Catching the Ice Queen

  CATCHING THE ICE QUEEN

  Katie Simpson-Shaw

  Chapter 1

  Keith Bolton smirked as he pointed a chubby finger in the direction of the cells.

  ‘Go on, Sullivan, the suspect is waiting.’

  Robin’s eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall. She’d miss the presentation if she went now, and her inspector had laid down the law just this morning that attendance was not optional. Bolton’s smug smile broadened. He knew what crap she’d get if she wasn’t lined up with the rest of CID to welcome the new Deputy Chief Constable. Bolton’s little piggy blue eyes dared her to challenge him. Over his shoulder she could see the custody sergeant’s face twist into sympathy at her impossible choice: piss off the Boss and show him up in front of several rungs of police hierarchy, or annoy the low-grade, balding bully who could and would make her life a complete misery for weeks if she gave him the chance. Robin sighed and nodded.

  ‘Fine. I’ll go now.’ Maybe she could rush this interview and still have time to get to the meeting on time. Fat hope, she knew, but she clung to it.

  The DS turned and walked off without a further word, but the enormous detective constable at his side couldn’t resist a further dig.

  ‘There’s a good girl,’ sneered Tony Parker and pushed past her. She leapt to one side but not fast enough – a meaty hand lashed out and smacked her hard on the bum as he sauntered away. She rubbed her arse, face stinging. Just breathe, she thought desperately, sooner or later you’ll get a promotion, or move away, or he’ll drop dead or something and you won’t have to deal with this anymore.

  Desk sergeant ‘Mac’ Mackenzie cleared his throat and looked up from his bank of internal CCTV screens. He was one of the good ones, she knew.

  ‘What a pair of charmers,’ she said, pasting on a grin to cover both their embarrassment. The lanky Scotsman laughed gratefully at the feeble joke.

  ‘I’ll fetch Greenway up for you,’ he said, picking up the cell keys. ‘If you’re quick –‘

  She nodded, and moved into the empty interview room.

  Needless to say, taking the statement of the odious Gary Greenway, full-time tea leaf of the parish, was not quick. Fortunately, Robin was so used to the everyday insults, offensive comments and sexist jibes she received from Parker and his cronies that she barely registered Gary’s feeble attempts at scoring points off her. Despite everything she had to bite back a smile at the puzzled look on his face as another of his cherished wisecracks fell flat.

  ‘So, let me just get this straight,’ she said at last, shuffling the pages of the handwritten statement together. ‘You don’t know how the stolen watches ended up in a duffle bag behind your sofa. In fact, you’d never seen them before.’

  ‘I’m telling yer. Now she listens!’ He nodded at his solicitor, who barely glanced back at his spotty face.

  ‘You’ve never seen the stuff, never handled it, nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Right.’ He smiled and sniffed a long and juicy sniff. Robin repressed a shudder.

  ‘Your hands.’ She tucked a strand lock of dark brown hair behind her ear.

  He blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Your hands.’ She gestured at the pale fingers spread out on the desk between them, nails bitten down to the quick. ‘You know, the two flappy things on the end of your arms?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Have they been with you the whole time?’ He gawped. ‘I mean, at no time have your hands left your arms and been somewhere else, without the rest of you?’

  Greenway turned wide eyes to the man sitting next to him. ‘What’s she saying, Gordon?’

  ‘Detective Constable,’ warned the lawyer. She was surprised, having assumed he was asleep with his eyes open. ‘Please do not insult my client with your sarcasm.’

  Robin nodded. She adopted a serious tone and said: ‘Of course. My apologies. Gary, if you’ve never seen or touched these watches before, and – as we’ve just established – it’s impossible for your hands to have been somewhere without you, then how do you explain the full set of your fingerprints that we’ve found on the stolen goods?’

  ‘Um, er, I…’ The big adam’s apple in Gary’s narrow throat went up and down convulsively, and his eyes rolled back to his solicitor in mute appeal.

  ‘I’d like to request a break to confer with my client,’ said Gordon, now sitting up more alertly.

