“She’s sick?”
“She’s gone,” Iris wailed. “It was yesterday. She wanted to go to the cinema. It was a funny fellow film. You know, Tom someone.”
“Never mind, what happened?” Harry asked, desperately impatient.
“I don’t know,” Iris frowned. “I never went to see the film. You see, I haven’t touched one of those bandit machines since hospital, and I didn’t want the temptation. The cinema is right next door to the little casino. So Joyce went off on her own. I went off to bed.”
“She never came home?” guessed Sylvia.
“That’s right.” Now Iris was in tears. “I slept, but in the middle of the night I felt quite sick, so I got up to make myself cornflakes. I poked my head into Joyce’s room to see if she wanted some. But she wasn’t there and the bed was all neat and tidy.”
“What time?”
“I’ve no idea,” Iris admitted. “So I went back to bed. But then I got up this morning at the usual time. Eight. She’s usually up before me, but this time she wasn’t. I took her in a cup of tea but she still wasn’t there, and the bed was still all nice and proper. But no one stays out all night at the cinema. It wasn’t even a long film.”
At the front desk of the police station, DC Darcey Morrison and DCI Cooper Cramble were stood together by the open doorway leading back to the staircase. The Desk Sergeant seemed amused. Neither appeared remotely interested. What they were arguing about was not immediately obvious but having hovered for some moments at the bottom of the stairs, Harry finally muttered an apologetic, “Excuse me.”
Cramble turned, furious. “This is police business, sir, and is not the subject for public curiosity. Kindly report to the front desk.”
Harry shook his head, setting off more flying raindrops. “Too important, inspector.” He turned to Morrison. “It’s urgent, Darcey, or I wouldn’t be so rude.”
Sylvia, who was even more impatient, broke in. “It’s Joyce Sullivan, Lionel’s wife. She’s supposed to be at the safe house to avoid the obvious danger, but she keeps slipping out. Lionel spoke of revenge, well, you know all about that. Well, Joyce has disappeared.”
“Lionel Sullivan,” said Cramble with exaggerated patience, “is D.I. Ellis’s case. I suggest you speak to her.”
Harry shook his head. “All these cases have come together,” he objected. “The Howards and the Sullivans and Eve Daish and all the murders. It’s the same business now, isn’t it?”
“We know it is,” Sylvia said from Harry’s side.
“Exactly what we’ve been arguing about,” smiled Morrison. “Or should I say, amicably discussing rather than arguing? And I certainly maintain that the cases are intertwined. When was Joyce Sullivan last seen?”
“This can have nothing to do with Mark Howard and the business of international money laundering,” Cramble said with a mild explosion of saliva, and turned, marching up the creaking wooden stairs.
Sylvia answered Morrison. “Yesterday evening at five.”
Morrison sighed. “I have a team searching for the Howards from the toes of Wiltshire and Somerset all the way up to the horns of Oxfordshire and Worcestershire. There are six teams from the other counties in the search with us, and I’ve added Maurice Howard’s wife Kate and Lionel Sullivan to the search. I doubt Sullivan is working in friendly combination with the Howards, and I imagine they’d all despise each other. But there’s a link, and that I’m sure of. Now if Mrs Sullivan is missing, then it’s getting more serious.”
“How many dead already? I think it’s already pretty serious.”
Morrison smiled at Sylvia. “The so-called chimney killings number eleven, including four found buried so far, but they stretch back over years. Eve Daish may be number twelve, and that’s on-going. Yet we’ve no proof that she’s been taken by the same killer. Not Lionel, but possibly one of the Howards. Yes, serious indeed. And now Joyce Sullivan?”
“Looks like it?”
“Damnation. But how could the wretched man have bumped into her? Not at the cinema, surely.” Morrison said, “Come with me.” Harry and Sylvia scuttled after as Morrison marched out into the car park at the back of the station and ordered his car. As it was brought around, he wandered off and began to talk fast into his mobile phone.
Harry and Sylvia scrambled into the back of the Range Rover. A middle-aged and straight-backed woman with vibrant short rusty red hair climbed into the front passenger seat. She looked around and grinned. “I’m Rita. I know who you both are. Delighted to meet you. I’m on the case of your great friend Lionel Sullivan.”
