A Narrow Trajectory Read online

  What if he bottled it? What if, after all his big talk about what he’d do to find Jas, when the time came to play Chivnor, he messed it all up?

  And then, into this frenzy of self-doubt, one word his bosses were saying seemed to break through the paralyzing cold fist clenched around his stomach and made him blink in surprise. Almost, in fact, made him want to laugh out loud.

  ‘Library?’ he repeated, staring at Rollo Sale blankly. ‘You want us to meet in the library?’

  But it was Steven who spoke. ‘When you’ve had some time to think about it, Jake, you’ll realize that it’s ideal. Chivnor will know, after your last meeting, that you’ll want to meet in a public place, somewhere that you’ll feel much safer. And for his part, he’ll want that meeting place to be somewhere where he can be pretty sure that he won’t run into any of his fellow gang members, or anyone else in his life. On the streets or in cafés or bars he might run the risk of one of his string of girls seeing you, or a dealer, or one of Dale’s runners. But the last place any of them will be is in the Central Library in the middle of the day.’

  Jake took a long slow breath. The Central Library was Oxford’s big public library at the entrance to the Westgate Shopping Centre, which in itself was soon to be torn down.

  ‘Well, that’s for sure,’ Jake heard himself say faintly. ‘But won’t it … I mean, could we actually talk there? You know, without being conspicuous to others?’

  ‘They don’t have big signs saying “silence” anymore, Jake,’ Rollo said patiently, but hiding a grin. Secretly he wondered if the young man in front of him had ever set foot in a public library in his life. Why would he? Everyone now seemed to get their information from the internet. ‘Half the customers in libraries nowadays are using the computer anyway, not reading a book. There won’t be any beady-eyed, middle-aged, battleaxe librarians to come charging over to you with her finger pressed against her lips and threatening to throw you out on your ear if you don’t stop talking.’

  ‘Besides, we’ve already chosen the spot that we want,’ Steven told him crisply. ‘On the second floor, in the general fiction section at one of the tables near a tall stand of hardback books. Don’t worry, we’ll show you exactly where we want you to set up, well in advance of the meet. And we want you already seated, with your back to the stand, when Chivnor shows up.’

  ‘We’ll have two beefy constables in plain clothes nearby, lolling about in the sports section. Don’t worry – they’ll look just like students, probably rowers or rugby jocks. Darren won’t clock them,’ Rollo assured him.

  ‘More importantly, we’re going to have a mike and a tiny hidden camera with live feed set up in the books behind you. A high-resolution, state of the art affair that’s coming out of my new unit’s budget,’ Steven picked up the lead briskly. ‘Both Hillary and I will be in an office nearby, watching everything. The sound and picture quality, I’ve been told, is so fine that it’ll be almost as good as if we were right there, sitting next to you. And we’ll be in direct contact with the undercover officers watching you, and if we think that anything looks dodgy, anything at all, I’ll have them move in at once,’ he added reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry – Chivnor won’t get the chance to go waving his knife around again.’

  ‘Besides, he’ll know he’ll get caught on the library’s CCTV if he does,’ Rollo said.

  ‘It’ll be as safe as having cream tea with your granny,’ Steven added.

  Jake Barnes fought back a grin. Right. Did he look as if he was born yesterday? Even so, he felt a lot of his fear and tension drain away. More, he had to admit, because he knew that Hillary Greene would be supervising the whole thing, than because of the presence of his bodyguards. He’d trust her judgement any day – and knowing she’d be watching gave him more confidence that he might just be able to pull this thing off.

  ‘OK,’ he said, taking a deep breath. ‘When do I contact him?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with the present,’ Rollo Sale said cheerfully.

  Jake swallowed hard. ‘OK. What do I say?’

  ‘Just tell him where you want to meet. Press him for the day after tomorrow, at 2.30p.m. If he can’t make that, make it next Monday morning, at 10,’ Crayle instructed. ‘These times are the most convenient for the library staff. Only a few of them will know what’s going on, and incidentally, one of the librarians at the desk will be another constable in plain clothes.’

  Jake nodded.

