Death Warmed Up
Page 21
Luis Romero was standing looking out of the window.
I’d just asked him a question.
‘So tell me, Luis,’ I’d said, ‘where are we up to? Who’s living, who’s dead, who’s under arrest, who’s going to get off scot free?’
Eleanor provided one answer.
‘Reg confessed. The idea for it all came from that Charlie Wise, but Reg murdered that bloke at the airport, took the diamonds, and tonight he sold them.’ He smile was ice. ‘For a basket of plain paper – typical of him, and serve him bloody well right.’
Romero was coming away from the window, highlights glinting in his polished black shoes.
‘He was … shamefaced,’ he said. ‘Freely admitted his crime, though stressing that he hadn’t intended to kill the man. He spent most of the time looking at your mother.’
‘Because I knew he was up to something, didn’t I? That woman attacked me, pushed me down those steps, and that was it for Reg: I knew the little bugger’d go after them like a terrier. He had a double incentive, because he was already being harassed by Rickman – but I knew he’d done something really awful when that silver-topped cane turned up broken.’
‘He told you he’d done it swiping at some weeds,’ I said.
‘Reg,’ Eleanor said sweetly, ‘wouldn’t know a weed from soddin’ watercress.’
‘No, but he was devious enough to pass my mobile number to Charlie. And he must have been the anonymous caller, giving Charlie’s Liverpool hidey-hole away to Rickman, and I can’t understand why he’d do that. There was always the risk that Charlie, under duress, would give Reg up to save his own miserable life.’
‘But all Reg could see, perhaps hope for,’ Romero said, ‘was Charlie dying, leaving Reg to search for a buyer but pocket all the proceeds.’
‘Mm. Greed again.’
Romero smiled. ‘As for the others, the man we know as Clontarf will be held on suspicion,’ he said, and to my faint surprise the detective sat on the arm of Eleanor’s chair and rested his hand on her shoulder. Faint surprise turned to genuine amazement when my mother winked at me.
‘Suspicion of murdering Prudence Wise?’
Romero nodded. ‘Pending forensic details from the UK – DNA and so on. The other man, Ebenholz, was dead when he was pulled from the swimming pool behind a house on South Barrack Road.’ He looked steadily at me. ‘It seems that by some misfortune, during the disturbance that occurred in Fitz-Norton’s house, Ebenholz fell through the sun room window.’
‘Glory be,’ Eleanor said, and she looked at me wide-eyed.
‘Rickman is severely concussed,’ Romero went on. ‘It’s possible he tripped and banged his head on the coffee table, leaving it badly damaged.’
‘The table?’ Sian said, ‘or his head?’
Romero smiled, shrugged. ‘It matters not. I’m quite sure we’ll find something to charge him with if he wakes up.’
‘Which leaves Karl Creeny and the diamonds,’ I said.
‘And the fact that he got away with them,’ Sian said, ‘will forever go down as one of our failures.’
‘Our first.’
‘Our only.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting Charlie Wise?’ Romero said.
‘Indeed I am,’ I said, ‘and he’s a crafty little crook, but I’m sure he’s disappeared to dream about what might have been.’
‘That’s not exactly what I meant.’ Romero paused, looked around the room, let the tension build.
Calum stirred, stretched.
‘I think I can see where this is going,’ he said, ‘because I got to know that wee chappie quite well when he craftily finagled a drive across Europe.’
‘He’s crafty all right,’ Romero said. ‘It was Charlie’s scheme, but like the best masterminds he let someone else do the dirty work while he stayed in the background and kept his nose clean. What I don’t think Reg realized was that Charlie would have made a good hedge-fund manager.’
‘Ah,’ I nodded, beginning to see the light. ‘Sort of like backing a horse each way instead of to win?’
Romero nodded. ‘While you three were cruising up and down Eastern Beach, Charlie was on the phone to me telling me what was about to happen out at sea, but deliberately not giving away Reg’s position at Europa. Suffice it to say that soon after his call two police launches took up station out in the bay, and they were able to intercept a tender heading out from the Rock to a fishing boat, which earlier that day had sailed across from Ceuta.’
‘So the diamonds,’ I said, ‘have been recovered? And there’s nothing to stop Charlie claiming the reward?’
Romero nodded.
‘And Karl Creeny?’
‘Lying on a cot in a cell, watching dawn break through a barred window.’
I took a deep breath.
‘So all’s well that ends well,’ I said – then looked at Eleanor. ‘But what about you and Reg? Your beau’s looking at, what, a life sentence? How d’you feel?
‘Blasé, if that’s the right word; not all that bothered. Which may sound cold, cruel even, but he’s asked for it and anyway, it wasn’t as if everything was going all that smoothly. Relationships cool, don’t they? Maybe things had run their course, you know? I mean, I wasn’t brought up with that toffee-nosed talk, and while it was a novelty at first, after that it became … oh—’
‘A drone?’ Calum said.
Eleanor brightened. ‘Exactly. D’you know what I mean?’
‘Absolutely. Bagpipes have a drone, but it’s not too noticeable because there’s a tune being played at the same time. Whereas Reg—’
‘Was all bloody drone.’
‘You never mentioned this,’ I said.
‘You’re my son. D’you think I discuss my intimate affairs with you?’
I grinned. ‘Eleanor, a drone’s not intimate.’
‘It is when you’re in bed tryin’ to read.’
‘And is this something I should take note of?’ Sian said, ‘seeing as your son and I are soon to be wed?’
Eleanor beamed. ‘I’ve got an even better idea, love,’ she said. ‘Why don’t we discuss wedding plans together?’
And with a sharp elbow she emulated her future daughter-in-law and dumped a surprised but delighted DI Luis Romero onto the bungalow’s hard wooden floor.
By the Same Author
NON FICTION
Modelling Toy Soldiers
Practical Short Story Writing
Creating Suspense in Fiction
Writing Crime Novels
FICTION
A Confusion of Murders
A Bewilderment of Crooks
The Clutches of Death
Deathly Suspense
Dying to Know You
An Evil Reflection
Locked in Death
Rock to Death
Copyright
© John Paxton Sheriff 2013
First published in Great Britain 2013
This edition 2013
ISBN 978 0 7198 1211 8 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1212 9 (mobi)
ISBN 978 0 7198 1213 2 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7198 0914 9 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of John Paxton Sheriff to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988
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