  Wakey wakey, thought Robin, you really let him sleepwalk into that one. ‘Certainly, Mr Higgs.’ She glanced up at the clock and winced at the time. ‘Interview suspended at 10.14 am.’ She clicked off the tape recording and nodded to the uniformed constable by the door. ‘Let me know when Mr Greenway is ready to resume.’ She smiled warmly as she closed the door with a calm and unhurried click, and then turned and sprinted up the hallway.

  ‘Quick!’ said Mac as she thundered past. She skidded round the corner and barrelled up the stairs to the third floor meeting room. As she took the steps two at a time she thanked her lucky stars that she’d started trail-riding six months ago, reaching the top only slightly out of breath and not half dead as she would have been before. She forced herself to stop for a second, stilled her breathing, smoothed her long hair and straightened her jacket, and then swung through the closed door with her head held high. Never explain, never apologise, she repeated to herself.

  The bump of the door drew all eyes to her like wasps to a picnic. Robin tried not to notice the scowl on the face of her boss, Detective Inspector Lionel Goode, or the frown that DS Bolton shot her. Instead she elbowed her way into a tight pack of plods gathered in the furthest corner. Tony Parker and his creepy pals sneered at her as she pushed by, but fortunately even he wasn’t brazen enough to get handsy right in front of the entire top brass of the station. There’s a positive, she thought, setting her face into an interested and unconcerned smile, at least I haven’t been felt-up in the last five minutes. At this thought she glanced up at the three uniformed figures standing at the top of the room, and her heart hit her boots. The Chief Constable was glaring at her over his little glasses, the Assistant Chief Constable for Professional Standards was frowning, and the tall blonde woman between them was looking at Robin as if she’d crawled out from under a stone. Robin felt a tell-tale blush creeping up her neck revealing how absolutely mortified she really was. It wasn’t my fault! she wanted to shout to the room, but she knew that would impress nobody. So instead she bit the inside of her cheek, flicked back her hair, and smiled that damn smile.

  To take her mind off her acute embarrassment Robin studied the new Deputy Chief Constable. The grainy photo in the Force newsletter really hadn’t done her justice: she was in her late forties, Robin judged, and very pale and slim inside the dark blue and silver of her dress uniform. Her face looked remote under a polite half-smile. A Valkyrie, Robin thought, and as this crossed her mind her eyes met the blonde’s icy look and she almost dropped her gaze back to the floor, but then she thought fuck it, I bet you’ve been messed about by plenty of sexist detective constables in your time too. To her own surprise she met the stare and smiled, properly this time. She was even more surprised when the woman smiled faintly back.

  ‘As I was saying’ said Chief Constable Williams with pointed emphasis, ‘none of us here need reminding about the recent suggestions of fraud and malpractice in the service. Allegations of…’ his voice droned on and Robin tuned out. They all knew what this was about. She’d only been in the station for six months when a death in custody had led to a full-scale investigation of some of the Force’s most senior and longest-serving officers. Several familiar faces had resigned, and a couple had since been charged with perverting the course of justice, theft, and collusion with local criminal figures – some of who
m had also been charged – but the net result was that the public’s trust in the police had been severely dented. Canteen mutterings had it that the Chief Constable himself had been hauled over the coals by the Home Secretary for not noticing the criminality in his own service; presumably this was why he was now installing a new DCC with a clean pair of hands and a specific remit for rooting out and obliterating corruption.

  ‘She’s a right ball-breaker.’ Keith Bolton had said during one of his many pronouncements on the subject. ‘Comes in from the Met. Takes no prisoners, I’ve heard, just slices and dices and gets coppers the sack.’

  Bent coppers, she’d thought silently, corrupt bags of shit like you. No wonder you’re worried. But then she’d been horrified to hear what he had said next.

  ‘And she’s a fucking dyke,’ Bolton almost spat the words. ‘Frigid too, to look at her. Can’t get a decent fella so sets out to ruin honest men’s lives.’

