‘We’d better split up,’ Palmer told her. ‘It won’t make much difference in this crowd, but one of us might spot something. Keep your radio handy.’ He nodded away from the house. ‘You do the gardens. I’ll check the inside.’
Riley walked around the house and through the shrubbery, then drifted towards a collection of brick buildings set back among the trees. The noise dropped appreciably as she walked towards them, and she realised with a sudden chill that she wouldn’t have to go far before she was completely alone.
In the fading light, she could just make out some wooden ventilation boxes sitting on the roofs of the buildings, and closer examination revealed she was approaching some stables. From what Palmer had said, Keagan’s men had checked these out already, but that was probably two days ago. A cobbled path led all the way from the house and ended in a small yard around which the buildings were set in an open square. She couldn’t hear the sound of horses stamping and snuffling, nor any of the associated noises to be found in busy stables. A couple of bulkhead lights shone weakly from high on the walls, revealing the yard to be empty and clean, although dotted with sprouting weeds and coarse grass.
If there had been horses here, she reflected, it must have been a while ago.
The stalls along one side of the open square held an assortment of implements and riding gear. None of it looked clean or fresh and everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. The stalls on the opposite side were also empty save for a scattering of straw and some old, damaged furniture. Over everything hung the dull tang of stale horse manure, and the soft cooing of doves in the rafters added to the sense of rural peacefulness.
She turned to the block in the centre. There were no stable doors to this one, just a single door at one end with a low watt bulb burning in a wrought-iron holder overhead.
The door opened to emit a mixed aroma of stale cigarette smoke, cooking and bodies. Riley reached along the wall near the door and flicked on the light. She was in a small, high-ceilinged anteroom furnished with wooden lockers, a table and chairs. High windows looked out onto a stretch of trees at the rear. She opened a couple of the locker doors, but other than a film of dust and the odd clump of dried mud, they were empty. The whole room had an empty feel of desolation and lack of care, like a small-town railway station waiting room.
Against the rear window wall was a single sink and drainer, with a battered microwave oven standing on one end. Its glass door was open, and the inside was stained with baked-on food remnants. The air around it smelled spicy and peppery.
A cupboard under the sink held a bottle of detergent and a selection of mismatched crockery, chipped and stained with use. The air in the cupboard smelled of damp, and the wall at the back was covered in a dark bloom.
The room had obviously been converted from something else – possibly a tack room, Riley guessed – and turned into a makeshift staff kitchen. The walls had been splashed with white paint but the slabbed floor remained uncarpeted and cold. High on the wall to one side of the sink were two hefty metal brackets, which had probably once held shelves for tackle or other equipment. A metal waste-bin against one wall had been used as an ashtray and the one window was over-painted and firmly shut. With no attempt at creature comforts, it smacked of the purely temporary.
Riley emerged into a corridor that ran the full length of the block, with a number of doors leading off to the rear of the building and two small windows facing out onto the central square. The first door opened with a protesting squeak, the wood swollen in the damp air. The room was simple, about ten feet square, plain and as homely as a coal bunker, with a single bed and one hard-backed chair. A small bedside cabinet was scarred along the front edge by cigarette burns, and any varnish on the top had long been eradicated by the ring-stains of hot mugs and wet glasses. Cheap wire coat hangers bunched along a wooden architrave served as a wardrobe. It could almost have been a prison cell, she thought, and shivered at the thought.
The other rooms were identical. None showed signs of current use, but other than a thin layer of dust, bore the same lingering odour of someone having been here recently. The grooms? Or temporary lodgings for some other reason?
As she turned to leave the last room, Riley spotted a small square of printed paper, lying wedged under the edge of the the door. She pulled it out and smoothed it flat.
It was a torn scrap from a magazine. The typeface was rough, the paper quality poor. The illustration showed part of a naked breast, the aureole tanned and pimpled with goosebumps. The text alongside mentioned the name Licia in bold print and was peppered with vivid exclamation marks. No doubt, Riley assumed, the thinking man’s Michelin Guide indicator to soft porn. Unfortunately, whatever the editor was trying to convey about Licia’s finer attributes was a mystery to her, as the text was all in Spanish.
As Riley slipped the piece of paper into her pocket, she heard a noise from the far end of the corridor.
Somebody had just entered the anteroom.
**********
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Riley waited, but there was no further sound above the drumming in her ears. With a rising sense of panic, she realised there was no other way out of here; she was going to have to walk back the way she had come in.
She felt the shape of the radio in her pocket and debated calling Palmer. But that would take him away from what he was doing. Besides, what would he say if it turned out to be an inquisitive guest or a member of the catering staff sneaking away for a cigarette break?
She took a deep breath and retraced her steps along the corridor, her footsteps unnaturally loud in the enclosed space. As she passed each door, she glanced in, but the rooms were empty. As she reached the anteroom, she saw a bulky shadow thrown across the floor.
Rockface.
He looked as welcoming as a fridge-freezer and Riley wondered what he was doing here.
‘I thought you were Palmer,’ she said coolly.
