their stairs and … Oh, of course it’s natural causes. Broken bloody neck. You saw the break. Now, you sit out here while I clean up and then we’ll go and have a drink, and you can tell me why you look like the next candidate for my slab.’
If only she could.
If only she could tell him that she might just fancy being just that. That she couldn’t deal with the pain pressing on her chest, a real physical pain. That she couldn’t bear the weight on her head, the tightness of her throat, the tears burning her eyes. How did the Bach chorale go, the one she’d played at a recent Braysfield Road Baptist funeral? Ich babe genug: yes, she’d had enough.
Pat came bustling back, shrugging into a linen jacket. ‘There. Though I’m afraid all the showering and scrubbing in the world never convinces me I’m truly free of the smell of— Kate, what is it? In this light you look even worse than you did in there. My dear girl.’ He took her by the shoulders and stared at her. ‘For a start, when did you last eat?’
She tried to straighten her back. ‘This morning. We had a real celebration: we wrapped up our murder.’
‘So I heard. I got Dave, remember, when I tried to phone you. A bit of a rough diamond?’
‘Oh, don’t judge a man by his Black Country accent. He’s one of the best, Dave. I wish I could stay with his team. Back to Fraud on Monday, though.’ She allowed herself a sigh.
‘Fraud and the acerbic Lizzie?’
‘Quite.’
‘It isn’t just that that’s getting you down, though.’ He held the door for her, and then tucked her arm into his.
‘Perhaps I am hungry. And I’ve not been sleeping well. Too much jauntering round Europe at the public’s expense.’ Was it the bright sun, the fresh air? She could hardly walk.
‘Not a drink just yet, I think. Come on, Kate: I’m claiming the privilege of an old friend and I’m packing you into your car and taking you home. No, my bike’s safe where it is, and anyway you haven’t a crash-helmet. I’ve a chaise longue in the sun that’ll just fit you, and while you snooze I’ll make you one of my very best Pimms.’
Pimms and thin sandwiches and shortcake. All in his garden, which might have been idyllic had it been more lovingly maintained. As she lazed on the promised sunlounger – trust Pat to describe it in such inflated terms – she amused herself by putting curves into the straight lines, replacing some of the foliage with brightly coloured flowers and generally messing with his obviously low-maintenance plans. It was the sort of garden that Max Cornfield could improve.
He pulled up a chair, passed more shortcake, and was just about to top up her glass when her mobile rang. To take the call or kill it? The latter was tempting. But her thumb found the call button.
‘Kate? Rod here. Could you get back to the incident room here in Sutton at once? Thanks.’ That was it. No apologies, no explanation, no nothing.
‘It’s your own fault for having one of the damned things,’ Pat said. ‘God, I made that Pimms quite strong. Shall I drive you?’
She held up the glass – she’d barely touched it. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be there.’
‘Any idea why he wants you?’
‘The only thing I can think of is that the Forensic Lab people have discovered they’ve sent us the wrong test results or something. Oh, shit and shit and shit.’
‘Will you come back for a meal? I don’t want you not eating,’ he said, wagging a minatory finger. ‘Call me when you’ve finished – that’s best.’
‘I may have to use this,’ she said, managing the first grin for some time as she flourished her mobile at him.
The call from Rod had brought people in wearing a motley collection of gear. Clearly no one had the faintest idea why they were there, and there was a general sulkiness in the air. They’d done their bit, they’d wrapped up a case, they were entitled to a break – and now this. Dave’d have a rebellion on his hands if he wasn’t careful.
The door opened and Rod came in. Something about his walk quietened them. That and the pallor of his face and the way his hand shook slightly as he raised it for silence.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. Dave Allen died at three-forty this afternoon.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Near to tears, Rod continued, ‘He was taken ill this morning. He was taken to Good Hope Hospital where despite frantic efforts …’ He swallowed hard. ‘His wife and children were with him. A major heart attack followed by a massive one.’ He made another obvious effort. ‘That’s why I asked you to come in here. For no other reason. I didn’t want you to hear piecemeal rumours. He was a good, decent man, and I’d ask you to stand and join me in a minute’s silence.’
Kate let the tears course down her face. There was no reason to pretend. Several of the men were openly weeping, and any moment Jane would hit hysteria.
At last – he’d let them grieve for far more than a minute – Rod cleared his throat and spoke again. ‘I’ll let you know all the official arrangements as soon as I know them. I know as many of us as possible will want to pay our last respects. Meanwhile, until everything’s finally tied up, I shall be taking day-to-day responsibility for the case, and I’ll be with you at eight on Monday. Thank you.’
Kate was too stunned to know at what point Rod fell into step with her.
