by Rebecca Tope
‘Just a quick chat.’ He kept his voice light and friendly, trying to erase any implication that he had come for recriminations. He need not have worried.
‘Your people shot me,’ the young man whimpered. ‘I could be dead now.’
‘That’s true,’ Phil nodded. ‘It’s what happens, I’m afraid, when you come at a police officer with a gun. The rules change quite a lot from what you might regard as normal. You must have known you were doing something absolutely unacceptable. I don’t think you’re stupid.’
‘I was blind with rage,’ said Giles, his voice thin and breathy. ‘Blind with rage.’ It was a phrase he must have opted for at an earlier point – it came off his tongue almost as a single word.
‘But why? I still don’t understand what made you so angry.’
‘I told you. You put everything back to how it was when… How it was a few years ago. You brought it all up again, just when it might have been safe to go back. I missed my mum, you know. Those pills have turned her into a zombie.’ They both glanced around the room, as if they might find Trudy Pritchett huddled in a corner.
‘Well, you’re back now anyway.’ Phil was as puzzled as ever. ‘What exactly happened two and a half years ago, when you ran away?’
A sly look came into the reddened eyes. ‘I had to keep myself safe. If I’d stayed at home, he might have got me as well. They didn’t trust me to keep quiet.’
‘Who might have got you? As well as who?’ Phil leant forward urgently. ‘Are you talking about the man who killed Graham Bligh and buried him under that tree?’ Something was wrong in the question, he knew, but sometimes getting the facts wrong was an effective prompt to a witness.
‘Not Graham Bligh, you fool,’ Giles suddenly snarled, showing a brief burst of energy. ‘Nobody cares a shit for Graham Bligh. Besides, he isn’t even dead.’
‘So people keep telling me. But at the moment, that’s the official identity of the murdered man. They’ve done a DNA test…’
‘Oh well, that proves it then, doesn’t it? A hundred people seeing him and talking to him. But the lab says he’s dead and DNA can’t be wrong, can it?’
Phil had enough doubt of his own to take this attack calmly. ‘OK. So when this man was killed, whoever he was, you were afraid you might be next? So you went into hiding. Wouldn’t it have been possible to send at least an email to your parents, telling them you were still alive? Your mother’s been worried out of her head.’
‘They never really believed I was dead. That was just a stupid panic when they heard what you’d found. I sent them a card at Christmas. That’s more than a lot of blokes in my position would have done.’ He was weary again, a lost boy. ‘And then you mucked it all up.’
‘It makes no sense to blame me,’ said Phil angrily, belatedly remembering that Pritchett Senior had mentioned the Christmas cards. ‘Why does everyone keep doing that?’
‘It does though. If anyone local had found those bones, they’d just have covered them up again and kept quiet.’
Phil sat stiffly back in his chair, staring at the white face and thinking about the words that had just echoed what Janey had said to him in the ambulance. ‘Oh,’ he said.
There were a dozen urgent questions he wanted to ask, and almost no time to choose the most important one. Fiercely he forced his brain to work. ‘Soraya,’ he said. ‘She was your friend. She knows what’s been going on, doesn’t she?’ Giles said nothing, his gaze on the blank TV screen on the wall facing him.
‘Did you know she’s going out with Rupert Temple-Pritchett?’ Phil said, following a hunch that had no immediate logic to it.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ came the languid response. ‘That’s impossible. Even if it could be true, Robin would kill them both.’
* * *
A nurse told him he must stop tiring the patient. In the corridor outside he met Stephen and Trudy Pritchett, walking slowly, holding plastic carrierbags of shopping. Stephen lifted a hand in greeting, but Trudy ignored him. Her head was shaking slightly, and Phil wondered whether she might have Parkinson’s Disease, as well as all her other problems.
