‘My foot,’ Riley muttered. ‘Who were you shooting at?’
‘What? Nobody,’ he muttered groggily and flapped a limp hand towards the darkness. ‘The treetops… I was tree-cutting.’
She looked over the parapet, wondering if he was drunker than he seemed. A group of evergreens showed pale and silver in the light coming up from the ground. Most of them were of the same height, with a uniformity of shape and mass like racked spears pointing skywards. She couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the nearest one was missing the top few feet of spindly trunk. Myburghe was going to be even less impressed.
‘Where did you get the gun?’
‘I found it up here.’ Clarke retched some more and a thin trickle of bile dribbled from his lips.
Riley smiled unsympathetically. Come morning, apart from a monster hangover, he was going to have a mouth like a mud-wrestler’s armpit. And Myburghe’s anger to cope with. But at least he was alive.
‘You found it.’ She didn’t bother hiding her scepticism. ‘Not that it makes any difference. Ever been to court on firearms offences? It’s a prison term these days.’
Charles Clarke looked up as though it had suddenly occurred to him what he’d done, and that firing a gun in a crowded place was very stupid, not to say illegal.
‘I did – I promise!’ At the thought of prison, Clarke looked horrified. ‘I came up here - OK, that was out of order, maybe. But I needed a drink - something stronger than bubbly, that’s all. The key was in the lock, so I thought, why not? It was boring downstairs, anyway. When I stepped outside, I nearly tripped over the gun. It was lying there. I mean, why should I lie?’ His voice was shrill with youthful protest and indignation. He broke off and coughed, and Riley told him to lie still.
She was tempted to explain to him what might have happened if Rockface had come through the door by himself, but that really would have spoiled his night. Instead she stepped across the roof and placed the shotgun out of the way, then peered over the parapet.
The crowd downstairs had already forgotten the fuss and were back to their partying, milling in and around the marquee as if gunfire was a regular wedding day occurrence. No doubt some of them would have concluded it demonstrated supreme sang-froid, a spin-off of good breeding and schooling. Riley preferred to think that with no bodies cluttering up the lawns, the young blue bloods merely figured it was safe to continue drinking and having a good time until someone died.
Her radio crackled. It was Palmer. She told him they’d found what seemed to be a drunken prank gone wrong, and that Sir Kenneth might want to check his gun cabinet. She also mentioned Rockface being armed.
‘That figures,’ he replied, sounding not the least surprised. ‘See you down here.’
Riley clicked off and had another scout round the roof, then went to see how Clarke was doing. He seemed to be on the road to recovery, although not quite fit to trot. Moments later, Rockface returned, and after slinging the youth over his shoulder with no more effort than a pillow, carried him downstairs, oblivious to his groans of pain. Evidently, the possibility of cracked ribs didn’t rate highly on the butler’s list of medical problems, or if they did, he didn’t care.
Riley followed, carrying the shotgun.
‘That was quick thinking, what you did up there,’ Rockface commented as they neared the ground floor. His voice even held a faint hint of respect, a whole continent away from his earlier displays of mild contempt. ‘Where’d you learn that?’
‘Ballet school,’ Riley quipped. ‘He was lucky - if I’d used my entrechat, I’d have probably killed him.’
He turned and gave a faint scowl. ‘Right. Big secret, is it?’
‘Something like that.’ She handed him the shotgun and went in search of Palmer.
She found him by the fountain, halfway down the drive. Someone had switched on a number of large ground lights, illuminating the scene like day. A group of partygoers had congregated, clutching bottles and glasses, most of them in much the same state of drunkenness as the unfortunate Charles Clarke. The women were in strappy dresses and delicate heels, while the men were mostly jacket-less, ties undone to show wads of manly chest hair. They were uniformly blasted and some of them watched the approach of Palmer and Riley with undisguised hostility.
In the centre of the group, a young woman was being propped up by two companions. She was tall, thin and coltish, with long, honey-blonde hair slipping in damp disarray around her face, a girl barely on the edge of womanhood.
‘Annabel,’ Palmer murmured quietly, nodding towards the girl. ‘I told her to stay close to the house but she went walkabout.’ He paused and looked closely at Riley. ‘You okay?’
