Double Fault (21 page)

She'd no sooner switched on her kettle, however, than a text arrived. Tom. Telling her to take a casual stroll past the CID offices and keep her eyes open. A text? Tom? Not his usual modus operandi.

But stroll she did, and her eyes weren't just open but agog by the time she'd finished.

She didn't think it was necessary to knock as she walked into Sean Murray's goldfish bowl.

‘DCI Murray. My office, now.' She added, ‘We won't have the conversation I intend to have here, in case your colleagues can lip-read.' Turning on her heel, she strode off, yes, the old Fran stride, she noted triumphantly, even as another part of her brain was wondering what on earth to say. Correction: she had so much to say she didn't know where to start.

At least he had the nous not to try to fall into step with her, or, worse still, to try to engage her in conversation. However, as she turned to face him in her office, and nodded at him to close the door, she got the impression that he was at least as angry with her as she was with him.

She sat. She toyed with the idea of making him stand, but thought that it would be petty – too like a Wren move. So she nodded at a chair. Her hospitality didn't extend to offering him coffee, however, though she sipped at her half-cold mug.

She decided to resort to the interviewing method she'd used when dealing with low-life criminals: start with small, manageable accusations, and move up to the serious matters that really needed to be examined. Like, in his case, being someone other than he was claiming to be, and, perhaps, being a murderer. Mass murderer.

‘How are you getting on with the files I asked you to check?'

‘No pattern has yet emerged in the care home deaths. After all, you'd expect a few deaths amongst wrinklies, wouldn't you?' He ignored the height to which her eyebrows had risen and ploughed on. ‘Come on, I'd have thought this was more a job for a bog-standard DC.'

‘What a shame they're all engaged in work on an active case, which meant leave was cancelled and your colleagues were working double shifts. A case I'd have wanted you to work on, given your expertise and experience. And the fact that the head of MIT, Don Simpson, personally invited you down to see the scene and assist him in what promises to be a very complex enquiry – just the sort of case on which an officer with your record and potential would have been expected to shine.' She paused, not just for breath, but to give him time to respond.

He did, but only with what her dear old sergeant in her salad days would have called dumb insolence.

‘You made a trivial – and as it turns out – spurious excuse and quit the premises as soon as you took the call, although you knew that MIT was short-staffed and must have suspected that all leave would be cancelled. Your phone was switched off and you didn't respond to my calls.'

‘Not exactly a hanging offence.'

‘Not exactly a hanging offence,
ma'am
,' she snarled, she who cared little more than a snap of the fingers about rank. ‘For God's sake, Sean, I was calling to offer you a career-changing promotion – only temporary, but to detective superintendent. And you didn't return my calls.' She thought that had penetrated his carapace, but still he said nothing. ‘There was so much concern for you – were you having some sort of temporary breakdown? – that we then wasted valuable time and resources trying to locate you.'

‘You mean check up on me? How dare you? I was taking quite legitimate Time Off in Lieu.'

‘But you hadn't cleared it with me.'

‘Because you aren't my line manager. Ma'am.'

‘Not yet. But you hadn't cleared it with your Met line manager, either. Don't look so shocked. We have such things as phones, Sean. From lucrative and prestigious promotion to a disciplinary, I'd have thought. What a waste.' As she geared herself up for the next stage of her tirade, the internal phone rang: Wren's line.

‘Your messages, Harman?'

‘May be redundant, sir. Some of them. But I believe we need to have a very urgent conversation, sir. Before or after the rest of the one I'm currently having with DCI Sean Murray.' She eyed him coldly. Eventually he had the grace to drop his eyes.

‘Murray! I was just going to tell you that we can stand down the search for him,' he declared. ‘My contact in the Met has located him. Even as we speak he's probably on the train back here. I've made clear to my contact that I'm far from happy with his gross violation of discipline, and that I want him under my jurisdiction in future. So as and when he returns, send him directly to me. I may, of course, have to consider the temporary promotion you wanted to offer him.'

There was no point in correcting his use of pronouns. She had something more important to say. ‘I would be delighted to discuss that with you. Meanwhile DCI Murray is here in my office.'

