Life Sentence (18 page)

‘Perhaps he is. All the same…’

Fran surprised herself: ‘How do you rate his research?’

‘It’s in a different field from mine, of course, so I’m scarcely qualified to comment.’ She smiled, as other people smiled when they spoke of children or a favourite sporting moment. ‘Mine’s concerned with the rise and fall of the epistolary novel – novels written in the form of letters, like
Clarissa
, which ought to be another on your retirement list. He’s got this curious obsession with a novelist he actually professes to loathe, DH Lawrence. I can’t make him out.’

Fran shook her head. ‘Neither can I. But he left neither forwarding address, nor any indication when he would return?’

‘Ah! To hear the neither/nor construction used correctly – and in dialogue such as this, too! You are, Chief Superintendent, a natural reader of the great English novel!’

‘And so I might be,’ Fran told Mark, ‘but it doesn’t get us any further forward with either case.’

It was so good to hear her laugh, and to laugh with her. ‘I’m not clear why you’re pursuing this Pitt character with such vigour, Fran,’ he said tentatively, though even as a passenger in her car he might have been entitled to ask in an official voice.

‘Neither am I, not a hundred per cent. You’d expect me to be throwing my weight into the Rebecca investigation—’

‘Except, in the interests of preserving the peace you want to steer clear: I can quite see that.’

‘Or to be pounding on every Lotus dealer’s door demanding information – though I’ve done that by phone already: there should be a pile of faxes waiting for me tomorrow morning. But I’ve done something I’ve hardly ever done. I’ve arranged for my calls at work to be rerouted to my mobile. And I’ve got a round the clock trace put on any calls coming in.’

‘In case Pitt calls again.’ It wasn’t a question. He knew her too well.

‘Yes. I’m getting obsessed with him.’

‘You’re getting suspicious of him,’ he corrected gently. ‘Turn left here. I believe,’ he coughed ironically,
‘that there’s valet parking. And they deliver our baggage to our room. Pukka do’s, the Chief goes to.’

‘He does indeed.’ She handed over the car to the uniformed flunkey and walked up the broad steps of the elegant country house turned hotel side by side with him. She’d scrubbed up wonderfully well: there wouldn’t be a better turned out or more attractive woman at the function. Something had brought back the spring in her step and had straightened her back.

He had wondered how she would dress tonight. Whenever he’d seen her at similar functions, she’d worn an evening version of her usual severe suits, and had never looked less than queenly. In this dress she looked almost sculptured: she didn’t need the flowing outfits some women wore, presumably to hide their expanded waists. He sucked his own stomach in. What if she thought him too old, inadequate as a lover? It had been so long, and then with Tina. Married sex was altogether easier, more predictable, safer.

God, he wanted Fran now. Now.

How would she feel? Was she a slow seduction woman or did she enjoy urgency?

‘Tell you what,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth, ‘let’s not mention Alan Pitt for the rest of the evening.’

‘What a good idea,’ he agreed, tucking his hand possessively under her elbow.

Mark, preparing to make the keynote speech, had retired to the cloakroom for a post-dinner spruce. Fran did the female equivalent, wanting no criticism to come his way because the dish of supposedly upmarket pheasant (it had in fact proved almost impenetrable) had eroded her lipstick. She took the opportunity to check for phone messages. There were none, neither directly to her nor redirected from HQ. So far so good. Why then did she feel so uneasy? It was the sort of feeling she had when one parent or the other was ill. She checked her watch – it was too late to call Devon now, her parents’ bedtime being nearer eight than ten. Then, of course, one or other would wake to use the commode in the night, and both would complain of insomnia. In vain she’d tried to persuade them that going to bed later would ensure a better night’s sleep. Pa insisted that he wanted to get a few hours in before Ma’s tooth-grinding woke him, hard to comprehend since she wore dentures, and Ma demanding the chance to beat her husband’s snoring, entirely credible because his stertorous breathing could fill the entire bungalow. She
stared at the phone – was it really too late?

