Cold Pursuit (17 page)

Surprised by such a headmasterly encomium, delivered as if it were a job reference, she smiled quizzically. ‘It’s good to see such cooperation, Huw. I don’t suppose you’d like an exclusive story when everything’s done and dusted? If one were on offer?’

‘I think we might, you know. If one were on offer, of course.’ He stood. ‘Coffee? I’ve a new machine I’m dying to have an excuse to try out. Or is it a capital offence to blow up a Chief Superintendent, even by mistake?’

‘Probably. But we could risk it. Tell me, is Dilly around?’

‘Out on a job with her new guard. I bet her miserable fiancé won’t like that, not if he didn’t like her spending the night with a lovely young policeman,’ he added, in full nudge-nudge-
wink-wink
mode. Now, how did he know about that? ‘Do you know what she sees in Daniel, Fran?’ He passed her what smelt like a very good espresso.

She shook her head, almost repressively. ‘Who knows what anyone sees in their partner? Oh, this is excellent. Thanks.’

But he didn’t take the hint. ‘Partner! Don’t let him hear you use that term! He’s a proper fiancé! Oh, I wish we could find her a really nice young man.’

‘Nailing her stalker’s all I’ve got on my mind at the moment. Now, is she likely to be back soon? If not, could you ask her to call me when she has a moment…’

A Post-it greeted her on her return:

Guv

We’ve sorted the website

T and H

Three minutes later she was in the Incident Room, greeted by Tom, seated in front of a screen currently showing nothing but a screen-saver, and Harbijan, standing hands-in-pockets beside him.

Harbijan shifted his feet. ‘Guv – some of it’s not very nice.’

‘Come on, lad, I was in Vice for three years – I bet there’s nothing much here I’ve not seen before.’

‘Well, here you are.’

Tom fiddled with the mouse. Adjusting her glasses, Fran peered over his shoulder at the screen. ‘Bloody hell! That is pretty hardcore stuff! Now, why should a teenage girl refer me to this site?’

‘The visual equivalent of get stuffed?’ Harbijan ventured.

She straightened. ‘Well, someone certainly is. And in a rich variety of ways.’

Her laughter was cut short. To think that thirteen-year-old Tash must have seen this…

‘Or did she want you to see something on it?’ Tom pointed. ‘Those heads – they don’t match the bodies. They’re too young, surely. That guy there – with the dog. Look at this! Body courtesy of a lot of time in the gym, face of a weedy little chap.’

Her stomach turned. That face was dreadfully familiar, though she’d not seen it recently. It couldn’t be Rob Tanner’s, could it? Could it? Best to say nothing yet. Not until she’d shown the video to Jill.

‘And this kid? An ordinary teenager doing that with that particularly well-endowed young man?’

‘She can’t be more than twelve, thirteen at most!’ Harbijan sounded as outraged as she felt.

‘What does it feel like to have your face kidnapped?’ Tom demanded. ‘And to be put in that sort of sexual position? And to have all your mates sniggering about it?’

She leaned back. ‘Bullying, that’s what this is. A
vicious variant of that happy-slapping scam you’re working on. Any chance you could save all this as evidence and still close down the site?’

Harbijan said, with a patience she thought commendable, ‘That’s what we’ve done with all the other sites, ma’am. Trouble is, knock out one, you get three more.’

‘Do you want to see the rest, guv, or have you had enough?’

‘Just save it all for me on something portable. There’s someone else I want to see this, for reasons I can’t explain, I’m afraid. Not yet,’ she added. She didn’t want them to feel excluded unnecessarily. ‘Strictly need to know stuff.’

‘D—’ Tom blushed scarlet, as well he might.

‘No. Another strictly need to know,’ she said firmly. ‘And if you can find out the school the perpetrators of that vile stuff go to, I want to know immediately – before you even think of contacting the head, or whatever Jill’s policy was.’

‘Also need to know, ma’am?’

‘Oh, Harbijan, do call me guv. Otherwise I feel like the Queen. And yes, please. Definitely need to know only.’

Tom was hovering near the ladies’ loo when she emerged. ‘Dilly, guv. She now tells me she thinks someone stole her credit card, like. One she kept locked in her desk drawer at home “just in case”. And someone changed her toothpaste tube for another make.’

‘Not Daniel thinking hers wasn’t upmarket
enough? Sorry, just joking. Anything else missing or disturbed?’

