Cold Pursuit (23 page)

‘What the fuck?’

‘Who rattled your cage?’ she responded.

‘But a lane, man! A fucking lane!’

‘Detective work,’ she snapped. No, she wouldn’t follow the arrow, not with a passenger – to do Rob
justice, not with any passenger except Mark. She jotted down the name of the agent and the location, did a nifty job of a many pointed turn in a narrow space, and set off once again to Maidstone.

‘The silent treatment and a lot of food,’ Fran told Tom. ‘We’ll see what that’ll do. Then we’ll get the Child Protection people to show him his movie. They’re trained and we’re not, that’s why.’

‘Plus you think he’s a snotty little runt, and you don’t want to upset DCI Tanner by telling him so.’

She rewarded Tom with a look. ‘Just get on with it. But let me know when he’s going to be shown the film – I want to watch his reaction.’

She left him in the capable hands of him and Sue, possibly pleased to delay the mountain of paperwork heading inexorably their way. They’d strict instructions to feed him the most nutritious brunch they could find – she was sure his refusal to contemplate food was more to annoy her than because he wasn’t hungry.

There was no one from Child Protection available till lunchtime, so Rob was left to cool his heels and talk to them about whatever came into their heads. Eventually, they accompanied him to the Child Protection suite, where victims of abuse were normally interviewed. Its emphasis on the youngest in the age group, biologically correct dolls, Lego, teddies and other comforting distractions clearly made Rob feel superior. Until they produced the disk of the revamped porn film.

Standing behind the soundproof screen with the officer video-recording Rob’s reactions, Fran saw him crumple from arrogant guy with street cred into a terrified kid.

‘I promised I wouldn’t tell. Now they’ll kill me. I tell you, they’ll fucking kill me!’

It was hard to leave Rob in other people’s hands, even though she knew specialised colleagues would do the job of extracting information and, just as important, putting him back together as a functioning human being better than she ever could. Or Jill, for that matter. And Jill would be frantic by now, so she gave her a reassuring call.

‘He’ll be all right, Jill, honestly. If he’s been blackmailed into buying and using pot, not to mention other things, he’s probably got some cold turkey to do. But we’ll get the Drugs Referral officer in too.’

‘I wish I thought I was doing the right thing.’

‘Parents never do the right thing. Even the best ones. Every kid knows that.’ They shared a laugh. ‘And sometimes kids don’t respond even if their parents are perfect.’ She could have told Jill about the cold shoulder systematically applied by Mark’s kids, but she wouldn’t break his confidence. ‘But people survive. Parents and kids. Anyway, I’ll make sure he’s back in one piece in time for supper.’

‘Could you and Mark bring him and stay for a bite to eat?’

‘Not this time, thanks.’ She added, ‘I’ve an idea it won’t be a very comfortable meal, and the presence of comparative strangers—’

‘You’re hardly a stranger!’

‘Mark is. In any case, Jill, I’ve got to take the team out for a quick jar, haven’t I?’

Which was hardly the most sensitive remark, given whose team they were, and how their proper leader wouldn’t be getting much credit for the way she’d managed it. The police could forgive her being injured, preferably in the course of duty, but not for the rumours of her inefficiency that had circulated beforehand, whatever the cause.

‘Send them my best. And thank them for the present. Joe Farmer may have brought it round, but I can’t imagine the idea was his. It’s brilliant, Fran. Thanks.’

‘Joe! Well, he does have a human side. Well, well, well. Good for him.’ Who on earth had asked him to do the honours? ‘Ah, I’ve got a call waiting. I must go. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I can.’

Should she feel guilty that the incoming call was from the estate agent whose van she had tailed earlier? She tried very hard to. But this, she felt in her bones, was important. On the other hand, Mark had had so many feelings in his bones they could be a symptom of arthritis.

‘It’s just come on the market,’ the smooth young
man announced. ‘If you’re interested, I could pop the particulars in the post tonight.’

‘Georgian vicarage. Four bedrooms. Two acres of garden. Why don’t you fax them to me now?’

Still no news from Cornwall. Perhaps they thought she’d meant nine in the evening? Where was their number? This pile or that? Her desk was as messy as it always used to be. Well, that was the end of a case for you, always masses of paper. And a good deal more to come. The kids would have the lion’s share, but she’d have to make her own contribution. She ought to start now.

