Fault Lines

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Why d’you ask that?’ DC Evans said, her voice quick with suspicion.

  ‘Because she didn’t turn up at court. I expected to find a message from her, but there’s been nothing. Instead you’re here, asking questions. That adds up to something pretty bad. What is it?’

  ‘There’s been a serious assault,’ said DC Watkins reluctantly.

  Trish wasn’t sure whether it was the idea of giving up any information that worried him or the possibility that he might upset her. The queasiness turned to gut-twisting fear. ‘How serious? Is she in hospital? In the nick? Is she dead? Come on…’ Trish read that answer in their faces, too, but she could not believe it. ‘She’s not dead, is she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Trish swung her chair round so that she didn’t have to look at them. Her mind kept throwing up memories of Kara: sitting frowning over some written evidence, running her hands through her thick, dark-blonde hair; looking up to laugh at a tension-busting joke with the amusement lightening her broad, serious face into something much livelier and more attractive than usual; sipping the extra-strong coffee they both used to see them through long evenings of work; enduring a ferocious set of arguments with steady grace; and talking, with unshed tears making her big grey eyes glisten, about the difficulty of living with Jed Thomplon and the impossible loneliness of being without him.

  ‘It would help, Ms Maguire,’ said Watkins from behind her, ‘if you could give us some idea of the evidence she was going to give in court today.’

  Trish blew her nose and swung her chair back to face them. She gave a crisp, professional description of the morning’s case then added, ‘Presumably you’re trying to find out whether the defendant could have had anything to do with Kara’s death?’

  Watkins nodded.

  ‘I can’t believe it. Darlie’s allegations were serious, but not that serious.’

  Neither officer looked convinced.

  ‘Look, as it happened, John Bract had a pretty good defence.’

  They still looked obstinately incredulous.

  ‘In any case, why would he do something to Kara so close to the trial? He’s not stupid – he’d have realised he’d be bound to be a suspect.’

  ‘Surely, doing work like yours, you’ve come across the concept of intimidation of witnesses,’ said DC Evans, looking surprised by such ignorance.

  ‘Murder would be a pretty exaggerated form of intimidation,’ Trish said mildly. There didn’t seem much point in challenging the woman, who probably meant well enough.

  ‘Perhaps it just got out of hand. Perhaps whoever did it was sent to frighten her but got carried away and went too far,’ she said, with an earnestness that reinforced Trish’s judgement of her brains. But that didn’t matter in the face of what she’d said.

  ‘“Carried away”? Are you telling me it was a sexual assault?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Oh, Kara, Trish thought, closing her eyes for a second. Oh, poor, poor Kara. ‘What exactly did he do to her?’

  ‘Take it from me, Ms Maguire,’ said Watkins, ‘you don’t want to know.’

  He showed none of the relish Trish had occasionally seen in officers dealing with assaults against women.

  ‘Did you know her well?’ DC Evans asked, watching her with sympathy. Trish shrugged and nodded. ‘Then perhaps you can help us with something else.’

  ‘If I can I will. Of course I will.’

  ‘Great. So do you know Dr Jed Thomplon at all?’ Evans was flipping through her notebook, looking for something.

  ‘No, I’ve never met him. All I know about him is that he’s a GP in Middlesex and that he and Kara lived together until about six… no, nine months ago.’

  ‘Why’d they break up?’

  ‘Because she got the job with Kingsford Social Services and he refused to move there with her.’

  The expressions on their faces suggested that this was news to them.

  ‘Why?’ It was Sally Evans who had asked the question, not Watkins, who appeared to think Jed’s refusal perfectly acceptable.

  Trish remembered the day when Kara had begun to tell her about the quarrel. She’d been pretty sure that if it had been Jed who had been offered such a huge step up in his career, she would have been expected to follow meekly in his wake. ‘But then,’ Kara had said, with all the humour that had shone through her preoccupations, even when she was at her most miserable, ‘he probably thinks that a wake is a suitable place for an adoring woman. And in Jed’s life most women have been remarkably adoring. That was half the trouble.’

