Thursday I gave a talk to a mixed bunch of police officers attending a conference on major crimes at the staff college in Bramshill, Hampshire. I drove down for the day and on the car radio I heard that there'd been another case of contaminated food in Heckley and the police were investigating.
"Tut tut, whatever next?" I said to myself. Staff college had booked me over a year ago, so I'd had plenty of time to prepare my lecture. There were delegates there from all over the UK and Thursday was serial killer day. A forensic psychologist explained how his techniques could narrow down the field and indicate which way an enquiry should progress; my job was to demonstrate how this should not be allowed to hijack the investigation. Forensic, in my book, means "for use in a court of law." Drawing dots on a map is very interesting, but forensic it is not. At lunch I sat with an inspector from Newcastle, a chief inspector from Exeter and a captain in the RCMP who had wandered into the wrong dining room. We had a back-slapping time and came away with his card in our pockets and invitations to visit, any time we wanted.
The lecture room was still empty when I returned, prior to my session. Several of the delegates had left their morning newspapers on the desks, and I saw that the botulism scare had made the front pages of them all, with the warfarin story being resurrected to reinforce the impact. We were between wars, so all the familiar faces of TV and tabloid journalism had donned their designer parkas and headed north again, smelling a story. An outbreak of one deadly disease is unfortunate, two outbreaks in the same small town smacks of outside forces at work. They named the usual bogeymen and railed about the lack of readiness of the authorities. At the very least a madman was on the loose, and somebody would die soon if he wasn't caught. If they discovered that the officer leading the enquiry was swanning it at the staff college they'd have a field day. No doubt HQ would hold a press conference, probably at that very moment, and the nation would be reassured that coincidences do happen and the outbreaks had been contained. Meanwhile, purely as a precaution, if anybody did happen to have a tin of pineapple or corned beef on their shelves they should place it in a bucket of water and surround it with sandbags. Alternatively, they could return it to their nearest branch of Grainger's.
"How did it go?" Dave asked, next morning, when I came down from Gilbert's prayer meeting.
"How did what go?"
"The talk, Dumbo."
"Oh," I said, dismissively, "you know how it is. Boring speakers, nobody interested in what you say. Complete waste of time."
"So you won't be going to any more?"
"We-ell, you know how I hate to disappoint people. According to Gilbert I missed all the fun."
"Big-hearted Charlie. Yeah, you got out of it quite nicely. It's kids' stuff this morning compared to yesterday. It was like the fall of Saigon in the car park. There was even a TV crew from France. No doubt a few more of our delicacies will be taken off their shelves."
"No doubt. Did you find anything else?"
"Not much. Two more tins of corned beef found at the Huddersfield store and a tin of peaches at Oldfield."
"All with puncture holes?"
"That's right. They're at Weatherton now."
"Well done. It's worth a try but dozens of people could have handled them."
"Nuh uh. Not necessarily so. They're loaded on to the shelves twelve at a time in a cardboard tray, and up to then all the handling has been mechanical. The person whose delicate fingers punctured the tin could be the first one to touch it. We're in with a chance."
"Hey, that's brilliant. Meanwhile, it wouldn't hurt to cherchez lafemme. I've a feeling that's what this is all a" bout. Let's start by bringing Mrs Sharon Brown down to size." I found the number for Heckley Grainger's and dialled it. "Could I speak to Mrs Brown, please?"
"Sorry, but Mrs Brown is off work for a few days."
"Oh. When will she be back?"
"Tuesday. Can I put you through to her secretary?"
"No, it's a personal call. I'll ring her on Tuesday." I replaced the receiver and turned to Dave, saying: "She has a secretary."
"Might be worth having a word with her."
"True. I'll put Pete on to it, preferably away from the office. He can charm the ducks off the water."
We weren't following leads or pursuing a clearly defined course of action. We were, frankly, floundering. The culprit might be a nutcase loner, living in a tower block, or a bitter housewife with a grudge, or it might be an insider conducting a personal vendetta. We'd re-situated CCTV cameras to cover the first two possibilities, and for the third one all we could do was gather information about the principle characters, listen to gossip and go where it led. That way, when the break came, we'd be prepared.
Dave said: "Pete doesn't charm them off the water, he talks them off it."
"But he gets them talking back, too. Much better than I can."
"If they can get a quack in. He's done a chart for you."
"Good. I like charts. Charts make it look as if we're doing something. Where is he?"
