‘Look, you can’t blame yourself in any way for what happened,’ I said, when Patrick had gone to stand over by the large window, his forehead on the glass, arms braced on the window ledge. ‘You haven’t been asking questions about witchcraft, it’s your Dad who has a bee in his bonnet about that. We’ve only made very tentative connections, all guesswork, about Blanche and that kind of activity and it was in a private conversation with your father alone.’
‘I should have gone down there, not a man in his seventies. He could easily have fallen, hit his head on a stone and died.’
‘Of course, but he didn’t tell you what was going on. And I think you’re exaggerating a bit, John’s a lot tougher than you think.’
Patrick said nothing.
Miserable introspection could not last for long as soon as we all, but for baby Mark and Carrie, who has her meals in her room as she likes watching television to relax, sat around the large table in the farmhouse-style kitchen – the dining room here was minuscule – for dinner. Tactful child that she is, Katie made no mention of the earlier conversation although I knew she would have shared what was said with Matthew. I wondered if anyone at school had made remarks to him and resolved to find out.
‘Ingrid and I are going to London tomorrow,’ Patrick suddenly announced after being in receipt of a piece of fresh pineapple that Vicky had thought he might like from the bowl of fruit salad in front of her and thrust under his nose. ‘We might come back that same night or stay for a few days.’
I saw Katie’s little private smile and Matthew’s unhappy expression but had no worries about Justin who was in a world of his own indulging in his favourite hobby: eating. In Devon there had been behaviour problems, one of the reasons Patrick had initially thought of leaving SOCA so he could spend more time with his family. As soon as we had moved he had become a different boy and I had been forced to blame something wrong at his previous school. His grandmother had a lot to do with the improvement too for, after all, she had sorted his father out, hadn’t she?
‘D’you have any homework?’ I asked Matthew when the two older children had finished helping me clear away.
‘Yes, English,’ he replied.
This was by no means his strongest subject.
‘D’you need a few pointers?’ I offered.
He grimaced. ‘Yes, I do really.’
‘Come and do it in the living room with us while we have our coffee.’
People have told us that we are too strict but the children are only allowed in the living room in the evenings – when we are there, that is – if they’re going to read or engage in some other quiet activity. What we will not tolerate is their TV programmes or computer games dominating everything and even though Matthew has a computer in his room, where homework usually gets done, it is closely monitored. My children are not going to unwittingly communicate with weirdos on the Internet.
‘It’s an essay,’ he groaned, arriving a couple of minutes later, ‘And it mustn’t be printed off.’
‘Whoopee!’ I said. ‘How else is your handwriting going to improve? What’s the subject?’
‘We can choose between our pets and witches. I’ve already done one about Pirate so I thought I’d do witches.’
I had primed Patrick that we might need to talk over a problem with Matthew and he had suggested I take the lead. He sat quietly, flipping though a magazine, in a corner, his coffee on a small table at his elbow. Behind him, a pale full moon was rising over the distant Mendips.
Matthew gazed at the wide expanse of glass. ‘Do you ever close the curtains?’ he asked.
‘Yes, when it’s really cold,’ I answered. ‘Do you want them closed?’
‘It’s a bit spooky,’ he mumbled.
‘I’ll do it,’ Patrick said, getting up.
‘So it’s witches,’ I said brightly.
‘The teacher asked us for ideas on what to write about. Greg suggested pets and Clem wanted witches. He seems to be in to them. His Dad’s a wizard, or something like that. No, a war something.’
‘Warlock?’
‘Yeah, that’s it. Auntie, are there such things?’
‘People can call themselves whatever they like, I suppose.’
‘But I mean, he brags about going to people’s houses, meetings, or whatever where they do strange things. He’s not allowed to go to all of them but says people dress up and drink a lot. He thinks it’s great – really cool.’
‘Does the teacher know all about this too?’ I enquired, keeping my tone matter-of-fact.
