Power Games (3 page)

‘To head up some new initiative or other,' Colin said, who would have told her later if it hadn't been.

‘MITs,' Fatima said. ‘That's the current term, isn't it? Major Incident Teams.'

‘But they'll be called something else next week,' Colin said. ‘I wonder if there's a Booker Prize for acronyms.'

‘The idea is,' Fatima said, drawing herself up and speaking in a pseudo-official voice, ‘that there'll be a full-time team of experienced officers, led by a senior officer, on stand-by to deal with any serious crime as and when the need arises. And,' she added, apparently getting bored with the lingo, ‘they'll pull in anyone else to help if they want them. What happens to the work
they're
supposed to be doing …' She broke off to answer the phone.

‘That'll get spread out amongst the plebs like me,' Colin said. He waited until Fatima was engrossed in the call to whisper, ‘Well, Kate, this is your job: go and tackle Graham. Find out the truth.'

Refusing, in public at least, to rise to the bait, she smiled, tapping her watch. ‘We'd better go and see what Rowley's got to say, hadn't we, Colin?' She flapped a hand at Fatima as they left.

All that remained of Rowley's apple was the stalk, apart from the bits of skin stuck between her front teeth. What she needed was a toothpick, even a pin. As it was, she punctuated her sentences the whole meeting with irritated little sucks.

‘Any news on that warehouse fire yet?' she asked, her lips undulating with the efforts of her tongue to shift the peel.

‘Not yet, ma'am,' Kate replied. ‘There's a meeting set up with the Fire Service and the insurance people for three this afternoon. I'll be able to report back to you after that.'

‘That's official news. Anything from the streets?'

‘It'd be nice if we could make my
Big Issue
seller into an official informant, wouldn't it?' she said. ‘After that beating he took last year for talking to us, it's the least we can do for him. He'll get precious little from the Criminal Injuries Board.'

‘He'd do better to sue the scrotes that did it,' Colin observed. ‘He'll get Legal Aid, surely.'

‘A little help now wouldn't come amiss, would it?' Kate pursued.

Rowley nodded. ‘Put it on paper, Kate. But don't call him an informant. It's sarbut up here. And I tell you, though I hate to admit it, we don't often get women managing sarbuts.' She looked at Kate doubtfully.

‘“Sarbut”?' Kate repeated.

‘Brummie for informant,' Rowley grinned. ‘Forgot you were a foreigner!'

Kate grinned to acknowledge the dig.

‘I see him regularly anyway, ma'am. Every time I go to Sainsbury's, as it happens. He's got into a hostel in Moseley. It's easier for him to get to the Kings Heath pitch.' This was nothing like as lucrative as the Selly Oak Sainsbury's. It was a much smaller branch, for one thing, and the shoppers less affluent.

Rowley nodded as she made notes. ‘I'll talk to them upstairs. But he'd have to come up with hard news, mind – not just bits of gossip from his mates. Being an informant isn't meant to be a thank-you for being good in the past, either,' she said, looking over her glasses with a frown. She gathered her papers. ‘Right. And I suppose you two have heard the rumour, eh?'

‘About DCI Harvey?'

‘Who else? But as far as I know, it's no more than a rumour. Just a question of watch this space.'

Kate waited a second before she said, ‘It'll put a lot more on you, ma'am, if they take away a DCI.'

‘Well, that's the pattern, these days, isn't it? And not just on me – on you, too, Kate. Until you go flitting off somewhere on this accelerated promotion scheme you're on.'

Kate's turn to suck her teeth. ‘Between the three of us, I'm having doubts about that.'

Sue Rowley looked at her shrewdly. ‘Don't like the idea of fourteen-hour days, seven days a week?'

‘I get enough of that anyway, don't I? And I'm studying for the next lot of exams, just in case I change my mind. But it's not the work that worries me. It's the nature of the work.'

‘You prefer to lead from the front, not from behind a desk, don't you? Well, don't decide anything in a hurry, Kate. There's a lot to be said for catching all the experience you can get.'

‘And for picking up the pay to match,' Colin said.

