They drove to his house in silence. It felt strange to have a woman in his orbit again. Steph had started off as a competition. Most of the lads in the station had fancied her and he went out of his way to stay aloof, watching with glee as her would-be ‘suitors,’ for want of a coarser word, fell by the wayside. It all seemed like a long time ago now.
By the time Caitlin turned off her ignition it was nearly 11 p.m. They sat for a moment, still saying nothing in the orange glow of a streetlight.
Okay, Craig, easy does it. He invited her in and put the microwave to work. A few minutes later they were enjoying a nondescript curry and making conversation.
“So, what was your trip about? You didn’t say much on the phone.”
He revelled in the attention. “I helped out colleagues in the Met and I ran into my ex-wife. Turns out she’s pregnant and getting engaged.”
“Ouch!”
“Yeah, you could say that, I s’pose.” He broke off a piece of naan bread, split it in two and offered her half. “Then again, it was only a matter of time.”
She nibbled at it delicately. “Who’s the lucky fella?”
“I didn’t stay to ask.” He dug around in his curry to avoid her pity. “She’s moved on and that’s the right thing to do.” When he looked up again, she was staring at two wooden doors on the wall.
“Do you play, then, Craig?”
He laughed, following her line of vision to the dartboard. “Well, it’s not up there for show.”
“No, I mean, are you any good?”
“Madam,” he conjured up pomposity, “I’ll have you know I’ve won prizes. I’ll show you.” He opened one of the cardboard boxes edging the room and lifted out a couple of plastic trophies, one of a darts player and the other in the shape of a dartboard. While she was looking at them carefully or feigning interest — he couldn’t tell which — he took his darts out of his jacket and inserted the flights. Then he stood at the oche, which he’d marked on the carpet in faint chalk, and unleashed hell. If hell were three darts thrown with precision: treble twenty, single twenty, and double top to finish.
She uncurled her knees and stood up. “Can you teach me?”
He felt his mouth drying. “Sure.”
She stood beside him and he tasted lamb curry in the space between them. He retrieved his darts and handed one to her.
“Keep your movement fluid and don’t lower your gaze.”
Thud. Seventeen.
“Not bad. Can I just . . . ?” He stood close enough to see the hairs on her neck. “If you stand like this . . .” He pushed a hand lightly between her shoulder blades and felt her bra strap under his palm. “Now, try it.”
She hit an inner. “What’s that worth? Twenty-five? God, this is easy. Where’s my prize?” She sank the last dart in the five, just over the border from the twenty.
“You’re getting there.” He crossed the carpet to extract the darts. No expectations. And no flirtations either. He liked her well enough, but it didn’t seem that kind of night. She called it quits about half an hour later. On the plus side, she suggested returning for a rematch.
He saw her to the door, disappointed in himself. Had he missed a cue? It was too late now. As he stood at the step, watching her reach the gate, she turned and walked smartly back towards him to plant a small, deliberate kiss on his lips.
“Thanks, I enjoyed tonight. Call me again — soon.”
He waited until she was safely in her car before closing the front door. “Christ, what a weird day.” Weird or not, sleep came easily and this time without tablets.
Chapter 32
Wild woke around seven, the musty smell of last night’s meal haunting the house like the ghost of curries past. He’d planned to surprise Marsh by turning up bright and early at the station, but she beat him to the punchline. He picked up her message when he exited the shower.
“Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, ring me as soon as you get this. It’s DI Marsh.”
He loved the unnecessary qualifier, as if he knew loads of insistent Scottish women. He called her back still wrapped in a towel.
“Good morning, ma’am. Sorry, I was in the shower. I’m back home now. Everything is sorted.”
“No, it bloody well isn’t. We have a situation at the Elleth farmhouse. Edwin Causly has gone there to make trouble. As both families have a direct connection to the ongoing Alexander Porter case, I want you over there pronto.”
He recalled the explosive contents of Dr Walsh’s 1944 diary. “I might have an idea what it’s about. Leave it with me.”
