Линда Ла Плант - Framed

“Detective Chief Inspector McKinnes to Main Conference Room.”

“We think we’ve got the ID of the del Moreno girl,” Falcon announced. “Her real name is Ana Maria Morales. She was a listed runaway. She’s been busted for thieving in Malaga — part of a kids’ street gang, ripping off the tourists — last seen in 1988. The other girl, calling herself Charlotte Lampton, is possibly a Cheryl Lang, missing from home since 1987 — the description fits, but we’ve got nothing else. She hired the getaway cars with a fake driving license. Their passports are fake, too; they entered England under the aliases del Moreno and Lampton. Both women were interviewed in Spain...”

McKinnes stepped aside, preparing to leave, combing the hair at either side of his bald scalp. The PA sounded again.

“Detective Chief Inspector McKinnes to Main Conference Room — immediately.”

Frank Shrapnel sidled up. “I get the feeling they think Jackson was in on it from the word go,” he said.

“Bollocks!” McKinnes stubbed out his cigarette irritably. “He’s not bent, Frank. He’s just bloody incompetent. We all are. Those two women were right under our noses all the time, one of ’em even under ruddy Jackson...”

“But we had nothing on them, Guv,” DI Falcon said, looking hurt. “They were just his pieces of skirt.”

McKinnes sighed and turned away. He was finding it hard to keep up the energetic drive necessary for a hunt like this. As he made his way to the door he had the stooped bearing of a beaten man. Someone had tacked up a newspaper headline: SUPER GRASS ESCAPES. McKinnes tore it down as he passed.

For Larry Jackson the day went by slowly. He read all the papers, tried to distract himself with television, failed, and read the papers again. By early evening he had decided to stun himself with alcohol. He sat in the living room with a bottle of whisky, the papers strewn around him on the couch and on the floor. At nine o’clock Susan started tidying the place, surreptitiously checking his state of mind. She held up the papers, piled loosely between her hands.

“Do you want to keep these?”

Larry looked up at her, his head moving with the overfast reaction of the inebriated. “Yeah. Frame them.”

Susan put them on a chair by the door to the kitchen. “It isn’t funny,” she mumbled.

“Do you think I think it is?”

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Jail,” Larry said. He frowned as Susan gave a listless laugh. “I’m serious. Look at the facts.” He took a swig from his glass. “I found him, he insisted I was put on the interrogation, I pulled the bloody robbery with him — I even drove the getaway car.” Depression appeared to wash over him suddenly. “Oh, shit...”

“Aren’t you missing something out?” Susan said.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“What about you and his girlfriends?”

Slowed by the drink, Larry was on the point of telling her he didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he looked at her, saw the certainty on her face. The penny dropped — understanding dawned.

“Bloody Frisby!”

“He was always here, Larry...” Defensive now, Susan began to sound tearful. “Those phone calls, and the way you were behaving—”

“What way? I’d been working my butt off!”

“Working?” Susan pulled her head back, helping her voice up to the hysterical register. “Spending the night with Eddie Myers’s tart at the Hyde Park Hotel — that’s working, is it?” Her eyes narrowed. “Enjoy the opera, did you?” She watched his expression cloud over. “Yes, I know all about it, Larry.”

He had stood up, and now he walked the length of the room, his hands in his pockets, brows gathered. He kicked the door.

“Frisby,” he said, as if the name were something revolting on his tongue. “I’m going to have that conniving two-faced bastard.”

“Don’t, Larry.”

“Why not? I might as well get done for assault.”

“I meant don’t lack the door.”

He dug his hands deeper into his pockets and stared up at the ceiling. “Great!” he said. “I lose my job, I could go to prison, and I find out my wife’s going behind my back. So.” He turned and booted the door again. “If I want to, I’ll kick the bloody house down.” He drew back his fist suddenly and punched the door. “I’ve messed up everything,” he said, his voice breaking.

“Oh, please don’t, Larry...”

He slumped down on the sofa, curling in on himself, his shoulders heaving. After a minute he sat up, sniffing, wiping his face with his cuff.

“I’m sorry, Sue. I’m sorry. Oh shit! Shit!”

Susan sat down beside him.

“I wanted to tell you about me and Colin,” she said, “but then all this happened. I never meant to get you into trouble, I never meant it to happen between me and Colin, either.”

Larry closed his eyes, feeling his sense of reality coming unglued.

“But I’ll stick by you,” Susan promised in a small voice, “and, well, Dad would always give you a job in his shop.”

Larry sprang to his feet. He looked elated.

“I mean,” Susan went on, “it’ll be a good thing, you know I never liked you being with the police...”

The front door opened and the boys came in making a racket. Larry went to the hall door.

“Sue, I loved my job,” he said firmly. “It’s all I’ve known since I was seventeen.” He drew open the door and went at his sons with arms flung wide. “Come here, you louts! Who’s first in the tub, then?”

Susan watched him gather the boys into his arms. She wondered what was happening.

Later, when the boys had been settled for the night, Larry went out alone for a walk. When he came back, nearly two hours later, he found Susan upstairs in the bedroom, cleansing her face at the dressing table. She watched him cautiously as he sat down on the bed. He picked up her folded nightdress and lightly touched it to his cheek. Their eyes met in the mirror.

“Do you love me?” he said.

“Of course I do.”

“But you’re not in love with me?” He threw himself back on the bed. “If it makes it any easier for you to give me a straight answer, I’ll tell you this — I’m not in love with you.” He sighed. “I guess we don’t have to make any decisions now. I just wanted you to know.”

Susan, close to tears, continued to cleanse her face.

“I’ll sleep in the spare room,” Larry said, getting up. At the door he looked at her and smiled. “Are you sure you want to take on another police officer? If I was in your shoes I’d think twice.”

He went out, closing the door softly. Susan stared at herself in the mirror. She took a deep, shaking breath.

Her face slowly crumpled as she began to sob, soaking a tissue, using another to muffle the sound.

In his suite at Green Lawns, Von Joel, barefoot and wearing a dressing gown, was pacing the carpet. He had a portable telephone pressed to his ear. On the table by the sofa were several broad rolled bandages and a makeup box. On the sofa Lola was rolling more bandages. A bag packed with bundled bank notes was open on the floor beside her.

“From Jersey?” Von Joel said into the telephone. “Three hundred and eight miles, check — thirteen hours, yes? Saint Nazaire three hundred miles, that’s ten hours, yeah? Saint Nazaire to Corunna, four hundred miles... What? Fourteen hours. Check. Now, on to Lisbon, that’s another three-fifty miles, which is twelve hours.” He listened intently for a minute, nodding. “Lisbon-Casablanca, yeah? Three hundred miles. So what’s that in all? Sixty hours, right? Will she make it? Is she capable of that cruising speed? We’ll have to go over four hundred miles between fuel stops...”

There was the sound of a helicopter approaching. Von Joel went to the window and stared out into the night.