Staying Power (8 page)

‘It would be a great opportunity,' Graham said mildly. ‘Tea? Or are you full up with expensive espresso coffee?'

‘I know he gave me some, but I don't actually recall getting a chance to drink it. I want to be a cop, Graham. Not a well-groomed doll.'

Another man might have told her to come off it. Graham smiled, but with restraint. ‘The women on that programme are actually top-notch officers,' he said. ‘And it certainly wouldn't do you any harm, career-wise.'

‘Oh, don't you start using his lingo!
Minded, personable
– is it pompo-verbosity or verbo-pomposity?'

He stiffened. If she'd forgotten the difference between them in rank, he hadn't, had he? And then he smiled, his face softening, his eyes warm. ‘Not many people have read Gowers'
Plain Words
, Kate. I think it's pompo-verbosity, though.'

‘We had this brilliant English teacher,' she said, helping herself from the tin of biscuits he was shaking at her. ‘She made us read Gower and that essay by Orwell, the one in which he listed all the rules no writer should break. Not part of the syllabus, but useful.'

‘And it explains why your reports are always a pleasure to read. And I shall look forward, of course, to what you have to say about Grafton. The brother that ID'd him will be at Grafton's house to unlock it for you this afternoon.'

Colin looked up from his desk as she went back into the office. ‘Harry says he thinks the woman who wouldn't talk may have called in again, but she spoke so quietly they couldn't make out what she was saying.'

‘Get them to do something with the tape – enhance the quality.'

‘Costs money,' he said, half-heartedly. He was feeding her a line, wasn't he?

‘If she cares enough to call three times – what do you think, Gaffer?'

‘You and your bloody hunches are going to bankrupt the Force,' Cope grunted. ‘Beg your pardon, the Service. Go on, see what them boffins can do.'

She nodded. ‘By the way, Gaffer – this Grafton business. Thanks for your support – I take it it was you that got me on to this Grafton case?'

‘I like a woman with a bit of spirit,' he said.

‘Whatever that's supposed to mean,' she said, as she and Colin headed for the stairs.

‘“Yes”, I suppose. Plus an implied criticism of Fatima.'

‘Kate! Sergeant Power!'

She turned. It was Fatima herself, gesturing to the phone.

‘Hell! I'd better get it, though!' Who on earth might that be?

Fatima covered the handset as Kate came through the door. She grinned, mouthing, ‘A man. Personal.' As she passed it over, however, she added, ‘Not the same one as the other day, if that's what you're wondering.'

Kate pulled a face. That was precisely what she had been wondering, hoping even. ‘Kate Power,' she said, her disappointment making her curt.

‘Detective Sergeant Power?' She recognised the voice but couldn't place it. ‘Patrick here. Patrick Duncan. We met in fairly inauspicious circumstances yesterday. I wondered if you'd had any more thoughts about the deceased?'

‘I'm checking out his papers and so on this afternoon,' she said.

‘To help you with your theory that he had everything to live for?'

‘We need as much background as we can get,' she said, noncommittally.

‘Trying to blow my thesis out of the water, eh? Well, you won't succeed. But I think you should try. In the interests of truth. Why don't we talk things over – a drink, perhaps – this evening?'

‘I'll check my diary.' All she had planned, of course, was a visit to Aunt Cassie. And a basketful of ironing. ‘It couldn't be before eight-thirty,' she said.

‘Shall we say nine, then? Any preferences for where we eat?'

‘Eat?'

‘Why not? After a day's work!'

She mustn't make a big deal out of this. ‘OK. No preferences, anyway. The only places I've checked out so far socially are a pub near Symphony Hall, a Balti restaurant in Kings Heath – oh, and a wonderful Kings Heath chippie specialising in the most marvellous chicken tikka in a naan.'

‘Are you based in Kings Heath then? Splendid – I know just where we'll eat.'

‘It doesn't have to be Kings Heath—'

‘But no reason why it shouldn't be. Giovanni's, that's where. Just off the High Street, opposite Safeway's car park. Would nine-ish suit you? Excellent. I'll look forward to that.'

Would she? His voice told her it wasn't a purely business meeting. Could she really want to go out socially with him? Biting her lip, she looked for the phone to replace the handset.