‘No. It’s just between us and Clem. He asked me if I’d like to go to his house and see all the magic stuff when his Mum and Dad aren’t there. I didn’t really want to. I think it’s scary. He called me a coward.’
‘You’re not a coward,’ I told him firmly. ‘But what you are is sensible in not wanting to get involved in anything so silly.’
‘There’s something else that even he thinks is scary,’ Matthew went on. ‘I didn’t believe him really. It was too awful.’
‘What?’ I asked gently.
‘Some of the people kill little animals and chickens and put the blood on each other.’ His voice sank to a whisper. ‘They try and call up the Devil. Grandad would say that was terribly wicked, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes, he would. And you’ve been brought up to know it’s not right either. Where does Clem live?’
‘In Southdown St Peter. But he said the meetings are mostly here, down at the bottom of the village somewhere.’
Southdown St Peter: home of all local iniquity, past, present and presumably future. I said, ‘Matthew, I wish you’d told us about this before. Is it what you were unhappy about earlier?’
His face cleared. ‘Oh, no. I was just a bit miserable that you were both going away again.’
‘We’ll all go away,’ I promised. ‘Just us two and you and Katie, I mean. At half-term perhaps.’
‘That would be great!’
‘And now,’ said Patrick, finishing his coffee. ‘How about you and I going for a walk in the moonlight? Country folk used to call it the parish lantern. We’ll look out for owls and badgers and if we go down to the river and stay very quiet we might even see an otter.’ He got up. ‘Coming? You could bring that big torch for the dark bits.’
‘My essay though,’ Matthew said sadly.
I said, ‘Do it when you come back. I’ll write a sentence as the idea for each paragraph you need to write. Look up the history of it on the Internet. And don’t forget to finish by saying that it was a cruel persecution of innocent women. Oh, what’s Clem’s surname?’
‘Huggins.’
He went off happily and I was confident that Patrick would ask him if anyone was bullying him at school about the shootings.
They had just gone out and I had filed the name Huggins under Unfinished Business when the phone rang.
‘I don’t know what to say about this morning – not politely anyway,’ Michael Greenway said.
I told him that Patrick had just gone out but would be back in about half an hour and then went on to say that he had been taken off the murder case as well.
‘I don’t think Greenshaft has that kind of authority,’ was Greenway’s furious reaction.
‘Oh, I’m sure it was a matter of a phone call here, a hint there and what’s the country coming to with these ex-army bods playing at policemen and going round shooting everyone up?’ I said, trying not to sound as bitter as I felt.
‘I should imagine Carrick’s bloody angry too with his help gone.’
‘I think he’s more angry for Patrick’s sake. He said he’d get in touch with people he knows in the Met to see how they’re getting on with the Muswell Hill investigation. Commander—’
‘Mike.’
‘Mike, whatever Patrick’s future is with your department and if permission is forthcoming from the Met would you have any objection to his having a look round the house to see if it helps him to remember what happened?’
�
�No, none.’
‘It wouldn’t be construed as investigating this himself?’
‘I’ll make sure it isn’t. It’s a good idea, in fact I’ll say it was my idea, and in everyone’s interest. Meanwhile I’m going to get on to Complaints and put in an official one about Greenshaft and Hurst. The last thing they’re supposed to be is biased.’
Quite late that night when we were throwing things into suitcases just before getting into bed the phone rang and it was Carrick.
‘I’ve fixed it,’ he said. ‘If you’re at the crime scene at ten tomorrow morning someone called Harry Rundle will be there. He’s heading the case and is enormously interested in talking to the unofficial suspect. Shall I confirm that with him?’
‘I’m sure you can,’ I said. ‘But you’d better speak to Patrick.’
‘An early start then,’ Patrick said a couple of minutes later. He looked cheerful for the first time in days and gave me a foxy look. ‘Will we sleep better if I ravish you several times on the carpet?’
‘Natch,’ I said. ‘But in bed would be more comfortable.’
