Grey Ladies Read online

  The coffee - well, okay, that was a step in the right direction, but he found he couldn’t enjoy it. It sat bitterly in his stomach and so he’d left most of it to go cold.

  They’d been there for three quarters of an hour already and nothing had happened. Waiting for the big boss to show up and get things under way.

  Ian the technician had been and gone, setting up a laptop to the projector that was suspended from the ceiling in a metal cradle. He’d checked the connection and that the projected image - the in-house screensaver of the force’s logo - fitted the whiteboard on the wall exactly. Brough had felt the cushions shift beneath him as Miller had adjusted her posture on Ian’s arrival. He watched with a mixture of interest and repulsion as she had waved at the technician and he had nodded and sent a thumbs-up in return. He had, Brough couldn’t help noticing, scuttled away pretty quickly after that. Poor Miller.

  At last, a silence washed around the room and the air of expectation grew. All eyes - and there must have been thirty pairs of them at least - watched the frosted glass door darken and then open as a small, barrel-shaped woman made her entrance. This was Karen Wheeler, so far up the ranks she was back in uniform. It was as though someone had wrapped a bran tub in dark blue serge. And stuck a toilet brush in the top. Her white hair was spiked in clumps that gave her the hairstyle of an eleven year old boy, but her face had the worn and weathered look of a window cleaner’s shammy. Her blue eyes were bright, like those discs you drop into the toilet cistern. She had to use a small stepladder in order to be seen over the Perspex lectern.

  The toilet cleaner eyes took in the room, taking unspoken roll call. Officers, uniformed and in plain clothes, straightened their spines as her searchlight gaze fell on them. Throats were cleared. Ties were straightened. Everyone suddenly felt guilty of something and their spirits sank with collective certainty they were going to be called out on it. Whatever it was.

  Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler had that effect.

  She raised her arm in what might be misconstrued as a fascist salute and pointed the remote control at the projector. It did not dare fail to work on the first attempt. Behind her, the logo was replaced with crime scene photographs: Paul Cook the cook and Kyrie Billings the care worker, as they had been discovered.

  Wheeler’s arched eyebrows curtailed any nervous gasps or giggles that may have been bubbling up.

  “Two homicides unalike in execution, in the same rest home; two crime scenes.”

  Most of the officers nodded.

  “And what do we know about them? What do we know?” The searchlight eyes flashed around the room again. “Fuck all! That’s what we know!”

  The nodding officers looked at the floor, shaking their heads sadly.

  “Fuck! All! Pardon my French. This is one of the most forward-thinking divisions in the country. Certainly one of the best resourced. But police work is more than comfy chairs, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not just about the croissants and the lo-fat muffins. They’re just the icing on the metaphor. It’s not even about all these fancy gadgets that enable me to do this -” She brandished the remote again. On the screen, the images of Cook and Billings zoomed in and out, rotated and zapped this way and that. “No.” She tossed the remote over her shoulder. “Fuck that. Fuck the lot of it.” She gripped the edges of the lectern and leaned over it.

  “This division has got to deliver results, ladies and gentlemen. Now, you can’t all be fucking idiots. There must be those among you who can rub two brain cells together and come up with some answers. I expect you bastards to work together as a team. An integrated investigative team in the spirit of co-operation and the desire to get the job done. I’m clearly expecting too fucking much.

  “What do I get? Harmony and fucking concord? Fuck off. No, I get a fragmented approach and my detectives trying to score points off each other. Yes, I’m looking at you, Benny Stevens.”

  Steven’s moustache twitched. He shifted uncomfortably in his armchair.

  “And I don’t know why you’re fucking smirking, Little Lord Fauntleroy,” Wheeler’s neon stare honed in on Brough. “You’re worse than he is. Poncing about up in Dedley, camping out in a disused office like it’s a fucking fort. And, no I’m not using homo-fucking-phobic language; don’t get your cocking panties in a knot.”