“Well, get off the phone and get on with it. Top priority.”
He took her at her word and picked up yesterday’s clothes from the floor, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair on the way out.
He radioed in from the car to get more details. Edwin Causly had turned up at the Elleths’ in a rage, but Marsh considered it a low-risk situation until there was some evidence to the contrary.
Wild was surprised to see a marked police car at the farm gate. Sergeant Galloway started walking down towards him. Wild could also see Ben Galloway sitting in the car.
Wild wound his window down for the sarge.
“Morning to you, Craig. This’ll turn out to be some farming dispute.”
“Then shouldn’t you be up there?”
Sergeant Galloway’s face reddened. “Detective Inspector Marsh said to wait for you and you’d take charge. She couldn’t come herself on account of a shoulder strain — playing squash, would you believe?”
Wild played his best poker face. After the previous day in London he was prepared to believe anything.
“What do we know?”
“The call came from a distressed female, Elleth’s wife we think. And then the line went dead. It’s out of order now.”
Wild started walking up to the house. “I’ll call you if I need you. In fact, you might as well take off and leave Ben with me.
“Right you are, Craig. If that’s what you want.”
Ben Galloway got out of the car sharpish as Wild approached, eager as a collie. “Morning, Skip. The curtains are all drawn and we’ve not heard anything.”
Wild glanced at the house. “Let’s get on, then. It’s hardly going to be the Siege of Malta.” He stared at Galloway, amused by his ignorance. Clearly, not a history scholar. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock, so what could have riled Causly so much at this hour? He could guess the why but not the when.
He knocked on the door and stepped back, addressing the house. “Mr Elleth, it’s DS Wild. I’d like to come in and have a chat.” No response. He moved closer and poked the letterbox. “It’s DS Wild. I’m sure you’d all prefer I talk inside rather than shouting your business to the four winds. Especially you, Mr Causly.”
He heard scraping and creaking, like the movement of heavy furniture, and then Causly’s voice called along the passage.
“You get on and mind your own business. It ain’t anything to do with you.”
Wild tried the front door for the first time — locked. The sound of a door slamming and someone shouting sent him back to the letterbox.
“Look, I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken with Mr Elleth.”
Now there were footsteps echoing upstairs, then he heard a window opening.
Edwin Causly did the talking. “We can hear you fine from up here. Say what you’ve got to say and be on your way.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Is that a fact?” The window opened a little further and the barrel of a shotgun poked through. “Well, why don’t you tell me . . . ?”
Wild gazed up at the barrel as it waved around. He felt his throat constricting and leaned forward to try and breathe easier. Bloody guns. He squeezed his fists tightly and then released them, exactly how the counsellor had shown him. It took a few times before he sensed his chest opening a little more and as the air filled his lungs, he felt his fingers tingling.
He straightened up. “You
open this fucking door right now or I’ll have an armed response team here in fifteen minutes and you can discuss it with them. Do you understand me?”
“No need for obscenity, Detective Sergeant.”
He heard the strains of a conversation and then the window came down. Footsteps thudded down the stairs and up to the front door. A key turned and a heavy bolt retracted. The door swung back slowly to reveal Causly and his gun.
“You wanted in. You got your wish.” The gun twitched. “Now, move.”
Wild went inside. Causly’s gun hand wavered although his finger wasn’t on the trigger. Wild wondered where the dogs were, and a sickening feeling rose in his guts. Causly saw him looking at the basket.
“Dogs are outside in the yard, don’t you worry about them. Get in the kitchen and sit down.”
Gordon Elleth didn’t look too pleased to see him.
Wild sat where the gun pointed. “Mr Causly, I think I know why you’re here.”
Causly leaned on one edge of the kitchen table, the small shotgun nursed in one arm like a grudge. Wild’s attention was fixed on how compact the gun was. Small enough to fit into your mouth and reach the trigger.
Causly faced him down. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m here to keep the peace.”
“You’re too late for that. There’ll be no peace here in this world or the next.”