  ‘Tell Darren that you won’t have any money on you this time. He’ll be expecting you to be careful, so that won’t anger him. In fact, it’s good, because you want to keep him thinking that he’s in control of the situation, so acting as he expects you to act will help settle his nerves,’ Steven explained.

  His nerves, Jake thought, fighting the urge to laugh hysterically. Instead he took a deep breath. ‘Right,’ he said nervously, and reached for his phone.

  With a last glance at his two watching bosses, he lifted it out and began to dial Darren Chivnor’s number.

  In the communal office down the corridor, Hillary Greene was back and listening to Wendy and Jimmy’s report of their interview with the Tyde-Harrises.

  ‘I swear, guv, you should have seen her,’ Wendy was saying. Her voice was a mixture of anger, sadness and pity. ‘She was skin and bone. She looked more dead than alive.’

  Hillary glanced across at Jimmy to see if the goth was exaggerating – a not unheard of occurrence – but the old man was nodding sagely.

  ‘One of the walking wounded, guv,’ he told her. ‘Rebecca was their only child. And you could tell from all the photographs they had of her, that she was their pride and joy.’

  Wendy sighed. ‘They brought out the photo album when we started to ask about her. Baby photographs,’ Wendy sighed, ‘the professional sort, you know, on a rug, gurgling around a dummy. Loads as a little girl, dressed for parties and doing school sports. Then more professional shots of her when she was in her teens. She was a really great-looking girl. Could have been a model, I reckon.’

  Jimmy again nodded agreement with this assessment.

  ‘They were so proud when she got into Oxford,’ Wendy said, her somewhat pixie-like face puckering in sudden pain and resentment. ‘You should have heard them. How were they to know that it would be there that they’d start to lose her? That it would be there where she went off the rails?’

  ‘Did they know any of the crowd she got mixed up with?’ Hillary asked, noting the anguish in the younger girl’s voice. Clearly, Rebecca’s mother had touched a chord with the goth.

  Jimmy sighed and produced a list of names. ‘We’ll be talking to them all as soon as we track down their whereabouts, guv. Along with Amanda Smallwood’s nearest and dearest,’ he mentioned the other case they were prioritizing. ‘After that, I thought we’d hit the streets and start talking to the girls and pimps themselves, before checking out the pushers and the users. But by now, Medcalfe is sure to have put the word out that they’re not to co-operate with anyone asking questions.’

  Hillary nodded. She knew, as well as Jimmy, that there were always pressure points you could use. And if you were lucky, you might stumble on someone too high or strung out to be cautious. Then there were those with an axe to grind, or someone so strapped for cash that they could be open to a little persuasion. On the other hand, Medcalfe ruled by fear, and the chances were high that they would probably end up with nothing at all.

  But she had no need to say as much to Jimmy, and Wendy was a bright girl. She’d soon learn.

  ‘Oh, while you’re doing that, can you add my girl to the list, too? Lydia Clare Allen. There’s no point in our both covering the same ground.’ Besides, rank had its privileges and it had been a long time since she’d had to pound the beat on what was almost certain to be a fruitless exercise.

  ‘No problem, guv,’ Jimmy said with a knowing grin. ‘Wendy, be a luv and go and get us some coffees, would you?’

  ‘What did your last slave die of?’ the goth shot back automa
tically, but she was already halfway out of the door and amenably heading towards the main lab, where the majority of the technical staff hung out, and where there was a coffee maker.

  When he was sure she was out of earshot, Jimmy shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hiding a wince at the jabbing pain in his lower spine.

  ‘She really feels sorry for Rebecca’s mother, guv,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘And I think she’s beginning to empathize with the women in these cases, too.’

  ‘That’s no bad thing,’ Hillary said. ‘Compassion’s fine, but only so long as it doesn’t overwhelm her. You’d better keep a close eye on her when you start hitting the streets. She isn’t as tough or knowing as she likes to make out.’

  ‘Guv,’ Jimmy agreed. Then, in an abrupt change of topic, said, ‘So what do you make of our new Super then? I noticed DCS Crayle is already starting to move his stuff out of the office, so it won’t be long before we’re taking our orders strictly from Rollo.’

