Catching the Ice Queen Read online

  After another frustrating day it had gone eight by the time Robin turned off her computer and headed to the door. Desk sergeant Mac Mackenzie was on duty and he looked up from the sports pages of his paper when he saw her come past towards the car park.

  ‘How you bearing up, Robin?’ His kindly face was crinkled with concern. She wondered how much of a wreck she was looking. She actually had some time off the next day, so maybe that long-postponed ride along the coastal trail might be worth doing. She forced a tired smile.

  ‘Knackered, but I’ll live. What’s it been like down here?’

  He shrugged. ‘Pretty quiet. It seems like our local criminal community is lying low, hoping Hurricane Sylvie moves on and leaves them alone.’

  She snorted, and pushed the door open. ‘Almost makes you wish for the good old days of cells full of drunks, a bloke busted for growing weed in his attic, and a handful of normal punch ups.’ They shared a laugh and she headed out.

  She had been living for the past six months in a house a few streets up from the sea front. It wasn’t anything she would have been able to afford herself, but renting the owner’s spare room was just about within her budget. She pulled the car into a space just down the road from the tall white building, and got out. The bite of the evening air was sharp, and promised a clear night and sunshine tomorrow. Perfect for her bike ride.

  Unlocking the handsome black front door she smelled a delicious scent of one of her landlady’s famous curries. Sure enough, Sue’s curly grey head popped out of the kitchen door and she took a few steps towards her, still cradling the wine glasses she’d been polishing.

  ‘Evening, Sue,’ called Robin.

  ‘Hi Robin,’ Sue looked rather guilty. She was expecting her ‘fancy man’, Derek, no doubt. Well, even if Robin had no love life to speak of she wasn’t going to cramp anyone else’s. ‘You ok? I’m just going to crash out.’

  A buoyant look sprung onto Sue’s guileless face. ‘Oh, are you sure? Derek’s coming over but I’ve made enough for an army…’

  ‘It’s really fine,’ Robin smiled. She liked Sue, who’d bought this big old house decades ago and had raised a family here before her husband had died and her children had buggered off to jobs at the other end of the country. She’d been delighted to see her landlady find herself a gentleman caller, as she laughingly referred to him. And Derek was a nice guy (she knew, she’d checked him out on the police computer), who seemed genuinely fond of Sue in return.

  ‘Well, take a plateful upstairs with you, at least.’ The little lady bustled off into the kitchen, Robin trailing behind. In no time she’d been presented with a big dish of homemade chicken saag, rice, and a bottle of beer.

  ‘Thanks, Sue, you’re a life-saver.’ She really must buy some food in, thought Robin, trudging carefully upstairs with her bounty. That was another thing she’d not had time for lately.

  She pressed the TV remote and ate her curry mechanically, not registering what was happening in the costume drama that was on. Eating her dinner in her bedroom like a teenager hadn’t been what she’d had in mind when she’d applied for this promotion in the big city, she thought, and then yawned. That pep-talk could also wait for tomorrow.

  As promised, the next day was bright with winter sunshine that made Robin think spring was coming. She loaded her trail bike into the car and then set off through the hinterland of streets straggling up the hill before breaking off across country to the starting point of the trail. She’d been a bit worried that the beautiful weather would have meant the track was crowded, but her’s was one of only a few cars in the gravelled car park. She got the bike out, checked her pack had her usual kit plus phone and car keys, and adjusted the strap of her helmet. Her breath clouded out in front of her, but she knew she would warm up quickly once she got riding.

  Ten seconds on the bike and all the pressures of the last few weeks soared away, dissolving above her head in the hazy blue of the late February sky. She loved the rush of the air against her face, and the feeling of every bump and twist transmitted up through the suspension and into the handlebars. The birds sang in the trees lining the route, and every few minutes she got a flash of sunlight and a snapshot of the sweep of green turf running down to the cliffs. This is what she had needed; this was a perk of seaside living that even she could share.