‘Leave your car here,’ he said. ‘I’ll run you home. Either your place or mine.’ When she hesitated, he added, ‘I need some company too, Kate. I was with him. I did my best …’
She made an effort she didn’t know she was capable of. ‘If it was that bad, no one could have saved him. Me and my stupid stomach tablets,’ she added, bitterly.
‘It was the last thing he said: “She’s a good little wench”. Then he clutched his chest and I knew it wasn’t indigestion and … Oh, Kate …’
She opened her passenger door. ‘Come on.’
He slumped in, had to be reminded about his seat-belt. ‘I was supposed to be driving you,’ he said as she tackled the Parade. ‘You looked ill before. I was worried about your going to the post mortem.’
‘Pat the Path gave me afternoon tea. Which is more than you’ve had, I should imagine. Your place or mine?’
‘Mine’s marginally nearer and you’ve never seen it, have you? Into the city centre, and I’ll navigate from there.’
Rod lived in an open-plan house in an open-plan estate in Harborne, a suburb to the west of the city. Despite its unpromising seventies exterior, the interior opened Kate’s eyes. She’d known Rod was keen on art, but had never expected him to fill his home with the sort of touches Aunt Cassie would have thought a woman’s province. Objets trouvés in one corner, a dried flower arrangement in a potentially ugly space under the open
-treaded stairs, not to mention the sort of pictures on the walls that wouldn’t be out of place in a gallery. Some things she registered; most she didn’t. She trailed after Rod into his kitchen; he put the kettle on, reached mugs, then dived into a cupboard, for a whisky bottle.
‘The glasses are behind you.’
She passed them to him silently, watched his hand shake as he poured several fingers into each. He drank deeply, the sort of macho swig that would have made her choke.
‘What a waste of single malt,’ he said.
‘On an empty stomach too. I’m not much of a cook, Rod, but—’ She looked round the kitchen.
He dug in the fridge: a loaf, three sorts of cheese in a plastic box, spreadable butter. He stared at his booty in something like revulsion: ‘And none of it low-fat. Christ!’
‘Worry about your cholesterol tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You need something now. Comfort food.’
He shoved the cheese back in the fridge, reaching into a cupboard beside it. He slammed a tin of organic baked beans on to the surface beside the bread. ‘There. Comfort food. And not this’ – he poured the whisky down the sink – ‘but some red wine. How about that?’
Kate nodded, but clung to the whisky as if it would warm her outside as well as in.
She ought to leave. She ought to frame sensible sentences about cabs and leaving the car on his drive till tomorrow. She ought to make sensible arrangements about retrieving it. But the oughts collapsed as soon as she erected them. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep.
It wasn’t just the drink. Very soon her whisky had joined Rod’s down the drain. Perhaps it was the relief of tears. Tears which had started as mourning for Dave but had very soon become tears for her and Graham. Not that Rod had asked any questions. He’d simply taken her in his arms and held her.
And now he was very nearly asleep. Any moment he’d keel over on to his sofa. She looked around for something to cover him with: after the bright day, the evening was chilly. But to get up and close his patio door would almost certainly wake him. She’d got goose-pimples on her bare arms. She’d better shut that door.
‘You won’t go, will you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘But I—’
‘I don’t want you to go.’ He struggled upright. ‘You know what I want. I want you to come to bed with me. Shit, Kate, I’m too pissed to fuck with you, but what I want more than anything else is a warm breathing body beside me.’
She ought to worry about the consequences. They’d agreed to be friends. She didn’t want another lover … She loved Graham. She didn’t want the complications of having a senior officer as a lover. She didn’t know what she wanted.
‘Oh, Kate,’ he said, ‘I just want someone to hold on to.’
She turned back to him. That was what she wanted too.
She’d known, dimly, as she fell asleep, that things wouldn’t be quite as simple in the sober light of morning. Nor were they. Some time during the night – perhaps when she came back from the bathroom – he’d pulled her close to him, her back against his chest, his hands covering her breasts. She woke to find her nipples as hard and erect as the cock pressed between her buttocks.
‘Don’t go,’ he groaned, reaching for her as she tried to inch away.
She hitched on to an elbow to face him. ‘I’m slap in the middle of my period.’
He kissed her. ‘I’m sure we can find other ways of giving each other pleasure.’
Her hair was still damp from the shower when she faced him over the breakfast table, but from the expression on his face there was nothing wrong with her appearance at all. If only Graham had ever once looked at her with such open affection.
‘Rod,’ she said, wishing she didn’t have to, ‘this morning was great. Wonderful.’ It had been. Rod was the most considerate lover she’d ever known. ‘But – and I know it doesn’t look like it – I’m not ready, not yet …’
‘Am I up against someone living or dead?’ he asked, paying unnatural attention to the marmalade.
He deserved the truth.
‘Living. But it’s over. Don’t ask me who.’
He pushed away the jar and scraped his chair clear of the table. ‘For God’s sake, Kate, the whole of Lloyd House knows about you and Graham Harvey.’ He stood, but restlessly.
