Mark felt ashamed. She couldn’t have been farther from the truth. `He’s going to be all right, Mark. Honestly. He’s seeing someone about it.’
`What do you mean?,
‘He’s seeing a psychiatrist to get him over this bad patch. He’ll be back to normal soon, I’m sure.’
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Mark slipped an arm around her. A brotherly
hug seemed permissible in the circumstances.
She hugged him back and he enjoyed the push of her breasts into his chest.
`Is there anything I can do?’ he said at last as they stepped apart. `Just be a friend to him.’
`OK.’
`And you won’t tell anyone else, will you? It’s a secret.’ He nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.
When the doorbell rang at 10.30 Charlie was in the act of shaving. He was a wet-shave man by habit, and the interruption caught him with a face striped by foam.
Who the hell is that?
He peeped surreptitiously through the net curtains in the front bedroom - like some curtain-twitching old biddy, he thought.
He looked down on a head of bright blonde hair tied back in a plait. Amy Baylis wore a scarlet sweater and jeans, and in her hands she carried a gardener’s trug from which protruded the handles of a fork and trowel.
Charlie stepped quickly back from the window. He wasn’t going to show himself like this. The bell rang again. He stood stock still. She’d have a fair idea he was in - he never bothered to park in the garage these days - but that was too bad.
After a few moments he heard her footsteps recede down the garden path and he forced his body to relax. Then he returned to the bathroom. Later, in the kitchen, he glimpsed movement outside. He saw the flashing blonde plait, the square, scarlet shoulders, the firm heft of a spade. Amy was digging in his garden.
She was two years younger than him and had also lost her other half to cancer. In the summer, when she worked in his garden, she sang in a low, beguiling contralto, and her fingers were quick and skilful as she nipped unwanted buds and tied back errant stems. There were lots of reasons why he should open the back door, thank her for her hard work and offer her some coffee.
Not yet. He wasn’t ready to share this house or himself - the things that had once been Jan’s - with anyone just yet. Maybe not till he was done with policing - and that wasn’t far off.
Before then, however, he had a job to do. He rang John Petrie.
`I thought it might be you,’ said the DS.
`I’m sorry, John, this racing vendetta’s been going round my head all weekend.’
In the background he could laughter and squealing. John’s children were nine and seven. He’d seen quite a bit of them recently.
Petrie was having a muffled conversation with someone else, then he spoke. `Suzy says you can come for lunch provided you don’t talk shop in the house. Frankly, boss, there’s not much more to say about it. He’s had his kicks and now he’s packed it in - that’s what I reckon.’
There’s wishful thinking for you, said Charlie to himself. John was a great bloke and a solid by-the-book copper but he didn’t have a lot of imagination.
`So, are you coming over or what?’
Looking back down the hall, through the kitchen and into the garden, Charlie saw the heavy blonde plait swinging in the sunshine. His problem was he had too much imagination.
`Tell Suzy I’d be delighted to accept her kind invitation. And so as not to upset her, John, I’ll say this now and then shut up. I think you’re dead wrong. I think there’s no way our man has packed it in. He’s enjoying himself too much.’
Chapter Seven
Hugh had a lot on his mind as he sat at his desk first thing on Monday morning. He didn’t regard himself as thin skinned - he would never have survived his schooldays, let alone life as a journalist, if he had been sensitive to personal remarks - but occasionally a comment pierced his defences.
Last night at his brother’s, his sister-in-law Emma - of whom he was fond - had tried to pair him off with one of her friends. Halfway through dinner this Mandy had abruptly announced she had to leave, pleading a headache. In Hugh’s opinion, shed been making rather a lot of noise for a person who supposedly wasn’t well, and he’d volunteered to fetch her a taxi. Then he had returned to the flat to find Tom and Emma in the middle of a disagreement. He was about to step into the room when he realised they were disagreeing about him.
