As she gripped the tap at the washbasin she remembered some research that she’d read, about people who would rather go into combat than stand up and speak in public. Oh yes, she thought, and yanked the tap so hard that a jet of water shot out of the basin and splashed all over the front of her suit. She was mopping it with wads of paper towel when a uniformed woman came in to tell her it was time to take her place on the podium.
She took her seat, aware that she still hadn’t really made up her mind whether to include the additional pencilled notes she’d scribbled on page four, and again at the end.
She was conscious of her name being announced, of applause, and of herself rising to her feet and floating towards the podium. Address a point a few feet above the head of the last person at the back of the hall, Brock had advised, but when she lifted her gaze she was blinded by the spotlights. She began reading from her script, and was suddenly very grateful for Robert’s competently constructed sentences and anodyne turns of phrase. Her voice made strong and sure by the amplifiers, she began to feel that she might after all make it to the end before her heart gave out.
Then she came to page four and the margin notes, and felt sufficiently confident to abandon Robert’s script. She was aware of her voice changing as she began to ad lib. And she was also aware of a change in the silence of the audience, which had become intense, especially when she repeated some of Jay’s slogans, ‘male army of occupation’, ‘militaristic structures and mind-set’ and ‘degendering the service’. Like a tightrope walker she kept her eyes fixed on Brock’s neutral spot between the lights, certain that she would fall if she once looked down into the sea of pale faces.
She reached the safety of page five, and sensed the audience relax again as her voice took on the mechanical rhythm of reading once more. And soon there was only one page left, and she found herself wading through Robert’s rather overblown summarising paragraphs, and, below them, her second set of handwritten notes.
‘…But although these processes and procedures may offer an important framework to embrace diversity, there is a danger that we end up viewing diversity as no more than a series of stereotypes,’ she improvised. ‘Every active officer knows that each crime and each criminal is unique, and that stereotypes can be dangerously misleading.’ The most fundamental stereotypes of gender, class and race became meaningless, she argued, in the fluid dynamics of the times, in which the criminal personality might flit from type to type, evolving like a virus to confound the overly rigid systems of law enforcement crime strategies.
So there, she thought, and gathered up her papers and sat down. There seemed to be some applause, then someone else was speaking, and Kathy took a deep, deep breath of relief.
Afterwards, Robert came up to her. He was beaming with what looked like amusement.
‘Well done, Kathy. That went down well.’
‘Did it?’
‘Oh yes. And I think you were right to spice it up with a few off-the-cuff thoughts of your own. Senior management likes to sniff a radical thought from time to time. Makes them feel they’re in touch.’
‘Really?’
‘Certainly. The DC thought it was very good. The last bit, against stereotypes, was especially brave.’
‘Was it?’ Actually, Kathy had felt she’d been stating the obvious.
‘Well, I mean, look around you. Every person here represents some stereotype or other. Look at the members of your committee. If there were no stereotypes they’d have no constituencies and they’d all be out of a job!’ He chuckled contentedly. ‘So it gives them a bit of a buzz to hear somebody saying stereotypes are dangerous. Of course,’ he said, bending closer to whisper, ‘they haven’t had your recent experiences, seeing how easily someone can turn from one stereotype into its opposite.’
Kathy looked at him in surprise. How did Robert know about Verge’s transformation? And if he knew, who else did? ‘What are you talking about, Robert?’
‘Why, you of course! A policeman one minute and a criminal in a Spanish jail the next. Oh, many odd things cross my desk, Kathy; don’t worry, I’m the very soul of discretion. But perhaps it should make you think about your own position. Maybe you’re the one stuck in a stereotype.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, Brock’s acolyte, working in the shadow of the great detective. One way and another, you’ve been noticed over the past days, Kathy.’
‘Mostly for the wrong reasons.’
‘Maybe at first, but it’s a fine line between dangerous insubordination and daring initiative, and people have been impressed, believe me. It’s time you moved on, into frontline management. You need someone to advise you on your career. Someone like myself.’
He’s coming on to me, she thought with a sigh, and was saved from replying by Jay, who was pushing through the crush towards them.
An old man was holding open the door of the village pub for his moth-eaten black dog as Kathy drove past. It seemed to be a major operation for both of them. She pulled up by the gate of Orchard Cottage, seeing the lights on in the windows. Charlotte seemed surprised but not unhappy to see her. Madelaine Verge, on the other hand, sitting in her chair by the fireside with a magazine on her lap, looked hostile and suspicious.
‘We came across something during the course of our inquiries that I wanted to return to you, Charlotte,’ Kathy said, handing her the photograph that Luz Diaz had given her.
‘Oh, I remember this! Dad kept it in his wallet. Where did you get it?’
‘It turned up among some other papers.’
The young woman stared at it sadly for a moment, then placed a hand on her tummy. ‘Thanks. I thought you might have come about the terrible fire at Briar Hill. Isn’t it awful? Do they know yet what caused it? George says Luz may have left something on the stove, and then with her painting chemicals in the same area, it was bound to go up.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You do know about Luz leaving, don’t you? We’re all feeling sad about that, too.’
‘Did Luz come to see you before she left?’
‘Yes, on Sunday night. We were just about to go to bed, weren’t we Gran? She called in to say she’d decided to go back to Spain for a while, but she didn’t leave a forwarding address, and until she gets in touch again I don’t know how they’ll be able to contact her about the house.’
Kathy tried not to stare at Charlotte while she weighed every intonation, every shift of expression. She didn’t know, Kathy decided. She had no idea that the painter was her father.
But Madelaine was another matter. When Kathy met her eyes she thought she saw knowledge and anger that shouldn’t have been there.
‘We don’t even know what caused Luz to go so suddenly like that,’ Charlotte said.
‘I think I do,’ her grandmother said, in a voice as tight as the grip of her swollen fingers on the arms of her chair. ‘I think she was driven away by the constant harassment of the police, isn’t that right, Sergeant?’
Yes, Kathy thought, she knew, had always known.
‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not fair, Gran. She’ll probably be back before long.’
‘I don’t think so, dear,’ the old woman said, keeping her angry eyes on Kathy all the time.
‘Well,’ Kathy said evenly, ‘I hope she does. I for one would really like to meet up with her again, Charlotte. I’ve become very interested in modern Spanish painting, and I’d love to contact her about it. Will you let me know if you hear from her?’
‘Yes, certainly.’
‘She’s bound to be in touch when the baby arrives, don’t you think?’ Kathy added, watching the anger darken Madelaine’s features. ‘I’ll expect to hear from one of you then, eh?’
The old dog was tied up outside the pub door when Kathy drove past for the last time. It looked fed up and she wondered how it had disgraced itself. She turned the corner into the lane leading back to the highway, then pulled onto the side as her phone rang.