  She shot down a twist of the trail and was almost on top of the woman sitting in the path before she knew it. Robin wrenched the front wheel round and squeezed the brakes, coming to a skidding stop just in time. She caught her breath and took in the crumpled remains of the woman’s bike, the grimace of pain on her face, and the spreading red patch on the knee of her leggings.

  ‘What happened? Are you ok?’ She was off her own bike in an instant. ‘Just hang on.’ Hastily she pulled out a fluorescent jacket from her bag and looped it through a branch just back round the corner as a warning to the next rider coming along; she had only just managed to stop and didn’t fancy sitting in the middle of the track waiting for someone else with slower reflexes to ride into them. Then she dashed back to the injured figure, dropping to her knees and putting a careful hand on her shoulder. ‘Can you look at me? Did you hit your head?’

  The woman looked up at Robin with piercing eyes, and she realised with a start that this was DCC Lara Black.

  ‘I didn’t hit my head, I’m sure of it,’ she said. ‘I just caught my leg in the frame as it went out from under me.’ She grinned with pain, and her face went even paler. Robin mentally shook herself and grabbed out her first aid kit.

  ‘Right, I’m going to feel your leg to see if it’s broken, ok?’ She hesitated. ‘This is going to hurt.’

  Lara nodded and braced herself, stiffening as Robin’s careful hands moved up from her ankle, testing gently for signs of fractures.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, and looked away as tiny tears of agony glinted in the other woman’s eyes. ‘But good news, no breaks, I think. So no need to call the Air Ambulance, unless you’d like a ride in the big yellow chopper?’ It was a feeble enough jest but got a faint smile. All the while Robin’s hands were busy: pulling apart the ripped lycra over the knee and pressing a sterile dressing from her emergency kit onto the lacerated flesh beneath. The woman started to shake, either with cold or shock Robin wasn’t sure, so she pulled off her own warm top layer and draped it around Lara’s shoulders. For a second the intense blue eyes flickered over Robin’s t-shirt with its tourist slogan Melbourne Forever, and then she looked away.

  Robin patched up the damaged knee as best she could and sat back on her heels. The day had cooled, high white clouds drifting over the sun, and she could see Lara’s fingers and lips turning blue under that translucent skin.

  ‘Right, we need to get you back to the car.’ She quickly lifted both bikes into the hedge, and said a silent prayer that they’d still be here when she got back, but there was no way she could manage even one of them and help the woman back to the carpark. ‘Do you think you can stand?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘Put your arm round my neck,’ she stooped and gripped Lara around the waist, ‘now try to push up with your other leg.’ Robin pulled and Lara did her best to stand up, but the involuntary grunt of pain revealed how badly her knee was damaged. Instinctively Robin’s hands slid around the other woman’s back, steadying the trim body against herself, as they slowly limped back along the trail. She wished she was strong enough to just pick her up, but Lara was a couple of inches taller and the best Robin could manage was to take as much of her weight as possible.

  It was a good half an hour before they reached the cars, which were the last two in the little car park. Robin nodded towards the dark blue Golf that must be the other woman’s.

  ‘Let’s get you sat in my car, then give me your keys and I’ll retrieve what you need from yours. I’ll come back and get it later.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ muttered Lara, paling as she bent her knee to sit in the passenger seat of Robin’s scruffy Ford.
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  ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it.’ Robin leaned across to clip the buckle of the seat belt, and then felt herself redden as she realised her head had brushed the other woman’s breasts. She stood up hastily and marched over to the Golf. Get a grip, she counselled herself, pinging the door lock and reaching in to retrieve a small leather bag tucked under the front seat. The car was pristine and smelled of expensive leather; she was mortified to think what the DCC must be thinking of Robin’s own car which had only got messier in the weeks since that visit to Gary Greenway. She clicked the locks closed and walked back to her own vehicle, sliding into the driver’s seat and dropping the bag onto the floor by the other woman’s feet. ‘How are you doing?’

  Lara Black nodded, but she was biting her lip and had paled to almost ghostly whiteness. Robin switched on the engine, thumped the dashboard to get rid of the engine warning light symbol, and turned the heater on full. Then she pulled swiftly away and headed for the hospital.

