Cold Pursuit (11 page)

‘I’ll forget the whole thing then.’

‘That’s like telling a burglar to carry on helping himself. Stalking is as much a violation of your
privacy as a teenager helping himself to your jewellery.’

‘And you’re violating it more. A friend of mine was raped. She said telling the police about it over and over again was as bad as the rape.’

‘Did she go ahead with the prosecution?’

‘Why?’

‘Just interested. Did she?’

‘He got life.’

‘So he won’t be raping any other women for a bit. Does that make her feel more or less safe?’

For answer Dilly sat down again.

And as if on cue Tom returned.

Dilly, not expecting the knock, might have been shot. Fran laid a calming hand on her shoulder and popped out.

‘It all hangs together, like, guv,’ he reported, very obviously not peering round the door. ‘Except he seems to have forgotten a few days’ leave before the course started. He spent a long weekend with the course tutor and his wife, just a holiday like, then a couple of days working, they said, at the British Library.’

‘Oh.’ Try how she might, she couldn’t keep the monosyllable neutral.

‘Do you want me to sniff around any more? Only DCI Tanner’s back.’

‘Leave it for now. And say nowt to no one, eh?’

She schooled her face back into what she hoped was an expression of quiet confidence and returned to her office. Dilly was leaning against the window,
as if the view of the car park might inspire her. Perhaps it did. ‘Do you really insist on talking to Daniel?’

‘Not “talking” as in “interrogating”. And you could be there, if you wanted.’

Dilly’s nod was surprisingly firm. ‘I do want,’ she said.

Closer, closer. Love is as strong as death; jealousy is as cruel as the grave.

Daniel McDine, thickset, with a shaven head, designer spectacles and a strong Estuary accent, was not Fran’s idea of how a deputy head should look or sound, but then, she’d been educated in days before senior teachers were jetted from one establishment to another in search of general educational – and personal financial – success. His government spokesman-like air of controlled truculence in a very pricey suit put her off immediately. Dilly had certainly chosen a different type of man to love this time, even though he was probably the same age as Stephen, possibly even older. Ever since they’d been introduced he’d been chuntering about being made to leave work early. He’d promised to arrive no later than three-thirty but it had been four-fifteen when he’d finally arrived. Since then, he’d taken three or four calls on his mobile; in exasperation, she’d told him to turn it off.

Now they were all sitting together in Dilly’s late Victorian cottage, which would probably be described by an agent as bijou, with its downstairs bathroom and low ceilings, but to Fran’s mind was poky, more probably built for labourers rather than artisans. The front garden was long, with a parking space large enough for two cars just off the road. The back was more of a yard, but protected by a blessedly high wall, which some previous owner, uninhibited by today’s laws against hurting people trying to intrude into your property, had garnished with a liberal dressing of broken glass. A few tips from Crime Prevention, and Dilly’s little castle would have an adequate moat and drawbridge.

But not a Lord of the Demesne. Not until that vague wedding sometime in the future. For his visit, Dilly had donned a solitaire engagement ring. Now why didn’t she usually wear it? The diamond certainly wouldn’t weigh her down. There was also less make-up in evidence and, knees bolted together as she perched on the edge of her own tiny sofa, she was as subdued as she’d been after Fran’s verbal assault back in Maidstone.

McDine himself passed round coffee and biscuits, neither very good. Then he sank heavily on the sofa beside his intended, leaning back against the squabs and picking up her left hand and turning the ring repeatedly. It might have been the mute switch for all she joined in the subsequent conversation.

‘What I can’t understand is someone at your
level bothering with something as trivial as this,’ he told Fran.

‘Firstly, I don’t view stalking as trivial. Secondly, it’s up to my senior officers who is allocated to which case.’ She thought the idea of a hierarchy might appeal to him.

‘Even so – surely there’s some unit or other devoted to women’s problems.’

‘Like menstruation or the menopause?’ she flashed back. ‘Ah, you mean rape!’ She leaned forward, just controlling the urge to jab a finger at him in emphasis. ‘Believe you me, Mr McDine, rape can affect male victims even more deeply than it does female. As for stalkers, we get our fair share of women illegally pursuing men.’

To her surprise, he came back for more. ‘Jactitation of marriage?’

She burst out laughing. ‘I don’t think I’ve heard that term since my college days.’

He stared. ‘Which college?’

‘Oh, Bramshill, I dare say. It certainly wouldn’t have been part of my OU doctorate.’ Let him stuff those facts up his academic backside and spin on them. Her title was something she very rarely used, except, as in the present circumstances, to inhibit someone wishing to patronise her.

Dilly sat observing the exchange open-mouthed: apparently verbal jousting was something Daniel discouraged.