“You’re DI Rita Ellis?” Harry asked, and she nodded as Morrison appeared and shoved himself into the drivers’ seat, cursed, and started the engine.
“We have one day,” he called over the sound of the engine, “to solve the lot. Before blethering Crab-apple Cooper goes running to the met to complain about our bungling.”
“A day will do,” Rita said. She turned back to Sylvia and Harry. “Do you mind if I smoke?” They didn’t, and Rita produced a flaring lighter, lighting something that looked and smelled more like an elongated dung beetle than a cigarette. She blew plumes of smoke and leaned back, relaxed. “Turkish and cheap,” she said absently. “But I promise I paid the duty tax.”
The rain angled against the windscreen, but the torrents slid to splatter and from splatter to a drifting and half-hearted mist. The countryside stretched at 240 degrees, rich green pocketed by fronded grasses, then flattening into scrub and bare stone, sandy rock and hard earth too solid for roots. The trees dusted the horizon, half disappearing into the sodden mist. Dead whitening trunks lay bent and broken after the blistering winds of past months, and the distant hills stood dark and indistinct behind the barrier of trees.
It was a huge sky, lowering in shades of grey up to a blackening roof, but with sudden creases of vivid silver.
“Might brighten up this evening or tomorrow,” Harry decided. Then, more relevant, “Where the hell are we going, anyway?”
Morrison swallowed Rita’s puffing smoke and coughed. “Borders of Wales. Or at least, in that direction. I have an idea and want to test it. Combines Sullivan from the word of his last victim who managed to get away, and some of the rumours regarding the Howards. If we find nothing, then dammit, we’ll stop at a pub for lunch. But I have an itch, and I never itch for nothing.”
„I don’t want to give ideas where none are actually true,“ muttered Harry, „but talking of itches, it’s Joyce. Maybe she didn’t go to the cinema. She goes for long walks and doesn’t tell anyone because she knows they’ll tell her off. And perhaps she still has that old tablet thing. After living with him for years, she’s probably not as scared of Sullivan as she should be.“
„After last time when he nearly killed her?“ Rita demanded.
„She’s not the brightest cherry on the tree,“ nodded Sylvia, „or she wouldn’t have married him in the first place.“ She didn’t mention that she had often thought the same of herself.
“Do dyings hurt?” Milton asked.
“Some do. Some don’t,” said Maurice.
“You’s a teacher. Ortta know.”
“I haven’t died yet,” Maurice explained. “Without experience, it’s hard to know many things.”
“Then kill me,” said Milton, “and I can tells ya.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Maurice told him.
Milton sat on Eve’s bed, and Eve was crouching in the corner beside the pissing bucket. “Well, lest you knows,” Milton objected, “it ain’t a nice fing to do. It might be a hurting one. So you can’t kill my lady.”
Maurice laughed. “Look at the girl. She’s bleeding from both nostrils. I can’t be bothered counting the scars. Hundreds, I imagine. She’s virtually bald in patches, with raw red abrasions beneath. One eye is blackened and puffy. Her lips are split and black with bloody spots. Her groin and arse are pitted. What have you done? Shoved your knifepoint over and over into her buttocks?”
�
��Twas a screwdriver.”
“You’ve carved signs and words into her flesh. Not that she has any flesh.” Maurice sniggered. “And you’re worried about hurting her if Mark wants to get rid of her?”
“I just plays games,” Milton said, getting worried. “Number One, he don’t play nice games like me. He wants killings.”
“Yes, yes. He leaves you alone for days, so you get bored and play games.”
Milton nodded, pleased to have got his point across. “Yeh. Just games. And my lady plays wiv me. ‘Tis good fun.”
Eve said nothing and closed her eyes.
“Mark has to kill the girl. She knows too much. He’ll get you another one. Or I will. I won’t leave you all alone, don’t worry. This bitch is well nigh finished anyway. There’s hardly a scrap left of her to piss on.”
