Burying the Past

by Judith Cutler

  ‘No idea. No idea what the time is, even. Hang on, I’ll go and ask Mr Pargetter . . . He says they’ll be clear by noon – so say twelve thirty.’

  ‘So where would you like your picnic? There, or at your new place, or somewhere neutral?’

  If she knew Mark he’d make a big thing of their arrival together at the rectory. Or perhaps she just wanted him to. ‘I really, truly don’t have time.’

  ‘The removal men will be stopping for lunch. You can too. Thirty minutes max, if you insist. Twenty. Somewhere on your way.’

  She supposed it made sense. ‘Somewhere neutral. The new place is a crime scene, remember. Not very user-friendly . . .’

  ‘Grafty Green. Where the Greensand Way heads south. One o’clock.’

  ‘No problem – hang on, why don’t I treat you to a pub lunch?’ But she spoke to a dead line.

  There was no time to get sentimental over leaving her cottage, although she had loved living there, mostly alone and latterly with Mark. Good times, by and large. She gave one final sweep of the kitchen floor, chasing a couple of spiders that had taken up residence behind the fridge freezer, probably on the day it had been installed, and, which, from their size, had never deemed it necessary to find a new territory. Only when, still clutching the broom, she locked the door did she find a sob rising, very painfully. But she put her shoulders back and reminded herself that the money popping into her bank account within a very few minutes would enable them to pay Paula for the huge amount of work that Pact had already completed.

  Even as the Pargetter team drove away, the new owners’ van drove up. It was time to scoot. She scooted.

  NINE

  There were a dozen places Fran should be, none of them here, on her own, wasting time.

  Just as she was about to give up and fume off, however, Janie’s surprisingly chic Ka appeared – a gift from an occasional member of the congregation who had decided to emigrate. It was only when Fran saw the second figure in Janie’s car that it dawned on her that the reason for a picnic was Janie preferred not to have their meal recorded on any sort of CCTV, though of course their journeys would be. Smile for the camera! Half of her was angry that Janie had gone against her wishes and brought Cynd to see her, undermining Jill’s authority. The other half was interested to hear what Janie or Cynd had to say.

  Janie and Cynd emerged with a couple of carrier bags, Cynd looking around her as if a green space was an entirely alien concept, even though if ever a city nestled in countryside, Canterbury did.

  Fran fell into step with them, saying nothing till she felt she was cued in. By this time poor Cynd, carrying the most enormous bag on one crooked arm, as if she was some Hollywood celeb, had trodden on endless prickly plants that had somehow eluded the older women’s more thickly shod feet. At last, fishing three empty carrier bags from her pocket, Janie announced that this was a perfect picnic site and they were to sit on the grass and eat. The sandwiches – cheese and pickle – were home-made, but that was about all that could be said for them. Perhaps if you were a Big Issue-seller you could feed them to your poor dog. The water might have come in bottles, but it was from a tap – about which Fran had no complaints at all, though she did wonder whose lips had drunk from the bottle Janie passed her before hers did.

  ‘Cynd’s had all her tests, and we’re awaiting the results,’ Janie announced, as if she too had pressures on her time. ‘We know she’s not pregnant. But she has had some problems with her memory, Fran – shock, probably, I’d say. Wouldn’t you?’ she prompted.

  ‘Like Hillary Clinton, she misremembered something?’

  Cynd blinked, as if the word and the name were equally strange. ‘He wasn’t quite like I said, miss,’ she told Fran, as if she resembled a half-forgotten teacher.

  Probably, she did. But she tried to wipe every shred of threatening authority from her voice as she replied: ‘It’s hard to be clear in such awful circumstances, isn’t it? But I’m glad your memory’s coming back, because the CCTV didn’t show anyone like you described near your flat. So why don’t you just tell me quietly what you remember now. Take your time.’ Should she mention the knifing? Or the DNA tests? On the whole she thought not. Not yet.

