Death Walks Behind You

by Scott Hunter

  Chapter 27

  Moran waited, watched and listened. He had the ice house door open a crack and could see the lawn stretching out like a freshly rolled carpet. All he had to do was start walking, which was exactly why he didn’t. After all, why would anyone release his lock? It couldn’t have been Celine; she would have freed him earlier if she’d been able. No, this was premeditated, and Moran concluded that, like it or not, he had been nominated as a key player in some bizarre game of chess of the de Courcys’ devising.

  He weighed his options. One, he could make a run for it. Two, he could stay put and surprise his next visitor. But they’d know that, wouldn’t they? It was all part of the game, and Moran’s disadvantage was that he didn’t know the rules. God knows, from what he’d discovered about the de Courcy set up, anything was possible. Of course, the complication was Celine; if what she’d told him was true he had to act quickly to prevent her taking matters into her own hands.

  So, locks undone – they’d expect him to make a break for it, to try to get away. Rule one: never do the expected. Moran stuck his head out into the open, looked one way then the other. All clear. He exited the ice house, and, hugging the laurels at the lawn’s perimeter, made for the main house.

  The police constable’s expression said it all. Five hours of digging, sorting and sifting, and nothing to show for it. Tess suppressed her disappointment and tried to look encouraging. “OK, no worries, let’s keep at it.”

  The shift was changing at the waste centre and familiar faces were being replaced by new ones. By and large they were a pretty helpful and cheerful bunch, which, given the nature of their job, was quite something. Tess went to the office to find the night shift manager. “Make friends, smooth the path ahead,” her father had always told her. She had one hand on the portakabin door handle when her mobile bleeped.

  “Tess Martin.”

  “Boss, it’s Toby.”

  “Aha. How’s Bristol?”

  “Interesting.” Toby’s voice had a compressed quality about it, like a spring under extreme tension.

  “Well?”

  “Wilder is Sheldrake’s sister.”

  Tess took a moment to process what she had just heard. “Toby, say that again.”

  “Wilder. She’s his sister. Word is she took it very badly when he went down. Worshipped the ground he walked on, apparently.”

  “Well, well, well,” Tess said slowly. Her heart was thumping in an erratic, adrenaline-flushed tattoo. “That puts a rather different slant on events, doesn’t it? Keep your phone on, Toby; I might need you later.”

  Tess took a breath to steady herself. She couldn’t afford to feel elated at this stage, but Toby’s call was a shot in the arm nevertheless. Now she had a motive which made sense, but would Wilder really have gone that far? It was reckless, crazy even, to throw away life and career for the sake of revenge. Come on, Tess, let’s get to the proof and worry about the rest later…

  The portakabin was a simply furnished affair: a desk, a sofa, a sports calendar nailed crookedly to the wall. A cheap heater, fridge, a kettle, a few chipped mugs. A coffee table piled with lads’ mags and some old copies of the Sun. The guy getting into his overalls looked up as she knocked.

  “DI Tess Martin? Yep. JW’s told me what you’re up to. No problem. If you need any help, give me a shout. Coffee?”

  “I’d love one,” Tess told him. He was young, thirties, with a closely cropped beard and blue eyes. Nice. Too nice for this place.

  “I’m Chris.” He reached over and offered his hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” Tess took it and felt a light pressure.

  “Any joy?” Chris rattled mugs and spooned in Nescafé. “What is it you’re after exactly?”

  “Bike accessories. Clothing, boots, helmet.”

  “Not the machine itself?”

  “We’ve got a Harley in custody, but we think the rider stopped by and disposed of their clothing before making a run for it.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Chris said, “but I remember one of the night team taking a shine to a helmet the other day.”

  “Really?” Tess’ heart leaped.

  “Yep. Seconds are risky, as every rider knows – a helmet is dangerous once it’s been dropped or impacted – but this was a pretty cool one for all that, black and white with graphics. I can ask. He might have let it go, but he might just have put it aside. Hang on a mo, I’ll check.”

  Tess stood at the portakabin door and sipped coffee. Please, she whispered. Please.