Wild realised that Mrs Elleth was missing. Come to that, so was the black cross on the wall. Maybe she’d taken it for comfort.
“Where’s your wife, Mr Elleth?”
Causly patted his pocket. “She’s upstairs, safely under lock and key. This concerns him, not her.”
Wild adjusted his chair. “I know about the child — the GI’s child.”
Causly turned to him and his body sank a little, as if the truth had suddenly become harder to bear. “My whole life has been an obligation, lived in my father’s shadow.” Tears welled in his eyes. “And without him, I grew up fast. Had to. And all that time I had no business being there, worked like a dog. The Elleths could have claimed me and my mother, but instead they abandoned us.”
“My father was not a forgiving man,” Gordon Elleth conceded.
“We might have had a better life in America. Not tied to the land every waking hour. And all that time the Elleths were lying to us. Lying to me.”
Wild decided against pointing out that Constance also knew the truth. Better not to antagonise a man with a gun.
Elleth looked genuinely contrite. “I’m sorry, Edwin. This all happened before I was born. Constance was nineteen when I came along and we lost two brothers in the cradle before then. I learned about her secret eventually, but it wasn’t mine to reveal.”
“Well, it’s out now.” Causly moved around the table to a spot midway between Elleth and Wild. The sadness had passed and there was a coldness in his eyes.
Wild thought he looked capable of anything. “Could I get some water, or some tea? I need to take a tablet.” He opened his jacket and Causly snapped the gun towards him. Wild eased the box out slowly and rattled it. “It’s for anxiety. Otherwise I get dizzy and sick.” He held the packet out.
Causly leaned across to take a look and nodded. “Tap’s over there.”
Elleth made to stand. “I’ll get it.”
“You’ll stay where I tell you to, Gordon Elleth. We might be blood but that’s never counted for anything before. No reason I can see to change that now.”
Wild got up very carefully, arms away from his sides, and moved towards the sink, turning his back to Causly.
“How did you find out about the GI?” Wild played for time, turning the tap slowly and letting the pipe shriek.
“That American chap came calling. Said he was looking into local history. Wanted to know if we had a Constance in the family. I said no at first because my mother’s first name was May, although no one used it — Constance was her middle name. Then this Aaron Kravers starts talking about DNA and a family secret, and a lot of things began to make sense. So here I am, asking Gordon for the truth of it.”
Wild glanced over his shoulder. Causly was mostly rambling now, the gun swinging as he moved. He’d never make that distance, not without a distraction.
“You gonna be all bloody day, Detective Sergeant Wild?”
Wild’s chest pressed in. Not now. As he bent forward, he felt his darts wallet against his ribcage. He leaned over a little more and coughed dramatically, as if he might retch in the sink, then he slipped a dart from the case. “Just coming . . .” He teased a flight out and slipped it into place. As he went for another, he fumbled the case and it fell into the sink, clattering against crockery.
“What are you playing at, Copper? I’m not afraid to use this. You won’t be the first bugger I’ve taken a shot at.”
Wild pressed the dart flight in place, feeling the narrow edge against his palm. He took a breath and as he breathed out, he span around and hurled the dart at Causly. It arced across the kitchen tablet and lodged in the side of Causly’s head.
Causly screamed and lurched backwards, discharging the weapon into the ceiling as he fell, scattering unused shotgun cartridges on the floor. Wild was on him in seconds, wrestling the weapon away, not that Causly put up much opposition. Blood pumped rhythmically from the wound in his head.
A plaintive cry echoed from upstairs. “Gordon, what’s going on? Are you alright? Oh my dear Lord!”
Gordon Elleth bellowed at the top of his lungs, “I’m fine, my love. Edwin Causly has had a bit of an accident, is all. I’m coming up to you now.” He went over to Causly, reached into his pocket and took out some keys. Then he glanced down and leaned closer, like he was sharing a secret. “I forgive you. You had a shock and it’s unsettled you.”