"Probably in the briefing room. He's taken a shine to the new probationer. I'll fetch the chart."
It was a map, and he'd done a good job. All the findings were marked on it, colour coded to indicate peaches, pineapple or corned beef, with different shapes for punctured tins, the coloured dye and the warfarin.
"Well, this should impress the ACC," I said. "I'm not sure if it will progress the investigation, but the ACC will have an orgasm." I spanned the spaces between incidents with my fingers, making mental adjustments for distance, numbers of cases and degree of seriousness, remembering the talk I'd heard the day before and adding a few touches of my own.
"He lives there," I declared, stabbing a finger at the centre of gravity of the case. "I've done a course on this and it never fails."
"Let's have a look," Dave said. He considered the location for a few seconds before adding: "Well that should make it easy. According to your course he lives in Heckley nick."
Have a day off and the paperwork accrues. Nobody does it for you and the problems don't go away. The troops had plenty to be on with so I listened to what they had to say, made a few suggestions and sent them on their way. We'd opened an incident room at the nick for the Grainger's job and I pinned Pete's chart on the wall next to the map with the twenty-mile radius that I'd drawn. His contribution looked more professional so I unpinned my map and stuffed it in a drawer. I'd ask Pete to add the radius to his map.
Back in my own office I answered a few letters, including one to a local councillor who persistently complained about harassment of young people for skateboarding in the mall car park. We'd captured the problem on video and the mall management were receiving equally vociferous complaints about damage to parked vehicles, but the councillor would not listen. Not even when we told him about the needles being left all over the place. He also complained about the older youths in souped-up cars who congregated in one of the town-centre car parks late at night, about the lack of amenities for our budding basketball players and about the speed bumps on Fellside Road. He lives on Fellside Road. He has a regular column in the Gazette and he uses it to beat the police. Our community affairs officer had talked to him, explained the problems, told him what limited powers we had, but he wouldn't listen and-now he was coming through to me. There's nothing wins votes like a fearless campaigner, and he had nothing to fear because we'd long ago stopped dangling our critics from the ceiling and administering the bastinado. I politely told him that, much as I sympathised with him about the children from the comprehensive dropping litter outside his sweet shop, it was not my intention to take any action, and in future I was only prepared to correspond with him through his solicitor.
I was basking in the warm glow of indignation gratified and gathering my strength for an assault on the staff development reports, thirteen months overdue, when the phone interrupted me. It was the front desk.
"Lady thinks she may have seen the knicker thief, Charlie. I'll put her through."
I waited a few seconds then said: "Detective Inspector Priest here. How can I help you?"
"Oh, hello. I think I may have seen this… person who's stealing underwear from washing lines."
"That's music to my ears, Madam. First of all, can I ask you your name, please?"
She was called Mrs Mavis Lewis and had been reading the Heckley Gazette as her smalls went through the rinse cycle when she happened to see an article about the thefts from washing lines. To be accurate, they were her daughter's smalls. Miss Lewis was a nurse at the White Rose clinic, just outside town, and changed her underwear twice a day. Every Friday Mrs Lewis did a big wash and, weather permitting, hung her daughter's frillies on the line to dry. Last week a shower interrupted the process and as she unpegged them she became aware of a youth standing in the garden that backed on to her garden, in the shadow of the overgrown privet hedge. He appeared to be watching her, but when she looked again he'd disappeared.
"This was last Friday?" I asked, and she confirmed that it was.
"And you're doing a wash now?"
"Yes. They've just finished spinning."
"Are you going to hang them outside?"
"I wasn't thinking of, it looks like rain again."
I glanced out of the window and banks of clouds glowered back at me. "I know. What time did you see the youth?"
"It would be sometime after one o'clock. The lunchtime concert had just started."
"The lunchtime concert?"
"On Radio 3."
I was impressed. Radio 3 listeners don't make up a significant percentage of our clients. They don't make up a significant percentage of the BBC's clients. If the thief knew her routine there was a chance that he'd come back today, and if he did, we could nab him.
"If I sent a couple of officers over would you be happy to hang the washing out, Mrs Lewis?" I asked.
"Yes. No problem."
"OK. Don't do anything just yet and I'll be with you in about twenty minutes to see how the land lies."
I contacted Dave and two other DCs and told them to come back to the station, then drove to Mrs Lewis's home. It was a semi, built back in the Thirties when houses had decent gardens but tiny kitchens. I drove round the block a couple of times, learning the street names, and parked a few doors away.