Fatima pointed, ironically. The phone was at the extreme edge of her desk. There was a barricade of files between it and Fatima's work-space. On top of the files was a styrofoam cup of greyish liquid which was probably the coffee that Selby had left there earlier. He himself was nowhere around.

‘Is he being a pain?' What Kate couldn't ask was why Fatima simply didn't plonk it back on Selby's desk.

Fatima shook her head. ‘He just finds it funny to leave a drink just where I might reach for it without thinking. When we were out yesterday, he kept offering me sweets and crisps.'

‘You don't think he's just being generous?' Kate said, her heart not in the question.

‘Do you?' Fatima asked.

Kate shook her head. ‘I don't think he knows the meaning of the word.'

‘Maybe he's just trying to proselytise? Turn me to the paths of Christian righteousness?'

‘It would be nice to think he knew the meaning of those words. Oh, shit!' Kate shoved a chair over to Fatima's side. ‘What are you going to do? Apart from resist temptation, that is?'

Fatima shrugged. ‘What would you do?'

‘Have you tried simply explaining and asking for his co-operation? No? I don't say that it'll succeed but you never know.'

‘Too many people are hostile to Islam.'

‘Do you really think it's anything as sophisticated as that? Not just like some stupid prat thinking it's clever to offer a bacon sandwich to a vegetarian?'

Fatima looked her straight in the eye. ‘He may be a prat, but that doesn't mean he can't be a malicious prat.' She smiled. ‘Kate – that phone-call upset you, didn't it?'

Kate blinked. ‘Not – well, yes, maybe. Not so much upset as unsettled me. My bloke was killed only a few months ago and this path's asked me out for a drink. Then it became a meal. After sunset,' she risked, to be rewarded with an answering grin.

‘Is he nice?'

‘I've only seen him in the morgue. He did yesterday's autopsy. Says he wants to discuss my theories about Alan Grafton's death.'

Fatima nodded. ‘There's always the possibility that that's precisely what he wants to do.'

‘Hm. He may be just a path. But that doesn't mean he can't be an amorous path.'

Fatima threw up her hand to acknowledge the hit. ‘And what if he is an amorous path: is that a problem?'

Kate shook her head. ‘I don't know. I really don't know.'

‘Doesn't look much like a business tycoon's residence,' Colin said, as he and Kate stood under an inadequate porch waiting to be let into Alan Grafton's house.

‘Remind me never even to contemplate moving into – where is this? Acocks Green?' She dashed a futile hand at a dollop of rain, presumably sloshing from a blocked gutter.

‘It's not so bad when it's fine,' Colin said. ‘Ah, do I hear action?'

‘Can you
hear
action? Or only see it?'

‘You know what I mean.'

The door was opened by a paler, more delicate version of Alan Grafton.

‘Good afternoon. Mr Grafton, is it? Mr Adrian Grafton? I'm Detective Constable Colin Roper, and this is Detective Sergeant Kate Power.'

What had made Colin so voluble? He usually left this sort of introduction to her.

‘Yes. Adrian Grafton. A.C. Grafton, as opposed to A.J. Grafton. Can't think what my parents were thinking of, giving us the same initials, well, nearly. Always got the wrong post, so embarrassing at times.'

Someone else too voluble – the sort of reaction to stress they were all familiar with in bereaved relatives and friends.

Another drip down her neck prompted Kate to speak. ‘You'll know we're investigating the circumstances surrounding your brother's unfortunate death, Mr Grafton.'

‘Oh, call me Adrian – everyone does!' He smiled. It was a horribly winsome smile.

‘I will if you get us out of this rain.' Kate fancied her smile was bracing.

He stood aside, gesturing courteously.

He watched them as they wiped their feet, and took their coats to hang them on an old-fashioned hall-stand. Kate stepped forward to look more closely: in the elaborate woodwork of the back panel there was a brilliant turquoise enamel inlay in a copper plaque.

‘Ah, you have an eye for a good piece, Sergeant,' Adrian said. ‘Arts and Crafts. Lovely, isn't it?'

The plaque was. On the other hand the hall stand was too ornate, too heavy, and dominated the narrow hall.

‘Now, Alan used the box-room as an office. Everything else is just a normal home. Except – well, you'll see what fine taste he had. Do you want to look round down here before you go up? Looking for Clues?' His winsome smile inserted a capital C.

Kate nodded. ‘If you don't mind. What we're looking for is anything that will help us work out why he died as he did.'

