The Verge Practice Part 25

22.

Kathy tried the home number on file for the former laboratory clerk Debbie Langley. She wasn't expecting a reply in the middle of the day, but the phone was answered by Debbie's mother, with whom she apparently lived.

'Debbie gets home from work at six,' the mother said.

'Well, would it be convenient if I called tonight at, say, six-thirty?'

'I don't know,' the woman said defensively. 'Does she know you?'

'We've never met. I'm with the police. It's not a big matter, and it only indirectly affects Debbie, so it'd be easier me seeing her at home rather than asking her to come to a police station. It won't take long.'

Debbie's mother agreed, and Kathy put the phone down, feeling a squirm of guilt.

The house was a rather gloomy dark-red brick semi, not far from the local commuter rail station and shops. The paint on the garage door was peeling and the concrete path cracked. Debbie Langley opened the door looking worried.

Her make-up was fresh, her cheeks flushed as if she'd rushed to get ready to face this unexpected complication to her day. From the back of the house came a smell of cooking and the sound of a child's voice. She closed the front door after Kathy and led the way into the front sitting room, the furnishings spotless but worn.

'Could you tell me what this is about?' she demanded anxiously, clutching her hands. Kathy had the impression of someone who had faced a fair bit of bad news lately and was bracing for another little smack from fate. 'It's not my car is it? Only I told Cheryl when I lent it to her that I'm not going to be responsible . . .' She stopped, seeing Kathy smile and shake her head.

'No, it's nothing like that, Debbie. It's just a loose end I have to tie up on a case I'm on at the moment, and it's absolutely nothing for you to worry about.'

'Oh, good.' She drew a cautious breath of relief.

'It's in connection with your work at the laboratory.'

'But you know I don't work there any more, don't you?

I'm on the clerical staff at the hospital now, full time. I was only part time at the lab, you see, and I really wanted full-time work. If it's about the same thing they came about before, about the internal review, well I thought I'd done everything needed.'

'Yes, it probably does overlap with that. When was it, that they spoke to you?'

'Oh, a week ago? Maybe more.'

'And what exactly did they ask you about?'

'He had a report he was writing, about tightening up procedures. He just wanted my signature.'

'Did you read the report?'

'Oh no, it was too long, and he was in a hurry.'

This sounded wrong. Kathy wondered what kind of inquiry they'd carried out. She herself had only seen the summary of conclusions, not the background doc.u.ments.

'But he explained what was in the report?'

'Not really. He said he just needed to get everyone who'd worked there in the past twelve months to sign off on it, and frankly I wasn't bothered, now I don't work there any more.'

'Did he talk about last May, about some work the lab was doing then, on a case for us?'

'May? I don't think so. Which case was that?'

'The Verge case.'

'Oh, I remember that one! We were all fascinated. Well, everyone was. I remember telling Mum when I was typing up the forensic schedules, you know, about the bloodstains and that.' Debbie suddenly looked anxious again. 'That is all right, isn't it? I mean, we could talk about our work . . .'

'No, it's fine. And did the man who saw you last week mention anything about your work on that case?'

'No, I'm sure he didn't.'

'He didn't say that was what the report was about?'

'Oh no. I mean, I wouldn't normally have signed something without reading it, but he was in a hurry, and since I knew him and everything . . . Why? Is something wrong?'

'There's been a suggestion that someone made a mistake in the original forensic report for the Verge case, Debbie,' Kathy said carefully. 'I just thought he might have mentioned that to you, maybe asked you if you knew anything about it.'

'A mistake? Oh dear, was it serious?'

'It caused a bit of delay.'

'Well, it certainly wasn't me. I was always very careful, especially with the big cases. I was just a keyboard operator, you see, mainly transcribing reports. All those lists! It would have been easy to skip an item. Some of the girls would copy them by eye, but I had my own method to make sure I didn't make a mistake. If I couldn't transcribe electronically, I'd make a photocopy and strike out each item in turn after I'd entered it, to make sure I didn't miss any. It was slower, but it avoided errors.'

