Kathy remembered Brock mentioning him. ‘Oh. You were a friend of Max Springer’s, weren’t you? I work with DCI Brock.’
Dr Pettifer checked himself. ‘Ah. Interesting developments, eh? Anything you need?’
‘Well, maybe there is something you could help me with. I’m trying to get hold of some of Professor Springer’s books.’
‘What, short of door-stops at the Yard, are you?’ He tried out a wink and a chuckle. ‘Don’t intend to try reading them, do you?’
‘That was the plan. Only the university library say I can’t borrow them without a proper pass. I was hoping to find a friendly academic who would borrow them for me.’
‘What about Max’s own copies, from his room?’
‘The room’s sealed. We’re not supposed to remove anything.’
‘Well, I can do better than the library. I can lend you my own copies. Don’t normally do that, mind. I’ve lost too many of my books to students to ever lend to them any more. But a police woman should be beyond reproach, or am I being naive?’ He twinkled at her boozily.
‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘I’d be most grateful. Just for a week or two.’
‘No hurry. And in return, you can slake my curiosity. Curiosis fabricavit inferos, eh?’ He led the way down the narrow corridor, speaking back at her over his shoulder. At his door he drew a ring of keys on a chain from his pocket and let her in. There was an unpleasant sweetness in the musty air of the room.
‘What I wondered,’ he said, pulling books down from his crowded shelves, ‘was whether this Abu chap had the weapon on him when you caught him. I’m having a bet with a fellow in Sociology. He reckons that they always throw the thing away down a drain or something after they’ve done the deed, but I feel he would keep it as a kind of security. So which of us is right?’
‘I’d say that usually your friend is right, Desmond, but in this case I couldn’t comment.’
Pettifer looked put out. ‘Oh, come on,’ he wheedled. ‘Just a hint. Which of us would you put your money on?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
‘Oh, well.’ He turned away in a huff, and after a moment’s search found the last of the books. ‘Was it a big gun? Heavy to carry around?’
Kathy took the books and handed him her card. ‘I don’t think so. Many thanks for these.’
He looked vaguely cheated as she turned and left, wondering why people were so fascinated by the gory details.
She crossed the river, stopping on the way to buy some sandwiches for lunch and a few other supplies that Brock needed. In Matcham High Street she turned through the familiar archway into Warren Lane and parked in a space between other cars in the yard behind the shops. The wind picked at the skirt of her coat as she carried her bags under the dark skeleton of the horse chestnut tree towards the irregular terrace of houses that faced the lane that ran along the top of the railway cutting. She glanced up at the bay window that projected from an upper floor, and thought she recognised the shadow of Brock in the window seat in which he now spent most of his time. She fitted the key he’d given her into the front door, and stepped into the warmth of the small hallway calling out ‘Hello’. There was no reply, but as she climbed up the stairway she thought she caught the sound of a murmur of voices. Perhaps the radio, she thought, and turned from the landing towards the kitchen that overlooked the small courtyard at the back of the house, setting her bags down on the table.
Kathy recognised Suzanne’s perfume a moment before she heard her step on the wooden kitchen floor behind her. She turned and smiled, ‘Suzanne, hello,’ and immediately took in two very strong impressions. The first was that Suzanne had gone to some trouble to look good for her visit; her hair looked recently styled, in a slightly darker shade of her natural auburn, and her clothes had been selected from the more expensive and classy side of her wardrobe. The second was that she was very angry and upset.
‘You OK?’ Kathy said carefully.
‘Why didn’t you tell me he was like this?’ Suzanne’s voice was low and tight. ‘I had no idea, no idea at all that he was in such a state.’
‘He’s coping pretty well.’
‘He’s a wreck,’ Suzanne’s voice rose. ‘He could barely get down the stairs to let me in.’
‘We didn’t want to worry you,’ Kathy said, and immediately knew that the ‘we’ was exactly wrong. She saw the look of betrayal on the other woman’s face, and thought of the phone calls she’d meant to make to her. ‘He looks worse than he is,’ she added unconvincingly.
Suzanne took a step nearer, angry. ‘Don’t patronise me, Kathy. I thought you were a friend. How could you have kept me in the dark?’
Kathy hung her head, feeling defeated by Suzanne’s passion. ‘I’m sorry. He felt he had to stay here for the time being, so then it seemed better not to alarm you. His leg’s the main problem. The doctors say the rest will mend quickly.’
Suzanne shook her head in exasperation. ‘It’s ridiculous! He’s too old to be fighting in the street like a twenty-year-old.’
‘It just came out of the blue. No one expected something like that. He and Bren were caught. It could have happened to anyone. He was rather heroic, actually. You’d have been proud of him.’
But Suzanne wasn’t ready to listen to that. ‘He should never have been in that situation. He shouldn’t be in that job at all.’
Kathy looked at her in surprise. She hadn’t heard this from her before, but she remembered the oddly stilted conversations she had had with Suzanne about her own career choices, and guessed that this was a long-running issue.
‘He should have moved on like everyone else, into senior management. Or if he doesn’t want that, he should get out completely.’ She wasn’t offering a point for discussion. She said it with absolute certainty, as a fact that would be obvious to any right-thinking person, and Kathy felt she was seeing for the first time the underlying tension in the strangely on-off relationship between the two of them.
She imagined them at some point putting their cards on the table, two people of determined views, and, finding that they couldn’t agree, settling on a kind of mutual half-life together. It made her feel vaguely stupid, as if she ought to know how to help, but couldn’t. She’d lived with Suzanne for a couple of weeks, after all, during which time Brock had stayed overnight two or three times, and yet she still didn’t know for sure if they were sleeping together.
‘You don’t agree, of course.’ Suzanne said it flatly, a demand to know if Kathy was an ally or an enemy.
‘I wouldn’t like to say what’s best for him, Suzanne,’ Kathy said cautiously. ‘I don’t think he would be happy in senior management, to be honest. As for doing something else… I don’t know.’
Suzanne turned away, as if Kathy had confirmed her suspicions. ‘Why does he have to stay here, exactly?’ she asked coolly. ‘Someone else has taken over the case, surely? He’s invalided out, isn’t he?’ There was a note of suspicion in Suzanne’s voice now, as if she suspected Kathy of some duplicity, or felt threatened by her professional relationship with Brock.
‘Yes, but the new people have been consulting him-’
‘There’s an invention called a telephone, I believe.’
Kathy hadn’t heard this sharpness from Suzanne before. She was obviously very hurt, and not stupid. ‘There’s also an internal inquiry been set up into what happened. Brock hasn’t said to me, but I think he’s worried about it. It wasn’t his fault, but he’s taken it badly, that the man they had arrested was killed in their charge.’
‘All the more reason he shouldn’t lie around here moping while he waits for things to happen.’ Suzanne turned back to face Kathy. ‘And what about you?’
Kathy felt herself flush, suddenly aware that all this time she’d been holding Brock’s front door key in her hand. ‘Me? I’ve just been looking in from time to time, and doing a bit of shopping for him.’
‘I meant, what are your plans these days? I’ve hardly heard from you since the weekend. Tina wanted to speak to you, but she couldn’t get you at your flat. She had some news about your interview. You should contact her.’
‘Yes, of course. Since I came back up to town, everything’s moved so fast… I’m sorry, I’ll do it straight away. Look, Suzanne, I think you’re right about Brock getting away from here for a while. I can keep my ears open for him here, and there’s Bren and the others. Why don’t you have another go at persuading him to go back with you to
