Will Power

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Divorce.’

  Her heart leapt, but plummeted again at the sight of his face. ‘Your church permits divorce?’

  ‘It doesn’t encourage it. Prefers couples to accept counselling … But my wife doesn’t want counselling.’

  Her head jerked up. ‘Your wife knows?’

  ‘No. No. Not about us as such. But even she admits we’re not happy, you see, and I did my best to persuade her. But her health’s so poor …’

  What did that have to do with anything? ‘Have you mentioned divorce to her? In as many words?’

  ‘Of course not. That’d sound like blackmail!’

  She fiddled with her mug and then asked, ‘What are the consequences of divorce in your church?’

  ‘Hardly good. They’d ask me to stop preaching, might ask me to leave the council.’

  ‘They’d ostracise you?’

  He turned back to the desk. ‘Not as such. But I can’t imagine … you see, I’d be the guilty party …’

  ‘I always thought it took two to wreck a marriage,’ she said more tartly than she meant.

  He snorted. ‘Well, you would say that. Wasn’t your Robin a married man when you lived with him?’

  How dare he? ‘He’d left his wife well before we became lovers. In any case, Graham, the law doesn’t apportion guilt these days; why should the church? Why don’t you leave it to God? “Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone”.’ This was getting nowhere: who wanted to discuss theology when they should be talking about their future?

  ‘You’re right. I don’t even know how to set about things, you know,’ he added. ‘Putting things in motion. I don’t know how to break it to her. Not in her state of health.’

  As clearly as if he’d been in the room beside her, she heard Dave Allen’s verdict: Married men don’t leave their wives.

  ‘Where would I live?’

  Graham, not pathos! ‘That’s not a problem,’ she said briskly. ‘You know my house would welcome you with open arms.’

  ‘I couldn’t. Not until we were married. I can’t. Don’t you understand?’

  ‘I’m trying to.’ And trying equally hard not to cry. He wouldn’t make it, would he? He’d never do it. ‘So what will you do?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘You start by moving into your spare room—’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s where I’ve been for the last eight years?’

  ‘Well, you pack a case and go and see a solicitor tomorrow.’ Most people might sort out their own divorces these days, but a solicitor might put some steel into Graham’s spine, simply in the interests of his subsequent fees.

  ‘In the middle of this case?’

  ‘Or on Tuesday or Wednesday or whenever.’ She held back, as if not wanting to get too impatient with a slow child. ‘Graham, everything depends on you. I can’t tell you what to do. You’d never forgive me if I gave the wrong advice: never forgive me for setting your feet on what promises to be a long lonely path.’ He wouldn’t. Even if he got his divorce, even if they got married, there’d be a large part of Graham’s heart that would blame her for his straying from the paths of righteousness. She took a painful breath and took his hands. They lay limp, not responding to her grip. ‘Whatever you want, whatever you need – I’ll try to give it to you. If you really want me. If.’ She stood tall to kiss him, and, turning on her heel, left his room without a backward glance. She waited two minutes in the corridor lest he call her back. All she heard was the ringing of his phone and his voice murmuring into it.

  She passed a young constable. ‘God, Harvey’s burning the midnight oil,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what you have to do if you’re a copper,’ she said lightly. ‘You have to marry the job.’ And for the first time, she felt a rush of compassion for Graham’s wife.

  Chapter Thirty

  Kate didn’t find it hard to ignore the answerphone’s flashing light. Whoever, whatever, would simply have to wait till the following morning. All she wanted now was a hot bath, the stiffest of whiskies and the chance of a night’s sleep. But at two-thirty she was still wondering if by chance it could have been Graham trying to contact her, announcing a change of heart, a real decision.

  ‘Sergeant Kate, I’m sorry to phone you on your home number,’ came Cornfield’s voice. ‘But it really is important that I see you. Would Monday afternoon be convenient? Perhaps you would be kind enough to tell me where I should present myself.’

  Present myself? What did he mean by such an official term? Come on, Kate. You know what it means. He’s going to make some sort of statement and wants to do it in the appropriate place. You’ve got him. You’ve got him!

  ‘Wheel him in here,’ Lizzie said. ‘Then we can whip him over to Steelhouse Lane and charge him. D’you want me to sit in on the interview?’

