Power on Her Own (24 page)

He managed a smile – not a wink. ‘Thanks for coming round,' he said. ‘Send everyone my thanks. Tell them I'll be back as soon as I can be.'

‘When the doctor says it's all right,' Mrs Harvey's voice over-rode his.

‘Goodbye then.' She peered round his shoulder. Mrs Harvey regarded her. ‘Nice to have met you,' Kate said, like a kid at a party.

On impulse, she went home, not to the Manse. Thank God for chicken tikka naan. She ate it on her lap in her bedroom. Then, slowly at first, and then maniacally, she started to clean her windows. Her bedroom. The back room. The bathroom. The landing. The front bedroom. She might even do those downstairs. The new doors. The windows. And at last, opening the front room door – the room that was to be her dining room – she was hit by the smell of paint. Primer to be precise.

She sat down on a pile of cardboard boxes – her kitchen in chrysalis form – and stared. Someone had started to rub down and prepare the bay window.

How long she'd been sitting there she'd no idea. At last it dawned on her that the phone was ringing, and she sprinted to it.

‘I was afraid you might be at the Manse,' Graham said.

‘I come home sometimes.'

‘Not often. I tried to get you a couple of times. How are things?'

‘Cope's weird. Sent me on a wild-goose chase to Devon. But I've got this bee in my bonnet, Graham. I haven't dared tell anyone yet.' She trusted him to interpret her silence correctly: that she knew she could trust him.

‘Shoot.'

‘One day – just after I started – I was very late in –'

‘I bollocked you, if I remember rightly.'

‘I wouldn't call that a bollocking. Anyway, on the bus on my way in I overhead these two women talking about a house in their cul-de-sac. Seems the people using it went to ridiculous lengths to maintain their privacy. Graham, it's the longest of shots – but I want to find that house. May be nothing to do with this case.'

‘May be everything in the world to do with another one. OK, Kate. Find it. Kate. Before I forget. If ever the phone rings back immediately after I've put it down, ignore it. You can always one four seven one it. And I'd be grateful, if you ever phone me here, if you dial one four one first.' His voice writhed with embarrassment.

She didn't need to ask why. God, another conspiracy. Just so she could talk to her boss. All that just so she could talk to her boss.

‘This house, Graham. It might take a long time to find.' She told him what she was looking for.

‘I only wish I could help. But there's no way I can drive for another couple of days. She's taken my keys, just to make sure.' He laughed. An embarrassed schoolboy laugh.

‘Any ideas how I could clear it with Cope?'

‘You can't, can you? Because he'd veto it as a waste of time. It'll have to wait till I'm back, Colin. But thanks for the call. Always nice to hear from you lads.'

End of call. He wouldn't win any Oscars for that performance, though.

The phone rang. And rang. She sat on her hands in her effort not to answer. At last it stopped. It started immediately. She went to the loo. At last, she returned, and checked the origin of her call. Graham's number.

Find it,
the man had said. She'd give it till twelve tonight. Couldn't go on too late and risk being knackered for tomorrow's match, could she? Matches, she corrected herself. She went back upstairs to retrieve warm, sensible clothes – her thickest tracksuit, and warm cords and sweater for the afternoon. There. But it would be so nice to live in just one house. Picking up her coat and the
A-Z
she let herself out of her house, locking the door behind her.

‘You look like you could do with your weekend.'

Kate jumped. Literally. ‘Mrs Mackenzie! I was miles away! I'm so sorry.'

‘That's all right. House coming on?'

‘Slowly. Even when it's finished, I shall never be able to get it clean.'

‘You want cleaners? I know cleaners.'

‘Would they want to tackle a job like this?'

‘Is the Pope Catholic? You just tell me when. You got a job, they want a job. You got money, they want money. Symbiosis.' Mrs Mackenzie grinned. ‘Fancy a coffee?'

All those plans for prowling the suburbs!

‘Love one. But –' she gestured ineffectually at her house.

