Power on Her Own (27 page)

‘– was Helen Carter who saw to you?'

‘Sorry? Who? When?'

‘This morning, Kate. When you were throwing up in the bog. Was it Helen Carter who saw to you?'

‘Wish I knew. I never caught her name. And I'd like to thank her – she was very kind.'

‘Kind and –?'

‘Very pretty, beautifully turned out. Looked more like a model than a policewoman.'

‘That'd be Helen. Face that launched a thousand squad cars. Christ, Kate, one look at her and I wish I were a lesbian.'

She'd have to eat again before she drove anywhere, that was certain. She was still unpleasantly wobbly. An early lunch, then. And then get on the road.

She'd not noticed before, but it was another pleasant day. If she bought a sandwich she could always eat it in the park – maybe even look at the more interesting-looking park the Moseley end of Kings Heath. First she looked in on her house. No post, except a couple of bills. Time to get the payments for the utilities on monthly direct debit. She could do that while she was here. And hang the rest of the upstairs curtains. And see if the paint was dry enough to fit the dining-room curtain rail.

No! She had to check out that house. Today.

In the end, she compromised. She made a little timetable on the back of the gas bill. 12.00–1.30 – lunch; 1.30–4.00, hunting for the house; 4.00–5.00, domestic chores, including buying a vacuum cleaner and dusters. Right. Start with sorting the bills, then off to Sainsbury's for some portable lunch.

She found a sheltered bench, from which she could see nothing but grass. She heard her joints relaxing, they did it so crunchily, one vertebra after another. My God, she'd been under that sort of pressure, had she? A squirrel, flowing along an ash tree branch, agreed, chittering at her as she threw it some crumbs of cherry cake. The sooner she got herself to therapy the better. Except she suspected it would mean confronting everything, including maggots, head on. She'd have to talk about Robin. How she still saw him, still smelt his aftershave: Colin sometimes used the same one. How she saw the car heading for them, saw him hurling her out of the way. Saw his shattered body. Saw the maggots.

At least there'd be support. She leaned back. Another vertebra cracked. So when was the last time she'd run, not with the kids, but for her own pleasure? Before she got involved with the BB, that was when. Maybe a lifetime ago, perhaps a couple of weeks. She'd have to remedy that. An unfit officer was a hazard to herself and others in the team. Look at her this morning: what if she'd been in the middle of checking out a scene of crime?

No, no more of this. She screwed up the wrappers, swigged the last drop of water, and headed for her car.

Her slow progress and constant three-point-turning didn't seem to attract anyone's attention. She found neat modern culs-de-sac, newly-privatised council ones. Thirties, fifties, sixties, seventies culs-de-sac. By four she was ready to give up – should have done so if she meant to stick to her schedule. But there were two more. Milton Avenue and Leavensbrook Close. Flipping a mental coin, she turned back to Leavensbrook.

And found it!

Yes, an expensive late eighties development, all manicured grass and newly-painted wood, with a startling crop of window-boxes, tubs and pseudo-wheelbarrows full of winter pansies. Any cars were up-market – hers Audis and BMWs, waiting to be joined by his. There was a rash of Austrian blinds at the bedroom windows – hadn't someone said they reminded him of old ladies who'd gone to the lav and got their petticoats caught in their knickers? She grinned at the thought. Nice to grin again. She sighed. Her back cracked its relief as she sat back. A job well done.

Now all she had to do was find the house in question.

At least this was something she was good at. She went systematically from house to house with an easy line on looking for one Cassie Wright. She even had a convincing-looking slightly scrumpled envelope with a hand-written note on it. Her envelope, her hand-writing. Most of the houses were still empty. Those with cars in front were occupied by a nice set of pleasant, helpful housewives, all, to judge by the smells emanating from the kitchens, using up-market cookbooks to provide something for hubby's tea. Not partners, but husbands, in this sort of cul-de-sac.

Making a note of the houses which looked as if they were awaiting their owners' return, she went back to the car. Did she risk a quick peer through letter-boxes? Of course. Four had those bristly draught-excluder fringes round them. Two had both draught-excluders and flaps of something heavy tacked across them. She made a further note, and looked around her. No, from this position it wasn't possible to guess which house her unwitting informant lived in. She'd settle down in the car and wait for the commuters' return.

It was her bladder that let her down in the end. She could hardly go and squat behind a neatly-shaved bush to relieve herself, and she couldn't recall seeing anything as vulgar as a public loo in an area like this, so she'd have to go home. But she could come back later.

Alf and his crew were just packing up when she got home. She fled upstairs before engaging in any conversation, however, and by the time she'd got back down it was only Alf who was left. Since he had a bill for the fence to slip her, it wasn't surprising he'd hung back. She walked out into the desert the poor garden had become to inspect his handwork. Whether he'd used one or not, she suspected she could have laid a spirit-level on the fence and found the bubble slap in the middle of the lines. When she fished out her chequebook, he looked awkward. He'd rather have cash, wouldn't he? But she could scarcely endorse the Black Economy. She wrote out the cheque quickly, adding another fifty. He looked at it askance. ‘A little extra for bed-shifting,' she said. ‘If you need cash to buy the security light and fittings, let me know.'

‘Could do with it in the next couple of days,' he said. ‘Autumn coming in, work's getting slack.'

She nodded. She'd seen what happened to families when the seasonal work ran out.

‘You wouldn't tackle gutters, would you?'

She was just leaving for her surveillance stint when the phone rang. Maz. Could she manage a little ad hoc baby-sitting this evening? From about eight?

She could hardly refuse, could she?

‘I'll be there as close to eight as I can,' she said cautiously, ‘but I've got to finish something for work, first.'

