Ash & Bone

'Tell me a bit more about this Kennet,' Elder said, when she'd finished. 'Maddy seems to have gone out with him for quite a while.'

'I don't know if there's a lot more to say. I met him a few times, seemed nice enough. Good-looking bloke, I'll give him that. Bit cocky, maybe.' She smiled. 'Not as bad as some.'

'She liked him, though?'

'I suppose so, yes. She'd never have gone with him otherwise.' Vanessa reached over and speared a piece of previously rejected pastry with her fork. 'To be honest, I think it was the sex as much as anything. I don't mean it was so great, not according to Maddy, anyway; nothing earth-shattering, not like Meg Ryan in that film, but, well, she'd not been with anyone in ages and I suppose…' Vanessa laughed. 'Well, I suppose it made a bit of a change. Made her feel good about herself, you know?'

Elder thought he might.

'And, from what you say, it just petered out?'

'In a manner of speaking.' There was a broad grin on Vanessa's face.

'You know how Kennet felt about that?'

'He was fine about it, far as I know. No big scene or anything.' She shrugged. 'I don't think it was such a deal for either of them, not really. Not true love, exactly, you know what I mean?'

Elder signalled the waiter for another espresso. 'These fears of Maddy's, that she was being watched. Spied on. You think they were real?'

Vanessa smiled. 'Or was she just paranoid like the rest of us?'

'If you like.'

'No, I don't think so. Not Maddy. I mean, it might have got a bit exaggerated inside her head, but no, there was something behind it, I'm sure.'

'According to what you said, it all started round about the time of the Grant business.'

'More or less, yes. I suppose it did.'

'This officer who was killed, Draper…'

'Paul, yes.'

'Maddy was there when he was shot, in the same room…'

'Standing right next to him, close as I am to you now.' She leaned in to the table, as if to make her point.

'It must have shaken her up pretty badly.'

'It did, you could tell. Draper's wife and little boy, she was upset about them too. Went round to see them quite a few times.'

'And she didn't talk much about it, other than that? It didn't seem to be preying on her mind?'

'No. Not really, no. Though she did mention it, must have been the last time I saw her, last time we went out together, at least. About the inquiry, you know, into the shooting.'

'What exactly did she say?'

'Just they'd given her a pretty tough time, sounded like. Questions, you know. Maddy thought they were going to have her in again.'

Elder made a mental note to check if that had been the case. He should read the report of the inquiry, certainly, maybe go and talk to the investigating officers.

His espresso arrived, the waiter smiling at Vanessa, making conversation.

Elder eased back his chair and loosened his tie. 'The night Maddy was killed, d'you think she could have been meeting someone?'

Vanessa chewed on a strand of hair that had found its way into the corner of her mouth. 'I don't know who. And besides, why there?'

'Perhaps it was convenient. Possibly, whoever it was, they didn't want to be seen.'

'Married, you mean?'

'Either that or someone she worked with.'

'No,' Vanessa said. 'No way.'

'Why ever not?'

'It's something she was always hot on. God! She slagged me off for it enough times. Messing around on your own doorstep. Only leads to grief, she said. Course…,' looking at Elder now, 'how far that was based on personal experience, I've no idea. But she was dead right anyway.' Vanessa treated Elder to a salacious grin. 'Disaster every time. And besides, if it was serious, she'd have said something. A little hint, something. She wouldn't have kept it to herself.'

'She seems to have played her cards pretty close to her chest where her ex-husband was concerned.'

'That's different, though, isn't it?'

'Is it?'

'Yes. You know, husbands, wives, someone you're trying to pretend never existed.' Vanessa looked at her watch. 'I'd better go.'

'Okay.' Elder pushed back his chair as she got to her feet. 'If you think of anything else…'

'I'll call you,' Vanessa said.

He remembered the number of his mobile at the third attempt and she wrote it down. She glanced back through the window from the street, red mouth and dark hair, a quick smile and then gone.

Elder sat a few moments longer, collecting his thoughts, before heading towards the station.

18

Karen Shields was less than happy. Ferreting for a lost spoon that morning, she'd discovered a patch of damp the size of two large dinner plates on the wall between the cooker and the sink. Several shades of mottled grey, bubbling out from the plaster like an infection on the lungs. Then, when she'd poured milk from the carton into her coffee, instead of merging, it had floated in sour globules on the surface. And as if to cap it all, someone, using either a coin or a key, had scraped a wavering line along the near side of her car, where it was parked at the kerb outside. All this before eight o'clock.

It only needed the assistant commissioner, of all people, to summon her to his office, which, of course, within fifteen minutes of her arrival, he did. Only to keep her waiting for another five minutes outside. Karen standing there in a blue-black trouser suit, the toes of her boots pinching slightly, one heel starting to rub. If she ever got as much as an hour to herself, there was a pair of red leather Camper boots she was longing to try and bugger the expense.

'Karen. Excellent, excellent.' When Harkin finally ushered her in, he was in one of his annoyingly affable moods, all smiles and clichй. 'Just wanted to check, you know, how things were going?'

Patronising was another word for it. She preferred him when he was in a temper; she found it easier then to respond.

'Yourself and Elder, everything sorting itself out?'

Karen undid the centre button of her jacket and did it up again.

'No friction?'

She thought she'd better say something. 'No, sir. None.'

'You're sure? Because if -'

'To tell the truth, sir, we've hardly noticed he's here.'

'Stepping quietly at first, I expect. Tactful.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Because if there is anything, I expect you to bring it in here. Nip it in the bud before it takes hold.'

Gardeners' bloody Question Time, Karen thought. 'Yes, sir,' she said. 'Though I'm sure there'll be no need.'

She could just see herself running into the AC's office, like some snot-nosed kid, the kind that was always telling tales. Please, sir, Billy Bang's stolen my pencil case. Please, sir, Frank Elder's stolen my murder investigation. Don't even think about it. Anything that wanted sorting out, she'd sort it out herself.

***

Mike Ramsden was at his desk, chair hiked back on to its rear legs, using the end of an unravelled paper clip to clean his nails.

'Any sign of him?' Karen asked.

'Who's that?' Ramsden said.

'Mike, don't play silly buggers. I'm not in the mood.'

When are you ever? Ramsden thought. 'Okay, okay,' he said. 'He rang in, left a message. Wants us to get together this afternoon.'

'What time this afternoon?'

Ramsden shrugged his shoulders. 'Didn't say.'

Karen swore and looked at the ceiling. What did Elder think? She was going to sit around cooling her heels till he condescended to grace them with his company?

'Where the hell are Furness and Denison?' she asked.