“I understand,” Cramble continued, “that you know a good deal more about your brother’s activities than you’re admitting, sir.” Now Cramble thumped both fists on the table and the cup shook. “Your brother belongs to an International ring of dangerous criminals. So don’t try to deny it.”
Maurice shrugged. “Think what you like, constable. It’s of no consequence to me. I know my brother as an innocent and extremely likeable man. But he wouldn’t care a biscuit crumb for what you think of him. And frankly, sir, nor do I.”
Cramble stood, “We are still being recorded, sir. And on the record, I must point out that you are being most uncooperative.”
“Am I?” Maurice smiled. “If you say so, constable. Now, am I under arrest? I assume not. In which case, I officially object to having been purposefully brought here from the school where I work and questioned for long and boring hours when I should have been teaching. Now I shall leave, sir. This interview is over.”
Spluttering, Cramble switched off the recorder. “And as you know full well, Mr Howard, I am not a police constable. I am Detective Chief Inspector Cramble, and I shall be seeing you again in the near future. You have my word on that.”
It was later that day when Detective Sergeant Vine informed his own chief inspector of Cramble’s activities earlier in the afternoon. Morrison gazed in faint horror at his sergeant. “Someone passed the information I’d obtained to that blithering idiot? In other words, he was told that the elder brother was expected to visit the younger brother tomorrow morning?”
“He was informed, sir. I informed him myself.”
Morrison managed a passable re-enactment of a dangerous gas explosion. “So he knew he had a chance at catching an unsuspecting Mark Howard in the morning, and ruined it all by interviewing Maurice Howard today? Now they know they’re watched. They certainly won’t be having that meeting now. Is the man a raging lunatic or a simple nincompoop?”
Vine lowered his voice. “I have a feeling that Cramble thought your information was either false, too easy perhaps, and that you’d been tricked, sir. Or perhaps even that the information was categorically untrue, and the trick came intentionally and from yourself, sir. Who knows? He’s not going to tell me. But he’s ruined what could have been a decent chance at a highly important arrest.”
Morrison leaned back, temper blown. “He’s in charge of that whole range of accusations. It’s his bag o’tricks. If he makes a fool of himself, it’s something I won’t be complaining about. Perhaps the Met sent him over here to get rid of him on what they believed was a fool’s chase. Meanwhile, Vine, we’re getting no further forward on our own job. Sullivan’s well nigh caught. Howard could have been. And yet our own man is as far away as ever.”
Vine hung his head. “It seems so, sir. But there’s no one giving up on it yet.” He noticed his boss’s red-rimmed glare. “Tea, boss? I’ll make some, then I can send in the team for a pep talk, including the juice on Cramble. It’ll cheer them up.”
Olga was sitting on the sharp upturned edge of the spade, spreading her black thorned wings over the scattered straw. Her golden eyes dazzled, but they were deep black hooded, and her snout opened into a snarl.
Lionel had been sobbing and did not look up to meet Olga’s fury. “I’m getting old,” he snivelled. “I know it. That time inside made me weak and my muscles have turned to grease. Don’t tell me I’m useless. I know it.”
Olga’s wings spread further, blocking out the stream of light entering from the cracks in the wooden planks. All sunlight fled. The world closed in. The bat’s smile ripped through the darkness turning black to scarlet shadows, with a screech of red raw threat.
Cowering down against the straw strewn ground, Lionel clamped both arms over his head and moaned, cringing and shivering. He felt trapped. His escape from prison had brought him neither success nor pleasure. Then happiness had leapt in again, with a girl in his car and a place to take her. But, though small, skinny, weak and stupid, she had proved stronger than he was. Not only had she escaped, but she had locked and bolted the barn door behind her. The key was now outside and he was inside, imprisoned with Olga once more. Her teeth had grown since her last encounter. She was waiting to suck all the happiness from him, drinking his strength and slurping at all his hopes. She crawled into his eyes and nostrils and throat, eating away all his power and the belief in himself which he had managed to build up. He knew himself an ugly child again, quivering as he saw his mother march into his room.
And then he stood, legs shaking, and looked around, forcing his shoulders back, forcing his eyes wide, and forcing himself to breathe. Then he saw the dark bloody mess on the ground beside the straw. Lionel began to smile.
One stride, and he clasped up the collapsed nipple and part of the girl’s breast he had ripped from her. His smile widened as he looked at the mess spreading across the palm of his hand, and he stuffed the whole bleeding lump into his mouth. Then he licked his hand. The familiar taste of blood delighted him and spelled achievement, success and the banishment of Olga. She faded quickly, and Lionel, sucking cheerfully, strode to the little barn’s door, and kicked twice. It was almost enough to shatter the cracked old wood. Two more furious kicks and he was free.
Taking the car, he settled back, warm and satisfied, and drove south-east. On the outskirts of a small village, a large pond glittered with thick ice. Lionel drove across the pond’s frozen surface, climbed quickly from the car as the ice began to crack, hurried back to dry land, half sliding, and climbed the little bank as he watched the stolen BMW begin to sink into the water. Then he turned north-west and began to walk.
