by Jean Chapman
‘That’s how you look,’ Cannon agreed.
‘Thanks,’ Paul muttered, ‘that helps.’
Cannon grinned at him and offered tea, but Paul wanted only water and sleep.
This sleep was more natural, and there was some colour in Paul’s cheeks. Cannon foraged in the freezer again for something to make a meal for the both of them before they drove out of London, eating a second cold bacon crisp sandwich as he did so. Then he sank into an armchair exhausted, set the alarm on his phone to wake him in two hours.
It was seven when Paul joined him in the kitchen for soup, sweet and sour chicken and rice. ‘Austin had hung my clothes on a hanger,’ he said.
‘That’s like him,’ Cannon said.
‘He’s not come back from this meeting you said he had,’ Paul commented.
‘He was going first to the flat where Spracks thinks he lives, then to the meeting, and from there he didn’t know.’
‘I heard America mentioned in the stables,’ Paul said, ‘and several of the men were black Americans.’
‘Spracks’s criminal interests are global according to Austin, but America?’ Cannon shrugged, then added, ‘I know a lot of the drugs they use on horses come from South America, often brought up through the circuits in the south, world class races like the Kentucky Derby are being targeted.’
‘Austin’s in very deep,’ Paul said solemnly.
‘Yes, and we must do exactly what he asked,’ Cannon said, ‘get the hell out of here without anyone seeing you.’
He had watched the traffic in the streets, waiting until they were no longer jammed with home-going traffic. Then he left the flat and reconnoitred as far as the lift and back. All was quiet, now was the time. He went quickly back for Paul, rehearsing a polite nod if the lady resident turned up, and complete indifference if anyone else was about. He wondered fleetingly where Evans was.
He glanced anxiously at Paul as he leaned back in the lift. The effort of moving around had taken his colour again, but they reached the car deck with no problem.
‘Liz’s car,’ Paul commented.
‘Faster,’ Cannon said.
‘And you want me…?’
‘Under wraps.’ He lifted a plaid blanket, and while he kept lookout, Paul threaded himself into the well behind the front seats, Cannon covered him with the blanket and they were away – but they did not go far.
Using Austin’s fob, they were quickly through the barrier and on the upward slope to the street, but as Cannon drove around the last curve, a man lounging against a wall, smoking, straightened up and went to stand in the middle of the ramp, feet astride, slightly like the traffic copper Evans had been at one time. Cannon stopped, allowed the car to roll back a fraction so he could only just see the DC.
Several long tense minutes passed, Evans still smoking as if quite unconcerned, looked casually left, right, and again, then Cannon saw Evans’s hand holding the glowing cigarette fall to his side and he gave a most urgent unpoliceman-like gesture of his fingers for Cannon to get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 7
Once out of the side street, London was still busy – foreign tourists, sightseers, every crossing crowded.
Cannon tried to relax, be patient with pedestrians, one or two raised their hands to him as he waited; he waved back, smiled.
Once out of the worst of the evening crowds, he was able to pick up speed – a little – though where they were going, except in the general direction of home, he still had to figure out. One thing was certain, he could not take Paul home, or to The Trap.
Paul’s sketching folio had been well scrutinized by Spracks’s men, and this contained not just the detailed sketch of Morbury Hall, but a supply of name cards, giving everything they needed to know about their intruder: Paul Jefferson. Beach Cottage, Middle Sands, Reed St Clements, Lincs., followed by phone numbers and website, and the information that Paul was a watercolour artist and tutor. The folio had also contained the draft of the leaflet prepared for the classes at The Trap complete with Cannon and Liz’s names, and phone numbers – invitations for both places to be watched.
The secret of Spracks’s success, Austin had emphasized, was that he kept an eye on everything personally, ‘double-checks everything three times, and has an information network to rival MI5’ had been his exact words.
So Cannon was not going to risk using his own mobile. Once he was clear of London, sure he was not being tailed, and found a suitable motorway service station, he would use a public phone.
