‘Out,’ he said gruffly, gasping at the agony in his ribs. ‘Have you got any decent painkillers I could take?’
‘I insist you get back into bed, chief inspector.’
He stood up, as straight as he could, and looked her in the eye. ‘I insist you find me my clothes. I’m discharging myself.’
Callum Baxter loaded the gun and handed it to Tom Brody. Jimmy Baxter admired the revolver he had, now fully loaded.
‘We’ll each take a section to search,’ said Callum. ‘She can’t have got very far last night.’
‘How’d you know?’ said Brody. ‘Maybe she’s already found someone, contacted the police. Maybe they’re already on their way here. We should be gathering up the money and making a run for it, not sniffing around trying to get the girl.’
Callum held the gun at Brody’s face. ‘Don’t tell me what I should do, Tom. Don’t ever tell me. I know she’s out there somewhere. When you find her, kill her. Don’t hesitate. This has got to end now.’
Brody nodded, drawing in a noisy breath through his nose. He moistened his dry lips. ‘Yeah, will do, Callum,’ he replied sullenly. ‘Whatever you say.’
The three men left the farmhouse and split up as Callum had arranged, Callum taking the path through the woods, the others following him for part of the way before striking out on their own.
Angelo Abramco’s body was still laid out in the same position they’d found him last night, his face pale, his sightless eyes still fixed on the sky. His clothes were sodden with the rain and a shiny black slug or two had crawled up out of the damp grass and onto his forehead.
‘You stupid bastard, Angelo,’ Callum whispered. But the man had already performed his part in things and his death was no great loss, apart from an extra set of arms to help lug the money out of the pit in the barn. The use of the old farmhouse, now almost derelict to be sure, which at one time belonged to Abramco’s father – or more accurately his ex-Welsh wife – had been a bonus Angelo had brought with him. Angelo had suggested the decrepit old farmhouse when a suitable hideaway was mooted. No one would think of looking out here for them, he said. Angelo’s dad, Bruno, had used it once or twice himself, while on the run or when keeping his head low, and had told his son all about it. Callum bet Angelo had never considered it might also be his final resting place.
He decided to leave the body just as it was for now. They’d have to bury it somewhere eventually, but there were more pressing things to take care of. He had to find the woman. If it got out that he’d let her slip through his fingers, jeopardising everything, his own skin would be in danger.
Callum scouted around, looking for tracks, anything in the mud that pointed him in the woman’s direction. At last he saw footprints, only a few, but enough to give him the start he needed. It had only just got light enough to see the things, the three of them having missed them in the dark, and it had taken ages for the dawn light to penetrate the gloom of the closely packed trees. He set off at a pace, head down, taking the path of least resistance through the trees and undergrowth, hoping she would have done the same.
Tom Brody stepped beyond the tree line and into open fields. The hill was high, the sky looking huge from where he stood, the stunted grass, nibbled short by sheep and rabbits, ran away to the horizon, a line of hedging all that broke up the dreary similitude. A raw wind dashed across the open land as he marched out into the field, looking for any sign of footprints, in one way hoping he might see the woman, in another dreading it if he did. He wasn’t a killer, not like the others. But he knew his life now depended upon the woman being caught. There was the possibility he could hang for his crimes. If they were caught, Callum and Jimmy would surely concoct some kind of a story to make sure his own sorry arse paid for it as much as theirs. There was no honour among thieves, and even less among murderers.
Before he knew it, he’d reached a small copse of trees haunting the centre of a huge open field. He saw the beat-up earth where cows had once sought shelter beneath the spreading boughs of the outermost trees, the many craters now holding tiny lakes of water that shone like quicksilver beneath the leaden sky. She could be hiding in here, he thought. The trees would have offered some kind of shelter from the storm last night. But in truth, he thought it more likely she’d run through the night, headed downhill. That’s what he’d have done. This was a waste of time, and the more time he spent on it the more nervous he became that the woman had already spouted her story to the police.