Wild was already on his mobile, calling for an ambulance.
Elleth stood up. “There was no need for you to come here today, DS Wild.”
Wild choked back bile. “Are you taking the piss? He threatened us with a loaded shotgun.”
“That’s not how I see it. My nephew came over to visit me and his licensed shotgun accidentally went off. It’ll be your word against mine.” He glanced at the wall where the cross had hung and went upstairs to his wife.
Causly appeared groggy as he sat up. Wild fetched a tea towel from the range and held it under the tap, wringing it out a couple of times before passing it to Causly. “Apply some pressure. You should be good at that.”
“Bloody fool. You could have had my eye out.”
Wild fashioned a smile. “Only if I’d wanted to.” He picked up the dart from the floor, wrapped it in a handkerchief and moved it out of reach, where he’d already placed the gun. “Evidence.”
He sat with the Elleths and Edwin Causly to wait for the ambulance. No one said anything, their silence interrupted by the sound of the dogs barking for attention outside and the distant sound of a clock.
When the ambulance crew arrived, Wild let them in and exited the house. He held up the shotgun and bloodied handkerchief as Ben Galloway came running towards him.
“You okay, Skip?”
“Yeah, no thanks to you — where were you?”
“You told me to wait here.”
“Oh yeah, so I did. Right, I want you in there to get statements from the Elleths and then get one from Causly — you might have to see him in hospital.”
“Do I need a statement from you as well?”
Wild looked up at the clouds drifting by. “Sure. Once we see what they’ve got to say for themselves.”
Chapter 33
Wild rang DI Marsh from the car to give her an update and then headed to the police station. She’d said little on the call, other than to clarify a couple of points, but he could tell she wasn’t impressed. It was a sombre drive back, interspersed with glances to the passenger footwell where he’d stashed the weapons.
As he pulled up, a couple of uniformed officers stopped in the car park and glanced at him — or his car — before going a
bout their business. He noted one of the copper’s collar numbers and added it to his car scratching suspects. It had become a sizeable list.
As he climbed the stairs one of his junior colleagues — he thought her name was Rose but he couldn’t be certain — paused and smiled. “Great work, Skip.” Her earnest expression implied she probably meant it and it wasn’t sarcasm. Come to think of it, he had done well: he’d resolved the situation without any significant harm. He thought back to Edwin Causly leaving in an ambulance. Maybe not Queen’s Police Medal material.
Marsh sat at her desk, chair set back. She had one arm in a sling, which made her seem even more buttoned up. Her face reminded him of Queen Victoria, and not on a good day. “Shut the door.” She didn’t wait. “First, I want you to take me through the events of this morning in more detail and then you can tell me about this diary you’ve been carrying around for two days.”
He talked about the incident at the farmhouse for longer than felt comfortable, finishing with a flourish. “That mad old bastard was lucky an armed response team didn’t lay him out for Dr Bell.”
Marsh had barely moved a muscle and when she spoke he wished she hadn’t. “Maybe you should have rested after visiting London . . . Marnie Olsen came back while you were playing Bullseye. I gather you two had quite a time there.”
“I’m totally fine.” He read her face and retraced his steps. “I mean . . . having recently been assaulted in London in the line of duty, I may have overreacted today in a moment of crisis, after being confronted by an unstable man with what I thought was — and turned out to be — a loaded weapon.”
“Very good. We’ll make a politician of you yet.”
He resisted replying, ‘Hopefully not,’ and changed tack. “Marnie did really well in London. She saved my bacon.”
“Interesting. She tells it a little differently. I think you may have a fan there. You might want to speed up your charm offensive on the rest of the station though.”
The second topic of conversation attracted more audience participation. He laid it all out for DI Marsh — the brief history of Melvin Kravers and the entanglement his death had created between the Elleths, the Causlys and the Walshes. When he’d finished the only questions were the ones in his head. He sat for a moment and pondered where they’d go from there. How did the past help them catch Porter’s killer? Or Dr Walsh’s, come to that?
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