Power on Her Own (32 page)

‘Funny. No one in their right mind'd come then. Parent-time. You know, this morning, it took me twenty minutes to get into your road, let alone park. Just as bad in the afternoon. The mothers start arriving before three: want to chafe the fat, I suppose. And he comes then. God knows where he parks. It's like the bloody dodgems. Someone smashed into my ute the other day. Well, did her more damage than me.'

‘Mine's got a few scars.'

‘Nice little motor like that? That's a shame. Look, the wife's brother knows a bit about cars – might be able to tidy it up a bit.'

‘Would you ask him? It's nothing serious –'

‘Don't want to let it rust. I'll have a word.'

‘So you'll have to talk to Paul after all,' Maz said. ‘Giles turned over the whole of the loft – got absolutely filthy. My goodness, it's time we threw some of it away – the ceiling'll be coming down if we're not careful. Then he remembered: Paul had this idea of writing a history of the Brayfield Baptists BB. Golly: what do they call that? Alliteration?'

Kate's smile was perfunctory. Or was it just that her face still wasn't working?

‘Fancy some lunch?'

‘No, thanks. I'd better be getting back. We've got this bug at work – half the squad's off sick.'

‘Tell you what, I'll get on the phone to Paul – get him to drop it round to you. That'd save you some time.'

‘No – honestly, it's all right. I can pop into his college and see him there.'

‘If you can find him! Seriously, you mustn't interrupt his classes. It's almost as bad as interrupting a service! And he never answers his college phone – he says he's tied up with students all the time. I might as well have a direct line to his answerphone. I've got to talk to him about this weekend – he's coming over to look after the kids while Giles and I have a sinful break. I won this prize, did I tell you? In Manchester, of all places! I'll tell him then.'

‘Does he need to? I shall still be here, after all.'

‘No arguments. You look washed out enough as it is without looking for extra work.'

‘I'm sorry, Gaffer. I've really let you down.'

‘I don't see why you're making such a song and dance about it, Kate. So what if she phones him? All you've got is a busy-body knowing a bit more than we'd like him to know. I'd much rather he didn't go shoving his oar in. But I have been known to put the fear of God into people.' He smiled. She suspected this was his way of apologising.

She shook her head. ‘There's much more, Graham. It was Paul who scrabbled round under the floorboards to fish out Cassie's diamonds lying flat. I thought I heard something fall then. In fact, he even checked his organiser to see if he'd lost anything. Alf found this under the same floorboards when he put in the wiring for my security light.' She laid the photograph on his desk. ‘And before you say any one of Alf's lads could have left it there, you ought to know something else. Paul's turned his attention from my front garden to my front window. And the times he finds it most convenient to appear at my house are lunch break and the end of afternoon school.'

He nodded. ‘Go on.'

She shook her head. ‘I'd rather you worked it out. Maz is my friend.'

‘We're not talking about Maz, here. We're talking about Paul. Come on, spit it out.'

‘If we're looking for a paedophile, Graham – I think Paul might just fit our bill.'

He'd taken charge of her, making her coffee and feeding her sandwiches from the neat little lunch-box his wife had packed.

‘We'll go and get something else in a few minutes. Not from the canteen. But you're like a ghost, Kate – I don't want you passing out all over me.'

‘I don't know what's the matter with me these days.'

‘Seen the shrink yet? It's all right. I've a full report on that item in your post. Cope had prioritised it. Not that any of us expect to get much from it. God knows we've got little enough so far.'

‘Not even a box of files.'

‘Not even a box of files. But I'll get Selby and Roper round there – a pleasant little reception committee. Unless you want to be involved?'

‘I've started so I'll finish, like the man said. All he needs to know is that we're conducting a possibly routine enquiry into something that happened ten years ago. I'd like to take Colin along with me, if I may.' She ran through the scenario in her head. It didn't seem unmanageable. And then she remembered what Maz had been saying. She put her sandwich down, half got to her feet.

‘Kate?' His hand on her arm, he gently pushed her back into the chair.

‘It's now one-thirty on Friday,' she said. ‘And Paul's looking after the three Manse children all weekend.'

Graham looked at her hard. ‘Are you afraid he'll try to interfere with any of them?'

Kate got to her feet, ringing her hands. ‘No. Yes. I don't know. He loves them, there's no doubt of that. The classic favourite uncle.'

‘Is that what they think?'

‘They love him. But he does touch them, try to get close to them. And they don't like it. Maybe it's just because he doesn't fully realise they're too old for cuddles. Or maybe there's something a hell of a lot more sinister. The younger daughter has nightmares. She wakes screaming,' she added flatly.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don't like the sound of that. You'll be there as usual, this weekend, won't you, Kate?'

‘But I sleep at night!'

‘And no doubt he'll go home at night.'

‘And I can't be with them all the time!'

‘Hey, calm down. Let's try to work this out. Is there a match this weekend?'

‘Against Halesowen. I'll invite him and the kids. Whether they'll want to come –'

‘Miss seeing your first home win? Of course they'll be there.'

‘But what about the rest of the time?'

‘Safety in numbers, I'd have thought. So what we have to worry about is if he splits them up.'

‘Which can only be at night, surely?'

‘Possibly. I don't like this. Leave me to think it through. I think my brain got addled when I knocked my head. You and Colin go and get the files. When you get back we'll scan them fast as we can. We've got to get the Family Protection people talking to the boys in the Brigade – find the source of this –' he flipped the photograph with his index finger – ‘assuming, of course, that they have the same source. Which I think, for the moment, we must. I take it the current files are available?'

‘Giles'll have those. You've got his number?'

