‘Don’t worry,’ said Sharp. ‘I’m sure we’ll have enough to keep her busy for a while yet. We’ll simply have to support her as much as we can when she makes that decision.’
‘And stop her getting bored in the meantime,’ said Kay. ‘Idle hands, and all that.’
‘I’ll make a manager out of you yet.’
She laughed, and slapped the folder against his arm. ‘No, thanks.’
Checking his watch, Sharp moved back to his desk and folded his jacket over his arm. ‘Right, I’m off to HQ. Give me a call if you need me.’
‘Will do. Oh – before you go, Adam and I are having a barbecue tonight – just a few of us, as a way to wind down after this week. Do you and Rebecca want to come along?’
He winked. ‘Wouldn’t miss it. Tell Adam I’ll bring some beer.’
‘Okay, thanks. See you later.’
Barnes appeared at the door, and nodded to the DCI before turning his attention to Kay. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’ She fell into step beside him once they were in the corridor. ‘How is he?’
‘Meek, especially once the paramedics told him within earshot of us that he was fit and healthy.’
‘Nice try.’
‘He isn’t the first one, and won’t be the last.’
‘How was Alice when you got her home?’
‘Quiet. Exhausted, I imagine. I had a word with Bethany – she’s going to give Annette a call with the details of a child psychologist she works with from time to time, and we’ve set a time for Bethany to do her formal interview tomorrow morning.’
‘Where are they now? You didn’t take Alice back to Ken’s house, did you?’
‘Only briefly, to give Annette time to pack a couple of suitcases. She’s going to stay with a friend in Maidenhead for a couple of weeks, to give it time for things to calm down here.’ He held up an evidence bag with the toy rabbit inside. ‘There is one thing – Ken didn’t give Alice this. She admitted that she found this in her grandfather’s study the morning Greg took her out on the boat. She isn’t meant to go in there, apparently but Greg and Annette were talking in the kitchen about some last minute arrangements and she sneaked inside. When she saw the rabbit, she couldn’t resist putting it in her backpack. She assumed Kenneth was going to give it to her as a present anyway.’
‘Bloody hell. Right, well shall we see what Mr Archerton has to say for himself?’
Kay pushed open the door to the interview room. She nodded to Archerton’s solicitor, then waited until Barnes had started the recording. She didn’t waste time.
‘Tell us about the toy factories in northern France, Ken. What do they have to do with a successful wine merchant?’
‘No idea.’
Kay pushed the bagged toy rabbit across the table. ‘Here’s what we think, Ken. You got greedy. You wanted more money, and you met Beatrice Caron on one of your excursions to France. Whose idea was it to move into drug smuggling? Yours, or hers?’
When he didn’t respond, she shrugged and continued. ‘We found a quantity of tablets inside this. This is how you planned to smuggle in the drugs, wasn’t it? Except your granddaughter found it in your study and took it, because she thought it was meant for her. Then, when you shot her father and she had to flee with Greg, she dropped it by accident. We weren’t meant to find it, were we? Is that when it all started to go wrong?’
She waited, glaring at the man before her.
‘We’ve had officers conducting a search of your property,’ said Barnes. ‘They’ve shown a particular interest in the toys labelled “Fabriqué en France” in a box under your desk in your study. Four more of them, apparently. What do you think we’ll find when we cut them open?
Kenneth ground his teeth, his nostrils flaring.
‘Who’s in Manchester, Ken? Not a medical specialist, I’ll bet.’
‘What were you going to do, Ken?’ said Kay, not waiting for his answer. ‘Distribute them as samples, and then set up a supply chain to channel your drugs through to users? People could buy the toys as if they were for their kids, and instead get hold of the pills, couldn’t they?’
Archerton patted his hand against his chest. ‘You don’t understand, Detective Hunter. It was Robert’s idea. He threatened me. He was the one with the gun.’
‘Then perhaps you could enlighten us as to what happened that night,’ she said. ‘Because, as far as I can see, it was Robert who uncovered your plans and tried to stop you.’
‘I don’t know what got into him. He’d been acting strange the weekend before he went to France, as if something was on his mind.’ He closed his eyes, his hand dropping to the table. ‘I wonder how I could have been so stupid. It’s clear to me now that he wanted me out of the way so he could take over the business.’
‘Seems a bit extreme – shooting you,’ said Barnes. ‘Most people would make a cash offer.’
Archerton glared at the detective sergeant. ‘Like I said, he’d been acting strange. That’s why I went to the boat. I knew from Annette that Greg had taken Alice away for the night. I thought if his brother was there as well, I could make him see sense.’