  Chris was chatting to a short man in similar overalls. After a moment he returned. “You’re in luck. Dave’s still got it in his boot – he was keeping it for his lad. I’ve asked him to fetch it.”

  Two minutes later Tess and George were heading for forensics with a female’s slightly scuffed, custom-painted crash helmet.

  “It’s not your bog standard Biker’s World lid,” PC Bill Howlett said, turning the helmet over. “I’m not even sure if you can get these in the UK. Off the internet, maybe?”

  Tess had sent George to knock up Dom Jensen while she got the lowdown on their find from the nearest bike-centric experts she could think of – the local traffic bike team in the bowels of the station’s underground garage. The air was heavy with the stink of fuel and oil and somewhere in the far corner a vehicle was repeatedly misfiring as a police mechanic hunched over the engine to minister some badly needed TLC.

  Howlett’s colleague, PC Stuart Rigsby, shook his head. “Nah. I’ve seen these in Barry’s.”

  “Come again?” Tess looked at each in turn. “Barry who?”

  PC Howlett grinned. “Barry’s Bikes, Bath road,” he explained. “They do limited custom ranges, graphics too. Imported mostly.”

  “Yeah, right. Look.” Rigsby held the helmet up for Tess’ inspection. “See the label? VHR – vhrhelmet.com. Chinese. Or Korean, maybe.”

  The lift pinged and George McConnell emerged, blinking owlishly in the fluorescent lighting. He made a beeline for them. “Dom’s opened FSU for us,” he said. “And he’s called someone in to do the test.”

  “Good work, George. Thanks, you two.” Tess dismissed the officers with a wave.

  “Come on then, DC McConnell,” Tess thumped the bagged helmet into George’s chest. “Let’s see if we can nail this bitch.”

  George followed in Tess’ wake, dismissing the bike cops’ complicit grins with a tried and tested Anglo-Saxon gesture involving two fingers and an upward flick of the wrist.

  DCI Wilder looked up as Bola came in. The temporary office Wilder had commandeered was dimly lit, a desk lamp pooling a yellow circle onto an A4 pad half-filled with precise, evenly lettered handwriting. Wilder was alone, her shady familiar for once absent on other business – or more likely, Bola thought, down the pub. No, a bit late now, thinking about it – unless Maggs had managed to winkle out a local lock-in in the short time he’d been in Reading, which, from what he’d seen of Maggs so far, seemed more than likely.

  “DC Odunsi. What can I do for you?” Wilder put down her pen and indicated the vacant chair.

  Bola squeezed his large frame into the chair and accepted Wilder’s offer of water. It didn’t take long to get everything off his chest – in fact, he found that the more he ventured, the more pleased Wilder seemed to be. When he’d finished Wilder steepled her fingers and nodded with satisfaction.

  “Thank you, DC Odunsi,” the DCI purred. “You’ve done well. I like people I can trust.”

  Chapter 28

  It’s getting near dawn. And lights close their tired eyes… Tess reached over and flicked off the radio. She was knackered but buzzing with adrenaline. The marks on Banner’s bedroom wall contained traces of lacquer which matched the scuff on the helmet’s ridge. And if that wasn’t enough, the late-night CSI had also produced a fragment of hair from the helmet’s interior which was currently being run through DNA database checks. Tess had arranged to meet George at Barry’s Bikes first thing in the hope that the helmet had bee
n a local purchase. It seemed unlikely, but you never knew. If the DNA wasn’t on record she needed something else that would stick. Barry’s opened at nine. That would give her … she consulted the clock on her car’s dashboard … about three hours sleep. Tess parked up and killed the engine. She doubted whether she’d sleep anyway.

  Tess rented a maisonette at the western tip of the sprawl of the eighties housing development known as Lower Earley. It was a one-bed, kitchen-diner arrangement with parking space nestled among a myriad of larger houses and flats of similar design. There was a local centre with pub and gym, and the neighbourhood was generally peaceful and family-oriented. Ideal for a young single female working irregular hours – which was precisely why Tess had chosen it two months earlier. She turned the key in the lock and reached for the light switch.