‘You're as bad as Paul,' Maz laughed. ‘You two could have a little competition about who works longer hours.'

‘I'd back your Giles, myself,' Kate said. ‘See you later.'

The phone rang again, straight away. It went dead as soon as she answered. It couldn't, could it, have been Graham caught
in flagrante
, as it were, by his wife? She waited another five minutes to see if the caller would try again. At last, setting the answerphone, she set off to Leavensbrook Close.

She'd reckoned without the rush-hour traffic. Cursing herself for sticking to the main roads, she turned into rat-runs. They were just as solid.

By the time she got to it, the close was neatly packed with cars. If she had a drive, let alone a garage, she thought bitterly, she wouldn't clutter the road. She thought of the morning and mid-afternoon chaos outside her house. What if she had her front garden flattened to provide an off-road parking-space? Paul would love to do that for her. The trouble was, she thought dourly, as she inched into a space, that Joe Public would either ignore her need to get in or out – or, more likely, park there when she wasn't in it. Meanwhile, she told herself grimly, just on the off-chance she'd better look at the cars, too, just on the off-chance she might recognise one. Like Cope's Mondeo, maybe.

This time her inquiries took longer, but were no more fruitful. Presumably because their womenfolk were busy making last minute adjustments to the
haute cuisine
that was to constitute their supper, a lot of men answered the front doors she knocked. Sighing, she turned back to the car. Next time she'd provide herself with an excuse to ask for the lady of the house – that'd be the terminology round here; next time she'd crack it.

Kate made it to the Manse with three minutes to spare, to be greeted by an anxious Giles and a heady smell of cooking fruit.

‘We've got tons of pears,' he said, as he shrugged on his coat. ‘We're stewing them in red wine.'

‘An Elizabeth David recipe?' she asked, straight-faced.

Fortunately there was something more solid simmering on the hob: a curry, authentic to judge by the smell.

‘Naan in the freezer or cook yourself some rice,' said Maz, grabbing her coat from the kitchen table. ‘Kids in bed soon as you can organise it. Paul's promised to pop round later to keep you company.'

By whose invitation, Kate wondered silently.

She'd washed up and was in Tim's bedroom, being allowed to run George V round the track, when she felt, rather than heard, someone approaching from behind. Not Tim. He was fiddling with the HST's coupling. Not one of the girls – one was in bed, the other singing in the shower. If she did what she wanted, she'd flip whoever it was over her back on to the railway layout – a pity the locos weren't several sizes larger. Instead, she simply dodged sideways at what she judged to be the right moment, leaving Paul in an ungainly sprawl across the track, to Tim's loud annoyance.

‘It's taken us ages to fit this lot together, and you go and knock the lot off. Honestly, you could have damaged it badly, you know.'

‘Sorry, Tim. I seem to have tripped on something. How's my favourite nephew, anyway?' Paul moved round the table to kiss Tim and ruffle his hair. Tim acquiesced, but showed no signs of welcoming his uncle's affection. Any day now he'd be embarrassed by it, and within a couple of years would completely avoid any such display.

Kate watched, smiling wryly: kids weren't cuddly long enough.

Paul caught her eye. ‘You realise you're doing my job?' His tone wasn't as light and mocking as she'd expected.

‘Job?'

‘Baby-sitting.'

Tim pushed past him: ‘That's because we're not babies any more. Kate's – Kate's
kid-watching
,' he declared. ‘Could you change those points, Kate? They're sticking.'

‘You're too old to sit on my knee and have a story read?' Locking his fingers across Tim's chest, Paul pulled him back towards him.

Tim pulled away. ‘I should have thought that was obvious,' he said loftily.

Paul grimaced. ‘See how the mighty are fallen,' he said. ‘There was I, for years the patcher of knees, provider of pocket money, fielder at cricket, and generally useful uncle, and now I'm redundant. Well,' he added, his face becoming lugubrious, ‘maybe the pocket money's redundant too.'

Tim was too busy with Duck to reply.

The three children finally in bed and lights officially out, Kate wandered downstairs. What she wanted was her bed, but clearly etiquette demanded that she talk at least for a while to Paul. She found him in the kitchen – a bonus, since she could take a chair opposite him without appearing to be picky about where she sat.

‘You all right?' he asked almost at once.

‘Fine,' she said. Yes, it was true, she did feel fine. Her outburst this morning seemed to have purged her, and what she was sure would prove a successful afternoon's work was already beginning to heal.

‘You're sure?' He peered anxiously at her face. ‘You look very pale. Are you sure you won't have a drink?'

‘I certainly wouldn't say no to a drink. But I'm perfectly OK. Maybe a bit tired,' she admitted. Yes, now she came to think of it, she was knackered.

‘Tired?' he prompted, reaching glasses and gin. ‘Had a bad day at work?'

‘Very good, actually.' Yes, all things considered it had been excellent. ‘Perhaps I just haven't got over the weekend yet. All that football – I'm surprised the kids could kick a ball on Sunday! And then I dashed down to collect my clothes. Time I really settled into my house. Made it my home. Cheers!' she toasted him. ‘And thanks for all your help.'

‘No problem. You seem to work very hard.'

‘No harder than a lot of professionals. No harder than you, probably.' Though it did occur to her that recently he'd been devoting a great deal of time to her painting, rather than his work at college. ‘And there are the good days when things come together. My colleague Colin, now. He was looking quite washed out recently, but he gets the right verdict the other day and suddenly he's leaping round like a spring lamb. Bet you're the same when one of your kids finally gets the hang of something or gets decent grades in the exams.'

He smiled. ‘They've got such problems, these kids. So deprived … What on earth's that?'

Kate was on her feet and running. ‘One of Jenny's nightmares.'