‘My place. I only like grounds with my coffee, not grit.' She let them in. The house was silent, apart from the irritating tinkle of a central heating radiator. It still smelt of paint.

Kate followed her into the immaculate kitchen. Shedding her coat, Mrs Mackenzie fished beans from the fridge. She pulled a face while she ground them, but then grinned. ‘Got this new espresso machine,' she said. ‘Black or white?'

Kate tossed up: which did she need more, a good night's sleep or wakefulness for her suburban patrol? ‘White, please. Didn't sleep too well last night. Jenny gets these nightmares and shares them.'

‘Jenny?'

‘The younger daughter at the Manse. Screams in her sleep, poor little mite.'

Mrs Mackenzie nodded: ‘My Royston had a phase of that. Never think it to look at him, but he was a timid child. Bullied. That's one reason we moved churches. Kate – you don't mind if I call you Kate, do you? I'm Zenia. Seems my parents wanted to call me after some flower and couldn't bloody spell it. Pardon my French. Don't swear, except it's been a bit of a day. Got this woman on the ward – I tell you she hasn't a bit of skin left on her.'

Kate looked up sharply.

‘Oh, natural causes. Eczema. Only you feel so helpless. Been dabbling in this herbal stuff. Just because it grows natural, they think it must be good. Well, whatever she was on wasn't.'

Kate waited. The coffee-maker belched. The smell was making her salivate. ‘You say Royston was bullied? At the chapel?'

Zenia bubbled the coffee into the tiny white china cups she'd reached out. ‘Help yourself to sugar. Bullied at school – that's for definite. But there was something at the chapel he wouldn't ever tell us about. Never has.'

Kate looked up sharply. ‘Any ideas?'

‘None. I looked for the obvious things – including sexual abuse, before you ask. Nothing I could see. Tried to talk to him. Had a discreet word with the officers. Maybe some racism, they thought. It's a very white, middle-class chapel, that one. And he's much happier now we've left it. Happier! Lord, when was a teenage boy ever happy?'

‘How old is he? Hmm, this is good!'

‘Fifteen. Working for his GCSEs. And doing well, his teachers say. I suppose it's best for him to be polite at school, rude at home, if he's got to be rude. Get a GCSE in swearing, I sometimes think. Bad company. There's him in the A stream of a grammar school and he chooses friends dropping out of the comp. That's kids for you. I sometimes wonder if it's because I work.'

‘I doubt it. I think trouble's something all teenagers are prone to – like a virus.'

Zenia bridled. ‘Trouble? I didn't say anything about trouble. But you never know what they get up to, do you. Watch and pray, that's what they say. Except the watching's hard when they dash off the second they've done their homework.'

‘Tell you what, if he's still doing his homework, I shouldn't think you've got all that much to worry about!'

Zenia laughed, but her voice was soon serious. ‘I hope you're right. That's all I can say.' She made an obvious effort. ‘Now, tell me all about this handsome young man my husband tells me he keeps seeing at your house.'

Kate sighed. ‘Handsome pain in the arse, more like.'

Zenia shook her head. ‘When you get past forty, no handsome young man can ever be a pain in the arse. Ever.'

‘This one can. Oh, he means well. But he's at my house more than I am, doing little jobs.'

‘And big ones – digging out that garden took him a good while.'

‘He's painting my front window, now. Not now this minute. Now his current job. Except he's got a job. He's supposed to be a college lecturer – he doesn't seem to be spending a lot of time lecturing.'

‘Skivers in every walk of life. Don't tell me you haven't got some policemen who sit on their backsides and let the others do the work? Anyway, when you're in love, what's a little thing like work? And that young man's got to be in love.' As if sensing Kate had had enough of the subject, she got up. ‘Now, I want an honest opinion. I've got a bit of a promotion at work, and I saw this outfit in town. And I fell for it. Well, we've got a wedding to go to. Joseph's niece. I haven't shown it to Joseph, yet.'