  Brough was bright red, trying to shrink into his suit and willing the sofa to swallow him like quicksand. Wheeler’s tirade continued.

  “I don’t give a flying shit what you did before you landed in my manor, sunshine. It’s what you do while you’re here that counts. You better wind your neck in and learn how to co-operate or you’ll be stopping traffic with a lollipop stick or whatever the equivalent fucking is. Am I coming through loud and fucking clear?”

  “Eloquently,” Brough adjusted his collar. “But I hardly think this is the forum -”

  Wheeler stopped him with a hand signal that could indeed be used to stop oncoming traffic. “Quite right. So shut the fuck up and let’s get on with our jobs, shall we?”

  ***

  Loretta Phipps drained her tea with a grimace. She’d had to have it without sugar, having neglected to bring her sweetener from home. She checked the time again. She still had ten minutes before her rendezvous with romance at the penguin enclosure. She stood up, scraping the metal legs of the chair on the floor, and made her way to the door marked Toilets. Beyond this, two other doors, one with a knight in armour, the other a medieval lady in a tall conical hat. This latter she guessed to be the Ladies. Time for one last primp. She hoped the penguins weren’t far away. There were too many cobblestones around this castle. The builders had obviously never considered women in heels. Men throughout history have been inconsiderate bastards, haven’t they?

  She pouted at herself in the mirror over the washbasin. Mouth like a cat’s arse, Lol, she told herself with bitter amusement. Must remember not to make that face in Gavin’s presence. You’d think the wrinkles would fade away, wouldn’t you? She hadn’t sucked on a fag for eight years - well done, my wench - but no. The effects were permanent. They should put pictures of that on the fag packets. That might put a few more people off.

  She reapplied her lippy, ensured her teeth were clear of it and then titivated her hair with her fingertips.

  This Gavin was a lucky fella. Well, he could be, if he played his cards right.

  She made her way out of the cafe and into the castle courtyard. A party of school children had arrived and were being marshalled into lines ready to be led into the museum wing.

  Lucky buggers, getting a day off school, Loretta smiled. The grass was slightly easier to walk across than the path. Damn these bloody shoes. She still had five minutes. Well, a few more. She didn’t want to be the first to show up. Let him wait a couple of minutes. Let him sweat. She could check him out from a distance and decide if he was worth the bother.

  The picture of his excited genitals he’d sent her didn’t give much away about the rest of him.

  She stood and listened to a worker from the castle museum, dressed like a medieval serf or smurf or whatever you called them, addressing the group of schoolkids.

  “And just here,” the guide pointed towards the spiral staircase in the keep and along the path that bisected the courtyard, “is where the Grey Lady herself is said to walk. Looking for her lost baby. She’ll keep walking until she finds her.”

  “Ooh,” said some of the kids.

  “So keep your eye out for her,” the guide said cheerily. “But there’s also a funny story about another woman that died here. There was this old woman, you see, and all the locals thought she was a witch. One night a group of lads, bit older than you lot I suppose, came up to the castle and hanged the old woman from that window there - No, sorry, that window.”

  “Bloody hilarious,” Loretta muttered to one of the teachers supervising the outing. The teacher frowned and t
ook a step away.

  “That’s not the funny part,” the guide added, pointedly. “A few years ago, we ran a competition for the best historical fancy dress. The place where you’re standing now was rammed with people dressed as knights and fine ladies and all the rest of it. But the judges decided to award the prize to someone who’d come dressed as an old woman from the olden days. They said she’d got it just right. All rags and shawls - apparently some of the other costumes still had price tags on! But when they called the old woman up to collect her prize, there she was: gone! Nobody knew who she was or where she went or nothing.”

  The teachers encouraged the children to go Ooh again.

  Disappointed that her story had fallen a little flat, the guide suggested they get indoors to see the exhibition. But before the group could move off, one child piped up:

  “Miss, Miss! Is that the old lady there?”

  All heads turned in Loretta’s direction.