She was a pleasant woman, overweight and jolly, and not at all troubled by the attentions of the knicker thief. Her husband was there, sitting in an easy chair with a pair of headphones on. He had a bushy beard and wore brown brogues and a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Men who wear their shoes and jacket in the house make me lose sleep at night. I can't help thinking that they're prepared for a quick getaway. He removed the 'phones and stood up to shake hands.
"Don't let me interrupt the concert," I said.
"Tchaikovsky," he replied with a sniff. "Music for lifts."
Ah well, that was one of my favourite composers demolished. Mrs Lewis took me through into the kitchen, from where I could survey the garden. The rain had blown over but the next lot wasn't far away. There was a shed halfway down the garden, which would make a good observation post, and the neighbour had a greenhouse filled with tomato plants.
"Do you think your neighbours would let us use their greenhouse?" I asked, and I was assured that she wouldn't mind, so I rang the station and told Dave and the other two to come over, and arranged for a panda to stand by a couple of streets away. Then I asked Mrs Lewis to hang out the washing.
I sat on a step-ladder in the kitchen, Dave took the shed and the others lay doggo in the greenhouse. We stayed like that for three hours, as Miss Lewis's underwear came under more scrutiny than the Turin shroud. It hung from two lines like a set of teeth from some fabulous beast until the occasional gust of wind disturbed the image.
Dave rang me on my mobile at frequent intervals. "They're big, aren't they?" he observed.
"Affirmative. Have you seen anything?"
"No, only some porn magazines."
"I meant down the garden," I said, squashing my ear with the phone and praying that Mrs Lewis, standing next to me, didn't have hypersensitive hearing. She was wearing an anorak and trainers, and carrying a stout walking stick, determined to join in the chase should the need arise.
At four o'clock the phone rang again, but this time it was Heckley nick. "Have you had your mobile off, Charlie?" a smug sounding controller asked.
"No. Why."
"We've been trying to contact you all afternoon."
"Well it's switched on, and Dave's rung me several times without any problems. What did you want?"
"Ah well, there's no harm done. Just to report that uniformed branch have arrested a twelve-year-old youth on suspicion of theft of undergarments from washing lines. They took him home and his mother let them into his bedroom, which he kept locked. They found a regular lingerie department in there, apparently, and they're bringing him in."
"You what?" I hissed.
"You heard. The lads in the panda you had standing by nabbed him. He walked round the corner but when he saw them he turned turtle and started running. Unfortunately for him we had Yorkshire's four hundred metres champion on the case, so it was no contest. You can bring your boys in, now, Charlie. It's all under control."
Dave's comment was unrepeatable, Mrs Lewis was delighted and the two in the greenhouse were incensed. They'd had a break from watching CCTV videos and eaten a few tomatoes, but the neighbour didn't believe in using insecticides and they were covered in mosquito bites.
As the four of us trudged into the nick a grinning desk sergeant held up two bulging plastic bags, saying: "Want to see some saucy items, chaps? We've got something for all tastes here."
On the stairs we crossed Gareth Adey, no doubt coming back from regaling Mr Wood with news of his boys' success. "Hello Charlie," he gushed. "Had a busy afternoon?"
We were in the office, drinking tea, when my power of speech returned. "Well they can do all the sodding paperwork," I declared.
"Adey'll never let us forget this," Dave said.
"In that case, we'd better get one back at him."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Let's go home."
"It's Saturday tomorrow."
"True." "It's a great weather forecast — fancy going for a jog with tMe others?"
"Good idea. Bring your kit."
"Have you rung her yet?"
"Who?"
"You know who."
"Umm, yes, but she wasn't in."
I had a big fillet of cod for tea, done under the grill with melted cheese on top, accompanied by new potatoes and petits pois. For pudding it was semolina and chopped banana. When you live alone there's a temptation to neglect yourself, eat junk food, but I try to take care. You are what you eat, as the bluebottle said to the dung beetle.
I rang Rosie afterwards, to undo the lie I'd told Sparky, and she wasn't in, just like I'd said. Except, when I put the phone down, I wished she had been in. I had a long soak in the bath and watched a video of Band of Brothers that one of the crew had loaned me. In under three weeks I had to produce two paintings for the show, but I had no ideas what to make them. I spent an hour looking at art books — Paul Klee, Picasso and Kandinsky — wishing I had their flair and originality. Whatever I produced, it would only be a pale imitation.
