Double Fault (23 page)

But Dougie was as deaf as he was, so Mark prayed for corroboration.

‘It was very noisy. Would we have heard anything except those kids?'

‘Let's try it,' Dougie said. ‘I assume two of you have phones? Go on, one of you call the other and we'll all make a noise.'

They obliged. Beethoven's Fifth, pretentious or what, announced a call. Even Dougie and Mark nodded. So there was agreement. No ringtone, conventional or otherwise, had sullied the courts. Dan said, ‘He must have had the number on speed-dial if he made the call and had time for a conversation in the time it takes to change ends.'

‘It was a very short call,' Alex declared. ‘Just a few words before I caught his eye. He didn't argue with me, just cut the call and put the phone back in his bag. I've said something, haven't I, Mark? My God, what have I said?'

‘I don't know, Alex. I really don't. Have any of you said anything about this call to my ex-colleagues?'

‘How could we have done, if we'd all forgotten?' Dougie asked with some asperity.

‘Quite. Now, with your permission I'm going to call this information in. I'll tell the guy who came last week, and let him decide if it's relevant. And then – let's not waste this lovely weather – it's over to you and your playing cards, Dougie.'

Fran had barely opened her mouth to check Murray's progress on the files when her phone rang. Media relations. They needed to talk to her urgently. Telling him, as if he was a cross between a half-trained dog and a recalcitrant school child, to stay where he was and continue poring over the files, she scooted. It sounded as if what she and Wren had feared had come to pass: someone had broken the news of the skeletons.

They had. It was damage limitation time. And who was to be the little boy jamming his thumb into a great big leaky hole?

Naturally, she suggested Wren. It was what he was paid for, after all. But he'd already left the building and of course there was no ACC in post. All fingers pointed at Fran.

The first question, before she could even give a statement to the rightly horrified media pack, was the worst.

‘Is it true that the police have only identified half of the poor kids left behind that wall, and that the other half lie in some lab awaiting tests?'

‘Yes,' she said flatly.

‘Could you explain?'

When she didn't respond, someone supplied the answer in another question. ‘Is it lack of manpower or lack of money?'

She gave a horribly Wren-like answer. ‘I'm sure you're all aware of severe constraints in the present economic climate.'

‘So you're prepared to put money before suffering families?'

She wasn't going to put her hand up to that one. So she took a huge risk: she went into confiding mode. ‘The enquiry's had its problems. In fact, we've known about this horrible crime since Friday.' Raising her voice, she overrode the hubbub. ‘So, ladies and gentlemen, have your editors.' She waited for the uproar to subside of its own accord. ‘We – and they – decided to throw all our resources at raising consciousness in the kidnap case. Livvie's kidnap. We had to make a terrible, terrible decision: should we prioritize justice to the dead or try to find the living? Did we make the right one? Who knows? As far as we know, Livvie is still alive. If we find her in time, the decision may have been the right one. If not, the only thing I can – the only thing any of us can – do is apologize to the families who are all still in limbo. None of them yet knows whether to hope that their child is about to get a decent burial or that he or she isn't among them and is still walking in God's fresh air.' She braced herself for a decent moral question: would all eight families wait together or would the four be told straight away? But she didn't get it.

‘So you've all sat around doing nothing about this case all weekend?' some idiot asked.

‘So I've had a team of officers working round the clock, many of whom weren't scheduled to work this weekend and are giving freely of many long hours of their time,' she retorted. ‘Thanks to them we are very close to confirming the identity of the man we believe to be the killer.' She fed them a few geographical crumbs: after all, their provincial colleagues needed local news. ‘Naturally, as soon as we have hard information we will make a further announcement. You have my word on that.'

She was about to draw the conference to an abrupt halt when she saw a familiar face, that of a TV reporter whose life she had once saved. Dilly could ask a really useful question if she had a chance. Fran caught her eye. Dilly nodded.

‘Detective Chief Superintendent, a few minutes ago you mentioned that dear little lost girl? Is there any news of Livvie?'

