Life Sentence

by Judith Cutler

  ‘Number thirty-three. What a prime site,’ Farat observed, looking around. ‘Walking distance from the city centre and all its shopping, Symphony Hall and the indoor sports arena over there if you fancy Davies Cup tennis. I wouldn’t mind living somewhere like this myself.’

  ‘Is there secure parking? Because our Miss Gray had just bought herself a Lotus.’

  ‘Had she indeed! Not your average pensioner then.’

  ‘I think she was trying quite desperately not to be. In fact,’ Fran reflected, ‘almost all the retired people I’ve come across in this investigation have been trying desperately hard not to be average. Perhaps there’s no such thing as average any more.’

  ‘My mother’s decided to take her GCSEs,’ Farat volunteered. ‘She only mastered English a couple of years ago, but now she’s really motoring. English and Arabic she’s going for. Before that I really thought she was going to be a tradition Pakistani granny. Must be something in the water,’ she concluded lightly.

  ‘There must be something pretty special in Birmingham’s water to take twenty years off Marjorie’s age! Oh, Farat, you should see the poor woman whose identity we think she’s stolen. A living death for the latter part of her life at least – we may never get the entire picture of her life – and now in persistent vegetative state.’

  Farat nodded in sympathy. ‘It makes one see the advantage of a living will.’

  ‘But for the will to be implemented people have to know who you are. OK.’ Fran braced herself. ‘Let’s do it, shall we?’

  The new Marjorie Gray was, as Farat had said, in her forties, with the expensive face, body and clothes of a woman used to pampering herself. She had cultivated a sexy, rather gravely voice. Behind the clear enunciation, however, lay, Fran was sure, an Eastern European accent. Disorderly house? Prostitution? There were countless innocent girls smuggled over from the former Soviet Bloc and forced into the most degrading sexual slavery. Miss Gray did not look as if degradation had entered her personal vocabulary: if it had, she would surely be meting it out, not enduring it. Well, presumably that was what the sister of a warlord, however minor, would do.

  She was politeness itself to the two officers, however, offering coffee or tea and seating them in the sort of leather-upholstered chairs that didn’t come from a down-market chain. They suited the décor of the rest of the apartment, which involved a great deal of pale wood, colour-washed walls and a couple of what looked like good paintings. Would this really have been the choice of a sixty-year-old from St Mary’s Bay? After the clutter of a parental home, would she have found acres of space healing or as intimidating as the new car?

  ‘You have a most wonderful view from here,’ Fran observed. ‘I didn’t know Birmingham could be so attractive.’

  ‘There has been a lot of investment,’ Miss Gray said.

  ‘Do you remember what it was like before?’ Fran asked. Then warming to her theme, ‘Intent on putting up the ugliest buildings it could, pedestrians at the mercy of the car – quite a laughing stock to us Southerners.’

  Miss Gray’s polite inclination of the head suggested that they could talk about regional geography if they liked.

  ‘Which do you think is the most impressive change?’ Farat asked.

  ‘I don’t have an opinion.’

  ‘Ah! So you’re a newcomer too,’ Fran said, as if delighted. ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘From the Smoke! Oh, a fellow exile! Which part?’ Fran continued her girlish enthusiasm.

  ‘Hendon.’ She rapped off an address, which Fran noted. ‘I have yet to understand why you are here, Detective Harman and Detective Hafeez.’

  ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Harman and Detective Sergeant Hafeez,’ Fran corrected her. ‘We don’t use “detective” as a title here – only in America.’

  ‘Wonderful country,’ Farat observed. ‘All those vast spaces. Have you ever been? Before I grow old I want to tour the world,’ she continued, an impassioned sweep of the arm encompassing myriad opportunities. ‘Even the former USSR and China!’

  ‘I am happy to put down roots,’ Miss Gray enunciated clearly.

  ‘So if you want to put down roots in Birmingham, where were you from originally? It’s not a Hendon accent, is it? I was at college there long enough to know the accent well,’ Fran beamed. ‘The police college.’

