There was a sprinkling of early birds in the office when I arrived. They raised their heads from their newspapers and followed me to my little enclave, where Dave was waiting. He closed the copy of UK News that he was perusing and spun it round for me to read.
One photograph took up most of the page. It was of Tony Silkstone, head bowed, tears glistening on his cheeks. But it was the caption that caught my attention. In the biggest typeface that the page could accommodate it said:
HOUNDED BY KILLER COP
Inside was a photograph of me, taken when I left the office, Monday evening, with World Exclusive emblazoned across my forehead. A panel in large print informed the nation that I once shot dead an unarmed man, and now I was persecuting Tony Silkstone, the hero who did what the police had failed to do by ridding society of scumbag sex murderer Peter Latham, also pictured. On the next page but one, after a full-page special of a naked seventeen-year-old girl nibbling at a Cadbury’s Flake, the editorial called me a renegade and a vigilante. Is this the kind of police force we want? it asked.
“The bastards,” I heard a voice behind me say.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “The bastards.” I turned back to the photo of me and carefully folded the paper. “Look,” I said, holding it towards the speaker. “They didn’t even get my best side.”
Willy O’Hagan was no-hoper mixed up in a drugs ring that we investigated. We raided a doss house one morning and he fired at me with a shotgun. Foolishly, I was alone at the time, and armed only with a little Walther two-two. There’s a maxim among security forces that says minimum violence requires a maximum show of force. I got it wrong. I thought I knew best, but I got it wrong and I’ve reminded myself of that mistake almost every night since. O’Hagan swung his gun my way and blew a great chunk out of the chipboard wardrobe I was trying to hide behind, inches from my face. I loosed off three quick shots at him and he died a few minutes later. Then we noticed that his shotgun only had one barrel, and it wasn’t a repeater. I’d killed an unarmed man.
The inquest was a whitewash, but I went along with it. He’d fired first, at an un-named police officer and that officer had returned fire. Lawful killing, justifiable homicide, call it what you will. I thought I’d heard the last of it, apart from the voices in the night, but Prendergast had done his homework. Like I said, they were fighting dirty.
Notoriety has its compensations. I laid low for the rest of the day, drinking coffee, catching up on paperwork and talking to our press office. They issued a statement, putting my case forward, and released a photograph that was used at the inquest, showing a uniformed PC standing where I’d been standing in O’Hagan’s bedroom, with the corner blown off the cheap wardrobe. I blinked when I saw it, feeling the sting of debris hitting my face and eyes, seeing O’Hagan’s form swimming before me, then falling to the floor.
I had a night in and watched the England game on TV, a couple of cans of Newcastle Brown at my elbow, like any good detective would do. The beer went down better than the football. With no goals scored and ten minutes to go our golden boy striker booted their dirty sweeper right in the penalty area and was sent off. One-nil to them, and that’s how it ended. I bought a UK News on my way in next morning, but it was all football and ladies’ chests; nothing at all about the Killer Cop. We were yesterday’s news.
There was a big pink envelope on my desk, and the office was full. Was I missing something? I opened it and pulled out the card it held. It said: Congratulations on your 100^th birthday. Inside, someone had written in a decent italic script: To Charlie, just to let you know that we’re all with you, and everybody in the station had signed it. I walked out into the big office and flapped it at them. “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“Did you organise this?” I asked Annette, after the briefing and morning prayers, when she brought me a coffee. The big card was propped on my windowsill.
“Not guilty, Sir,” she replied.
“Well it was good of someone to go to the trouble. Tell whoever it was I said so, will you?”
“Will do.”
“Fetch your coffee and join me, please,” I said. “I need some company.”
She came back and sat in my visitor’s chair, crossing her legs at the ankle, like any well-brought-up girl should. She was wearing a pinstripe suit with a knee-length skirt and a white blouse but no jewellery. “Don’t suppose you watched the football last night?” I asked.
“No,” she laughed. “Did you?”
“It was pathetic.” After an awkward silence I added: “But at least it kept us out of the papers.”
“Charlie…” Annette began. I looked at her, inviting her to continue. “Are you all right? We all know the truth about what happened, but it doesn’t seem fair that…you know, that only one side of it gets published.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I half hoped that there’d be a more balanced report this morning, but I should have known better. Never trust the press, Annette. Never.”
“What you need,” she told me, “is a really hot curry, with a few lagers to cool it down. It’s Thursday — my treat, my car. OK?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I replied, “but I’ve something on tonight.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, never mind. Some other time, perhaps.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Some other time.”
We finished our coffees and she picked up the mugs. As she left I said: “The Deputy Chief Constable’s coming to see me at eleven, so spread the word. Either be busy or be gone.”