  Hillary blinked and then forced herself to shrug. Of course, she’d always known that by the end of the week, Steven would officially be gone and working at St Aldates. With her help he’d already started recruiting his team, and, if this thing with Chivnor worked out, he might find himself leading a major investigation right away.

  He and his new team would need to be on their toes if they were to nail as cunning a predator as Dale Medcalfe, which meant that he sure as hell wouldn’t have any spare time to see how the CRT was doing under new management. He probably wouldn’t have much time for his private life, either, for the next six months or so.

  Although she had known his departure was inevitable – as well as imminent – it was only now that the thought of no longer working for Steven suddenly hit her.

  And a day that had already left her feeling depressed seemed to nosedive even further. For a moment, she felt her shoulders sag.

  Then she gave a mental shrug.

  ‘Rollo seems all right,’ she said cautiously. ‘So far, I can’t see any major trouble looming. You sniff anything you don’t like?’ she asked curiously.

  Jimmy smiled. ‘Not really, guv. He seems a nice enough bloke. Not too much experience with murder cases, but then he’s mainly an administrator, isn’t he?’

  ‘And as such, let’s hope, not about to get under our feet too much.’ Hillary grinned, then glanced at her watch. ‘Well, you might as well call it a day. I’m just going to pop along and see what Steven and Rollo have set up, regarding this Chivnor thing. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Jake isn’t in need of a little encouraging pep talk as well. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, guv.’

  She walked to the door then paused in the entranceway and looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Oh, and Jimmy?’

  ‘Yes, guv?’

  ‘How long do you want me to go on pretending that I haven’t noticed your back’s killing you?’

  Jimmy Jessop blinked at her, then slowly smiled. He might have known. Nothing got past his guv’nor’s eagle eyes. ‘A bit longer if you don’t mind, guv.’

  Hillary nodded. ‘OK. But get yourself to a quack sooner rather than later, yeah?’ she advised him. ‘You need a diagnosis and some proper painkillers wouldn’t hurt. If you’ll pardon the expression.’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘I’ll put my name down on the waiting list for an appointment as soon as I can get through to an actual live person and not a recording,’ Jimmy promised. ‘And by the time I’ve done that, and got an appointment, had the appointment cancelled once or twice, and finally got to see some poor over-worked sod who probably can’t speak English, my back pain will be gone. You just wait and see.’

  ‘Isn’t modern medicine marvellous?’ Hillary Greene said cheerfully.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was fully dark by the time Hillary parked Puff in the car park of The Boat pub, and locked up. Once past the lighting provided by that establishment, she switched on her torch to walk the hundred yards or so up the narrow towpath where her narrowboat, The Mollern, was moored.

  On a freezing, late November night, most of the wildlife was safely nestled in for the long duration of darkness, but she heard something rustle distinctly in some dead bulrushes on the far side of the canal as she moved past. Probably a moorhen, she thought, or a ubiquitous mallard. The familiar – and oddly comforting – dank, rich smell of canal water was being swept her way along with the icy breeze, and above her head, a waxing moon cast a faint silver sheen over the darkened furrows of the ploughed fields opposite.

  As she reached the grey, white and gold-painted narrowboat that had been her home for so long, she felt a pang of regret that soon her homecoming would be more prosaic than this. Steven’s driveway was big enough for two cars, and the front door would be only a matter of a few steps away. She sighed as she carefully stepped onto the back of her boat, and then reminded herself that, on a cold, wet, windy night, she might very well be glad of that.

  Refusing to let the gloomy mood that had beset her all day get the better of her, she went inside, shrugged off her coat and made her way to the tiny galley, tuning in the radio to a sixties station, and singing along to The Hollies. Steven should be back in a couple of hours, and she had a steak to grill, and potatoes to bake.

  And after that, well, who knew?

  The next morning, she was up and dressed by nine. Steven had been gone for at least two hours by that point, but instead of heading into the office, she consulted her notes instead, and then headed directly into Oxford.