`No wonder your mother’s given up,’ Emma was saying in an intense low tone that carried clearly into the hall. `No one over the age of ten goes round with ink on their fingers. And does he really only possess two shirts? I don’t know what I’m going to say to Mandy tomorrow.’
`I told you she wasn’t Hugh’s type, darling.’ Not the most spirited of defences by his brother but better than nothing.
`Who the hell would be? I don’t know any women who fancy podgy slobs in National Health glasses with a wardrobe from the 1950s. He looks a fucking disgrace.’
Hugh had made his excuses shortly afterwards and had been brooding about the insults ever since. `Podgy’ was cruel but justifiable - and he’d avoided the almond croissant this morning in consequence - but did women really care that much about clothes? It was depressing.
He couldn’t face phoning Emma to thank her for what had been a less than lovely evening. Then he had a sudden brain-wave. He dialled Interflora and ordered an expensive bunch of flowers to be sent to his sister-in-law’s office. He might be overweight but he wasn’t cheap. Let Emma spend all day with his roses and then call him a disgrace.
He was still grinning as he saw Gemma approach. She held a tray with the day’s post and plonked it on his desk.
`There’s another one,’ she said softly.
As instructed, she had left the letter sealed. It was postmarked Exeter, Saturday morning.
Hugh opened it carefully, the smile now gone from his face. Louise answered the phone just as she was on her way out of the house to join third lot. She didn’t recognise the voice at first.
`Hi, Louise, it’s Christian Curtis.’ Who? `I’m sorry, do I know you?’
`I’m a friend of Leo’s. Obviously I didn’t make much of an impression when we met.’
Oh, God, it was Kit! She flustered an apology, her words rushing out. Fancy not knowing it was him.
`It’s OK. Only guys I went to school with call me Kit. It sounds sort of babyish, don’t you think?’
`I think it sounds great.’ She groaned silently - had she really said that?
`You can call me what you like, Louise. I was just wondering if you liked French films.’
`Um, I don’t know.’ That didn’t sound bright - she qualified it hastily. `I like films. And French food.’
He chuckled, a low, gravelly sound that conjured up a picture in her mind of his grave face and the lock of blue-black hair that fell over those piercing blue eyes.
`There’s a Truffaut festival on at the Arnolfini in Bristol. I wondered if you’d like to come. I’m sure I could find a French restaurant as well.’ He was asking her on a date. Fantastic! Then reality kicked in. `Kit, I’d really love to…’
`But?’ She could hear the disappointment in his voice. `But with Dad away I don’t think I can go.’
`It’s just for the evening.’
`Yes, but I go to the hospital in the evening. Dad needs to know what’s
going on in the yard. And I need his help with the entries. You’d never believe how difficult it is to find the right race for the right horse.’ `Oh, I see.’
But it was plain from his tone that he didn’t. And though he went on to ask how her father was doing it sounded to her like mere politeness. After that, she didn’t even enjoy her afternoon ride on Skellig that much. What had happened to Dad was bad enough, but they were all paying the price.
She wondered whether Kit would ever call her again. The Editor
The Racing Beacon Very nice. I like the way you use Justice in Racing on the top of the page.
Maybe I should have gone into newspapers - I’d be pulling down a better screw than I am now.
The artacles are crap, though that’s what I expected. You don’t have the nerve to take the real villains on, do you? How about dishing the dirt on the top trainers. Dean and Greenhoff have got to be up to something. You should start digging.
Still, it’s a beginning. Maybe I won’t pay a visit to a certain starter who let the tapes go early at Ascot last year and left the favourite standing. I wasn’t the only one who saw his hard-earned cash go down without even the pleasure of a race.
Then there’s that jockey at Fontwell who rode round the last flight of hurdles when he was ten lengths clear. He said the sun was in his eyes, I say he had his hand out and some bastard stuffed it with reddies. A five-day ban was nothing. On second thoughts, I might still have a little talk with him. Fix him up so he won’t see the sun again, let alone a flight of hurdles.
Now we’re partners I think it’s time you spread some of the perks of your trade my way.
