The Hireling's Tale

by Jo Bannister

  As the car drew closer he stepped into the middle of the road, flagging it down. He had just time to wonder what sort of a figure he cut, and whether an elderly man or a woman driving alone would not have every excuse to speed past him, or indeed over him, and then it started to brake.

  The driver was a middle-aged man in a cloth cap and shirt sleeves. He wound down the window as he stopped. ‘Got a problem?’

  Donovan nodded wearily, resting his arm on the roof. ‘You could say that. Listen, I’m a police officer. Do you have a phone?’

  ‘Hang on.’ The man reached under the dashboard.

  But it wasn’t a phone he came up with, it was a gun. Donovan never even saw it. The noise and the impact hit him simultaneously, at point-blank range, flinging him off the car. He hit the road, rolled once and came to rest face-down in the dirt with his long arms flung out as if his last conscious thought had been the fear of falling.

  Chapter Four

  At one o’clock there was still no word of the helicopter. Peterborough had started a foot-search of Bedford Levels, radiating out from where the car was found, and Division had contributed a pair of tracker dogs.

  ‘Dogs?’ exclaimed Liz. ‘What use are dogs going to be? The one thing everyone knows about tracker dogs is that you can lose them by crossing water. The one thing we know about where Donovan and Maddie Cotterick have gone is they must have crossed water, several times.’

  Hilton understood her frustration, but he could offer her no more than Division had offered him.

  Frank Shapiro phoned from the hospital and asked Liz to collect his statement. She’d meant to send a PC, but in fact there was nothing to keep her at Queen’s Street. She felt rushed off her feet with all that was happening, but it was that particular kind of rushed-off-her-feet that involved a lot of staring at the wall, hollow-eyed, imagining the worst. She had the screens ready for use; she’d visited the surrounding houses and none of the residents reckoned to have an assassin in the attic. There wasn’t much more she could do for now. Getting out of the office for twenty minutes would help pass the time.

  He was waiting for her, waiting for news. ‘Have they turned up yet?’

  Liz shook her head. ‘It may not mean much. It’s only this last half hour they’ve had people out there looking. If it’d been our end of The Levels, Giles would have had everyone including his arthritic mother tramping the fen within twenty minutes of the car being found.’

  ‘Mm,’ said Shapiro thoughtfully. ‘Next time Donovan wrecks my car he’ll have to be more careful where he does it.’

  Liz smiled dutifully, but actually neither of them felt much like joking. They weren’t used to being sidelined. Quite possibly the outcome would have been the same if they’d been running the search, but at least they’d have known they were doing all that could be done.

  ‘So. You got your statement written up?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was a portable typewriter sitting on his bedside cabinet with an envelope beside it. But he didn’t immediately offer it to her. ‘You reckon Kendall’s the key to this?’

  Liz nodded. ‘I think so; and Hilton’s sure. But he can’t pin him down. Which wouldn’t matter if we had the time to play games with him.’

  ‘And if he could pin him down?’

  ‘If we can prove Kendall was part of it, I think he’ll give it up. Make a full-and-frank. He didn’t kill anyone; if he never anticipated that anyone could get killed he’ll want to get out from under that. I think he’ll tell us everything.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘In time we’ll get at the truth. We’ll match DNA from Mrs Atwood’s room with a sample from one of the men’s rooms, and we’ll know. But it’ll be too late to catch him. It’s probably too late now’

  ‘And the witness? Donovan?’

  Liz frowned. She wasn’t sure quite what this conversation was about. ‘Surely to God they’ll have found a phone by then!’

  ‘What if he’s still out there? What if I was wrong and he never thought of coming back here to wait for them? Liz, what if he’s still out there looking?’

  ‘Then we have to find them first. He’s on his own, remember; and hell, we’ve got dogs!’ But Shapiro was in no mood to respond to irony; she wasn’t even sure he’d noticed. ‘Frank, what is this? What’s bothering you? I mean, apart from the obvious.’