He slipped inside the cool interior of the copse, searching, listening intently. He almost stumbled over the tree boughs laid against the trunk of a tree. Someone had attempted to create a shelter for themselves, he thought. A roof of sorts had been roughly created by laying fallen branches across the boughs. But that could have been done by anyone, and ages ago.
‘Hello there!’ he called softly. ‘Are you there? I’m not going to hurt you. You must be tired, cold and hungry – I’ve got food. Hot food.’
The sounds of birds high in the bare canopy were the only reply. A fluttering of wings made him start. His hand went to the pocket where he kept the gun.
‘Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to come out right now.’
Beneath the roughly made shelter, he found a coat which had been laid on the damp ground. It belonged to Angelo. The fact she’d been here was now without dispute. If he could find her then it would put him back in Callum’s good books. He hadn’t liked the way the man had been looking at him recently. Or maybe that was simply his imagination racing away. It had been stressful of late, for everyone, since Jimmy had foolishly shot that young man. And you never know he might even get a bonus for bringing her in.
Fired by this thought, Tom Brody penetrated the dense undergrowth, taking out his revolver and parting the bushes with it as he went.
‘Coo-ee!’ he said playfully. ‘There’s nowhere to run, you know. You make a dash for it and I’ll see you plain as day as you run across the field. I’ve got a gun and you’ll make a pretty decent target, so don’t let it come to that. I’ll talk to Callum about going easy on you. What I say carries some weight with him. Come on now; don’t play hard-to-get…’
The copse was empty. He ploughed through it to the fields beyond, and, some five or six hundred yards away, he caught a brief glimpse of a figure disappearing through some high hedges. That had to be her, he thought. Was she limping? It sure looked that way.
He dashed across the field, his boots soon clogged up with mud, slowing him down, and he wasn’t fit by any measure. He found the going tough, but he reached the hedge before his lungs gave way altogether. Tom Brody paused, partly to regain his breath, but also to listen intently. Had she seen him?
He thought about shouting to Callum and Jimmy, but they were far away now, and anyway the woman would hear him and make a bolt for it. So he carefully peered through the hedge, skirting it and trying to locate the gap through which the woman had disappeared. Scrambling through a narrow, bramble-filled hole, he was surprised to find the land on the other side shelve steeply and he almost lost his footing as he half slid down the slope. He found himself in a long, narrow tunnel formed by the high hedges and trees that met overhead in a tangle of branches. She’d head downhill, he thought, staring along the sunken lane, at the almost indiscernible track, overgrown and carpeted with a brown sludge of dead leaves. Brody crept quietly along, his footing unsure on the rocks and ruts hidden by the leaves.
The lane curved to the left, and there, just vanishing from view and with a definite limp, was the woman. He was still unsure whether she’d seen him, but his heart quickened when he broke out into a run, the sudden thrill of the chase infecting him. But as he turned the bend, clearly seeing her hobble along, he lost his footing on the unseen rocks and tumbled to the ground with a loud exclamation.
Struggling to get quickly to his feet, he glanced up to see the woman staring back at him, her face plainly fearful. She bolted as fast as she could down the lane.
‘S
top!’ Brody called. ‘I won’t hurt you!’
Even with a limp, she was in better shape than he was, and he was soon becoming quite breathless again.
In his desperation, he fired the gun.
15
Even the Odds
Constable Rhys Griffiths studied the man carefully, though not too closely to make it blindingly obvious. His papers were entirely convincing, of course, but something about the man struck him as odd. His dishevelled appearance for one thing. Here was a man who looked like he’d slept in his clothes, coat and all. He was in bad need of a shave, too. And was that the faint tang of booze on his breath? Moreover, he was in some pain, from the way sudden movement elicited a grimace.
‘This is the map, yes?’ said DCI Hawthorne.
‘Not the exact one that was found in the abandoned car, sir,’ said Griffiths. ‘But this one’s the same. Your bog-standard Ordnance Survey map. We use them, too. Tell me, sir, what has this couple’s disappearance got to do with the robbery in Sheffield?’
