Staying Power (16 page)

It was. ‘I saw some of it: it's even floodlit.' Where did these people get their money? ‘Does Isobel really do it all herself? But then,' she added sourly, ‘I suppose she's got nothing else to do. Except for housework – such a big house for three people …'

‘Don't you believe it. Committee woman, that's Isobel.'

‘
Committees
! But the woman never opens her mouth! Or just not with Howard there?'

He shrugged. ‘The word is she's remarkably effective, in an apologetic sort of way.' He leaned back in his chair. ‘I'm going to have to declare an interest in this, Kate. Which means either you'll report direct to Rodney Neville or that he'll take the case off us altogether. Don't look like that: the wind may change and you wouldn't want your face stuck like that forever.'

In response she crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue.

When they'd stopped laughing, she asked, ‘Have you had any more thoughts about that memo you're alleged to have sent?'

He shook his head, his face sad-lined again. ‘Have a word with Fatima if you can. Try and persuade her to come to me. Or to go, if she must, to an FCA.'

She stared. Yet another new acronym!

‘First Contact Adviser. The latest initiative to stamp out harassment. If you have a problem you phone one for support and advice. These are their cards.' He produced a sheaf. The cards were bigger than the credit-type DVU contact cards, the size of an A4 sheet folded into quarters. ‘Drop one on to each desk, will you? Perhaps the knowledge that such people exist will be enough to curb Selby.'

‘You'd rather stop him than stamp on him?' she asked.

He shrugged. ‘He's not a bad officer. Overall. And if neither you nor Fatima will make a complaint I don't see any other way. Oh, Kate.' Hands covering his face, he sounded exhausted already. No, he sounded as if he was crying for help.

Anyone else and she'd have been round the desk to put her arms round him. Already on her feet, she stopped herself. In the eyes of that photo on the desk, a hug might have been a hanging offence. And no doubt Graham had put the photo there to remind him of exactly that.

Perhaps they'd both been praying for it: the phone started to ring. He clicked it on to hold.

‘I'll see you at lunchtime for a quick half,' she said. ‘You need a break.'

He bent to burrow in his briefcase, coming up with a neat sandwich box full of neat sandwiches. ‘I've got lunch.'

She bent to pick up and shake his waste-bin. ‘I've got just the place for it.'

It was while she was distributing the First Contact Advisers cards that it occurred to her that she'd forgotten to mention to Graham that she'd left at the Sandersons' the box in which she'd taken the cheese straws. She'd told Isobel she'd come and collect it at some unspecified ‘sometime'. Isobel had simply told her her phone number: ‘If I'm in the garden I don't always hear the front door bell.'

‘Yes, she's always out there – all weathers,' Howard had said. ‘The evening's the best time to catch us.'

All very affable. Except that he'd said ‘us'.

So it would have been good to have Graham's advice.

‘Wonderful!' Cope exploded, charging into the office with a note. ‘The wretched woman's only been in the squad five minutes and now she's gone home sick. You women – you've got no stamina, have you?'

‘I'd like to see any of us fasting all day and still managing to shift the work she does,' Colin said.

‘Ah! That'll be it, I suppose. No food. Never did anyone any good trying to work on an empty stomach. Can't she have a few nibbles and not tell the priest?'

Colin laughed: ‘I think you've missed the point, Gaffer.'

‘Is there any indication that it's the fasting that's the problem?' Kate asked. ‘I must say, if it is, we probably haven't made it any easier for her, feeding our faces in here at all hours.' She picked up the styrofoam cup from Fatima's desk. ‘And leaving this sort of “present” – my God, it's more like a specimen for the Path. Lab. than coffee.' She shuddered and – OK, it would destroy whatever point Fatima had been trying to make – put it down on Selby's desk.

‘Are you saying we ought to manage without a cup of coffee all day? You got to be joking.'

‘Did I say that, Selby? No, I said there were ways of making it easier – if, indeed, that's what the problem is.'

‘It could be,' Colin said, seriously. ‘After all, she came in here right as rain twenty minutes ago, sat down at her desk and seemed to be working. And then you come in with your bacon buttie, Merv, and off she goes.'

