She went across to the desk and logged on. When she heard footsteps coming along the passage she looked up, raising her eyebrows; Kayleigh knew not to disturb her when she was in the study.
Marta got up, tutting in annoyance. ‘What now? That girl – she has been all over the place this morning. Come in!’
Hammond opened the door. His dark eyes were too bright, almost feverish, and there was a tight little smile on his face as he advanced on Anna, the pistol in his hand.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ he said, then, his tone mocking, ‘Long time no see, eh?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Halliburgh police station was so crowded that DC Murray almost had to shoulder her way through to the CID room. When she got there, DS Wilson was talking to a DI she recognised as one of the Fettes Avenue guys – well, an extra one would come in handy, she reflected wryly, what with their own DI being off running amok with a gun.
DS Wilson didn’t seem very interested when she reported in. He was clearly a worried man and she suspected he still hadn’t forgiven her for the deception, either. ‘They’ve opened up one of the old offices for an incident room,’ he said. ‘Your DCI Strang is taking a conference in quarter of an hour, so I expect he’ll want you there.’
‘Right,’ Murray said. That was good – she could look for Kate Graham and bring her up to speed with what was going on. She’d have heard by now that Cassie was all right, but she deserved to know the full story. After all, if she hadn’t told Strang she was worried about Hammond, they wouldn’t be hunting him down now.
She was walking along the corridor when Graham hailed her. ‘Livvy! There you are. I was hoping I’d see you. What on earth’s been happening?’
Murray looked at her watch. ‘Conference in fifteen minutes. That’s time for a coffee and a bacon roll. I missed breakfast.’
They headed for the canteen together. Graham listened, astonished, as Murray told her the extraordinary story. ‘And we don’t think we’ve got to the bottom of it yet. When we told her we knew about her son, they made us leave the room so they could work out what to say. We had to sit there having tea while Kayleigh Burns jittered round us.’
‘What was she jittery about?’ Graham asked.
‘Oh, I suppose just us arriving in her kitchen. I think she’d something else on her mind as well – she barely even reacted when we told her about Cassie being safe—’ She stopped. ‘Oh no! It couldn’t be – please not!’
Murray jumped to her feet and dashed out, leaving a puzzled Graham to look at the abandoned bacon roll. Out in the corridor she asked everyone she passed if they’d seen DCI Strang and tracked him down at last, just as he was taking a phone call.
His face was grim. ‘Right, I’ll just get across there. Tell someone to announce the conference is postponed,’ he said. ‘Oh, Livvy, there you are. They’ve found Hammond’s car parked just up the hill from Highfield. You may as well come.’
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ she said, hurrying after him. ‘Why was Kayleigh Burns so nervous? She’d no reason to be scared of us, hardly seemed to take in what we said about Cassie—’
Strang stopped in his tracks. ‘Dear God – he’s inside, isn’t he? He was there, somewhere, listening, so he knows what’s happened. Get them to warn Armed Response while I get a car.’
Murray ran to reception and gabbled the request, then headed for the door to the car park. Strang was there already, at the badged car with the boot open. He hauled out two sets of body armour and chucked one to her.
‘Get that on and get in,’ he said.
It was a bit too big for her, but it would do. Better than an imitation suede jacket, when it came to stopping bullets. Murray was feeling very sick indeed as she got into the car and Strang drove off. As they left the enclosure, the reporters surged forward; Sascha Silverton had got herself to the front and had to step back rapidly to avoid being taken out as the car swung left.
Marta Morelli leapt to her feet. Hammond swung the pistol to point at her and snarled, ‘Sit down and stay down. This is nothing to do with you – this is between her and me.’ He turned back and, holding it with both hands and arms extended, aimed at Anna Harper, still sitting motionless behind her desk.
‘I’m aiming for your heart, though that’s probably not the best idea, since I doubt if you have one.’