By then she was alone in the cloakroom. All the other women were returning to the hall. It was Mark’s big moment, and she was letting him down! Had she had a skirt, she would have hitched it up and run; as it was, she lengthened her long stride and arrived by his side possibly before she was missed. Now all she had to do was smile and applaud like a good little woman, which was very easy. Mark was a good speaker, trenchant, witty and – mercifully – brief. Much as she deplored as uncritical sycophancy the transatlantic habit of rising to one’s feet to applaud even an after-dinner speech, she led the ovation for Mark. And why not? He was her boss, her friend and – as from about ten minutes after their checking in – her lover.

It was hard to reverse that order the following morning as they walked through the car park. They had celebrated their coming together well but not at all wisely, and, with hardly any sleep, would have to get through the day on adrenaline and duty.

After their usual decorous canteen breakfast – Mark was still inexplicably desperate to give as little away about their relationship as possible, and had eschewed the hotel meal on the grounds that they’d arrive at work suspiciously late – Fran smiled at her reflection in the ladies’ loo mirror. It felt wonderfully like love, and why not?

Any moment now a thousand and one reasons why it shouldn’t be would come crowding in. But she wouldn’t
let them. She’d breeze through everything the rest of the day brought, even though the first was an encounter with Henson, who might even have been hovering outside the ladies’ door, he was so eager to make his point.

‘I hear you’ve got young Arkwright racketing around the countryside doing your donkey-work again. I thought we’d agreed—’

‘I think you’ll find I cleared it with the ACC. And DC Arkwright should be in by nine or very soon after.’

‘Has it escaped your notice that a child is still missing and that every member of the team is expected to pull his weight?’

‘Not at all. How’s your trawl through the utility companies going? Your search for the workman’s shelter?’

Afflicted with selective deafness, he turned on his heel and stalked off.

At least the car dealers had been more cooperative. She had a pile of faxes and plentiful emails to work her way through, and took a strange pleasure in sorting out which employees had passed from one to another. But none of them worked for dealerships whose customers had had their newly-purchased cars stolen. At this point, it dawned on her that some time in the last week she’d started to re-invent the wheel. The Car Theft Unit might well have their suspicions. Unless the boss was another Henson, they would be happy to exchange information with her, especially if they could claim
glory in a possible collar. As soon as Tom returned, she’d send him off to pool ideas. She glanced at her watch: he must really be enjoying his test drive to be so very late. Meanwhile, it was time for another attack on Alan Pitt’s phone. Today’s message was even more terse. ‘Please get in touch with me immediately when you get this message.’

There was one way she could flush him out, perhaps. By using Elise herself. Poor Marjorie (or whoever she was), to have your name, your very identity, lost the moment you lost your life. What would it be like to wake up now and find everyone calling you by another name? Would you prefer it to your own? Would it make you a new woman?

Which was another point: somewhere Elise had had a life. She’d sold one house: she must have bought another. She must have a load of furniture somewhere. What had happened to that? And what had happened to all the things that would identify her? Her handbag? It would have held her driving licence, if not her passport: people wanting a new identity would give a lot for evidence of one these days. Was another Marjorie Gray wandering the streets of some city ‘up north’ who had no right to the name?

Where the hell was Tom? She needed legs, now – at least a set of fingers to dial phone numbers. There was no argument: she’d have to ask for more help, even when her colleagues could least spare it. She’d better talk to Mark, and though a phone call would have
usually sufficed, today it had to be face to face.

If it could have been mouth to mouth, body to body, she might have enjoyed it even more. But apart from a wonderful locked-door kiss, the door swiftly unlocked and Mark retiring to his official side of the desk, they presented to the Chief, surging in unannounced, no more than two senior officers sitting discussing a tricky case.

‘Tell the media Elise is regaining consciousness!’ he repeated, staring at Fran as if she had two heads. He took a chair and pulled it to her side of the desk.