He might have been bloodied, but he was unbowed. ‘You’re not some run-of-the-mill bobby,
then.’ He flicked immaculate trouser legs. She reckoned his suit must have cost at least as much as Mark’s, but his search for fashion had put him into a high-chested Italian jacket that made him look like a pouter pigeon.

‘On the contrary, I believe the police recruit the highest proportion of graduates of any major employer. So you’ll find a whole swathe of Inspector Doctor Dixons of Dock Green. Or you would if we used all our titles as the Germans do. Now, Mr McDine, we’re here not to expound on the academic abilities of my colleagues but to discuss how we can improve your fiancée’s personal safety: she was very keen to have your input.’ Damn, she’d gone too far.

Abruptly, he stopped twiddling Dilly’s ring and dropped her hand. ‘I don’t know why she should be. I’m a deputy head,
Dr
Harman, not a detective.’

She ignored the bitching and grinned. ‘You’re a senior manager of a school of some thousand pupils. Don’t tell me you haven’t acquired a few detective skills yourself!’

He didn’t know whether to be flattered or irritated, did he? Poor Dilly, she’d have been much better off with the parson. What a pity they were unlikely ever to be reunited.

‘If Dilly had been one of those tarty presenters who dress as if they’re off to a disco I might have understood. But she’s always very professionally turned out.’ For the first time he smiled. ‘I’m so proud when I see her on TV.’ To Fran’s amazement,
he patted Dilly’s left hand, in the sort of proprietorial gesture Mark sometimes made.

She would have turned her hand to complete the clasp; Dilly’s lay passive.

What could be making this couple click? A brilliant sex life sometimes united the most unlikely pairs. But she’d seen not so much as a spark of electricity between these two: it was as if Dilly had opted for another older man, in the hope that he’d replace Stephen in her affections, while he – had he simply wanted the smartly dressed trophy of a TV reporter wife?

‘I’m sure you’re proud of Dilly,’ Fran said, smiling at them both in turn. ‘But seeing her on TV is giving someone else less laudable emotions, emotions he’s expressing with anonymous notes.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ Daniel asked not Dilly but Fran, who responded by looking at Dilly, eyebrow raised.

‘A few weeks. That’s all,’ the young woman managed.

‘But you’ve not said anything to me – about a matter that now has a very senior policewoman working on it?’ he asked sternly, as if he’d caught her out failing to hand in coursework.

‘I…no, I—’

Fran jumped in. ‘Many victims feel it’s such a trivial thing they don’t care to report it. But Dilly and I happened to be talking about another matter and it came up.’

‘What other matter?’

Fran looked suitably, if spuriously, demure. ‘Apparently TVInvicta are thinking of making a programme to celebrate my retirement,’ she said smoothly. ‘The Chief Constable is considering the proposal.’

‘Whose idea?’

Fran looked straight at Dilly, who admitted, when she should have boasted, ‘Mine, actually.’

‘You didn’t invent this programme just so you could talk to Dr Harman about your stalker, I presume?’

The bastard. Why the hell didn’t Dilly tell him where to go? At least she didn’t hang her head. ‘Chief Superintendent Harman has such a distinguished record,’ she said, but without force, as if she’d prepared a response for just such an eventuality, ‘that the BBC have also thrown their hat into the ring. Diggory Venn wants us to get in first. Huw Venn,’ she corrected herself. ‘But you can imagine with a surname like that we’d have to give him the Hardy nickname.’ There was the tiniest brush of hesitation when she said ‘Hardy’. Was she putting a tongue against a damaged tooth to see if the filling held? Or did she still love the very sound of his name? If Fran had had a fiver for every time she’d dragged Mark’s name into conversations at the start of their relationship – even now she had to stop herself – she’d have been able to make a cracking donation to the Police Benevolent Fund.

McDine nodded, looking at Fran quizzically.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you had such a reputation. What’s your speciality?’

‘Solving crime, Mr McDine. Which is why I wanted Dilly to tell you about her stalker. And why I want to talk to you about possible suspects. When would it be convenient for you to come across to my office at Police Headquarters in Maidstone?’

Dilly’s eyes widened as if in terror. McDine’s narrowed. ‘I don’t see any reason why we can’t talk here.’

Neither could Fran. Occasionally, however, it felt good to control a control-freak. She fished out her diary. ‘Tomorrow? After work again? About five-thirty?’ She knew what the response would be even as she goaded him.

‘You may finish work at five, Dr Harman, but I assure you our school day doesn’t. I’d have thought you’d know better to swallow the old cliché about teachers’ long holidays and short working hours. Let me tell you I’m usually the last to leave, rarely before seven.’

‘You’ll just have to make an exception for one day, won’t you? Unless it would be more convenient at seven-thirty in the morning? My meetings don’t start till eight.’

