The Hireling's Tale

by Jo Bannister

  Dodgson didn’t move, stayed where he was on his knees with his hands spread wide. His voice was calm. ‘You’re not going to shoot me, Sergeant.’

  Donovan blinked. But of course the man knew who he was: he’d followed him to Maddie. He still didn’t know how, but that was the only way he could be here. ‘Wanna bet?’

  Dodgson smiled, but then he did what he was told. ‘A small bet, perhaps; but not my life.’ Still on his knees, he shuffled round to face the car.

  Donovan knew things they didn’t teach at police training college. He knew that a rising shot through the back of the skull was as sure an execution as the guillotine. He knew where to find the brachial plexus, and that severing the spinal chord above that point would paralyse the man from the neck down while severing it below would leave him the use of his hands. And he knew that he’d never have to justify what happened next.

  He swung the gun in his hand with all the force of his fear and anger, and the man who called himself Dodgson cannoned sideways off the blow, spilled along the roadway and lay still. A slow trickle of blood wormed from his ear.

  Chapter Five

  Detective Superintendent Hilton was reading Shapiro’s statement for the third time, resigned to the fact that there was nothing in it that would help and never suspecting how different things could have been, when DI Colwyn burst into his office with the most cursory knock imaginable and a positive sunburst of expression on his round young face. ‘We’ve got him, sir!’

  Hilton’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He didn’t intend to be disappointed. ‘Who, exactly? And got how?’

  Colwyn nodded and got a grip on himself. ‘The man who killed the girl. And no, we haven’t got him, but if we can get hold of him we have enough to convict.’

  The superintendent breathed lightly. ‘You can put one of them in Mrs Atwood’s room?’

  Colwyn nodded. ‘We have matching DNA samples from Mrs Atwood’s room and one of the men’s. Better than that: they both match semen taken from the girl’s body. We can put the occupant of room 606 not only at the scene of the attack but actually having sex with the victim.’

  He wanted to be asked. Impatiently, Hilton obliged. ‘Well?’

  ‘The Saudi,’ said Colwyn, his eyes aglow with satisfaction. ‘It was the oil prince from Dhahran. Ibn al Siddiq.’

  Even without the witness of Maddie Cotterick, the forensic evidence now formed a physical chain tying Siddiq to the murdered girl that would put the matter beyond reasonable doubt with any jury in the land. In the unlikely event of it getting to court. The murderer was undoubtedly safe in his own country. But the man who facilitated both his crime and his escape was still in Castlemere, and a jury could be asked to judge his guilt.

  ‘Get Kendall back in here. Then call Mrs Graham’s mobile number. She’ll want to know this.’

  Colwyn reached for the phone. ‘Where is she?’

  Hilton scowled. ‘On her way to the airfield. She seems to fancy herself as Amelia Earhart.’

  Another summons to Queen’s Street following so quickly on the first could only be bad news. Kendall and his solicitor both entered the building with trepidation. Kendall thought the days of his liberty might be numbered. Mr Browne saw his chances of making his 3.30 tee-off time on the wane.

  So both were mentally prepared for the fencing to stop and for events to move forward. One look at Detective Superintendent Hilton’s face as he came in and started the interview tape confirmed surer than words that something fundamental had changed.

  His very first words put it beyond doubt. ‘You contacted Prince Ibn al Siddiq on Monday to update him on our inquiry. He responded by sending a professional assassin to remove the senior investigating officer. Now I want you to contact him again and tell him we have proof of his guilt, and to call off his hit man since it can only make things worse for him and for you if anyone else dies.’

  In all his years as a solicitor Mr Browne had never heard anything like it. Partly, of course, because he’d spent his career in Castlemere which got its fair share of crime but didn’t see a lot of either princes or professional killers. But partly because police officers investigating major crimes didn’t often commit themselves that comprehensively. There were always alternative scenarios, the possibility of error. For a detective superintendent to say what this one just had, on the record, it had to be true.

  He said smoothly, ‘Superintendent, I wonder if I might have a word with—?’