It was late when I rang Rosie again, but now I was resolved to speak to her. Sophie's postcard still lay alongside my phone, and I doodled on it as the ringing tone warbled in my ear, filling-in the loops of her writing with red Biro. I switched to a blue pen as the phone in Rosie's house played its shrill monotonous music to the empty room, and replaced the receiver with mixed emotions. I was disappointed she wasn't there but now I knew how my paintings would look. I went into the garage and painted one piece of board bright blue and the other yellow. Reading in bed is an art I've never mastered, but it was only poetry. I took the New Oxford Book of English Verse and Philip Smith's 100 Best-Loved Poems to bed with me.
Seven of us had a Saturday morning jog: five doing an easy four miles and two hard men galloping round the six-mile route. It was a bright sunny morning filled with the promise of a hot day. I'd gone in early and had an hour at the staff development reports before the others arrived. My intention was to stay on, after a shower, and finish them off, but someone suggested a pint in the Bailiwick and the temptation was too great. Then I saw the menu and smelled the cooking and decided to have lunch there, too. I went home feeling quite replete and mellow.
The boards I'd painted were four feet by three. I took a water-colour pad and drew squares on it twelve inches by nine, which was one-sixteenth the size of the boards, and wrote pieces of verse, gleaned from the poetry books, across them in loopy, joined up writing, as if they were snatches of a letter. I wrote:
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight and:
Remember me when I am gone away, Cone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay I did it all again, but this time I started writing one word into the first line and continued off the edge of the frame, to make them appear to be random pages of prose rather than pieces of verse. Then I filled in all the loops with different coloured fibre-tipped pens, so they looked like love letters someone had received and carelessly doodled all over, perhaps while speaking on the phone to another lover. I gave one letter some Mickey Mouse ears and made another into a Smiley face. Nobody at the show would recognise the hidden story behind the paintings, but perhaps Lizzie Browning and Chrissie Rossetti would have approved.
The next step was to transfer the writing on to the painted boards, but at many times the size, and this would be time-consuming. The enamel on the boards was dry but not hard, so I decided it would be better to leave them for another day. I made a mug of tea, found a couple of custard creams and fell asleep with the football on the telly.
I was awake again, planning the evening menu, when the phone rang.
"Charlie Priest."
"Hello Uncle Charles. It's me."
"Sophie!" One of those exploding birthday cakes went off inside me, with a great bang and a puff of smoke, and six dancing girls in silver lame costumes high-kicked down the hallway. "How are you?" I picked up the phone and slid down the wall to sit on the floor.
"I'm fine. How are you?"
"Brilliant. Where are you speaking from?"
"I'm on a train. I've tried ringing home but nobody's in. Could you possibly pick me up at the station, please?"
"No problem. What time do you arrive?"
"Ten to seven in Leeds, but I'm not sure about the connection to Heckley."
I looked at my watch and did a quick calculation. "Don't bother hanging about for the connection, I'll pick you up in Leeds."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
We chatted for a few minutes until I said I'd better be on my way. My instinct was to ring Dave and Shirley to tell them that their beloved daughter was coming home, but it occurred to me that Dave might insist on collecting her himself, depriving me of that pleasure, so I didn't. It would be all the more of a surprise when I produced her on their doorstep. I had a quick shower and teeth-clean, changed my clothes and set off for the station.
They'd made some changes there. The tunnel under the lines was gone, replaced by a bridge that linked the platforms. I was early, but by the time I'd worked out which platform she would arrive at the train was due in. I stood near the ticket barrier, watching as the bridge disgorged gaggles of travellers who flashed their tickets to the disinterested clerk, wondering how much Sophie had changed since I last saw her.
As soon as she appeared at the top of the stairs my legs turned to spaghetti. She was wearing a short skirt, high heels and a blouse with a high collar. Mandarin, I believe it's called. A bag hung over her shoulder with a leather jacket looped through it, and she turned slightly sideways as she came down the steps, feeling for each one, as if afraid she might topple over. Lovely Sophie hadn't quite mastered the art of walking in four-inch stilettos. She saw me and waved.
"You look sensational," I said, pecking her on the cheek. She was wearing Mitsouko, by Guerlain. The only perfume I recognise and one that brought back memories that I didn't need. Not then or at any other time.
"You don't look bad yourself, Uncle Charles," she replied.