‘He’s with Sir Kenneth. I said I’d take a tour of the grounds. I saw the lights.’
‘They were on when I came in. What’s this place used for?’
‘It’s not. Nobody comes here.’ His tone was accusatory.
Riley ignored it. ‘I’m not surprised. Not very welcoming, is it?’
‘It used to be for storage and tack,’ he explained. ‘Sir Kenneth had the place done up when he hired some grooms to look after the horses.’ He eyed the room as if they were discussing soft furnishings, a strange contrast to the surly robot Riley had come to expect. ‘When Sir Kenneth sold the horses, he didn’t need the grooms. They left. That was a good while back.’ The bare bulb in the ceiling cast a collection of shadows across his face, highlighting the planes and hollows of his eyes and craggy cheekbones. Riley wondered why she was being treated so freely to this information.
‘Where did they go?’ she asked, edging towards the door. As far as she knew, she had no reason to fear this man, but she would feel a whole lot better once she was out in the open.
He shrugged vaguely and turned to follow her, closing the door behind him and switching off the lights on the outside wall. ‘No idea. Probably to whatever local stables would give them work. There are plenty in the area, always on the lookout for staff.’ He sounded disinterested, and Riley sensed he was keen to get her away from here.
She followed him back towards the house, unconvinced by his explanation. The smell of humans and cigarette smoke don’t usually last very long, which meant the place had been used recently. And although she knew nothing about grooms and their domestic habits, she couldn’t see local lads being into spicy food and Spanish porn.
Behind the house, the party was growing in volume as more guests milled around the entrance to the marquee and the drinks tables. From inside came the mellow sound of music loosening the mood, and a peek through the entrance showed a wall of bodies.
‘You want to check it out?’ Rockface nodded towards the marquee.
She shook her head. ‘Too much noise and too many
people. I wouldn’t see anything.’ There was also the danger that if any of them mistook her for an official presence, there might be a stampede as guests with toxic substances charged outside to dispose of the evidence among the rhododendrons and rose bushes.
Rockface nodded and walked away, leaving her to continue her patrol. Seconds later, a drunken male guest spotted Riley and lurched away from his friends in her direction.
‘I say – you there!’ called the drunk, like a character from a bad stage play. ‘That single tottie… to heel, I say! Let’s have some fun!’
His intentions were spoiled as he tripped over his feet and sprawled to the ground in front of her, a few splashes of wine narrowly missing Riley’s legs. He lay there, head rolling, as a gaggle of his friends ambled across in noisy support.
‘Thanks,’ Riley murmured, stepping over him, ‘but I don’t know where you’ve been.’
She completed two tours of the grounds, drifting silently along the edge of the tree line and growing more at ease with the place. She was surprised at how peaceful it was. Somehow it seemed so at odds with the threats Sir Kenneth had received. Or maybe she was growing complacent, allowing the music, the laughter and the balmy evening to get to her.
She passed a few quiet couples here and there, mostly older guests in search of tranquillity away from the noise and pounding music in the marquee. They nodded courteously but kept their distance. Something else to get used to, she reflected: nobody talks to the minders.
She was just approaching the edge of the trees bordering the track which she and Palmer had seen earlier, when the night was blown apart by the sound of a gunshot.
Riley turned and raced back as fast as she could through the trees. Even had she been able to, it was pointless stopping to call Palmer on the radio; he’d have heard the shot, too. It appeared to have come from the direction of the house, and although the sound had been distorted, she was guessing it was a shotgun.
When she finally broke into the open, she saw a crowd milling about in confusion on the lawn between the marquee and the rear of the house. Most of them were looking up at the roof, although apart from one or two shrill demands for an explanation, nobody seemed too bothered by the sound of the shot. She wondered how much of that was down to champagne deadening their instincts for danger.
Riley followed their gaze and saw a gleam of reflected light from what might have been a gun barrel poking out over the balustrade running around the edge of the roof. She felt her stomach tighten with the numb realisation that she and Palmer would now be expected to do something.
Only, with no weapons, what could they do? So much, she thought, for gun control laws. It put all the aces in the hands of the bad guys and left everyone else defenceless.
She was about to call Palmer when she saw Rockface jogging across the lawn from the marquee, a look of consternation on his face when he saw what everyone was looking at. She hurried over to meet him and grabbed his arm.
‘Show me the way up,’ she told him. ‘Then get Sir Kenneth and the girls somewhere safe.’ The cabinet minister and other VIP guests would have to fend for themselves.
‘It’s okay - Palmer’s on it,’ the butler replied, apparently unfazed at receiving orders. He led the way through a side door and up a flight of uncarpeted stairs. They didn’t have the same plush feel as the rest of the house, and Riley guessed it was a service staircase. It echoed with emptiness and felt cold and austere – or maybe that was simply a feeling prompted by the knowledge that somewhere above their heads was a man with a gun. She shivered, her light suit suddenly inappropriate for the drop in temperature.
Their footsteps echoed ahead of them as they rounded the first floor stairs and started up the narrow final section. Riley prayed that whoever was up there didn’t decide to come down this way.