Would she hell! She legged it down to the fax machine, trying to look casual.

She’d long since learned that the trick in any organisation was to keep your head down and study documents even as you paced the
power-soaked
corridors. So long as she kept her face serious and eyes lowered, no one would guess that she was reading about her future home.

Tidying her desk would have to wait. As she settled to gloat over the details of the house, the phone rang. She had visitors waiting in Reception. Courtesy was supposed to cost nothing, wasn’t it? So should she send her secretary down to bring them up or pop down herself? Poking the layer of flesh on her hips, she knew the answer.

Dilly and Daniel. How touching. Hand in hand, for once, and bearing a stiff bunch of flowers. Much as she’d have liked to grab it and run, she
ushered them into the lift and along the corridors with maximum patience, and offered tea and coffee.

In return they proffered an expensive white envelope containing, oh yes, a wedding invitation. The Cathedral crypt, no less, would host the happy event.

She hoped she said all that was proper. Clearly congratulations were in order, even though she thought Dilly was making the worst mistake of her not very happy life. They sat rigidly opposite her, faces forward, like some figures in an American primitive painting she’d once seen, sipping in synchrony. Neither initiated any topic of conversation, and the one thing she knew Dilly would want her to talk about – Stephen – was clearly off the menu. How would they react to her deflecting some of their thanks to Janie Falkirk?

‘She had some excellent points,’ Daniel opined. ‘But really we prefer a more…appropriate…setting for our worship. And we’re lucky that one of the Cathedral clergy is a school governor. So she shall not only have her meringue day, she shall have it in the finest of buildings.’ He patted his fiancée’s hand possessively.

Fran’s mother would have demanded, ‘Who’s she? The cat’s mother?’ Tempted though she was, Fran refrained. But it was nice to have a neutral memory of her mother pop up, when all her recent ones were of a woman whose quick tongue had been rendered vicious as her age weighed more heavily.

Dilly nodded, rewarding her fiancé with a quick sideways smile. But Fran could see something like resignation in eyes that should have been full of joyous anticipation.

‘Will you carry on working for TVInvicta?’ she asked, as much to fill a growing silence as anything.

The response cheered her. ‘Of course. And Huw Venn’s still got me down to do that feature on you when you leave the police force. That’s definite. Nothing will stop me, not after what you and your team have done. Nothing.’ Her jaw took on a welcome upwards jut.

McDine decided to step in. ‘Can you tell me anything more about the man you’ve accused of stalking her? And why he did it?’

Did his phraseology suggest he still thought the whole thing a fantasy? Should she snarl at him? On the whole, she decided she couldn’t be bothered. In any case, the sooner she’d got rid of them, the sooner she could look at the house details again and show them to Mark. ‘He’s Jim Holden from Dilly’s William Murdock days: apparently he used to sit opposite her in class. He was off work after a car accident.’

Dilly nodded. ‘It must have been very serious! He couldn’t work.’

‘That’s right. But he can now, and makes a living fitting CCTV cameras – or failing to fit them, in the case of the one supposedly guarding your home. He fitted those in the Whitefriars Centre, so when he tailed you to and from TVInvicta he could make
sure he was never picked up. Where he got the idea I don’t know, but he was behind those jolly masks that peered through your windows. He wore the same ones when molesting young girls.’

Dilly shuddered.

‘Paradoxically, the fact he fancied himself in love with you let you off lightly. We have evidence to suggest that he was involved in all sorts of sex crimes against women, all over the area, some minor, some much less so.’

‘See! I was right!’ Dilly exclaimed. ‘I said I’d been tailed by someone with a Blair mask, and that it must be the same man!’

Daniel adopted the indulgent look of a man who knows he’s in the wrong but would never accept the blame.

‘It would have been helpful if you’d told us a little earlier. Think of the women who might have been spared horrible experiences,’ Fran said, to Dilly but at McDine. ‘It’s a shame you don’t see your writing as something to be proud of—’

‘She’s never going to make it on to the list of set texts,’ McDine interrupted.

Bastard! Fran continued, ‘—because it is. And it took another woman to tell us about it. If she hadn’t, your stalker might still be roaming the streets. Still, all’s well that ends well, I suppose.’