‘As to that, the rate she's going, she'll make it to inspector soon enough. Time I was reaching for my slippers and my knitting,' Rowley sighed. ‘Be off with you then. Time to fight a bit of this crime we're always hearing about. But don't fall over my Zimmer on the way out.'

Kate was forcing those stiff joints and muscles to walk briskly back from the Fire Station when her mobile tweeted.

‘That you, Kate? Alf here. I was wondering, could you get yourself back here before it gets dark tonight? Only I've found something in your garden you ought to see.'

She hunched into a doorway to cut the traffic noise.

‘What sort of something?' she asked.

‘Remains, like.'

‘Remains!
Human
remains?'

‘Not as such. Not a body, like. But it's something you should see before I clear the rest of this shed.'

‘I'll try and be there by six,' she promised.

‘See you at seven – that's what you mean, isn't it! No, don't wait till it gets too dark. Go and tell your gaffer you're pursuing your inquiries or something.'

 

‘Something nasty in the woodshed, Kate? How wonderful!' Graham passed her a mug of Darjeeling. ‘Diamonds under your bedroom floor and now something nasty in the woodshed. I wonder what lies concealed in the other houses in Worksop Road … Now – you don't have a house name, do you?'

She shook her head. He knew that as well as she did. She braced herself for the sort of laboured joke he made when he looked as tired as this.

‘Well then, you could set a trend. Cold Comfort House.' He drifted over to the window.

She laughed obligingly. Should she risk a joke about finding a handsome, sexy Seth? No, perhaps not.

‘So what do you reckon it is in your woodshed?' He turned to face her.

‘So long as whatever it is doesn't involve coroner's officers and inquests, I don't care.'

‘Well, you must care enough to get back in time to talk to Alf about it. Remember me to him, by the way. He did a grand job doing up my mother-in-law's house.'

Mrs Nelmes had sold up and moved into the same retirement home as Aunt Cassie, providing Cassie with an endless source of vindictive amusement. Especially now she'd discovered Graham's wife was burdened with the name of Flavia.

Kate nodded. ‘He's a good man. Honest as the day is long.'

‘All the more reason not to keep him waiting. You put in enough hours here not to worry about slipping off – provided, of course, that Sue Rowley's happy about it,' he added, smiling straight into her eyes. He poked a geranium cutting that had dried out too much. Wasn't it time they were planted up now?

‘Thanks. The Fire Service people' – after all, this was what they were supposed to be talking about – ‘are pretty well convinced there's an arsonist about, by the way. You remember that spate of school fires they had in the Black Country? We've got warehouse ones on our patch. Yesterday morning's was the third.'

‘Any connections?'

Kate shook her head. ‘Nothing in common apart from the fact that they're warehouses. One practically in West Bromwich, one in Selly Oak, one closer to home – Perry Barr, near the University of Central England. Chemicals – nothing toxic; fabric – that went up like the clappers; and household goods. Same modus operandi in each case – getting up on to the roof, prising open a roof-light, sprinkling petrol on to the floor below, and a rapid exit.'

‘Bloody risky. In an explosion, the roof could go—' He gestured. ‘Any theories?'

‘Crazy kids playing chicken. But why are the sites so far apart? Highly mobile kids, if they are kids. And there's no car thefts to tie in with the arson. So how are they getting there? Taking a can of petrol on an all-night bus?'

‘Or older kids with their own car? Are the warehouses all covered by the same insurance company?'

‘Three different ones. Three different firms – no connection that we can see.'

How could she bring the conversation round to his departure? He was already looking at his watch. He drained his mug in one go.

‘Come on, Kate – time you weren't here.'

‘But it's only just after five and I can't see my desk for—'

‘Come in early tomorrow. Stay late tomorrow. Only now,' he grinned, ‘vamoose!'

 

It seemed as though all Birmingham were leaving work early to see what was under a garden shed. Plus every set of lights was at red, every yellow line had a parked car. But she got home at ten to six – nowhere to park nearby, of course, as she could have predicted. When at last she scooted up her entry she found several panels of the fence removed and an ominous blue plastic sheet where her shed had been.

