Stick or Twist

by Diane Janes

  ‘Katrina.’

  ‘Katrina … right.’

  ‘I wish we could have got married today,’ he said. ‘Just the two of us, like we first imagined.’

  ‘Never mind.’ She appeared to be completely sanguine. ‘It will be just as romantic when we do it in four weeks’ time.’

  ‘And you’ll have time to plan what to wear. Have a dress made or something.’

  He sensed right away that he had hit a wrong note.

  ‘Oh … yes. I suppose so.’ She appeared to hesitate, then pulled herself together and said, ‘Do you want another coffee?’

  He didn’t get it. All the women he knew would have been already planning what they were going to wear. Talking dressmakers or designer labels. It was the most important day of her life, after all. Something going on there that he didn’t understand, he thought. It surely couldn’t be about the kidnap? What on earth would that have to do with getting a wedding outfit? Or maybe it was her parents being dead? That was another ever so slightly touchy subject. Maybe it had to do with her father not being there to give her away, or her mother not seeing her in her wedding dress or something? That would be it – a sentimental, family thing. Just make a mental note not to mention her outfit again. It was nothing to worry about.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Graham Ling was not altogether satisfied with the outcome of the Thackeray case review. Fair enough, you couldn’t expect anyone to conjure new leads out of thin air, but he entertained a strong suspicion that instead of bringing his entire focus to the case, Bettsy had used some of the time to effect closer personal relations with DS McMahon, or vice versa, and this made him privately question whether either officer had been as fully and effectively engaged in the task as he would have expected them to be. You couldn’t keep secrets in CID – they were supposed to be detectives, after all – and it had therefore been all round the building by lunchtime on the day in question, that McMahon and Bettsy had arrived at work together that morning, having left her car at the Horse and Jockey car park all night. The pair of them never said a dickey bird and thought they were being clever about it, but Snouty Bramham in Fast Response had it on good authority that ever since then, Bettsy had been spending the night at McMahon’s place, then going home next morning for a shower and a change, so that they still arrived separately at work.

  Ling metaphorically shook his head over the pair of them. In his heart he identified with an earlier era, when relationships between serving officers had been frowned upon and he still believed that in the long run, a romance between two coppers on the same team and the same shift got in the way of the job. He had known more than a few inter-officer romances and affairs in his time, and while some had worked out, a significant number had fallen apart eventually. (Once with the spectacular consequence that a long career had ended in the imprisonment of a sergeant who had attempted to run down a fellow officer, with whom he’d had an affair, after she had threatened to tell his wife.) The team was too close, the job too much of a pressure cooker, to allow for sexual relationships – they simply got in the way – that at least was DCI Ling’s personal take on the matter.

  As a direct consequence, once he had called time on the Thackeray review (McMahon and Betts had asked for more time, but he told them that he didn’t have it to give) he had teamed Hannah McMahon up with Joel McPartland and sent them out to take statements on the Pitcairn Estate, in connection with Operation Farthing, issuing parting instructions that they were not to get diverted by any Bounty Hunters: a remark which was met with puzzled looks from both officers, leading Ling to wonder inwardly at what the hell they were teaching the kids in school, these days. As for Peter Betts, he put him back onto the stabbing at the Three Horseshoes, which since it involved attempting to extract information from their substantial Eastern European community, was generally regarded as a sort of punishment. Serve the little bugger right, Ling said to himself, for messing around on the job.

  In fact neither of the objects of their boss’s covert wrath had the slightest objection to being kept apart at work. ‘It’s not as if we’re madly in love and inseparable,’ Hannah said, while she stirred pesto into a pasta sauce and Peter laid out the place mats and cutlery on her kitchen table. ‘We don’t need to spend every minute together. It isn’t like that.’

  The not being in love part had been absolutely clear right from the start. ‘Just friends,’ Hannah had said. ‘Supporting one another through a difficult time. Not even good friends,’ and she had laughed.

  In spite of not being particularly good friends, Peter went back to her house pretty much every night. They ate together, watched TV, and chewed over the events of their respective days, with an ease which would have been the envy of many a married couple. They shared her bed every night (he had discovered that she had another lot of bedding in sunshine yellow, vibrant purple and silver grey, which was almost as lively as the lime green set which had formed part of his original introduction to what constituted McMahon’s idea of homely interior decor).

  Their long conversations were not confined to work. She sometimes talked about her family. He found it unexpectedly easy to tell her about Ginny and the band. (He had sent Ginny a reply, telling her that he was thinking the offer over and asking how much time he actually had to make up his mind.) To his surprise, Hannah had not decried the idea of chucking up his career in the police for a life on the road, saying instead that she’d had no idea he was that good a musician. ‘If you’ve got a talent that will take you all round the world, maybe you should use it.’

  By now Ginny had responded to say that he still had plenty of time to make up his mind, because the new contract didn’t start for several months yet, but he knew that wasn’t really true. Ginny needed an answer, because if he said ‘no’, she would need time to line up someone else and furthermore he would have to give at least four weeks’ notice if he decided to leave the police force. He hadn’t checked the precise procedure, because he didn’t want to start the rumour mills grinding.