  ‘Shut up, Keith!’ Robin’s face had burned with outrage. All heads turned to her, Bolton’s mouth hanging open in astonishment that this humble DC was speaking back to him. ‘I don’t want to listen to that homophobic crap. If you’re an honest man then you’ve nothing to worry about from this investigation. And whether you are or you’re not –‘ his face purpled with rage but she carried on regardless, ‘this woman’s sexuality has nothing to do with her work and has certainly nothing to do with you.’

  In the total silence that followed she’d turned on her heel to march out before she fell apart with shock at cheeking the DS like this, and had bumped straight into the Assistant Chief Constable, Paul Austin. He automatically reached up to steady her before stepping politely to one side and fixing the assembled detective sergeants with a glare.

  ‘Well said, Detective Constable. Anything more you’d like to share about your views on the Chief Constable’s actions, DS Bolton?’ Keith shook his head, blood red with anger. Austin nodded, and everyone began to shuffle away to pretend to work. Robin prepared to do the same when he turned to her and said: ‘DC Sullivan, a word?’

  She’d followed him into his office and closed the door. Oh God, she’d thought, now I’m going to get a bollocking for shouting at a senior officer. The ACC sat himself behind his desk and regarded her thoughtfully.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve been with us for very long, have you, Robin?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I think you transferred here about three months after me. Right, well in that case you may not be aware that as well as Professional Standards I am also the Service’s designated senior officer responsible for equality and diversity.’ He nodded over to the side wall where a wall planner was marked up with Black history month, LGBTQ month, international women’s day, an a slew of religious festivals. Beside the planner Robin noticed a framed picture of the ACC with a white man, both smiling broadly. She snapped her eyes forwards again, worried he would think she was prying. He smiled, and she realised he had seen her clock the photo. ‘That was my husband, Tom. He died last year.’

  ‘I am so sorry, sir.’

  Austin said nothing for a moment and straightened something on his desk. Then he looked up and smiled. ‘So for both personal and professional reasons, let me just say that if you find that the – opinions – of your colleagues become too offensive you can come to me.’ He saw her face and held up a hand. ‘I know, nobody talks, nobody tells, but unless we tackle the sort of offensive bullshit that I just overheard then nothing will ever change. And you and I both know that’s not ideal.’

  She met his eye, and then smiled. Your gaydar is really working, she thought. ‘Duly noted, sir.’

  His dark eyes twinkled back, then he leaned sideways in his chair to look past her and back through the glass walls of his office.

  ‘Ah, I think DS Bolton has found somewhere else to be. Carry on then, detective constable.’

  Robin looked at Paul Austin now as he stood beside his new colleague. He half turned to the woman and murmured something, and she smiled in response. Perhaps they already knew each other, thought Robin, although it would make sense for them to be friendly as they were going to be working so closely together. She couldn’t stop her eyes drifting over to the woman as she nodded at something the Chief Constable was saying. She was almost as tall as the two men, and she was one of those astonishingly good-looking people that somehow don’t seem real. Instead she could have stepped from a film set, playing some kind of Nordic goddess, incongruously plonked into this crowd of scruffy coppers. Under the strip lights her hair shone a very pale gold from its tight regulation bun and Robin idly wondered how long it would be once let down. As if following that thought she let her gaze track slowly onwards, lingering for a second on the promise behind the snugly buttoned jacket, and then all the way down those long, long legs. She really was a seriously attractive woman. She looked back up at her face and found those sharp blue eyes staring straight back.

  Oh Christ! Robin blushed to the roots of her hair and almost hyperventilated. I’ve been caught checking her out! She never did that, never once had she allowed her professional mask to slip to reveal more of the real her underneath, so why on earth had she done it today? I am so dead.

  ‘And so I will let Deputy Chief Constable Lara Black introduce herself.’

  Robin kept her eyes firmly planted on the floor through the ripple of polite applause. And then a cool voice spoke to the room and sent the hairs rising on the back of her neck.

