by David Hodges
‘Oh, there you are.’
Lewis’s voice cut straight through her musings and she turned as he strode towards her across the room.
‘Time for bed, old girl,’ he said. ‘Guv’nor wants us in first thing, so we’d better be heading home.’ He raised one hand and snapped his fingers. ‘Oh by the way, have you heard about Phil Sharp?’
She frowned. ‘What about him?’
He steered her towards the doors. ‘Seems he had a head-on in his motor just outside Bridgwater.’
She gaped at him. ‘That’s awful. Was he badly hurt?’
He ushered her into the corridor, then held open the doors to the landing. ‘Apparently not, but his car is written off and he’s in the nick – twice over the limit they tell me. That’ll be the end of his career for sure.’
He brightened. ‘Still, seeing as he’s out of the picture now, there might be a vacancy on CID for you.’
‘Hayden!’ She stopped on the stairs and stared at him in disbelief. ‘That’s a rotten thing to say.’
He reddened, then gave a little embarrassed cough, continuing on ahead of her. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? There but for the grace of God and all that. Sorry.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Er … fancy a Chinese on the way home?’
chapter 23
AS AN EX-DCI, Roz Callow knew that confidence was all important – confidence and authority. They got you into places which would remain barred to the more timid or hesitant and she needed both qualities to gatecrash the inquiry at Highbridge nick.
She had no intention of chatting to juniors, like Kate Hamblin and Hayden Lewis when she got inside either. She was determined to see the boss himself. Not Willoughby, of course; she knew him of old and he had always been a tosser. No, Ansell was the man; she was going to see him and no one was going to stop her.
She chose her moment carefully. There were three members of the public at the front counter when she marched into the police station foyer just after nine in the morning – all clamouring for the attention of the harassed civilian station duty officer.
One was an elderly woman, apparently complaining about noise caused by her neighbour’s dog. The other two, standing immediately behind her, were youngsters with punk hair-styles who, from their impatient demeanour, had obviously been waiting to be seen for some time – no doubt to sign on as a condition of their bail – and were trying to hurry things along by shouting over her shoulder.
Callow made the most of the confusion. Rattling the security door beside the counter and waving her wallet, which contained nothing more official than her credit cards, she barked: ‘DCI Callow, headquarters. ‘Flick the switch, will you?’
The SDO threw her a startled glance, as his customers continued to shout at him.
‘Come on, man, I’m in a hurry,’ Callow rapped. ‘My bloody card doesn’t work in your infernal machine.’
For a moment it was touch and go, but, fortunately for Callow, the beleaguered civilian had obviously never heard of her before. He didn’t get much chance to query her identity anyway. The indignant dog-hater suddenly screeched as one of the women behind her tried to push in front. Reaching below the counter, he quickly hit the necessary switch before irritably castigating all three of his customers. There was a loud buzzing noise and, yanking on the door handle, Callow was in.
DCI Ansell had only just arrived and was settling in behind the SIO’s desk when his visitor burst in.
‘You must be Ansell?’ Roz Callow snapped rudely, dropping into the chair opposite, without invitation.
The DCI shot forward in his own chair, his dark eyes narrowed and angry. ‘Who the devil are you?’ he began, ‘and how did you—?’
She cut him short with a wave of one talon-like hand. ‘Before your time, Mr Ansell,’ she replied. ‘Ex-DCI Roz Callow actually.’ Then, tapping a newspaper protruding from her coat pocket, she added, ‘and in answer to the question you were about to ask, I got in as easily as Larry Wadman did to bug your office.’
To her surprise, Ansell refused to bite on the remark or to show any interest in her newspaper. Instead, regaining his composure with a degree of self-control she couldn’t help but admire, he simply sat back in his chair, to study her with the cool analytical gaze of a doctor assessing a difficult patient. ‘So, you’re Roz Callow, are you?’ he commented. ‘And to what do I owe this doubtful pleasure?’