‘Explain the payments made into his and Annette’s bank account,’ said Kay. She pushed across copies of the documentation and tapped her finger on the entries. ‘Eight thousand pounds in April. Twelve thousand pounds in May. What were they for?’
‘They were loyalty payments,’ said Ken. ‘I didn’t want to lose him to a competitor.’
‘How did you know Robert had come back to England and gone to the boat last Friday?’
‘I can’t recall. Annette or Greg must’ve mentioned it.’
‘What went wrong?’ said Kay.
‘Greg and Alice were nowhere to be seen when I got to the boat. All I wanted to do was talk, but Robert wouldn’t have it. He must’ve hidden the gun on the deck when he saw me approaching. The next thing I knew, he was waving it at me, telling me that I was no good to anyone in my state of health, and that I should’ve handed over the business to him so he could provide for my daughter and granddaughter.’ A ragged breath escaped his lips. ‘It happened so fast. I lunged at him, thinking I could knock the gun out of his hand and into the water, but it… it went off. I panicked. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘What did you do with the gun?’
Archerton swallowed. ‘Nothing. It fell in the water.’
Kay leaned back in her chair and drummed her fingers on the table, watching the man in front of her. She stopped, and waited.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was the steady beat of the clock above the door and the scratch of the solicitor’s fountain pen across his notebook.
She paused, biding her time in the knowledge that the combined efforts of her team over the past week had come to this. A wave of adrenalin shot through her as she raised her head.
‘That’s an engaging story, Mr Archerton. But that’s all it is – a story, isn’t it? Like the multiple sclerosis and the chest pains?’
He frowned, then looked at his solicitor and back to her. ‘What do you mean? It’s the truth. I didn’t mean to kill Robert. It was an accident.’
Pulling out one of the photographs from the post mortem, Kay slid it across the table to Archerton. ‘You’re a liar, Ken. Robert Victor was shot in the back of the head at close range. You executed him.’
She watched as his solicitor’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and then folded her arms on the table. ‘The gun didn’t go in the water, either. Our underwater search team found nothing, and the current isn’t strong enough to carry a weapon downstream. There were no casings either, which tells me you not only shot Robert Victor, you took the time to pick up the casings before leaving the boat.’
‘You can’t prove anything,’ Archerton said, a snarl in his voice.
Kay caught Barnes’s sideways glance, and smiled.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Mr Archerton,’ she said, and flipped open the folder. ‘My team have been extremely
thorough in their work. Shall we try again, starting with the gun we found inside the safe and the remnants of burned clothing in the hearth in your study?’
Fifty-Seven
Adam chopped the last of the tomatoes, fresh from the garden, and tipped them into the bowl of salad leaves and dressing before handing it to Kay.
‘Right, that’s the last of it. Let Barnes know he might want to put the meat on the barbecue – that breeze is getting chilly out there.’
‘Yes, chef.’
She grinned, picked up her wine glass and padded out the back door into the garden, her flip flops slapping against the paving slabs.
Pia, Barnes’s partner, stood up as she approached the table and pushed aside napkins and condiments to make room for the salad, and then reached down into a bucket of ice and pulled out a bottle of beer. She passed it to Barnes as he pushed back his chair.
‘Cheers,’ he said, as Adam joined them. ‘Here’s to a good result, guv.’
‘Team effort,’ said Kay. ‘As always. Carys – are you joining us? The food will be ready in a minute.’
The detective constable put down the chicken she’d located in the flowerbed, and wandered across the lawn to where they sat. ‘She was looking for worms, I think.’
‘They’re perpetually hungry,’ said Adam. He gently nudged a second chicken out from under the table and watched with a smile as it scurried away before stopping to peck at something it found next to the doorstep. ‘Needless to say, there’s steak and sausages on the menu tonight.’
‘Those three are too scrawny, anyway,’ said Barnes.
He stabbed at the meat with a set of tongs, the aroma of spices and herbs Adam had used to marinate the food wafting across to the table.
‘Did you manage to get the charges you wanted against Kenneth Archerton?’ said Pia.
‘Yes,’ said Kay. ‘Once we presented the evidence we had against him, he confessed everything. He’d gone to the boat to try to persuade Robert to see sense, and when he couldn’t convince him, he shot him. He viewed him as too much of a risk. That’s why the boat was ransacked – Ken was after the rabbit Alice had taken, and any evidence Robert might have hidden in relation to the smuggling operation.’