‘No problem. The butler’s got the shooter in a stranglehold. I think he’s one of the guests. I may have broken one of his ribs.’
‘Serves him right.’
It became clear, the closer they got, that Annabel had been in the fountain. Her thin dress was soaked through and she was shivering in the cooling air, holding a clutch purse close to her chest. Her face was wet and smeared with mascara, as if she’d been given two black eyes, and she was staring around with the vague lack of focus that accompanies the fairly stoned. She didn’t look happy.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t the faithful old bloodhound, Frank Palmer!’
The speaker was a heavy-set man in his thirties. He was clutching a champagne bottle in one meaty fist and had the swagger and sneering expression of someone accustomed to getting his own way. His tone was challenging and sour, and he looked a little too old for this group of mainly younger people, one of whom called him Henry. ‘I thought you’d given up hanging around the girls, Palmer,’ he taunted nastily. ‘Vicks had a narrow escape, in my opinion. No saying what would have happened to the bloodline if you’d got in there, eh?’
Palmer ignored him and stepped up to Annabel. He reached out and gently held her face, peering into her eyes with evident concern. There was little obvious reaction from the girl. ‘You’d better get her inside and changed,’ he said calmly to her companions. Then he eased the clutch purse from her hand and opened it, shaking the contents out onto the gravel.
A female voice rose in protest, echoed by a couple of men at the front of the crowd. Riley was about to say something as a powder compact, lipstick, cigarette lighter and a surprising amount of other, normal handbag stuff women seem able to pack into a confined space tumbled to the ground. Then came a trickle of small tablets… and two small plastic envelopes containing white powder.
********
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The effect on the crowd was dramatic as they focussed on Palmer and Riley, no doubt trying to gauge how official the two of them might be.
But Henry was less guarded; he stepped forward and grabbed Palmer’s arm. ‘Get your grubby hands off her – and that stuff costs!’
Riley barely saw Palmer move, but suddenly Henry was lying on the floor clutching his wrist, the champagne bottle on the ground beside him, gurgling its contents away into the gravel. As Henry struggled to get up, cursing, his face red with pain and indignation, the rest of the partygoers moved back a few paces.
Riley stepped forward to place herself between the two men. As drunk and aggressive as the man was, she was counting on him not wanting to hit a woman. Some of the other men muttered between themselves, but she couldn’t tell whether it was in support of Henry or not.
‘Get her inside,’ Palmer suggested to Riley. ‘I’ll follow in a minute.’
As Riley turned to move the girl away, she heard a scrape of movement behind her. Henry was back on his feet and spoiling for a fight, urged on by one or two supporters.
‘What the fuck’s your problem?’ he spat at Palmer, his face beet-red with wounded pride. ‘Think because you’re a minder and you’ve got your little girlfriend with you, you can act all tough? Much good it’ll do you.’ Behind him, some of the other men were restless with anticipation. They seemed to notice Riley for the first time, and eyed the radio in her hand.
In the total silence that followed, a girl laughed shrilly and a glass fell to the ground and shattered.
Palmer continued to ignore Henry, and stared down at the tablets and the small bags of powder. Then he stepped forward and ground them with careful deliberation into the gravel. Someone protested, but made no move to stop him.
Henry moved towards Palmer in a crouch, hands open and flat, his fingers stiff. His eyes glittered in the reflected lights, and Riley guessed he probably wasn’t quite as soft as he seemed. Somewhere in his spare time, he’d learned how to fight – probably karate – and was big enough and sufficiently confident in front of his friends to be dangerous.
Riley almost felt sorry for him. Whatever he thought he knew about Palmer, it wasn’t enough.
A spurt of gravel signalled the attack, and Henry seemed about to land on Palmer and crush him under his considerable weight. But he didn’t quite make it. Just as they were about to collide, Palmer spun away and executed a savage back-kick into his opponent’s mid-section. Slim as he was, it was deceptively powerful, and stopped the bigger man in his tracks, eyes bulging with shock and pain.
In the background, somebody moaned softly in sympathy.
Before the big man could recover, Palmer took his wrist and spun him round to face the fountain. Putting his knee behind the man’s buttocks, he flipped him over the edge. Henry screamed shrilly and hit the water with a splash.