‘Let's see. Go and put it on.' Kate waved her out of the room. She might as well give up the safe-house search for tonight. She was too weary. In any case she deserved a break and it was good to get to know her neighbour. At first she'd assumed she was just another middle-aged woman. Now – she gasped as Zenia returned.

‘My God – you look absolutely stunning.'

‘You don't think it's OTT?' Zenia turned slowly.

‘Not a scrap. The cut – it's absolutely lovely.'

‘Cost me a bomb.'

‘It shows. Turn round again.'

Zenia was transformed from a slightly dumpy forty plus into a queen.

‘Is your hair long enough to put up properly? Go on, try! And a hat?'

She didn't leave till nearly eleven. They'd had more coffee, and Zenia had produced cakes from her deep-freezer. They'd had a feast.

‘You all right, girl?' Zenia peered at her under the hall light.

‘Be nice just to go home, wouldn't it. Not have to zap off to the Manse. Though I don't know why I'm moaning. It's not all that far.'

‘You know as well as I do it's nothing to do with distance. It's your roots, Kate. You're looking for somewhere to plant them.'

The turn-out for the match was gratifying, to put it mildly. When Kate arrived with Giles, Alec and Derek were just walking from the carpark. Most of the boys seemed to have at least one parent in support – both Marcus's were there, with an asthma spray, she discovered. Paul arrived just as they were about to kick off; he too waved an asthma spray at Kate, who nodded gratefully – he couldn't have known there'd be another one. A minute later he was followed by Colin, who gave her a highly public hug. ‘Thought you might need a beard,' he whispered.

Kate made perfunctory introductions, and then gave her concentration to the game. The pitch wasn't bad – on playing fields belonging to a college for blind people in Harborne. A strong wind cut across it. Her tracksuit, despite the layers underneath, wasn't nearly up to the job. Clearly she would have to make time to go down to Croydon to retrieve the rest of her clothes. Not to mention the books and other personal things she'd crammed into the box-room. Her new lodger was paying a reduced rent until she'd got the whole house. It was to everyone's advantage to get things sorted out as soon as possible. But dashing off to the Smoke would take time away from the more urgent matters that were filling her life. Maybe she could just manage the double journey after church tomorrow – especially if Colin were free and would co-drive. Fingers crossed there were no new developments at work and they both had the whole weekend free.

‘Sure,' he said loudly and cheerfully. ‘We'll go in my car – hatchbacks hold more and are easier to load.'

‘Mine's a hatchback too!' she said in a little-girl whiny voice. ‘OK, mine'd probably fit into your boot. But I pay for the petrol. Hell, that was a dreadful foul!'

Half-time, and Braysfield Baptists were trailing two nil. Kate handed out cut oranges and advice. She returned to the touchline smelling strongly of juice and even colder than she'd realised.

Paul, who'd kept a remarkably discreet distance, presumably decided it was time to muscle in. ‘Are you going to strip off and put yourself on as a sub?' he asked.

She would not bite. ‘It'd be warmer than hanging round here. I'm going to have to get some Damart thermals if I'm going to do this every weekend. Come on, Marcus! It's just the same as on the carpark! Shoot! Ye-e-es!' She jumped up and down, hugging anyone handy – in this case Alec, who hugged her cheerfully back. ‘Another! Go on, you can do it!'

Braysfield surged back towards the opposition's goal. A professional referee might have blown for off-side but the ref – an opposition parent – was either blind or determined to show his impartiality. One of their backs scrambled the ball into touch.

‘Remember what I said about corners!' she yelled. ‘Stay cool! That's it!'

Sam lofted the ball towards the goal-mouth. Marcus, looking startled at finding himself such an easy chance, nonetheless touched it into the goal. There was an eruption of Braysfield parents.

‘Hey, d'you suppose that's a scout?' Derek grabbed her arm and pointed. A thickly jacketed figure lurking under sunglasses was picking his way towards them. Alongside was another, stockier figure. No sunglasses. But she'd never seen him smile before.