I was waiting in Gilbert’s office when the DCC arrived, a great bundle of newspapers under his arm. “This is a pretty pass, Charlie,” he said, unrolling them on to Gilbert’s desk. At least I was still Charlie.
“Anything in them?” Gilbert asked.
“Not a bloody sausage from our point of view. All flaming football in the tabloids and a couple of the broadsheets have picked up on the UK News’s original story. The Mirror and the Sun will pretend it never happened, because they didn’t get there first, and the others might eventually print something if there isn’t a more important scandal on offer, like a pregnant soap star.”
I grinned, saying: “You have a highly jaundiced view of our free and fearless press, Mr Pritchard.”
“From years of experience dealing with ’em, Charlie. Now, what are we going to do?”
Don’t you just love it when they ask you before telling you? He was retiring in a few weeks, so could afford to be generous and one of the boys. He’d come to the odd reunion or retirement party, but his authority would have gone and any influence he may have held would soon evaporate. What he’d like, all that he could hope for, was that people like me would talk about him with respect. “He wasn’t a bad old stick;” “You always knew where you stood with him;” “He was firm but fair;” or perhaps even: “We could do with him back.”
He didn’t take me off the case, he just destroyed the case. I’d done a good job, he said, had seen possibilities that were not immediately evident to other officers and pursued them with my usual diligence. The story, as I had related it, certainly had credibility. But the time had come to draw back, reconsider our position. Without forensics to link Silkstone with the death of his wife and Marie-Claire, we were leaving ourselves open to criticism. Silkstone had killed Latham, a known sex offender, and a vociferous amount of public opinion was behind him. We needed to channel that opinion so that it was with us, the police service, and not provoke it.
“We can only do our job with the consent of the people, Charlie,” he said. “Never forget that.” I think he read it on a fortune cookie.
“So what do you want to do? Close the case?” I asked.
“Close is rather an extreme way of putting it,” he replied. “Why not allow things to settle down somewhat and see what transpires, eh?”
“Put it on the back burner?” Gilbert suggested.
“Yes, put it on the back burner. And then, if anything else turns up, you can always re-open the investigation. But keep a low profile, the next time. I always find that the softly-softly approach has a lot going for it.”
“How long would you suggest before we looked at it again?” I asked.
“Oh, a couple of years?” he replied.
“And what about Jason Gelder?”
His smile turned sour for a moment, then returned in all its supercilious smarm. “I think we should leave that for Mr Isles to sort out, don’t you?”
I clumped down the stairs one at a time, dragging my hand on the polished banister, banging each foot on to the next step. I was hoping a friendly face would come the other way so I could shout at them, yelling: “What’s it got to do with you how I am?” but none came. I thrust my hands deep in my pockets and skulked back to the office.
Jeff Caton was the only person there, his head deep in that morning’s Gazette. “That all you’ve got to do?” I asked.
“Hi, Chas,” he said, looking up. “Nothing in it, I’m afraid. Nothing about us, that is. The release will have gone out too late for this edition.”
“But?”
“But there’s something in the free ads that might be worth looking at. Bloke selling a box of fifty King Edward cigars for fifty quid. Says they’re an unwanted gift.”
“Maybe he’s stopped smoking.”
“Maybe, but it’s the seventh week the advert’s been in.”
“Really? What are they worth?”
“About twice that.”
“I’m convinced. Let’s go round in the morning and kick his door down. On second thoughts, let’s go round now, just the two of us. I feel like some aggro.”
Jeff laughed. “I’ll call round later, posing as a buyer. What’s brought this on?”
“Oh, Pritchard,” I told him. “Wants me to drop chasing Silkstone. He hasn’t taken me off the case, but I’ve to leave him alone. It’s back to keeping the fair streets of Heckley safe enough for decent people to go about their business. Who cares if one of them just happens to be a psychopath?”
“Maybe he’s a fellow lodge member.”
“No, it’s just bad public relations. I’m the ugly face of the police force.”
I went into my office and gathered up all the papers on my desk, piling them in the in-tray. I slumped in my chair and put my feet on the desk, pushing the chair back until the angle was just right. You can make yourself surprisingly comfortable like that. I checked the position of the big hand on the clock and closed my eyes. With a bit of luck the phone wouldn’t ring for ten or eleven minutes.
Three minutes, but it was Annette, so I didn’t mind. “Boss, I’m at the front desk,” she said, sounding breathless.
“Well, you see those stairs on your left? Go up the first flight and your…”
“I’m interviewing a girl in number two,” she interrupted. “Says she was followed by a stalker. I think you should come down and hear what she says.”
“I’m a bit busy,” I lied. “Can’t you deal with it?”
“I can deal with it, no problem,” she replied, “but I think you’d like to hear it for yourself. Believe me, Boss, you would.”
“OK, I’m on my way.” I swung my feet down on to the plain but functional carpet and reached for my jacket.