Rockface must have had the same thought, because he reached under his coat and produced an automatic pistol.
Definitely not your average butler, thought Riley. She wondered if Palmer knew the man was armed.
They came to a low door leading to the roof. It was solid, with a large, square lock holding an ornate iron key with a forged handle. Riley tried the handle and felt the door give a fraction. It was unlocked.
They waited, allowing their breathing to return to normal and straining for sounds of movement on the other side. But it was like being in an echo chamber; Riley couldn’t hear a thing above her own heartbeat and Rockface’s panting.
‘Are you any good with that thing?’ she whispered. He was holding the gun in a two-handed grip, the finger alongside the trigger guard. It looked very professional, but she wasn’t automatically reassured. Anyone who’d watched a Bond film knew how to hold a gun like an expert.
He nodded. ‘Among other things, inter-services champion at Bisley. That good enough for you?’
‘Fair enough. But remember – it could be some tanked-up chinless wonder up here who simply found the keys to the gun cabinet.’
Rockface sneered. ‘That’s his lookout, then, isn’t it?’
‘True. But assuming he doesn’t kill us both by accident, what if you shoot him and he turns out to be the son and heir of Lord Doohickey? You fancy doing time for it?’
He appeared to consider the idea, then gestured at Riley to stand by the door. She realised that he wanted her to open it, so he could go through first. She was happy to let him. Hopefully, he wouldn’t get his head blown off.
She leaned over and grasped the handle again. It turned with a faint squeak and the door opened, letting in a cool gust of evening air and the reflected glare of lights from the festivities below. Further across the roof she caught a glimpse of the skeletal framework of scaffolding poking into the sky. The sound of music, although muted up here, was still ongoing as though nothing had happened, and it made Riley wonder what it would have taken to bring the proceedings to a halt.
She opened the door a bit more and held her breath, ready for the squeal of rusty hinges. But the door mechanism was silent. She breathed out very slowly, her chest pounding painfully.
At a final nod from Rockface, she pushed the door all the way back.
*********
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A man was kneeling by the parapet barely six feet away. He had the butt of a shotgun cradled under one arm, with the barrel poking over the edge. He was dressed like the other guests and seemed to be peering over the top as if searching for someone. An empty champagne bottle lay by his side.
Rockface slipped silently through the door, Riley moving up on one side. The air up here was immediately cooler than at ground level, with a faint breeze skimming the roof. The surface underfoot was flat and faintly ridged, and Riley guessed the area was laid with strips of lead or some other weatherproofing. It should have been the same all over, but as she stepped away from Rockface, she trod on a thin scattering of something brittle, setting off a noise like miniature firecrackers.
The gunman spun round with a start, the barrel of the shotgun lifting towards them. Without thinking, Riley, who was closer, took a quick step forward and kicked the man as hard as she could in the chest.
It wasn’t technical or stylish, merely a good, old-fashioned toe punt. But it did the job. There was a muted crack as something gave way, and the shock of contact travelled up Riley’s leg. As the man groaned and dropped the shotgun, all she had to do was reach out and catch it before it fell to the floor.
As the man flopped over sideways, winded and whey-faced, Rockface stepped past Riley and kicked his hands away from his sides in case he had a backup weapon. There was no attempt at resistance and by the sounds coming from the man’s mouth, he was busy trying not to throw up.
Riley peered over Rockface’s shoulder as he flipped the gunman expertly onto his back. He was fresh-faced and looked no more than nineteen, with a slight fuzz across his upper lip.
‘Know him?’ Riley asked.
Rockface shook his head. ‘Never seen him before. These kids all look the same to me.’ H
e went through the man’s pockets and came up with a wallet and a silver hip flask. The wallet held documentation in the name of Charles Justin Clarke, with an address in Mayfair, London, and a folded wedding invitation. ‘Bloody hell,’ muttered the butler. ‘He’s a sodding guest!’
‘Well, there you go,’ Riley told him, beginning to feel the surge of adrenalin give way to the shakes. ‘Lucky you didn’t shoot him, aren’t you?’
Rockface grunted sourly and gently slapped the man’s face. It sounded painful. When he got no response, he went downstairs to tell Sir Kenneth what had happened and arrange for an ambulance. Riley didn’t envy him the job. No doubt Myburghe would have something to say about a guest running amok with a gun at his daughter’s wedding reception. It certainly wasn’t something he’d want splashed all over tomorrow morning’s papers while eating his egg soldiers.
Charles Clarke stirred and grunted, his breathing sounding like an old kettle. Riley squatted down and waited for him to come round. He did so by stages, the mixture of shock and alcohol probably combining to act as a mild sedative.
‘What happened?’ he croaked. When he saw Riley looming over him, he struggled to move away, but Riley put a hand on his chest to keep him still. Even in the poor light she could see his face was as pale as a fish’s belly and covered in an unhealthy sheen of perspiration. Then he flipped over and threw up. When he’d finished, he turned back and sat up, shaking his head.
‘Sorry,’ he said miserably, then gently held his ribcage. ‘Christ – what did you hit me with?’
No Tears for the Lost Page 10
