Four Below

by Peter Helton

  ‘Half a million bloody vans.’

  Keeping the A4 closed, even at this time of night, was giving traffic division a headache, but McLusky didn’t care. It’ll take as long as it takes, he had told them helpfully. He spent nearly an hour waiting in his car, sheltering from the icy wind that blew out of the Avon Gorge, snatching and whistling around the flyover. Eventually Austin joined him, having organized a fingertip search of the road. He instantly regretted having got into the inspector’s Mazda. It was barely warmer than outside, and thick with cigarette smoke. A large car arrived behind them, flashing its headlights. ‘Is that Coulthart’s Jag coming up?’

  McLusky grabbed his stick and got out. ‘He took his time changing out of his jim-jams.’

  Coulthart did not have the air of someone who had recently struggled out of his pyjamas; as he suited up beside his night-blue Jaguar, he looked exactly like someone who could hardly wait to look at another corpse in the snow. ‘The other side of the river this time,’ was how he greeted McLusky, who had put on protective gear himself.

  ‘Yes, the windy side. Have a look at him, tell me if he’s one of mine.’

  ‘A wheelchair user,’ Coulthart remarked during his examination. ‘It’s a cruel world.’

  ‘An impatient one, too. He was pushed from a moving vehicle.’

  ‘At what time was that?’

  McLusky checked his watch. ‘Four hours ago exactly. And you took your time getting here, if you don’t mind me saying, Doctor.’

  ‘I do mind you saying, Inspector. I did not take my time. When the call eventually found me, I was asleep in my room at the Royal Crescent Hotel in Bath and I did not delay coming here. As I was travelling without the benefit of blue flashing lights, I’d like to think I made good time. Now, this chap here could well be one of yours. Hard to tell at first glance which injuries were inflicted before and which during the accident, but I’d say he’d got the same treatment as all the others before they pushed him out.’

  ‘It was no bloody accident.’

  ‘Incident, I should have said. But it’s certainly also different from the others.’

  ‘Yes, there’s all that blood, for a start.’ The dirty roadside snow had soaked up a great amount of it, pink in the arc light, reminding McLusky of an ice lolly dropped into the gutter.

  ‘Precisely. And what does that tell us, Inspector?’

  ‘Bugger me. He was alive when they pushed him out?’

  ‘Quite possibly. They may not have known he was still alive. Or he may have been killed in the vehicle and pushed out immediately afterwards. But this amount of bleeding suggests to me that he was alive when he hit the tarmac and that he died right here in the snow. What conclusions might be drawn from that, I gladly leave for you to ponder, Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you so much, Doctor. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that our killer is in a bloody hurry. And my guess is: he’s hurrying towards his next victim.’

  Fairfield couldn’t tell what had woken her. It was still dark, but the shaded lamp on the far side of the bed was on, bathing the room in a soft, warm glow. She didn’t dare move for fear of waking Louise, who was lying with her face buried into Fairfield’s side, as if she had fallen asleep in the middle of the last kiss. She needed this quiet moment, savoured it; the replay of their lovemaking in her mind and the realization that something had at last happened to her life. Things were definitely not the same this morning. Whatever happened next, and whether it continued with or without Louise in it, her life would change. How and in what way was uncertain, and perhaps that was part of the excitement she felt. Just for now she was happy to lie here, hold Louise close and breathe in the unfamiliar: their combined body odours, the smell of Louise’s shampoo, the perfume of the bed linen, the faint smell of coffee, a hint of cigar smoke.

  By the time Fairfield realized that the smell of coffee was not an echo from last night, it was too late; the time between the sound of clinking crockery and the door opening was too short to even consider a bedroom-farce dash to the wardrobe. McLusky had carefully elbowed open the door, carrying a heavily laden breakfast tray. All she could do was shake Louise awake and hold her breath. Louise frowned, squinted at McLusky as though she needed glasses, and sat up. ‘Ah. Bum. Is it that time already?’

  Fairfield had grabbed all the available duvet to cover herself up, and from its dubious protection she looked from Louise, who was leaning back into the pillows with a look of resignation, to McLusky. He stood at the foot of the bed, holding the tray very still. He was frowning down at it; then, after a moment, he set it on the bed beside Louise. ‘Morning, Dr Rennie, morning, Inspector.’