Some half an hour later, he took the slip road to a rest area. He drove in past the main restaurants and shops to the deserted far side of the car park, where a solitary man was just finishing exercising his dog. Cannon waited until the man was out of sight then went to open the far car door, lifted the blankets and helped Paul up from his hiding place, steadying him as he staggered to his feet.
‘Where are we?’ he asked, hanging on the door.
‘Heading towards Cambridge,’ Cannon said.
‘Home!’ Paul yearned comically, like an alien longing for another planet.
‘Well, that way, but first I’m going to ring Liz from a public phone here. She’ll contact Helen, then at least she’ll know you’re in the land of the living.’
‘Just,’ Paul said, stretching cautiously.
‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ he told Paul, ‘walk about a bit, but stay near the car. Want a drink?’
‘Mouth feels like a drain,’ Paul replied.
The only public phone booth Cannon could find was busy. Cannon bought several bottles of carbonated water and a packet of arrowroot biscuits. He went back to the booth and waited as the young woman inside made a second call. He stood in her line of sight and tossed the biscuits around in one hand, remembering his grandfather saying these were good for stomachs that were ‘a bit off’ – he’d been eight at the time and had measles. Cannon had bought them ever since when anyone was ‘a bit off.’
Then he realized the woman was making room for him, holding the door.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘my phone’s down and my mother’s been taken into hospital.’
‘Ah! I hope she’ll be alright,’ he said, regretting his display of impatience, and recalling another of his grandfather’s edicts – when you stopped criticizing, you might start understanding.
There was no delay in Liz answering his call, she picked up so quickly she must have been standing over the phone.
‘The Trap. Liz Makepeace speaking,’ she said.
He heard her swift intake of breath as he said her name.
‘How can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Someone in the bar you’re not sure about?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is correct. So where did you see the details of our painting courses?’
It was his turn to draw in his breath. She was covertly asking about Paul.
‘The tutor’s OK’ he said, ‘and many people have seen the details of the courses.’
‘I understand,’ she said.
‘But you can’t talk?’
‘No, but that’s fine, please ring again when you do know your dates,’ she said.
‘Hope to see you later tonight,’ he murmured, ‘but might be much later.’
‘Mind how you go, sir,’ she said.
She’s bloody clever, Cannon thought as he ran back to the car.
‘The pub’s being watched,’ he told Paul what had been said.
‘So I can’t go home, and you can’t take me in,’ Paul said.
‘No,’ Cannon said ‘but I know a man who can.’
Paul was in the passenger seat and he took a long drink of water before he said, ‘You mean Hoskins, don’t you? But is that fair … I mean … he’s an old man.’
‘He did get us into this in the first place, with his idea of sponsorship,’ Cannon said. ‘I’m sure he’ll know somewhere. The thing is, he’s such a crafty old bugger at moving about unseen. He’s startled me a time or two out in t
he woods. Wherever we put you, someone’s got to be able to bring you supplies, messages, on a regular basis. You realize this could go on for some time.’
‘Austin saved my life,’ Paul said simply, ‘it seems a small price to pay. But why should Hoskins take this on?’
‘Because his friends, the Grangers, are involved. Tilly Anders was a great favourite of his, and …’ Cannon paused. ‘Perhaps most of all because he’s a Christian in the old fashioned sense of the word.’
‘Poacher turned gamekeeper,’ Paul murmured, making himself more comfortable in the passenger seat, and closing his eyes. The potency of the drugs he’d been given lingered on.
Cannon made as much speed as he could, even so the church clocks of King’s Lynn were striking midnight as he drove though the deserted streets.
He neared Reed St Clements in the early hours and ached to drive straight to The Trap, but instead turned down the narrow lanes Hoskins cycled most days. He was startled by two large, white, ghostlike barn owls flying low and straight across his path, hunting in the April dawn. Even as he watched, one swooped and rose with a mouse in its claws. Cannon grimaced, hoping it wasn’t an omen.
Paul stirred as they pulled up outside the old cottage with its beautifully tended garden.
