When he told her the good news about Cassie, she made the correct responses, but he got the impression that it hadn’t been in the forefront of her mind. He glanced at his watch; he’d said they would return in ten minutes and he’d hoped for a quiet word with Murray over their cuppa but Kayleigh had just begun very busily clearing out a cupboard so he didn’t really feel he could ask her to abandon it. They could have a quick word in the hall on their way back instead.
‘What can he have said?’ Anna’s voice was hollow.
Marta was clenching and unclenching her hands. ‘We must quickly work out what he could possibly know. And then we must tell them that. No need for anything more.’
Anna’s face spoke of an agony of indecision. ‘What we agreed last night, then?’
‘We have Cassie back, safe. What do we gain, if we say anything more?’
Anna didn’t reply immediately. Then she said, ‘I know he came here a couple of times but I was so stressed I didn’t pay much attention at the time and I can’t conjure him up now. What is he like?’
Marta shrugged. ‘Like anyone else. The evil does not show in his face, if that’s what you mean.’
It wasn’t quite what Anna meant and Marta knew that. She was just being cool-headed, as she always was. And as she had pointed out, with Cassie safe and her kidnapper identified, they could think about damage limitation.
Sitting on a ladder stool in the walk-in larder, Hammond was holding his breath. He had left the door open a crack so that Kayleigh could see that he was watching her, but though he could hear Strang’s and Murray’s voices he couldn’t see the table where they were sitting. If she had the courage she could indicate, even with a flick of the head, that something was wrong, but he judged that she didn’t.
He had walked through the open gates and approached the back door carefully, sticking close to the house and keeping below the level of the windows until he reached the kitchen door. It had a glass panel; standing back, he could look in at an angle and see most of it without being visible from inside – empty. He’d moved quickly then, tapping in the code just in case, choosing the most likely-looking key and getting it right first time. It turned smoothly in the lock – and the door didn’t budge. He tried again, then realised – bolted on the inside.
Hammond leant back against the wall, beating his head against it. What was he to do? And now there was another car coming, skirting the house as it headed for the parking area where he was standing. Like an answer to prayer, he saw there were two other cars on the tarmac behind him, a large BMW and a smaller top-of-the-range Audi, and he had ducked behind them as Kayleigh’s car appeared.
From his vantage point he watched her try to open the door, then knock, and saw Marta Morelli come to open it for her. They talked for a few minutes, then Marta left her getting busy about the kitchen. When he’d knocked on the door she’d looked surprised but not alarmed, then defensive when he said he wanted to talk to her about Jason.
‘Chucked him out,’ she said, as she let him in. ‘Don’t know where he is, don’t want to know. Got me in enough trouble already—Oh!’
He’d got the little kick of pleasure he always got from the exercise of power at the look on her face as she saw the gun. ‘Now shut up,’ he said. ‘I’m not here. You didn’t let me in. You don’t tell anyone anything, not with a word, not with a look. Got it?’
Her eyes wide with shock, she’d nodded. He’d quizzed her about the morning routine and made his plans – he wanted Anna on her own, so that he could tell her all the things he had been saving up to say to her; he wanted her crying, begging forgiveness. And he’d laugh in her face, and kill her. Vengeance his, justice done – a deep need satisfied. Then he would be gone, straight to the airport and to the little house in Spain that was waiting for him, with a quiet mind at last. When he didn’t turn up for work, he had no doubt at all that Strang would pounce. Poor, dumb Wilson would have to take the flak but when they alerted Border Force they wouldn’t be looking for a man with the name on his passport.
After breakfast, apparently, Anna always went to her study. That would be his moment; he’d settled down to wait. The doorbell ringing was an unwelcome interruption but of course the hunt for Cassie would still be going on. That might even be Strang, coming to pleat his feet. Making excuses for your failure was always painful. Shame he couldn’t be a fly on the wall for that one!
He’d have to wait him out, but the footsteps coming towards the kitchen later caught him just as Kayleigh handed him the mug of coffee he’d asked for. With a menacing glance at her, he’d leapt back into the larder, slopping it as he went.
Then the roof caved in. He heard Strang say, ‘Good news – Cassie’s all right.’ It took an effort of will not to cry out at the unfairness of it all. What hope did he have, fighting against the brutal gods?
Anna Harper was sitting in one of the armchairs beside the fire when DCI Strang and DC Murray came back, with Marta Morelli in its counterpart on the other side, leaving a small sofa between them for the detectives to sit on. They were both looking much calmer now, Anna greeting them with a smile.
‘Do sit down. First, I have to apologise to you if I’ve made things more difficult. I can only say that nothing we could have told you would have led you to your officer and I don’t see even now that what I can tell you will help with a prosecution where there seems to be ample evidence of his guilt. Still, I feel I do have an obligation to explain.
‘When I was very young, I worked as a secretary for a firm of engineers – I can give you the details if you want them later. And I’m afraid it was just the usual sordid story – drank too much at an office party and fell into bed with one of the managers. Oliver was a very attractive man – amusing and charming. I knew he was married but it didn’t bother me, frankly – I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I think we slept together another couple of times – maybe three or four, I suppose.
