by Nick Oldham
Henry and Jake found where he had entered fairly quickly – by way of the ground-floor gents’ toilets, the open window being a bit of a giveaway.
Without spoiling any evidence, they inspected the window and as they did, Henry’s chest tightened as he became increasingly angry because the closer they looked, the more it became apparent this was a planned break-in.
He was furious with himself because he hadn’t physically checked that the window was secure on his rounds. The offender had clearly been into the pub, either posing as a customer or a hiker (as he and Alison happily allowed hikers to use the facilities even if they didn’t buy anything). The man had unscrewed the screws that fixed the stays and hack-sawed them down almost to the screw head and replaced them so it appeared that the window was secure. All he had needed to do was prise the end of a jemmy or screwdriver under the window frame and pull and he was in.
Henry felt like a fool. He remembered checking these windows from the inside only the day before and they had looked all right to look at, except they weren’t.
Jake was picking up on his bitterness. And also a couple of sawn-off screw shafts from the grass under the window.
Henry swore.
‘The window would have looked locked,’ Jake said, stating the obvious. He was trying to make Henry feel better, but was not succeeding. At least they had found how he had got inside the building.
After sliding through this window into the gents’, it was an easy enough journey to the main bar but then he would have somehow had to force his way through the secure door dividing the public area from the living area – or enter the four-digit code on the keypad by the door.
Henry did not recall seeing any signs of forced entry on that door.
He growled internally, thinking, ‘If someone wants to break into your property, they will.’
‘Bastard.’
‘Planned,’ Jake said.
Henry tried to recall when he had last opened and closed that toilet window, just to try and put together some sort of time frame for this. It wasn’t something he did regularly, usually just when he was cleaning the window frame. He guessed it could have been two weeks before, which didn’t really narrow things down too much, and fourteen days gave a bad man plenty of opportunity to do bad things.
The pub opened its doors at seven a.m., offering breakfasts for the guests and a small but steady stream of locals who started their day with a hearty meal and, of course, great coffee before work. The business then often stayed open until after midnight, when the boozy locals were ejected. That also gave a lot of hours each day for someone to come in unnoticed and prepare a break-in.
‘What about CCTV?’ Jake asked.
Henry’s mouth twisted. There were a few cameras dotted around, one in the bar which covered the bar itself and one scanning the front doors. The images were recorded on a computer in the office in the kitchen. Henry conceded it was a poor set-up. The new annexe was much better protected with cameras everywhere and new, tamper-proof windows throughout. The old section of the pub had been neglected and was definitely vulnerable but Henry had not realized until now, just how much.
He gulped and decided the alarm company would be in that afternoon.
‘I’ll have a skim through some of the disks,’ he told Jake, ‘but I don’t hold out much hope … there is something I need to check, though.’
He spun and both men went back around the pub, inside, and to the door leading to the private accommodation with the security keypad next to it.
Four digits needed to be pressed in the right order to gain access.
‘You got a UV torch?’ Henry asked Jake.
‘Out in the Land Rover.’
‘Will you get it?’
It did not surprise Henry that Jake had such a piece of kit. They were useful for inspecting crime scenes and highlighted such things as sperm stains on bedding, that sort of pleasant stuff. Henry took the torch from Jake as he came back in with it, then shaded the keypad with one hand, switched on the torch and shone it over the numbers. It was totally obvious which of the four numbers from zero to nine made up the entry code because those keys were the only ones with greasy fingerprints on them.
Four, eight, nine, zero.
Henry knew it would be relatively easy to guess the correct combination with patience and some luck and the application of the statistic that most people when deciding on number combinations were intrinsically lazy and usually just went in ascending order to keep it simple for themselves and, unfortunately, others. The combination had not changed since Henry had moved in, which did not make him feel any better.
Once more he kicked himself mentally very hard.
As a cop he would have given himself totally different advice – you can’t be too careful, you never know when something bad might happen, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
He had become complacent and paid the price.
After that, all they could do was wait for the circus to arrive.
In that time the chef arrived and began to prepare breakfast. With the wedding there was a full house of guests overnight and the chef would be extra busy that morning with two staff down – Alison and Ginny – and only Henry in their place.
As much as he wanted to just think about the break-in and Ginny, there was still a business to run and Henry tried to concentrate on the practicalities of that, preparing the dining room, laying out the Continental breakfast choices and setting up the heated trays for the self-service full English ‘eat all you can’ as well as firing up the coffee machines so that as guests eventually began to filter down from their rooms, everything would be ready.
Henry also made a call to a local girl who waited-on part-time and asked her if she would be willing to come in early to help out. She was happy to do so and that eased the burden.
Even without the events of the night, Henry’s life was so incredibly different now.
Not all that long ago, as a detective superintendent, he would have sauntered into his office at headquarters, got a coffee, plonked himself at his desk and got others to do his bidding with a flick of the fingers like a modern Caligula.
That life had gone, but he didn’t miss it, and usually his day now began with a coffee and a piece of toast out on the front steps of the pub, watching dawn arrive before getting stuck into the complexities of running a business, learning as he went.