She was a big girl, with a bright, open face. Her hair was swept straight back into a ponytail and her complexion wasn’t too good, but she had a nice smile and that makes up for a lot. Her school skirt was short, stretched tight around her crossed thighs, and she wore a blue V-necked pullover with a school badge on it. Apart from all that, she was sitting in my chair. I smiled at her and moved round the table to where the prisoner usually sits.
“This is Debbie Collins,” Annette said, “and this is Inspector Priest. He’s in charge of the case.”
“I know,” Debbie replied. “I saw your picture in the paper.”
“That’s me,” I told her. “Now what can I do for you?”
Annette answered for her: “I’ve recorded an interview with Debbie, but she said she doesn’t mind going through it again.”
“OK. Let’s hear it, then, Debbie, in your own words, at your own speed.”
She leaned forward, placing one hand on the table. “It was one morning last June,” she began. “I was going to school.”
“Which one?” I interjected.
“Heckley Sixth Form College. This man waved to me, from a car. I waved back, sort of instinctively, if you follow me. But when I thought about it I hadn’t a clue who he was.”
“I know what you mean,” I said. “Somebody waves and you wave back. It happens to all of us.”
“Yeah, well, a few mornings later I saw him again. I was waiting to cross the road and he drove by. This time he smiled and gave a little wave, like that.” She raised a hand, as if off a steering wheel. “I didn’t smile back, I don’t think. Next time I saw him was in the afternoon, as I walked home, and he smiled again.”
“Did you take his number?” I asked.
“No, sorry. I didn’t think too much about it. Then, a couple of weeks later, after we’d had our French exam, he stopped his car. I was smoking a cig. I don’t normally, it’s a stupid habit, but we were in the middle of exams and I was nervous. I took one of my dad’s to school with me, to have afterwards, and I was smoking it on the way home and he asked me for a light.”
“He stopped the car and asked you for a light?”
“No, not quite. I saw him drive past and he pulled into the shopping precinct and dashed into the newsagents. He came out with a new packet of Benson and Hedges, and that’s when he asked me. He sort of pretended he wasn’t in a car and walked out on to the path, in front of me. Said he’d lost his matches and could he have a light.”
“Were you frightened?” I asked.
“No,” she replied. “I was bigger than him. I’d’ve socked him if he’d tried anything.” Her face lit up in a smile, and she looked lovely.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Well, just something, you know, suggestive.”
“He propositioned you?”
“Not quite. He held the cigs out and said: ‘Can I give you one?’ but it was obvious he didn’t mean the fags.” She smiled again and this time Annette and I joined her. She’d done the right thing, coming to us, but fortunately her experience, if this was all there was, hadn’t troubled her.
“And what happened next,” I asked.
“Nothing. I said no and he went off. After that I started walking home with some other girls. I saw him once, the following week, but I ignored him.”
“Would you recognise him again?” From the corner of my eye I saw Annette smile.
“Oh, yeah,” Debbie replied, sitting up. “I’d recognise him all right. It was him in the paper, with you, yesterday. Him who did that murder.”
“Oh,” I said, caught off guard. I hadn’t expected this. I sat up straight and placed both hands on the table. It shows that I’m being honest and concerned. “That must have been quite a shock for you.”
“It was.”
“Well, I’m pleased that your ordeal doesn’t appear to have frightened you too much, Debbie, although it must have been pretty scary at the time. You handled the situation very well, but if it does start to bother you at all, have a word with us. Come and see Annette or myself, anytime. Meanwhile, as you know, he can’t hurt you now, because…well…he’s dead.”
Her eyes widened and I heard Annette clear her throat. “No!” Debbie insisted. “Not him! Not Peter Latham. It wasn’t him who followed me, it was the other one: Tony Silkstone.”
I sat looking at her for an age, she returning my gaze from small blue eyes and her cheap scent spreading out across the rickety table. I glanced at Annette, whose grin looked as if it might bubble over into joyous laughter at any moment.
“When?” I managed, eventually. “When did you see him the first time? You said it was June. June the what?”
Annette said: “Debbie has checked when her French exam was, and believes it was on June the ninth.”
“One week before Margaret Silkstone died,” I stated.
“And probably the day Silkstone came home early and caught them together,” Annette added.
“Debbie,” I said, turning to her. “What you have told us may be very important. Do your parents know you are here?”
“Yes. My mum told me to come. She wanted to come with me, but I said it was all right.”
“Good. I’m really pleased you did but I’d be grateful if you’d not discuss this with anyone else, OK?”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“Smashing. And meanwhile, DC Brown — Annette — will take you on a tour of the police station before driving you home. If you’re hungry she might even call in McDonalds and treat you to a burger.”
“Great!” Debbie said, beaming one of her gorgeous smiles at me and uncurling those sapling legs.