‘What sort of sentence will he get?’ Dilly asked, suddenly reminding them all that she was an official crime correspondent.

‘Hard to tell. Oh, he’ll be put on the Sex
Offenders’ Register, no doubt about that. What he needs is not prison, but psychiatric treatment. I’m sure the judge will recommend that, in fact. Whether there are enough places in secure psychiatric units is another matter. He’ll probably be sent to one prison after another, desperate for therapy but getting no continuity at all.’

‘Poor man,’ Dilly said.

After all, Fran did not anticipate a long and glittering career for her.

‘Imagine trying to run a whole school full of people like him,’ McDine huffed.

Dilly managed a cool sideways glance, but he took no notice. So she coughed. ‘And how is your own case going, Fran? What’ll happen to those kids who assaulted you?’

It took a lot to make Fran blush, and when she did this time it wasn’t for a personal shortcoming. It was for her colleagues’. She had to save their face, though they would regret their sin of omission later. ‘It’s all in the hands of the Crown Prosecution Service,’ she smiled.

She didn’t smile when she heard her assailants had been let off with a caution. She smelt a spot of backstage legal bargaining here, playing off one injury against another. It wasn’t just for herself she was angry. It was for all the other innocent victims who felt the law had dealt with their needs inadequately. The lack of information about how the case was progressing, the failure to check on the
victim’s health – and then a sense that with the miscreants walking free, that justice hadn’t been done.

Well, she’d asked to be treated like Ms Average, and so she had. Maybe if a vacancy on an appropriate working party came up, she should take it after all.

The bar rang with triumphant voices. Although she was standing drinks for the whole team inevitably it was with the youngsters she’d worked with that she found herself sitting. The talk was about Rob.

‘The question is, guv, will that kid ever be happy at that snotty school? Wouldn’t he be happier at another school or maybe an FE college somewhere?’ Tom looked genuinely worried. ‘I know DCI Tanner would prefer him under her beady eyes, but look where that got him last time. He likes his Gran, he’s got a few mates up there in Yorkshire already and I’d have thought a clean start was just the answer.’

Sue, the far side of the table, shook her head. ‘That’s letting the bullies win. You’ve got to face them down.’ There was no doubting that she would have done.

Fran was careful not to look at Harbijan, lest she betray a confidence, but he put his glass down and said, ‘Sometimes things are so bad you can’t repair them. Never. Those teachers are going to be so pissed off their star pupil’s going down for drug dealing and all his other little enterprises instead of
heading for Oxbridge that they’ll maybe pick on Rob.’

‘Why? He was a victim, like!’

‘And how many times have you heard people say rape victims have brought it on themselves? No, I reckon life’d be so intolerable he’d drop out.’

‘He wouldn’t have you to get him out of bed every morning, either, would he, guv?’

‘’Fraid not, Sue.’ She had briefly toyed with inviting him into her home for a spot of respite care, but how could she inflict teenage angst on Mark, who’d been through it once with his own? Hell’s bells, she didn’t want it herself, or the effect it would have on their relationship in all its aspects. ‘So it sounds as if Grandma’s the best bet. Do you want me to drop a hint to Jill?’

‘Rather you than us,’ Tom said. ‘Another, everyone?’

‘My shout,’ Fran said. ‘And this is for your taxis home.’ She fished some notes from her purse. ‘Can’t have any of you on drink-drive charges.’ Her mobile rang. She was about to kill it, but saw who was at the other end. ‘Hell. It’s the Cornwall Police at long last. I’ll take the call outside. Get the drinks in for me, Tom, would you?’

Outside the air was quite balmy, but her voice was icy. ‘Fran Harman. What’s the news?’ One of her team would have heard further, implicit, words:
And why the hell has it taken so long to get back to me
? She listened without interruption, took contact details and returned to the youngsters. She could
feel alert eyes trying to interpret her face. She sank half her wine in one go.

‘How is he, that vicar, like?’ Tom prompted her.

And the other half. ‘He’ll live, but he’ll be paralysed, they say.’

Tom shook his head sadly. ‘Trouble is, if Dilly marries that boring old fart he won’t be the only one.’

Who was she to argue? In any case, there was Mark, ready to take her home.