  Fairfield’s mood changed from embarrassment to suspicion and anger. ‘You two set this up. You set me up, didn’t you? Is this the kind of games you like playing?’

  McLusky shook his head. This was not what he had been looking forward to after a night spent under a flyover, and suddenly he felt deadly tired. ‘No, no. If I had known, I’d have laid the tray for three. As it is, I think two cups is just right.’ He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Oh hell.’ Louise swung out of bed, but Fairfield lunged at her, grabbing her arm.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you? He didn’t know I’d be here, but you knew he was coming all the time.’

  ‘Katarina, I didn’t plan this.’

  ‘You let it happen, though. You knew it might happen and you let it.’

  They both heard the front door of the flat being closed noisily, and both breathed deeply with relief. ‘Well …’ Louise shrugged and let her head sink back, smiling cautiously over her shoulder, but Fairfield didn’t return the smile.

  ‘I have to work with him, Lou. I’ll be seeing him at work every day!’

  Louise held her angry gaze for a while, still smiling. ‘You know that tiny tattoo of mine you liked?’

  ‘Yes, what about it?’

  ‘Liam never even found it.’

  ‘Ha!’ Fairfield threw her head back, eyes closed. Slowly a happy smile spread across her face and her shoulders relaxed.

  Louise reclaimed her side of the duvet, then slid the tray up between them and poured coffee. ‘Go on, eat your croissants before they get cold.’ She decapitated one of the boiled eggs and folded back the top to reveal a creamy yolk. ‘Oh good, he’s got the eggs just right.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  McLusky felt too tired to slam another door. He’d slammed the door of Louise’s flat, slammed the door to her house, slammed the car door coming and going. He let himself quietly into his own flat, pushed the door shut behind him and leant against it. It was bloody cold in here. Something had to be done about it before he caught pneumonia in his own bed.

  In the kitchen he lit the oven and the three gas rings, put the kettle on the hob and washed a mug from the collection sitting in the sink. Even before he lifted the lid on the jar, he remembered he’d used the last coffee beans days ago. Instant, then. He thought there might be a jar of it, or at least some tea bags, somewhere in his 1950s kitchen cupboard. Halfway through the tea-bag hunt his mobile chimed in his pocket. It wasn’t Louise. He didn’t recognize the number, so he answered it. ‘Yup.’

  ‘Is that Inspector McLusky?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘It’s Ben here.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Benjamin Fishlock.’

  ‘Ah, the woodsman. How did you get my mobile number?’

  ‘You gave it to me. It’s on your card.’

  ‘So it is.’ One-handed, McLusky continued his forensic examination of the mess in his cupboard, making an even greater mess of the confusion of tubs and packets.

  Fishlock sounded doubtful. ‘Perhaps this is a bad time; I can hear you’re busy with something.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m looking for a jar of instant coffee, I’m ashamed to say. You decided you’d tell me after all, then?’

  ‘Tell you what, Inspector?’

  ‘Whatever it was you
failed to tell me when I saw you.’

  ‘I didn’t know then what I know now.’

  ‘I know that feeling well.’ He slammed both cupboard doors shut, making the glass rattle in the frames. ‘Are you in your wood? You got any coffee there, Fishlock?’

  ‘I am, and I have.’

  McLusky was already on his way to the door. ‘Okay, Fish, put the kettle on.’

  The wind had changed direction; milder air was travelling up from Spain, and a thaw was promised. On the radio, the talk was no longer of ice but of flooding. Out here the air might be milder, but the ground remained frozen, though the lane up to Fishlock’s wood showed the tracks of various vehicles. McLusky decided to try it and found that the tyres were coping well.

  Fishlock’s careworn Volvo estate, which he had first seen at Gooseford Farm, was parked next to the little tractor. McLusky put the MiTo behind it and got out. All around him the trees dripped with the thaw, while from time to time whole branchloads of snow sagged wetly to the forest floor. Yet there was enough snow left on the ground to distinguish tyre tracks, and the knobbly grooves left by a trail bike were clearly visible in front of the mobile home. Fishlock watched him from the open door. ‘Good morning, Inspector.’