I stopped at the front desk and dialled Mr Wood’s number. “It’s Charlie,” I said when he answered. “Is Mr Pritchard still with you?”
“No, he left about half an hour ago. Why?”
“There’s been a development. Give him a ring, please, Gilbert. Tell him Charlie Palooka is back on the case.”
I rang my DI friend in Somerset and asked him to oil a few wheels for me. I wanted to see the file for the Caroline Poole murder, and then I wanted the files on all other associated cases. In a crime like that there are always similar offences which may or may not have been perpetrated by the same person. Caroline’s death stood alone, shocking an otherwise safe community, but rapists and murderers go through a learning process, and usually have a few false starts before they hit the big time. I needed to know who might have had a lucky escape while the killer was developing his technique, and from them I needed a description.
Caroline’s death pre-dated DNA fingerprinting by a couple of years, and there were no samples from her attacker that could be resurrected and tested, but the thought of sticking Silkstone in a line-up excited the Somerset DI. “When were you thinking of coming down?” he asked.
“It will have to be Saturday,” I told him.
“Damn! I’m a bit tied up. I’ll have to let you have Bob. You remember Bob?”
“I don’t need any help,” I protested. “Sit me in front of the files and I’ll work my way through them.”
“No disrespect, Charlie,” he replied, “but I’d like us to keep abreast of this one. We already have Caroline’s file here in the office. I’ll let Bob spend tomorrow on it and he’ll identify the associated files and have them brought to Frome from HQ. He knows his way around them; with a bit of luck he’ll have it done for you. What time will you be here?”
“Umm, ten o’clock,” I said, thinking that I’d work out the details later.
“Right. He’ll be waiting for you.”
When I looked at the map I wished I’d said twelve noon. If I’d had the gift of second sight I’d have said: “Make it Monday,” but I don’t, so I didn’t.
It was microwave chicken casserole for tea, with pasta and green beans. After doing two-days worth of washing up I ran the car through the car wash and checked the tyre pressures and oil and water levels. My energy level was high, things were moving, looking good. I had a shower, put some decent clothes on and went out. It was nearly dark.
I drove to the brickyard, where the lovers meet. It was early for the normal trysts, but one car was parked up, windows grey with condensation. I drove to the opposite corner and parked so I could see it in my mirrors. It was a Vauxhall Vectra, brand new, with a mobile phone aerial on the back window. Later, after the pubs closed, the cars would be cheap Fords and Peugeots owned by the youth of Heckley who had no homes worthy of the name to go to, nobody to ask questions. Right now, it was the time for married men, having a drink with the boys or working late at the office.
I saw the interior light come on as a back door opened. A right-angle of white leg reached out, testing its strength before trusting it with the full weight of the attached body. Sex does that to your legs. A pale dress, flash of peroxide hair as she transferred to the front seat and made herself comfortable behind the steering wheel. Ah well, I’d got the details wrong. The man extricated himself from the back, glanced over towards me as he adjusted his clothing and took his place next to the woman.
They drove away, back to their respective partners. “Had a hard day, Darling?” “Yes, you could say that.” Unless they were married to each other of course, and trying to recapture love’s young dream. Whatever turns you on, I say. I didn’t check to see if he’d dropped anything in the grass. I drove straight into town, not knowing why I’d been there, wondering if sometimes I take my job too seriously.
I couldn’t park in my usual place because next week was Statis week. In mediaeval times it was the annual thanksgiving and excuse for a piss-up in celebration of another successful year’s wool harvest. When nobody needed an excuse any more it fell out of favour for a while, but has recently been revived as part of the culture boom. The fair has been relegated to the park and the town square now hosts a series of open-air concerts, sometimes followed by a firework display across the canal. It brings money into the town and causes traffic havoc, but this is how they do things in Europe and our councillors like to show how cool and young- at-heart they are. Council workmen were busily erecting a stage and seating where I normally park, so I drove into the multi-storey. All leave would be stopped for the woodentops this weekend.
Buddy Holly was still on the door at the Aspidistra Lounge but his hair was growing again, and the ticket girl hadn’t finished her gum. I paid my money, picked up my change and waited for him to open the door.
The steady boom-boom I’d heard outside threatened to do me brain damage now I was in. Blue whales in the South Atlantic probably had their flippers over their ears. The place was as empty as usual and Georgie was behind the bar, surveying his monarchy. In his position, I’d have considered abdication.
“My my, it’s Mr Priest,” he said. “Your usual, is it?” I nodded and he reached into the chiller cabinet for a Foster’s Ice. He flipped the top off and slid the bottle towards me. “This is getting to be a habit, Mr Priest,” he went on. “Your little friends are in, not that they’re little, of course. Young, perhaps, but not little. Like them young, do you, Mr Priest?”
