Backlash (5 page)

She was clearly a woman who knew her mind, Paniatowski thought approvingly.

‘As a matter of fact, I'll skip even a tomato juice,' Meadows said. ‘I think I'd rather get back to Mr Kershaw's house, and see if there have been any new developments.'

‘There won't have been,' Beresford said. ‘Take it from me, Sergeant, the earliest we're likely to get a break is tomorrow morning, and if you go back now, you'll just be wasting your time.'

‘That's probably true, sir,' Meadows agreed. ‘But, when all's said and done, it will be
my
time I'm wasting.'

‘Fair enough,' Beresford said, as discomfited as Crane had been earlier. Then he added, ‘Why don't you walk the sergeant back to her car, DC Crane?'

‘I don't need anyone to walk to me to my car, thank you, sir,' Meadows protested.

‘I never said you did,' Beresford replied, now fully back in control of himself. ‘But young Jack could use the exercise – couldn't you, Jack?'

‘Err . . . that's right, sir,' Crane said unconvincingly.

‘And once you've seen the sergeant safely to her vehicle, why don't you take a few minutes to stroll around the car park,' Beresford suggested.

‘Uh . . . right,' Crane agreed.

Paniatowski watched Meadows and Crane leave the bar, then turned to Beresford and said, mischievously, ‘You slipped up there.'

‘Sorry, boss?' Beresford replied, in a flat voice.

‘Well, you obviously fancy her something rotten, so what are you doing letting Crane have the first crack at her?'

‘Crane's just a baby,' Beresford said, dismissively. ‘Besides, we need some time alone, so we can talk.'

‘What's all this leading up to, Colin?' Paniatowski asked.

‘What do
you
think it's leading up to, Monika?' Beresford countered.

‘I've no idea,' Paniatowski said, in a voice which didn't sound convincing, even to her. ‘But whatever it is, I don't imagine I'm going to like it, so let's get it over with as quickly as possible.'

‘Don't you think that you were being a bit hard on Mr Kershaw earlier?' Beresford asked.

‘Hard? I'm not sure I know what you mean.'

But she did know – he could tell from the expression on her face that she did.

‘I'm talking about the way you questioned him,' Beresford pressed on.

‘He had information about a serious crime, and . . .'

‘So you do think it
is
a serious crime now?'

‘Of course.'

‘Because not half an hour ago, you seemed to be suggesting she'd done a bunk.'

‘I considered it as a possibility, and now I've rejected it. A woman with a bad case of flu doesn't suddenly decide to leave home on a chill winter night, however unhappy she is – and according to you, she isn't unhappy at all.'

‘Which makes not only Mrs Kershaw – but also her husband – a victim of a crime,' Beresford said.

‘It makes
him
a witness,' Paniatowski said firmly.

Beresford tried again. ‘Kershaw's a good bobby.'

‘Is he?'

‘I think so. He's got an excellent track record for solving crime, he's generally acknowledged to be honest and straightforward, and – most importantly for anybody who's ever worked for him – he looks after his lads.'

Paniatowski's eyes narrowed.

‘Tell me about the time that you met Mrs Kershaw,' she said.

‘It was . . . it was at a summer barbecue.'

‘Where?'

Beresford sighed. ‘At his house.'

‘So he's a mate of yours?'

‘Of course not. He was a chief superintendent, and I was only a sergeant. Our paths hardly ever crossed.'

‘But he still invited you to this barbecue of his.'

‘That's true, but it was rather a big do – there were a lot of other bobbies there as well.'

‘When was this?'

‘I'm not sure I can pin it down exactly.'

‘Try!'

‘It must have been two or three years ago now.'

‘And what did you – out of all the sergeants on the force – do to earn your invitation to this barbecue?'

‘Nothing much. He was my boss at one time.'

‘Ah!'

‘It wasn't for long. He was my chief inspector when I was first starting out on the beat.'

‘But even though he was as high above you as the sun is over the earth, he still noticed you.'

‘He noticed everybody. He was that kind of boss.'

‘That kind of boss,' Paniatowski repeated, rolling the words carefully round her mouth, as if they were poison. ‘And I expect he encouraged you in your career, did he? I expect he was almost like a father to you.'