He nodded.

‘And there's Royston, my next-door-neighbour's son. He left the BB for some reason his mother couldn't – or wouldn't – tell me. In fact, whatever it was, the whole family stopped going to the Baptist church. Might be worth someone talking to him, too.'

‘Right.' He made a note. ‘Off you go then. I don't need to tell you to be careful.' He smiled, but dropped his head and was already writing when she closed the door of his office.

Colin hauled on the hand-brake and stared at the college carpark barrier: ‘How do we get in here then? Told you we should have come in something more official than this.' He patted the steering-wheel of the unmarked Rover. ‘We could have dumped it on double-yellow lines.'

‘Don't worry. Here's someone now. Except he could be a job's-worth.'

The ID worked, however, and they were soon nosing into a slot. There were quite a lot of free spaces.

‘Looks like your educated elite don't work Friday afternoons,' Colin said.

‘Ah – this is the management section. Looks as if the plebs are still toiling away. Let's hope Paul's one of them.'

They locked up, walking briskly towards the entrance. Students singly and in groups drifted around. Many of the girls were swathed from head to toe in black. Kate thought of her rape victim. The men were nothing like so self-effacing, jostling and shoving.

A middle-aged receptionist ruled the foyer. She smiled, checked their IDs, asked them to sit and offered them coffee. They shook their heads, and sat, staring at their hands.

‘You're not happy about this, are you? Best let me do the talking, maybe,' Colin said.

‘Might look a bit unnatural. After all, I know him quite well. Ah!'

The receptionist was returning. They got to their feet, smiling.

‘Bad news, I'm afraid. Mr Taylor left for a dental appointment ten minutes ago. He's unlikely to be back.'

‘We'd like his address, then, please,' Colin said. ‘This is a very urgent matter – a matter of life and death,' he added, persuasively.

The receptionist bridled. ‘I'm not at liberty to disclose such information. I'll have to refer you to Personnel.'

Who were at lunch.

‘Come on, Kate – you must have some idea where he lives! You've been out with the man!' Colin flared his fingers in frustration.

‘Isn't it odd? The question of going to his place never arose. No problem, anyway. I'll phone Maz. I'll have to grovel and say I should have taken her advice in the first place.'

‘So much the better – people usually like to be in the right.'

‘Why, I was talking to him only half an hour ago. Yes, I said you were going to pop into college to, see him. I didn't say what for, though, since you'd told me this was confidential.'

‘Thanks. I'll have to catch him when he comes back from the dentist.'

There was the tiniest pause. It sounded as if the dentist had been a hastily invented excuse.

‘Oh, right. Of course. Anyway, you'll be able to make him a cup of tea when he gets back, won't you? Here's the address.'

They parked behind a crop of black plastic sacks awaiting the maw of the dustcart. They'd overtaken it a few hundred yards back: the sacks wouldn't have to wait long.

‘He's done remarkably well for himself,' Colin observed, looking at the cottage behind the high wall. ‘This is practically the country. These teachers must get a good screw if he can afford to live here.'

‘I think that could be better rephrased,' Kate said, smiling sourly. ‘But they're not all that well-paid. We were talking about it once. So how come he lives in a posh little place like this?'

‘Lottery win?'

She shrugged. ‘Colin – if he's been on all these camps with the BB, he could have used his video camera and sold the results. He tried to film the kids the first time we trained. It was a nice evening and they were all stripped down to shorts.'

‘And you thought he wanted to do it for his holiday records. Kate, you were a bit slow, weren't you?'

She nodded. ‘Or maybe a bit fast now in jumping to conclusions. I don't know. Let's go and see if he's recovered from his dental treatment. He's back, all right. That's his car.'

The engine was still warm – just.

They exchanged glances.

‘Colin – I'm going to do the talking, on my own. And you're going to check those sacks aren't full of files. Sorry.'

‘OK. Unless you'd prefer to do it the other way round, seeing as you know him.'

She looked at the cottage, bland in its rather dull garden. There was a depressed air about it – flowers that should have been dead-headed, the grass over-long. To be fair, he'd been too busy painting her window to do much for himself.

‘When it comes down to it, who knows anyone?' she asked. ‘OK. She flipped an invisible coin. ‘Look, it's heads. I'll do Paul.'

She set off up the path.

Paul answered her ring promptly. If he was surprised to see her he didn't show it. She hoped Maz hadn't phoned to warn him that he should officially have been at the dentist's. She hadn't wanted Maz involved at all – Paul had obviously been a cherished, perhaps spoiled, baby far too long.

‘Kate?'

‘Paul. Obviously I'm not here just to thank you for all your painting. It's work, too. Shall we –?' She gestured.

He stepped back, but with some reluctance. Just puzzlement, perhaps. ‘Work?' He stopped just inside the front door. There was no hall – they were in his living room.

‘My work. There's some rumour about Brayfield BB – things going wrong ten to fifteen years ago. Nothing serious, so far as I know. But we need to have the files to check who was in charge then. Giles says you've probably got them.'

‘My God! Have I still got them? Oh, I was young and crazy once, Kate – had this idea of writing a history of the chapel. And then I realised that history's more than listing facts in chronological order – that's if you want anyone to read it! I suppose I must still have the files somewhere.' He looked around the room doubtfully.

So did Kate. However good he was with a shovel or a paintbrush, Paul was hardly house proud. There were newspapers in a couple of piles at least two feet high – months of dust-harbouring paper. They'd have toppled if anyone had added so much as another freebie. There were other piles, too – books, notes, letters. The bookshelves were crammed, with books stacked in all directions.