  ‘That nice kid from Dave’s MIU – shit, Lizzie. Has anyone told you yet? About Dave?’

  ‘What about which Dave?’

  ‘Dave Allen. The DCI in charge of the Duncton investigation.’ As if the stupid woman couldn’t work it out.

  ‘What about him?’ Her voice was so off-hand it was clear she hadn’t picked up the pain in Kate’s.

  ‘I’m sorry. He collapsed and died on Saturday. Heart.’ She waited for some reaction. Getting nothing, she added, ‘He was a week away from his silver wedding anniversary.’

  ‘Trust you to play the sentiment card, Kate. You’re just as dead whatever the date.’

  ‘I was thinking about his wife, Lizzie.’

  ‘She should have thought about his diet, if you ask me.’

  It dawned on Kate that one day Lizzie would be just like Cassie – was halfway there already, come to think of it. She asked, ‘Any news of your hospital appointment yet?’

  Lizzie looked furtive. ‘I’ll get on to it today.’

  Kate looked hard at her. ‘I think you’d find a slow death from cancer worse than a quick heart attack,’ she said, and left.

  Derek was just making tea when she walked into their office, and he cocked a warning eyebrow at her desk. And at Rod, apparently absorbed in the Guardian.

  ‘Bad news about Dave Allen,’ Derek said. ‘The Gaffer just told me,’ he added awkwardly.

  ‘Very bad,’ she agreed.

  Derek peered at her. ‘Looks like you’ve taken it real hard.’

  ‘He was a decent man, Derek, and a first-class cop. I liked him very much. But,’ she continued, turning to Rod, ‘I thought you’d be in Sutton, Gaffer.’

  ‘I was. It took about three minutes to ensure everything continued on its well-oiled wheels. Dave had a good team, there. I thought I’d pop in to see how you were. Kate was there when Dave started his attack,’ he told Derek.

  ‘He said it was indigestion.’

  ‘Poor bugger.’ Derek passed her and Rod mugs of overmilked coffee, which Rod took without turning an immaculate hair.

  ‘Actually, I’ve got news for you, Gaffer,’ Kate said, trying for an efficiency she didn’t feel. ‘Max Cornfield wants to talk to us. Lizzie thought here. OK if I get Jane along?’

  ‘Absolutely. It’ll take her mind off things. Poor kid looked terrible this morning – well, they all did.’

  ‘You’re a bit washed out yourself,’ she observed, as much for Derek’s benefit as anything.

  Rod nodded. ‘It wasn’t the best of weekends. Look, all this stuff you’ve told me about Cornfield and his millions – any chance I could sit in with you and Jane while you talk to him? I’d like to see a master-fraudster at work.’

  ‘Master-fraudsters get away with it,’ she said. ‘Actually, if you’ve got time, it’d be a great idea. Add a bit of gravitas.’

  ‘And it’ll re-skill me a bit. Thanks.’ He gathered his newspaper, checked, apparently, that he’d not disarranged her desk, and took himself off. ‘See you later.’

  ‘If you ask me, he’s got his eye on you,’ Derek observed.

&nbs
p; ‘Look, Derek, we’ve been through all this. I’ve had a crap weekend, the highlight of which was a visit to my great-aunt in the Hotel Geriatrica and I do not want any more crap now. And if Lizzie comes sniffing round for gossip, you can tell her what I said.’

  ‘OK, Sergeant,’ he said.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, you can drop that, too. If you don’t,’ she added, managing a grin, ‘I shall have to use the ultimate weapon in my armoury and start calling you Ben again. Get it?’

  ‘Not that! Anything but that!’

  ‘Well, you’ve been warned,’ she said, still smiling, but applying herself to her desk, and finding, inevitably, a note from Rod tucked in with the rest of her mail.

  Dear Kate

  I thought a friend might give another friend a book for her birthday. Unfortunately the one I found is rather too large to leave on a desk. Would you let me hand it over at dinner tonight? I thought that new place in Brindley Place? If you’ve no other plans, of course. Could I collect you at seven-thirty?

  Rod

  She rather thought he could. Perhaps he might even run to a card. It was weird having a birthday with no cards. No nothing.