‘Just because you happen to be a morning woman, Fran, doesn’t mean everyone else is. What if the poor guy’s eyes don’t open till nine?’

‘It would be even more fun, then wouldn’t it? Yes, please, just there!’

Mark applied a vicious thumb: the pain in her shoulder became exquisite. ‘What’s stressed you out?’ he grunted. ‘Keep talking. Let the pain happen. Don’t fight it!’

‘I’m stressed because I’m worried about Jill Tanner.’ She explained the problem through gritted teeth. ‘And furthermore I don’t like this Daniel McDine character.’

‘Why don’t you get one of our less mentionable lifer acquaintances to do a contract killing? Him or the vicar’s wife? Or even both?’

She felt his laughter through his probing digits, but replied, as meditatively as if they were both serious. ‘Actually, if we got rid of the wife, Dilly would ditch Daniel herself… No, you mustn’t tempt me! But,’ she added gleefully, ‘since I have the power to inconvenience McDine, I shall use it.’

He rested his hands. ‘That’s not like you.’ Then he applied them with renewed vigour.

‘Argh! Oh, yes it is. I might be sweetness and light with you, my loved one, but I still have it in me to be a bitter old cow. And he was very nasty to his poor little fiancée, who doesn’t have the nous to be nasty back. You can come and sit in on the interview if you like. Oh, yes, not my cosy office, but a proper interview room. It’d add credibility to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Who was it that said that first? Wow, that’s better.’

‘It occurs to me,’ he said slowly, finishing off the hard work with the most gentle of strokes, ‘that for once you’ve missed a trick. Wouldn’t you learn
more by seeing him in his home? And such a concession might make him more forthcoming, especially if you made it at eight over there.’

‘Shit. You’re absolutely right. What about that other eight o’clock meeting I told him about?’

‘You invented it! Invent a reason to cancel it. Chief Constable suddenly called away, that sort of thing?’

She nodded. ‘You’re right, of course. But you could still sit in if you wanted.’

‘I might just, you know. Hey, where do you think you’re going?’

‘To get some supper. I thought you’d finished.’

‘When God gave us shoulders, he tended to give us a pair. And I reckon this one hurts just here.’

It did.

But he had ways of making her feel much better.

As they showered afterwards, her thoughts strayed to Dilly and Daniel. No, try how she might, she couldn’t image them generating the passion that bound Mark and her – with or without marriage.

‘This is Assistant Chief Constable Mark Turner,’ Fran told Daniel, as he stepped aside to let her into his home.

Mark flashed his ID.

Daniel’s face tightened visibly, but he was swiftly into bluster mode, glaring at first one then the other, with meaningful glances at his watch – a very chic Dunhill – to get his own back.

It wasn’t just the watch that was chic. His house,
south of Canterbury and remarkably inconvenient for a daily commute to Ramsgate, was a barn conversion. It shared a private courtyard with other conversions such as, presumably, the former byre. Each had an expensive-looking security system, with enough lights to be seen from outer space.

Inside, it was decorated with a minimalism that was clearly very expensive. The sitting room was a cube. What effect this would have on the acoustics she didn’t know, but nothing too detrimental – he had one of the more expensive Bang and Olufsen systems. His CDs must be in that built-in unit. The height certainly gobbled up heat: she was too chilly to surrender her coat.

As he made coffee, she let her eyes roam, Mark padding after him to talk boys’ talk about the previous evening’s footie. The fact that Mark had been otherwise engaged and had simply seen highlight snippets didn’t seem to matter. Yes, he was a good cop.

No books. How could you be a man in such a position and have no books? She got up to prowl. As she reached the hall, she heard chairs scrape. Mark had got him to sit down, as he’d promised he would, so she could check out the study he must have. A sample of his computer printer’s work would be useful. Just in case. There was a discarded sheet of paper in the bin. Pocketing it, she looked around. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, the expensive sort that were custom made to fit unusual spaces, were occupied with a collection of books ranging
from what looked like textbooks from his youth, surely something best given to a charity, to thick tomes dealing with the latest educational trends. No fiction, light or otherwise, apart from a uniform edition of the classics tucked away by the window. Next to them – yes, now she was getting to the man – was a set of highly explicit erotica. Well, well, well.

She was back in the living room by the time the men drifted back, still into some offside decision.

‘How long have you known Dilly?’ she asked, with a social smile as they sat down.

‘About a year. We met at an Alpha course in Canterbury.’

‘That’s—?’

‘A course to introduce people to Christianity and confirm practising Christians in their belief.’

‘And you’ve been engaged how long?’

‘About six months.’

‘Have you set the date yet?’ she asked, with a girly coyness.