‘It’s over,’ she repeated.
‘So you expect me to hang round while you get over your broken heart?’
‘I don’t expect anything. We were going to be friends, remember. That’s what we agreed.’
‘Easy enough to say while Harvey was poking you.’
‘We seemed to be friends yesterday,’ she said, her voice cracking despite herself. ‘Rod: you’re the sort of man I could love … the sort I want to love. But until – until Dave died – I was … do you know … I thought – well, it had crossed my mind that I might … top myself. That’s how I felt.’
‘Until Dave—?’ Curiosity replaced anger in his eyes. And then fear and love, as if he’d registered the last part of her sentence.
‘Until I realised that if forty-nine wasn’t enough for Dave, thirty wasn’t enough for me. I wanted a bit longer.’ She managed a grim smile.
‘Anyone else know how you felt?’
‘It’s the sort of thing I’d only tell … a friend.’ And preferably a friend who could say something, not turn to fill the kettle.
‘Did you say thirty years weren’t enough for you? I thought you were twenty-nine.’
‘Even in the Fraud Squad Lizzie allows us the occasional birthday.’
‘So long as you don’t make it more than one a year!’ He set the kettle on its stand and turned back to her. ‘What can I buy you?’
‘Friends give each other presents. Anything friendly.’
She watched emotions cross and re-cross his face. At last the words seemed to force their way out of his mouth. ‘What’s Harvey bought you?’
She forced the words out of her mouth. He’d exposed his feelings; it was only fair that she should expose hers. ‘Do you want the honest truth? He’s never bought me anything. Ever.’ It was her turn to turn from him.
‘You poor girl,’ he said, taking her at last in his arms as if she’d announced another bereavement.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Aunt Cassie observed. ‘And you’re looking peaky. Too many parties, I suppose.’ Although she no doubt meant it as a joke, it came out as sour criticism.
Kate had always avoided mentioning death to Cassie. After the insouciance with which Cassie had announced the death of her fellow card-player, however, she wouldn’t hold back the brutal truth. ‘Someone died yesterday. Someone I cared for very much. The man who was the boss in the Sutton Coldfield case.’
‘I thought that was a woman? Oh, I can’t keep up with all these different bosses of yours,’ she grumbled.
‘No. A man.’
‘Not that young man that comes to see me! Oh, I shall mis him.’
‘No. It’s no one you know.’ Kate found she couldn’t say Graham’s name. ‘A man called Dave. He was only in his forties, desperate to go on holiday to celebrate his silver wedding. And he’d wrapped up the case we were working on and dropped dead.’ Her voice wouldn’t work any more.
‘That’s what comes of not looking after yourself,’ Cassie observed complacently. ‘You want to watch your diet. That’s the secret of a good long life.’
No one had said that, of course. Everyone had known he was overweight and stuffed down too many chips. But no one had suggested that it was Dave’s own fault. Trust Cassie at her smuggest.
The trouble was, Kate wasn’t sure if she could trust herself. She’d never before felt so close to comprehensively losing her temper with the old woman. She poured her a gin – no, she couldn’t face one for herself – and waited.
‘They’re taking us out tomorrow,’ Cassie said. ‘Some of us. In a minibus. They thought we’d like to see a bit of the country. Hartlebury, round there. Have you been yet?’
‘No, not yet.’
>
‘It’d do you good to get out a bit. You want to remember all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. It’s not much fun for me, my girl, when you come and sit here moping.’
‘I’d best push off then. When a friend dies, you can’t be the life and soul of the party.’ She bent to kiss Cassie. ‘Goodnight.’
She was just opening the door to leave when it opened to admit Graham. He pressed an envelope into her hand, and walked briskly over to Cassie. Well, that was one promise he’d kept. While they talked, she opened the envelope; one from Woolworth’s.
I have to talk to you. Now. My office. 9.00.
As before, Kate tapped lightly on Graham’s door before opening it. This time he was on the phone, hardly acknowledging her as he talked and made notes. She did the things she’d done before they became lovers: checked the plants on his window-sill, boiled his kettle to make his preferred herbal tea.
At last he cut the call, but kept writing for several moments, though probably not as long as she thought he did.
When she put the mug on his desk, he managed a smile. Then he came round the desk and took her hands, gripping them so hard it hurt.
‘I can’t do it,’ he said. ‘I can’t give you up. I can’t. I need you. I need you.’ She could see the effort he was making. ‘I love you.’
He’d never said that before. Not in those simple words.
‘And I love you.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But I don’t think we can go on as we are.’
He shook his head blindly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that every meeting seems to give you more pain than pleasure. I don’t think you’re a man for furtive affairs.’ She couldn’t tell him, could she, of the emptiness of her life, of the silent phone.
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