  In fact, that was what she felt this morning. Nothing. She explored her mind as if it were a tooth minus a filling. There were rough edges, from Graham and from Dave, but in the centre, a great gaping hollow. Work might be the best thing to fill it. She stared resentfully at the piles of paper on her desk.

  After her mini-spat with Derek she didn’t feel like suggesting a lunch-time drink. But she wanted to be fresh for her encounter with Max Cornfield so she just might take herself for a walk. What if she met Graham? There was always a chance. Not if she took herself in the opposite direction from his usual haunts. So she set off down Livery Street, fairly briskly, because an idea was creeping into her head. Thirty seemed an important birthday, something of a milestone. It might not be the end of her third decade till this time next year, in real terms, but in emotional ones – yes, it had to be. She looked at her hands, still steady, still full of life despite the weekend. She needed to promise herself that whatever happened to rock her off course again, it wouldn’t defeat her; that she’d no longer even contemplate suicide. Had she meant it? Or had she simply been overwhelmed by a dreadful combination? Whichever it was, she mustn’t give in. Dave’s death had taught her that. She would do what she’d promised those nice people in the Jewellery Quarter what seemed like months ago. She’d go and treat herself. No need to wait for Graham to give her anything. No point, more like. As for Rod, only time would tell. And somehow, she wasn’t sure the auguries were good. No. She must do this for herself. Do what she’d never done before: march into a shop and spend a very great deal of money on something for herself. Not a car, not furniture. Nothing useful. Just an affirmation, a very visible affirmation, that her life could go on. Oh yes, there’d be some bad times ahead, some viciously lonely days and nights. This – whatever it was, she didn’t know yet – would keep her company.

  To her surprise they recognised her.

  ‘Any more fraud, Sergeant?’ asked the woman with the rings to die for.

  ‘Plenty, but none that need worry us today,’ she smiled. ‘Not on my birthday.’ There, it was out.

  ‘Congratulations!’ came a little chorus from the men working behind the shop.

  ‘And you’re going to buy yourself a present? Good for you. Now,’ the assistant spread her hands in an expansive gesture, ‘what do you fancy? A nice chain?’

  ‘I’ve had enough of chains,’ Kate said positively.

  She was just opening a hasty baguette when the phone rang. It was Lizzie, with the news that a punter was waiting for her in Reception. Hell, it must be Max Cornfield, a good half-hour early.

  But it wasn’t Cornfield, nor was the punter alone in Reception. Well, for all the strange things career police officers dealt with in their years in the service, jungle explorers complete with pith helmets were rare sights. Particularly when they stripped off their safari suits to nothing but a well-filled elephant trunk.

  God, she’d been had, hadn’t she. She should have twigged: why should Lizzie have called her? Scarlet from the navel up, her hands were being gripped by the explorer, intent on making her oil his body. Not just the pecs to die for. All parts.

  And she had to get out of the situation with neither a disciplinary nor the derision of her mates.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered urgently. ‘A Hollywood embrace, please – tip me right back.’

  As she went over, she might have been in the arms of Clarke Gable. But she didn’t kiss him. She whispered tenderly in his ear, ‘You make me massage your bloody trunk and I do you for indecent assault.’

  He swung her with more panache than she’d have credited over his other side. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Before you could say prick,’ she confirmed. ‘Just give me the message and scarper.’

  He slobbered a huge wet kiss on to her – well, he was entitled to a little professional revenge – and returned her to the vertical. ‘It’s in the right ear,’ he whispered. ‘You have to grope for it.’

  ‘I don’t think I do,’ she said, holding out a hand like a schoolteacher demanding an illicit note. ‘Do I?’

  A happy birthday from Lizzie and all in the Fraud Squad. Well, that was nice. She supposed. And when she’d had time to reflect on it, when she was no longer debating whether to snarl or laugh or both, she might think it was.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Kate was just leaving her office to meet Cornfield in reception when Rod put his head round the door.

  ‘I’ve brought you this lot,’ he said, producing a polythene bag wearing an evidence label. ‘The papers Barton dropped when he fell.’

  ‘Have you had time to look at any of them yet?’

  ‘Time? What’s time? Anyway, I know you love paperwork and wouldn’t dare deny you – especially on your birthday.’

  She stuck her tongue out. ‘Gee, thanks, Gaffer.’ There might be no one in the room to see, but that didn’t mean no one could hear. ‘Cornfield’s down in reception—’

  ‘No, he isn’t. Jane found him hanging around and took him straight to an interview room. OK? Into battle.’