'And he didn't ask you about the Verge case, about this mistake?'

'No, he never mentioned it.' Then she added plaintively, 'I am very careful, you know. I've learned the hard way.'

'Okay.' Kathy got to her feet.

'That's all?'

'I think so. You say you knew this person who came to see you? Someone you'd worked with at the lab?'

'Yes. He was one of your people, one of the LOs.'

'Oh, really?' Kathy felt a surge of shock. 'Not an Indian guy?'

'No. It was Paul. Paul Oakley.'

On the way home Kathy stopped for a hamburger. She felt dirty, as if she'd been caught peeping through keyholes.

Oakley had obviously engineered some kind of cover-up of his mistake back in May, so that his consulting opportunities wouldn't now be blocked. He had stabbed Debbie Langley in the back, and she didn't even know it. He must also have inveigled people still working in the lab to accept the 'confession' he'd tricked out of her. Maybe he'd persuaded Leon to help. But it was all internal to the lab, none of Kathy's business. If Leon wanted to get involved, too bad. It was all too personal, too messy.

All the same, she found it hard to leave it alone. That night, lying awake, she decided that there was one last thing she could do, just to make sure it really was none of her business.

The Crime Strategy Working Party was scheduled to convene at ten the next morning. At nine Kathy was standing in the stark reception area of the Verge Practice offices. She asked for the personal secretary of Sandy Clarke, and gave her name and identification to the receptionist, who entered the details into the computer on her gla.s.s table.

Kathy remembered Clarke's secretary from her visit with Brock two weeks earlier. She introduced herself and followed her to the lift. Close to, her face seemed frozen, and Kathy recalled an article on botox injections she'd read in the paper, but the woman's eyes showed a glazed immobility, and Kathy decided she might be on sedatives.

'Had you worked with Mr Clarke for long?' she asked, and the woman, not shifting her gaze from the flicker of steel pa.s.sing beyond the gla.s.s walls of the lift, gave a little sigh.

'Fifteen years.'

In her office she offered Kathy the desk diary she had kept for Clarke, and Kathy sat down and began to work through it, taking notes from time to time. As she worked she was aware of the other woman sitting motionless at her desk, watching. The phone didn't ring.

Eventually Kathy said, 'There are a number of entries where the names of the people aren't recorded, just their organisation. I suppose the receptionist downstairs will have a record of everyone who came?'

'Yes.' The woman blinked, and Kathy imagined a frozen brain behind the frozen face. Then she added, 'You can access that on my computer.' She swivelled in her seat and slowly brought the machine to life.

The firm had an awful lot of visitors, Kathy realised, seeing the names scrolling down the screen, and thinking of her ten o'clock meeting. She began giving the secretary dates and times, checking the column with the names of organisations. Eventually the woman seemed to realise the pattern.

'These are all visits by the police?'

'Yes. There's a mix-up in our records. I just have to check for our reports.'

'Oh.' She gave a sigh of deep disapproval and continued to the next entry.

At last, the minutes ticking away, they came to the twenty-third of May, a Wednesday, nine days after Miki Norinaga's body had been discovered. The name Sergeant Paul Oakley jumped out of the screen at Kathy with an almost physical impact. 'You remember this one?' she asked calmly.

The woman thought, then she checked the appointments in the desk diary. 'I don't remember him particularly, but I remember that morning, because the next appointment was with the Mayor, and Sandy kept him waiting.'

'According to the reception record, Sergeant Oakley arrived on time for his appointment, and left forty-three minutes later.'

'That's right, he overran his time. You see there . . . the Mayor arrived ten minutes before your sergeant left, and Sandy kept him waiting . . .'

Kathy thought she was going to say more, but when she looked at her face she saw tears welling out of her eyes and spilling down her cheeks. The woman just stared back at Kathy, saying nothing.