  “Don’t be cheeky, Tyrone Higginbottom!” snapped one of the teachers.

  “Not her, Miss!” Tyrone persisted, pointing a grubby finger, beyond Loretta. “Her!”

  Loretta turned - no easy feat when two inches of her heels had sunk into the grass. An old woman, in shawls, was hobbling towards her. The schoolchildren screeched and squealed, shrill enough to send birds flying from the castle roof. They - the kids - ran in all directions to get away. The teachers and supervisors ran after the children, trying to round them up. Loretta tried to get away. She looked to the guide for help, but the guide was transfixed, her face pale with horror as the old woman drew inexorably closer.

  “Thanks a fuckin’ lot!” Loretta spat, deciding to abandon her shoes and peg it back to the cafe. She shoved the guide aside - let the ghost have her! - sending the young girl crashing to the ground.

  Loretta ran - when had she last run? - back to the keep. She tried to push the cafe door open, heedless of the signs that said Pull. She looked over her shoulder. The old woman was still coming, ignoring the guide who was scrabbling across the grass to get away.

  Loretta headed up the spiral staircase instead. Perhaps there would be somewhere further up she could duck into. The narrow steps were cold beneath her bare feet and slippery. She lost her footing a couple of times and still the old woman kept coming. Loretta forced herself to keep moving, to keep climbing. There must be someone who could help. Someone she could put between her and the relentless old woman. There had to be! Oh, if only she’d gone down to the penguins instead of listening to ghost stories!

  She had almost reached the top of the stairs and daylight when she fell for the third time. She rolled onto her back as the old woman loomed over her. Loretta tried to scream but she was out of breath. She raised her arms to protect herself and to bat away the old bat if she could.

  But she couldn’t.

  ***

  Her tirade over, Wheeler stepped down from the lectern and took a seat while D I Harry Henry led the sharing of intelligence. Brough sat fuming on his sofa, his arms folded like a castigated teenager. Miller compensated for this by perching on the edge of the seat, her back rigid, like an attentive spaniel.

  Stevens was invited to sum up the findings of Serious. He hadn’t much to say. The forensics reports were in. Pathology (Brough felt a stab - Alastair had been talking to the enemy!) and some general interviews with nearest and dearest of the deceased. It was nothing Brough and Miller hadn’t unearthed but, Stevens made the point without naming names, a lot of manpower could have been saved if ‘certain people’ didn’t actively withhold information.

  Hah! Brough thought. All my findings are up there on the wall in my incident room. Henry seemed to read his mind and put in a mealy-mouthed suggestion for all information to be centralised rather than ‘dotted around the borough.’ Brough squirmed. Remind me never to play poker, he thought.

  Stevens put out a request for a more visible presence at and around the rest home. Proper coppers, he insisted, not the hobby bobbies that usually bumble around Dedley. Brough bristled at this - was this another slight? He suddenly felt very protective towards the specials and volunteers with whom he shared a base.

  Henry glanced across to Wheeler, who was perched on a stool like Poe’s raven. She nodded, just the once.

  Civilians in tabards and hairnets busied their way in with fresh urns of coffee.

  Henry rubbed his hands and declared it seemed like a good opportunity for a break.

  No fucking shit, thought Brough, his mood darker than the coffee.

  The meeting broke up. Cups were filled with coffee. Plates were loaded with croissants and jam. A hubbub of conversation, some of it professional, filled the air. Miller glanced at Brough who was staring at his clasped hands.

  “Black, no sugar,” she muttered. He didn’t acknowledge her but she bustled away to join the queue at the table.

  A hand appeared on Brough’s knee. Chief Inspector Wheeler had taken Miller’s seat.

  “Sorry about that,” she leaned towards his ear. Brough shivered involuntarily. “Had to make a bit of a show. Keeps the oiks motivated. Did think I’d give you a head’s-up beforehand but I wanted it to feel fresh. Well done, by the way. You looked suitably chastened.”