‘Show me where the car was found,’ said Hawthorne.
The small rural police station was a far cry from his Sheffield offices, thought Hawthorne. It looked positively Victorian, with its old plaster mouldings and a coal fire burning away in a tiny black-leaded Victorian fireplace. They were in a cramped room, which, apparently, took on the role of many things, interview room and meeting room amongst them. Today it was the meeting room. Hawthorne had the map spread out on the top of a darkly-varnished table that had seen better days, a mug of tea steaming away by his right hand.
‘Right here, sir,’ said Constable Rhys Griffiths, putting a finger on the map.
‘And they were staying here?’ Hawthorne said, pointing to the villageofLlangynidr.
‘That’s right. A good fifteen miles away. So what is the connection with the Sheffield robbery?’ he persisted.
Hawthorne stroked his bristled chin. It made a rasping sound. ‘It might have no connection,’ lied the DCI, ‘but we need to check it out all the same.’
‘The car was blocking a farmer’s gate, otherwise we might never have noticed the car had been abandoned,’ said the constable.
‘I spoke to the missing woman’s father – a Mr Alexander Armitage. His name was mentioned in the Times, where we first became aware of the missing couple. He said his son-in-law was a keen rambler.’
‘Yes, the Garners were on a rambling holiday.’
‘And he told me the young man, Josh Garner, was also very keen on keeping old rights-of-way open by purposely walking them, even when they had been closed off by landowners.’ He looked at the map. ‘There are at least three routes marked out on here,’ he said, indicating the tiny dotted lines.
Constable Griffiths bent closer. ‘Yes, that’s right. They could have taken any one of them. We’ve searched along each and every one and come up with nothing.’
‘Do you know of a farm in the vicinity that used to belong to a family called Morgan?’
‘Yes. It’s no longer run as a farm. It’s derelict.’
‘So where exactly would that be on this map?’
Griffiths frowned as he scoured the page. ‘I can’t see it marked on there. Sometimes you need a map of a different scale. But it’s about here...’ he indicated with his finger.
Hawthorne nodded. ‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘It seems one of the old rights-of-way goes right through it, or close by it, then.’
‘We’ve already thought of that. In fact, I went up to the Morgan farm myself to check it out, but there was no sign of the missing couple. Like I told you, it’s derelict, nobody uses it anymore. We’re concentrating our searches elsewhere at the moment.’
‘Is there access to the farm?’
‘It’s a waste of your time, sir.’
‘Is there access?’ he persisted.
Griffiths said yes. ‘But it’s the devil to drive up. I almost got my car stuck both going up and coming back down.’ He bent to the map. ‘See here? That’s the B-road which will take you up to this point here, where you take a sharp right. At first glance it’s easy to miss and doesn’t look like there’s any track there, but keep going. The track winds on for nearly two miles and will take you up pretty high into the hills, so be prepared for some low gears. You boys have Ford Zephyrs, right? That should be enough to get you up there.’
‘I’ve come in my own,’ Hawthorne said absently. ‘It’s a ’54 Humber Hawk.’
Griffiths narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you all right, sir? You seem to be in a bit of pain.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Hawthorne, standing up from the table. ‘I can use this, yes?’ he said with determination, folding the map.
‘Yes, it’s an old thing. We have others. Are you going to the Morgan farmhouse?’
‘Yeah, that I am,’ said Hawthorne, settling his trilby on his head.
‘Do you want me to accompany you? I can show you the way.’
The DCI shook his head. ‘I can find it by myself.’
With that, he left the police station and got into his car. Watching through the station’s window as the vehicle’s exhaust threw out a cloud of blue smoke, Constable Rhys Griffiths went to the main desk and picked up the telephone.
He dialled for the operator. ‘Hello, can you put me through to the Sheffield police force headquarters, please.’ He tapped his fingernails on the polished desk, another constable looking up from his work at him.