‘Then I got pregnant. I was, quite honestly, horrified. I certainly wasn’t ready to have children so I’d no hesitation in deciding to have an abortion – single mother on the breadline certainly wasn’t for me. I had great plans. The affair had petered out, anyway, a while before that but I felt I ought to tell him what I planned to do – it was his child too, after all.
‘I didn’t expect an argument. Indeed, I thought that as a married man he’d give a sigh of relief. I certainly wasn’t prepared for him to say he was overjoyed, that he’d divorce his wife and marry me and we’d bring up our baby together – the last thing I wanted, frankly. When I refused he began to cry. His wife couldn’t have children and he’d always wanted a family.
‘It was all very difficult. We argued for hours. Eventually he said if I would have the baby, he would pay me to do nothing until it was born and then he and his wife would adopt it.’
Anna paused, studying her fingernails as if she’d never seen them before. Marta was watching her anxiously and neither Strang nor Murray spoke, or even moved, until she went on. ‘I’m not proud of this, you understand. I was very young, barely nineteen. I wanted to forget all about it, not find myself confronted years later by a child who had the right to know that I was its mother and could track me down. But what his offer represented was the time and freedom to write the book that had taken possession of me, the book I was getting up at five in the morning to write. It was going to take years to finish at that rate.
‘So I accepted it, with one condition – that there should be no paper trail. I’d always loved Italy. I would go out there to write the book and have the baby, then claim I had an estranged husband who had gained custody and he would pick it up – I wouldn’t even have to see him again, in that situation. His wife would have had to pretend to everyone at home that she was pregnant, but he didn’t see a problem with it – they were desperate to have a child. Then I changed my name so that no one could ever find me – or so I thought.’
Anna lifted her head with a certain defiance. ‘There you have it. You don’t have to
tell me that I’ve broken the law and now I’ll be prosecuted. I’ve had to live with that fear all my life. But if I say that in my own mind my firstborn is the book not the baby, you may be prepared to accept that I believed that I would be a poor mother for it, and that a life where it would be brought up as a much-wanted child was better than no life at all.’
It was clear from the way Murray was shifting in her seat that she wasn’t impressed with Anna’s justification. Strang could feel Murray drawing breath to point out the result of this very convenient reasoning and turned to give her a warning glare.
As she subsided, he said, ‘Thank you for telling us this, Ms Harper. Forgive me for pointing out that if you had been frank with us from the start, your daughter could have been spared an extremely distressing experience. For a start, you know the father’s name. It might have been possible for us to trace the son, even if he too had changed his name – not Hammond, I take it?’
Anna said nothing, only shook her head, and he went on, ‘You’ll have to give a full and detailed statement. I’ll send someone to do that. I can’t make any comment about the likelihood of prosecution – that would be up to the procurator fiscal.’ Then he turned to Marta. ‘And can I ask where you come into this?’
Unlike Anna, Marta did not look down. She met his gaze squarely as she said, ‘She came to my village. I needed work, she paid me for cleaning and I, I was the first person ever to read what Anna Harper wrote.’ There was no mistaking her pride. ‘She has changed people’s lives with her wonderful books and I knew what she was even then, that there was no one like her, that she was truly important. I am not important, except that I am her friend.’
You couldn’t possibly doubt her sincerity. ‘Thank you, Ms Morelli. You will be asked to make a statement too and there are other questions I will have to ask – about communications I believe you were receiving from him, for instance. But there is something more I need to tell you now.’ This time it was Strang who shifted uneasily. ‘The story that Hammond told your daughter chimes with yours in many ways. We believe he has your entry code and I’m afraid he is armed and threatening to kill you, Ms Harper.’
The shock registered on the women’s faces. Anna’s hand went to her mouth to cover a gasp of horror; Marta froze, then looking at Anna she quite visibly pulled herself together and her voice was level as she said, ‘Don’t worry, cara. The system is down anyway, remember, and I bolted the doors last night. We have believed for a long time that he wants to kill Anna and we are safer than we have been before.’ She directed a challenging look at Strang. ‘We will have protection now, yes?’
‘Certainly.’ He took out his mobile to check for messages. ‘Yes, an armed response unit has arrived from Edinburgh and is coming up here now. They may already have arrived. Constable, could you please go and check?’
Just as Murray left, a klaxon sounded. They all jumped with wild thoughts of a sudden attack, with the exception of Marta who said, ‘Oh, this is good! That is to tell us that the power is back on. I will go now to set the system properly with a new code. We will be very safe now.’
Murray returned. ‘Yes, they’re just driving round to the back of the house.’
With some relief, Strang got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and have a word with them. Please try not to worry too much. I can understand that this is very alarming, but we have a task force arriving as well now the road is clear and there’s a national alert for Hammond out. We’ll have him before long.’
The van that had brought the armed response unit was in the parking area at the back, tucked into the farthest corner. The man commanding it was an old mate: Superintendent Andy Brown had fought to keep Strang in the unit after DCS Borthwick spotted his potential as a detective and his defeat was still a subject for wisecracks between them.