‘What about the Frenchwoman Ian mentioned to me?’ said Pia.
‘Beatrice decided to talk once we matched her fingerprints to the traces found on the waterproof lining inside the toy rabbit,’ said Gavin. ‘She’s trying to blame Ken, but I have a feeling they were business partners in all this. She was the one who alerted him to the fact Robert had been spotted at the toy factory in Laval, and we think she arranged for him to be followed back to Kent. She drew the line at killing him, though.’
‘Ken told us she reckoned Robert was his problem to sort out,’ said Kay. ‘We’ll have to start the process next week to get her extradited to France at some point. Our colleagues over there have wanted to have a chat with her for some time now. Apparently, her real name is Michelle Dubois, which is why her passport was never flagged when she entered the UK – it’s fake.’
‘Did you find who he was working with in Manchester?’ said Adam.
‘Yes, and we’ve passed on details of that aspect of the smuggling operation to our colleagues up there.’
‘Poor Alice,’ said Barnes. ‘I hope she’s going to be all right after all this.’
Kay’s stomach roared.
‘Heard that,’ said Sharp.
Rebecca, his wife, rolled her eyes. ‘Leave the woman alone – she’s been busy.’
‘Just a bit,’ said Kay. She shaded her eyes against the setting sun. ‘Did Debbie sort out the roster for the rest of the weekend?’
‘Yes – you’re all off until Monday morning,’ said Sharp. ‘A well-deserved break, I think it’s called.’
‘Good,’ said Gavin, draining his wine glass. ‘Hey, this wasn’t French by any chance, was it?’
Adam laughed. ‘No – it’s from New Zealand. Drink up.’
‘In that case, can I leave my car here tonight? I’ll get a taxi home and pick it up in the morning.’
‘Sure,’ said Kay. ‘Hang on – I’ll go and get another bottle out the fridge.’
‘I can––’
‘No, you’re okay. I want to get a sweatshirt to put on anyway. Everyone else warm enough?’
A murmur of voices answered her, and satisfied her guests were comfortable, Kay walked into the kitchen, left her wineglass on the centre worktop and hurried upstairs.
Laughter from the garden floated up through the open window of their bedroom, and she smiled at the sound of Barnes teasing Carys. No doubt the detective constable was making friends with another of the chickens.
Opening a drawer, she pulled out an old favourite sweatshirt, ran her fingers through her hair, and made her way back out to the landing.
She stopped outside the spare room they now used as an office.
A toy bear sat on the corner of her desk, one of its ears lopsided.
She frowned, then walked across the carpet and plucked it up.
Turning it over in her hands, she tried to ignore the ache in her heart. Instead, she peered at the seam on its bottom, and held out the label so she could read it.
Made in Britain.
Kay exhaled.
She put the bear back, patted it on the head, and then hurried downstairs to sort out the wine for Gavin.
When she reached the hallway, a strange sound reached her from the kitchen. She could still hear her colleagues and Adam out in the garden, the sizzle and crack of the meat on the barbecue, but this was different.
‘Oh, no…’
She hurried to the door in time to see Mabel, the larger of the two chickens, flutter off the worktop before strutting to the back door.
‘If you’ve crapped in my kitchen, you’re going to be in so much trouble.’
She crossed over to the worktop, moved the pile of magazines and cookery books stacked against the knife block, then stopped.
‘Adam!’
‘Yes?’ His voice carried an edge of concern. ‘What’s up?’
‘One of your chickens has laid a bloody egg on the kitchen worktop!’
Raucous laughter filtered through from the garden.
The chicken paused on the doorstep, its beady eyes appraising her.
She glared at it.
Adam appeared at the back door, looking as if he’d at least tried to set a straight face. He picked up the bird and held her to his chest, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth as he smoothed her feathers, and then winked.
‘I don’t suppose you fancy an omelette for breakfast tomorrow morning, then?’
* * *
THE END
From the Author
Dear Reader,
* * *
Thank you for picking up a copy of Cradle to Grave to read. I hope you enjoyed the story.
If you did, I'd be grateful if you could leave a review. It doesn't have to be long, just a few words, but it is often the way that new readers discover one of my books for the first time.
If you'd like to stay up to date with my new releases as well as exclusive competitions and giveaways, please join my Reader Group at my website, www.rachelamphlett.com. I will never share your email address, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
You can also contact me via Facebook, Twitter, or by email via the contact page on my website. I love hearing from readers – I read every message and will always reply.
Thanks again for your support.
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Best wishes,
Rachel Amphlett
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