It took Kate a moment to register that Merv was Selby: she'd never heard anyone use his first name before.

‘Did she say anything to you before she went off? After all, you were on your own with her when she actually went,' Colin asked.

‘If you're saying I had anything to do with it—'

‘I'm not saying anything. I'm just asking. She's a nice kid. We're just trying to see if we can do anything that'll make it easier for her to come back to work. Anyone know when Ramadan ends?' Colin looked round.

‘Round about Christmas, I think,' Kate said. ‘But all this is speculation. I'll get her address from Personnel and pop round and see her tonight. We might as well know where we stand before we start agonising about coffee. But maybe we ought to have a self-denying ordinance where food's concerned. The place smelt worse than a chippie the other day. Eating sarnies at our desk's one thing: but the canteen's the place if we want a full fry-up.'

‘Better to eat away from our desks, anyway,' Colin added.

Cope looked round the room. No one seemed to have anything to say against that. He nodded. ‘OK. Seems reasonable. Now, it's time we did a bit of work. Kate—'

Selby pulled himself upright in his chair. ‘Are you saying that's an order, Gaffer?'

Cope shifted. Wriggled, more like. ‘It can't be an order, like, can it? Because it's just between ourselves.'

‘So there's no one can say it's wrong if anyone does eat up here?'

‘Well – not really.'

‘What about a bit of democracy, Sir?' Kate chipped in. Clearly the man had the backbone of the average louse. ‘If it's what everyone else in the office wants, it doesn't seem right for one person to go against them.'

‘Show of hands?' Colin prompted. ‘Right. A clear majority, I'd say. And – before you ask – not just when Fatima's fasting.'

‘Hmph, I don't know. Next you'll be wanting a non-smoking office,' Cope muttered. ‘Hey, how long are you going to let that phone ring? We're supposed to be working, not chafing the fat.'

Kate fielded it, but covered the mouthpiece. ‘One more thing. I don't think it's on, calling Fatima “Fatty”. It's personal and hurtful even if it patently isn't true. OK, everyone?'

Most people looked plain puzzled, but there was general muttered agreement. And she returned to the call.

It was Rodney Neville's secretary. Kate was to present herself at ten-thirty prompt.

‘She didn't quite tell me to clean my teeth and brush my hair,' Kate grumbled to Colin as she redistributed the work she'd hoped Fatima would do that day. ‘But she might as well have done.'

‘Don't forget to polish your shoes, either. What's this abrupt little note about precise lists of the items stolen from this chemist's? You don't want to embarrass me by making me list Tampax and suppositories, do you?'

‘If that's what it takes, you can mention Dutch caps and incontience knickers.' She turned to Selby. ‘Thanks for your work on the carpet fitters: it looks as if you're on to something interesting. Now, can you follow up what you've done so far? Names of the firms, employees at the time? You know the sort of thing.'

‘I've got this lot to work through!' He gestured. It was a large pile of files.

‘What are your priorities?'

‘All of them. Cope's dumped a load of them
Grass up your Neighbours
messages on me.' He patted the files almost affectionately and tipped back his chair. ‘And I'd say a DI ranked above a DS, wouldn't you? Ma'am?' He stuck his hands in his pockets, ostentatiously moving his fingers. His eyes drifted to the top button of her shirt and stayed there.

Her fingers itched to slap him. On impulse she tapped the mouse he'd been using. The screen-saver evaporated to show a game of patience, half way through. As coolly as she could, she caught his eyes and held them, before raising a slow, ironic eyebrow.

‘Well, I'd say a sergeant ranked above a constable. And you won't have forgotten I warned you about this weeks ago. OK, Selby. One more strike and you're out.'

‘You can't do that.' He sat up.

‘I know a man who can. Understand? Selby?'

‘Ma'am.' This time the syllable was barely audible. The resentment in it wasn't, though.

‘And if you have too much to do, now Fatima's off, then we'll talk it over with Cope. Together. Right?'

‘Ma'am.'