  ‘Do you live here alone?’ Farat chipped in. ‘It’s a really good investment, isn’t it? I remember the prices of these flats when they were first on sale: prices have gone through the roof, now, haven’t they?’

  ‘What made you choose one here? And why did you move to Birmingham? Work? What line of work are you in? Do you have a work permit?’ Dimly Fran remembered seeing with Ian a Pinter play, where the characters cross-questioned an entirely innocent man – she thought! – in this apparently haphazard way. All she wanted to do was rattle the woman, and between them she and Farat, who joined in the game with gusto, seemed to be succeeding.

  ‘I don’t need a work permit! I am a British citizen.’

  ‘You have some evidence? Your driving licence? I notice you have several unpaid fines, Marjorie. Your birth certificate? Yes, I’d like to see your birth certificate. Yes, I’ll wait while you find it. I’ll wait all day, Marjorie. As will the Chief Superintendent here.’ Farat settled herself comfortably and started to flick through the copy of Vogue lying on the coffee table.

  ‘You have no right – leave my property immediately!’ Sonja-Marjorie made a gesture at home on the opera stage.

  ‘We have every right, Sonja, when we’re investigating – a serious crime.’ Fran had been afraid Farat would blow it by being too precise, but the pause seemed to create even more tension in the elegant room.

  ‘My papers are in the bank. If you require it, I’ll bring them to your police station.’

  ‘Let’s go and get them together, shall we? Or would you like to think a moment: you might have meant to take them to the bank, but actually have them safe and sound here. Why don’t you go and have a look?’ Farat asked. ‘No, you won’t need your mobile, not if you’re looking for documents.’

  Fran nodded agreement, and reinforced the point by picking up the handset of the landline phone and laying it on the elegant table. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘why don’t we go and look for your documents together?’ She stopped short. Warlords had guns, didn’t they? And knives? She’d bet Ms Kranic kept other things than papers in a safe place. She and young Farat were putting themselves at unnecessary risk.

  ‘Where shall we look?’ Farat asked.

  ‘In – in my bedroom. I have a safe place there. This way,’ she added, leading the way.

  You bet she had a safe place. Fran stepped in. ‘In that case you will lie on your bed, face down, hands spread while we check. I said face down, Ms Kranic! Down. Now.’

  As before, she let the younger officer take credit for the collar. And – necessarily – all the subsequent paperwork. In the past, forces might have bickered about who got the credit in a big case like this. Now both were likely to hand over all their paperwork and information to the Serious Crimes Squad, who could pull everything together. Fran felt, now the adrenaline was subsiding, enormously tired: it must be her weekend catching up with her. Or the quick dive into a couple of shops she and Farat had indulged in before Farat and her colleagues embarked on preliminary questioning. Possessing an unlawful firearm would be added to the charge sheet, which listed several counts of possessing forged documents, an immigration offence – and her speeding tickets. The firearms offence should be enough to have bail denied until Birmingham CID could put together all their other evidence. The gun crime alone would carry a five-year mandatory sentence; with luck, she’d get even longer and then be deported.

  Now what? She had time to kill before Mark’s meeting finished. It would have been good to retire to a hotel room to sleep, but, not knowing how long either would be tied up with work, they had kept their options open: an early finish m
eant they could head for home; a late one meant a stop-over and a very early start the following morning. How about a spot of retail therapy?

  More to the point, how about taking up Farat’s offer of the use of her desk to phone Tom to see how things were progressing in Kent? What he’d said about the music she hummed under her breath worried her. What could a phone ring-tone and her humming possibly have to do with each other?

  If she knew she hummed, she should be able to recall what she hummed.

  If anyone knew, Mark ought to.

  He’d never said anything, never joked about it. But perhaps their relationship as lovers was too fresh and delicate to include the joshing that was routine to long-married couples. Unbidden, thoughts of their times together stole into her mind, and she found herself smiling at them. They weren’t all sexual: there was one where Mark had been complaining about the way a tune could pop up all over the place – how they dinned into your ears when you were put on hold by call centres, how even mobiles used them as—

  ‘Für Elise!’ she said aloud. Her fingers found Tom’s number by themselves. The moment he replied, she yelled, ‘You’ve got him! You’ve got Elise’s killer!’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘Dying?’ Mark repeated, ‘Pa’s dying?’