Alf greeted her with a flap of the hand. ‘Glad you got back, Kate. Only I've never seen anything like this before. And I thought you, being in the police, ought to. You might know what to do. Oh, don't worry about those panels – it was just that it was easier for us to barrow out the last of the trees, see. Come on, aren't you going to have a look? I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of, not that you policewomen don't see nasty sights every day, of course.'

Despite herself, her hand was shaking as she lifted a corner of the heavy plastic. Fear of creepy-crawlies, she told herself, was a thing of the past, conquered by all that therapy. So it couldn't be that. Would it be something human so decayed that Alf could no longer identify it? No. There was no smell to alert him or her.

A burst of evening sun spotlit the ground. Amid the splintered wood – the ex-shed – were some bricks and some greenish discs.

Dropping to one knee, she touched one of the discs. ‘Coins?'

‘That's what I thought. I've got my heart set on a spot of treasure trove for you. But you have a closer look. They can't be English ones – all these funny patterns.'

Kate picked one up from the extreme edge of what she was already calling a site. Scrubbing it clean, she inspected more closely. ‘Well, it's metal, all right … No, it can't be gold …? Coin of the realm it isn't. Wasn't.' She scraped a bit more soil free. ‘But there is a crown! Look!'

‘What about these, then?' Alf held out a smaller disc, quite plain.

Kate took it, turning it carefully. ‘Hey, that's a shank.'

‘And if you fit this to that – if you pressed this spare metal round here—'

‘You have a button,' Kate concluded. ‘Well, I'm blessed.'

‘Some bone ones – here.' Alf dug in his overall pocket and held out three or four.

‘You're right. Now, why should anyone want to leave all those buttons under my shed?'

Alf shrugged. ‘Ask me another. You could do with getting that
Time Team
in.'

‘Be nice to be on telly, wouldn't it? But they'd take months to get here, even if we could interest them in the first place.'

‘Do you want me just to dig everything up so I can get on with the rest of the job? I've got the hard-core coming at the end of the week. For your path. And don't forget that friend of your mate's wants to be planting as soon as possible – and we're into April tomorrow.'

If only she could have said yes. What was she letting herself in for? Endless phone calls to try and find an expert; time-juggling to fix an appointment for whoever to come out; endless delays to the garden if the site were interesting.

He took her silence as the negative it was. ‘So you'd rather I got on with the other things? I mean, I've still got those two stumps to get out.' He pointed. ‘And I suppose I could fix the toilet roof. Yes, I'll tell my mate to hold the hard-core another couple of days. Your word is my command,' he added, with a flourish.

Or her silence. Time to say something. And not to correct his idiom.

‘Yes. You're right. I've got to get someone to check it out, haven't I? Well, maybe we should look on the bright side. It may turn out to be something to tell your grandchildren about.'

‘Or a damp squib.' He looked at one of the buttons. ‘Doesn't look much …'

‘It's just that there are so many of them, isn't it? I don't sound very grateful, do I, Alf? But I am. Any other bloke would have just dug the whole patch over without even a second thought. How about a cuppa to celebrate your find?'

 

As she fished it from her sports bag, her tracksuit reminded her it needed washing. She might as well put a load in while she prepared and ate her supper. And better check all the pockets, in case she'd left in a tissue and everything ended up covered with shredded paper. No. None in her tracksuit pocket. Nor anywhere else. But – yelping, she was up and across the kitchen, grabbing her waterproof and fumbling in the pocket.

Her hand came up triumphant. My God, fancy forgetting the old woman's ring! Supper had better wait. Except – she twirled the ring gently – it wouldn't hurt it to be cleaned in some of the stuff she occasionally used herself. Any more than it would hurt her to grab – if not the chicken risotto she'd promised Lorraine she'd try to cook – a chicken sandwich.

 

‘I never know where I've put it,' Mrs Sargent said, pushing her ring on to her finger. It looked very bright, very new, against the deeply weathered skin. ‘So I couldn't ask anyone to look for it. But it's as precious to me as those old photos are to Len.'

The Sargents were side by side on Mrs Hurst's sofa. A BMW parked in the road outside suggested that their daughter might have arrived.