He loved what he had now, a life with Alison, and whilst it was physically and mentally taxing and the remuneration was nowhere near what he had earned as a cop, it was fantastic and his stomach crawled when he thought that someone had entered it with such evil intentions.
He knew he would not rest until he found that man.
And punished him.
FOUR
Although the mobile phone signal in the area of Kendleton was at best unreliable, Henry managed to call Alison for an update on Ginny’s condition. She told him they had arrived safely at the hospital and she was being treated but it all looked good. She was coming around slowly from whatever sedative had been injected into her system but was still disorientated and confused about what had happened. Alison sounded very stressed but there was little Henry could do other than reassure her everything would be all right and that he had a grip on the Tawny Owl.
Because of the early start at the pub, in addition to the steady stream of early-rising locals who came in for breakfasts, one or two gamekeepers occasionally showed up, one of whom was chatting to Jake on the front doorstep as Henry ended his call to Alison.
To be truthful he was actually a trainee gamekeeper by the name of Tod Rawstron, who was attending the local agricultural college and working as a gamekeeper in his spare time. He was just nineteen years old and Henry knew he had been a bit of a rogue, but college and work had kept him on the straight and narrow for a while now and if he did manage to get a full-time job after college, he would have a bright, if not well-paid future.
Jake had developed a good relationship with all the local keepers. Th
ere were quite a few of them, several who worked on the vast expanse of land around Kendleton owned by the Duke of Westminster and other landed gentry such as Lord Chalmers, who also owned a big chunk, but nowhere near as much as Westminster.
One of the by-products of Jake’s job as a rural beat officer was that he was also a wildlife and conservation officer and he knew that gamekeepers weren’t averse to blasting the daylights out of protected birds of prey in order to protect their own home-reared birds, so he had already made inroads into getting to know as many keepers as possible whilst recuperating from his injuries.
Henry walked out into the middle of their conversation and nodded at Tod, who was kitted up for a day in the outdoors. His short-wheelbase Land Rover was on the car park and his loyal canine companion, a black Labrador called Nursey, leaned out of the open window, tongue hanging out.
‘Morning, Tod,’ Henry greeted him.
‘Mornin’, Henry.’ Tod almost doffed his tweed cloth cap at Henry, which, Henry thought, was only right.
‘You in for breakfast?’
‘I am.’
‘Be ready in a few minutes.’
‘Great, thanks.’
Jake interrupted. ‘We’ve just been having an interesting chat,’ he said to Henry, then glanced at Tod and urged him, ‘Go on, tell him.’
Henry knew Tod wasn’t the most garrulous of people, but he tried anyway. ‘Not much to tell, really, but I’ve seen a guy in the woods a couple of times recently, just, fleetin’ like. But he moves quick an’ I never actually caught up wi’ ’im … did have a rifle of some sort in his hands. Spotted t’cunt twice in two days nah.’
‘Whereabouts?’
Tod pointed across to the woodland on the other side of the village, the trees Henry had been looking at the night before when he had seen the stag. The land belonged to Lord Chalmers, Henry knew.
‘An’ it weren’t a shotgun.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Henry asked.
‘It were a proper rifle, so he weren’t out rough shooting.’
Rough shooting was putting up game, such as rabbits, hares and birds, often using a dog, working hedgerows, and blasting the poor animals with a shotgun when they broke cover, ran or flew for their lives.
‘It had sights on it an’ a tripod.’
‘But you didn’t catch up with the guy?’
‘Nah, but I know me guns, even from a distance.’
Henry took it in. ‘OK, thanks Tod … go get your breakfast – and it’s on the house today,’ he said generously then regretted the words instantly because he knew what Alison would think. He had become a businessman but he still liked giving things away. It was hard not to. He knew he needed to develop a more ruthless edge in respect of taking money out of people’s hands.
When Jake gave Henry his puppy-dog eyes he relented with him also, so all three then went inside to eat.
Because Jake and Tod were in deep conversation about pheasants, partridges and grouse as Jake was also a keen shooter, Henry blanked over, made himself a sausage butty on a barm cake, grabbed another coffee and went back out to the front of the pub to sit, eat and cogitate.
He was exhausted. The previous day, being the first wedding the Tawny Owl had ever hosted, had been long and arduous, topped by him drinking too much, then sort of sobering up followed by the incident on the car park and then in Ginny’s room. However, the coffee hit the spot and the sausage barm injected some energy into him.
Henry was sipping yet another coffee around about nine a.m. when Karl Donaldson emerged from the hotel annexe, dressed in his running gear, stretching his muscular frame, rolling his neck muscles and making Henry feel like a couch potato.
The two men had known each other for a good twenty years, having met initially when Donaldson was an FBI field agent investigating American organized crime links to gangsters in the north-west of England. They had become good friends and had worked together on and off over the years after Donaldson had got a job at the American embassy in London as a legal attaché. He had also married a lady who used to be a police woman in Lancashire, though she had subsequently been transferred to the Metropolitan Police and had now retired. They had a strong marriage and a couple of kids who were growing too fast.