“Glass,” I said, and he lifted one down from the rack above the bar. I carefully poured the over-priced, over-rated lager into it.
“Personally,” he said, “I prefer them slightly older. More mature. But I can see what the attraction is. At their age they still have that innocence, don’t you think? That openness, like a blank page that’s waiting to be written on. I can understand how that might appeal to someone like yourself, Mr Priest.”
“George,” I began. “I’d like you to know that you’re talking family. If ever you or one of your goons as much as makes an approach to any of them, you’ll be taking your sustenance through a tube for the next month.”
“Ooh, I love it when you talk tough,” he said.
I picked up my change and turned away. He called after me: “You know what they say, Mr Priest, vice is nice, but…” The rest of it was lost in the mindless drumbeat, but I knew what he meant: Vice is nice, but incest is best. It rhymes, which is the sole reason for its memorability.
There were only three of them. Shani saw me first and waved, causing Sophie to look up from her glass and give me a smile that did more for me than the lager ever could.
“Who’s missing?” I asked, sitting down.
“Josie,” Sophie told me. “She’s doing a year in Italy before university.”
“And next week you’ll all be gone, will you?”
“Week after is Freshers’ week for me,” she explained. “But this is our last night out.” Shani was going to London and the other girl, Frances, to Keele.
“Looks like I’ll be here on my own, then,” I said, pulling a face.
“Aw!” they cried, in sympathy, and Shani reached out and put her hand on mine. “We’ll make a special point of coming to see you during vacation,” she promised.
Sophie thanked me for the microwave and I mumbled something about having a new one. I offered to buy drinks but they said it was their turn and Frances went to fetch them. While she was gone Shani said: “We’re sorry about what it said in the papers, Charlie. They don’t care what they print, as long as it sells.”
Sophie looked at me, blushing slightly. “I told them what happened,” she began, “when you and Dad…you know.”
“That’s all right, Sophie,” I told her. “They have to print something.”
“But it doesn’t seem fair,” Shani said.
“Fair!” I retorted with mock indignation. “Fair! What’s fair got to do with it? It isn’t fair that you’re all going to university while I have to stay here. It isn’t fair that you have looks and brains, while I have to make do with just looks. And you’re ten years younger than me. What’s fair about that?”
We had a dance and another drink, staying longer than before because it was a special occasion. I politely asked if I was in the way, offering to leave them to it, but they glanced round at the local talent and begged me to stay, hanging on to my arms, making a production of it. We left when they started playing something called garage music, recorded in the panel beating shop by the sound of it.
It was the obligatory hot dogs at the stall outside, smothered in ketchup and mustard. I declined, sitting on the wall upwind of the smell until they’d finished. I watched them as they told stories about their teachers and boyfriends, and threw their heads back in girlish laughter.
We dropped Frances off first. She was a shy, polite girl, and thanked me for the drink and the lift. I wished her well at Keele and told her that if she ever needed anyone sorting out she’d to let me know. She smiled and said she would.
Shani lived less than half a mile from Sophie. Outside her house she gave me a kiss on the cheek and said: “I hope you catch ’em, Charlie, whoever they are.”
“Good luck, Shani,” I replied, “and keep in touch.” I waited until she was safely inside before driving off.
We didn’t speak for the last leg of the journey, both probably engrossed in our thoughts. At the top of Sophie’s street I switched off the engine, doused the lights and coasted like a Stealth bomber towards her home, which was in darkness. I slowed on the brakes, very gently, and came to a silent stop outside her gate. I pulled the handbrake on and turned to face my passenger, my best friend’s daughter, my goddaughter.
I could smell her perfume. It was Mitsouko by Guerlain, as used by Annabelle, my last love. Annabelle was accepted for Oxford when she was Sophie’s age, but went to Africa instead and married a bishop. Sitting there, in the dark, it could have been Annabelle next to me.
“Sophie,” I began. She turned to face me, leaning her head on the back of her seat. I reached out and her hand found mine. I heard myself exhale a big breath, not knowing where to begin. “Cambridge, next week,” I tried.
Sophie nodded. “Mmm,” she mumbled.
“I just want to say that, you know, it’s a whole new world for you. It is for anyone. If you have any, you know, difficulties…”
“If I have any problems,” she interrupted, “if anyone gives me any hassle, let you know and you’ll come down and sort them out.”
“Well, that’s part of it.”
“It’s all right, Charles,” she continued. “Nobody will give me any hassle, and Dad’s said the same thing to me already.”
“It’s not just that,” I told her. “What I really meant was, well, money’s bound to be tight. Impoverished students, and all that. Don’t do without, Sophie. And don’t keep running to your dad. I wanted to buy you something special, but I didn’t know what. There’ll be books you’ll need, and other things. You’re my family, too, you know, all I’ve got, so come to me first, eh?”
