by L M Krier
Of all the reactions he was expecting, it wasn’t her turning to him, eyes flashing in evident anger, and spitting, ‘Oh, for god’s sake! Yes, I am pregnant. No, it wasn’t planned. And no, I don’t have a bloody clue yet what I’m going to do about it, except I know I don’t want to have a baby. So the last thing I need right now is you wading in like a bloody great hoofwanking spangletwat making me feel ten times worse.’
Then she burst into noisy, anguished sobs which shook her whole body, making her black tea slosh alarmingly close to the top of the paper cup.
Wordlessly, Ted put down his roll and his own drink and took Jezza’s tea from her, carefully storing it in the car’s cup holder. Then, still saying nothing, he reached for the clean, perfectly-ironed handkerchief which Trev always put in his pocket, and handed it to her.
She took it. Wiped her eyes. Blew her nose. Then she reached out her left hand, not looking at Ted, took hold of his right one and gave it a squeeze.
‘Sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘Can we put it down to hormones?’
‘Jezza, I want to help but I’m useless at this. I’ve no idea what to say or do. Is there anyone you can talk to who would know the right things to say to be supportive? Certainly not to make you feel worse, for which I can only apologise.
‘Have you told Nat, and what does he say about it?’
‘Oh, he’s over the moon. He’d love to have a child. But, bless him, I know he’ll accept whatever decision I make. It would be so much easier if he was the dominant type who would tell me what to do then put his foot down to make me do it. Only of course, I don’t really mean that. Hormones, again, I suppose.’
‘Close female friends you can talk to?’
‘I’m not really the girlfriend type. Yes, there are girls I go kick-boxing with. Ones I go out and get pissed with, on occasion. But no one I could talk to about something this big. In fact, you’re the first person I ever told about what my father did to me.
‘This was a monumental mistake. One which should never have happened. Certainly not planned. And now I have to think about all of the consequences of this mess.
‘I just don’t think I can do this. Even with Nat’s help, and he’s wonderful. Autism runs in families. What if the baby is like Tommy? Worse, perhaps. I can barely cope with Tom a lot of the time. I certainly couldn’t do it without the help I get from Nat. Not forgetting what Maurice and Steve have done to help. Steve still rallies round when he can but Maurice has enough on his plate now with the new twins.
‘Maurice is my best friend. But can you imagine me talking to Daddy Hen about killing an unborn child?’
‘And is that what you want to do?’
‘Yes! No. I don’t know. I don’t know who I can talk to. A grown-up. But not someone who’s going to judge me.’
While she was calming down and the violent shakes of her body the sobs had produced were diminishing, Ted risked another bite of his barm, washed down with more tea, both already starting to go cold.
‘What about the Professor?’ he suggested.
Jezza’s look towards him suggested she thought he’d lost the plot.
‘No, I’m serious, Jezza. She helped me through a dark and difficult time. She’s become a great friend to me and Trev. She calls a spade a bloody shovel but she really does have a heart of gold.’
‘But that really is weird, boss. I’m thinking about killing my unborn child and you want me to talk to a pathologist about it. Talk about cutting out the middle man!’
‘I’m sorry. Everything I say sounds more and more tactless. But you honestly can talk to her. She knew, straight away. She mentioned it to me because clearly she thought I’d know already. Hence me blundering in like a … what was it, hoof-spanking something or another?’
Jezza’s laugh was spontaneous and genuine. Much more like her old self. She grinned at him as she said, ‘Best not dwell on that, boss. Sorry.’
‘Right, if you want me to, I’ll phone the Professor and ask if she would speak to you. Whatever you decide to do, Jezza, you know, I hope, that you will have my support. But for now, I need you to be on top form tomorrow for the interview with Abigail. So I want you to get your notes together and take them home to read through them. Then take some time to do whatever will help you. A nice long soak in the bath ...’
‘The hot baths and gin remedy is a bit old hat these days, boss.’ There was another spark of the old Jezza in the way she said it, smiling at him as she did so. ‘But I don’t need to go home ...’