No, I don’t want a free lunch. I want a fee in recognition of my services.
Consider these facts.
1. the effort I have put into this campagne.
2. the contribution I have made to your paper.
3. the fact I am owed big-time for the stake money conned out of me by cheating bookmakers all my life.
Considering the above, ?100,000 (one hundred thousand pounds) is not excesive.
The money must be prepared as follows. Half in used ?50 notes, ?30,000 in 20s, the rest in I Os, wrapped in three seperate bundles in clear sellophane and put in a dark-coloured shoulder bag.
On Wednesday evening, Miss Louise Fowler will drive to Scratchwood Melmoth shopping centre taking the bag containing the money. She will wear the yellow anorak she sometimes wears on the TV Her car must contain enough petrol for at least 150 miles driving. She will park in Tesco’s supermarket by 7.00 pm and walk across the road to the pay phones by the bus stop. At precisely 7.30 the phone farthest away from the bus stop will ring and she must pick it up to receive her instructions. If someone is using the phone she must wait until they are finished.
She must be alone. NO POLICE. NO RADIOS. NO CARS. NO HELICOPTERS. I will know if she is being followed.
Once the money has been received I will call off all my operations and you will never hear from me again.
But if these instructions are not carried out to the letter, MY OPERATIONS WILL CONTINUE. I have a long list of racing cheats. This time I won’t go easy on them like I did with Gerry Fowler.
Duncan Frame put off the phone call for a few minutes while he considered his position - or rather the Beacon’s position - in the light of this new development. Pimlott had brought him the letter just a few minutes ago, looking a bit green around the gills. Frame had put that down to the mention of Louise Fowler.
The editor had already made one phone-call, not to the police but to his proprietor. Persuading Sir Gavin Hoylake to put up the hundred grand had not been as difficult as he had feared. As yet the Beacon had not moved to exploit its inside track on the case, but it was only a matter of time. And when that time came there were other media outlets in the Hoylake News Group which would also cash in.
Of course, no mention was made of Hoylake’s TV and tabloid holdings in the course of their short conversation, but Frame was only too aware of them. There was little brotherly love in the Hoylake family of businesses - bitter sibling rivalry more accurately characterised relations between the group members. It gave Frame considerable satisfaction to think that, for once, he sat in the hot seat on a potentially big news story. If it all went well he wouldn’t mind a move within the group. In the world of journalism a horseracing paper was something of a ghetto.
His dilemma at the moment was when to break the story. Soon - or else it would surface elsewhere. But even if it did, the Beacon had the letters and that gave him the edge. For the moment he’d play the conscientious citizen and stay hand in glove with the police. So when all this did come out into the open the Beacon would look good. It would look even better when it was known they had volunteered a hundred grand to keep a madman from persecuting the racing community. As Hoylake had said, only a few minutes before, `Money invested in reputation is never wasted.’
Charlie put down the phone and ran into the outside office to stand over the fax machine. Hurray for Mondays - a heretical thought for most of his colleagues, but for Charlie it had been a long and tedious weekend and now, at last, something was happening.
The fax began to chunter and the LCD read `Receiving’. DC Holly Green looked up from her desk and started to get to her feet. Charlie shook his head at her. No one was reading this fax before him, even if he did already know what it said.
He pulled the two sheets from the machine and read them on the hoof, disappearing back into his office.
Frame had described the contents accurately, though he hadn’t conveyed quite the extent of the writer’s gleeful arrogance. Charlie felt a little gleeful in turn. Though it presented enormous challenges, he knew where he stood with a ransom demand. Greed was a motive anyone could understand.
So now the vicious little bastard had stuck his head above the parapet. He was demanding a cash drop. Big mistake. When it came to the handover they’d have him.