  He looked white and strained, somehow more than when he had been more ill. He looked troubled. He reached for the waste-paper basket. It was full of crumpled balls of half-typed paper.

  She didn’t understand. ‘Couldn’t you remember what happened?’

  That wasn’t it. ‘I remember perfectly. I remember that Philip Kendall did and said nothing we can use against him.’ He lifted hunted eyes from the bin to her face. ‘I wanted to lie. All these scraps - they’re different versions. Different lies’ He forced a shaky little laugh. ‘Pretty convincing, some of them. You’d have believed them. Hilton would have charged him on the strength of them. Liz, I’ve been doing this job for more than thirty years, and I’ve never put my name to a lie before this.’

  He’d quite knocked the wind out of her. She sat down on the edge of the bed. Her lips formed a question mark. ‘Then - why?’

  He answered carefully, one word at a time. ‘Because I thought they needed me to. Because I thought of them out there, lost in that green desert, with a hired killer on their heels, and I thought their lives were worth more than my integrity.

  ‘I didn’t mean for Kendall to go to jail because of it,’ he added quickly. It mattered to him that she know that. ‘Once they were safe, or past help, I’d have admitted what I’d done. I’d have had to resign, which isn’t the way I’d have chosen to end my career, but I was ready to do it. I thought the prize was worth the cost. I thought I could improve their chances, and I thought it was worth it.’

  Liz looked at the envelope on the cabinet. She didn’t know how to put this. She was - not shocked but taken aback - and at the same time her heart was swelling with compassion and sheer regard for the man. Whatever she said, she didn’t want it to sound like criticism. ‘And this one. Is it the best version of all?’

  Shapiro flicked her a brief smile for that. ‘Yes, and no. It’s the truth. The honest, unadulterated, totally useless truth. I couldn’t do it.’ He ran a distracted hand through his hair, already tousled from the pillow. ‘Liz, I had the chance to help them. Maybe. Maybe not, but maybe I could have got Dodgson called off. Maybe I could have saved their lives. And I couldn’t do it. God in heaven, Liz, when it came to a choice between my word and the safety of two people, I couldn’t do it! If they die, it’ll be my fault.’

  She couldn’t let him think that. He’d startled her, she’d need a little time to know how she felt about what he’d confided, but whether he’d been right to consider it or right to dismiss it she knew he was wrong to feel responsible for the consequences of his honesty. She leaned forward, her eyes sparking with indignation.

  ‘Don’t you dare say that! It isn’t true, not even slightly. In the first place, we’re going to find them before they come to any harm. And in the second place, if by any chance things go badly, it still won’t be your fault for not lying. If it’s anybody’s fault it’s mine, for telling Kendall about Maddie. I’m hoping and praying that maybe it didn’t make that much difference, that even if I’d kept my mouth shut Dodgson would have found them somehow. I don’t know if it’s true but I have to believe it. And you have to believe that even if you’d sacrificed your career, it might have made no difference except that Castlemere would have lost a Detective Superintendent it desperately needs.

  ‘But even if it could have helped - even if we could get past Kendall to whoever he’s protecting and there was still time to call off the mechanic - nobody who knows you, and that includes Donovan, would expect you to do it. It’s not who you are, Frank. And those of us - like Donovan, like me - who have most to be grateful to you for would be sorriest to see you turn into a man for whom ends j
ustify means.’

  ‘But Liz.’ He was looking at her as if she might somehow have missed the point. ‘This is his life we’re talking about. The lives of both of them. I know, it’s better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man go to jail. But what about a guilty man who’s willing to protect himself by killing other people? You really think it’s still that clear-cut?’

  Liz took a long breath to steady her voice, aware that what she said next was vitally important to both of them. ‘In a general philosophical way? - no, I don’t. I think it’s open to debate. But it’s not our job to debate it. We’re paid to uphold the law, we’re not entitled to hold that view. We have to do the best we can within the framework of the law, and recognize that sometimes it’s not enough but that’s not our fault. If we start to think we can step outside the law sometimes, when it really matters, the whole business of law enforcement will fall apart. We won’t be police officers any more, we’ll be vigilantes.