‘Stay here,’ he said, thinking it possible Hoskins could be out and about doing a bit of hunting for himself.
He walked up the short front path where a dance of daffodils still brightened the way and the buds of the yellow rambler rose, on the trellis around the front door, glowed a welcome.
His third knock brought two reactions, Paul joined him and the window above the porch opened and Hoskins demanded who was there.
‘Cannon, with Paul,’ Cannon answered.
There was a moment’s silence, then the gruff voice said, ‘Hold on.’
He was unbolting his door in three or four minutes, having pulled on trousers over the check shirt he undoubtedly slept in, and pushed his feet into a pair of frayed slippers.
‘You both all right?’ he asked as he led the way back inside. ‘Tea, or something stronger?’ He reached up for a half bottle of brandy from his kitchen cupboard.
‘No alcohol, I think,’ Cannon said, ‘Paul’s body’s got enough to deal with.’
The tea was made and drunk as Hoskins listened more and more intently, as first Cannon explained, and then Paul related all he remembered of the stables at Morbury Hall.
‘Anything else?’ Cannon asked. ‘Anything at all?’
‘They talked about dealing with some local farriers,’ Paul said with a shrug.
‘Dealing with?’ Hoskins questioned sharply.
‘Using them to shoe horses, I supposed,’ Paul said.
‘Joe and Charlie Brown,’ Hoskins emphasized to Cannon.
‘I’ll alert Betterson now. Use your phone?’ he asked, then nodding towards Paul, added, ‘I thought you might know of a hide, somewhere nearby.’
‘The best hide is here,’ Hoskins stated.
‘I’ll do whatever and be wherever’s necessary,’ Paul said, ‘but we can’t expect you—’
‘And I’ll do whatever’s needed to make sure Tilly Anders didn’t die for nothing,’ Hoskins interrupted. ‘You’ll stay here. It’s April, man, not a good time to be going backwards and forwards to some hideyhole. There’s always someone about these bright nights, and in the mornings the dew makes you leave tracks as clear as new white lines up the middle of a road. No,’ he said, ‘you stay here.’
Going through to the hall where the old-fashioned wired-in phone was perched on an even older wooden wall bracket carved like a stag’s head, Cannon rang the DI’s number again.
‘Betterson.’ The DI answered so quickly he startled Cannon.
‘Cannon …’ he began.
‘I’ve only just walked in and picked up your message. So has something else happened?’
He told the DI as briefly as possible.
‘Morbury Hall,’ Betterson repeated the name. ‘I’ve just returned from a briefing on all this. So where are you at this precise moment?’
‘Leaving Paul at Hoskins’s cottage and then going straight home. Liz will be … and then there’s Helen and the child …’
‘I’m on to it.’ Betterson’s tone was clipped and urgent. ‘I’ll meet you at The Trap in twenty minutes.’
‘I shall come to the pub as usual tonight if Paul settles,’ Hoskins said as Cannon left Paul with him. ‘Best to keep things looking as normal as possible.’
‘Right,’ Cannon agreed.
Less than twenty minutes later, he was drawing up alongside the DI’s car in The Trap carpark, and was being beckoned to join Betterson in his car.
‘John,’ he said in the manner of a headteacher addressing a pupil. ‘I’ve just come back from London …’ He paused. ‘And …’ he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, ‘I know where you’ve been, what you’ve done.’
‘Men on the ground …’ Cannon said, thinking of Evans.
‘Yes,’ Betterson confirmed, ‘all putting their lives on the line.’
‘And Austin?’ he queried.
‘As we speak,’ Betterson glanced at his watch, ‘Austin is aboard a plane headed for the USA, with his “employer.”’
‘Spracks!’ Cannon made the word sound like an expletive. ‘He must have taken Austin straight from their meeting to the airport.’
‘It was a private flight,’ Betterson said.
‘So he had it all planned, but I’m sure Austin didn’t realize – well, not that it would be so soon,’ Cannon said. ‘So are we, you, the Met, falling behind?’