He strode away from the winding lanes and the cottages, climbing into hill country where the gentle roll of rocky slopes, weed shortened grass and sheep droppings gradually melted into fast running streams and sudden dips into green valleys. Up higher puddles of snow still sat sheltered beneath stone and bush, while thorny scrub sat frost fingered and brittle.
Still sucking on the lump of breast in his mouth, Lionel curled beneath one of the solitary trees – a short-bristled fur with a long abandoned crow’s nest high amongst its scarecrow leaves.
He slept and he dreamed. A failure with one girl did not mean he would never find another, and another would surely come past one day. In the meantime, he was recognisable and needed a disguise. He grew no facial hair. Therefore a beard would be impossible, but in this weather it was logical enough to wear a hood, covering most of the head, also zipped up below the eyes. He was already adept at stealing and would soon find another car.
But his dream was all about catching his wife. She was the great hope at present, and he knew exactly what he was going to do to her.
Chapter Twenty
Ruby was dyeing her hair, dripping red ooze into the wash basin and staring into the mirror directly in front of her. What she saw disgusted her. The jowls of her cheeks sagged into her neck, dragging down each side of her mouth as though she was furious with everyone. But she was not angry. She pitied herself, stupid old woman, now regretting lost youth and remembering her handsome and famous husband. Not that he had ever been faithful to her. Not that he had ever sought her company. Not that he had loved her.
Now, just as stupidly, she hated the wrinkles and the grey drooping skin, the lower eyelids flopping pink into her cheeks, the lips shrunk beyond the hope of wearing lipstick, and the hair grizzled greyish white, receding, and without any flicker of sheen.
The mirror showed a woman twice the age that Ruby knew herself to be inside. Not inside as far as a failing bowel, a weak corked bladder, dried up joints and a miserably high blood pressure counted, but that magic place inside that neither mirrors nor doctors could discover. She was, she decided, really thirty-five years of age inside the bubbling brain she knew to be her real self. Peering at the mirror over the wash basin, she muttered, “Silly old lady. Who do you think you are? Go away and let the real Ruby slip back in.” Red dye dripped. That mixed with the tears.
Ruby felt desperately sorry for herself, despised that self-pity, and pitied that too. Having stained the nice white towel she was using, Ruby threw it in the dirty linen shoot. She washed her own underwear. Everything else went down to the huge laundry, organised by Arthur, sometimes Lavender, and now frequently David. David liked washing things, though he frequently forgot which bin they had come from and tended to return pretty silk blouses to Derek instead of Yvonne.
Sitting on the edge of the bath, Ruby once again burst into tears.
It was David who heard her and knocked timidly on her door. She blew her nose on her nightdress and opened the door. “You was crying, miss. I hear you.”
Ruby was embarrassed. “No, I wasn’t,” she said. Then, “Yes, I was. I was being silly. Take no notice, David dear. And don’t tell anyone else.”
“Surely won’t, miss,” David said. He handed her a pile of large white handkerchiefs with the initial P embroidered in one corner of each. Ruby sighed.
“These are Percival’s, David dear. Women don’t use these horrid things. Never mind, I’ll pass them on to him. Thanks very much, David.”
He left and passed the word on to his father. “Tis Ruby, Dad. Crying all the time, she is. Reckon she’s done in.”
“I’ll sort it, lad,” said Arthur. He went to Lavender first, and then to Sylvia.
“I used to cry,” David told Sylvia. “I doesn’t remember why. Were I sad too?” Sylvia smiled and avoided the question. “But Miss Ruby ain’t got no reason neither,” David added. “Is a rich lady and got good friends, ain’t she?”
“Dinner tonight,” Sylvia told Ruby. “We’re going to the Hobby Horse in Cheltenham. Our treat. Coming?”
“That’s expensive,” Ruby frowned.
“Good,” said Sylvia. “What’s the point inviting someone out for dinner and taking them to McDonalds?”
The frown grew. “Why are you taking me out? It’s definitely not my birthday. Besides, I’m not having any more of those boring things. I’m already a hundred and fifty.”
“In that case, you look remarkably good for your age.”
“I don’t,” Ruby said, flipping down onto the couch in the smaller living room. “I look dreadful. I look like the old hag I am, and I feel rotten too. I ache in places I didn’t know I had. Rod used to say I was so pretty. Now I look like a smudge that no one bothered to wipe off.”
“You’ve done your hair again,” Sylvia noted. “It looks wildly gorgeous. So why all the dismal old age stuff? I’m older than you. So are half the other residents here. And you’re one of the most popular. So cheer up and come out to dinner.”
“Am I really one of the most popular?” She doubted it, but they were nice words. “And yes, I’ll come this evening. Very sweet of you.”
“Just wanting the pleasure of your company.”
“Have you - ,” wondered Ruby, “been talking to young David about me?”
Harry, who hadn’t said a word to David, was standing next to Sylvia. “No, why?” he said with a shrug. “I haven’t spoken to the boy for days. Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen him since Sunday last. Why? He’s not ill, is he?”