Phil’s back was a constant distraction. It made every move an ordeal, the urge to simply find a sofa or even a bed where he could stretch out and relax was growing stronger by the minute. He could call Gladwin and pass on the message that Soraya Wheeler might be at risk from her irate father. He didn’t have to do everything himself. He just needed to sit down and think, anyway, after all the scraps of information he’d gathered that morning. The dead man was not Graham Bligh. That much seemed certain. In fact, the obvious implication was that it must be Rupert Temple-Pritchett after all, as the DNA said, which meant the man he and Thea had spoken to, claming to be Rupert, was somebody else. But who? And where did that leave Soraya who was in love with the man who claimed to be Rupert? And who was almost certainly loved in return, because surely nobody could have faked that look of adoration he and Thea had seen on the man’s face? Why would he, anyway? He hadn’t known he was being watched. If he was intent on seduction, perhaps, he’d enjoy working on the girl’s affections first – but that sounded very old-fashioned. It hadn’t looked as if there’d been any resistance from Soraya, although that could simply indicate a successful outcome to the overall plan, of course.
In any case, regardless of his growing anxiety, there was no way he could march in (march in where, anyway?) and order the man to leave the girl alone. Janey Holmes might inhabit a world where knights on white chargers dashed to the rescue of damsels in jeopardy, but the reality of the twenty-first century was altogether different.
He needed to speak to Gladwin. That was the priority. Parallel investigations were obviously stupid, neither knowing what the other was doing. She would not thank him if he had discovered more than she had and never deigning to share it with her. He tried to review the hours since he had last compared notes with her, and the facts he had gleaned in that time.
Not a lot of facts, he admitted to himself. A whole heap of hints and arguments and wild theories, but scarcely a single fact. And yet he did feel much nearer to – closure. The word fitted, whether Thea liked it or not, and he felt a bubble of defiance against her implacable scorn for such words. He did his best to speak plainly to his officers, to give clear instructions and set them tasks with real goals – but jargon was inescapable. Sometimes it was useful, anyway. It avoided premature judgements and prejudicial attitudes. It did actually sometimes make people stop and think.
He was stranded, he realised, although it would be easy enough to get a taxi to the police station and see what was going on. And from there it was only a couple of minutes to his flat – which had seemed so far away all week. Confined to Temple Guiting, he had felt cut off from his own familiar world, he realised now. He had missed his dogs and his colleagues, and the normal pace and pressure of work. Now, he could simply call a cab and be transported effortlessly to his own firm bed, where he needn’t worry about Temples or Pritchetts for at least the rest of the day.
He brought these thoughts up short. How could he be thinking along such self-indulgent lines? What about Thea, valiantly striving to keep so many balls in the air? Miss Deacon’s house, for a start. And the various residents of the village, creating a maelstrom of confusion and violence – she had let herself be sucked right into the heart of it and nothing was going to persuade her to climb out again until all questions were answered. He couldn’t just abandon her at this stage. One more day, that was all. Tomorrow Archie would arrive and he and Thea could be excused. Gladwin would pursue the murder investigations in her own capable way, and Phil could rest his back with a clear conscience.
Just one more day… He fished in his pocket for the Ibuprofen and swallowed two of them dry. Then he phoned for a taxi.
There were still so many questions he should have asked Giles while he had the chance: random mysteries that kept popping into his head with little or no logical thread to them. How completely had he actually disappeared –
would a cursory search have located him, via credit cards or council tax payments? True disappearance took planning and persistent hard work – even leaving the country was no guarantee of success. Money was the stumbling block – if you wanted to live anything resembling a normal life, you had to be in the system. And the system kept remarkably close tabs on people nowadays. Had his parents colluded in some way, slipping him cash and reassuring themselves that he was at least alive? Only when a dead body had materialised had they panicked, perhaps after a longer-than-usual silence, and approached Phil unofficially to ascertain that it was not their dead son.
The taxi took him to his flat, which was airless and smelly from the hot weather. He had fully intended to return on Monday morning at the latest, and here it was, Saturday, with milk standing sour in the fridge and the waste bin unemptied under the sink. Despite his conscientious brushing and grooming of the dogs, there was evidence of their presence in the air. An earthy scent from their muddy feet on the rugs and the rumpled dusty hairy bedding in their baskets struck his nostrils. It was a male environment. No flowers or chemical air fresheners mitigated the smells. He made a mental comparison with Hector’s Nook, which had bowls of pot pourri on the window sills, and plants in every room. There was beeswax polish and open windows and real sheepskin to fill the place with echoes of fresh fields. Here in town, it was frowsty and stale and he didn’t like it.