Marta had flushed crimson; she began to say something in Italian, but Anna said, ‘Marta, no. Please.’ She herself was very pale but her face was calm, expressionless. ‘Why don’t you talk to us?’ she said.
He was still gripping the gun, but he lowered it. ‘Oh no! Why don’t you talk to me? Why don’t you tell me why you thought I was nothing more than an object to be sold for your own selfish gain? You were my natural protector – my mother, for God’s sake! – but you handed me, a helpless baby over to a woman who hated me, who made my life a hell of misery. When I kill you, at least it will be quick. I had to suffer years and years of pain. You did that.’
In his scenario she had started to weep at that point. Then she would beg on her knees for his forgiveness, tell him that she had suffered guilt all her life for what she had done, offer him money, recognition, even love – and maybe, just maybe … No, of course not – he would laugh in her face. Instead, Anna just looked at him silently.
He didn’t know what to do. He was the man with the gun, the man with power, yet somehow he was helpless. He could shoot her right now, this very minute … But why did he feel that it wouldn’t solve anything?
Instead, he found himself saying, his voice unsteady, ‘But doesn’t it mean anything to you – looking at your son, after all these years? Don’t you see what you’ve lost? I was a son worth having. My father knew that, he loved me, even if you don’t. You’re trash, but at least I am the son of a wonderful man.’
Still Anna didn’t speak, but Marta made a little mocking noise. Inflamed, he turned his head and snarled, ‘That’s it! First her, then you.’
‘Why didn’t we realise?’ Strang said as they drove back to Highfield. ‘She was nervous, not acting normally – he must have been hiding right there in the kitchen. He knows we’re on to him and he’ll have seen the lads outside. He’ll move quickly.’
Murray’s hands, he noticed, were clasped so tightly that the knuckles were showing white. ‘What are we going to do, boss?’
‘We are going to arrive at the house, I’m going to assess the situation, then you’re going back to wait in the car. I’ve only brought you in case at some stage the women need support. With fully trained armed officers standing ready you’re not going to be involved and I can assure you I’m not planning to do anything heroic either.’
She protested, of course, but he reckoned the protests were token and her hands relaxed. He didn’t blame her for being scared; he wasn’t crazy about the situation himself. Trying to talk Hammond down would probably be the immediate objective, but from what Cassie had said he doubted that would get them anywhere. This had a very bad feel.
They turned into the Highfield drive and Superintendent Brown hurried over to meet them as they got out of the car.
‘We don’t know where he is,’ Brown said. ‘No sign of him in the kitchen, but I’ve told them not to go round peering in the windows in case that provokes a reaction.’
‘Good,’ Strang said. ‘We could move into the kitchen and fan out from there.’ Then he stopped. ‘No, we couldn’t. Ms Morelli told me she was resetting the security with a new code. The minute we opened that door, the alarm would go off and we’d be announcing to him that we’re coming in. Right. Think again.’
Murray said, ‘If he’s found the ladies, he’s probably in Ms Harper’s study. That’s where they were when we left them.’
‘That’s probably right,’ Strang said. He looked round; even all these years out of the army it was still instinctive to scope out a sniper’s position. ‘Up there,’ he said, pointing to where, across the drive, a bank rose overlooking the side of the house. He strode across an
d found that with the elevation, just a little further along, they should be able to look down into at least some part of the room. Of course, anyone there would be able to look up and see them if they thought of it, but it was a risk that had to be taken.
Brown beckoned to one of the officers holding a rifle and he came up to join them. ‘Cover the window,’ Brown said. ‘DCI Strang, stand behind his shoulder.’
Just for a moment Strang felt a real pang at being sidelined, at not being the one taking up his position to get a bead on the target, but he’d no reason to think that the man now bringing the marksman Remington 700 up to his shoulder wasn’t just as skilled as he’d once been. He nodded and cautiously they edged forward.
Anna Harper’s study window covered only the middle of the room, so that neither the end with her desk, nor the other end was fully visible. He could make out Hammond’s figure but he was half turned and Strang couldn’t clearly see what he was doing. As he looked, he seemed to be bending down.