She bowed her head and put her other hand on mine. After a few moments she looked up and said: “That’s really lovely of you, Charles. Dad had told me that, too, but…”
“What?” I interjected. “He told you to come to me if you were short of money? Wait ’till I see him…”
She squeezed my fingers, saying: “No, silly, he told me to go to him first, not Mum.”
We sat smiling at each other in the dark, our fingers intertwined. After a while Sophie asked: “Is it true you saved Dad’s life?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“He told Mum you did. She said he won’t talk about it but that’s why you are such good friends.”
“I hope we’re good friends because we get on well together,” I replied. “We’ve had a few adventures, like all policemen, that’s all.”
“She said it was a long time ago, when you were both PCs.”
“Oh, I remember,” I declared. “Yes, it was when we were both PCs. We were at Leeds Town Hall Magistrates’ Court, and your dad had to go in the witness box to give evidence. Someone pinned a note on his back that said: I am a plonker. Everybody would have seen it when he went to the box, so I told him about it. He said: ‘Thanks, Charlie, you saved my life.’ That must be what he means.”
Sophie squeezed my fingers. “I don’t believe you,” she giggled.
“Well it’s true.”
“Charles…”
“Mmm?”
“I…I love you.”
It was a tiny, hesitant voice, but the words were unmistakable, what we all long to hear: I love you. What do you say: “Don’t be silly” or “You’ll get over it”? I never subscribed to the views that babies don’t feel pain, or that the emotions of the young are less valid than those of their parents. Love at eighteen is probably as glorious — or as agonising — as it gets.
“Yes, I know,” I replied, softly, aware that I hadn’t used the words myself for a long time, not sure how they would sound. “And I love you.” There, it was easy, once you took the plunge. The pressure of her fingers increased. “I loved you when you were a baby,” I explained, but it was not what she wanted to hear and her grip loosened. “And when you were a moody teenager.”
“I was never a moody teenager,” she protested.
“No, you weren’t. You’ve never been anything less than delightful. And I love you now, as a beautiful young woman. Love changes, and it’s a different sort of love.” She was squeezing my fingers again.
“But,” I went on, “this is as far as it can go. You realise that, don’t you?”
She looked at me and nodded. We held each other’s gaze for a few moments until, as if by some secret signal, we both moved forward and our lips met.
We pressed them together, held them there, and then parted. I disengaged my fingers from hers and sat back. Her mouth had stayed closed, no tongue sliding out like a viper from under a stone to insinuate its way into my mouth and check out my fillings. She was still her daddy’s little girl. “That was nice,” I whispered.
“Mmm.” She agreed.
“Remember what I said.”
“Yes.” She reached for the door handle, then turned, saying: “I think Annabelle is a fool.” From the pavement she added: “And I hate her,” and reinforced her words by slamming the door so hard that the pressure wave popped both my ears. Why do women do that? I watched her into the house and drove home. I don’t know why, but there was more joy in my heart than I’d felt in a long time.
Somerset Bob rang me Friday morning and I told him what I wanted. He was pleased and eager to be on the case and suggested I come down the A420, M4, and A350, but not the A361. I began to worry that we’d spend most of Saturday discussing the merits of the motorway versus those of A-roads, in which case I’d have to remind him of why I was there, but he was just being helpful and I needn’t have worried. He invited me to stay the night with himself and his wife if we had a long day and I couldn’t face the journey home, which was thoughtful of him.
I pulled everything that might be useful from the Silkstone file and made copies for Somerset. I was extricating details of his early life in Heckley from the photocopier chute when Annette joined me, holding a letter she wanted duplicating.
“What’s all that?” she asked.
“Stuff about Silkstone, for Somerset,” I replied. “I’m going down there tomorrow to look at their files.”
“There looks to be a lot.”
“There is.”
“Why didn’t you ask? I could have done it for you.”
“Because: a, you were busy; and b, you’re a detective, not a clerical assistant.”
“Sorry,” she replied. “Put it down to a hundred thousand years of conditioning.”
“Pull the other one,” I responded, lifting the original off the bed and gesturing for her to put her document on it.
“Thanks, I only want one copy.” I pressed the button for her. “Are you driving down?” she asked.
“’Fraid so. Early start, about six o’clock.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
The light tube moved across and back again, and I lifted the lid. “Why?” I asked. “Aren’t you going to York?”
“No. He’s taking the girls to see their grandma. It’s her birthday, and I’m not invited.”
“Damn!” I cursed. “I wish I’d known. I’ve arranged to stay the night at Bob — the DC’s — house. It would have been a good day out, and you could have shared the driving.”
“Tell him there’s been a change of plans.”
I thought about it. “How were you going to spend the day?” I asked.