'I'm sorry,' Kathy said softly. 'But just let me be clear.

Sergeant Oakley stayed talking to Mr Clarke in his office all that time, did he? He didn't go up to check the apartment again, or anything like that?'

After a long moment's silence Kathy didn't think she was going to get a reply. Then the stiff lips whispered, 'That's right.'

She was late for her meeting, but n.o.body seemed to mind.

The mood had changed, and everyone was cooperative and enthusiastic. They had all prepared their presentations; some on laptops, others on alarmingly thick sheafs of paper.

As the first presentation got under way, Kathy's heart sank.

It seemed pretentious to her, and ridiculously remote from the reality of policing. Soon her attention began to drift, and she turned her mind to the problem of what she was going to do about Paul Oakley.

When the afternoon session finally came to an end, everyone except Kathy seemed highly satisfied by their efforts. Robert beamed smugly as he gathered up his papers, and even the reluctant Rex was full of good humour. Kathy hurried to the door, anxious to get back to the office, but she was intercepted again by Jay.

'Hi. That went really well, didn't it?'

'I suppose.'

Seeing Kathy turn to go, Jay added, 'There's something I wanted to ask you.'

'Can it wait, Jay? I need to get back to the office before people leave.'

'I'll come down with you.'

Kathy found herself alone in the lift with Jay, who went on, 'I'm going with some friends to a gig next Sat.u.r.day, and I just wondered if you'd like to come along.'

'Oh.' Kathy was surprised. Suddenly she was being showered with invitations. Well, why not? 'Okay . . . fine.'

'You will? Great!' Jay seemed unexpectedly pleased. The lift doors opened at the ground floor. 'Fantastic. I'll let you have the details tomorrow. See you.' Jay grinned and waved goodbye as she surrendered her pa.s.s and hurried out into the street.

Kathy found Bren at his desk, head bowed over paper, thinning dome gleaming under the fluorescent lights. 'Hi, Kathy. How's it going? Look at this stuff. It's all been piling up while we were working on Verge. Now there's no escape.

I'd much rather be out stomping around the countryside in wellies looking for stiffs. You're lucky to be tied up in that committee. Cushy number, yeah?'

'Swap.'

'Like that, is it?'

'Yes.' She hesitated, not wanting to add to his burdens, then said, 'I've got a bit of a problem, Bren. I wondered if I could talk it over with you.'

'Sure.' He waved a hand at a chair. 'Take a pew. I'm glad of the excuse. Want a coffee?'

Kathy said, 'I'll get it,' and went over to the pot brewing on top of a filing cabinet nearby while Bren sorted his papers into piles. 'It's to do with that business I asked you about yesterday.'

'The stuff-up with the lab? Yes, fire away.'

'Well . . .' She sat down, handing his mug over, 'I followed it up. I went to see the clerk they said was responsible.'

'Did you?' He grinned. 'Blimey, you have got time on your hands. So what was the problem?'

Kathy accepted the rebuke with a shrug. 'Something about it bothered me. Anyway, when I spoke to her it turned out she didn't know a thing about it. She'd got a new job because she wanted full-time work, and the lab never questioned her. Instead, someone went to her house and got her to sign something she didn't even have a chance to read.

They never mentioned the Verge case. She was set up.'

Bren frowned. 'That doesn't sound like the lab.'

'No, it doesn't, does it? And the thing is, the person who went to see her was one of ours, the LO who was implicated in the initial mistake, Paul Oakley.'

'Blimey, that smells.' He thought about this, then said, 'But if the lab accepted it . . . I mean it's their business, isn't it? And Oakley's left the force now, hasn't he? Was the woman upset when you spoke to her? Did she want to complain?'

'No, not at all. She just wants a quiet life.'

'Well then, I don't see the problem, Kathy. These things happen.'

'I think there's more to it than that. This morning I went to the offices of the Verge Practice, to talk to Sandy Clarke's secretary.'

Bren looked puzzled. 'You have been busy.'