  ‘Not so far, no.’ The aroma of coffee roasting was as strong as on his last visit. McLusky sat himself down in the tiny kitchen and slapped his leather gloves on to the tabletop. ‘Now if whatever you have to tell me means that I’ll have to arrest you, at least let me drink some coffee first.’

  ‘I hear the food at police stations is lousy. I was going to have some breakfast; care to join me?’

  McLusky was halfway through his plate of fried eggs, mushrooms and smoked bacon before he spoke again. ‘You should open a caff in here. Excellent breakfast, and the best coffee I’ve had since probably ever.’

  ‘Bit out of the way; who’d come all the way out here for a fry-up?’

  ‘I would. Okay, I’m nearly human now, so if you have stuff to tell me – now is the moment.’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ Fishlock said, putting down his fork and leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Start with the motorbike. Yours?’

  ‘Friend of mine.’

  ‘The one who came past the crashed BMW?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And found what exactly?’

  Fishlock became defensive. ‘He didn’t tell me at first. Well, he did, but he said it was just a bag of puff. I don’t smoke so I didn’t really care. He does but he said it was a lot and he was going to flog most of it. He’s lost his job, needs the money, all that …’

  ‘You didn’t know about the heroin.’

  ‘No. Honestly. I didn’t know there was heroin involved. A lot of it, apparently. Ian’s an old school friend. He didn’t do very well, he had a crap job working for the council and now he’s been laid off. He always wanted to do something like I have, even asked me if he could come in with me, but, I mean, look around. It just about keeps me alive. So he thought this was his chance: the guy is dead, take the stuff and flog it. If it was just weed I’d have kept quiet about it, but not hard drugs. And of course he has no idea about heroin dealing and I think he got himself into trouble. Said he needs to lie low for a bit. He came to see me yesterday and came clean. He wanted to hide here but I said no. I feel like a crap friend; first I turn him away, then I set the police on him, but I think it’s best for him. I think he’s scared. Got himself involved with some weird people and got ripped off too, by the sounds of it.’

  ‘My heart bleeds. Did he take the gun as well?’

  ‘No, he left the shotgun.’

  ‘Shotgun?’ The fork with the last speared mushroom hovered halfway to his mouth for a moment, then McLusky closed his lips around it. ‘No handgun? Not a Beretta?’

  Fishlock shook his head. ‘He never mentioned it. He said there was a shotgun inside the car, sawn-off, but he left it.’

  McLusky took out his mobile. ‘Okay, you did well. What’s his full name?’

  ‘Ian Geary.’

  ‘Address?’ He called Albany Road and left a long message to be passed on to Fairfield. Immediately. The memory of seeing her in bed with Louise intruded and made him stumble for a moment, but he swallowed it down. He listened to the DC reading some of the message back, then added: ‘I got an anonymous tip-off.’ He folded his mobile, pushed his empty cup towards Fishlock and nodded at the enamelled coffee pot on the stove. ‘If there’s any left.’

  At Gooseford Farm, McLusky left his car on the track, where it would cause the most obstruction. The Land Rover was in the yard, the tractor in the shed, and he could see the quad bike in the lee of the house. He should, of course, have gone by the book and brought some backup, since there was a firearm involved, but Farmer Murry would have had ample time to get rid of the gun if he felt like being difficult. McLusky didn’t expect violence, and when the front door opened and Murry stepped out, he knew from his expression that he wasn’t going to get any.

  ‘Morning, Mr Murry. I’ve come for the gun.’

  Murry just nodded, stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged deeper into his jacket before leading the way across the yard. Inside a large storage shed full of plastic drums and sacks, he reached behind a stack of wooden fence panels leaning against the back wall and produced a three-foot-long bundle. He unrolled the dirty piece of cloth and let it drop to the ground. ‘Look what they’ve done to it.’