“She makes me angry sometimes,” Milton admitted. “But mostly she does good. Number One, he don’t like her. But I likes her. Sometimes she done tells me stories.”
“Bed-time stories?”
“Yeh. ‘Bout wizards and orcs in caves and kids in a place called Lashtang.”
“If you’d ever bothered to learn to read,” Maurice said, “I could bring you the books to read to yourself. I read them to my kids at school. Your new bitch can read them to you perhaps.”
Hiding beneath the alpaca rug, Eve closed her eyes. Dreaming of home, she had made herself sick. She was so hungry, she was dizzy and could think of nothing but her mother and her previous life. Clouds spun up around her head, too high to smell their perfumes, but somehow she knew it was melting cheese, fresh parsley and toast dripping butter. She dreamed she heard the kettle whistle. She dreamed she smelled the scrambled eggs and the crackle of the bacon in the frying pan. She dreamed of Niles banging on her bedroom door to wake her for strawberries and ice-cream. She could see the juice seeping out of the strawberries. She saw a glass of chilled wine waiting beside her plate, and her mother calling her darling and asking her if she wanted a second helping.
Her eyes snapped open. Maurice was saying, “Go and do what you want with the bitch, Milly dear. Have a last game. As soon as Mark comes back, the bitch is going.”
“What’ll he do?”
“Oh, it’s hardly important. Break her neck, I suppose, or slit it. You can watch, or not, whatever you like. He’ll be back soon.”
Milton asked, “Wot’s Number One doing? He’s bin gone long times.”
“He saw something over at the hay shed,’ Maurice said without interest. Probably one of the sheep, but he’s gone to check. It’s slightly up the hill so he can’t drive, but I doubt he’ll be long. He’s armed, just in case.”
The sheep were grazing across the lowlands, heads bent to the ground, ignoring the rain and mist. Mark Howard strode the bracken encrusted stone, shook the half-frozen mud from his boots, and approached the small shed on the higher ground towards the hillocks’ edge where the long pitted lane ran grey and narrow towards Wales in one direction, and Gloucestershire in the other.
A helicopter flew low overhead. Buffeted by wind, it was maintaining its flight but not its height, and soon spun upwards in a drone of failing temper. Once out of sight, Mark strode on. He did not know if the helicopter had been looking for him, but it was a possibility he could not ignore. Only one more day to go, and he’d be heading to Scotland and a private flight to Dubai.
Time enough for a quick examination of the outbuildings, then back to the main house and Milton’s plaything. Definitely the right moment for elimination. It would take half an hour, perhaps, to break the girl’s neck and bury her somewhere amongst the sheep droppings. Then hugs for Milton and a quick embrace for Maurice. Orders concerning Milton and Kate. Then off, and back home out of harm’s way.
Dubai was a scorching swelter of flaming heat, interspersed with shivering nights in the desert, so the bitter wind and the chill of the rain did not bother him. His home was an air-conditioned and central heated haven of utter luxury, women when he wished, and audiences with every man of business and glamour. A switch into the challenges of English was always an initial pleasure, but a boring problem after a few weeks. He’d be glad to leave. But he’d miss Milton and Maurice.
The small shed showed no signs of the habitation he’d suspected. The little door hung crooked, as though the wind, or someone’s fist, had caught it. The wooden slats were mossy and the rain had swamped the little two-step lane leading from it to the direction of the house. Mark stopped, squinting through rain and wind. There was no sound and no movement. He had, now he was sure, been mistaken by the passing stranger. Just someone rounding up their sheep, or a drifter looking for a night’s sleep sheltered by straw and roof. He stood a moment before turning. But as quickly as he turned, he turned back.
Something dark had moved behind the little building. A tree grew there, a sycamore or something like it, large but still bare-branched. It stood tall a little way behind, partly shaded in the crook of the low hills.
But from one of the thicker branches something was swinging in the wind, a shape that Mark did not immediately recognise, but too large for a bird or a forgotten parcel of someone’s washing.