  It was almost eight o’clock when eventually Robin pulled up outside Sue’s house. She rested her head on the steering wheel, completely spent. They’d waited for hours in Accident and Emergency, with Lara getting more and more contorted with pain, until Robin had marched over to the desk and announced that they were police officers and somebody needed to come and look after her friend right now. After that things had moved quickly: Lara was wheeled off to be x-rayed, and then deposited back into a cubicle for a impossibly-young doctor to gently examine the busted knee. She pronounced that nothing was broken, but as well as the deep cuts to the skin surface the joint had taken a severe wrenching and was likely to need some physiotherapy before it would get back to normal. A nurse had been summoned to do some needlework, and a referral note written for Lara to present to her own GP.

  ‘And now you can take your girlfriend home,’ said the doctor breezily, smiling at Robin. She’d blushed to the roots of her hair, and didn’t dare look at the woman who was so not her girlfriend, who wasn’t even her boss, but instead her boss’s boss’s boss. God, help me, she thought.

  Luckily the nurse insisted on Lara sitting in a wheelchair for the journey back to the car, and that meant that Robin couldn’t see her face. She’d been almost completely silent during the hospital visit, not responding to Robin’s attempts at conversation, and now tangible waves of disapproval and embarrassment seemed to roll off her. They managed not to look at each other as Robin assisted her into the car, and she had to steel herself to glance across at Lara when the engine was switched on and she was heading to the exit.

  ‘What’s your address?’

  ’88 Talbot Street, flat 2.’

  ‘Ok.’

  She knew this was a road lined with very desirable town houses, just on the edge of a little park in the Regency part of town. Added to the pristine Golf and the expensive leather bag this sent a very clear message that Robin found was sinking her spirits like a heavy stone. She sneaked a glance at the woman who was managing to look elegant despite heavy strapping on her knee and Robin’s tatty jacket draped around her shoulders. She is so out of your league.

  As she drew up outside the house Robin’s mouth dropped open to see Assistant Chief Constable Austin standing on the white steps. He hurried towards them, and pulled open the passenger door.

  ‘Lara! I just got your text. You look awful!’

  When had she texted him? At the hospital? When Robin was waiting patiently for hours for her to come back from x-ray? Oblivious to the upset she’d caused, DCC Black unfolded at the sight of him and put out a hand for him to take.

  ‘Thanks, I don’t think!’ He helped her to stand and she leaned heavily on his arm, her fingers crushing the sleeve of his dark blue jacket.

  ‘Hi Robin,’ Austin leaned back down to call through the open door. ‘I’ll get her settled.’

  ‘Good, right,’ she muttered. Anger ebbed seamlessly into humiliation, as if she’d been caught out trying to make friends with a senior officer way above her rank.

  ‘Oh, Robin! Don’t go yet!’ Lara Black hobbled round and put a hand onto the door sill. Robin blushed in anticipation of some warm words of thanks and had her casual ‘no problem’ already lined up ready to go. ‘Could you get my car and bring it back here? It’s got a resident’s parking permit so you can leave it anywhere in the square.’ She dangled a set of keys, which the younger woman took automatically.

  ‘No problem,’ she answered weakly. The DCC had given her a faint smile and then she and Austin had turned their backs on Robin and headed to the front door.

  By the time Robin had driven back to the car park, left her own car there and driven the posh Golf back into town, parked it, handed the keys to ACC Austin on the doorstep of the townhouse and then got a taxi back to the car park to pick up her own car again, it was already dark. She took a torch and picked her way back down the trail and collected the two bikes, which were miraculously still there, wheeling them slowly along in the cold and then shoving them both into the boot. She’d give Her Majesty her bike back at some future point. Perhaps she could leave it at the tradesman’s entrance for the butler to collect. She slammed the driver’s door angrily and roared off down the road for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, thinking that she never wanted to ride this particular route ever again.