He phoned Thea again. ‘Where are you?’ she said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘You’ve disappeared on me.’
‘I came back to the flat. I need some clothes.’
She accepted the mendacity without comment. ‘OK. So what next? Out here it feels as if a bomb’s about to go off. Everything’s gone quiet and tense and I have no idea what I ought to be doing.’
‘But why? What can possibly happen?’ It all seemed a long way away to him, as if Temple Guiting had shifted to a parallel universe that he could no longer reach.
‘Phil – somebody threw a dirty great stone at us, two hours ago. Remember? We could all have been badly hurt. Doesn’t that feel like a crisis to you? As if the person out there might try again?’
‘It was Janey’s house. She must have been the target, not us. Besides, it was a relatively harmless stone, not a bomb. Relax. I’m staying here tonight, and I’ll speak to you tomorrow. I need to get my car back sometime.’ He didn’t care that he was failing her in a big way, that he had said no words of affection or concern. He was too drained, too befuddled to say the right things now.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Then he did what his body had been urging him to do for some hours past. He arranged all the cushions he could find in one corner of his leather sofa, shook off his shoes, put his feet up, closed his eyes and sank instantly into a restful slumber.
The relentless ringing of his front doorbell roused him after what felt like seconds. When he realised what it was, and heard the associated shouts of his name, he tried to sit up and only succeeded in rolling off the unyielding leather onto the floor. Forcing his back into submission, he stood up and shuffled to the door.
Gladwin was standing there, with two uniformed officers. ‘For Christ’s sake, where have you been?’ she shouted at him. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your phone’s not working. We thought you must be dead.’
He blinked stupidly at her. ‘The phone’s fine,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
‘There’s some sort of siege going on in Temple Guiting. You know the people – we want you there.’
‘Thea! Not Thea?’ He remembered other times, other crises where his beloved had got herself into danger.
‘Thea’s all right. She called us. She’s been trying to call you. She thought you must have gone out.’
‘But the phone’s fine,’ he repeated. ‘Let me go and see.’
Before they could stop him, he had gone to the small alcove where the landline phone sat on its own small shelf. The receiver was askew, where he had carelessly dropped it after Thea’s abrupt conclusion to their conversation. He nudged it back into place, feeling foolish and guilty.
‘What time is it?’ he asked.
He got no reply to that. Instead Gladwin had followed him and was staring angrily into his face, ‘Phil, we’ve wasted ten minutes or more already. If you don’t come right now, we’ll go without you.’
‘All right. I’m coming.’ He patted his pockets for wallet and mobile. With another pang of guilt, he remembered switching it off before collapsing onto the sofa. How many more absolute rules had he managed to break that day? A glance at the clock on his mantelpiece told him it was a few minutes short of five in the afternoon.
In the car, Gladwin tried to bring him up to date. He listened with an effort. ‘The DNA was not wrong,’ she began. ‘The body isn’t Graham Bligh after all.’
‘No,’ Phil agreed. ‘I think I’d come to that conclusion. Is it Rupert then?’
‘Seems it must be. The man you’ve been thinking was him is an impostor. And he’s causing a whole lot of trouble up at Wheeler’s farm.’
‘Rupert’s dead,’ Phil repeated. ‘Does Janey know? What about his parents? And the Pritchetts?’ It was as if the whole house of cards had collapsed yet again. He could not shake off an image of the foppish visitor to Hector’s Nook lying under the roots of a tree, steadily decomposing. ‘He said he was Rupert. We believed him.’
‘As anybody would.’
‘Have you got it all straight now? Are we going to arrest the person who killed him?’
Gladwin leant her head against the side window of the car. ‘I’m making no promises,’ she said.
But Phil was rapidly waking up. ‘Do you know who he really is?’