‘Jeez, Henry,’ Donaldson uttered mid-stretch on seeing his bashed-up face. Henry squinted back through swollen eyelids. ‘What the hell …?’ He stopped stretching. ‘The wedding wasn’t that bad, was it?’
Trying not to wilt under his sympathy, Henry gave him a succinct account of the night’s events and the probability of a link between the man on the car park and the man in Ginny’s living room.
Donaldson listened seriously, then said what Henry knew he would have said.
‘Why in hell didn’t you get me up, man?’
‘Decided I didn’t want to disturb you, spoil the day.’
‘Asshole,’ he blurted. ‘What about Rik? Did you get him up? This is a serious crime.’
Henry shook his head. ‘He would have been no use and I’m certainly not going to involve him. He’s due to go home and get ready for his honeymoon tomorrow with his lovely bride.’
Donaldson reluctantly accepted Henry’s point of view. Although he had a senior investigating officer on tap in the form of his new brother-in-law, Rik would have been too drunk to operate. In fact, Henry wasn’t sure he could have raised Rik from his alcoholic slumber based on his recollections of trying to revive him when they had been in Budapest for a three-day stag party. Henry did not expect to see him until at least midday and even then knew he would be like a zombie.
Donaldson was insistent that he should cancel his run and somehow help. He was as keen as a terrier but Henry steadfastly refused the offer. Everything was under control and Donaldson and his wife were travelling home later all the way down to Hartley Wintney in Hampshire and he did not want to mess up their travel plans.
In fact Henry wanted all the guests to get up, eat their breakfasts and go, but he knew the morning would be long and tedious dealing with a whole bunch of folk with hangovers, himself included, although Donaldson was as fresh as the dew because he never drank too much as he did not hold his liquor well. About two pints was his usual limit.
‘No, you go, have your run,’ Henry told him. ‘This is all covered, honestly.’
He frowned, unconvinced, but then sank a large glass of water from the dispenser in the dining room, nodded at Henry and set off at a trot giving Henry a view of his tight backside in his tight shorts. He was a bit younger than Henry and kept his body – and his all-American college-boy good looks – in much better shape.
‘Good-looking bastard,’ Henry whispered.
‘I heard that,’ Donaldson responded and without turning, jerked a middle finger in Henry’s direction.
He left a trail in the damp dew on the village green that had still not evaporated away.
Coming in the opposite direction were two cop cars. At last, the circus front-runners had arrived, possibly the monkeys, Henry thought.
He spun plates metaphorically and in reality that morning. The really important bit was to ensure the police dealt with the crime scene properly and also to speak to the detective constable who had turned up, a young man Henry did not know, but who seemed quiet but efficient.
They did a good job, up to Henry’s exacting standards.
He also gave a brief written statement in between meeting and greeting the rising guests who, without exception, were feeling rough. Many paracetamols were dispensed.
The detective left after a short while, telling Henry he was going over to the hospital to check on Ginny and Alison. He promised that a dog patrol was on the way, just to sniff out the route the man had taken when fleeing from the pub. Henry shrugged, not believing there would be much to find.
It was after ten a.m. before Henry’s brain-Rolodex flipped around and opened up on the name Lord Chalmers, and he cursed himself. He should have been on his way to see him and he knew that in spite of everything g
oing on, Alison would not be best pleased if this business opportunity was missed.
Henry found Chalmers’ number on the pub phone and dialled from the office, expecting no response or for the butler to answer, but it was actually Lord Chalmers himself who picked up and said brightly, ‘Chalmers.’
‘Lord Chalmers’ – Henry tugged his forelock – ‘this is Henry Christie. I co-own the Tawny Owl with Alison Marsh. We had an appointment to see you this morning and I apologize but I’m just running a bit late. I wonder if I could come to see you now.’ Henry was using his best telephone manner.
‘Fine, come over,’ he said and hung up leaving Henry holding a dead phone to his ear, but only for a moment for as soon as he hung up, it rang. Alison was on the other end.
‘Hi, darling,’ he said, doing a quick check of the wall clock and hoping she would not put two and two together and ask why he was answering when he should have been doing a deal with the gentry.
Her adding up, as ever, was spot-on.
‘Why are you there, Henry?’
His ‘Err …’ response told its own story.
‘You forgot, didn’t you?’
‘W-well, yeah, but on the plus side I’ve just remembered and been on the phone grovelling to his lordship. He’ll see me if I go now.’
‘I’ll let you off, then,’ she relented.
‘How are things?’
‘Ginny’s OK. She’s awake and fine now. They’ve taken blood samples to see if they can identify whatever it was that was injected into her, although that could take for ever … but she’s OK, which is the main thing. They want to keep her for an hour or two just for observation and then she can come home, so could you drive over after you’ve seen Lord Chalmers and pick us up?’
‘Yeah, will do.’
‘I gave a bit of a statement to the police; they spoke to Ginny but haven’t taken a written statement from her. They say someone’ll come and see her.’
‘They might even ask Jake Niven to do it, once she’s back home.’
‘That’d be better.’