  A young Chinese girl in black leather was sitting on her sofa. In the girl’s gloved hand a stiletto blade glinted.

  The girl smiled.

  Tess took a step back. The front door was still ajar, the car keys in her hand. She spun around but a hand closed over her mouth, strong and unrelenting. Tess jabbed both elbows hard but made no contact. The grip tightened and her head was jerked back; now she couldn’t breathe. She felt herself lifted off the floor, feet kicking. Without warning her assailant released her so that, balance awry, she staggered and pitched forward, cracking her head hard against the edge of the kitchenette wall.

  For a second or two she saw stars, then nothing.

  The clock above the bar said half past four, but George McConnell wasn’t paying too much attention to the time. It had been a long, hard day and they had unearthed positive circumstantial evidence which happily seemed to be corroborated by the FSU. There was a way to go, for sure – nothing so far had even remotely implicated Wilder – but George nevertheless felt that the successes of the past twenty-four hours merited some small acknowledgement. And as he had been, by his own standards, impressively abstemious for the last couple of weeks, what better way to ‘acknowledge’ than by taking up DS Maggs on his offer of a late night sup or two at ‘a little place he had found’ in town? Besides, Maggs might cough up something useful.

  “So, George,” Maggs said with no trace of a slur, although by George’s reckoning the DS had put back at least four pints and a whisky chaser in the last couple of hours, “plenty for your press officer to deal with over the next few days, am I right?”

  “Aye,” George nodded. “I’m not sure the Chief’ll survive this one.”

  “Bloody circus,” Maggs observed morosely. “Did you see ’em out front, like a flock of bloody gannets?”

  George finished his pint. The beer was going down exceptionally well and he was feeling rather pleased with himself. “They have a job to do as well, I suppose. Can’t hold it against them.”

  “Well, I do,” Maggs said. “They want blood. Anyone’s. Another?”

  George held out his glass. “Why not?”

  The club was sparsely populated, just two or three groups of earnest drinkers huddled here and there in low and heavy-eyed conversation, the air sullied by drifting blue smoke more reminiscent of a bygone age than the twenty-first century.

  “‘Blind-eye bar’ they call this place.” Maggs handed him another brimming pint. “Works for me.”

  “So.” George supped his beer, enjoying the warm, blanketing sensation as the alcohol re-established its familiar byways through his bloodstream. “How long have you been with Wilder?”

  Maggs’ expression tightened. “Couple of months.”

  “Good guv’nor?”

  “She’ll do me.” Maggs cradled his scotch, nursing it in a large blue-veined hand. “No complaints so far.”

  “Hard-nosed cow, though, isn’t she?” George said. “From what I’ve seen?”

  “It’s her way. She’s a results woman. They’re tough down under, so she had to be too.”

  George resigned himself to the fact that Maggs wasn’t going to be drawn easily. He shrugged. Time to let go, enjoy a bit of R & R, a couple of hours’ kip then over to the boss for half eight. A single man with no ties, George didn’t need a lot of sleep; when he was knackered he caught up at weekends or off shift. Besides, he’d just remembered a great joke and Maggs certainly looked as though he could do with cheering up. He felt himself breaking into an anticipatory grin. “So, did I ever tell you the one about the copper and the traffic warden?”

  “Rise and shine,” the voice said again. “Time to be upwardly mobile. Your new suite awaits.”

  Charlie dragged herself into an upright position. Her back ached and her leg was numb. Two nights in a police cell hadn’t done a lot for her musculo-skeletal flexibility. This was it then. Remand beckoned and she felt sick to her stomach.

  “Tea? Cappuccino? Glass of arsenic?” Maggs’ voice boomed in the confined space like some hideous parody of a Costa coffee barista.

  “You’re all heart, Maggs.”

  “And you’re a cop-killing bitch who’s about to get what she deserves. Ten minutes to get ready.”

  The cell shutter was closed with a snap that made her jump. Charlie held her head in her hands. So much for her solicitor’s optimism. No bail. No mercy.