  Kendall didn’t let him finish. From the mere fact that he’d begun that sentence he knew what his solicitor wanted to say. There was no point in delaying further; indeed, further delay could only do him harm. ‘It’s all right, Mr Browne; thank you, but I understand the position.’

  He filled his lungs. ‘You’re right, I’ve been less than frank with you. I can cast some light on events at The Barbican at the weekend. I should have spoken up sooner. I was reluctant because Siddiq’s been a good client of mine, even a friend, for ten years and I believed him when he said it was an accident. He said they were smoking crack, he got a bit overenthusiastic, and the girl panicked and fell. I thought we were talking misadventure, just maybe manslaughter; if I’d thought it was murder I wouldn’t have helped him. Now you’re telling me he had Mr Shapiro shot, and he wants Maddie dead too, and that alters everything—’

  Hilton put a mobile phone on the table in front of him. ‘Save the excuses for a more appropriate time. All I want right now is for you to call him.’

  Kendall did. But when he got a reply the conversation did not go the way Hilton was expecting. In the first place it didn’t seem to be Ibn al Siddiq he was speaking to. Then Kendall rang off before passing on his message.

  Hilton frowned. ‘Mr Kendall, now is not the time to get coy.’

  Kendall shook his head urgently. ‘You don’t understand, Superintendent. I didn’t think you’d want me to say anything. He isn’t at home; he isn’t on his way home. He’s at a Thoroughbred stud about twenty minutes’ drive from here. If you want to arrest him you can.’

  The cream estate was too damn big and too damn heavy for manoeuvring in narrow lanes. Donovan nearly lost it a couple of times, expecting to turn it with a spin of the wheel and finding himself still heading for a gate-post. But he didn’t dare slow down. He wanted Maddie safe in the seat beside him and the still prone body of the man who called himself Dodgson falling behind at the rate of a mile a minute. Then he could afford to relax. He knew he was tired. He needed to get her to safety before exhaustion set in.

  He didn’t stop the engine, just abandoned the vehicle in the middle of the yard. He heeled his hand down on the horn as he got out. ‘Maddie! It’s me - Donovan. I’ve got us some transport. Let’s get the hell out of here.’ He leaned against the car for a moment, hoping she’d appear and he wouldn’t have to go and fetch her.

  The farmhouse door creaked open and she stood there, uncertain, barefoot and swathed in red plush. She looked at the car, then at Donovan. Her pale lips parted. ‘You’re bleeding.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s nothing. A flesh wound. Looks worse than it is.’

  But she was staring at him with unreassured horror. ‘Donovan, you’re bleeding a river!’

  Finally he looked down.

  The round had punched through his side, glancing off his bottom rib and carving a bloody trench you could have laid your finger in before hurtling on to oblivion in the fen. It was a fiery stitch in his side, it hurt when he moved, but there were no vital organs there and apart from the shock he thought he’d got off lightly enough. But she was right, he was bleeding like a stuck pig. The estate wasn’t that big, the steering wasn’t that heavy and the space wasn’t that tight. All his strength was ebbing out along with his blood.

  His knees buckled and he lurched against the vehicle, sliding down the door until he was sitting in the dirt, his eyes stretched with shock.

  Maddie gathered up her cloak and ran to him, shutting out the gritty stones under her raw feet. She knelt beside
him, exploring his injury with shaky hands. ‘Dear God, you met him, didn’t you? He shot you!’ She looked around in terror. ‘Where is he?’

  Donovan shook his head, in which strange gravity-defying forces were at work. ‘I knocked him out. I may have killed him, I don’t know. We have to get away from here.’ His voice was frail and breathy.

  ‘You can’t drive like that!’

  ‘You drive.’

  ‘All right. Let me get some clothes on.’

  ‘There’s no time …’

  ‘I can’t drive wrapped up in a curtain!’

  Toasting on the stove, her clothes were dry enough to pull on without difficulty; except for the white cotton slip and the remains of her tights, for which she had another purpose. She hurried back and bent over Donovan again. She eased his shirt carefully out of his belt to reveal the wound gouged in his side.

  ‘We have to stop the bleeding or you’re going to die.’