‘You will do as your senior officer instructs you, DC Vine,’ he told her, trying to sound stern, despite the fond smile towards her. ‘Tomorrow is going to be a challenging day for all of us. Councillor Buller will no doubt engage the best solicitor money can buy and we’ll be facing challenges to the interview every step of the way. We need to have our game plan sorted, and you and I will need to get our heads together first thing tomorrow, before we do anything else.
‘So go home, read up, get some rest. And I’ll ask Professor Nelson to give you a call.’
Jezza drained her tea and reached up to put her seatbelt back on. Then she leaned across and planted a kiss on Ted’s cheek.
‘You really are the best boss. D’you know that?’
Ted had caught up with the progress of the team from Jo Rodriguez, once he got back to the station. Or rather, the frustrating lack of it.
‘It seems like all the cuckoos have flown back to their own nests, wherever they are, for now, boss,’ Jo told him. ‘Still no clue at all as to who Data might be, or even whether it’s a name or a nickname. It may possibly be something you can find out from Abigail tomorrow.’
‘I don’t think we should get our hopes up too high for results tomorrow, Jo. I think it’s going to be something of an initial fishing trip for both sides. Whatever solicitor Buller brings in will be top rate, you can be certain of that. The Professor has pushed for early results for any prints or traces on the knife, but unless we get those in time, we have very little.
‘We also don’t know, until we sit down and make a start, how much, if anything, Abigail is going to be able to tell us. Never mind knowing whether she’s willing to tell us anything at all. I’m talking to Her Majesty and Big Jim last thing today to see where we’re going. We’ll also conference call with CPS. I’d say there’s a strong possibility, short of a frank and detailed admission from Abigail, that they may decide this one is not in the public interest to proceed with. Her legal team would be bound to go for diminished responsibility, anyway.
‘So, give me some good news to throw their way. What’s been achieved today?’
‘We’ve got a bit more of a picture of Giorgio Mantone, if that is who our victim is. Sad and depressing. Not a good start in life. Easily led into trouble, which seemed to follow him everywhere.
‘Busty Beff seems to have gone to ground. No further sightings of her so far. But I did find out from various shops that she’s well known for her trick of sponging off anyone kind and gullible enough to believe her story of having lost her purse.
‘No sign either of Kane Lomax, Sarwar Dabiri or Reece Williams, the other names we’ve found so far. They’ve all got records so we got an ID on them from face recognition, confirmed by Uniform. So far there’s one girl no one knows, not even Bill Baxter, believe it or not. Plus the mysterious Data. Bill doesn’t know of him either, not from the name or from the still from the security camera. It looks like he might also be new to the patch.
‘As far as the drugs connection goes, not much to go on there so far, but we are still digging. Virgil’s gone out round his contacts to see what he can find out. We don’t think Stockport has any more or less of a drugs problem than anywhere else. But the way Ronnie is freaking out, we’re concerned that something’s moving up a gear somewhere.
‘The Big Man isn’t helping us much so far. It’s a pretty common expression for anyone in charge of anything. Certainly no one, not even Bill, knows who it might refer to in a drugs context. And sp
eaking of the drugs connection, Drugs have been on, returning your call, while you were out. They don’t have any ongoing ops on our patch, covert or otherwise. They’re not aware of any escalation in drugs supply here and they don’t know who the Big Man might be in our context. But they have got an op on in Manchester, so I suppose it’s just possible that that’s where the cuckoos were selling stuff, if that’s what they’ve been doing.
‘They did get a rush-through analysis on at least some of the stuff found in Abigail’s flat. Enough to tell me it’s very good stuff. Some of the best quality they’ve seen recently. So now their interest has gone up several notches, in tandem with their anxiety to get that supply route closed down as soon as possible.
‘They’re anxious to be kept informed. So with that end in mind, they’ll be talking to Big Jim and the Super about a possibility of some of them working with us on this.
‘Wherever this case is going, Ted, it looks like it’s going to be a biggy.’