  ‘Good morning, everyone.’ Robin desperately wanted to look up but just didn’t dare. Instead she shuffled very slightly sideways until she was almost hidden behind a goliath of a DC. From over his shoulder she snatched a glance, and was amazed at the poise of the woman standing in front of them explaining how she was going to be examining everything and everyone for indications of wrong-doing. She really is a goddess, Robin thought, alien and incorruptible, or a Valkyrie come to sweep down on us all and carry off the guilty. ‘And I realise that this will not make me many friends within this Service,’ the new DCC was saying, ‘but the trust of the public in the police is more important than popularity. It’s more important than meeting targets for clear-up rates, and it’s more important than getting criminals off the streets.’ A low mutter of dissent fluttered through the audience. The woman merely smiled a distant smile, reminding Robin of the imperturbability of a glacier flowing on its way without heeding any obstacles. ‘You may disagree, and indeed I can hear that many of you do. But consider this: without the public’s trust how can they believe that the clear-up rates of this Service are accurate, and not padded for political or personal benefit? How can they trust that the criminals arrested are indeed guilty of the crimes for which they are charged? Without public faith in our professional standards then nothing you, or I, or any of our colleagues can do will make any difference. And we’re here to make a difference, ladies and gentlemen. So I will do what I have been brought here to do, and when I am finished you will be able to be confident that you are making an honest, professional and sincere difference to the public’s lives.’ She smiled again. ‘Thank you.’ And in the genuine applause that followed she turned quietly away.

  Oh bloody hell, thought Robin. This is going to be trouble.

  Chapter 2

  And trouble it certainly was. Over the next few weeks DCC Black was everywhere: seating herself quietly at the back of team meetings, unhurriedly flicking through case notes picked up from random desks, drifting silently around the station and into every nook and cranny like a ghost. A ghost of a Valkyrie, Robin thought, catching sight of the tall pale figure walking calmly down a corridor and stilling conversation as she went. It must be lonely, seeing the remote smile that seemed to permanently adorn that beautiful face but which never reached the watchful blue eyes. At least ACC Austin treated her like a human being, exchanging friendly words and occasionally provoking a low purr of laughter.

  ‘He’s trying his luck, I see,’ muttered Tony one afternoon as the two
senior officers strode past them all, chatting warmly. Robin had to turn away to stifle a chuckle. How wrong can you be? Unfortunately Parker caught the look on her face. ‘What’s so funny, Tweetie Pie?’ Robin ground her teeth at the stupid nickname. The big DC shambled over and got right into her personal space, leering. ‘Fancy your chances with the ACC, do you? Did he hold your hand the other day?’

  Robin felt herself blush, which just made his mates chuckle more loudly. Making a huge effort, she looked up at the bloke’s pudgy face and beamed.

  ‘But you know my heart belongs to you, Detective Constable,’ she said with all the sarcasm she could muster. Parker glowered as his friends laughed at his expense.

  A sudden hush fell as their big Detective Sergeant, Keith Bolton, appeared in their midst with a suddenness that should have been impossible for one of his bulk. His puffy, moustachioed face was as inscrutable as ever.

  ‘Sullivan,’ he growled in his Benson and Hedges voice. ‘Uniform are reporting an assault down on the Speldhurst Estate. Your old friend Gary Greenway’s got himself beaten to a pulp.’ He slapped a manila folder into her hands and her spirits sank. ‘And remember, I want that case finished and signed off by 6pm. Now get going.’

  She turned on her heel and walked away, telling herself she was ignoring the chorus of whistles and insults at her back. She almost didn’t see DCC Black standing quietly in the corner, watching the proceedings with that remote look on her face. Fine, see my humiliation, thought Robin and pushed past the woman to clatter down the stairs and out in the fresh air, and if you didn’t catch the whole show today, tune in tomorrow when I will be going through it all over again.

  She stormed over to her car and slammed the door. I should have kept my mouth shut. It was bully-avoidance 101 not to draw attention to yourself in any way. She flicked through the file, and – surprise, surprise – found next to nothing in it. Typical. She’d be going into this situation practically blind. She threw the folder onto the passenger seat and turned the ignition. To add to her irritation she saw the engine light flash on as it had been doing for the past two weeks, although the useless mechanics at her local garage had yet to find the problem. Robin banged the dashboard in annoyance and the light went out, and then someone knocked on the driver’s window and made her jump out of her skin. To her complete amazement DCC Black was standing next to the car.