  After all, her team didn’t need her to stand over them, watching to see that they did their jobs properly, and she wanted to catch some of Jasmine Sudbury’s friends before word got around that her case had been reopened. Being forewarned meant being forearmed, and she wanted to get as much done as possible before the grapevine did its worst.

  According to Jake’s parents, Jasmine’s best friend from her school days, ‘before she started to go off the rails’, as they’d put it was a girl by the name of Cathy Underhill, now Mrs Cathy Pryce, who managed a charity shop in Summertown.

  Hillary found the shop easily enough in the upmarket Oxford suburb, but quickly discovered that a parking space couldn’t be had for love or money – no great surprise in Oxford. Eventually she parked in a side street where the double-yellow lines had worn so thin they’d become well nigh invisible. Also the fallen autumn leaves covered any evidence that she might be illegally parked – OK, was illegally parked. But she felt confident enough to risk it. Mind you, before she walked away, she took several photographs of her car and the innocent-looking roadside with her mobile phone camera, just for a bit of insurance. If she should return to find a parking ticket, she might feel bloody-minded enough to challenge it in court, just for the satisfaction of giving the traffic wardens – and the city council – something to chew over.

  In the charity shop, one old woman was sorting assiduously through the winter coats on one rack, and a tall, lanky student with more tattoos than body piercing was rifling through the book section. The woman behind the counter was obviously an unpaid volunteer, for when Hillary murmured discreetly in her ear that she needed a word with the manager, she was shown behind a curtained alcove to where a set of narrow, twisting steps lead up to a tiny top-floor office.

  Cathy Pryce was a big-boned, rather fleshy woman with an astonishingly pretty face, who looked surprised to find someone from the police service tapping on her door. Once she’d explained her mission, however, her big china blue eyes became rather pensive, and as she watched Hillary take the seat she’d offered her, began to play somewhat distractedly with one of her locks of long, curly black hair.

  ‘Jas?’ Cathy said, rocking her swivelling chair back and forth a shade restively. ‘Good grief, I haven’t thought of Jas in years.’ Then she flushed guiltily. ‘Sorry. I should have, I suppose. I mean, I heard that she’d dropped out of sight, and all that, and that never bodes well, does it? But I hadn’t really ever thought of her as missing. Not, you know, really missing. A
s in … well, that she might have run into serious trouble.’

  The office was tiny and cramped, overflowing with unsold stock and filing cabinets, with barely room to contain the single desk and two chairs that comprised the furniture. Cathy was dressed in thick, misshapen but warm-looking black woollen trousers and an outsize, faded grey sweatshirt bearing the name of some sporting team or other. Hillary doubted that her job could pay much, and she presumed that both garments had probably been donated stock that had stubbornly refused to shift.

  ‘Is there a reason for that?’ Hillary asked mildly. And when the younger woman looked at her, clearly puzzled, clarified, ‘For your not being really worried about her, I mean?’

  ‘Oh. Right. Because she was the sort of girl who was always well able to look after herself, I suppose.’ Cathy paused then gave a shrug and a half smile. ‘When I heard that she hadn’t been seen around for some time, I just assumed she’d gone off to the smoke, or maybe abroad.’

  ‘But with the lifestyle she was leading,’ Hillary slipped in casually, ‘you must have wondered?’

  Cathy frowned, then sighed heavily. ‘I know. And you’re right – you hear such awful things about women in her position, being so vulnerable and all. Addicts and … well, doing the job she did. But, somehow, I just never believed that something really bad could happen to Jas. I suppose it was because Jas was always so … you know …’ She spread her hands, clearly struggling for words. ‘I don’t quite know how to put it. She wasn’t bossy, as such, but she was always the leader of the gang, type of thing. She was always someone who was more likely to get up to mischief, rather than become a victim of it. Like, at school, there was this group of us, yeah, six or seven altogether, and after school, we’d drift off and just do whatever it was that Jas wanted to do. Go shopping, hang out round the supermarket, see if we could scam some booze. Go to the park, smoke. Go to the gym and leer at the boys boxing and give them a hard time.’ Cathy gave a laugh. ‘Hell, I never realized before how reprobate teenage girls could be.’