  ‘Why’d she agree to take the job, then?’ asked Constable Watkins, apparently reading something in his own notebook.

  ‘Refuse the challenge of reorganising Kingsford Social Services after the scandal and all those resignations?’ said Trish, amazed that anyone from Kingsford could ask. ‘How could she? It was a big promotion for her. Look, have you got any more questions for me? If not, I’ve a lot on today.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Evans firmly. ‘We have been told by Kara’s mother that Jed Thomplon resented the parting and that he was “angry and controlling”. Would that fit with what you know of him?’

  Aha, thought Trish. So it was Kara’s ‘bloody mother’who told them about Jed. She took a moment to think, then said reluctantly, ‘I suppose so, but…

  ‘If you don’t know him, why’re you trying to defend him?’ demanded Watkins.

  Trish raised her eyebrows at the first hint of hostility. She had been on the wrong end of police questioning before and did not want to go through anything like it again.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, pacifically enough. ‘Look, anyone faced with the break-up of a relationship is likely to be angry. That doesn’t mean that months later he’s going to murder the woman who left him. If Jed Thomplon were ever going to get violent, he’d have done it months ago, when Kara first said she was leaving him.’

  Something was nagging at Trish’s memory, something she’d read. One of the officers was talking to her, but she was concentrating so hard on retrieving the facts that she heard very little. Then she remembered. ‘Wasn’t there a string of sexual assaults in your area a few years ago? I’m sure I read about the Kingsford Rapist in the papers. Two years ago, or three; isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are there any similarities in the MO?’

  ‘I haven’t been told,’ Watkins said, looking as though he’d licked an unripe lemon. Trish almost smiled as she understood the reasons for his hostility. How he must have resented chasing up red herrings in London when the real action was in Kingsford!

  She got rid of them at last and tried to settle down to work. Before she’d got very far, the phone rang. She picked it up and gave her name.

  ‘You wouldn’t listen this morning,’ said Dave, at his most peevish, ‘but I have to give an answer to this solicitor from Kingsford in south-west London who wants you to represent his client, Mr Blair Collons, at an employment tribunal. Unfair dismissal. I heard what you said this morning and I know you don’t do employment law, but for some unfathomable reason of their own…’

  Trish felt faint amusement as she recognised one of the favourite phrases of the most senior silk in chambers, for whom Dave had always had a quite sickeningly exaggerated respect.

  ‘… they want to brief you and no one else. Will you do it?’

  ‘No,’ she said, noticing the coincidence and dismissing it. After all, a lot of people lived in Kingsford. There needn’t be any connection between Blair Whatsisname and Kara. ‘It’s not my field. I wouldn’t be able to do a good enough job for the client.’

  ‘I know, and in the normal way I’d never ask you to take the case, but they’re adamant they want you. It’s a simple enough business. You could do it standing on your head.’

  ‘Then why can’t the solicitor do it himself? Hasn’t he got any bottle?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Neither he nor any of his partners has come to us before, but they’re well thought
of. I asked around. That’s why I’d like to give them what they want. No bad thing to take a brief from them, you know. Could lead to a lot more interesting work in the future.’

  ‘Look, Dave, there’s no point mugging up the subject for one piffling little tribunal. Can’t you get someone else to do it? Eric would be perfect. Let him cut his teeth on it.’

  ‘They want you.’

  ‘Sorry, Dave. Nothing doing. I’ve got far too much on already.’ Trish put down the phone, glad that she had achieved a big enough reputation to be sure of getting plenty of work in the future, whatever Dave thought of her rebellion.

  She found she couldn’t concentrate so she started to excavate the paper ramparts of her desk, a nice, mindless task that had to be done some time. Filing, chucking, and putting as few things as possible in her pending tray, she came across the morning’s post. It included an envelope marked ‘personal’, addressed to her in Kara’s writing.