‘Not for sure. We’re going on the theory that it must be Graham Bligh, more by default than anything else. After all, the only motives that make any sense are to do with the paternity case and who inherits the estate. If Bligh never had any contact with his son, he might not have found it too hard to slaughter him. And he must have thought he’d have a claim on his share of the property.’
Phil gave this some serious thought. ‘But why impersonate him?’
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘Except there’s the other matter of the descent from the Templars. Young Jinnie at the station seems to think there’d be enough fame and glory for anybody able to prove they carried Templar blood to warrant committing murder. I can’t say I’m altogether convinced.’
‘Jinnie’s the one who tracked down St Melor as well, I suppose?’
‘That’s the girl. Special talents, you might say.’
‘So how would that fit? The hand and foot business?’
‘No idea again. That’s what we’re hoping to discover when we get to the farm. I warn you, I’m not going to take the orthodox route this time. I’m still facing investigation for what happened yesterday. This time there’ll be no guns or sudden rushes. I’m taking it very slowly and calmly – OK?’
He gave her an appraising look. ‘Why haven’t they taken you off the case? The IPCC oughtn’t have let you carry on.’
‘Because there isn’t anybody else,’ she said. ‘Other than you.’
He absorbed the barb and applied his mind yet again to their destination. ‘I really need to know what to expect. You said it was a siege.’
‘I exaggerated,’ she admitted. ‘Although—’ she looked away from him at the long stretch of the A429 ahead, ‘I am taking a bit of a gamble. If it goes wrong, I’ll have to kiss goodbye to a promising career.’
‘Then don’t involve me,’ he said angrily. ‘Stop playing games and let me have a proper briefing.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. If I tell you now, you’ll have time to stop me. If you don’t know, they can’t blame you. I realise it’s a lot to ask on such a short acquaintance, but you’re going to have to trust me.’
Any man would be angry, he told himself, being sidelined by a woman in such a cavalier way. ‘So what’s my role? Why have y
ou brought me here at all?’
‘You might come in useful,’ she said. ‘As a witness. Don’t get too close – with that back you’d only be a liability. But another pair of eyes and ears could be invaluable.’
And he had to be content with that.
Chapter Twenty
When they arrived at the house he remained in the car, on Gladwin’s orders. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s for the best,’ she told him. ‘You’re here purely as a bystander. I want you because you’re known to these people and it helps to have a familiar face on the scene.’
‘All right,’ he said, forcing himself to relax on the back seat. For the third time that day he felt he’d been diminished. He was beginning to believe it himself – that he was ineffectual and slow-witted. ‘This is Wheeler’s farm, then, is it? I thought it was closer to the village.’ He had been surprised when they’d driven almost a mile beyond the spot where Thea had knocked Soraya into the hedge, until he realised that the road had curved so sharply that the real distance was much less. ‘It must be milking time,’ he added inconsequentially, remembering the reference to a herd of shorthorns.
‘Looks as if the cows are having to wait.’ Gladwin tilted her chin at a yard full of brown and white speckled beasts, shifting restlessly, eyes fixed on a square building with a firmly closed door.
The new detective superintendent marched off across the yard to two unmarked cars, where she conversed inaudibly with a gaggle of men who had obviously been patiently waiting for her. Phil knew the procedures for a siege: the immense care to be taken to protect the lives of all officers, the triple-and quadruple-checking necessary before any action was taken. Gladwin had blithely asserted that there were no firearms involved, but after the incident the day before with Giles Pritchett, Phil was not inclined to take her word for it. Farmers had guns – everybody knew that.
Without being told, he assumed the man at the centre of the so-called siege had to be the one he and Thea knew as Rupert Temple-Pritchett. From the location and the restless cows, he thought it safe to assume that Soraya or Robin or both were his captives. Just why this was happening remained entirely obscure. Phil had half-suspected Robin Wheeler of being capable of bad behaviour. He believed the man had deliberately loosed Miss Deacon’s horses, and equally deliberately told the story of a nameless vagrant being the body under the tree in the hope of diverting police attention from the truth. Janey had implicated him by her revelations in the ambulance. But surely Robin Wheeler was no murderer. Instead, it seemed he was currently in the role of victim.
