Power Games Read Free

again, sketched a salute, and set off up the stairs.
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    Hair still damp from the shower, and now in her usual self-imposed uniform of dark trouser suit, Kate gestured with the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee, Colin? How did Rowley take my being late?’
    â€˜Tea. No problems: you had a pretty good excuse. Everyone safe?’
    â€˜Fine. But the local people will go over that lorry with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. How no one was hurt … Both the old folk were in the kitchen. If they’d been in the hall—’ She stopped, shuddering. ‘And the truck driver was pretty lucky. He says he lost his steering and his brakes. But he ended up completely unscathed.’
    â€˜Lucky bugger. And lucky everyone else in his path!’
    â€˜Quite. Guljar Singh Grewal—’
    â€˜That handsome sergeant from Kings Heath?’
    â€˜The same. He’d love to do them for unsafe loads and overloading, because there’s been a stream of complaints from the residents. There’s a big building development – very posh houses – at the top of the hill that the lorry came down. Next to the cottages, now there’s quite a big piece of ground. Lovely site for houses.’
    â€˜Do I sense a disenchantment with your own place? Oh, Kate, not after all the work you’ve put into it!’
    â€˜You should see their garden, the old folks’, that is. And you should see mine. When it rains, it’s beginning to remind me of the pictures you see of the Somme.’
    â€˜The
Somme
?’
    â€˜Big pits where they’ve dug out the sycamore roots, the odd strand of barbed wire from an old fence, all that mud—’
    â€˜Why on earth didn’t your aunt do something about the trees? She’s no fool. She must have known where the roots would get.’
    Kate shrugged. ‘Goodness knows. And why did she let the house itself go so badly? She must have been so intent on stashing everything away for her old age she lost sight of the present.’
    Colin shook his head. ‘
Carpe diem
, that’s my motto. Enjoy today and let the pension look after tomorrow.’
    â€˜But if you didn’t have much of a pension and your chief source of income was your married lover? Anyway, there she is, sitting on piles of money in that retirement oasis, and here I am, living in a house so changed she’d hardly recognise it, poor old dear.’
    â€˜And a garden that’s a tip.’
    â€˜Well, if I survived the house being a tip, I can cope with the garden for a bit. Or so I tell myself.’ She straightened. ‘And the design your friend’s suggested looks lovely.’
    â€˜I’m sure it will be. As will my coffee if you ever stop staring at that kettle.’
    She flicked the switch to bring it to the boil again. ‘Sorry. Anyway, I’d better let Rowley know I’m in.’
    â€˜She said to take your time.’
    â€˜Can you imagine the late but unlamented Detective Inspector Cope saying anything like that? You know, it’s a real insult to people who’ve spent all their careers in uniform to have him punished by being put back into uniform.’
    â€˜Hmm. Must make them feel second rate. Trouble is, what could they have done with him? Apart from reducing his rank – which they’ve done anyway. He was a good cop in many ways.’
    â€˜And a nasty human being in many others.’
    There was no doubt that life was better without Cope. For her, for Colin, and for Fatima, the young Asian DC. She herself would have survived. But Colin had always lived on eggshells: being a gay policeman was no one’s idea of an easy life and Cope would almost certainly have made his life hell if the rumour had ever got that far. And his treatment of Fatima had been brutal. Almost as brutal as Selby’s had been.
    Cope had taken his punishment, but Selby had so far escaped. His sick leave had been extended twice already. Sick! The