“Shopping in Leeds, and a hair-do,” she replied.
“Harvey Nick’s? House of Fraser?” I suggested.
“That’s right.”
“Treat yourself?”
“You bet!”
“Made an appointment for the hair-do?”
“Yes. What’s all this leading to?”
“No,” I said. “Thanks for the offer, Annette, but you have your day out in town. You’ve probably been looking forward to it, and you deserve it.”
“I don’t mind cancelling,” she offered.
“No, but there is one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t let him cut too much off. I like it how it is.” She blushed, so I followed up with: “And as it’s an early start for me in the morning I won’t feel like cooking tonight, so I might pop out for a meal somewhere. Some company would be nice.”
She tipped her head on one side and gave a little tight-lipped smile. “Would I do, Mr Priest?” she asked.
“You’ll do just fine, Miss Brown,” I replied.
I decided to splash out, demonstrate that I know how to treat a girl. Annette protested, said it was her turn, offered to at least split the bill, but I asked her to indulge me. I laid it on a bit thick, said I felt like a treat, something more special than our usual curry or Chinese. I drove us into Lancashire, to a place near Oldfield that Jeff Caton had discovered, run by a French-Persian couple and attracting rave reviews.
We started with kebabs and I followed them with lamb done in goat’s milk and smothered in a spicy sauce. Annette had chicken in a fruity sauce with lots of chutneys, which I helped her with. We washed it down with a full-bodied Bordeaux. The proper stuff, all the way from France. The reviews, we agreed, were well deserved.
“Phew!” Annette exclaimed, dabbing her lips with her napkin. “That was good.”
I finished my coffee. It came in tiny cups and was strong enough to drive a nuclear reactor. They didn’t throw the grounds into the waste bin; they sent them to Sellafield for re-processing. A waiter appeared with the coffee jug but I held my hand over the cup and shook my head. “Any more of that and I’ll be awake all night,” I said.
“And you’ve an early start in the morning,” Annette reminded me.
“Six o’clock,” I groaned. “As much as I’d like to take you for a night on the town, it had better be some other time.” I paid the bill, which went a long way towards compensating the proprietor for the oil wells he lost when the Shah was deposed, and we left.
It was raining and dark, but I decided to take the scenic route back, over the tops rather than the motorway. I pushed the heater control over to maximum and pressed the Classic FM button on the radio. Rodrigues, excellent. I’d thought about pre-loading the cassette with a romantic tape, but it had felt corny, even for me. And what could be more romantic than Rodrigues? Annette wriggled in the passenger seat, making herself comfortable, and hummed along with Narciso Yepes.
A sudden flurry of sleet had me switching the wipers to maximum, but it only lasted a few seconds. “Where does Grandma live?” I asked.
“Scarborough,” she replied.
“And does she know about you?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“So why aren’t you going with them?”
“Because they’re staying overnight, and there isn’t room for me.”
“I see.”
More sleet splotched on to the windscreen, blobs of shadow that slithered upwards until the wipers swept them to the sides, where they clung to each other for security. “Brrr!” Annette exclaimed. “It looks a bit bleak out there.”
“Ah, but…” I argued, raising a finger to emphasise the point I was about to make, “we’re not out there.”
“Do you think…” she began, then stopped herself.
“Do I think what?”
“Do you think he is, out there?”
“Who?”
“Chilcott. Chiller.”
I hadn’t forgotten him, just pretended to myself that he’d gone away. “Somewhere, I suppose,” I replied. “Probably where it’s a little warmer than this, if he’s any sense.”
“Have you heard anything about him, since he escaped?”
“No, not a word since the Calais sighting. When we interviewed Silkstone we made it clear that they’d conned him out of his money. That’s probably what happened. Shooting me was never on the agenda.”
“I don’t believe you,” she stated.
“Well I’ll be off it now, that’s for sure. All he’ll want to do is survive. If the look on Silkstone’s face was anything to go by he’d been paid in full, and there’s no honour among thieves. None at all.” Apart from the odd fool like Vince Halliwell, I thought, doing ten years for someone whose name he “couldn’t remember.” Except that a hit man who ran off with the money without delivering the goods would very soon be an ex-hit man, but I kept that to myself.
I changed gear for the hairpin bend at the end of the reservoir and let the car drift over to the wrong side of the road. We were the only people up there, and it was easy to imagine, after just a few minutes, that we were completely alone in the world, snug in our private cocoon of warmth and music. Now it was Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings. Someone was making it easy for me.
I slowed and turned off the road. A length of it, right on the top, has been straightened, but the old road is still there, used as a picnic place for day trippers from both counties, risking ambush by the old enemy.