‘Are you—?’
‘On the pill? Too right.’
He swept me off my feet and on to the bed.
‘You know what?’ I whispered, a breathless half an hour later.
‘What?’ he mumbled, almost asleep.
‘Whatever happened I’d stay with you for the sex alone.’
‘I don’t think that counts with the complaints mob.’
NINE
It had rained all night and the pavements were greasy, puddles reflecting the orange glare of the street lights, most of which, even though it was getting on for nine thirty in the morning, were still lit. The gloom was compounded by a large fire at an industrial estate nearby, black smoke rolling up and merging with the already leaden sky. Sirens wailed.
We parked near the murder scene and found somewhere to have coffee, both of us subdued, as we had been for the entire journey. Patrick, I knew, was aware that he was facing some kind of nemesis. I thought of asking if it would be a good idea to visit his digs but desisted: one thing at a time.
Harry Rundle turned out to be a tired-looking individual sitting smoking in a car parked right outside the house. As soon as he saw us he tossed the cigarette out through the open window where it was instantly extinguished on the wet pavement and got out.
‘DCI Rundle,’ he said tersely. ‘I knew it was you: Jim Carrick said I would.’ He eyed Patrick with professional interest. ‘Got over the acid trip, or whatever it was, then?’
‘I hope so,’ Patrick said.
‘So you’re Lieutenant Colonel?’
‘Not these days. It was one of the senior people in SOCA who suggested I use my army rank: as he put it “so some jack-in-office doesn’t confuse you with one of the cleaners”. But it’s not practical, causes confusion and as you know SOCA personnel are nominally only constables to enable them to arrest people.’
‘So what do I call you?’
‘Patrick. This is Ingrid, my wife and working partner.’
Rundle nodded a greeting to me and then said, ‘As far as our records are concerned you’re remanded in custody on suspicion of murder. Those records won’t be updated until we have some idea of what went on here. As far as I’m concerned this meeting is off the record.’ Without waiting for any reaction to these remarks he then led the way up the front path to the house. Although I had been here before I doubted if I would have been able to identify it from the outside, all the long row of houses seemed to look the same and for some reason I had not noted the number. I did, however, shudder when we entered the hall and saw, again, the sickly yellow wallpaper, the row of grubby anoraks and jackets on hooks by a mirror, and smelt the odour of stale death and wanton living.
I placed a hand on Rundle’s arm. ‘I suggest you let him have a wander around first. The most important thing is that he remembers what happened here.’
The DCI shook his head. ‘No, I need to be right there when any remembering’s done. Sorry, but I’ve several murders to deal with here and I don’t want to give people time to cook up fairy tales.’
I opened my mouth to protest but Patrick quickly said, ‘It’s all right,’ and headed for the stairs, Rundle and I in his wake.
It was a bigger house than I had realized, a second, narrower, staircase going up to what must be loft rooms. But for now we remained on the first floor, Patrick walking slowly down a passageway. ‘This is where I climbed in through the window,’ he said when he arrived in the end bedroom.
‘Did you shut it behind you?’ Rundle asked.
‘No, I left it as I’d found it, ajar.’
‘Go on.’
‘The cleaning woman was dusting. She was alarmed but as she recognized me . . .’ He stopped speaking for a moment and then went on, ‘Yes, that’s right. She was going through the motions of dusting but was scared already. That was when she whispered “Hulton! Hulton!”. Then I hid her in the cupboard.’
‘Why though?’ Rundle said.
‘She was terrified. Thought she was going to be killed.’
‘By you?’
‘No, she had no grounds to be scared of me. She went in there of her own free will.’
‘Yet now she’s made a statement to the effect that she saw you fire the shots that killed these people.’
Patrick countered with, ‘Then, for some reason, she’s lying. She said she broke her wrist trying to get out of the cupboard. Would a woman who was that scared draw attention to herself in that way? Why would I have locked her in the cupboard if I intended to kill everyone?’ He added, ‘I’m supposed to be a one-time special services soldier. So would I have done something guaranteed to create a hell of a racket just before I turned up to take everyone by surprise?’