  Chapter 4

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Keith Bolton regarded Robin over the top of the greasy sandwich he was eating. They were sat in an unmarked car, surveilling a row of lock-up garages that a source had told them were owned by Sylvie Dean. Robin took a bite of her own butty and shook her head.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re not. You’ve been in a right mood for weeks.’

  It was true, she’d been in a foul temper ever since that fiasco on the cycle trail. She’d fully anticipated some kind of thanks from DCC Black in the days following, but nothing had happened, and in the end Robin had just felt stupid that she’d expected anything. As a distraction she’d taken every opportunity for over-time that came up, even if it did mean sharing stake-outs with Keith Bolton. She thought she would be the recipient of all kinds of sexist jokes during the long hours stuck in smelly cars with him, but he’d seemed distracted and mainly hadn’t bothered.

  She realised that he was still staring at her, waiting for an answer. She chose one that was nearly the truth.

  ‘I’m just annoyed that I’ve got to find somewhere new to live. My landlady is selling up and moving in with her boyfriend.’

  Sue’s news couldn’t have come at a worse time, although Robin had tried to look pleased for her when she and Derek had announced it to her the other day. They’d been all pink-cheeked and happy and despite her sinking feelings Robin had managed to plaster a smile on her face.

  Bolton grunted in something passing for sympathy.

  ‘Thank God me and Muriel bought our place before house prices went crazy,’ he said, and then stopped. She looked at him.

  ‘I didn’t know your wife’s name was Muriel,’ she said carefully, ‘you don’t talk about her much.’

  The big man rustled his crisp bag loudly and cleared his throat. He is having an emotion, she thought in astonishment.

  ‘Yeah, well. She’s got cancer.’ He stared out of the steamy window. ‘Docs reckon she’s got six months, maybe.’

  There was a heavy moment of silence.

  ‘Christ, Keith, I am so sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah. It’s shit. But that’s life.’

  ‘Are you going to retire?’ He must have done his thirty years and then some. ‘You know, spend some time…’

  ‘That’s what I’m planning. I told the DCI last week.’ He sighed and she saw the exhaustion on his face. ‘I just can’t be doing with all this crap right now.’

  ‘If – if there’s anything I can do,’ she stuttered feebly, feeling useless. ‘Anything you need… Anyway, just say the word.’

  He almost smiled. ‘OK. Thanks.’ Then, in more characteristic tones: ‘This is a total fucking wa
ste of time! We should be sat outside Sylvie Dean’s house, not this shitty lock up.’

  Robin could tell he wanted to change the subject. ‘Is it true that she complained to her MP about police harassment?’ she asked.

  He snarled. ‘Yeah, can you believe the nerve? And that crawling little low-life got on the phone to the Chief Constable, and we’ve been told not to put any officers within five hundred yards of her.’

  It really was like trying to investigate with one hand tied behind their backs. As if to rub salt into their wounds, at that moment the garage door was thrown open and a young man in a sharp suit came out. He grinned and waved cheerily at the two officers. They groaned in unison. ‘Arsehole!’ shouted Keith, chucking the remains of his sandwich into the back and shoving the car into reverse.

  ‘How do they always know we’re here?’ asked Robin.

  Keith shook his head darkly. ‘Dunno. But I’m going to bloody well find out.’

  It wasn’t just Robin and Keith’s surveillance; almost all their intelligence-gathering activities resulted in little or no results, or worse – one of DCI Goode’s confidential informants was discovered in the hospital with two broken arms, two broken legs, and what he claimed was traumatic amnesia.

  ‘She’s a fucking witch,’ complained Goode in Robin’s hearing. ‘Everywhere we go, she’s gone before us – tidying crime scenes, knobbling witnesses, destroying evidence. She’s got a bloody magic mirror somewhere and it’s telling her what we’re up to.’

  ‘Magic mirror my fanny,’ snorted Bolton. ‘It’s a mole that she’s got, pure and simple. One of our own is selling us out.’

  Like lightning, the rumour that the Service had a traitor in its ranks rushed through the station. Mac Mackenzie pulled Robin aside as she headed out for another pointless exercise in interviewing witnesses with no memories.