It was the perfect shot but there was no legitimate reason for firing it. As the marksman turned his head to look away, Strang remembered the rule; every sniper is well warned about the strange fact that people sense when they are being stared at. He looked away himself.
But the last thing they wanted was to have to shoot. The big question was, if he got the megaphone and tried to talk to Hammond would that simply provoke what he was so desperately hoping to avoid?
Marta Morelli laughed. She actually laughed. Hammond’s face turned purple with fury as she addressed him with a volley of Italian. He could shoot her there and then, but he had to know why she was laughing. It made him feel impotent, like the miserable child he once had been.
‘You don’t know Italian?’ the harridan said. ‘Well, I’ll translate. Your father – he was no “wonderful man”. Your father was a liar, a cheat and a murderer – oh, you’re his son, all right, looking for revenge. It’s bred in the bone, generation after generation of dirty Mafia.’
The words felled him, as if they had been a stun bolt. He dropped the gun, fell forward on to his knees, only managing to grab it back and to point it at Marta as she darted forward. She withdrew again and Hammond turned his head to look at Anna. Still on his knees, begging, he said to her, ‘She’s lying! Tell me she’s lying! I know she is! You are my mother and Oliver was my father – she can’t prove you weren’t.’
For the first time, he saw Anna’s face soften. ‘I’m sorry. She doesn’t have to. Of course I know you aren’t my son. I lost Oliver’s baby a month after I went to Italy. I was young, I didn’t properly understand what I was doing – a baby to me was just a baby. And Marta was only sixteen; she had been groomed by your father but when she got pregnant, he didn’t want to know. So—’ she made a helpless gesture with her hands.
He was crying now. He didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t help it. It was as if the father he had loved all his life, his one consolation, had just died. But for God’s sake, he didn’t have time to mourn him now. He had a job to do. He had to be a man. He clenched his teeth, got up again, clutching the pistol.
‘Just one thing,’ he said, turning back to Marta. ‘My real father’ – he spat out the words – ‘where is he now?’
She looked at him with those dark eyes as cold as stone. ‘Dead,’ she said. ‘I killed him.’
All the armed response guys were bunched towards the corner of the house, near the study window where the action was, presumably. DC Murray hadn’t actually got back into the car, as instructed, but she didn’t feel it would be wise to sneak round there to see what was going on. She was standing looking into the kitchen when she saw something move.
The units in the kitchen were all very sleek, close-fitted, and the door of one of them was opening, just a fraction. With her face now pressed to the window, Murray saw Kayleigh Burns’ terrified eyes peering out from what looked like a deep cupboard. Murray dared not raise her voice, but she gestured wildly to the woman to come out.
After a moment’s hesitation and an anxious look around her, Kayleigh shot across to the door, fumbled frantically with the bolt and then almost fell out of the house, sobbing with a mixture of fear and relief.
‘You’re OK, you’re OK,’ Murray said. ‘Do you know where Hammond is?’
She shook her head. ‘Ms Harper’s usually in the study at this time, if he’s looking for her, but he could be hiding anywhere.’
The movement had brought a couple of the officers over. ‘Come on, love,’ one of them said to Kayleigh taking her arm, ‘You’re all right now. We’ll get you a seat in the van. You’re still shaking.’
‘What’s happening round there?’ Murray asked.
‘He’s in the study with the women,’ one of them said. ‘They’ve got him in shot at the moment, but they haven’t got much of a view – they’re just working out the next step.’
‘Right,’ Murray said. Then an idea struck her. ‘Kayleigh, there’s a camera set-up that covers the rooms, isn’t there? Where is it?’
She was quick to understand. ‘Upstairs. Ms Morelli’s room’s just at the top, system’s next door. Fob for the door by her bed.’