  She wadded the bundled cotton hard into the wound, ignoring the hiss of breath in his teeth. She put his hand against it. ‘Hold it there. Harder!’ She pressed down on his slack fingers, making him do as she said. ‘Now, lean on me.’ She pulled him forward until his head was on her shoulder, then reached round him with the micromesh bandage. ‘It may not be St John’s standard,’ she said with terse humour, ‘but if it’s tight enough it’ll control the bleeding. Does it feel tight?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ groaned Donovan, laid over her shoulder like an extremely large baby in need of burping.

  ‘OK. Let’s get you up.’ She’d managed perhaps half an hour’s rest since they got here. Five minutes ago she’d have said it wasn’t enough, that they’d have to carry her out on a stretcher. But bodies are more resilient than their owners ever think, and minds even more so. He needed her help, so somewhere she had to find the reserves to give it. The alternative was watching him bleed his life away; or worse, driving away and leaving him to do it alone. This had happened to him because of her, because of the lifestyle she’d chosen. Donovan may not have been the best bodyguard anyone ever had but he’d certainly tried hard. He’d fought for her, he’d bled for her. Maddie wasn’t turning her back on another desperate human being as long as she lived.

  She took his arm over her shoulder and straightened. Donovan’s head swam, but he fought it and once he was on his feet, as long as she steadied him he could walk. She steered him round the car and reached past him to open the passenger door. He slumped on to the seat. Maddie lifted his long legs in as if he were an elderly arthritic aunt she was taking for a drive. Then she hurried round the bonnet and got in behind the wheel.

  The roughness of the track hadn’t bothered Donovan much when he jogged out this way. He hadn’t been particularly aware of it driving back, had been fully occupied with what he’d then believed was the dreadful handling of the vehicle. Now every pothole sent pain thudding through his side. He gritted his teeth and told himself it would be better when they reached the better road; then abruptly the car turned and they were on the better road already. Somewhere he’d lost a couple of minutes.

  He tugged weakly at Maddie’s sleeve. ‘Other way.’

  She braked and looked anxiously at him. He was drifting in and out of the fog, she wasn’t sure she should pay any heed to what he said now. ‘Why?’

  ‘I came this way,’ he explained, as clearly as he could manage. ‘I met Dodgson a quarter-mile further on. If he’s feeling better by now, I don’t want to meet him again.’

  Maddie wasn’t going to argue with that. She backed just far enough into the lane to turn the other way.

  At least the pain in his side was easier now. But the light-headedness was growing worse. He wasn’t unconscious in the sense of being unaware of his surroundings, he just couldn’t keep his mind on them. It kept wandering off, without aim or purpose, sifting through what had already happened and was past repair with the idle curiosity of a window-shopper browsing along an arcade.

  He tried to concentrate on what was happening now, on their immediate needs and the quickest way of meeting them. But he had no sense of direction left. If Maddie couldn’t find her way out of the fen alone, then they would drive round it until either the car’s tank or his veins ran dry, whichever came first. Lacking the strength to hold it, he let his mind ramble off again, to think whatever thoughts it chose and remember what it cared to.

  He’d wrecked Shapiro’s car. Well, that was bound to rankle: no wonder he kept going back over it. He’d thought he could lose his pursuer in The Levels, that he knew and the man behind him couldn’t possibly, but still he was outmanouevred in the end and it cost Shapiro his car. He mustn’t have followed them into the fen at all. He must have sped back the way they’d come, back on to the main road and off again at the next junction. He’d guessed Donovan would come that way. He didn’t need to know the precise layout of all the lanes, where they joined and where they led. He only needed to know where Donovan was heading, and to get there first.

  Donovan’s jaw dropped. He reached for Maddie’s sleeve again. ‘No, wait …’

  If Dodgson was still lying unconscious in the road they could pass him without danger. If he was back in business he wouldn’t still be sitting there, nursing his head in his hands. He’d have worked out what Donovan would do next and moved to intercept him. He only needed to know where they were heading and get there first …

  Maddie glanced at him but didn’t brake again. ‘It’s all right. We’re going to be all right.’