‘Send him to me.'

‘With respect, sir, I would prefer to have a confidential conversation with you myself before he is involved. And furthermore I would like you to take measures to ensure he stays on the premises, preferably incommunicado, while this conversation takes place.'

Murray was on his feet.

So was she. She held the handset away from her mouth, but Wren would almost certainly hear her as she barked, ‘Sit down. You know running will only harm your case. I said sit. Now. And make yourself familiar with those files.' She pointed to a pile in the corner: let his back and legs deal with the tottering and undistinguished heap. ‘We'll discuss the contents when I return.'

She was still shaking with fury when she presented herself in Wren's office, moments later. He took a swift look at her, told her to sit and produced, wonder of wonders, a cup of coffee.

‘We have problems?' he asked, also sitting down, but behind his desk. In his place, she'd have pulled her chair round to a less formal position, but that was Wren for you.

‘We do indeed. Thank you.' Perhaps he thought she was expressing gratitude for the excellent coffee; in fact, she was acknowledging the change of pronoun.
We
was a hundred times better than
you.
She kept the word in play. ‘We actually have more than we expected. A DCI going AWOL is one thing; a DCI changing his identity is another.'

‘Changing—'

‘You'll recall that I asked you to authorize the comparison of two photographs? Here is the report.' She laid it on his desk. ‘The evidence suggests that Christopher Manton and Sean Murray are one and the same. I've not yet had time to check the possibilities of an official change of name by deed poll – it struck me as almost an irrelevance at the time – but I should imagine it won't take long. Probably the Met noted it and forgot all about it when they lent him to us. What matters far more is that in the Ashford case—'

‘The skeletons in the youth club?'

‘Exactly. We have two main suspects. By far the stronger is the youth worker, Malcolm Perkins; the other is Christopher Manton. Perkins is dead, that's for certain, but I have officers checking possible activities in the other towns where he worked. On the other hand, assuming my suspicions are correct, Manton is here. In fact, it is just possible that we have to arrest him on suspicion of the murder of at least eight young adults, currently being identified.'

‘And you realize the implications of that?' He looked more troubled than she'd imagined he could.

‘On him? On us? On the media embargo? On the ongoing publicity for the Livvie case? I do indeed, sir. The last thing we wanted was to have to go public now with the Ashford case but if there's the remotest chance of this getting out—'

The phone rang. ‘Ah, that'll be the Home Office. Nothing to do with this case. But I have to take it. We'll continue this in half an hour or so. Meanwhile, get everything out of him that you can. Informally if possible, Fran.'

Fran, eh? Any moment now they'd be best buddies. Or not.

A
s she returned from Wren's office she intercepted Tom Arkwright, just about to make his breezy way into her room. He always knocked, of course, but increasingly his tap was perfunctory and he would pop his head in simultaneously. Today she would have to freeze him out, having a conversation in the corridor.

‘Morning, guv. I've got a bit of news for you. Not about Murray.' He registered her frown and the lack of invitation. ‘I guess I'm not allowed to talk about that, am I?'

‘No. And I'm afraid I'm flat out just now – rush job for the boss, Tom.' Which had the virtue of being true. Almost. Even though he didn't seem to expect frankness, she hated fobbing him off. She just hoped no one else had clocked Murray's early appearance. She made an effort. ‘Do I gather you were working yesterday, despite what I said?'

Tom clearly picked up on something in her manner, but continued, ‘Well, I always was a bit pig-headed, according to my auntie. So, yesterday I joined in with the little team checking on yon Malcolm Perkins.'

‘As anyone would, if they were bored. Unless the sun was shining and they should be enjoying life while they're young. Oh, Tom … Very well. Bollocking over. Not that I meant too much of it, except the bit about the sun. We should have been breathing in fresh air, getting some dear old vitamin D for free.' Her sigh was genuine.

‘Sunshine or not, I found stuff I wanted to tell you first. Only to find you'd just gone home.'

‘In other words, you were working till well after eight o'clock.' She shook her head sadly. ‘And you didn't phone?'