‘Right.’ Murray turned to the officer, trying to sound authoritative and hoping he wouldn’t argue, ‘Tell DCI Strang that I’m going to get into the security room and I’ll phone him when I’ve got the study on camera.’
It worked. He nodded and escorted Kayleigh away. Strang would probably be furious but she didn’t care. She’d been scared earlier, but she wasn’t now, with the adrenaline kicking in. Anyway, as long as Hammond was in the study she was safe enough, provided she didn’t make any sort of noise that would attract his attention. She kicked off her boots and on stockinged feet tiptoed across the hall and up the great curving staircase.
She’d been afraid she would have to search for the fob but Marta’s room was as spartan as her kitchen, and there it was on the bedside table. A moment later she was in the security control cupboard, looking helplessly at a screen. It was showing the white sitting room at the front of the house in perfect detail, but she had no idea at all how she could make it switch to filming the study, or how she could make it stay there, once it did.
She scanned the desk desperately looking for information – the camera was now panning round the kitchen – and noticed at last a button marked ‘pause’. She had to wait to view a rather splendid dining room with a white marble table and cream upholstered chairs before – at last! – the study appeared on the screen.
Then she could see, with shocking clarity, Hammond threatening Anna Harper behind her desk at one end of the room with the Glock, but glaring over his shoulder at Marta Morelli who was standing in front of the fireplace She couldn’t hear what was being said, of course, but he looked upset. She pressed pause, and the camera didn’t as usual move on after a quick sweep. So she could phone Strang immediately and report, hoping that might at least mitigate her disobedience.
His voice was terse. ‘Well?’
Straight to essentials. ‘Morelli’s at the fireplace, Harper’s at her desk. He’s between them, pointing the pistol at Harper but he hasn’t taken up a shooting stance. He’s obviously distressed. He’s looking back at Morelli. Now I can see he’s in tears. But something else – the door isn’t quite closed behind him.’
‘Right. I’ll take it from there.’
The line went dead. Murray pulled a face, and went on watching.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Hammond was feeling sick and dizzy now, with his world splintering about him. Those cold eyes fixed on him were dark brown, like his own. The hair was like his, the skin was olive. His mother – not the uniquely brilliant, elegant, sophisticated woman he had always admired even while he hated her to the depth of his soul, but this, this peasant who was no more moral than the man she had killed – his father.
What did he have to live for? The little house in Spain, the quiet mind – the sort of fairy story only a child could have believed in. The idea vanis
hed like a puff of smoke drifting away.
And they were waiting for him, outside with their guns. He was too tired, too broken, to think of an escape route now. But these two women, foul with deception – he would get justice for Oliver, who had been their dupe.
‘You first,’ he said, turning to face Anna. ‘You knew Oliver. You knew that he didn’t deserve what you did to him, and to me.’
He squared his shoulders, clasped both hands round the Glock. Just at that moment he became aware that the door was moving, very gently, behind him – but he had no time to react before Marta was on him. He didn’t even feel the stiletto being driven in; it felt more like a punch in the back, but then the power went from his limbs, his knees collapsed and he was lying on the floor. His finger tightened on the trigger but the shot went harmlessly into a wall and suddenly the room was filled with armed men.
Marta Morelli, unnaturally calm, was led away as DCI Strang bent over his colleague. DC Murray came hurrying into the room and stopped on the threshold.
‘Do you – do you want me to call an ambulance?’
He looked up. ‘No point. He’s gone. She knew what she was doing.’ He jerked his head. ‘You deal with Ms Harper. Get her out of here.’
Anna Harper had collapsed over her desk, weeping. Murray approached her nervously. She still wasn’t clear exactly what had happened, and the situation now was weird. She could never have imagined exchanging small talk with a global literary star, let alone having to comfort her when her son was lying dead at her feet and her best friend, who had obviously killed him to save Anna’s own life, was being taken off in handcuffs. If the person who had told the young Livvy that she would like the police force because you never knew what would happen from one day to the next had been there, she’d have decked him.
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