‘As they say in all the best film dramas,’ she finished for him with heavy sarcasm, conscious of the fact that she had used similar words as Ansell when Kate Hamblin and Lewis had called to see her.
He acknowledged the barb with a slight nod of his head. ‘Tea? Coffee?’ he queried, offering her a smile that completely failed to reach the dark watchful eyes.
‘I haven’t come here to drink tea or coffee,’ she retorted.
‘So what can I do for you then?’ he went on.
Her eyes glittered. ‘It’s more a case of what I can do for you, Detective Chief Inspector, especially as your murder inquiry seems to have hit the buffers.’
‘Like yours did two years ago, you mean?’ he reminded her mildly. ‘Rescued, I gather, by a novice DC?’
Her thin lips tightened as she thought of Kate Hamblin. ‘Now, it seems, yours needs rescuing,’ she threw back at him. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
He rested his elbows on the desk and met her stare over steepled fingers. ‘I’m not sure what you can do for us, Ms Callow,’ he replied, with the emphasis on the ‘Ms’. ‘I assume you gave all the information you had to Sergeant Hamblin and DC Lewis when they called to see you before?’
‘I told them what I wanted to tell them.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘So you withheld information from a police murder inquiry, is that what you’re saying?’
She glared at him, annoyed that she had allowed herself to walk straight into that one. ‘You know damned well what I’m saying,’ she snapped, ‘but if you want me to make it any clearer: I only talk to the organ grinder – not to his bloody monkeys!’
He opened his hands, palms uppermost in an inviting gesture. ‘Then I’m all ears, Ms Callow. So what is it that you’ve got to tell me?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not as simple as that. I’ll trade what I’ve got for what you have.’
To her annoyance, he chuckled softly. ‘My dear Ms Callow, I do believe you are trying your hand at a little bluff. You don’t have anything at all, do you? You’ve come here simply to try and extract information from me, not to give it?’
Clearly outwitted, she lurched to her feet, gripping the edge of the desk to steady herself. ‘Don’t you patronize me, Mister,’ she blazed. ‘You need me on this inquiry, whether you realize it or not. I know this bastard better than anyone. He was closer to me than you are now when he snapped Pauline Cross’s neck.’
Ansell sighed and gave another cold smile. ‘Oh I think we can manage without your help this time, Ms Callow,’ he replied.
‘Is that so?’ she snarled and, wrenching the newspaper from her pocket, she tossed it on to the desk. ‘Well, maybe this will wipe the smug look off your face,’ and, turning awkwardly, she limped from the office, leaning heavily on her walking stick.
‘Thanks for coming in,’ he called after her as he reached for the newspaper. ‘Always appreciated.’
Phil Sharp knew he was finished. Released from the police station at just on nine after a further test had revealed that he was no longer over the limit, he’d endured an uncomfortable and humiliating night in the cells. Now he stood blinking in the bright morning light, like a termite emerging from its mound, unshaven, unwashed and hardly able to credit what had happened to him.
He’d known the police breath test at the scene of the accident would be positive, but nearly twice over the limit after so many hours sleeping it off? It didn’t seem possible. Yet the evidential breath tests at the police station had supported the fact and now he was in possession of a nice charge sheet, bailing him to the local magistrates court. His world was on the v
erge of collapse and he cursed himself for a fool. Why hadn’t he just scarpered before the traffic patrol had arrived? Gone into a local pub and downed a few scotches? That way they may not have been able to determine whether his high alcohol level was due to drinking before or after the prang. He could have claimed he was concussed and hadn’t realized what he was doing when he had left the scene. Alternatively, he could have managed a swift vanishing act, then claimed his car had been stolen. Others had done this sort of thing before, hadn’t they – and got away with it? But he had been so shaken up after the collision and so shocked about the severity of the damage to his beloved Subaru, that he had just sat there like a potential road kill, waiting for the inevitable.
He lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. Still, it was too late now to think about what he could have done. He was in the shit big time and his impending court appearance could only result in a driving ban and – horror of horrors – a criminal record which could put paid to his career for good.
