Double Fault (3 page)

The call was answered first ring. Thank God for the years of practice in giving succinct details. His ex-colleagues were as fully briefed as he could manage by the time the call was over.

Pulses racing but now, he realized, with stress, not with the effort of running, he pulled his car across the car park exit. No one was to leave – or confuse matters by coming in – until Livvie was found. After all, she might well have simply got bored and climbed into what she thought was her father's car to take a nap. Or she might have wanted to pet that dog of Dan's. Unsurprisingly, Zac, a model of calm in normal circumstances, had abandoned his charges and was running round frantically, terror less than a heartbeat away, dragging car doors open and yelling Livvie's name at the top of his voice.

Being penned in drove the mothers into collective hysterical anger, some bizarrely threatening Mark with all sorts of legal action. But by now he'd been joined by Jayne, who'd swiftly understood what he was doing; she produced her iPhone and offered to take contact details of anyone who genuinely had to leave.

‘Otherwise do what Mark says: stay where you are until the police arrive. Heavens, woman,' she snapped at a virago of a Mercedes 4x4 driver whose language would have shocked a street kid, ‘imagine if it was your child that was lost!'

Mercedes Woman refused – unbelievably citing the Data Protection Act – to give any personal information and threatened to ram Mark's car unless he moved it. He raised his hand like an old-fashioned traffic cop. It was amazing how quickly the lingo returned: ‘Just return to your vehicle, madam, and secure your child inside it until further notice.'

She opened her mouth, ready to continue her rant, but gratifyingly closed it and did as she was told, even though she mouthed off about crazy old men as she walked away.

Boosted by the trivial victory, he raised his voice over the hubbub with sufficient force – at last – to sound authoritative. ‘I want all you mothers to collect your child and then go to your car and wait for further instructions.' When a couple hesitated, he snapped, ‘Now!' But his voice was kinder as he continued, ‘And you kids who are waiting to be collected, get back on the tennis court and stay with Zac's helpers. OK, guys?'

The teenagers in charge looked stunned, tearful. But one girl put up a hand as if she was back in the classroom. ‘What do you want us to do?'

‘Resume the drills, anything to keep the little ones together. Don't let any of them out of your sight. OK? Excellent.' He cupped his ear – two or three vehicles, by the sound of it, were already on their way. He grabbed Zac by the shoulders and made him listen.

The dear old blues and twos. Thank God.

S
ergeant Tom Arkwright, about to become an inspector over in Tunbridge Wells any moment now, but currently one of the most valued – and certainly the most loved – of the members of her Major Crime Review team, stopped hurtling two at a time down the stairs so that Fran could make her way up them, considerably more slowly. The moment she saw him she snatched her hand away from the rail, but then she grimaced: he knew she needed its support.

‘Don't look at me like that,' she said, the affection in her voice taking away any possible rebuke. ‘It's only this gammy leg that's kept me on the payroll, I reckon.'

‘And got you that commendation,' Tom said, turning so that he could walk back up with her. When you were in your thirties, a few stairs here or there didn't matter.

‘Commendation, schommendation.' She was pleased he didn't think he should offer her his arm. He had made sure, however, that she was on the side with the handrail, which she needed by the time she reached the last three steps. ‘I bet they were within a whisker of making me redundant, but when you're run over in the course of duty and the media get hold of the story, it doesn't look good if they put the skids under you.' They wouldn't even have dreamed of it in Cosmo Dix's day. Dear Cosmo, king of Human Resources, but an absolute emperor when it came to PR. But he'd seen, as he sepulchrally said, the writing on the wall and had started to work in what Fran suspected was a voluntary capacity for a mental health charity.

As if he had all the time in the world, Tom leant against the wall and said, ‘I should think not! You saved that woman's life—'

‘All I did was act on instinct. I wasn't heroic. I didn't calculate risks. Hell, if I had, would I have volunteered to break a leg,
at my age
?' she added with a grin. ‘With the wedding in the offing, too?'