  She wasn’t surprised. Given the Thames Valley’s recent history she couldn’t expect leniency. They’d make an example of her – lock her up and throw away the key. Stop it. Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help…

  As she was led out of the cell and up through the station to the rear car park she was met with hostile stares and whispered comments. A new DC she’d met the previous week following a successful interview shouldered past her leaving one word behind. Rot.

  That single comment did more to unsettle Charlie than anything which had gone before. She could feel herself breaking down, piece by piece, molecule by molecule; surrendering to the role she had been cast in.

  A commotion behind made her turn, involuntarily cowering to protect herself. She straightened up. It was only Toby, demanding an audience.

  “I insist on talking to DI Pepper. It’s important.” Toby’s voice betrayed his agitation. Wilder was there, between them, barring his path.

  “No go, sergeant. DI Pepper is being taken into custody.”

  “Two minutes. That’s all.”

  A small crowd had gathered to witness the exchange. Maggs hesitated at the lift. Wilder motioned him on.

  “Come on. It won’t hurt.”

  “Watch your tone, DS Glascock. It’s DCI Wilder to you. Or ma’am, if you prefer.”

  Toby apparently didn’t. “DCI Wilder, I respectfully request a short audience with DI Pepper.”

  A semicircle of silent faces waited for Wilder’s decision. Someone sniggered. The lift arrived. The doors slid apart. Charlie felt Maggs’ fist in the small of her back. “Get in.”

  “I’m acting on behalf of DCI Moran,” she heard Toby say. “He would want me to communicate with DI Pepper in view of the circumstances.”

  A murmur of agreement passed through the assembled onlookers. Wilder looked around and realised she was beaten. “All right. Two minutes. No longer.”

  “Boss, would you step this way, please?” Toby pushed past Maggs and invited Charlie to follow. He ushered her into an empty office near the lift and closed the door. Maggs leaned against the glass from the outside, blocking the light.

  “What is it, Toby? Have you heard from Brendan?”

  “Not exactly. I wanted to update you.”

  He quickly briefed Charlie on George and Tess’ forensic results. A tiny spark of hope warmed her stomach as she listened.

  “You haven’t heard the best bit yet,” Toby went on. “Wilder and Sheldrake are siblings.”

  “Oh my God. Are you sure?”

  “As eggs is eggs,” Toby said with a nervous grin. “But what I also wanted to tell you is that Tess hasn’t turned up for shift.”

  Charlie felt a seeping dread swap places with the warmth she had felt a moment ago. “She’s always in on the dot
. George?”

  Toby shook his head. “Not yet, but he was late last night. He’ll be here, don’t worry. Boss, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did Wilder ask about BM? Where he is, I mean?”

  “Yes, actually.” Charlie’s stomach was now doing its best to imitate an icebox and was making a pretty good job of it. “As my senior officer she wanted to let Brendan know that I was being remanded in custody. Protocol and all that.”

  “Did you tell her?” Toby’s voice tried to avoid a pleading tone and failed.

  “Yes,” Charlie said quietly. “I gave her his holiday address. Car reg, the lot.”

  They looked at each other in silence.

  Maggs banged on the glass and made her jump again.

  “Leave it with me,” Toby said. “I’ll talk to you later. Keep it together, boss, OK?”

  “I’ll try. Toby, you and Bola get over to Tess’ place pronto. And please – be careful.”

  Toby opened the door and she stepped into the corridor. Maggs took her arm, guided her through the press of hostility. The lift door closed and shut them out.

  They went down.

  Chapter 29

  By the time he reached the front steps Moran knew for sure he was being watched. Hopefully by doing the unexpected he would be able to gain some small advantage, although at present he had no idea what that might turn out to be. Off to his right a shadow moved against the lighter stone of the house, paused, came on again. Moran went left, skirted the corner of the building and found himself on a high terrace overlooking the landscaped gardens of Cernham Manor.

  He cast about for a weapon. A pile of logs was stacked against the side wall between a drain and a low window. He selected and hefted one of the smaller off-cuts. It would do.