‘Has Alexis left?’ Pointless question. Alexis is invariably at work by seven.
‘’Fraid so,’ Chris apologized. ‘She said she expected to be finished by three, and that you should ring her at the office if you wanted her to pick up Davy later. I’m really sorry we can’t help out today.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said. The power of speech seemed to have returned with the second mouthful of coffee. ‘You two have done more than enough. Richard owes you.’
Chris smiled, a genuine one this time. ‘I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but we’ve enjoyed ourselves. I live with Alexis, don’t forget, so I’m used to dealing with the demands of small children, and she loves having someone to play with.’
‘You’re not getting broody, are you?’ I asked suspiciously. It’s bad enough that all my straight friends seem to be hellbent on repopulating the world without the lesbians joining in.
‘Building a house is more than enough to be going on with,’ Chris replied as she headed out the door. In the hall she turned back and gave me a mischievous smile. ‘Ask me again in a couple of years.’
If my neck hadn’t seized up, I’d have turned my face to the wall. As it was, I gulped the rest of the brew and slowly, excruciatingly, dragged my body out of bed and into an upright position. I walked to the bathroom stiff as a guardsman. Unfortunately, I’d slept too late to have a bath so had to settle for a shower. I tried to relax as the hot water did the business, but I’d only been under for a couple of minutes when I heard Davy’s voice outside the door.
‘Kate?’ he shouted. ‘Can I play with your computer?’
‘Not here, Davy. I’ve got to go to work in a minute, so I thought maybe you’d like to play on my machine in the office.’ I spluttered.
Silence. That was more unnerving than anything he could have said. I switched off the shower, wrapped myself in a bath sheet and opened the door. He leaned against the wall, looking dejected. My breath stuck in my chest. The line of his body, the angle of his head, the slight frown was so like his father it hurt. He looked up through his long lashes at the sound of the door opening. ‘When’s my dad coming home?’ he asked plaintively.
I managed to get my lungs working again. ‘Not for a couple of days, I don’t think. I spoke to him on the phone last night, after you’d gone to sleep. He said he misses you too and he’ll get back as soon as he can get a plane. I’m sorry, I know I’m not a lot of fun.’ I hugged him. Surprisingly, he didn’t pull a face and draw away. He hugged back. ‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I’m having great fun. I just wish he was here too.’
You and me both, pal, I thought but didn’t say.
I broke my personal land speed record getting out the door that morning. Dressed in under five minutes, second cup of coffee down the neck in less than a minute, breakfast one of the Pop Tarts I’d bought for Davy. It tasted like sugar-coated polystyrene, but at least it raised the blood sugar level. By the time I parked on the single yellow line round the corner from the office, I was almost functioning.
I hustled Davy up the stairs and into my office, checking the clock as I walked through the door. Seventeen minutes till deadline. Shelley was already at her desk, earphones in, fingers flying over the keyboard. I strode past her with a little wave, shooing Davy into my office. I switched on my PC, showed him the games directory and made him promise not to interfere with any of the other files on the machine. He dumped his backpack by the desk and was absorbed in Lemmings 2 before I’d had time to walk back out. I closed my office door behind me and perched on Shelley’s desk, nailing what I hoped was a pathetic and appealing smile on my face.
‘No, Kate.’ She hadn’t even looked up from her screen. ‘I am not a child-minder and this is an office, not a crèche.’
‘I know it’s not a crèche. A crèche is what happens when two BMWs collide in Sloane Street.’
‘Not funny,’ she retorted, not pausing long enough to let her sense of humour kick in.
‘Please, Shelley. He’ll be no trouble. Just for this morning. Just till I can get back from court. I promise I’ll sort something else out for tomorrow.’
‘There’s no such thing as an eight-year-old boy who’s no trouble. I’m a mother, don’t forget. I’ve told the same lies you’re telling now.’
‘Shelley, please? I have a meeting with the Drugs Squad in ten minutes. Richard’s freedom depends on it. I don’t think they’re going to be mega-impressed if I turn up with Davy in tow.’ I was practically begging. I’d done so much of it lately it was beginning to become second nature. Another bad habit to lay at Richard’s door. What’s worse is that it doesn’t work.
I got up from the desk and went into Bill’s office, where I helped myself to his portable TV, a gift from a grateful client who had Mortensen and Brannigan to thank for the ending of his little software piracy problem. I marched through the outer office, wrestled with the door handle and staggered into my office, where I put it down on one of my cupboards. ‘There’s the TV, in case you get fed up with the computer,’ I said to Davy. I can’t swear to it, but I don’t think he even looked up.
I stalked back into the office and gestured over my shoulder with my thumb. ‘Look at that. You’re telling me that’s more than you can cope with? God, Shelley, am I disappointed in you.’
When all else fails, go for the ego. The only trouble is, sometimes the ego bites back. Shelley smiled like Jaws and said sweetly, ‘Just this once, Kate. And by the way, Andrew Broderick’s been on again. He says if he doesn’t get his car back soon he’s going to have to come to some arrangement about reducing our fee.’
There’s nothing like keeping the customer satisfied. I checked the fax machine on the way out, but nothing had arrived from Julia. I hoped that didn’t mean it was going to be one of those days. Not when the next item on the agenda was a close encounter with the Drugs Squad.
Chapter 19
Q: What’s the difference between a schneid watch and a policeman? A: Schneid watches keep good time. By the time DCI Geoff Turnbull deigned to fit me into his busy schedule, I’d worn a furrow in the floor tiles of the front office. I was getting more wound up than an eight-day clock.
When he finally appeared, it took all my self-control not to bite his head off. Instead, I smiled sweetly and meekly followed him through the pass door into the real world of the city centre nick. We stopped outside a door that said DRUGS SQUAD — PRIVATE. I thought at first that was a joke, till I saw Turnbull pull out a key to unlock the door. He noticed me noticing and said, ‘You can’t be too careful, the stuff we have in here. These days, we’ve got more civilian support staff than we have coppers, and some of them have got more loyalty to their bank balances than they have to The Job.’
How to win friends and influence people, I thought as I smiled what I hoped would pass for agreement and approval. I followed him into an overcrowded office, crammed with desks, VDUs, bulging files, and not an officer in sight. The walls were lavishly adorned with colour photographs of villains. By the look of the pics, most of them were snatched, like mine. If anything, mine were sharper. Maybe Turnbull would be so impressed with my work that he’d offer me a job as a police photographer.
Turnbull’s personal office was partitioned off in one corner. He’d managed to bag the only window, not much of a deal since it looked out on a brick wall all of five feet away. He squeezed his rugby player’s frame behind the loaded desk and gave me the hard stare with small sharp blue eyes. He couldn’t have looked less like my idea of a Drugs Squad officer. I’d expected an emaciated hippy lookalike with a distressed leather jacket and a pair of jeans. Either that or a flash bastard dripping with personal jewellery who could pass for a major dealer. But Turnbull looked like the only drug you’d suspect him of using was anabolic steroids. He lived up to his name: short curly hair with a forelock like a Charolais, the no-neck and shoulders to match, with the gut of a man whose stomach muscles have given up the unequal struggle with Boddingtons Bitter. I put him in his late thirties, well along the road to the coronary unit.