  There was a light scratch on the door, and Sally put her head round. Mark suppressed a grin – she’d never have interrupted the old chief’s meetings like that. Her arrival was greeted with a mixture of exasperation and relief, depending on whether you were Wren or a normal human being. How many hours had they been talking? He wouldn’t have minded if they’d been using English, but it was all management-speak – worse, it was Whitehall-speak, polysyllabic pap, although the Police Standards people were all serving officers like himself. None of them seemed upset by Simon’s death, for all they’d once been colleagues. Did that say more about them or about him?

  He was hungry and thirsty – Wren’s first economy had been to axe mid-meeting refreshments, though surely their old instant coffee and bottom of the range custard creams hadn’t been an extravagance. He was also so stiff about the jaw and shoulders that he’d have a migraine, if he wasn’t careful. Or a heart attack. That was what Fran was afraid of. For him, not for her, though he’d read somewhere that women of her age with stressful lives like hers were candidates too.

  By now Sally was tiptoeing across to him. ‘Could you spare a moment outside, Mr Turner?’

  He caught Wren’s eye, as if asking for permission, but since he was already on his feet it was clear he was leaving anyway. Shutting the door quietly behind him, in the freedom of the corridor, he couldn’t help releasing a theatrical sigh.

  Sally’s smile suggested that what she had to say wouldn’t be good news. Panic-stricken thoughts about no-show removal vans and motorway crashes replaced the tedium of the previous three hours.

  ‘Everything’s fine. Fran’s fine. But Fran wanted you to phone her before you did anything else. Anything at all. I’ve waited all this time, but you’d better do it now. Now, Mark, before I say the next thing.’ She returned to her office, ostentatiously closing the door.

  She’d have made a good oracle, with her strange gnomic utterances, wouldn’t she?

  Blast and bugger it! He couldn’t reach Fran. Bloody Kentish mobile coverage. And by now the cottage landline would have been cut off.

  He shrugged his way into Sally’s office. ‘What was the next thing? I can’t get hold of Fran,’ he added, like a kid whose dog had eaten his homework.

  ‘I think there may have been a connection between what she wanted to say and what I have to tell you. No, there’s nothing the matter with Fran. Nothing, I promise you,’ she repeated, as if she saw the fear he knew must still lurk in his eyes. ‘But there’s a young man waiting in reception claiming to be your son. He says he won’t leave until he’s spoken to you. But I think,’ she said, getting to her feet and pushing him gently backwards until he had no option but to sit on one of the visitors’ chairs, ‘that I’ll get you a cup of tea before you go and see him. And there are some of those custard creams somewhere.’

  Dave. What the hell was Dave doing here? No reason why he shouldn’t be in the UK, of course, and no reason why he shouldn’t want to see his father. But why today, dear God – why today? Because of Sammie, of course. Hell, when had his thought processes got so slow?

  There was a light touch on his shoulder. His tea, with a couple of biscuits in the saucer, hovered a few inches away.

  ‘Thanks, Sally. Just what the doctor ordered. Tell me,’ he asked, realizing belatedly that all these proposed changes would affect precisely the sort of people like her whom the Home Secretary dismissed as non-front line, and thus expendable, ‘have you heard anything about your own future? Now the chief’s gone?’

  ‘The chief is dead, long live the chief,’ Sally responded with a rueful grin. ‘I work for the organization, remember, not a particular person. I go where I’m put. These days a woman of my age has to be grateful she’s got a job – all this anti-age discrimination’s a lot of theoret
ical tosh, if you ask me. I’ll just have to get Mr Wren trained, assuming he’s appointed long-term.’ She nodded home her point, before adding, ‘Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘Much, thanks. Maybe I’d better try Fran again before I go and beard this stranger, though.’ Stranger. How about that for a Freudian slip? Caffy would love it.

  But stranger he was, his lovely firstborn, the kid he’d never quite had enough time for – the kid whose birthday parties he’d turned up late for or had to leave early. The kid he’d left to Tina to discipline and cuddle better: she might have been a single parent. Perhaps that was why Sammie had turned out as she had; he didn’t even know how Dave had turned out, did he?

  Observing him via the CCTV screen, Mark was shocked. He’d have passed him in the street, with that American business suit and aggressive hair cut. He was tapping away at the latest phone, occasionally flicking a fierce glance at his wristwatch, though surely the phone would have told him the time in every continent, every time zone, even.