  “What the actual fuck?” He turned to glare at the bright blue eyes. They glistened back at him, like an advertisement for a really clean toilet bowl.

  “Most of this game is play-acting, don’t you find?” she said, tapping the side of her nose. “You should know that better than any of these fuckers. My personal congratulations, by the way, for what you did for the Force.”

  “I’m not Luke fucking Skywalker.”

  “I don’t know who that is. But you put your life on the line to root out the corrupt and the bent. Well done, you. But, please, humour Stevens and this lot. You don’t have to go it alone this time. Who knows, they might actually help! Stranger things have happened. And now they think I’m on your back, they might be a little more sympathetic.”

  She patted his leg again and then struggled to get to her feet, just as Miller returned bearing coffee cups and plates of Rich Tea biscuits Brough was heartened to see.

  Miller is full of surprises, he observed; he gave her a little smile.

  “Stolen your seat, dear?” Wheeler twinkled, gesturing to the vacated seat like she was modelling it on a shopping channel. “You can’t leave anything unattended, not even here!”

  She laughed heartily, tipped Brough an unsettling wink and strode, hands behind her back, to have a word with Stevens and his D S, Woodcock. But before she got there, Henry was up at the lectern, looking ridiculously tall on Wheeler’s stepladder.

  “If I could have your attention, everyone,” he waved his arms around and almost toppled from the steps. Then he grabbed the goose-neck mic like he was going to fellate it. “Attention, everyone!” he yelled, unnecessarily. His voice boomed around the briefing room, squeaking with feedback.

  When everyone had finished complaining and rubbing their ears and he was satisfied all eyes were upon him, Henry spoke, not into the mic this time, but everyone heard him. They hung on his every word.

  “There’s been another murder,” he announced. “Up at the zoo.”

  7.

  “It was like something out of a straight-to-DVD film from the pound shop,” the castle guide sniffed. Her eyes were red from crying and she had to halt her eyewitness account several times to take a huge puff from her inhaler.

  “In your own time, Miss, um, Taylor,” Brough nodded, sympathetically although Miller could tell he was losing his patience.

  Candida Taylor dabbed at her nose with a crumpled ball of tissues and told her story again.

  “I was standing over there,” she pointed, helpfully, “welcoming a party of schoolchildren, teachers and teaching assistants. A lively bunch but that’s kids today for you.”
/>   You can’t be out of your teens yourself, thought Brough. A glance at Miller inferred she was probably thinking the same.

  “I’d just got them settled, sort of, and was about to lead them into the museum over there,” another helpful point, “and to get them in the mood, I thought I’d mention a couple of the stories we always tell. To set the tone, like. We try to make our visits entertaining as well as edu-formative. No one wants to drag around a boring old castle, do they? Not at that age. I know I didn’t. So we go to great lengths to make it interesting. Like on the telly. That Terrible Histories thing; have you seen it? Very funny.

  “So, I told them about the Grey Lady who walks up and down over there...” She pointed, her finger describing the reported route of the spectre. Brough’s eyes followed the finger’s path. There was no one there. A few bobbies. An abundance of yellow tape. A little tent, protecting the scene while forensics did their job.

  “And they were really getting into it - Are you listening to me, Inspector?”

  Brough, caught in a reverie, cleared his throat and assured the girl he was.

  “They were really getting into it, like, so I told ‘em the other one, the story about the old lady what won the fancy dress except she wasn’t really there.”

  “Are all your ghosts women, Miss Taylor?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Take no notice, love,” Miller interjected. “Been a bit of a rough morning all round. Please, carry on.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have said nothing if I’d’ve guessed all this was going to happen, would I? I told ‘em about the old woman and suddenly, there she was! I nearly shat my kecks.”

  “There who was? The Grey Lady?” Perspiration beaded Brough’s forehead.

  “No, not her! I’ve never sid her but it wasn’t her. This was the old woman from the fancy dress story. Her what was hanged from the window there - no, there.” She made certain to point at the correct window.