‘Oh, you’re quick enough calling in help when you get out of your depth, eh? Ever think you’d have been better to stay with the guys who really do the business?’
‘Mornings like this, yes. You’re simple souls, you lot,’ Strang countered. ‘No one asks you to explain why we’ve got a cop with an official gun running around trying to kill our leading novelist.’
Brown’s cheerful smile faded. ‘Hadn’t heard that bit. They just told us the girl was safe but there was a threat to the mother.’
‘There’s a manhunt on now. He doesn’t know we’re on to him yet so that’s a help. The kidnapping was all about getting the code so he could get access unnoticed, so it’s likely he’ll wait till dark. I daresay we can leave it to you lot to make sure he can’t.’
‘Trust me,’ Brown said. ‘What has he got?’
‘A Glock. Pretty reliable, pretty accurate. I’ve signed out one as well.’
‘Well, you were always the best. I’d back you if it came to a shoot-out,’ Brown said. ‘Wouldn’t recommend it, though.’
‘Not planning to have one, believe me. That’s what you’re there to stop. I’ll leave you to it, then. There’s a mountain of stuff waiting for me at the station.’
As they drove back into Halliburgh, DC Murray said, ‘Just saying you likely wouldn’t be a good mother isn’t enough excuse for that carry-on. Her story checked out, though, and you could see all she’d been worried about was getting in trouble for not doing the adoption right. But to be fair, she wasn’t to know the baby wasn’t going to a good home.’
‘I suppose the point is that if it had been done properly the authorities would have found out that the wife wasn’t keen and there was an ugly degree of callousness about the whole thing – “I don’t want it, do what you like with it”, you know? But it does explain why she didn’t want to disclose any of this, whatever the risk was. It wouldn’t do a lot for “The Brand”, as Cassie told me they called it.’
‘So her son died and her daughter might have. Always supposing she cared more about them than she did about her first baby, she’s gone through quite a bit. Do you think Hammond actually killed Felix?’
Strang shrugged. ‘Can’t imagine we’d ever prove it. From the sound of it, he’d only have to be offered some of the heavy stuff and the job would be done. But I’m still not sure we’ve got to the bottom of it even now. Anna’s was a carefully calculated statement.’
The road into the town was more or less clear now but there was dirty slush everywhere and the gutters were running with water. The police station car park was crowded; a large contingent had obviously arrived and they had to wait as two badged cars came out and headed in opposite directions along the high street, which left them prey to a jostling pack of media waiting on the pavement, Sascha Silverton among them. Voices rose and there were shouted questions as they got out of the car.
Strang hurried to the side entrance. ‘I gave instructions about an incident room and I want to see what they’ve done,’ he said. ‘You’d better check in with Wilson since you’re officially working here. See me after that.’
Murray followed more slowly. She hadn’t expected to find herself in sympathy with Anna Harper at all. She’d never read any of her books and she hadn’t even seen the films, but what Marta said, about Anna being important because of her effect on her readers, had made her wonder what it would be like if you knew you had that sort of gift. It wouldn’t be the same as being an ordinary person, that was for sure. If Hammond had managed to kill her it would have been an awful waste.
Well, Anna was safe enough now. She’d watched the black-clad guys getting out of the van with their tin hats and masks, and they meant business.
Hammond had seen them too. They always sent them out mob-handed and they were spilling out of the van now; two had split off to go round and cover the front of the house. He was trapped. He had a choice; he could do a Newman/Redford bust out and die in a hail of bullets or he could walk out with his hands over his head and he’d go down for corruption and kidnapping. Cops always got a hard time in jail.
But he’d kill her first. He’d play out the scenario he had crafted so meticulously all these years, the
n he’d take stock – grab the Burns woman as a hostage, bargain his way out … do something. But when he tried to think past Anna’s death, there was only a blur, a sort of blankness.
The woman was frightened, constantly casting glances at the larder where he was hiding. If he left her, she had only to open the door and scream. His one advantage was that they were looking for him in the wrong place, outside not inside.
Hammond pushed open the door and beckoned to Kayleigh. She came towards him reluctantly and when she was near enough, he grabbed her, dragging her into the larder with him, and closed the door.
‘Sit down,’ he said. Trembling, she sank on to the stool as he went on, ‘Listen carefully. You stay in here. I will be in the kitchen with my gun pointed at this door. If you make a sound, if you open the door, you’re dead. Got it?’ Kayleigh gulped and nodded.
Pressed close to the wall where he would not be seen from the outside, he slipped silently out of the room. His hour had come.
‘They’re out there now,’ Marta said. ‘There are a lot of them now guarding us. You can relax, cara. We’re safe enough.’
Anna sat back, rubbing her forehead. ‘Oh, I suppose so. But I’ll be happier when they find him. How are you feeling?’
Marta gave a little, tight smile. ‘Our Cassie is safe, that is the main thing. But not a good morning, really.’
Anna looked at her encouragingly, but she obviously wasn’t planning to say anything else. ‘There are dozens of emails,’ she said, seizing on a change of subject. ‘I’d better look through them and see if any really need a reply. I expect there will have been something from James Harrington and it’s never wise to ignore communications from your publisher.’
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