‘You put that very tactfully, Sergeant! Did he fall or was he pushed? Isn't that what you're wondering?'

She smiled. And waited.

‘Firstly, as I told the other policemen, you know, the ones in uniform, as far as I know he didn't have a single enemy. Not one. But there again, he'd just done this fabulous business deal – why should anyone with his prospects want to – to kill himself?' Adrian's voice cracked. He turned briefly from them.

‘This must be very upsetting for you, Sir,' Colin said quietly.

‘I'm all right as long as I can be interested or angry. My poor kid brother – and some kinky bastard strings him up to die.'

Kate's eyes flickered to Colin's: he'd registered the word, too.

But Adrian noticed. ‘Oh, you know, these guys and their funny sex. Strange underwear, plastic bags and oranges in their mouths.'

‘Did Alan …?' On the face of it, she'd have thought Adrian a more likely candidate.

‘No, Sergeant, he did not. To the best of my knowledge – isn't that the phrase? – to the best of my knowledge, Alan was just a decent ordinary guy. To the best of my knowledge … No, we weren't all that close. Talked on the phone, that sort of thing. Family Christmases—'

Was he cold or repressed? She must remember his brother had just died horribly.

‘Your parents—?' Colin prompted.

‘Dad had a stroke two years back. Like that.' He snapped his fingers. ‘Pity Ma can't – she's got some sort of dementia. Only sixty-three.'

‘I'm so sorry.' Kate meant it. Aunt Cassie might have her moments but thank God she had her full complement of marbles.

He shrugged. ‘Tea or coffee? I suppose I can't offer you what I'm going to spend the afternoon sinking: a decent red wine. If one's got to pick over the bits and pieces, one might as well do it in style.' But there were tears in his eyes.

‘I'll make it, shall I?' Colin pushed open a door which did in fact lead to the kitchen.

Kate followed. The place was immaculate – even to the J-cloth wrung out and hung to dry over the tap. The fridge was switched off, empty, door ajar. The freezer was still running, however, with a typed note of the contents stuck to it.

‘Unbelievable, isn't it?' Colin gestured. ‘Imagine, going through all this – leaving it as if you wanted to find it nice and clean when you came back from your holiday.'

‘Maybe he did. Maybe he simply didn't use it when he got back on Sunday – didn't have time to restock with milk and everything. D'you want to have black tea or black coffee?'

‘Try that tin over there,' Adrian suggested, coming up behind them. He pointed, but wouldn't pass it.

They followed his finger. The hand-printed label said, POWERED MILK.

‘It was one of the last things Ma wrote,' Adrian said. ‘He said it made him smile every time he used it. He had this vision of Ma casting aside her zimmer, slipping her knickers outside her dress and taking off to right the world.' He spread his arms to demonstrate.

Colin winked affectionately at Kate, but didn't say anything. Kate screwed a ball of kitchen towel and passed it across to Adrian; Colin made coffee for three, stirring more sugar than was good for any of them into each mug.

‘You know, Adrian,' Kate said at last, ‘I really think it might be better if you didn't do very much down here. I'm certainly keeping an open mind about your brother's death—' Whatever the evidence might suggest.

‘And that means not dusting his china and packing it away before some shitty little bastard breaks in and smashes it all?' His voice rose dangerously.

She hesitated. ‘I take your point. I suppose it's statistically unlikely that anyone would have left prints on a vase rather than on a door or something. But—'

‘I wear cotton gloves: eczema. I'm allergic to household dust. Amongst other things.'

‘Pack them by all means, then. But don't wipe them.'

The box-room – Alan's office – was less intimidating, but still terribly tidy. There were stalks of filing-trays, several piles of envelope files on a shelf, an obvious system in the filing cabinet drawers.

They divided the work between them, Kate knowing that Colin's would be even more meticulous than her own. They would list each file, with a clear summary of its contents, and then one of them would work through the computer. Downstairs Adrian was listening to light music as he stowed china. She'd never known anyone who collected china until today. Was it like stamps, a matter of the rarity? Or like train spotting – collecting a whole series? Or maybe – she thought of the jewel-like enamel in that otherwise hideous hall-stand – it was for the sheer beauty of something? That would certainly fit what little picture she had of Alan – he'd spoken of his leather and wool with more enthusiasm than if they'd simply been investments. They were more than money in the bank.