Power Games

Contents

Cover

Also by Judith Cutler

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

The Lina Townend Series

 

DRAWING THE LINE

SILVER GUILT *

RING OF GUILT *

GUILTY PLEASURES *

GUILT TRIP *

GUILT EDGED *

 

The Frances Harman Series

 

LIFE SENTENCE

COLD PURSUIT

STILL WATERS

BURYING THE PAST *

DOUBLE FAULT *

 

The Jodie Welsh Series

 

DEATH IN ELYSIUM *

 

The Sophie Rivers Series

 

DYING FALL

DYING TO WRITE

DYING ON PRINCIPLE

DYING FOR MILLIONS

 

The Katie Powers Series

 

POWER ON HER OWN

STAYING POWER

POWER GAMES

WILL POWER

 

 

* available from Severn House

 

 

 

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This title first published in Great Britain in 2000 by
Hodder & Stoughton
A division of Hodder Headline
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH

eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2000 by Judith Cutler.

The right of Judith Cutler to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0144-7 (epub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This eBook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

To a man with
hwyl

This novel could not have been written without the assistance of Andrew Howell, Graham Townshend, Nick Keane, Peter Leather, Ursula Pearce, Ann Levitt, Anna Meredith and David Symons who kindly shared with me their various areas of expertise.

I'd like to give especial thanks to Stephen Hayward, a wonderful coach who has been endlessly patient and encouraging on the courts of Billesley Indoor Tennis Centre, Birmingham. Apart from his hard work and commitment, he bears no resemblance to his fictional opposite number at Brayfield. Neither do any of the Billesley Centre staff.

Thank you all for your contributions, great or small.

‘Backhand: start low, end high. Backhand: start low, end high.' Kate's new mantra – if she were ever to get that ball over that net. More often than at present, at least. She continued to mutter it as she unlocked the car, slinging her kit on to the back seat. ‘Backhand: start low, end high.' The tennis centre's car park was virtually empty. Well, it would be at eight in the morning.

Kate had started to play tennis again with two new police friends from her nick. Play again? Where were the skills she'd had at school? So here she was, just finishing her weekly seven o'clock session with a coach. And then straight to work.

If her car resented a sweaty driver, that was its problem, she told it as she tried to pull into the main road. Shower in a horribly communal area? With water as cold as it often was this early? No, she'd wait till she got to work, where serious trainers and a tracksuit that meant business wouldn't exactly lose brownie points.

By now her usual route into the centre of Birmingham would already be clogged up. So she took to the side roads – sorry, she didn't approve of rat-runs but there you are – tacking from one to another like a small boat against the wind. If it was slow going, at least she was moving. Next left up that steep hill. Then she came to a dead stop. A traffic jam
here
? And what were those people doing in the road? Abandoning the Fiesta with two wheels on the pavement, she hauled herself out. Hell, the joints were stiffening already! Grabbing her waterproof and bag from the back of the car, she ran to the source of the problem.

Not the predictable car-to-car clip. No, this was a big bang. A very big one. A lorry stuck cab-deep in a small cottage. No sign of fire service or ambulance yet. Kate radioed. And for good measure phoned to tell the boss she'd be late. Just in case.

A couple of men were already trying to reach the driver. An old couple in night clothes wrung their hands as they looked at the remains of their home. Not hurt by the look of it, but certainly shocked. And hanging round on a cold March morning would do them no good at all.

Kate grabbed a gawping neighbour, flashed her ID. ‘Get them indoors if you can. Blankets, hot sweet tea.'

‘Their budgie's still in there. They won't come in till it's all right.'

Jesus! ‘Tell them it'll be the first thing I get, soon as I know the building's safe.'

The neighbour nodded. ‘I'm at number fifty-three. We always knew something like this would happen. Letting big lorries loose on quiet residential roads like these …'

‘Quite—'

‘They're from that big development up the road – they come tearing down the hill. We've always said there'd be an accident like this.'

‘We'll talk about it in a minute. Meanwhile, please – just get them inside, Mrs—?'

‘Hurst. Linda Hurst. Number fifty-three.'

‘Thanks. See you later.'

Meanwhile back to the driver. Out of the tail of her eye, Kate saw the old couple being steered gently across the road. Good. And the familiar sirens were getting nearer.

The lorry driver was now on terra firma. ‘It was the other side took it,' he was saying. ‘The on-side, see. Or I'd be cold meat. Cold meat.'