  Fran’s voice, as much as he could tell from the phone, was calm. ‘That’s what they say. I’ve just taken the call. That’s why I’ve interrupted – you know I’d never have interrupted the meeting otherwise. So I’ll get my overnight case from the car and hop on a train to Devon. I’ll see you back in—’

  ‘My dear girl, you don’t hop anywhere. Stay right where you are. I’ll excuse myself now—’ He cut the call. Was it natural to make the announcement as flatly as if she’d heard – no, with less emotion than if she’d heard a meeting had been cancelled? Was it a sign of resignation or terrible stress? Biting the inside of his lip, he returned to the seminar room, apologising for the interruption, and adding that he’d been called away. ‘A domestic emergency, I’m afraid. My fiancée’s father is dying.’

  The term came well to the lips. He’d been worrying about ‘partner’ – which sounded as if he shared a squad car with her – or ‘girlfriend’. This word had simply erupted. What on earth did that signify?

  How, in a crisis like this, did he come to be worrying about the choice of words? He thanked the chair for his understanding, and, gathering his papers, nodded his goodbyes to his friends and acquaintances around the table.

  He prodded the lift button, much less cooperative than his colleagues, again and again. God help him, all he could think of how much easier this ought to make Fran’s life. Her mother certainly couldn’t survive on her own in that place. Until Fran could work out her notice, Ma would simply have to go into respite care. After three months she might well have been so institutionalised she wanted to stay: he’d seen it often enough. An aunt of his had had to be persuaded into sheltered accommodation; within six months, she was demanding to be up-graded into truly residential care – or down-graded, whichever way you looked at it. The question was, how much support Grant would give him: the common conception was that clergymen were not worldly, but despite having chosen Hazel as a wife, Grant struck him as being pretty clear-sighted. But it was only under cover of others’ conversation that Grant had begged him not to let Fran nurse her parents: he’d been much less forthright when he’d thought Hazel might be listening. All the same, Mark must look on him as some sort of ally, for want of any better. Would it be too much to hope that his kirk would spare him long enough to oversee Pa’s funeral?

  At last a remarkably silly ping announced the lift, and Mark was heading for the foyer and Fran.

  ‘The trouble with Lloyd House’s being right in the city centre is this traffic,’ she said, looking at the solid metal in front of them.

  ‘Do you want to try to join the rush-hour and sit it out, or have a bite and try later?’

  She reflected. ‘I didn’t have any lunch. The DS I was working with – a lovely girl – was fasting for Ramadan, and it seemed a bit self-indulgent to sit munching away while she watched. She said she didn’t mind, that it was part of the fast to be tempted by other people, but I just couldn’t. So I suppose a quick bite would make sense.’

  ‘There’s a good pub not so far from here. Come on.’

  She was still so calm. Did it mean she had also worked out the consequences of Pa’s death or that she was so full of emotion she didn’t dare let any of it out? He took her hand, warm skin to warm skin, and squeezed encouragingly. She pulled up short and turned to him, burying her face in his shoulder. But only for a moment. As soon as she’d regained her composure, she straightened. He was hardly surprised when she wanted to talk shop.

  It was just after nine-thirty when they reached the hospital.

  ‘Of course you can see him,’ a cheerful, old-fashioned sister declared. ‘He’ll most likely be asleep, Miss Harman.’

  ‘Is it genuine sleep? Or is he unconscious?’

  ‘He drifts in and out. Mostly out. He kept tearing the drip out, and – look, sit down, I’ll make you both a cup of tea and I’ll tell you what I think.’

  They sat, Mark taking Fran’s hand and holding it firmly.

  Sister Giles might almost have had the kettle on the boil, she reappeared so quickly. ‘The fall was a great shock to his system. As you know, the body reacts in many ways. Some old people fight, and we can fix the broken parts and send them home again, good as new. Some people develop pneumonia, which carries them off. We’re not sure exactly what’s happened in your father’s case, but I for one wouldn’t want him put through the trauma of an MRI scan, say, just to find out there’s nothing we can do for him.’