  ‘We don’t have a choice, Frank. We can think about it, we can wish we had - there’s nothing wrong with agonizing over the paradox, that basket of crumpled dreams is a testament to your humanity - but in the end we have to hold the line. Because if the time comes that even we think we can cross it with a good enough excuse, there’ll be no line left.’

  Shapiro’s eyes were shut. His restless hand had fallen still across his mouth, except for the little caressing movements of the fingers. It was a racial thing. His father, his grandfather and all his forefathers had grown serious beards and stroked them like pets when they were thinking. Frank Shapiro didn’t have a beard, but sometimes he stroked where it ought to be, like a man scratching an amputated foot. Finally he gave a tiny nod. ‘You’re right,’ he said through his hand. ‘Of course.’

  Liz nodded at the bin. ‘Frank, you don’t need anyone to tell you what’s right. You have the best instincts of anyone I’ve ever known. But you’re like the rest of us: sometimes it’s good to hear someone say it. One of the privileges of rank, I’m afraid, is that all the hardest decisions you have to take alone. OK, nobody ever tells you you’re wrong, but they don’t tell you you’re right either, and everybody needs that sometimes.’

  Shapiro vented a shaky sigh. ‘You’re a good friend, Liz. You’ve always been a good officer, but I’ve had more from you than that. I hope you know I’m grateful.’

  She shrugged, pleased and embarrassed, her cheeks warm.

  Shapiro gave his old businesslike sniff. ‘Right. This isn’t buttering any babies.’ When it came to metaphors, he could mix them like a Kenwood Chef. He passed her the envelope. ‘Hand this to Mr Hilton, with my apologies. Then I suggest you get on to Division again, and if they still can’t get their helicopter in the air ask Mr Giles to hire you a spotter plane from the airfield here.’

  Her eyes widened. She simply hadn’t thought of that. She nodded crisply. ‘We’ll find them, Frank. We’ll bring them back safely.’

  ‘Of course you will.’

  The man who called himself Dodgson made very few mistakes. He planned his work in meticulous detail and performed it with consummate skill. He was one of the top men in his field, and it was a source of pride to him that he’d never seen the inside of a police station.

  He’d left the navy hatchback in the farmyard where he found the cream estate. When the owner returned from livestock sales in Northampton sometime this evening to find a strange vehicle in his yard and his wife locked in the dairy he would of course alert the police. By then, though, this job would be finished and Dodgson would be out of the country.

  He’d recognized the policeman flagging him down in plenty of time to decide what to do about it. He toyed with the idea of picking him up - he didn’t think DS Donovan had seen him clearly enough to recognize him in a different car and the hat that came with it - and letting him lead him to the girl. But it was a bit complicated, and simple plans work best. He knew the direction Donovan had come from, had passed only one lane he could have come down. The girl had to be up that lane. It would be quicker to go and look than to spend time trying to get the information out of the detective; and much safer to leave him in the ditch than to have him, desperate and plotting, in the seat beside him.

  Donovan’s death hadn’t been bought in the way that Maddie Cotterick’s had but Dodgson was a professional, had no compunction about removing obstacles. He owed it to his principles to get the job done quickly.

  He’d shot a lot of men in his time. Sometimes they took longer to go down than you’d expect, but mostly once they were down they stayed that way. Even so Dodgson approached the body in the road with caution. He didn’t think there was any fight left in it, but you couldn’t be sure. He didn’t think it had ever been armed, but you couldn’t be sure of that either. He kept his handgun trained on Donovan’s spine, the bones knobbly through the damp shirt, and prodded him with his foot. When there was no reaction he aimed a solider kick.

  It was one of those rare mistakes. It left him momentarily off-balance, his attention on the moving foot rather than the steady hand; when the long shape he had thought little better than a corpse rolled abruptly under him he found himself unable to fire without shooting his own knee. By then Donovan had hold of his foot and, surging upwards with all the strength he could muster, threw the older man backwards on to the road. He landed with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs and the gun out of his hand. It skittered across the cracked tarmac.