I just stared at her, happy as a sandboy, and said: "Huh!"
"I've been reading about you in the papers."
"It's not true. I never touched her." She wouldn't let me take her bag as we wandered out of the concourse into the gloom of the evening. In the car I said: "Hungry?"
"Mmm, a bit." She drew her bare legs under the seat and tipped her knees in my direction.
"Nice suntan," I said.
"Thank you."
"Cap Ferrat?"
"That's right."
"With all the old folks. Will a pizza be OK?"
"Lovely!"
"Right. I'll show you that sophistication exists outside the hallowed groves of Oxbridge."
It was only a short drive to Park Square, where Terence Conran has one of his restaurants. The furnishings are art deco, the waiters and waitresses look as if they come from central casting and the pizzas are the only ones I've ever had that I could honestly say I'd enjoyed. Sophie beamed her approval, and that was good enough for me. We had a glass of wine each and she told me about Cap Ferrat and Cambridge over our quattro stag-gioni and pepperoni with black olives. Her blouse was made from a heavy silk material, embroidered with dragons and pagodas, and when I admired it she said it was a present from China. The pearls for buttons were in pairs, close together, and the high collar and her piled-up hair emphasised her height. Halfway through the meal, after she'd called me Uncle Charles for the tenth time, I raised a disapproving finger and said: "A ground rule."
"What?" she asked, suddenly serious.
"Well, now that you're almost qualified as a… whatever it is you're almost qualified as, I think you ought to start calling me Charlie. I know I'm old, but Uncle Charles really rubs it in. All these people think I'm a sugar daddy out with my girlfriend, and it would really destroy my credibility if they heard you call me Uncle Charles, so could you please indulge in an old man's whim and call me Charlie? Please?"
"Oh, OK then," she said, "Charlie it is," and kicked me on the shin.
I winced, and she said: "Was that your leg?"
I nodded confirmation between the waves of pain.
"Sorry, I thought it was the table," Sophie giggled.
I took a sip of wine, grimacing as I said: "Purely for anaesthetic purposes," and replaced my glass next to hers. She'd left a smear of lipstick on its rim. I'd never known her wear lipstick before.
"That was a lovely meal," she said, as we crossed the road outside an hour later. "Thank you. I'm glad Dad wasn't in."
"So am I. It's a nice place. Conran has them all over but that's the only one I've ever eaten at."
As we stepped on to the pavement I swapped sides and placed my hand in the small of her back as I crossed behind her. She took my left arm in hers and hugged it, resting her head on my shoulder, like Suze Rotolo on the cover of Freewheelin'. I felt like a teenager, didn't want the evening to end.
In the car Sophie retrieved her phone, pressed a button and held it to her ear.
"No reply," she said after a few seconds. As we approached Heckley she tried again, with the same results.
"Do you have a key?" I asked, and she said she hadn't.
After another try she said: "We could always go to your house for a coffee."
Why didn't I think of that? "Sounds a good idea," I agreed, switching lanes to head away from her home.
I filled the kettle, plugged it in, switched it on. Milk from the fridge, sugar from the cupboard, biscuits in the tin. Cups, saucers, plates. Was that it? No. Spoons. We needed spoons. Spoons from the cutlery drawer. I placed them all on the table, where I normally breakfasted, and turned to rest against the work surface as the kettle hissed and grumbled into life. Sophie was leaning on the doorframe, watching. She came over and stood before me, her head bowed. I'd a feeling that she was about to say something portentous. I reached forward, taking hold of her elbows and said: "What's the problem, Sophie?"
"There's no problem," she replied, looking up into my face. She'd slipped the shoes off and was back to her normal height, which was still tall. "Except…"
"Except? Except what?"
"Except, I've lied to you. Don't be mad at me, Uncle Charles."
"Charlie." V,
"Sorry."
"When did you lie?"
"Just now, in the car. And earlier. I didn't try to ring Dad, because I don't want to go home. I want to stay here with you, just for tonight."
I ran my fingertips up her arms and held her by the shoulders. "Why, Sophie? Why are you doing this to me?" My voice sounded like it was coming from a well at the far end of a tunnel.
"Because… I don't know. I wanted someone to talk to. Someone I loved, and I love you." She slipped her arms around my neck and I pulled her close. I leaned my forehead against hers, squashing her nose with mine, until we both turned our faces a fraction to bring our lips into that perfect, bewitching angle with each other's.;