He swore savagely as he thought about his spiralling misfortunes. Already on the verge of being investigated for leaking information to the press, with nothing to show for his ‘exclusive’ but a measly hundred quid, he could do without this on top. Then there was his car – not paid for yet and with three years still to go. The repayments would have been tough enough on the pay of a DS, but thrown out on his ear, they would be impossible. The joke was, he wouldn’t even be able to afford to get the car repaired – if it hadn’t been a write-off already – because he had only taken out third party insurance. What a real shitty mess!
Dropping his cigarette into the gutter, he hailed a passing taxi. ‘Better get used to this, Phil,’ he thought to himself as he climbed aboard. ‘It’s the only way you’ll be travelling from now on.’
The cabby sniffed several times as he got in. ‘You been drinking?’ he queried.
Sharp scowled, surprised that the odour was still on him. ‘What if I have?’ he retorted belligerently.
‘Then you can bleedin’ well walk,’ the other said. ‘I’m not havin’ you throw up in my motor, so get out.’
Sharp watched the disappearing taxi with a sense of angry frustration. Walk? His flat was miles away. Reaching into his pocket, he flicked his last cigarette out of the packet and headed off in the direction of Burnham, peering through the tobacco smoke at the passing cars with his thumb extended and his feet dragging the pavement.
Fortunately for him, he had only gone about a mile before a car travelling towards him swung across the road and pulled up alongside, facing in the wrong direction.
‘Need a good lawyer?’ someone chortled.
He scowled and turned his head to stare at the grinning face of the policeman as he leaned out of the window of the police patrol car.
‘Piss off!’ Sharp retorted and started to walk on.
Jimmy Noble sounded his horn. ‘Get in, you wanker,’ he shouted. ‘Unless you want to walk to Burnham.’
Reluctantly Sharp went round to the other side of the car to climb into the front passenger seat and Noble swung out on to his correct side of the road, heading towards Highbridge.
‘So, what gives, my man?’ Noble queried, glancing quickly at his dishevelled state. ‘The jungle drums are saying you’ve been done for Excess Alcohol.’
Sharp grunted. ‘What’s it to you?’ he said, his sour face confirming the news.
‘Happens to the best of us,’ Noble said, without meaning it. ‘But what are you going to do now?’
Sharp snorted. ‘What do you think? Wait to be slung out the job, I suppose.’
Noble winced. ‘At least you walked away from that TA in one piece. Pity about your nice motor, though.’
Sharp changed the subject. ‘So what were you doing in Bridgwater? Bit off your area, aren’t you?’
Noble slowed slightly to study a beaten-up old lorry, laden with what looked like fridges and freezers, limping past them on the other side of the road, then lost interest and increased his speed again. ‘Oh, had to drop some stuff off for SOCO at the Bridgwater Clarion’s offices.’
Sharp frowned. ‘The Clarion? Why, what happened there?’
Noble shrugged. ‘Don’t know too much now – back on normal duties – but I hear some poor cow of a reporter got mugged or something. She’s in hospital in a pretty bad way. They reckon it might be linked to this Twister case.’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t think the DCI is too unhappy about what happened to her, though. He never did like bloody reporters and this one has really got under his skin with the exposé she’s just written.’
Sharp felt his skin crawl. ‘Exposé? Who was she then?’
Noble shrugged again. ‘Can’t remember – same name as some poet or other.’
‘What – Betjeman?’
‘Yeah, that’s it, Naomi Betjeman.’ Noble threw him a suspicious glance. ‘Didn’t know you knew anything about poetry?’
Sharp almost bit his tongue. ‘Just an educated guess,’ he replied.
Noble grunted, apparently accepting his explanation. ‘Well, word is she’s got an in with someone at the nick who’s been leaking information to her. Wouldn’t like to be in their shoes when Ansell gets to grip with ’em, I can tell you.’
Entering Highbridge, Noble slowed down and glanced across at him again. ‘Where do you want dropped off – don’t suppose it’s the nick?’