  Both men dived for it. Both believed that everything depended on getting there first. But Donovan was coming up while Dodgson was still falling, and his long-fingered hand clapped over the weapon with seconds to spare. He reared back, pointing the gun like an accusing finger in the other man’s face.

  They hadn’t been this close before. Donovan had got only an impression of a middle-aged man in a suit - he’d taken off the jacket since they last met - tall, lean, athletically built for a man who was no longer young. Now he had a face to put with that. Quite narrow and chiselled, with high cheekbones and deep-set, light grey eyes. Thin lips; grey hair cut ruthlessly short. There were no handles on him, Donovan realized: nothing to grab hold of, either actually or descriptively. A man who could pass through a customs hall lined with his portrait and never be stopped. Even sprawling in the road he managed to look as respectable and indignant as any businessman tricked by a ruffian. If the area car from Peterborough had come back this way, the driver would have tried to arrest Donovan rather than the hired killer.

  He ground breathlessly, ‘You’re nicked.’

  The man in the road regarded him with calm, faintly mocking disdain. ‘Don’t be absurd.’ Donovan was no good at English accents, except that he knew an expensive one when he heard it. It always made his hackles rise, even when the speaker wasn’t trying to kill him.

  If he hadn’t been so tired he’d have snapped back with a smart retort of his own. So it might have taken him longer to appreciate his dilemma, which Dodgson had already identified. They couldn’t sit here all day, face to face with the gun between them, waiting to be discovered. But the moment they moved the potential existed for Dodgson to turn the tables. Donovan had no illusions about his own abilities: against a professional mechanic he was way out of his depth, merest luck had preserved him long enough to see the ghost of a chance and take it. But alone and far from home, how long could he hope to keep a man like this under control? He didn’t even have a set of handcuffs.

  Just the gun. He could shoot the man dead. Nobody’d blame him, even if he admitted that at the moment it happened he was in command of the situation. That could change in the blink of an eye. He’d seen what Dodgson was capable of. And it wasn’t just his own life at stake, it was Maddie’s, a girl he’d been sent to protect, a girl who had witnessed a murder. Her safety was still his first priority, but she couldn’t be considered safe while Dodgson could regain the upper hand at any moment.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said the man in the road, the well-modulated voice quiet and persuasive. ‘I
don’t need you. You can walk away from this. I only need the woman.’

  Donovan stared, astonished by the sheer effrontery of the man. As if this thing in his hand was a lump of inert metal, a piece of pig-iron or a length of lead pipe. It was a gun. It was supposed to be the deciding factor.

  But only if he used it.

  There were alternatives, there had to be. Donovan gave them some thought. He could shoot to disable. If he broke a major weight-bearing bone, say a femur, all the professionalism in the world wouldn’t enable Dodgson either to pursue him further or to escape. But if he left the man by the roadside with a gunshot wound and a broken leg, the next person who came along would stop to help. He’d kill them with his bare hands, take their car and somehow find the sort of help that people with enough money and nothing to lose can find anywhere.

  ‘She’s a hooker,’ said Dodgson softly. ‘She isn’t worth dying for. You did your best. Walk away while you can.’

  Or he could use the gun as a truncheon. A passer-by would still stop to tend an unconscious man, but was less likely to find him snapping their hyoid bone in the process of manual strangulation immediately afterwards. Hit a man over the head hard enough to lay him out for hours and you run the risk that he’ll never wake up. But that troubled Donovan hardly at all. He couldn’t justify the risk either of taking him along or of leaving him here with his wits intact, and though there was much to be said for a permanent solution, ultimately he ran up against what had stood between Shapiro and his helpful lie. It wasn’t right. It was pragmatic, it was sensible, but it wasn’t easy for a law-abiding man to end a life, even this life, in cold blood.

  But he was tired, and scared, and angry: angry enough, with the day he’d had and the pain in his side, to hold the weapon rock-steady on Dodgson’s left eye. He grated, ‘Turn round. Slowly.’