  Max stood up as they entered, the smile that Jane had somehow brought to his face fading abruptly.

  ‘This is Detective Superintendent Neville,’ Kate said. ‘Superintendent Neville, this is Mr Max Cornfield, who last spoke to us in connection the the Duncton case.’

  ‘I am so very sorry to hear about Mr Allen,’ Cornfield said, ‘I hope you will accept my condolences.’

  There were embarrassed smiles as they all sat down. Jane switched on the tape recorder and introduced the protagonists.

  Kate leaned forward, ‘Mr Cornfield, you left a message saying that you wished to talk to us. How can we help?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know why you ask, Kate. Three police officers – you’re clearly not expecting a chat about the weather. I should imagine you have a very good idea of what I want to say. I want to tell you how I came to forge the signature of my very dear friend Leon Horowitz.’

  Rod raised his hand. ‘Mr Cornfield, might I recommend that you ask your solicitor to be present?’

  ‘Thank you. But I know what I want to say and am prepared to take the consequences. Oh, no, I’m not! Don’t you see? But I must.’

  ‘Why don’t you get us all some tea, Jane?’ Rod asked, looking at Cornfield with concern on his face. ‘You do realise that forgery may well carry a prison sentence, and that you will forfeit whatever you gained by your forgery?’

  ‘I am not unaware of that,’ Cornfield said, swallowing hard.

  ‘What’s the latest news of Mrs Hamilton?’ Kate asked, to settle him again.

  She was rewarded with a smile. ‘She will be allowed home on Wednesday. She tells me she needs to talk to you urgently, Kate. About something in her past.’

  Kate stared. ‘Her past?’

  ‘When you speak
to her, remember that she is a very sick woman.’ He smiled enigmatically. ‘No one is pretending, least of all Mrs Hamilton, that she will live long. But we all have to die, and she wants to die at home, with her dog beside her. The hope is that Edward will play his part.’

  ‘Won’t she need round-the-clock care?’

  Bother Rod for interrupting her. ‘What did the old lady want to talk about?’

  Was Cornfield’s smile sad or cynical? He ignored Rod’s question. ‘Mr Neville, if I am to lose my home, I will be glad of the shelter. Until my trial, that is.’

  ‘You’re going to batten on another old woman’s affections and hope to get her to change her will in your favour?’ Rod jumped in again. Well, he was entitled to. And perhaps he was right to. But he didn’t follow it up.

  ‘Mrs Hamilton has a family to whom to leave her property. Mrs Barr had a family, but if ever one was dysfunctional, hers was. I became her family. I became everything to her, in the end. That was why I did what I did.’ He was upright in the chair, jabbing the table in emphasis.

  ‘Max: for quite a long time, I’ve wanted to know exactly what you did,’ Kate said. ‘And I’ve met with evasion upon evasion, from you and from your friends. Wouldn’t you like to get it all off your chest?’

  ‘You’ve been harassing my friends,’ he countered.

  Kate raised her eyebrows coldly. ‘I’ve been questioning your friends about a potentially very serious crime. Forgery – to gain a fortune the size of the one you’re likely to get – is serious.’

  Jane brought in a tray with four plastic cups. Even in this situation Rod couldn’t resist a disparaging look at the cups and their contents. Kate told the tape recorder what was happening, and passed Cornfield his.

  ‘Thank you. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to have anything to do with any of it. I told you, I begged her to call a solicitor. But she decided, that last Saturday morning, that she had to do it there and then. She knew my friends were coming to see me – they were at a convention at the NEC,’ he said to Rod, who nodded impartially. ‘She asked me to summon them earlier, so that they could be witnesses. As you know, Joseph made it in time. But Leon insisted that he finish his game, and promised to come on later. His train was derailed, so he was late. Mrs Barr gave up on him. Wouldn’t wait. Insisted I sign it in his name. Joseph will verify this, as will Leon himself. But now Joseph tells me that you’re accusing him of conspiracy, as if we planned this all along. Kate, Jane: can you convince your colleague that I’m telling the truth? I never planned it. I warned her, pleaded with her, implored her. But she was so ill – was dead within the week.’