  It had also occurred to him that like Hannah, Ginny was happy to sleep with him without any commitment, or even any significant level of affection on either side. He supposed that some blokes would be pretty pleased about that, but he found it oddly unsatisfactory. Maybe I’m an incurable romantic, he thought, then laughed at himself for thinking it.

  He wasn’t at all sure what was going on between himself and McMahon. They led ostensibly separate lives which had never the less converged. Contrary to what she had initially told him, she spent relatively few nights at home alone, because hardly an evening went by without her either visiting the hospital, or else taking a turn at babysitting her nieces, which enabled her brother-in-law to go in and see his wife. The first time she arranged to attend the hospital straight from work, she had given him a door key, doing it in such a way that it was obviously a mere convenience for them both and no big deal. When she returned home that night he had dinner in the oven and a bottle of Sauvignon chilling in the fridge. ‘Bless you,’ she had said, giving him a quick kiss, before kicking off her shoes and sinking into a chair.

  Though Hannah had said they were: ‘Not actually living together’, but, ‘just friends, staying over’, it had already become simpler to bring some clothes and toiletries across to ‘make things easier’. However, given that they were ‘just friends, staying over’, he had not informed the police that he wished to register a ‘change of abode’ as it was still quaintly termed in the constabulary. In similar vein, because Hannah was not ‘his girlfriend’, he had never offered to accompany her to the hospital, and nor had he invited her to go with him, when he made one of his regular visits to see his grandmother. In any case, as well as the fact that arriving with a young woman in tow would have put entirely the wrong sort of ideas into Granny Mina’s head, Hannah was otherwise engaged, taking a rare Saturday afternoon off from both work and hospital visiting, to go shopping with friends.

  Though he was close to Granny Mina and visited often,
he had decided not to mention Hannah (who was not really his girlfriend after all). He would have found the relationship with Hannah difficult to describe. He knew that if he mentioned her as a friend, his grandmother’s eyebrows would rise and she would fix him with the look which had never enabled him to get away with anything. His carefully cultivated policeman’s poker face just didn’t seem to work on his grandmother.

  Technically speaking, she wasn’t actually his grandmother, but the second wife of his paternal grandfather, who had married Mina after his first wife died. Mina was barely more than a decade older than his own mother had been and the two women had fortuitously got on well, remaining friends long after Grandfather Betts had died. When his own father had ‘done a runner’, as his mother so eloquently put it, it had been Granny Mina who had stepped up, minding Peter after school and in the holidays, while his mother was at work. When kidney failure had claimed his mother at a prematurely early age, it had naturally fallen to Peter to keep up the connection, which had never been a hardship, since Granny Mina could always be relied upon to provide a hearty meal, and unqualified support for his every achievement and endeavour. He knew that if he told Granny Mina about the chance to travel the world, playing guitar, she would encourage him to do whatever would make him happiest – the problem being that he couldn’t decide what that would actually be.

  He had phoned in advance to let her know that he was popping in on Saturday afternoon, and turned up not long after three, letting himself in at the unlocked front door (Granny Mina didn’t do security) and calling a greeting down the hall.

  Her house was comfortable, shabby and full of happy memories. His step-grandmother had taught him his first card trick, how to make paper boats which really floated in the old-fashioned pink bathtub, and allowed him to win at Cluedo and Monopoly, playing with ancient sets which had belonged to her own parents. However she had never let him win at card games, of which she seemed to know innumerable varieties. The Tuppeny Halfpenny Game, Crazy Eights, Whiz. Granny Mina was an expert at every one, which meant that actually beating her was a real achievement. One of their favourites – he could no longer recall its name – had involved gambling for plastic cocktail sticks. It might have been some variation on poker, he thought. Certainly it had involved deciding whether to stick with the hand you had, or whether to take a fresh card from the dealer, having discarded one of your own, a process known as ‘stick or twist’. He would have to ask her one of these days to refresh his memory on the rules.

  ‘It’s me, Granny Mina,’ he called, as he advanced down the hall, passing the familiar views of sheep grazing in pale green pastures while storms gathered above the dramatic moorland in the background. (Granny Mina was originally from the north and still referred to Yorkshire as God’s Own Country.)

  ‘In here, Peter, love.’

  The first thing he observed on entering the crowded living room was a table groaning with home-made cake, (some of which he knew she would later pack into Tupperware boxes and insist that he take home with him). The latest football scores were scrolling in the background as usual, but the television set had been muted, because there was already another visitor in situ.

  ‘Peter, how are you?’ His grandmother rose and planted a kiss on his cheek, while he bent forward for the purpose. ‘Do you remember Louise Salt?’

  He made polite, non-committal noises, while Granny Mina reminded him that Miss Salt was a retired teacher, who had at one time taught at the same establishment where she herself had worked as School Secretary. At this Miss Salt of course dredged up a recollection of some previous occasion in the long distant past, when she had allegedly encountered him, while he was still in short trousers.

  ‘How you’ve changed,’ Miss Salt said. ‘I wouldn’t have known you now.’