‘All the same, your instincts were better than most folk's would have been. And after the chewing over the media gave your old man, a bit of kindness from them to you was worth having.'

‘Humph. Any kindness was courtesy of young Dilly Pound, that nice girl from TVInvicta News.' She paused meaningfully: briefly it had been clear that Dilly would have preferred to hook up with Tom rather than the official fiancé she eventually married. Why not? The clean good looks and gym-honed figure would have attracted any young woman, and yet they made women her age disconcertingly maternal. ‘Another three months and another nine days' wonder featuring someone else, and I shall be out on my ear, believe me. I just hope I can protect the rest of the team. Though I suppose old cases never die …'

‘Most people would be glad to go—'

‘It's a good job you didn't add anything else, young Tom. References to age are my prerogative.'

He chuckled with her. They were so secure in their friendship he never bothered calling her
ma'am
except in public, though he rarely called her Fran within possible earshot of the others in the team. ‘Would I dare? But you've done your thirty years of service, you've got a good team together who are more than capable of reviewing unsolved crimes, and now you've finally moved into your new house and you've got the wedding to think about – well, take the redundancy or retirement package, whichever is better, and run, that's what most people would do.' He was about to say something else but didn't. He would in his own good time, Tom being Tom.

She leant against the banister-rail, easing the weight off the injured leg. It was only will power that had made her discard her walking stick, will power and a fear that she could still be pensioned off, this time on the grounds of ill-health. Now it was more than will power that stopped her even limping – her body had reacted with such resentment to her lopsided gait that half the muscles of her lower back had only last weekend gone into such severe spasms that she'd fetched up in bed popping heavy-duty painkillers. Thank goodness for her lovely NHS physio, Anna, who'd stretched everything back into a semblance of normality and issued her with a long list of exercises.

She managed a smile. ‘I'll go when I'm good and ready, Tom. Between you and me, I want Mark to establish his routine first so we don't tread on each other's toes. He's started playing tennis, and if I was limping round the place killing time he'd feel too guilty to go without me.'

He nodded, implying a mixture of understanding and exasperation. ‘So how is he? Completely recovered?'

‘Yes, though he still sees the shrink once a month or so. But shedding responsibility has made him a new man. So long as he doesn't get any more stress …'

‘Good. One thing less for you to worry about.' Checking his watch, he turned to go. Already three steps down, he asked cheekily, ‘But between the two of us, how are things really between you and our esteemed DCI Murray? You're so polite to him I guess you're not the best of friends.'

‘Me and Sean? Like this.' She crossed her fingers.

‘My auntie says you're supposed to cross your fingers behind your
back
, Fran, when you're fibbing.' And he scooted before she could think of anything to say.

She progressed more slowly to her office. It wasn't so much her leg that protested at her little peregrinations as the muscles that her limp forced into extra work; they stiffened as soon as she stopped. The physio had assured her that this was normal, and had suggested, though possibly not seriously, that she might consider the sort of ice bath that England cricketers plunged into after a day's play. As it was, Fran did all the exercises she'd been prescribed as assiduously as if she'd been training for the Olympics.

Alice, her secretary, produced a cup of tea as soon as she'd parked herself at her desk. ‘Any news?' she asked, waving a packet of biscuits under Fran's nose. With her own middle-aged tussle with calories, she might have known better.

‘Get thee behind me. However will I get into my wedding dress?'

‘Spanx, of course. Double layer if necessary. Any news about Mr Wren?'

In the very short period during which their careers had intersected, Mark's chief bugbear had been an acting chief constable dismissed by his many detractors as being as tiny as his name suggested. Most of Fran's generation of officers had service to others in their DNA; in Wren's case, it seemed to have been replaced by forelock tugging to politicians who insisted that cuts could be made in policing while improvements in performance were made at the same time – and all this with a twenty per cent cut in their budget. At least one honourable chief constable in another county had resigned, declaring that he and his officers were being asked to do the impossible. Fran had colleagues in other areas who'd been made redundant and then, on the quiet, been invited to reapply for lesser but vital jobs with much worse conditions of service. A chief superintendent back as office junior? Not her. OK, she exaggerated – but not her, anyway.