He might have jumped down himself, but he couldn't shift from the spot. He stood pointing. ‘Cold meat. Just cold meat.'

‘Come on, sir,' Kate said. ‘Let's get you away from here. The brickwork's a bit dodgy. Come on. Over here.' She took his elbow, and drew him towards the ambulance now slewing to a halt. Right. All she had to worry about now was the budgie. First she'd better talk to Uniform. Who were here, two car-loads of them, hot on the tail of a fire appliance.

The first man out of the car was Guljar, a sergeant she'd met and liked her first week in the city.

‘What are you stirring up this time, Kate?' he shouted. Then, as he took in the extent of the damage, he whistled. ‘Bloody hell, what if there'd been a car in the way? Anyone in there?'

‘Just a budgie. Which,' she added dryly, ‘I've promised to get out.'

‘Not yet you won't,' said a fire officer. ‘No one goes in there till we know it's safe. You know: structure. Gas. Whatever.'

‘I'll get someone to talk to the driver – soon as the paramedics say we can,' Guljar said.

‘He doesn't seem badly hurt – he got himself out, at least,' Kate said. ‘As did the old couple who live here – they're at number fifty-three. With a Mrs Linda Hurst. And no budgie.'

‘We'll go take a look round the back,' Guljar said. ‘I take it some of your lads are round there already?'

The fireman nodded. But then looked up sharply. ‘No one goes into the building. Right?'

‘Right,' Guljar agreed, taking Kate by the arm and leading her down the side path. ‘Wow, how about this for a garden! How long d'you reckon it is?'

‘Fifty yards at least,' Kate said. ‘It's perfect, isn't it?' That little greenhouse, all those fruit trees – they'd even got some espaliered on the end wall. ‘God, what I'd give for something like this.'

‘That lot there must drive them wild,' Guljar said, pointing at a patch of waste land next to their fence, big enough for three or four cottages. ‘All those weeds coming through. I wonder why no one's ever built on it?'

One of the fire fighters overheard. ‘Bomb damage, according to my dad. Took out two or three houses this size. And no one's ever done anything about it all these years.' He wandered over and pressed a boot into the earth. ‘The ground's very wet, of course – maybe there are springs or something that would make it expensive to build on. Ted Roberts,' he added, addressing himself to Guljar and the stripes on Guljar's sleeve.

‘Guljar Singh Grewal. And this is Kate Power – a DS, for all she looks like a refugee from a health farm.'

Roberts looked her up and down without obvious enthusiasm.

‘Been playing tennis,' she said by way of an explanation. ‘What do you reckon about this lot?'

They made their way to the back door. It was still ajar. On the gas stove, a kettle steamed beside a jet still going at full blast; on another jet porridge was burning. Kate could hear the budgie chuntering to itself, though there was no sign of it in the kitchen. No chance of a quick dash, then.

‘Seems as if the gas main's OK,' she said.

‘Pity we can't say the same for the structure,' Ted said, pointing.

The rectangle of the door-frame was now a parallelogram.

‘When that lorry comes out – rumble, rumble, splat,' he added.

‘What about hydraulic lifts? Come on, it's someone's home,' Kate said.

‘Rebuilding would cost an absolute bomb. And is it insured? You know what old people are like, thinking they can't afford insurance.'

‘The lorry driver must be insured. His firm, at least,' Guljar said. ‘And I shall want to have a word about the amount of rubble in the truck. A little trip to a weighbridge, I should think. And I'd like a look at his brakes. He must have come down the hill like an aries.' He gave it three syllables.

‘Eh?' Kate and Ted gaped.

‘Sorry. My A level Latin will keep rearing its ugly head. It means sheep.'

‘Ah!' said Kate, clutching her forehead. ‘As in Aries, the birth sign?'

‘Right. An aries was a Roman battering ram. Ram, ram – geddit?'

They groaned.

‘He's lucky to be alive,' Ted agreed. ‘Like you, come to think of it, if you make jokes like that very often.'

The budgie embarked on ‘Fre`re Jacques'.

Ted looked hard at Kate. ‘I'll just go and tell the gaffer about the gas stove.'

The moment he was out of sight, Kate stripped off her jacket.

Guljar looked hard at Kate. ‘You can't: not for one sodding cage-bird. Wait till they've got the hydraulics in.'