  She drove round a bend and found the lane full of sheep. ‘What the—?’ She braked then; of course she did, no one with a spark of decency in them accelerates into a press of living animals.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ gasped Donovan. ‘Drive on. Drive, damn you!’

  She stared at him as if he was mad. ‘I can’t. I’ll flatten them.’ Perhaps then, in the split second that was left, she realized that he wasn’t as far gone as that, that there was good reason for his insistence; she may even have caught a glimpse of it. But by then the cream estate car was stationary and surrounded by a flock of sheep escaped through the open gate on their right, and the man who called himself Dodgson was standing on the left-hand verge pointing a small silver gun through the near-side window.

  He’d made another of those rare mistakes. Or perhaps that wasn’t fair, because although he knew he’d shot Donovan the events that followed suggested that he hadn’t inflicted much damage. He expected the policeman to be driving and the woman to be in the passenger seat. After loosing the sheep he’d positioned himself accordingly.

  Almost more than the fear, Maddie was overwhelmed by disbelief. She hissed at Donovan, ‘You left him the gun?’

  Donovan shook his head the least amount necessary. ‘No. It’s in here somewhere …’ His hand moved towards the back of the car, almost immediately stopped. If it had been in the glove compartment it would have done him no good. There wasn’t time to use it, let alone find it. ‘He had a spare.’ His voice was flat, all out of hope.

  Dodgson stepped forward carefully. Caution was, of course, his stock in trade, but this time he also had a ringing in his head to contend with. If Donovan had been in better shape it might have made him vulnerable, but then again it might not. It might have meant he’d shoot at the first sign of trouble because he wouldn’t trust himself to see the second. ‘Get out.’

  With the gun a handspan from his ear Donovan didn’t argue. It wasn’t a very big gun, but it was big enough to punch a hole through the glass and into his head. Besides, there was nothing he could do in here. Out there he might come up with something, if it was only fainting at a judicious moment. He reached for the door catch.

  Weakness, and yes, fear, made him clumsy. He fumbled it. Dodgson lost patience and snatched the door open with his left hand. Then he grabbed Donovan’s collar and trailed him out on to the verge. He barked a little laugh when he saw the blood. ‘I thought I was losing my touch!’

  Donovan licked his lips. But he still couldn’t think o
f a smart retort. ‘Drive,’ he murmured, not to Dodgson. ‘Go. Now.’

  It was a very small gun. It had to be, to be capable of concealment. Even in the hands of an expert it wouldn’t be reliable over more than a few metres. If Maddie stamped on the accelerator, batting sheep out of her way as she went, and if Donovan could keep him occupied for just a second or two, Dodgson would certainly shoot at her, he might even hit her, but his chances of stopping her with that gun at increasing range would sink rapidly from poor to nil. And this was his last chance. If she had the courage to act now she could save herself.

  But Donovan, and Dodgson himself, knew she wasn’t going to do it when she let the moment go and looked at them instead.

  Dodgson with a smooth motion took the gun off her and pushed its muzzle up under Donovan’s jaw. ‘You’re right,’ he said softly, answering the unspoken question, ‘it isn’t much of a gun. I could miss you. But I sure as hell can’t miss him.’

  ‘Go,’ whispered Donovan. ‘Maddie, go.’

  ‘Hush,’ said the gunman mildly, grinding the weapon into Donovan’s throat. ‘Miss Cotterick, listen to me. I won’t kill you - I won’t hurt either of you - if you give me back the car. Get out of the car. Then I’ll go away and leave you alone.’

  It didn’t work like that. Donovan knew it didn’t work like that. If he’d just needed transport he’d have helped himself to the first car that came along, he didn’t need to go to these lengths to recover this one. He was still doing what he’d been doing all along, what he’d been paid to do.

  ‘Don’t listen to him—’

  Dodgson took the gun away from Donovan’s throat just long enough to thump him in the side with the butt end. An agony like fire exploded outwards from the wound, ripping a thin cry from him; he’d have gone down except that Dodgson held him on his feet. His vision dimmed, his body went heavy as lead. His head rocked.