‘Because you were off your head on drugs and didn’t know what you were doing, that’s why.’
Patrick just shook his head wordlessly and walked back down the corridor. We had passed the cupboard on the way, an old-fashioned linen store of some kind, not built-in but free-standing. He examined the door-catch and lock without touching anything. I could see no sign of damage.
‘Has the key been removed by forensics?’ Patrick said to the DCI. ‘I left it in the lock.’
‘Yes.’
‘This thing doesn’t look as though it’s been subjected to any force, either from within or without. It’s strongly, although roughly, built and I suggest to you that anyone inside wouldn’t have been able to break out, even if they’d used their feet. And the woman involved is quite slight.’
‘What nationality would you say she is?’
‘Spanish. Her English isn’t too good and although I’m half decent at French and have a little German there was no proper communication between us.’
‘Then what did you do – after you’d secured her in the cupboard?’ Rundle enquired. ‘Incidentally, weren’t you worried she might run out of air?’
Patrick pointed to gaps at the tops of the doors, which did not fit very well. ‘No.’
‘He noticed that when he was half off his head with drugs,’ I commented. ‘Thought about her welfare too.’
‘I am exploring all angles,’ Rundle said to me.
I apologized, having just realized that fact as soon as I had spoken.
Moving from there, Patrick went back to the bathroom, the floor covering in which had been removed. Standing in the doorway he gazed back along the corridor.
‘That’s Leanne’s room,’ he said, gesturing towards the first doorway on the left. ‘I was coming back from where I’d hidden the cleaning woman in the cupboard when she came out, saw me but before she could say anything I put my fingers to my lips. She must have just woken up because she was still in her pyjamas and looked half asleep. I went to her and whispered that I must take her somewhere safe. Then I seem to remember I took her back into her room and shut the door so we could talk without being overheard.’
We went to stand by the doorway. P
atrick was the only one not to look inside, his expression taut. I glanced in quickly; lots of pink, teddies, pictures of pop stars on the walls, just like Katie’s room.
Rundle said, ‘Could you hear anyone else in the house?’
‘No, it was very quiet.’
‘All those downstairs could have already been dead by then.’
‘And I would have had an hysterical child on my hands instead of one who had just woken up. Would she have slept through all that gunfire?’
‘Kids do sleep deeply,’ the DCI pointed out. ‘And the weapon might have been silenced.’
‘But it wasn’t. It was my Glock 18, which wasn’t silenced.’
‘Do you know you had it on you when you entered the house that morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re quite sure you had it with you and hadn’t left it behind, or had it lifted off you the previous evening when you say someone must have spiked your drink?’
‘I’m sure I had it with me, in its shoulder harness.’
‘Which you were wearing when you were found in the lane out the back, the weapon in your hand.’
‘I have no memory of being found.’
‘OK. Then what happened?’
‘I can recollect impressing on Leanne that we must leave. She wanted to go and find her mother. But she’d . . .’ His voice trailed away, a frown creasing his forehead.
I held my breath and so, probably, did Rundle.
‘Yes, she’d twisted her ankle in the garden the day before,’ Patrick said in an undertone. ‘That’s why I carried her. I told her we’d find her mother but actually had every intention of taking her out of the house as fast as I could. That meant going down the stairs and out through the front or back doors, of course. But we didn’t make it.’
Neither the DCI nor I broke the silence that followed while Patrick went away from us for a short distance. Then, turning to us he said, ‘I think I’d just left her room, carrying her when there was a shot. Leanne screamed. That’s all I can remember.’
‘Take your time,’ Rundle said sympathetically.
‘Everything else is a blank until I woke up in that clinic. No, I have a vague memory of lying somewhere out the back here, on a pile of stinking grass cuttings.’
Souvenirs of Murder Page 10
