Verdict Unsafe (11 page)

“You’ll have to move the car first,” she said, aware of her lack of romance, but unable to abandon her practical nature. “The traffic wardens start massing for attack at five to eight.”

“Don’t go away,” Lloyd said, fishing the keys from her pocket.

He had been gone two minutes when the phone rang.

“Doesn’t hang about, does he?” said the voice. “That’s what I call a quickie.”

Judy swallowed. “Who is this?” she demanded.

“Still don’t recognize my voice? A lot of women have that trouble.”

She dropped the phone and ran to the window. The dark street was empty as far as she could see in both directions. Slowly, she walked back and picked up the receiver again, but he had hung up. She replaced it and sat on the edge of the bed, her hand pressed to her lips.

Lloyd came back, and she went out into the hallway. “Did you see anyone on the street just now?” she asked.

“No.” He took off his jacket. “Why?” He frowned slightly. “What’s the matter?”

“He called again,” she said.

“Your anonymous well-wisher?”

She looked up at him. “I don’t think he wishes me well.” She told him what he’d said.

“Oh, forget it. It’s just someone’s idea of a joke.” He tried to cuddle her, but she pushed him away.

She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

“Judy,” he said, putting his arm around her. “Don’t let it worry you—it’s just someone trying to be clever, that’s all.”

“He’s watching the flat,” she said.

Lloyd shook his head. “No one’s watching the flat.”

“Lloyd, he’s been out there since before seven! Watching, waiting for the light to come on so he could ring me. I’m not going to—” She broke off, feeling embarrassed, not something she often felt. “Not while he’s out there, watching.”

“Oh, come on, Jude—this is silly. Who do you imagine would want to watch your flat?” he asked.

Judy knew who it was. Perhaps she hadn’t recognized the voice, but she knew who it was, all right. She looked at Lloyd. “Colin Drummond,” she said.

“Well—even if he is. He can’t see in. Just forget about it,” he said.

“No. I’m sorry, Lloyd. I just—” She shook her head. “Please. Not now.”

Lloyd sighed. “All right,” he said, philosophically. “What do you want for breakfast?” he asked, walking toward the kitchen.

“Nothing.” Judy went back into the bedroom, and selected clothes from the wardrobe. “How could he know it’s my birthday?” she called through, only to find when she emerged from the wardrobe that Lloyd was in the room with her.

“No mystery about that,” he said. “There’s a huge banner up outside. I expect you’ve got Tom and Bob to blame for that. Did I hear you say you didn’t want
breakfast!”

“Not now,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just…I can’t help it. I think about what he did to those girls, and—”

“If it affects you like this, you’re in the wrong job.”

Judy’s apologetic air vanished at that, and she went on the attack. “You didn’t see the victims!” She pulled on a crisp white blouse, tucking it into her skirt. “One of them
killed
herself, Lloyd! And I’m next, or had you forgotten?” She pushed past him, out of the bedroom. “He’s ringing me up because I’m still a target,” she said, going into the kitchen, putting the kettle on for coffee. “He’s watching me, and he wants me to know it.”

They drank the coffee in silence. Lloyd waited until she had finished hers, then looked at his watch. “Eight o’clock on a Monday morning,” he said. “Since there isn’t a good hanging to go to, what do we do now?”

She shrugged.

“The Ford place opens at eight, doesn’t it?”

“The Ford place?”

“We could take your old car. See what you can get for it.”

It sounded spontaneous, but Judy knew that it had been plotted, rehearsed, refined, all through the silent coffee drinking. And it had the desired effect, as she blushed with guilt. She had forgotten all about his present, and he knew it.

*   *   *

At the other end of Malworth, Ginny Fredericks canceled the alarm, and swung her thin legs out from under the warmth of the duvet, sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes still closed, and began dozing off again.

“Get up, you lazy cow,” Lennie muttered, the words accompanied by a gentle push in the small of her back.

“Who are you calling lazy?” she demanded, standing up and smiling down at her husband’s pleasing face as he lay sprawled on the bed, already taking up her half too. Lennie was thirty-twelve years older than she was, but when he was sleepy he looked about five years old. “You never get up first.”

He grinned back at her, his soft brown hair falling over his forehead. “I don’t start work as early as you,” he said. “Bring us up a cup of tea, doll.” He was asleep again practically before he had finished the sentence.