“Oh no.” Ruby smiled. “I just wondered. See you tonight.”
It was just after midnight, Sylvia and Harry slept cuddled to each other, and Ruby slept in the small apartment next door when the surveillance team staked out the area. Most in cars, windows tinted, and others in flats nearby, keeping their watch from the windows, Cramble’s men were waiting for Mark Howard’s arrival at the house above the cake shop where his brother lived. “We’ll take this seriously,” the Detective Chief Inspector told his squad. “But I don’t expect success. Around midday, we’ll disband and quietly return to the station. I’m quite confident that this information has been pure trickery, but unfortunately, we can’t take a chance. However, I shall be extremely surprised should the man turn up.”
“But it was DCI Morrison that gave us the word,” said DC Crabb. “And he’s not one to fall for tricks, nor pass on anything that might be untrue. He took that info dead serious.”
“DCI Morrison is not infallible,” said Cramble. “And I most certainly intend to keep watch, just in case. I won’t miss such an opportunity. But come on, Crabb. Can you believe that the wife herself passed on this obvious clue, which she must have known would involve her brother-in-law’s arrest? No, of course not. As I shall inform Morrison later when the surveillance fails.”
Crabb couldn’t resist continuing. “T’was talking to the younger twin that gave the leak,” he said between his teeth. “But after that, and all you said to the man yesterday, Howard ain’t gonna risk turning up today, is he? You told his brother how you know he’s in England, and how you know he must visit sometimes. That’s it, ain’t it, so now Mark Howard’s gone into hiding.”
“Be careful what you say, Crabb,” Cramble told him, glaring. “You’re approaching insubordination.”
“Sorry Boss.”
They piled into the van and set off through the slush and down the main road to the small cake shop. It was a starless night and clouds covered everything down to the horizon. It was a good cover for the various men and women settling into their places to watch for the possible but unlikely arrival of Mark Howard at the home of Maurice Howard.
But the cake shop did not open, no one left the small house, and no one arrived at the door. Nothing happened at all.
Cold, disgruntled and bored, the team hurried back to the station by early afternoon, passed back their bullet-proof vests and a handful of Glock 17 weapons, and gathered in the canteen.
In the house which both backed onto the small cake and tea shop, and topped it with two levels of bedrooms and bathrooms, Kate was baking wholemeal panne di casa, while Mark and Maurice talked quietly together in the cramped attic flat. They had watched, unseen behind dark one-way blinds, the arrival of the police, some in unmarked cars, others on foot, and had chuckled. When they left, both men had raised their glasses.
“It should be champagne,” said Maurice.
They were drinking light beer, unchilled, and lounged on the two daybeds stretched there in soft black cushions. “Just as well you warned me, Moz” Mark raised his glass again. “I have just a few days left, and wouldn’t appreciate spending them in gaol.”
“It was plain enough,” Maurice said. His eyes remained cold until he looked at his brother. The warmth that had seemed hidden peeped out when the two men smiled at each other. “First I hear my fool of a wife telling those two dithering old folk from the Manor that you’re coming, and when. They may be virtually senile, but they’re friends with the police chief down the road. Morrison of homicide. No doubt they tell him everything.”
“And then your cosy little brush with the other branch yesterday. Do you know, dear sir, that your twin brother is a criminal maniac? The greatest money launderer and drug importer in the whole pretty world?”
“That’s more or less what was said.” Maurice yawned. “I gave Kate a slap, but she doesn’t understand so I can’t blame her too strongly. But now she’s got the point. She won’t pass on any private business again.”
“I’m not much concerned,” Mark said, emptying his glass. Maurice offered more, but he shook his head. “No. I’ll sleep for a couple of hours since I won’t be sleeping much tonight. I’m off to the old house to sort the last details with Milton. Then I’m off to Scotland for the flight back home.”
“I’ll come with you to see Milton.”
“You’re welcome.” Mark stood, aiming for the quilted bed in one shadowed corner. “He’ll be glad to see you. I imagine I’ll leave around one o’clock. The house is less than two hours away. I’ll stay an hour, maybe more, then head off. It’s been a successful trip, Moz. You’ll find your bank account has more than doubled. But don’t let that damn wife of yours find out.”
“She’s a token as you know, Mark. A sweet little primary school teacher needs a sweet little cake-baking wife. She’s a good stooge.”
The door splintered as he punched against the lock, and a dog began to bark with furious deliberation. Inside the tiny shed the hens, heads beneath their wings were placidly asleep. The dog bounded from the open gate in the distance and raced towards him. Lionel jumped back inside the old car he had stolen and started the engine back into its droning buzz. This was clearly not the place he needed. Back on the road, he turned the car in the opposite direction and headed off west.
Mark and Maurice Howard, mirror reflections of each other except for their clothes, arrived at the grand old house on the Welsh border, parked Mark’s mahogany Bentley in the open garage, and unlocked the back door, entering through the curtained shadows.
“Three thirty,” Maurice said with a quick glance at his watch. “Milton’s probably asleep. I need a drink.”
Ashes From Ashes Page 17