  Trish sat looking at it, wiping her fingers on her black skirt. A strong scent of garlic and tomato wafted out when she eventually ripped open the envelope. Kara must have written the letter in her kitchen while something was cooking beside her. That brought her back into Trish’s mind more vividly than anything else could have done. She’d never been to Kara’s house, but once, after they’d been working late on Darlie’s case, they’d gone back to Trish’s flat with the solicitor for a working supper and Kara had volunteered to cook.

  Unlike Trish, she’d been a brilliant, instinctive cook, and she’d moved around the strange kitchen, peeling and chopping, melting, stirring, caramelising, and amalgamating scent, taste and texture into one perfect dish. So at ease had she been that she hadn’t needed to concentrate on what she was doing and had talked as passionately as Trish about the need for children to be protected against the awful damage that could be done to them by vicious or simply hopeless adults.

  Trish bit her lip and tried not to think of the horror of what had happened to Kara herself. The letter might help.

  Dear Trish, I hope you’re not going to be too cross with me, but I’ve given your name and phone number (chambers not home, of course) to a slightly pathetic chap – well, more than pathetic, actually – who’s been sacked from the council here and is taking them to a tribunal. I’d have kept the news until we meet tomorrow except that I’m not sure we’ll be able to talk privately for long enough and I don’t want you faced with him without an explanation – as you’ll understand when you do meet him. He’s called Blair Collons and he’s an altogether sad case, and a bit difficult to like, but I think he’s been very shabbily treated, even though I can’t manage to believe in all the wild conspiracies he sees around him. Although I suppose he could well be a case of ‘just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’. Anyway, he needs a lot of help in general and just now a barrister to represent him at his employment tribunal. I know it’s not your sort of work, but he needs someone kind as well as clever, if only to prove to him that not everyone in the world is out to get him. Somehow I feel sure that if you chose you’d be able to help him, even if you can’t get him his job back. And he needs help, Trish. He seems to have no one in the world and must be very lonely. I suspect that’s half the problem in fact. If you could manage to squeeze the time, I’d be terribly grateful. And you’d earn yourself a lot of plenary indulgences for that great court up in the sky. If you see what I mean. Well, anyway, you will when you’ve met him, I’m afraid. By the way, I’m sorry to have moaned so much about my love life that day. In fact it’s been looking up recently. I’ve met someone. I’m not naïve enough to believe that this is happy-ever-after time, but it is wonderful at the moment. I haven’t told you before because I wasn’t sure it was real, but now I think it could be. There are complications, practical difficulties, if you see what I mean, but he’s worth putting up with them. Well worth it. I’d love you to meet him in due course. I have a feeling that you’d like him and vice versa.

  Love, Kara

  P.S. Good luck tomorrow. I’ll do my best for poor Darlie, and I won’t forget any of your advice about behaviour in the witness box!

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Trish.

  Chapter Two

  The incident room at Kingsford was cold but nose-stuffingly airless. It smelt of stale smoke, coffee and bacon sandwiches. Four of the twenty phones were ringing and both dedicated fax machines were slowly cranking out sheets of paper as officers came and went, jeering, throwing mock blows, laughing at each other’s jokes and scoring whatever points they could. None of them looked at the photographs of Kara Huggate’s mutilated body that were pinned to the large cork board, or at the one of her in life, smiling gravely straight at the camera.

  Chief Inspector William Femur, drafted in from the local Area Major Investigation Pool with a sergeant and two constables of his own, was waiting for them to settle down. The first half-hour in any local nick was always crucial. You had to establish your authority by the end of that time or you were done for. He was still surprised by the childish resentment his arrival could arouse in local officers, but he’d learned to deal with most of the stalling tactics they dreamed up.

  Femur was in his early fifties. He’d done thirty years and could have retired on a full pension, but he wasn’t going until they pushed him out. It wasn’t so much that he loved the job itself – although he did get a kick from building an unshakeable case against the sort of toe rag who beat up old ladies or raped and murdered social workers. No, he wanted to stay because he was good at what he did and someone had to do it. Besides, what else would he have done with so much time now that the kids had grown up and gone?