‘I have to flush Alan Pitt out somehow,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, but thirty-odd years in the job tell me I have to. I’d stake my pension on it.’

‘It’s very risky. When people find it’s untrue—’

‘With due respect, sir,’ Mark interrupted, ‘who the hell will care? She’s lain there like the dead for nigh on two years. People will think, “Oh, jolly good: there’s hope for me if I bang my head!” and that’ll be that.’

‘So you’d trust Fran’s call on this?’

‘Absolutely. Which reminds me, sir, how’s your wife?’

Fran didn’t so much as blink, though she’d have given much to understand the logic behind his change of conversational gear. The Chief didn’t appear even to notice it.

‘Still quite poorly. Seems she’s reacting badly to some pills the doctor gave her. Everything go off well last night?’

‘Very well indeed,’ they said together, as one.

‘Mark’s speech was all you would have wanted, sir,’ Fran added, aiming for factual and probably achieving coy and knowing. ‘Meanwhile, what I really need is a couple of officers.’ She explained her fears about Elise’s documents. ‘At the very least, apart from her very expensive car, her assailant’s probably got his hands on her bank balance, which, given the price of property down there, is certainly worth having.’

‘And maybe… In these days of terrorism, we can’t be too sure when it comes to identity theft. Henson isn’t going to be happy – we still haven’t found that child, you know. And not a word from her kidnapper. Murderer now, more like, given the time-lapse.’

A knock at the door heralded Carl Henson, clearly put out to see both the Chief and Fran in Mark’s room, and then further irritated by the realisation that to reach the only free chairs he would have to scramble over their legs. For a moment it seemed that he would, but he settled for standing up, perhaps aware that it made him look like a naughty schoolboy, especially as he showed no inclination at all to open the conversation.

As if to prompt him the Chief asked, ‘How’s the Rebecca case going, Carl?’

‘Slowly, thank you, sir. But we have had a little
breakthrough
. It seems a workman’s shelter was temporarily removed from where it ought to be, placed at the edge of the market, a pretty pathetic affair by all accounts, and then moved back. Now, it could be a prank, of
course, but it could be altogether more serious.’

Fran held her breath: would he acknowledge his debt?

‘Chief Superintendent Harman holds the latter theory, I believe, so we’ve chosen to go with it.’

They smiled at each other, a good professional smile that softened neither’s eyes.

‘But there are other crimes, Carl. And Fran’s rooting round in what we thought was a dying, if not a dead, case that has turned up all sort of leads. There may even be a terrorist link,’ the Chief added portentously. ‘So with great reluctance, she needs a couple of constables. That lad Arkwright’s up to speed on the case. I’m sure you can you spare him. And perhaps Uniform can come up with someone bright enough to work on their own initiative,’ he added, as if thinking aloud.

‘She’s welcome to Arkwright, and that’s a fact,’ Henson snapped. ‘Look at the time, and there’s no sign of him yet.’

‘Ten-twenty? He should have been back here by nine,’ Fran agreed, tutting in irritation. ‘Well, he won’t be any loss to your team, will he?’

‘I’ll send him to you with a flea in his ear,’ Henson said.

‘That’s OK. I’ll insert any fleas myself, thanks.’

Henson’s mobile spared him having to respond. He bowed himself out.

‘Thanks, guv,’ Fran smiled. ‘And the announcement about Elise?’

‘Will it distract attention from Rebecca?’ Mark frowned.

‘It shouldn’t. Only one person will be interested – Alan Pitt. Unless,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘it flushes out the assailant as well. It’s a risk I hadn’t thought of.’

The Chief pondered. ‘We certainly can’t offer round the clock protection, and if I know the hospital they can’t either.’

‘What if we don’t make a media announcement?’ Mark put in. ‘What if Fran fixed it with the hospital authorities that that’s the official story but simply notified Alan Pitt? A selective lie.’