He pulled a face. ‘I reckoned if you'd called it a day, it was only because you were dead on your feet.' They exchanged an understanding smile. No one else would have dared say anything like that, and they both knew it. ‘In any case, a mate was on to me for a couple of jars and a game of pool. No vitamin D in pub lighting, I'm afraid.'

‘Too true. OK, what did you find?' She shook her head. ‘No, tell you what, give me half an hour – maybe forty minutes – and then come back. With cake, if possible,' she added with what she hoped was her usual grin.

He looked at her steadily. ‘Fair enough, guv. Though I'd say it was right important.'

‘Half an hour, Tom?' But Tom never exaggerated. ‘OK, if you don't need fresh air and birdsong, I do. We'll talk outside now. I'll just get my jacket.' And make sure Murray was working his socks off.

‘West Bromwich is the most interesting,' Tom declared, turning his face to the sun and closing his eyes against the glare.

She did likewise. ‘I bet that's the first time anyone's ever said that!'

‘Unless you're a Baggies supporter, that is,' he said, picking up her change of mood.

‘Or you're a fan of the M5.'

‘Or interested in the activities of Malcolm Perkins. Now, just as you can't get much more rural than Kent, so it's hard to find anywhere nearer the industrial heartland of England.'

She must show interest, not relief. ‘That might be a euphemism, young Tom. Or an oxymoron.'

He bridled. He must have misheard.

‘
Oxy
moron,' she repeated. ‘Figure of speech, meaning contradiction in terms. I'm not suggesting you're an idiot.' She started to walk: good physio for the leg, after all, which was always frighteningly stiff in the morning.

He fell into step beside her. ‘I like a bit of industry, myself. It's not all
Last of the Summer Wine
and cricket up my way, Fran. A few mills, the odd canal – that's me happy. They call them cuts in the Midlands, did you know that? And there's some town up there says it's got more canals than Venice.' His face might have been as straight as a pall-bearer's, but his eyes were twinkling.

So were hers. ‘OK, spare me the
Rough Guide.
What's Perkins been doing in West Bromwich?'

‘Youth work, as you'd expect. Particular speciality, the school drop-outs, the NEETs and so on. All the same, he doesn't stay long at Sandwell – that's the council that runs West Brom and a few other towns—'

She raised a finger. ‘Also spare me the administrative details.'

He put on his pained expression: Eeyore without his tail. ‘Just a couple of years, and he's off. Career path, they call it, don't they, going from one employer to another. Not like us in the police. Any road, during his period in West Brom, West Midlands Police have to register quite a number of mispers. As you'd expect: poverty, job market poor, lots of cuts to jump in. Sorry, Fran – but you should see your face when I wind you up.'

‘To use your strange lingo, any road,' she prompted.

‘I believe,' Tom said primly, ‘that they actually say,
any road up
in the Black Country – which is the generic name for – OK, OK! No fewer than five of these mispers disappeared while they were supposed to be attending one of Perkins' schemes. Like in Ashford, they were all dossers and no-hopers anyway, to use the highly technical language of my contact up in Sandwell. So no one takes any more notice than they should. But I tell you what, Fran, it's all systems go up there now.'

‘And in Taunton and Stoke-on-Trent, I should imagine.'

‘Which my Gran always used to call Smoke-on-Stench. I don't know about Taunton and Stoke, because I wasn't working on them, and I didn't want to tread on anyone's toes.'

‘You've done enough work for three here. You know that. All incredibly valuable stuff. I'm proud of you, Tom. Well done. Meanwhile,' she added ruefully, ‘your TOIL must amount to several weeks, by now. Where are you going to spend it all? South of France?'

‘South Yorkshire, more like. Or Tunbridge Wells, swanning round with my new rank. My housemates are asking when I'm moving out. But I'd rather stay where I am. I think.'

She looked at him shrewdly. ‘You're as overtired as I am, Tom, and that won't do for a brand-new inspector going into a brand-new job. Soon as this is over, I really want you to take some of this time off. Get some rest. Spend time with your mates. Get yourself a girlfriend for me to gossip about.'