  His hair was more grey than dark-brown, these days, but he was still fit: running and weight-training saw to that. To be fair, so did the gardening his wife nagged him to do at weekends. He certainly didn’t look forward to spending more time on that, disliking her obsession with straight edges and her determination to poison everything that crawled Or flew or grew where she thought it shouldn’t.

  As in so many things, Femur’s taste in gardens was quite different from his wife’s. He’d have preferred something more like a meadow, with a few real trees, full sized, here and there, instead of neat little pointed conifers in pristine beds cut into the edges of a lawn as flat and unrelieved as a snooker table. His grass would be longer and paler, with straw-like bits mixed in with it and seed heads, too. There would be flowers dotted about wherever they happened to grow, big daisy-like things and bluebells and something pink – or poppies, maybe. They’d be scented but not as overpoweringly as the paper-white narcissi Sue grew in bowls in the lounge, which made the room smell of sick all winter long. There’d be butterflies in his meadow and perhaps a river at the bottom, where he might dangle a line to catch a passing trout.

  It was a pleasant fantasy, and thinking about it always made him breathe easier. He’d never have it. Still, it had done its work again and he was ready to get heavy with his new mob.

  They looked a particularly unprepossessing bunch, these Kingsford officers, and Femur found himself thinking that it wasn’t surprising they hadn’t managed to catch their rapist. Then he suppressed the thought. It would do no good whatsoever if they picked up a blast of hostility from him. Firmness was crucial – humour, too – but no hostility. It would come across as weakness and, if they sensed that, they’d be on him like a pack of hunting dogs and he’d never get a result. That would be a win for them, a win they’d probably like even better than catching the killer.

  ‘Right,’ he said loudly, but not too loudly. Only one or two stopped talking.

  Femur just stood there, his buttocks resting on the edge of the white melamine-topped table behind him, waiting, expecting them to settle down. After a while it worked and they began to pay attention. It probably took only a few seconds; it felt like minutes.

  ‘Right,’ he said again, when all but two were quiet and at least half were looking directly at him. There was one at the back who seemed a
bit more co-operative than the rest, a young dark bloke with a lively eye and a hint of intelligence in his twisted smile. Good teeth, too, not that they had any bearing on his brains. Femur made a mental note to give him something interesting to do.

  ‘We all know why we’re here,’ he went on. ‘Forty-one-year-old social worker Kara Huggate, living alone at number three Laburnam Cottages, Church Lane, Kingsford, has been sexually assaulted and murdered. The killer’s MO has some similarities with that of the Kingsford Rapist – he’s been careful to leave no semen, for one thing, which means he’s well aware of the risks of DNA testing – so we’ll have to look back at the old investigation to see where that leads us.’

  ‘Nowhere fast, if you ask me.’

  Femur couldn’t see who’d interrupted. ‘On the assumption,’ he went on crisply, ‘that we can do better this time.’

  That didn’t go down well but it was fair comment, and it wiped the grins off several smug faces.

  ‘Right. Like I say, there are similarities, but there are differences too this time. We’ll have a clearer idea of how many and how serious they are when we’ve got all the SOCO and lab evidence in, but there’s one obvious difference already and that’s the look of the victim.’

  Femur pointed over his shoulder at the row of glossy ten-by-eight colour prints. He’d seen plenty worse in his time, but that didn’t make these any easier to look at, or any less important. Even the thought of them made him sick and angry; so angry that he’d do whatever it took to nail the bastard who’d rammed a chisel up Kara Huggate for his own pleasure and then throttled her.

  However hopeless or obstructive the Kingsford officers might be, Femur would use whatever skills they had between them to get a result.

  ‘As you can see from the photographs of the earlier victims – that is, the five who lived and the one who died – they were all small women; in their late teens or early twenties, with pointy little faces and feathery dark hair.’