‘What’s wrong, Rhys?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Since when do DCIs use their own cars?’ The operator’s voice crackled on the line. ‘What do you mean you can’t make a connection yet?’ he asked. ‘Last night’s storm damage? It was hardly a storm. Okay, so when can we be put through?’ He sighed and put the receiver down. ‘Another hour. Modern technology, Jesus! It would be faster to write them a bloody letter!’
Griffiths looked out the window, but the Humber Hawk had gone.
Trudy Garner gave a stifled scream when she heard the shot, instinctively ducking. Her panic renewed, the pain in her ankle from where she’d fallen in the almost pitch-black wood and badly sprained it hindered her fervent desire to run. Tears of fear and frustration poured down her dirty cheeks as she stumbled wildly down the now steeply shelving lane. She still had the gun in her hand, clutched tightly in white-knuckled fingers, but all thoughts of using it were swamped by her animal-like need to escape.
The lane ended directly ahead. She could see the light flooding in, fields beyond. And what appeared to be a road.
Bursting from the tunnel of trees, she all but collapsed on the narrow country road. Hedges flanked the thoroughfare on either side, and down its centre grass and weeds grew through the poorly maintained tarmac, in some sections the potholes in the tarmac having been filled with small rocks. Her legs weak, Trudy hobbled downhill, the road snaking away round a bend. It had to lead out of here, she thought. It had to take her away from this madness.
‘Stop!’ shouted Tom Brody, emerging from the track and onto the road. He saw her, no more than twenty yards away, and he lifted his gun. He pulled the trigger.
She heard the bullet zip close to her and she shielded her head with her free hand. Realising she would never be able to outrun him, Trudy turned, her eyes narrowed as she lifted the gun, holding it in both shaking hands. ‘Don’t make me do it!’ she shouted.
Tom Brody halted, panting. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, gasping.
‘Keep away from me!’ she warned.
For long moments they stared fiercely at each other. Brody raised the gun sharply.
But Trudy fired first, Brody’s shot going wide as he felt a thump in his groin. He fell to the floor, dropping the gun, his hand going to the wound. ‘Damn you!’ he said, arching his head back when the pain hit him like a freight train. ‘You shot me, you bitch! You shot me!’
Trudy fired again, and again, the bullets striking the ground near Brody and sending up shards of tarmac. He covered his face w
ith his arm. She fired again and he was hit in the shoulder, the impact knocking him back.
Trudy pulled the trigger over and over, but the gun fired on empty and she threw the firearm away in disgust and horror. She looked at what she’d done, Brody’s blood already pooling beneath him.
When Brody next looked up, Trudy was limping away down the road, about to disappear round a bend. Scrabbling to retrieve his fallen firearm, Brody shouted out a string of expletives when he knew she had escaped him. He groaned and attempted to lift himself, but he could not, and collapsed in agony.
Trudy, her cries choked by her breathless dash down the road, sobbed loudly, and she called out her dead husband’s name, calling on him to help her.
Ahead of her, miraculously, was a large truck, climbing the hill slowly, its size taking up the full width of the narrow track. It was headed towards her.
‘Stop!’ she called, waving frantically. ‘Stop!’ She dropped to her knees just as the truck reached her, its engine growling like some great prehistoric beast. ‘Help me!’ she said. ‘Please help me!’ she called up to the two faces she saw staring through the windscreen.
One of the two men, the driver, opened his door and climbed out of the cab and walked cautiously towards her.
‘You’ve got to help me!’ Trudy gasped. ‘My husband was murdered. I’ve been kidnapped, and they were going to murder me, too! You’ve got to help me, please!’
The man looked back to the cab. The passenger opened the door and stepped out. He approached her.
‘Who are you?’ said Julian Merrill. The lawyer bent down to the young woman, held out a helping hand, which she clutched firmly.
‘I was kidnapped by a group of men, and kept prisoner in a farmhouse. They killed my husband and they planned to kill me, too. One of them was chasing me,’ she pointed down the road. ‘I shot him. He’s wounded, I think. Please, you have to help me. Take me to the police!’
ARCHANGEL HAWTHORNE (A Thriller) Page 17