  Peter was tempted to say that it was just as well, because the police didn’t accept snotty-nosed midgets, but instead, while Mina disappeared into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of tea, he attempted some polite conversation, asking Miss Salt which school she had moved on to after leaving the comprehensive where Mina had spent the last decade of her pre-retirement life.

  ‘It’s funny you should ask, because your gran and I were just talking about that, before you arrived. She was telling me that you’re a detective now,’ – Miss Salt’s voice rose into a little trill of excitement, investing the job with that element of astronaut-meets-film-star-type glamour, which was generally absent in real life – ‘and I was wondering whether you’d investigated a case involving an ex-pupil of mine. Oh, don’t worry,’ she cut him off before he could open his mouth, ‘I know you’re not allowed to talk about your work. We were just speculating. Your granny didn’t give away any secrets.’

  Peter smiled, not bothering to point out that when it came to his work, Mina was not in possession of any secrets to give away. ‘What pupil was that then?’ A polite interest never came amiss, and anyway, you were never entirely off duty. It was amazing sometimes, what you could pick up, just from a casual acquaintance or coincidental meeting. He gave her at least ninety per cent of his attention, while casting a covert look at the television screen, to check on the Arsenal score.

  ‘You will definitely have heard about it, even if you didn’t work on the case. Young Judy Thackeray.’

  ‘I think everyone’s heard of Judy Thackeray,’ he said with studied casualness. ‘What school was this again?’

  He had always assumed that Jude Thackeray was a private school type, so he was surprised when the establishment Miss Salt named turned out to be a very ordinary comprehensive, about forty miles away. He had trained himself never to betray anything, however unexpected the information with which he was confronted, but he decided that in this case a modest expression of surprise would be in order. After all, everyone who had taken any interest in the case would have heard Jude Thackeray’s voice on TV, and the money in the background was common knowledge. ‘Is that right?’ he said. ‘I would have had her down as going to somewhere much posher than that.’

  ‘Oh no. The Thackerays were a very ordinary family. Her father drove a delivery van, or a taxi or something like that. I can only think that they must have come into a lot of money later on, after Judy left school. She wanted to be an actress, I remember. I’ve got a vague idea that she went on to study drama at college. I’m sure she would have been warned that it was a very overcrowded profession …’ Miss Salt sighed, in the manner of one long accustomed to offering wise counsel, only to have it rejected by those still possessed of impetuous youth. ‘She was very good in the school plays. I remember she played Abigail Williams in The Crucible one year. A most ambitious choice of production I always thought, but David Davis – he was Head of Drama at the time – was convinced that he could pull it off. He was very fortunate to have had several quite talented students coming up through the school at the time …’

  Miss Salt continued with her reminiscence, naming various other ex-pupils who had played major roles in this and other productions, until Granny Mina came back, carrying a loaded tray, which Peter instinctively stood to help her with, while considering what he had just learned. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to drive to police HQ, and check on something, but then he considered the possibility of misidentification, and decided to fish a little more.

  ‘Did you teach her brother, as well?’ he enquired of Miss Salt, while Granny Mina clattered about with cups and saucers. (Peter knew that this was for her other visitor’s benefit – left to themselves, they would have had their usual mugs.)

  ‘Sorry dear, what was that?’

  Granny Mina had moved between them, handing Miss Salt a dainty china plate topped by a folded paper napkin. The napkin had holly on it and was presumably left over from some past Christmas.

  ‘Jude-ee’s brother, Robin,’ he persisted. ‘Robin Thackeray. Did you have him in your class too?’

  ‘I don’t remember anything about a brother. In fact I think she was an only child.’

  ‘Yo
u’re probably right,’ Peter conceded easily. ‘I thought I remembered there being a brother, supporting her at a press conference, or something like that. It was probably some other relative, or maybe a friend.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Jude fidgeted with the tassel on the corner of a sofa cushion, while she waited for Rob to finish his run-through of preparations down at the cottage. For goodness sake, it wasn’t rocket science. When he had finished, she said, ‘I’m thinking of arranging another little trip. I need to get away from him for a few days.’

  ‘What do you mean? Where to?’

  ‘I thought Spain, to look at some more property.’

  ‘Another fictitious trip, you mean? It’s too dangerous. He might offer to see you off at the airport.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Then he would know that you weren’t actually going anywhere.’

  ‘Maybe I should actually go.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need to go anywhere. You said yourself that the beauty of calling him on his mobile is that his phone tells him it’s you, without telling him where you’re calling from. Anyway, I don’t see why you need to pretend to be going anywhere. You need to be here, keeping an eye on him.’

  ‘What for? He’s not going to run off with someone else in the next couple of weeks. I told you. I need to get away. I need … some breathing space. It’s getting harder and harder to fend off awkward questions.’

  ‘Fine – so ask him about his own stuff. You still don’t know a thing about his business or his investments.’

  ‘I told you,’ she said impatiently, ‘it’s absolutely impossible, because whenever I fish for any specifics, he sort of comes back at me with another thinly veiled enquiry. It’s like “I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.” He isn’t suspicious, but he’s curious. I’ve vaguely talked about property in Florida and Spain, but I daren’t say too much, in case he starts looking stuff up on the internet.’