‘She thinks someone had been through her undies drawers too. Clean ones, this time. “Daniel likes her to leave everything tidy”,’ he added in an irritated mimicry of Dilly at her most supine.

‘Even knickers? In places he shouldn’t be looking?’

‘Especially things in places he shouldn’t be looking. And now the credit card’s back, for God’s sake.’

‘Do we have an exact sequence of events?’

He shook his head. ‘That’s what I asked her for. But she only thought to tell me an hour ago, and I was too busy to press her. Trouble is, you don’t know whether to be kind to her or shake her for being so bloody stupid!’

‘I’m not telling you how the rumour reached me, Chief Superintendent. What I want to know is if you know about it and if it has a foundation in fact.’

Fran stood at attention. If the Chief Constable wanted to be formal, she wouldn’t argue. They both knew that she could have been lying in the sun somewhere, had it not been for his pleas for her to stay, and they knew equally well that his strings were being pulled by the Home Secretary, who expected him at the very word drugs to huff and puff with the full force of rank behind him. Sooner or later he’d simmer down. She hoped so, for the sake of his post-lunch digestion. That apart, the quicker the better: she had real policing to get on with.

Meanwhile, all her years in the force meant she faced him across the acres of polished wood with more anxiety than she cared to admit. He was so good at being fierce she replied with great formality, ‘Sir, I would stake my reputation on DCI Tanner being as drug-free as you or me.’

He took a couple of paces, then spun on his heel. If only he’d get on with this mandatory yelling so that she could get back to proper work.

‘How else would you explain a perfectly fit woman falling down the stairs and injuring herself?’

‘With respect, sir, it’s not impossible. As you know, teenage children and tidiness are hardly synonymous,’ she ventured, though she suspected that the Chief Constable had begotten and bred a paragon of virtue, ‘and she believes that she tripped over something when her arms were full of bedclothes. Her injuries are certainly consistent with such a fall.’

‘It’s not the fall I doubt, Chief Superintendent, it’s the cause. I understand she’s come in smelling of cannabis on a number of occasions. And that perhaps she’s used other substances too.’

Which evil, conniving little toerag had come snivelling out of the woodwork with this? ‘As it happens, Sir, ACC Turner and I went to visit DCI Tanner at her home on Friday evening and again on Saturday morning. There were bruises on her arms, but not needle marks. Heavens, she doesn’t drink, so I can’t imagine her even succumbing to a quick spliff.’

‘So how would you explain the bruises?’

‘They were as if someone had gripped her too fiercely. She claims her husband is a passionate man. I suspect there may be another explanation, which I am trying to discover.’

He sat down abruptly, waving a hand at the
chair opposite. ‘You’re on to it already?’ His hectoring tone was replaced by his private voice. Any moment now they could stop playing games.

‘Mark and I, sir. I didn’t want anyone else involved. As soon as I picked up – and tried to quash – the first rumour. Off the record, it’s one of her kids, guv. And I reckon she fell because she was pushed. And I think we shall find that if her son is taking drugs there are some extenuating circumstances.’ She leant forward confidentially. ‘You couldn’t just slap down whatever lowlife grassed her up and leave it in my hands – and Mark’s – for a bit?’ It would give her time to check the MisPer file again – there’d been nothing earlier. So perhaps Rob was safely at home, in which case Mark had been right not to let her interfere, or perhaps for some weird reason Jill didn’t want to involve any of her colleagues.

The Chief was smiling. ‘So long as you sort it, Fran. Good and proper. Now, what’s the news of the delectable Dilly?’

She briefed him as swiftly as she could. He seemed affable enough, so she asked, ‘There’s a rumour about other sexual assaults, sir. Can you tell me what’s new?’

‘I thought you were off that investigation?’

‘I am. Technically it’s nothing to do with me. But as a woman I’m interested. I went for a solo prowl round Ashford the other night.’

‘Solo?’ he repeated sharply.

‘I had to be there for something else. I found it’s
a very scary place when you know our friend could strike again at any moment.’

Before he could say anything, his secretary tapped and came in. The Chief Constable of Sussex was in the building, and had been waiting five minutes already.

‘We’ll talk more about this,’ the Chief said, grabbing his jacket. ‘Meanwhile, Farmer’s doing a full briefing any moment now. Why not gatecrash?’