Sharp grimaced. ‘Hardly – going to report sick anyway. Couldn’t run me out to Burnham, could you? Drop me off at the Tesco roundabout. I can walk to my flat from there.’
Noble grinned again. ‘No problem, my son. Just don’t tell the guv’nor, eh? He wouldn’t want me running a bent copper home.’ And he laughed out loud at his cruel joke, but Sharp hardly heard him; he had other more important things on his mind – like Naomi Betjeman, for example.
chapter 24
ROZ CALLOW WAS just leaving the police station when Kate and Lewis arrived.
‘Good lord, it’s the Wicked Witch of the North,’ Lewis murmured, as he held the front passenger door of his Jaguar open to let Kate out. ‘What the devil is she doing here?’
Lewis had chosen to park in the visitors’ bays at the front of the building following scratch marks he had found on his driver’s door – almost certainly from the carelessly opened door of a police car while it had been parked in the rear yard – and Roz Callow’s old Audi was already parked in the next bay.
‘Well, well, well,’ the ex-DCI sneered, pausing beside them on the steps to the front door. ‘If it isn’t the dynamic duo.’
‘Hello, Roz,’ Kate said quietly, ‘looking for a job?’
Callow smirked coldly. ‘Very funny,’ she retorted. ‘Been to see your boss actually – DCI to DCI sort of chat. Like to keep abreast of things, you know.’
Lewis shrugged. ‘Then you must have been disappointed. Nothing new unfortunately.’
‘Really?’ she exclaimed and studied each of their faces in turn, leaning heavily on her stick. ‘Your own incident-room bugged by the very killer you’re hunting; plus, according to stop press, a body recovered from a lake that your lot failed to discover on a previous search and the reporter who has just rubbished your investigation found lying on the floor of her newspaper offices with multiple injuries? I wouldn’t call that nothing new, would you?’
Kate started, recalling Roscoe’s revelations a couple of hours before about the attack on Naomi Betjeman in the derelict. ‘What, the girl from The Clarion?’ she blurted out.
Callow flicked her eyes in acknowledgment. ‘Fell down the staircase at work, I understand. Now isn’t that sad?’
‘Surprised you are keeping such close tabs on this case,’ Lewis went on. ‘Nothing in it for you anymore, is there?’
Callow’s eyes shrunk into narrow slits. ‘That bastard, Larry Wadman – or Twister, as he likes to call himself – ruined my life,’ she rasped. ‘If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have this,’ And she tapped her leg with her stick. ‘And, more to the point, I w
ould still be DCI.’
Lewis couldn’t help himself. ‘Ah well, Roz,’ he grinned, ‘every cloud has its silver lining, doesn’t it?’
Then he turned away from her and, leading Kate by the elbow, headed up the steps towards the front door of the police station, sensing Callow’s eyes burning into the back of his neck with pure malevolence as he went.
‘Bet she’s put a spell on me now,’ he chuckled, stepping back courteously to allow Kate to push through the door ahead of him, but she wasn’t listening; her mind was obviously on something else.
‘Naomi Betjeman,’ she said suddenly, while he slipped his card into the metal box by the security door. ‘That’s a turn up for the books, isn’t it? I don’t like the sound of it at all.’
Lewis shrugged, once more stepping aside for her as the door buzzed and opened to his touch. ‘You shouldn’t read too much into the business; probably just an accident.’
Kate stopped at the bottom of the stairs as he started up towards the first-floor landing and he turned and studied her quizzically.
She shook her head. ‘You go on up,’ she said. ‘I’m just going to pop along to the CID office – see if I can find out who’s dealing with the job.’
He sighed. ‘OK, suit yourself, but don’t take too long. Briefing’s in an hour and after the Guv’nor had to cancel last night’s briefing because of the stiff in the lake, he won’t be very happy if you’re late.’
But she wasn’t listening to him and was already striding off along the corridor.
‘Women!’ he muttered disparagingly, then winced under the hard critical look of a uniformed policewoman as she overtook him on the stairs.