The others nodded. ‘On the other hand, flushing out the assailant is the object of everything Fran’s been doing for the last weeks,’ the Chief said. ‘Let me think about it. Fran – get on to the hospital authorities, so they all sing from the same hymn sheet. We’ll need their permission whichever line we go for. Now, Mark, what I really came to see you about was our response to the latest HO directive.’ He looked expectantly at Fran, who took the hint with alacrity.

Tom was glued to the computer in the outer office as she returned, but, catching her eye, grabbed his notepad and scuttled after her, looking as hangdog as if Henson had fulfilled his promise.

A big grin was transforming his face when he observed hers. ‘I’m truly sorry, gu— ma’am,’ he said, pulling himself swiftly to an approximation of attention. ‘But I was on to something and I thought if I
pursued it I’d save you a lot of time. And your phone was switched to voice-mail,’ he added, nodding to it.

‘And my mobile?’

He blushed to the tips of his ears. ‘I thought perhaps you wouldn’t want to be disturbed, like. You know.’

‘I suppose a call when I was in with the Chief might have been a tad irritating, but you should have tried, Tom. OK, sit yourself down and tell me what you’ve found. And make it snappy, because I want you to go and talk to Car Theft.’

‘Again? Because that’s where I’ve been, ma’am. Can’t think why I didn’t go and chafe the fat with them before. Now, they’ve just picked up a team stealing four-by-fours to order – mind you, I’d give the bloody things away, all their pollution and consumption, plus the ladies on the school run can’t park them—’

‘OK, Tom – cut to the chase. I’m halfway to forgiving you, but if you don’t spill the beans soon, I’ll return you to Henson for the duration.’

‘Ma’am. Now, it seems they had a spate of thefts of high-powered sports cars a couple of years back, like. Porsches, Audis, Lotuses. All very efficient, usually from the owner’s drive, which you’d have thought a bit risky. But, d’you know, guv, there’s one gang specialises in stealing the wheels from cars on driveways. Alloy, of course. So the owner gets up and find his whatever it is sitting on four piles of bricks.’

Fran coughed. ‘Lotuses?’

‘Sorry, guv: I do like my cars, you know. Anyway, like
I was saying, all these posh cars vanished. Hundreds and thousands of pounds’ worth from driveways on Kent and Sussex. And then the thefts stopped. Just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘And the last one was reported stolen two days before Elise had her accident. How’s that for a coincidence?’

‘How indeed? All the car thefts or just the Lotuses?’

‘All. Oh, I don’t mean nationwide, nothing like that. Just those down here.’

‘Quite.’ She interrupted what she feared would be another long explanation. ‘Tell you what, see if Interpol have reported similar spates anywhere else.’

He looked puzzled.

‘You don’t think…Elise, like…I mean, it’s such a coincidence!’

‘You think that Elise was at the heart of an international gang of car thieves so that when she was hospitalised, the crime stopped? Elise? A woman older than me?’

‘Well, women’s lib and all that, ma’am.’ His face fell as he conceded, ‘Actually, there have been more thefts recently, with a similar MO.’

‘You mean removal from front drives?’ If only she’d had more sleep and less passion. No: just more sleep after the passion.

‘No, with removal vans. Actually, those horseboxes where people can sleep in the cab.’

She rubbed her face. ‘Let me get this straight. A team of car thieves used to operate by stealing expensive cars
and shoving them in horseboxes to get them away. They stopped doing it at the time of Elise’s accident, and were inactive for a while, but now they’ve resumed their activities.’

‘That’s what I said, guv.’ Tom looked genuinely pained.

‘Any theories why they might have stopped suddenly and then been resumed?’

‘Well, seeing as how she was hurt so badly, ma’am, you don’t suppose someone might have had a fit of conscience, like? Either that,’ he added, more prosaically, ‘or they made so much loot they could afford to have a break.’

‘Quite. And have our colleagues got any theories?’