Joe Farmer was in mid-spiel when Fran made her way into the Incident Room. ‘…no more minor attacks just out of range of CCTV cameras,’ he was saying, ‘since the end of last week. What we have had is three far more serious attacks, in full view of cameras. The trouble is that one has been committed by George W Bush, one by Tony Blair and one by Margaret Thatcher – those hideous face masks, in other words.’

Fran caught Tom’s eye. Could this be the breakthrough they all needed? He responded with a particularly curly thumbs-up.

Others were less enthusiastic.

‘Bloody hell, you’d have thought shafting entire nations would be enough!’

‘Nah, he wouldn’t have the brains to dodge the cameras.’

‘Silence!’

But the titters continued. Someone,
sotto voce
, was wondering what other world leader might enjoy a spot of sex.

As much to re-impose discipline as anything, Fran put in, ‘It’s as if he’s taunting us.’ Then she wished the words unsaid, because it wasn’t her meeting and she shouldn’t be anything more than an observer. Having said that, however, she might as well continue. ‘He must know we’re bound to have realised he knows the whereabouts of every single CCTV camera—’ she broke off to eye-contact Binns, who blushed to his ears and shook his head in a small but decided negative ‘—in the county, so he’s changing his MO. But surely lots of people will have seen such – er – eminent people wandering round the streets of—?’

‘Maidstone and Ashford, guv,’ someone put in.

A young woman shook her head. ‘Party nights, Fridays and Saturdays. Kids getting bladdered and puking in the streets. Lots of people wear party gear. They wouldn’t remember the odd fake politician.’

‘So where did he put on his masks?’ Fran pursued. ‘No, don’t tell me – out of the range of any CCTV cameras.’

Binns got up and silently left the room.

‘It’s got to be the same guy, hasn’t it?’ the young woman insisted.

‘We’ve no evidence of that, Sue,’ Farmer said, earning points from Fran for learning names so quickly. ‘None at all.’

Sue didn’t permit herself so much as an eye roll. Fran did – but only in her head.

She could think of no tactful way of putting it. ‘I
know it’s a mammoth task, but surely if we checked the CCTV of all the shops in the area that sell those masks we might get something.’

Farmer cast a venomous look in her direction but could hardly argue. But he was going to. ‘Which of your team can you spare to do the footwork?’ he demanded waspishly.

Stupid bugger. She offered him her sweetest smile and herself the promise of revenge. ‘I’ll let you know.’ Should she grass up Binns, not to mention Farmer himself, for failing to follow up her CCTV theory or remain professionally silent? She compromised. ‘Meanwhile, I think DI Binns may be talking to the firm installing the CCTVs, not just because of Chummie knowing where each one is but for another reason. In a separate case, I have reason to believe –’ hell, how long since she’d used that old cliché? ‘– that a new camera may deliberately have been badly fixed.’

Fran had scarcely sat down at her desk when the phone rang.

Farat Hafeez from West Midlands Police. How strange that although Fran would have sworn her English was accent-free, over the phone it came over pure Brummie. ‘I’m afraid I’ve nothing to report, gaffer.’ Fran smiled at the Midlands version of guv. ‘Reverend Hardy’s gone on his holidays. According to the church secretary, they’ve been booked for months.’

‘And I never bloody well asked about his
intended movements. Shit and shit and shit! Sorry, Farat.’

‘Be my guest. Do you want me to put out a call for him? He’s touring in Cornwall.’

‘In this weather? Poor sod.’

‘I suppose it’s cheaper off season. Anyway, what I did do was get on to the diocesan office, which provided the name of his bank. They were efficient, too. They wouldn’t give me all the details I wanted, but they did say his debit card hadn’t been used in London at the relevant time. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have paid cash for the flowers, of course.’

‘Did he make any large withdrawal that week?’

‘A hundred pounds from a bank here in Brum. Digbeth coach station. In the concourse, in fact.’

‘Travelling to?’

‘I tried the ticket office: nothing booked with them, but of course, he could have booked in advance using a credit card I haven’t found out about yet. And he may even have been returning from somewhere else, gaffer.’

‘Of course. One last thing, Farat – find out if Mrs Hardy has gone to Cornwall with him.’

‘Creative writing group?’ Dilly repeated after a long delay, as if she were asking permission from someone in the room before she replied. For goodness’ sake, she wasn’t about to admit to being a part-time lap-dancer. ‘Do you mean the one here or the one in Birmingham?’

Fran suppressed a desire to fling down the
phone. How could so bright a woman be so switched off? ‘Either.’