She stopped, suddenly, remembering that Beresford's father had died when he was young – and that he had spent a great deal of his teenage years looking after a mother who was slipping ever deeper into the pit that her Alzheimer's disease was digging in her brain.

‘I'm so sorry, Colin,' she said.

‘Forget it,' Beresford said, brusquely.

‘I really didn't mean . . .'

‘The point is, boss, that you – and I do mean
you
in particular – can't afford to make enemies,' Beresford said.

It was true enough, Paniatowski admitted to herself. Since she had been a DCI, she had solved three major cases – and, though she'd had help from her team, she
was
the one who'd solved them. But that didn't play well with some of the people who mattered at headquarters. As far as they were concerned, the first case had actually been solved by a rogue sergeant who'd since been promoted, the second by a ‘spook' from London, and the third by her old mentor, Charlie Woodend.

And why did they think that?

Because she was a woman – and a woman couldn't possibly have produced those results!

‘All I'm saying, boss, is that you need all the support you can get – and going out of your way to turn fair-minded fellers like Mr Kershaw against you is just bloody insane.'

‘I was just doing my job,' Paniatowski said stubbornly.

‘Have you got something personal against the man?' Beresford asked, exasperatedly.

‘Something personal?' Paniatowski repeated. ‘Yes, I suppose you could say that I have.'

She likes Detective Inspector Kershaw for a number of reasons, but the main one is the way he looks at her – or perhaps it would be accurate to say the way he
doesn't
look at her.

Some of the men she works with might despise her as a bobby, but they have not failed to notice her as a
body
, so that while their eyes may look at her with contempt, those same eyes are, at the same time, undressing her. But Kershaw is not like that at all. She senses that he feels no attraction to her – or at least, if he does, he is professional enough to mask it.

‘
What can I do for you, Monika?' he asks.

‘
I've come about these,' she says.

‘
You were right to bring these to me,' he says.

‘
How do you feel about them?' he asks.

‘
I'm sickened, sir,' she says.

‘
And upset?
'

‘
That, too.
'

‘
You don't
look
upset,' Kershaw says.

‘
I'm holding it in,' Paniatowski tells him.

‘
I went on a psychology course recently,' Kershaw says.

‘
Did you?' Paniatowski asks.

‘
And one of the things we learned on that course is that it can be very destructive to hold your feelings back – very destructive indeed.
'

‘
I don't see . . .
'

‘
What you really want to do, Monika, is have a good cry. But you don't want to do it in front of your boss, because you think I'll think less of you. Well, let me assure you, I won't. We'd all be better people – better police officers – if we gave in to our emotions now and again.
'

A silence follows, eventually broken when Paniatowski says, ‘I'm not going to cry, sir.
'

‘
Of course you're not,' he agrees. ‘Because you don't quite trust me yet. Because you don't know me well enough to accept that I mean exactly what I say. It doesn't matter. I said you were right to bring these disgusting objects to me, and so you were. This will stop. I'll see to that personally.
'

‘
Thank you, sir,' Paniatowski says.

And now she almost
does
cry, but not through pain but because she feels so grateful.

But she
doesn't
cry.

The lights were flashing behind the bar, signalling last orders. Paniatowski looked down at her empty vodka glass and decided she'd had enough for one night.

‘Let's get a few things straight, shall we, Colin?' she said. ‘I don't like Kershaw . . .'

‘You've made that fairly obvious.'

‘. . . but I'll bust my gut trying to get his wife back to him, just as much as I would if I thought the sun shone out of his arse. Because that's my job, Colin.' Paniatowski paused for a moment. ‘No, it's
not
because it's my job – it's because it's who I am. It's
me
.'

‘I know that, boss,' Beresford said.

‘Do you?' Paniatowski asked sceptically. ‘Somehow, I'm not so sure about that.'

SIX

I
t was a cold, crisp morning. The pavements glinted with frost, and there had been a warning about black ice on the roads, so Beresford drove with extra care.

He sniffled involuntarily, and wondered if he was catching flu. He half-hoped he was, because that would give him an excuse to withdraw from this case which his boss – for reasons of her own – was handling all wrong.

A sudden sense of shame engulfed him. Even if Monika was handling it badly, that was no reason to wish he could abandon her. In fact, it was when she was rushing headlong into what might turn out to be a disaster that she really needed him by her side.