Chapter Eleven
Ted tapped briefly on the Ice Queen’s door and hurried in apologetically. She and Jim Baker were sitting waiting and had already established the conference call with one of the senior Crown Prosecutors from the CPS.
‘Sorry to be on the last minute. Afternoon, Tony,’ he said towards the screen. ‘I’ve literally just got the results on the fingerprints from the knife handle. Abigail’s are the only ones on it. We took hers, of course, for elimination purposes, while CSI were working in the flat.’
‘I can see us hitting a problem right there,’ Tony Alleyne, the prosecutor, said gloomily. ‘Did she understand what she was consenting to when she was asked to provide her prints?’
He saw Ted open his mouth and went on, ‘Yes, I know you’ll say you took every reasonable care and you had an interpreter and everything. But if this even gets as far as a preliminary hearing, the defence are going to jump all over this part right from the start.’
‘So can we ask her again, tomorrow, when her solicitor’s present?’ Ted asked him.
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Mention tomorrow that we have her fingerprints on the knife and see what her solicitor says to that. What else?’
‘The elephant in the room,’ Ted told him. ‘Abigail’s pregnancy. We’re not sure if she knows herself that she’s pregnant. Let alone if her parents know. It’s not the easiest thing to raise with someone even when there are no communication issues.’
He was thinking of his own recent efforts.
‘We can’t tell the parents. It would be a breach of all sorts of Abigail’s rights. But at some point, it’s going to have to come out. I’d quite like to raise it with her tomorrow because I suspect there’s a strong possibility that the father might well be this lad Data, one of the ones we can’t trace.
‘Having said that, I also think there’s a possibility of some sort of porn film-making having gone on in the flat, but that’s just speculation at the moment. If that was happening, then there’s a chance that even Abigail doesn’t know who the father is. Always assuming she knows the basics of how these things come about.’
Tony Alleyne turned his gaze up towards the ceiling and groaned.
‘Dear god in heaven, this case just gets better and better. We now have a learning-disabled, abuse-victim mother-to-be, protecting her unborn child against all comers like a she-wolf. We may as well throw the towel in now. Certainly as far as a murder charge goes.’
‘We need some expert evaluation of her ability to make deductions and judgements,’ the Ice Queen put in, her voice measured. ‘The fact that the parents seem happy for her to live independently, rather than in some sort of supported living scheme, is surely rather telling?’
‘Plus she pulled up DC Vine for saying man rather than boy, didn’t she?’ Jim Baker put in. ‘That must indicate some degree of basic understanding and judgement.’
‘I wouldn’t want to see that point argued in court, Jim. It’s too subjective. I suspect even the four of us might have a different opinion about when a boy becomes a man, so we might all use a different term. It’s too flaky to amount to much.
‘What about her educational levels? What do her school records show?’ Alleyne went on.
‘We’re working on getting those. She was educated at a residential special school. Exclusive and expensive. They’re proving a bit reluctant to hand over any records without the permission of the parents. Jo’s dealing with that. He’s reminding them that Abigail is of age so there would be confidentiality issues if they discuss anything with her parents. But I suspect it will take a warrant to get all the records.’
‘Either Debs or I can sort that, Ted. Leave it with us,’ Jim told him.
‘Do it as a matter of urgency. It’s going to be pivotal to how we proceed,’ the prosecutor urged them. ‘How were you able to find out where she went to school? Was she able to give you such details?’
‘There’s been quite a bit about her in the papers over the years,’ Ted told him. ‘A lot of controversy about her not being vaccinated and her disabilities having been caused by a preventable childhood illness. Councillor Buller has, of course, spent a lot of time taking action against various press and media and there have been some apologies and retractions. But there’s still enough out there on the internet to find out a good deal about her. We are, of course, checking thoroughly that anything we find is accurate. I’ve got Steve Ellis on that. He’s a demon for detail, especially when it comes to the internet.’