She went into the bathroom for a quick shower, pulling a shower cap over her dark shoulder-length hair, tucking it in. She would have a proper bath and wash her hair later. She smiled as she thought that, as she always did; she didn’t believe she would ever get used to the luxury of being able to have a bath any time she liked. Lennie had made that possible. She went back into the bedroom and pulled on the flimsy negligee and fluffy slippers that he had given her last Christmas and smiled at him again.

Downstairs, she made tea, and poured a big mug for Lennie, taking it up to him as requested. He was a devil for tea, was Lennie. She put it down beside the bed, and shook him. “Tea,” she said. “Lazy sod. What did your last slave die of?”

He opened blue eyes and pulled himself up on to his elbow, pushing his thick straight hair back, stretching. “Great,” he said, and rubbed his eyes as he reached for an open packet of cigarettes, removing with his lips the one that stuck out of it, and picking up his lighter.

“Aw, Lennie—don’t smoke in here,” she said.

He lit it, giving her a V-sign with his other hand, then blew the smoke at her with a smile. She gave up, and went downstairs again to make breakfast.

Lennie came down, dressed, his hair wet and brushed back, as she was dishing up.

“Great,” he said, planting a kiss on her neck, squeezing her bottom through the thin material.

“Bugger off.” She elbowed him out of her way as she opened the cupboard to get the teabags for a fresh pot of tea. A fitted kitchen. A built-in hob. The house had come like that. Lennie had got her a real house to live in, and she still couldn’t get over it. She’d made it really nice for him, though. He deserved that. She made a pot of tea and took it to the table. She had a slice of toast and some flakes for breakfast, but she liked cooking for him. She liked watching him eat.

Lennie pushed away his empty plate, and drank: down his tea as Ginny got up and cleared away. She heard the diesel engine arriving outside as she finished washing up, heard it cut and shudder to silence. “Rob,” she said, over her shoulder.

Lennie got up from the table, arriving at the door as the doorbell rang, and opened it to Rob, who looked, if anything, even less happy than usual. Rob nodded silently to Lennie, and didn’t look at Ginny at all as he went upstairs. Downstairs was open-plan—she liked that, too. It was nice, opening the door and coming straight in to the kitchen.

She dried her hands, and threw Lennie the tea towel as he went back to the table. “You can dry,” she said. “And shave, Lennie.”

“Stop nagging, you bitch,” he said, and flicked her on the bottom with the tea towel as she passed him, hard enough to make her yelp.

She laughed.

Nine o’clock, and Lloyd and Judy walked into the CID room as it began filling up with keen-eyed, razor-sharp detectives yawning and complaining about the nip in the air. She hadn’t mentioned Drummond at all, and was accepting their various birthday greetings with a good grace. They had taken her old car into the dealer’s; the man had said he would see what he could get for it. He seemed to think they’d be lucky if he got anything.

“What headway are we making on the burglaries?” Lloyd asked Detective Sergeant Sandwell.

“There’s been another one,” he said. “They got back this morning, found the place had been done. Exactly the same MO. The uniforms took all the details. And still the only factor in common is that the householders were all on holiday when they were burgled. And before you ask, sir, no—they didn’t all use the same travel agent, or the same airline or coach company, nor were they all going to the same destination, nor did they all have the same tour company, or tour guide. Not all of them had burglar alarms, and those who had, or who had ever made inquiries about one, did not go to the same place. They don’t get their papers or their milk from the same source, they don’t all have animals in the same kennels, and they don’t all have the same postman.”

Lloyd laughed. “You should have saved that for the new Chief Super,” he said. “It’s going to be the first thing he asks about.”

All serious crime in South Bartonshire was now being dealt with by Stansfield, and as a result, Lloyd’s second brief tenure as head of Stansfield CID had been brought to an end, a higher rank being thought necessary. The new DCS wasn’t going to get too favorable an impression if they couldn’t clear up burglaries on their own doorstep. Their burglar—just one, they were sure—did a beautiful job, and left the house looking untouched, so the householders only found out when they got back. He’d been at it all summer, and they were no further forward than they had been in June. Good God, they were actually being asked to
detect
, something detectives very rarely did.

“What else do you
do
when you go on holiday?” DC Marshall asked, his slow Scottish delivery making the question sound like an earnest plea.

Lloyd thought. “Get travelers’ cheques?” he suggested. “Perhaps they all went to the same bank.”