“Don’t panic,” I said as we came to a halt. “I bring all my female friends here to admire the view.” Usually it’s the sky, ragingly beautiful as the sun sinks somewhere beyond the Irish Sea; or the lights of the conurbation, spread out below in a glowing blanket. Tonight it was a streak of paler sky marking the horizon, with indigo clouds bleeding down into it. Ah well, I thought, at least I got the music right. As I killed the lights I noticed the time. Twenty-two hours earlier I’d parked up with young Sophie sitting next to me. This was beginning to be a habit.
“I’m not panicking,” Annette said, turning towards me.
“I just thought we should talk more,” I began. “It would have been really nice to have had you along, tomorrow.”
“We could have had a cream tea in the Cotswolds,” Annette suggested.
“Or Bath buns in Bath,” I added. The music paused, hanging there like an eagle over the edge of a precipice, held by the wind. It’s moment, near the end of the adagio, when the silence grips you, forbidding even your breath to move. We sat quietly until the end of the piece, when I pressed the off button. Nothing could follow that.
“What will you do?” I asked, breaking the silence.
After a moment she said: “He wants to marry me.”
The rain on the windows had completely obscured the view and a gust of wind rocked the car. Who’d believe we were just into October? “Do you want to marry him?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Will you leave the police?”
“Yes. If I go back to teaching we’d all have the same holidays. It would be an ideal situation.”
“You tried teaching, once.”
“I was twenty-two. I’ve learned a lot since then.”
“Like karate,” I said. “How to disarm an attacker, or use a firearm.”
She didn’t reply. I said: “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be trying to dissuade you.”
“What would you do, Charlie,” she asked, steering me away from the private stuff, “if you weren’t a policeman?”
“Same as you, I suppose,” I replied. “I was heading for a career in teaching. Physical education and art. Non- academic, looked down upon by all the others in the staff room, with their degrees in geography and…home economics. The police saved me from that.”
“What would you really like to do? If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”
“Cor, I dunno,” I protested, my brain galloping through all the fantasies, searching for a respectable one.
“There must be something.”
“Yeah, I think there is.”
“What? Go on, tell me.”
“Swimming pool maintenance,” I announced.
“Swimming pool maintenance!” she laughed.
“That’s right. In Hollywood. I’d have a van — a big macho pickup — with Charlie’s Pool Maintenance painted on the side, and I’d fix all the stars’ pools.” I liked the sound of this and decided to embroider it. “When I’d finished checking the chlorine levels, cleaning the filters or whatever,” I continued, “the lady of the house would come out with iced lemonades on a tray, and she’d say: ‘Have you fixed it, Charlie?’ and I’d reply: ‘No problem, Ma’am.’ ‘What was the trouble?’ she’d ask, and I’d say: ‘Oh, nothing much, only your HRT patch stuck in the filter again.’”
Annette collapsed in a fit of giggling. When she’d nearly stopped she said: “Oh, Charlie, I do…” Then she did stop.
“You do what?” I asked, but she shook her head. I reached out, putting my arm across her shoulders and pulling her towards me, meeting no resistance. I buried my face in her mass of hair, smelling it that close for the first time. “You do what?” I insisted. “Tell me.”
“I…I…I do enjoy being with you,” I heard her muffled voice say.
“That counts for a lot,” I told her, and felt her nod in agreement. I tilted her chin upwards and kissed the lips I’d longed to kiss for a long time. A grown-up kiss, tonight, with no holding back. She broke off before I wanted to.
As I held her I said: “I’ve dreamed of that ever since I first saw you.”
She replied with a little “Uh” sound.
“It’s true. I’m not looking for a one-night stand, Annette, or a bit on the side. You know that, don’t you?”
“Aren’t you?” she replied.
“No. I want you to believe that.”
“Take me home, please.”
I started the engine and pulled my seatbelt back on. We drove most of the way to Heckley in silence. As we entered the town I said: “If luck’s on our side we’ll find something tomorrow to link Silkstone with other attacks in Somerset.”
“Do you think you will?” Annette asked.
“Depends whether he did them,” I replied. “And even then, it’s a long shot.” As we turned into her street I said: “I don’t know what to think. About anything. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth bothering.” We came to a standstill outside the building which contains her flat. “Here we are,” I said. “Thank you for a pleasant evening, Annette. Sorry if I stepped out of line. It won’t happen again.”
She shook her head, the light from the street lamps giving her a copper halo that swayed and shimmered like one of van Gogh’s wind-blown cypress trees. “You didn’t step out of line, Charlie,” she told me.
“Honest?”
“Mmm. Honest.”
“Good. I’m glad about that.”
She reached for the door handle, like Sophie had done, then hesitated and turned to me in exactly the same way. “What do you have against one-night stands and a bit on the side?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Nothing at all.”
I held her gaze until she said: “Would you like to come in?”
“Yes,” I told her. “I’d like that very much.”