  Even with twelve inches missing from the barrel, and despite McLusky’s loathing of all gun fetish, he could see why Murry had taken the thing. The over/under shotgun was the closest a weapon could come to a work of art. Its stock was polished walnut, the side plates delicately engraved, depicting hills and game birds, surrounded by intricate scrollwork. The birds were gold-plated, the trigger looked to be solid gold. ‘Thank you, Mr Murry.’ The farmer placed it into his outstretched hand. ‘It’s valuable, is it?’ McLusky asked.

  ‘Even needing the barrels replacing – about five grand. It’s Italian.’ He looked straight at the inspector, as though weighing him up. ‘It’s not as though he needed it any more. And it looked as though he was up to no good with it.’

  McLusky broke open the gun. It was loaded. He checked the safety was on and began to walk away. ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Murry.’

  Murry came after him but stopped at the door of the shed. ‘I know it was wrong, but … it was just so … Will I be charged, do you think?’ he called.

  ‘Almost certainly. I’m sure I’ll think of something.’ Theft, obstruction, wasting police time, greed and stupidity for starters. And selling red diesel to his neighbours. More than likely it was a puddle of Murry’s diesel that had caused the crash in the first place.

  McLusky stuck the gun under the driver’s seat, then turned the car around in the yard. The temperature in the MiTo was still quite acceptable. All the other places he inhabited seemed to be cursed with heating problems: the Mazda, home … Heating. A crystal-clear image appeared in his mind: his kitchen stove and three gas rings burning on full, with the kettle left sitting on top. He put his foot down and skidded away, wheels spinning in the snow, towards town.

  ‘Not our usual hour this, middle of the afternoon, not a good time at all,’ said the team leader. The drug-squad team had arrived at their assembly point near the Bishopston address, not far off the Gloucester Road. Fairfield and the team leader were exchanging last-minute notes, standing in the snow behind one of the two vans. There weren’t many notes to exchange; it was a rush job.

  The leader of the heavily armed squad looked as unhappy as he sounded. Fairfield knew the responsibility for the arrest was his alone and he could still refuse to go ahead. ‘I knew you wouldn’t be happy, but we can’t wait until the early hours so you can ruin his beauty sleep. Forensics have finally decided that the heroin in the crashed BMW is the source of the pure heroin that’s been causing people to overdose, and the twit who’s flogging the stuff lives at this address. The target’s name is Ian Geary.’
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  ‘But nothing definite on the gun.’

  ‘No. The crashed dealer had a shotgun in the car. That’s accounted for, but we found a magazine for a Beretta, and that gun is missing.’

  ‘I want my misgivings noted.’

  ‘I share your misgivings, but we can’t allow the bastard to go out on the street tonight and sell more of the stuff. He also told a friend he was going to lie low, so he might change addresses.’

  ‘Right. In we go, then. Same routine as ever: you and your DS stay close behind and take instructions from me. Any gunfire – you don’t wait to be told, just get to cover. And please remember that a car doesn’t constitute cover. I had to point this out to one of your CID friends before: cars are made of tin foil, bullets go right through them, okay? Think brick wall, not garden fence.’

  Yeah, yeah. Fairfield hooked her thumbs into her bulletproof vest and nodded sincerely, and sincerely wished they’d get on with it. When the call that ruined her Sunday afternoon came, she had been a couple of worlds away from this dump, and from testosterone-flooded blokes toting MP5s and Glock 17s. The team leader thumped on the back of the van and Fairfield nodded to Sorbie, who had stayed in his car. Sorbie looked bored, but Fairfield knew that was for the benefit of the drug squad. The target lived at the third house on the left side of the street.

  They charged around the corner in single file, holding on to each other, the man with the heavy ram near the front. The wooden front door offered little resistance and caved in after two hits, and the man with the ram was nearly trampled by his colleagues rushing inside. ‘Armed police! Listen to my voice!’ bellowed the leader while thundering up the stairs, as other officers shouted, ‘Clear! Clear!’ from the downstairs rooms. ‘Show yourself! Keep your hands where we can see them! Armed police!’

  Fairfield was third behind the leader as they reached the upper floor of the little house. MP5 levelled, the second man booted open a bedroom door. ‘Police … ah, shit.’ He turned around and poked his gun around a couple more door jambs, but the search was over. There was no one else, and they’d found Ian Geary.