‘I thought it couldn’t be any worse. Now it seems that it could, with all that to contend with. Who’s doing the interview tomorrow?’ Alleyne asked.
‘I will be,’ Ted told him. ‘Together with DC Vine. She’s already built something of a rapport with Abigail so that should make it easier. And we’ve got a Makaton interpreter booked.’
‘No doubt Abigail’s team will insist on bringing their own.’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Ted admitted. ‘What’s the procedure? Would they be entitled to?’
‘They will claim that anyone brought in by us can’t be considered to be impartial. It’s a moot point,’ Alleyne told him. ‘But they must presumably have their own, for when their solicitor talks to Abigail, so they might well insist. I’d be inclined to agree, if they do. Let’s be seen to be doing everything in our power to be impartial and without pre-judgement. And especially to be doing whatever we can to ensure Abigail has the same level of protection as any other witness or suspect from inadvertently incriminating themselves through lack of proper understanding.
‘It might, of course, turn into duelling hand signals between the two Makaton experts if they disagree over the interpretation of anything she says. But that’s a risk we’ll have to take.’
‘That would mean too many people to squash into a normal interview room,’ Debs Calder pointed out. ‘I would suggest, therefore, that you use the vulnerable witness room, Ted. Then we really are seen to be doing all we can to enable Abigail.’
‘Nice PR touch, Debs. I would agree with that,’ the prosecutor told her.
‘I’ll be watching over the monitor, too, Tony. We need to be right across this from the start,’ Jim Baker told him.
‘No pressure, then?’ Ted asked with a touch of irony.
‘Hey, you. Supper can be ready any time you want it. You could have it now, or chill a bit first,’ Trev told him when Ted walked into the kitchen. He turned to give him a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek, then put a lid on the simmering pan and turned the heat down underneath it. Adam was already halfway up Ted’s leg, needle claws clinging to his trousers.
‘I’d really like a shower first. It was the PM this morning on the body from Friday. It didn’t smell quite as bad but I’d still like to freshen up and get changed before we eat, if that’s ok?’
‘As I said, it’s ready now but it can simmer for a while yet before it starts to spoil. Do you want company in the shower?’
‘It sounds tempting, but I feel like I still smell
bad, so perhaps later on, when I feel more fragrant. Anyway, I’ll be quicker on my own and I’m quite hungry now. I only remember having a bacon barm early on and that went cold before I got chance to eat it all.’
‘Make the most of the home cooking,’ Trev warned him when he came back downstairs. ‘We may be living off takeaways for a bit. Geoff’s had his operation confirmed. He goes in tomorrow so I’m likely to be getting home later than usual.’
‘Do you know yet what he’s going in for?’
‘Oh, heavens, no, I still daren’t ask. I mean, Geoff and I get on really well but I don’t need to know about his plumbing or anything else intimate.’
‘It could be ingrown toenails,’ Ted suggested, smiling.
Trev gave a theatrical shudder as he dished up their meal.
‘Don’t! You know I hate anything like that. But I’m just a bit worried about Wednesday and the self-defence class. I’ll do my best to be there on time, but it depends how things are going at work. I can usually leave Geoff to close up while I swan off. In fact, I think I’m about to find out exactly why he is the senior partner and how little work I really put into the business in comparison.’
‘This is good,’ Ted indicated his plate. ‘Just what I needed.’
‘Does it need more pepper? I couldn’t decide.’
‘It’s fine. Delicious, in fact. And you do a lot for the business. You’ve brought in some good service contracts. You could sell coals to Newcastle. Even the Ice Queen admitted she was nearly tempted to buy from you. Except she had her heart set on a Ducati.’
‘Is there any chance at all you can get to the dojo on Wednesday? Just in case I’m held up for any reason? I’d hate to disappoint them all. All those eager young faces, waiting for one of us to turn up and teach them.’
‘All I can promise is that I’ll try my very best and if for any reason I can’t get there, I’ll try to phone you early on to let you know. But you know what it’s like, with work. I can’t guarantee anything.’