  Mark found himself checking for biscuit crumbs, squaring his tie, pulling in his stomach, though thanks to Fran and her insistence on exercise for them both, he was trimmer than most men his age. And at the thought of Fran, he was suffused by a simple but profound desire – to have her beside him literally holding his hand when he confronted Dave. Turning from the reception area, he dialled her, just in case.

  Although she’d have said the place Janie had chosen was quiet to the point of peaceful, Fran had to bend her head close to Cynd’s to catch the words.

  ‘It was a punter, miss. That I knifed. I do it for me fix, see.’

  Fran could almost feel Janie willing her not to mention at this juncture the possibility of coming off drugs. But she didn’t think she would have done anyway.

  ‘Did you know the punter? I mean, was it the first time he’d been a client?’ Hell, this was all too heavy. These days interviews like this – any interviews, for God’s sake – were conducted by officers with special and regularly updated training. In something as delicate as this there should have been a team watching, waiting to advise – interrupting if necessary. Meanwhile, Cynd’s trust was ebbing away quite visibly.

  ‘Sorry, Cynd. I just can’t stop myself interrupting. Why not just tell me what happened and I’ll try to keep my mouth buttoned.’ With her left thumb and forefinger, she literally pinched her lips together, hoping the bit of silliness would undo some of the harm her earlier tone had done. Meanwhile, time was ticking on, and she was supposed to be at the rectory.

  Cynd stared at Janie, as if asking what the hell she’d done to agree to talk to the daft old bat again.

  ‘That’s fine. Just tell her what happened,’ Janie said.

  Fran’s phone rang. Her instinct was to kill it – but she checked. Fatal to her interview – her talk – with Cynd. Possibly. Possibly not? It was just what Cynd would have done herself.

  It was Mr Pargetter. ‘Don’t like the thought of taking the van down that lane of yours,’ he declared.

  But he’d never been meant to! ‘Go straight to the self-store,’ she said. ‘I’ll phone ahead to tell them to let you in.’

  ‘Doesn’t work like that, Mrs Harman, does it? You have to be there to unlock your units. You’ve got the keys to the padlocks.’

  ‘So I have.’ She’d put them on a chain round her neck so she wouldn’t put them down somewhere and lose them in the chaos. ‘Have you and your lads had lunch yet?’

  ‘We don’t do lunch, Mrs Harman. We work straight through. And we finish when we’ve done the job. Which we can’t till we’ve unloaded at the self-store. Where we’ll be in – say – twenty minutes.’ He cut the call.

  Meanwhile, Cynd was bickering with Janie. And she’d managed to brush her hand against a nettle.

  Her phone rang again. ‘Mark! Thank God you’ve called. Any chance you could meet the removal men at the self-store? I’m in Grafty Green.’ Fingers crossed he wouldn’t waste time by asking why.

  ‘Not unless I can take my son there too,’ he said flatly. ‘And you’re the one with the keys.’

  ‘So I am. Son? Oh, shit! I did try to phone you. Love you!’ She cut the call and scrambled to her feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to be in Maidstone. Now.’ She wouldn’t make it in twenty minutes, but maybe thirty.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind a lift,’ Cynd said. ‘See my cousin.’

  Perhaps Janie had been praying on her behalf for just such a suggestion, so that Cynd could speak in private; a driver’s eyes fixed to the road sometimes made it seem like a confessional for the passenger.

  ‘We have to run,’ Fran said doubtfully, eyeing Cynd’s flip-flops. To her chagrin, she was easily outpaced. On the other hand, she was finding Mr Pargetter’s number and calling him as she ran. But she also felt she saw the appearance of writing on the nearest wall. Approaching old age, it said, in shaky letters . . . With an extra turn of speed, she told herself she’d erased it.

  ‘You just have to go on the game,’ Cynd said. ‘Either that or burgle or thieve. I mean, you’ve no idea how much it costs.’

  Fran had a very good idea of the street value of most illegal substances, but took advantage of an awkward bend to do no more than grunt a prompt.