Most of the police briefing was spent in discussing the geography of Scratchwood Melmoth, once a small town serving the local agricultural
community of north-west Somerset. In the last ten years, however, a five-acre site outside the town had been turned into a `retail park’, boasting most of the national supermarkets and fast-food outlets. At its centre was a three-storey shopping mall, surrounded by car parks. A network of roads brought in shoppers from all directions, with the M5 motorway less than ten minutes away. At any time during opening hours - from eight in the morning till ten at night - the place was teeming with people and their cars. Charlie had already put in his request for extra bodies.
`We’re going to need a load of back-up vehicles,’ muttered DS Ivan Stone. `He could send our girl in about a dozen different directions.’
Charlie nodded - he was well aware of it. `Plus an army on the ground,’ Ivan continued.
DC Terry Jenkins, three months into his transfer out of uniform into CID, look puzzled. `What’s the point of that? It’s obvious he’s going to tell her to drive somewhere a long way off. That’s why he’s asked for a full tank of petrol.’
The others had laughed and Terry had looked puzzled. `What’s funny?’
`Just suppose he’s lying,’ said Ivan. `Suppose that’s what he wants us to think. Then he tells her to go inside the shopping centre and has the bag off her in the check-out at M&S.’
`Oh.’ Terry looked miffed.
`Think about it, pinhead, there’s God knows how many ways in and out of that building.’
`And we will cover them all,’ Charlie said firmly. He didn’t want them scoring points off each other like a bunch of kids. There were more important issues to discuss.
John Petrie raised one of them. `We’re not going to use Louise as the courier, are we, boss?’
Charlie shook his head. `Got anyone in mind?’
`It’s not easy. We need someone who can pretend to be Louise, if necessary. She’s going to have to think on her feet, stay flexible and not panic if she ends up driving half the night.’
There was silence in the room. Then Ivan said, `That lets you out, Terry.’
Charlie joined in the laughter and added, `I might have a word with solo.,
Scotland Yard’s undercover squad.
After the meeting, Charlie sat in his office with one eye on the clock. He reckoned he’d give it ten minutes.
The knock came well within that limit. As expected, DC Patsy Preece stuck her head round the door.
`Have you rung Solo yet, guv?’ she asked.
He shook his head and pointed to the seat facing his desk.
`I’ll be the courier,’ she said. `
I can be Louise better than any outsider. I could put my hair up like she does sometimes, and I reckon I sound like her.’
Charlie grinned, then began to chuckle.
`Don’t laugh,’ she cried. `It’s not a joke, I’m dead serious. Sir.’ Charlie stopped laughing. `OK,’ he said. `The job’s yours.’ `Just like that?’
‘Of course. You’re the obvious person.’
She looked puzzled. `Why didn’t you tell me at the briefing, then?’ `Because you’ve got to volunteer, Patsy. This could be bloody dangerous. Suppose you end up in the middle of nowhere with this lunatic? He might not be content with taking the money - especially when he finds out you’re not Louise Fowler. He half killed poor Gerry.’
`But I won’t be on my own. There’s going to be back-up.’
`Of course. But things can go wrong, that’s all I’m saying. There’s the slight chance you could be on your own with him. You’ve got to realise that.’
`Sure.’ She beamed, showing off her even white teeth and the dimples in her cheeks. Patsy was a woman of twenty-four but, for a moment, she looked even younger than his daughter. `Thanks a lot, guv. I won’t let you down.’
He nodded. He had every confidence in her, but this kind of thing filled him with misgiving. He’d had a long career in policing, and an operation like this - lots of bodies, a sackful of someone else’s money and a vicious, clever nutter calling the shots - was a minefield.
He brushed aside negative thoughts and looked the young detective in the eye.
`Right, then. You and I have work to do. Do you know where Louise is today?’
‘She’s at Fontwell this afternoon. Mucky Molly’s the favourite in the big hurdle race.’
Charlie looked at her sharply. `Are you serious?’
She nodded. `I saw Louise at the hospital and she told me it was worth a bet. She’s worried about the going - the horse doesn’t like it too heavy.’
This was more than Charlie needed to know, though, obviously he’d picked the right woman for this assignment.
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