Much support she'd get from Cope, of course, she reflected, as she tidied herself in the loo. The squad in general had been great – very quick on the uptake and apparently well-disposed to Fatima. Decent, caring men. On the surface, of course. What they'd be like over a few pints in a male bar was another matter. And if Selby went running to Cope, as he'd done in the past, complaining that she was a bad manager, she knew who Cope would back. And he'd probably trot off to Graham and Neville. Hell, how she hated fighting for dominance. Look at her: she was still trembling after even the short encounter with Selby, although she'd won every round so far. Well, she'd better win the next, too.

Kate supposed it was the Superintendent's prerogative to keep her standing like a lemon while he finished whatever he was tapping into his computer. Eventually he finished with a flourish, and moved and clicked his mouse with panache.

At last he looked up as if surprised she were there, switched his hundred-watt smile on, and gestured expansively to a chair. There was a smell of coffee to go with his aftershave. Two pictures graced the walls: they were in clip-frames so they were obviously prints but they weren't the usual bland waiting-room wall stuff.

She allowed her eyes to linger.

‘Ah, you're an art aficionado, too, Kate. Feininger, as you've probably guessed. I picked them up at the exhibition in Berlin this summer.'

‘Florence was bulging with those wretched bored cherubs,' she countered.

‘You're over that dreadful cold, are you?'

‘Pretty well.' Actually, she was much better. The sinuses had responded to frequent steamings over the weekend, and the ear-drops might just be working, too.

‘Excellent. Because I have in mind for you a slight change of function.'

She blinked: it didn't take someone that far up the tree to give her different work.

‘In fact, you won't be working here for a while. You'll be transferred to the Fraud Squad. For how long I'm not sure. Maybe a matter of a few days only. Maybe longer.' He allowed himself a kindly smile, as if to reassure her. ‘You are, of course, on the Accelerated Promotion Scheme, so it behoves us to give you as many – and varied – assignments as possible.'

Behoves?
One moment the man talked like Mr Media, the next he was in Victorian headmaster mode! She hoped her smile and nod adequately disguised a distress that hit her like a blow to her stomach. Hell, she was just beginning to feel her way here; there was the Fatima problem, all that unfinished business with Selby. ‘May I ask how this has come about, Sir?'

‘I believe DC Roper made contact with a colleague in Fraud to help with some accounts. This colleague was sufficiently intrigued to talk about them with his colleagues, because they tied in with another enquiry. My opposite number's response was to ask to take over the case completely. I gather you wouldn't have been happy with this?'

‘You gather right, Sir. I really am committed—'

He smiled, but then his face chilled. ‘There are reasons why I'd prefer you out of the squad at the moment, Kate. I understand that you don't enjoy the best of relationships with one or two of your colleagues—'

‘Sir?'

He tipped back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head and staring at the ceiling. ‘Human resource management's always a delicate area. Maybe this will give time for passions to cool.'

‘If we're talking about who I think we're talking about, Sir, the man's a bully—'

‘Kate, Kate! I hear what you're saying. I also hear that there is a feeling that he may be responsible for some very nasty racial abuse. But while you're here he may well allege that you're producing the material that you've shown DCI Harvey in order to frame him. So if the abuse continues in your absence, we shall know it's not from you.'

‘One flaw, Sir. Fatima's gone off sick If she's not there the abuse will cease anyway.'

‘I was coming to Fatima.' He pulled himself upright and put his elbows on his desk, supporting his jaw on loosely clasped hands. Hell, he was trying to smooth away a double chin! ‘You will not attempt to contact her while this is going on. Is that understood?'

‘With respect, Sir, I'm the only thing she's got approaching a friend in the squad. I'd feel awful if I didn't phone up to find out how she is: she's gone home sick, after all.'

‘You'd risk contaminating evidence for the sake of offering a bit of comfort? We have a whole welfare department able and willing to do just that.'

‘You're suggesting she's forged that memo herself?'

‘No. Nor even—' He stopped abruptly. ‘As far as the Alan Grafton case is concerned, it's better that it should conducted from elsewhere anyway. Graham Harvey knows the man alleged to be involved—'