  ‘And we look out for each other, mostly. Word goes round – watch this one, don’t go with that one. But this was a new punter. Came to my place, didn’t he, without a by-your-leave. I thought he was a burglar. Maybe he was. What he thought he’d get in my place, God knows. I thought I heard voices outside, like he’d come with his mates. Anyway, he rapes me, like I said. And then he gets up, calm as you like, and gets his hands on my gear. So I told him to piss off out of it. And then he said he’d have another fuck, and to shut up and lie down, and I saw red. Really red. And I saw a knife in me sink and let him have it. And that’s the truth.’

  Except it might not be. It sounded too pat, too rehearsed. For a grim moment Fran suspected Janie might have edited it.

  ‘Have you told Jill yet? Because she’s still looking for someone who doesn’t quite exist. And now she could start checking the CCTV footage for someone who does. What does he look like? Black, white, Asian?’

  She could feel Cynd tense beside her. She’d gone too far, hadn’t she? So she rewound a bit.

  ‘How hard did you stick him, Cynd? Really hard? Because when I saw you the first time, you really wanted to tell us you’d killed him.’

  ‘I must have done. I mean, it was a bloody sharp knife, and for all I’m thin, I’m strong. And he was white, miss. But he had a funny accent and smelt weird. Real yuck, his breath.’

  Anyone could be strong in that situation, propelled by fear or in self-defence. Possibly Marion Lovage had been, with a wheelbarrow to assist her. But ribs – and a precise placing of the knife . . . She had a strong feeling that Cynd and the guy who was supposed to have raped her were not the only ones in the flat. Thank God for DNA and the clever things Scene of Crime officers could do with chemicals and light and photography. Maybe one day she’d send herself on a course to find out what was going on, instead of funding everyone else. No, it was too late now. In the meantime, she really did not want Cynd to know about her storage solution – quite illogical, but she’d always done her best to ensure her colleagues’ privacy and didn’t see why she shouldn’t have the same rights.

  ‘Whereabouts in Maidstone do you want me to drop you?’

  ‘Like, anywhere.’ It seemed she wanted privacy too, for herself and possibly for her dealer. She lapsed into silence and didn’t seem inclined to go over her narrative again.

  So all she’d got out of this, Fran reflected sourly, was a nasty hurried lunch, an itchy wrist, zero information and a horrible conviction that she’d compromised her rule never to be caught on CCTV with a suspect or a victim. Funnily enough, Cynd seemed to have the same opinion of the cameras and slouched down in the seat, her face sunk deep on to her chest and mostly obscured by her hands, well covered by the sleeves of her top. Neither managed a smile a
t the invisible eyes.

  Relieved that the drive was over, Fran pulled into a convenient bus lay-by and, once Cynd had sloped off, called Jill with the latest information.

  TEN

  In the event, it didn’t seem too silly an idea to take Dave along with him to the self-store. It got them both away from Headquarters and the far from remote possibility that there would be yet another three-line whip meeting, just as tedious and pointless as the last. As for him and Dave, they could scarcely do more than chat lightly about Dave’s wife and children, after all, while Mark was driving. And he had, of course, been somewhat duplicitous to imply to Fran that she was the only one with keys to their units: he’d made sure he’d kept the duplicates. In his head he turned over the two words, duplicitous and duplicates. The syllables gave him the sort of pleasure he imagined young Caffy must get from the words she insisted she was still discovering. What would the tightly respectable Dave make of her? He hoped the experience would be beneficial: if anyone could penetrate the shiny carapace of his first born, Caffy could.

  Dave had been notably tactful about recounting his meeting with Fran, but the very set of his lips suggested that something had offended him. Or perhaps that was the way his face fell these days – it had something of Sammie’s smug defiance about it. If only he could ask him about Sammie, but he didn’t trust himself to be tactful.

  He found Fran surrounded by cardboard boxes – literally surrounded, as if they’d closed like a brown tide around her. Pargetter and his crew were ferrying the furniture into the first of the storage modules they’d hired; the second was to accommodate the cardboard boxes, all of which were supposed to have the contents written on the top and on all four sides so it should be possible to extract the right one with the minimum of fuss, before they were stacked in a giant Rubik’s cube. Their system seemed to have gone wrong, however – it was quite clear that Fran was searching quite frantically for something.