Alice was waiting.

‘Should there be news?'

‘Rumour has it he's about to flit the coop.' She flapped little wings.

‘Bloody hell!' Fran was genuinely shocked. ‘Why on earth? You're winding me up!'

‘Honestly. Thought you might have heard something – in your position.'

And what position might that be? ‘I've heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. My God, I hope it's not true.' Not because she wouldn't be delighted to see the back of him, but it could be a disaster. ‘Imagine the headlines:
More Trouble at the Top Rocks Kent Force
! And worse,' she added dourly. The media would rehash all the stories: the old chief's major error of judgement resulting in the death of his deputy – drama there in itself. And then the business of Mark and his daughter, now officially a criminal – just what Mark needed now he'd finally achieved relative anonymity.

‘If the chief goes, isn't the usual policy for everyone eligible to have a temporary upgrading?' Alice asked, with a look Fran didn't quite understand. ‘I mean, I'm surprised they haven't got a new deputy or assistant chief, at least.'

‘Budget – top brass costs more. In any case, what's
usual
these days? What's your money on the Home Secretary discovering a force doesn't need a chief constable at all? Or will it be the new elected Commissioners that discover that? Hell, don't get me started on how much money that little venture into democracy is going to cost!' She took a deep breath and continued, with an ironic smile, ‘Or maybe we'll be privatized – yes, one or two forces are in discussions with the management of security firms. And there's also talk of us sharing resources with another force when there's a major crime,' she added, dropping her voice confidentially.

‘Yes, Essex,' Alice agreed casually, as if the top secret information was general knowledge.

Without missing a beat, Fran continued, ‘In the meantime, we just do our best – which in your case, Alice, involves removing those biscuits from my presence and passing me those files …'

The old chief constable had always wanted Fran to revamp the Major Crime Review Section – in other words, checking on cold cases to see if, possibly with the aid of new technology, they could be solved, even decades after the event. Wren seemed to like the idea, and had asked her to mentor a DCI on secondment from the Met, Sean Murray. She'd never understood exactly why he'd been parachuted in, but since the senior ranks were so depleted by resignation, sickness or even maternity leave, she hadn't argued. When she and her leg were seriously desk-bound, she'd got him to chair team meetings, take on her role in visiting crime scenes in person, and even handle the press a couple of times. However, he'd not won many hearts there, and she was looking out for a media relations course to make him more user-friendly.

More friendly full-stop.

Actually, she wouldn't argue with young Tom's private and highly technical description of him:
weird
. Sean fizzed with some suppressed anger, so potent she wondered how he'd managed to get through psychological screening. There was, however, nothing on his record to suggest any problems, either with colleagues or with the public. And she had to admit, all the reports she'd generously let him write up had been exemplary, as had the minutes she'd graciously left him to take at interdisciplinary meetings she really couldn't bear to attend.

In other words, she'd exploited him something shocking, if not badly enough for him to make a valid complaint to his mate Wren, or anyone else for that matter. After all, he was amassing valuable experience, possibly even while sneering at her lameness. As for that, and her quasi-hibernation in her office perusing old files, her response was what she'd told Mark when he'd raised eyebrows over supper: as she'd actually been part of the original investigation team for some of the cases she thought might warrant reopening, she was best placed to revisit the investigations. So while her fitter colleagues literally did the leg work, she'd spent the time she'd freed up rereading pile upon pile of case notes, and generally, with the miracle of hindsight, of course, rethinking the lines of enquiry that her bosses back then had wrongly insisted on pursuing. However much Sean Murray rubbed up the wrong way colleagues he persisted in seeing as country bumpkins, their progress had been excellent, with the end in sight for most of their investigations so far.