And then abruptly Mark recognised what it was.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Both Harry and Sylvia stared out of their windows, either side, hoping for some miraculous discovery. In the front of the car, Morrison and Rita Ellis were speaking quietly together. Driving too fast for the narrow winding lanes, and the cold, wet weather, the car swerved as it sped, but met almost no oncoming traffic. A tractor moved aside and almost into the ditch as Morrison sped on, passing what little farm machinery chugged their daily routines.
Neither Sylvia nor Harry had much idea where they were, nor where they were going, but they accepted Morrison’s unquestioning determination.
Rita looked over her shoulder. “Do you know this area?”
Harry shook his head. “No. Wales?”
“The Welsh Marches,” Morrison said.
“Marshes?” Harry had never heard of any in the area, but Sylvia interrupted.
“No, marching – Marches. The old name for the borderlands. A little this side, a little that side.”
“And now we slip over into South Wales,” Rita said. “It was a young woman a few days back who reported being enticed by a man who resembled Sullivan. She described the area, although she couldn’t put a name to it. A large house stood deep in the little valley, with a shed halfway up the slope. A few trees behind the shed and around the house, but mostly the hillside was barren with both house and shed unseen from the road. A vague description but we traced it down, and that’s where we are, more or less. Another DCI, who shall remain nameless, doesn’t share our conviction that this is a place to search. He’s taken a huge team into Wiltshire.”
“The old house was bought up years ago by a company named Brothers Inc., and then got sold on to Sanderson and co. Neither company is registered in any place, and no business activity can be traced.” Morrison stared ahead, not looking over his shoulder, but Rita’s attention was fixed on the rolling hills to her left. “There was no clear indication whether that young woman was about to be attacked or not,” Morrison continued, “but she described a man who greatly resembled Lionel Sullivan. We believe this is where the meeting took place.”
Harry, sitting behind the driving seat, stared unblinking to his right. Sylvia’s contact lenses were making her eyes water.
Then Rita shouted. “Stop. Look over there. No, down, you can only just see something. To your left. I need to get out for a better look,” and she scrambled from the car, hurrying over the little ditch to the long uneven ridge of the crest. She looked down.
Standing very still at the open shed door, Mark Howard raised his gun. Nothing gruesome had ever worried him, but he was accustomed to unpleasant results coming from his own work, or from an enemy attempting to frighten – or to warn him. He was never frightened but accepted warnings by increasing his own armed and well prepared forc
es. This seemed like neither warning nor personal attack, and he had no idea who the woman was.
The body hung upside down from the huge branch of the sycamore tree, her arms and limp fingers trailing just above the churned mud below. Not young, not glamorous, her face was not improved by make-up, and she looked perhaps middle-aged, although the strain on her facial muscles disguised her expression. Her mouth hung open, her hair, mousey and permed, floated down in the wind.
She wore a cream woollen jumper, splashed with blood spatter, and it had flopped to beneath her chin, showing the well fastened bra beneath. But from the waist down she was naked, and the one leg not roped to the branch above, dangled, knee bent outwards, exposing her and causing the body to swing over in the icy winds.
Mark stood staring for longer than he would normally have risked at something so unexpected and with such confused surprise. The sweeping tangle of sleeves and shirt beneath had at first disguised the object, but now he recognised that someone in this placid country area apart from himself was committing ruthless and cruel murder. The crash from behind was the surprise that awoke him into action.
A heavy but inaccurate blow, the spade slammed over the side of his head and right ear, ripping a shallow cut into his cheekbone. Mark whirled around, his Springfield XDM aimed, trigger pulled back, and immediately released. The bullet exploded but shot over his attacker’s head. The large man had automatically ducked. Now he grabbed Mark’s wrist, twisted it against the bone, and broke it. He dropped the gun. Without the slightest reaction to his broken wrist, Mark whirled, brought his knee up hard between the back of his assailant’s legs, and moved back as he groaned, cursed, and turned.
Through the fine silver drizzle, Mark Howard and Lionel Sullivan faced each other. Lionel was panting. Mark appeared entirely unperturbed, but his glance took in carefully the position of his gun lying close to the shed door. Lionel, spluttering said, “You met my wife?” nodding to the dead body swinging above.
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