  Fran looked her in the eye. ‘You’re sure it’s his interests, not financial ones at work here?’

  ‘Have you ever had an MRI scan? It’s noisy, confusing – half an hour that a fit person can deal with, but an old man… I promise you, Frances, I wouldn’t put my own father through it, not without a clear outcome in sight. And – I have to tell you this, though you may find it unpalatable – there comes a time when we have to allow folk to die. Malformed babies, kids mangled in motorbike crashes, the frailest old people: there comes a point when death is the kindest thing. And I think, even though he may linger a couple more days, even a week, your dad’s reached that point.’ She paused, sipping her own tea. ‘Would he have pulled out the drip otherwise? We tried reinserting it half a dozen times, Frances, each time explaining what we were doing. Each time he pulled it out. He won’t drink; he won’t eat. The man’s eighty-seven. He’s had his time.’

  ‘But Ma…’

  Sister Giles smiled. ‘Women often have a few more years in them than men, as I’m sure you know. Your sister and her husband brought her in a wheelchair. It’s clear she thinks the poor old man a poor specimen.’

  ‘Did she tell him so? Oh, my God.’ Fran sounded as exasperated as if one of her rookie constables had been tactless to a victim of crime.

  ‘I don’t think he could hear by then.’

  ‘But they say that hearing is the last of the senses to go,’ Fran countered, her voice breaking.

  ‘We don’t know. He’s very deaf anyway, isn’t he, without his aid? And that finished up the far side of the ward when we tried to get him to use it. Poor Alf has had enough, Frances. Say goodbye and let him go. That’s the kindest thing, believe me.’

  ‘But—’

  What stopped her short in her protest? One moment she was angry, ready almost to shake the woman with frustration; the next she was calm, nodding acquiescence. ‘You’re right. Don’t prolong Pa’s suffering, not if there’s truly only one way he can go. I’ll just say goodbye, if I may.’

  Mark held her hand as far as the side ward. There was some light, enough for the nursing staff to see and if necessary work on their patient, but it was dimmed, so as not to trouble the dying man. He held back, not wanting to intrude.

  It seemed to him the old m
an stirred and murmured as Fran knelt beside the bed and took his hand. ‘It’s me, Pa, Fran,’ she said.

  There was no response. At last, she got to her feet, and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Pa? It’s me, Fran. Your daughter.’

  Did the old man speak simply to her or was it to the world at large? His words were faint, but clear enough for Mark to hear. ‘Leave me in peace.’

  ‘Pa?’

  ‘Bugger off and leave me in peace.’ And he hunched his shoulder away from her.

  For a moment, Mark was afraid Fran would scurry to the far side of the bed and try again. But with simple dignity, she laid her hand on Pa’s head and said, ‘God bless you, Pa. Goodbye.’ She dropped a kiss on his forehead and turned and walked away without a backwards glance.

  Mark didn’t trespass on whatever thoughts might be troubling her. Instead he simply drove to the Teignmouth seafront and walked with her in what was a remarkably balmy night.

  ‘You may think I’m terribly callous,’ she said at last. ‘But he hasn’t been my Pa for years. Not really. You’ve never known him, of course. And you couldn’t tell from the sad old body you saw at the weekend and tonight that he was once a young man full of vigour. It was he who taught me badminton and drove me from tournament to tournament – he bought a car just for that reason, I think. He never enjoyed driving. He was never the same after he came down here, though. It was as if he gave up and became old. Very old. Crotchety. Bad tempered. Whatever I did was the wrong thing. That was when I started mourning him, except he was still alive and I couldn’t. Many was the time I hated him, for the cruel things he said. But that wasn’t my Pa. It was just some grumpy old man. Let’s find a hotel. Ma’ll be in bed. So there’s no point in disturbing her. I’ll check in with her and with Hazel and Grant tomorrow, and then we’ll go back home.’