What a good woman.

‘I wish there was. Ladies and gentlemen, every hour is now critical. However much you want – need – to cover this truly horrible story, I implore you to keep Livvie before the public eye.' She suddenly recalled the decision to move the focus away from Kentish horses and stables. ‘As you're aware, we're now following leads on the continent. So any digital media cover that reaches expats in France and Spain helps us. Without your help, without their help, we may not find her in time.' She swallowed hard, moved by her own emotion. Only then did she get to her feet. Her stagger on her weak leg was genuine, not stage-managed, though it could scarcely have happened at a better moment. Even as she limped out, she wanted to scream and shout a telling postscript: that if the government imposed even deeper financial cuts, a poorer police service would inevitably ensue. But as long as she was in the team, she had to be a team player. She zipped her mouth.

She couldn't face going back to her office, not with Murray still there. And she had a terrible suspicion that her emotional appeal for news about Livvie had made her mascara run. The loo again.

As she headed that way, Ed Chatfield almost literally ran into her. He didn't give the impression he'd noticed anything amiss; he was positively pulsing with energy.

‘Progress, Fran. I wanted to tell you myself. Progress. No, we've not got her back. Sorry if I raised your hopes. But we're a step nearer. Ray's on to it now.'

Was that how you got to be a superintendent these days? You got to give the good news while someone else did the legwork? But she liked him too much to bark, and she was afraid Ray would sense a snub if anyone else took over what he saw as his territory.

‘Excellent. Now, I could do with a coffee, but someone's sorting out a glitch on my computer so I can't use my office. Can we grab something from the machine and take it to that shoebox they've allocated to you?'

He looked surprised, but walked with her to the nearest dispenser, pulling a face as he looked at what emerged.

‘It's not exactly top of the range. Hey, have you seen that hi-tech machine that Wren uses?' He let her into his office and pushed forward a couple of non-matching chairs.

She eased herself into the more upright one. ‘You've been favoured with admission into his nest, have you? Whoops, forget you heard that word. His sanctum, I mean.' She felt obscurely irritated that she hadn't known. When had this happened? Why? Was Wren trying to undermine her authority?

‘Only the once. When I was summoned I felt like a naughty boy called to the head's office. Then I didn't. He's such a politico, that man, isn't he? He just wanted to find out how one of his old muckers was getting on – he was dead chuffed to hear he was still just a DCI. He likes a bit of status, your guv'nor.' He paused, looking at her sideways. ‘Talking of status, are you going after the new job?'

‘Depends which new job you mean,' she said carefully. Was it something she'd want to discuss with a comparative stranger, anyway?

‘Running the combined Kent and Essex MIT?'

‘Oh,' she asked casually, ‘is that official yet?'

‘Not yet. Any moment now, I'd have thought. I might just give it a go. But not if it's yours for the asking.'

‘Absolutely not. And to be honest with you, Ed, it's a job for someone younger than me: someone with five or six years of their life to devote to that and nothing else. You'd need to build a team full of resentful potential rivals; you've got the geography to worry about, with our dear old friend the M25 getting in the way of everything; you've got major cuts when you need expansion – oh, and you've got to factor in the new crime commissioners and their budget preferences, not to mention new chief constables.' There: she'd just signed her resignation letter, or near enough. ‘But don't,' she added with a suddenly cheerful grin, a weight lifted from her shoulders, ‘let me talk you out of applying – you're just the sort of person who should be leading it. If I had any influence, which alas, I don't, I'd put in a good word for you.'

‘You mean that, don't you, Fran? Thank you.' He sounded more emotional than she'd expected. Poor man, thinking he was going to have to tackle an old dragon. ‘Anyway, I'm going to burst if I don't tell you this, Fran, bad coffee or not. Your Mark did some sort of reconstruction exercise with those elderly tennis players this morning. And one of them remembered Stephen Harris making or taking a phone call.'

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Which wasn't disclosed at the time.'