‘Well, here it’s just a small group of women. We meet in the house of a wonderful lady called Marion, who really keeps our noses to the grindstone. Only she wouldn’t let me say that, would she? It’s a cliché.’

‘I won’t tell if you won’t tell. And in Birmingham?’

‘That wasn’t really a group. It was more a class. Run by one of the colleges. But I can’t really remember any of the people in it. I wasn’t very – it was a difficult time. I had my mind on other things. So I never finished the course. But that’s a long time ago – it must be nearly ten years. You forget, don’t you?’

Fran could have reminded her that some memories never died. Those of the love of your life, for instance. No doubt her relationship with Stephen had been one of the things on her mind. ‘Could you give me the teacher’s name?’

‘Lecturer,’ Dilly corrected her, pedantic as McDine, ‘since it was a college, not a school.’

‘Very well, the lecturer. And the college.’

‘Walker. Mary Walker. But she’s married and moved. I actually ran into her at Euston Station once – we had a cup of coffee together.’

‘And you don’t recall her new name? OK, it doesn’t matter,’ Fran declared briskly. ‘It’s part of the college’s legal duties to keep records. So if you can tell me the name…’

‘I thought I had. William Murdock. It was supposed to be an access course for university entrance, but most of us just went for interest’s sake so they closed it down. Or it may have been because Mary left. I don’t know.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Tell me, Dilly, are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Work all right?’

‘Yes!’ She sounded positive for the first time. ‘They’ve brought in an extra security guard. Apparently if I have to cover a story, he’ll look after me.’

‘Excellent!’ Fran said, as if it were news to her. ‘And where are you staying tonight, Dilly?’

‘Has the security camera been fixed at home yet? I’ve had all the locks changed, after all.’

‘Are you absolutely sure you want to stay there on your own?’ Fran squeaked despite herself.

‘I shall be all right.’

‘I’ll do my best to organise a regular police patrol, but rural forces are always stretched to their limits.’ She grasped the nettle. ‘Look, why don’t I ask Tom if that bedroom’s free at his house?’

‘No, thank you. I have Daniel’s feelings to consider, after all.’

‘Does he consider yours, Dilly? Has he invited you to stay with him tonight?’

‘There’s some school function. He won’t be back till late.’

If only Dilly had managed to say, ‘And if he were
the last man on earth I wouldn’t stay with him.’ But she hadn’t.

Fran continued, ‘What about Tom staying in your spare room?’

‘Daniel…’

As if on cue, Tom knocked and entered. Fran pointed to the handset, mouthing ‘Dilly!’

Predictably he held out his hand, then made a praying gesture and finally shrugged when she shook her head. But she held his gaze when she told Dilly, ‘There’s only so much we can do without your cooperation, Dilly. If you want us to help you, you have to help us. Very well, I’ll get on to that college, get a list of students and call you back. Or get one of my team to. OK?’ She cut the call without waiting for a response. ‘Sit down, Tom, and tell me how you’ve so offended Daniel McDine that he won’t let his fiancée anywhere near you.’

He blushed so furiously that anyone else might have deduced that he had debauched the young woman in her own bed. ‘We played Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit – Dilly and me and my housemates. I asked her to lock her room from the inside. I slept at the far end of the house. But she came down to breakfast in her dressing-gown, as we all did, and McDine thought we’d had an orgy. Talk about a Victorian father.’

‘No hanky and zero panky then?’

‘Zero, zilch, whatever – I can’t think of any other zeds,’ he concluded, grinning at himself. ‘Mind you, guv, given half an eyelash of
encouragement I’d have been there. Despite the fact she kept on talking about Steve, the guy she left behind in Brum. You know what,’ he added, ‘I reckon he was as big a control freak as this McDine guy. They met because he told her off about leaving books open and damaging their spines. Him just a student and her the librarian. Can you imagine it?’

She thought back to Stephen’s sad, lined face. Was there something implacable about the set of the jaw, the tightness of the lips? She’d assumed it was the pain of his self-denial that had caused all those frown lines.

‘What’s this about a college and a list of students, then, guv?’

‘It seems she’s forgotten that she was a creative writing student at one time up in Birmingham. You wouldn’t like to phone William Murdock College for me and get a class list, would you? There’s just a chance there might have been a male in the group besotted with Dilly.’

‘I should think they’d all have been besotted with her – I mean, ten years ago she’d have been – well!’ he rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry, guv. What about the teacher?’

‘Female. Mary Walker. Now with a different name and a new address.’