‘If we had the same financial resources as Spracks we’d be way ahead,’ Betterson said bitterly, ‘but the FBI are on the job. Spracks will be tailed from JFK airport …’ He broke off and nodded towards The Trap. ‘And here’s someone on your case.’
Cannon looked up to see Liz coming from the back door, sleek in black tracksuit and trainers, but before she reached the car, the gentle summer dawn exploded into violence.
CHAPTER 8
Cannon was out of the car and had Liz clasped tight in his arms when the second explosion came.
Over the top of her head, he looked over towards where he knew a small row of cottages nestled between sand dunes and beach, and at the end, the larger property with its substantial outbuildings stood alone. Liz pulled away to stare at the flames surging in great crimson tongues against the pale sky.
‘What the hell is that?’ Betterson asked as he joined them.
‘That, I imagine, is the farriers being dealt with,’ Cannon said grimly. ‘Come on …’
He went on from the car park over into the fields at the back. It was the direction he often took on his early morning runs and he was soon way ahead of the other two.
He sprinted across the last field. The noise of cracking and splintering wood, and shattering glass, signalled a rapidly spreading blaze. He swung himself over a gate into the end of Sea Lane and flames were all he saw for a moment …
Then two lights detached themselves from the general inferno, and he realized a vehicle was speeding towards him. For a second, he felt like the proverbial rabbit-in-the-headlights, then he threw himself to one side, the van skidded to the other, then carried on at speed. Even as he slipped and fell on the narrow grass verge, he registered the names on its side – the same farrier’s van he had seen at Morbury Hall.
He had barely regained his feet before the van stopped 300 metres or so further along the lane and he heard someone running back towards him.
‘You all right, mate?’ a voice called, then, ‘Oh! Mr Cannon! Gas cylinders in the van – had to get them clear.’
‘Is everyone out?’ Cannon asked Charlie above the noise as they ran back towards the fire.
‘Yes, Dad’s out, told him to get well away on the far side.’
‘This is near enough,’ Cannon said as the heat made it necessary to shield their faces with their arms.
‘So it wasn’t ju
st a threat,’ Charlie shouted. ‘We’ve just moved here. New start after losing my mum. Now we’ve lost our home. I’ve lost Tilly. Is there never justice!’
Oh, there will be, Cannon silently promised.
‘First thing is, let’s find your father,’ he said, turning to check where Liz was. She and Betterson were not far behind, and as they came into view, he saw Betterson catch Liz’s arm, stopping her coming closer, and he was already on his phone; emergency services were being alerted.
Cannon and Charlie went on, crouching low under the hedge on the opposite side of the lane. They were practically midway when there was a rumbling, significant, shift of stonework somewhere in the blazing cottage.
‘Down!’ Cannon yelled. They both hit the ground. The rumble became a full-blown roar as roof timbers gave way and a good half of the building imploded. All around them, and above on the hedge, blazing fragments hung, dropped, and were being extinguished in one of those heavy dews Hoskins had talked about. He scrabbled forward to where the other man lay.
‘You OK?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, but my dad …’ He was up on his feet and running again, calling for his dad. He was soon well past the building and still shouting.
Cannon shielded his eyes and moved nearer to the shell of the cottage, trying to see any movement. He was wondering if Joe Brown had gone back in to try to save something he valued. He had known people perish in buildings, in cars and planes, trying to save possessions. He scanned all around, but could see nothing, and moved further away as Liz, Betterson, and now several people from the cottages further along the lane, began to appear, curiosity overcoming caution.
‘Keep well back,’ Betterson cried, ‘help is on its way.’ To Cannon he added, ‘Not that there’s going to be much of the cottage left for them to save.’
Then everyone stepped and stumbled back onto the rough grass verge as the siren of a fire engine screamed out, very close, ear-piercing, and in seconds the vehicle swept into view.
‘Is everyone accounted for?’ the fire chief called as his men rolled out hoses, their drill, swift, practised.