“They didn’t all go abroad,” said Sandwell.

Marshall sighed, and made a note. “It’s worth a try, Sarge,”
he said. “They might all use the same bank, or post office or something. The clerk gets them talking maybe, and …” He didn’t exactly look overconfident, and looked at Lloyd. “It seems unlikely, sir,” he said. “They aren’t anywhere near one another. Just all in Stansfield, so far. But no particular area.”

Judy’s phone was ringing; Lloyd followed her into her office as she picked it up. The room had been decorated with balloons and cartoons, and a wrapped present sat on the desk; Lloyd wondered if she had even noticed.

“Judy Hill,” she said crisply, then said nothing else until she hung up, and looked at him. “That was to remind me that I’m number six,” she said. “And to indicate that he knows where! am. Now do you believe he’s watching me?”

Lloyd had never thought otherwise. He had hoped he might make
her
think otherwise, or at least think of something else for five minutes. “That does it,” he said. “As soon as the new Chief Super arrives, we’re going to see him.”

“Sorry,” she said, getting up, throwing her bag over her shoulder, and picking up the present. “I’m in court in Barton at ten. I have to go.”

“Oh, right. Don’t drive too—”

She was gone, throwing her thanks for her present over her shoulder as she walked through CID. He picked up her phone and rang the front desk to see when Detective Chief Superintendent Case was expected, to be told that he had come in at eight. New brooms. They gave Lloyd the creeps.

His knock was answered by a peremptory “Come,” and at ten past nine Lloyd went in, introducing himself to the large, gray-haired, bluff man behind the desk, a man roughly his own age, but, as ever, a good three inches taller than him when he stood up.

“Len Case,” he said, shaking hands, and sitting down again, “Take a pew.”

At first, Lloyd was relieved to discover that DCS Case was not twelve, and that he had hung his jacket over the back of the chair and was working in shirtsleeves. He filled him in on the
happenings of the morning, and suggested that they ask for uniforms to be made available to keep an eye on Judy’s flat.

“You’re joking,” said Case.

Lloyd frowned. “No,” he said, his voice light, something that Case would come to recognize as a danger sign.

“You’d better bloody be, if you think I’m pandering to some woman’s fantasy,” he said. “She’s a police officer, whether she likes it or not.”

Lloyd had learned, mostly from Judy, that giving vent to his anger at the moment it swept over him was not the best policy; with Judy herself, it meant saying things he didn’t mean and couldn’t call back. It meant losing more of what little time he had with her, and feeling guilty until he had apologized, and sometimes even after that. With Chief Superintendents, it could mean losing his job for gross insubordination at a time when hanging on to it for dear life was required, if redundancy was in the offing. He ran a hand over what he still thought of as his hair, and held his tongue.

“We should never have had bloody women in the job, never mind making them bloody detective inspectors,” Case went on. “Christ—protection? How long for? The rest of her life? I’m not about to ask for men to be taken off normal duties to protect an hysterical female who can’t stand the heat, and neither are you.”

“I think,” said Lloyd, slowly and Welshly, “that you should reserve judgment on Inspector Hill until you’ve met her.”

“I don’t need to meet her! I know the type. His next victim, my ass! This kid’s twenty-one years old, and she thinks he’s after her? She should be so lucky.”

Lloyd knew then and there that this was going to be just the first of many unpleasant interviews. Redundancy couldn’t come fast enough.

Carole Jarvis glanced at the clock; Rob would be home in about an hour, she supposed. If he wasn’t home just after nine, it was usually an hour later.

His earnings had gone way down when he had started working
nights; that had been the impetus she had needed to look for another job, but he had wanted her there in the morning to make him something to eat before he went to bed. They had compromised, and she had got an afternoon job. Things were a lot easier; he wasn’t doing so badly now that he had someone driving the cab during the day.

She had had to give up her real job, of course. They had kept it open for months, but she couldn’t have expected them to do that indefinitely, and with her being unable to drive the car she hadn’t been able to go back, even when she had recovered. Somehow she blamed the car, blamed the garage. Rob would take her car for runs, keep it in good working order, against the day when she could face it. She had told him to sell it, when they were so hard up that they were counting every penny, but he hadn’t wanted to. He thought it was important that she drive
it
again, not some other ear. She couldn’t bear even to look at it.