‘Quite. Mysteriously he's lost the mobile in question – yes, we've got that far. We've talked to him again. He conceded he'd maybe taken a call. Something about loft insulation, he said. But we're nosy buggers, aren't we, Fran – so we're checking with his phone company. Someone's on to it now.'

‘We've already got an account of his movements, haven't we? All confirmed by CCTV, as I recall. Thanks for this, Ed. It's nice to have good news for once.'

‘You're sure it's good?'

She looked him in the eye. ‘You are, aren't you? The trouble is, despite all our efforts, the story may have gone off the boil after this morning's announcement.'

His face was ludicrously blank. Carefully, tactfully blank. Wouldn't even utter the words
Ashford
and
skeletons
, would he?

‘Oh, we know it wasn't Kent Police's finest moment, admitting we'd only ID'd half the poor little buggers. A total balls-up. At least we could fob them off with that stuff about Somerset and Staffordshire. A genuine mass murderer. They lapped that up. Actually, I ended up plugging the Livvie story.'

‘Thanks.' His phone went. ‘Do you mind if I take this?'

Of course she didn't. Especially as it was very short, and the moment he cut it, he asked, ‘Do you fancy a walk to the Incident Room?'

M
ark ought to have felt something, surely – exhilaration, maybe, for having helped conjure the memory of a simple phone call that might help the search for Livvie. The thrill of the chase, albeit at second hand. Instead it was as if someone had pulled an invisible plug, all his emotion draining away. What was the point of playing on? He knew better, however, than to go back into – he almost called it work! He certainly knew better than to intrude on Fran's territory just at the moment: MIT would be going round like headless chickens, and Ray and Ed Chatfield would be too busy with the information that Alex was giving even now.

Belatedly, when he thought it would all be official, he'd texted Fran with the news: all she'd had time for was to send a couple of XXs.

As if equally weary, the rest of the Golden Oldies played in an increasingly desultory manner until their usual session time was up. He'd been a focus of attention, but as he'd rightly protested, all he'd done was float the idea of a reconstruction, and in any case he'd never dealt well with admiration. Now he was afraid that people were letting him score points he hadn't entirely earned.

He dragged himself back home, Fran's poor car protesting at the indignity of being bounced around the track potholes, showered and then did what he'd promised himself he would do – he made an appointment with the practice nurse to have his ears syringed. Tomorrow, please? Not for another week, the receptionist declared with unnecessary fierceness: he had to undertake to put drops in his ears every single night, something he'd loathed ever since he was a child.

Now what? He looked at his watch, but it had stopped – again. He was almost tempted to nip into Maidstone or Canterbury to buy another, but he thought of Fran's chagrin if he did. Caffy's too, of course – she'd feel guilty if she ever found out.

The kitchen clock told him it was time to stare at the contents of the fridge to decide on the options for lunch. Surely by now he ought to be used to having time for such choices, and time to eat in a civilized manner without sharing a table top with half a dozen folders, the contents of which he should have mastered a week ago. It was time to stop feeling guilty about being free to relax. He'd have to have another talk with his therapist about it all.

Meanwhile, and his heart lifted as he saw who was phoning him, here was the next best thing to a therapist – or, come to think of it, a better shrink than anyone with letters after his or her name he'd yet come across. ‘Caffy?'

‘Hi, Mark. Are you OK? Bored enough to share some of that food you bought during your supermarket run on Saturday? Great. I'm on my way.' End of call. That was Caffy for you.

A flan warming in the oven, he was still mixing salad dressing when she arrived. She washed her hands and laid the table, one of the family – and soon, of course, to be his best woman. He was aware of being under scrutiny as he tossed the salad.

‘Are you OK? You're so deeply involved in this abduction case but haven't any power: how does it feel?'

Trust her to go for the jugular. ‘It's weird. Very weird. But I can't say I'd want to be back in my old job. An assistant chief constable is so remote from real people, which was why I joined the force in the first place – and I should imagine that when they finally appoint a replacement, whoever picks up the poisoned chalice will find it overflowing with budgets and redundancies. Not my thing at all.' Nor Fran's.