As Palmer turned and walked back towards the house, Henry began to be noisily sick.
Riley waited for Palmer by the front door. Annabel had been ushered inside by her friends, leaving a wet trail across the foyer towards the staircase. There was no sign of Rockface.
‘Any problems?’ she asked. ‘I’m merely being polite – I know you hate anyone making a fuss after you’ve been all heroic and hairy-chested.’
‘The fountain might need cleaning,’ he replied. ‘How’s Annabel?’
‘She’ll be fine. I suggested they get a doctor take a look, just in case.’
‘Good idea. There must be at least half a dozen members of the BMA here.’
‘Who is Henry?’
Palmer shook his head. ‘Someone with too much money and ego.’
‘Sounds like you have history.’
‘Not really. He was one of the group when I was watching Victoria’s friend. Ex-army - guards regiment, I think. He found out that I used to be RMP and made it obvious what he thought. I think he fancied his chances with Victoria. She wasn’t interested.’
Riley thought she could guess why, but let it go. ‘Annabel,’ she reminded him, ‘was carrying enough drugs to buy a small country.’
‘I know. Not surprising, though, with the crowd she moves in. I’ll deal with it.’ Palmer looked calm enough but Riley detected a storm brewing. She didn’t think she wanted to be in the same room if he decided to tell Annabel’s father.
She changed the subject. ‘Charles Clarke, the kid on the roof, claims he found the gun up there and was just letting fly at the treetops.’
‘You believe him?’
‘I think so. He was too well-oiled to be covering up. He said the key was in the door to the roof. It was in the lock when Rockface and I got up there.’ She reached into her jacket pocket and took out her hand. She was holding a collection of empty nut shells. ‘I found these. They were spread on the roof around the door. When I stepped on them, it was like tiny firecrackers going off. It was quiet up there, even with the noise from the party.’
Palmer took a moment to absorb what she was telling him. ‘I think someone left the gun there on purpose. The shells were an alarm. There are feeders all over the gardens among the trees. Whoever it was, was thinking on their feet.’
‘But why?’
‘To increase the pressure on Myburghe. Whoever it was, probably planned to fire off a couple of shots then disappear. It would be a way of demonstrating how close they could get to his family in spite of the security.’
‘Except they didn’t check if the door was locked. They probably figured nobody ever went up there.’ Riley pointed towards the scaffolding on the far end of the roof. ‘I took a walk down the other end. I think they might have used the scaffolding to climb up and down. It would have been safer than the risk of being caught using the stairs, which are close to the kitchen.’
Palmer nodded. ‘Makes sense.’
‘Did you see the shotgun?’
‘Not yet.’
They went in search of Rockface, who unlocked a steel cabinet in a storeroom behind the kitchen and showed them the gun. A box of cartridges lay alongside.
‘I found them in the run-off against the parapet,’ he explained. He was referring to the recessed channel that ran round the roof and took rainfall to the down-pipes.
Palmer examined the shotgun. It was well used, with signs of rough wear around the butt, but was otherwise clean and well oiled. There was no dust residue or moisture, indicating that it hadn’t been out on the roof long enough to gather condensation inside or along the barrel. There were no manufacturer’s marks.
‘Does it belong to Sir Kenneth?’ Palmer asked.
‘No. I checked. It’s a cheap-jack piece of crap.’
‘That kid really was lucky,’ said Palmer, echoing Riley’s comment, only for different reasons. ‘If the person who left this had been up there with it, he’d be as dead as mutton.’
They replaced the gun and cartridges and borrowed a flashlight, then walked round the house to where the scaffolding was rooted into the flowerbeds against the building.
In films, Riley mused, it would have been full of useful clues, like footprints with unique sole-patterns sold only in one small shop in Plymouth. But the ground around the base of the framework was a mass of powdered rubble and other builders’ mess, and if anyone had come down at that point, there were no chance useable signs of their passing.
It was nearly three in the morning before the last of the guests departed. After ensuring a stand-in security man was in place for the remainder of the night, Riley and Palmer were able to leave. They both felt wrung out, but spent part of the drive back to London tossing the accumulation of events back and forth, trying to tease out a pattern.
‘The gun on the roof was a red herring,’ Palmer concluded, building on his earlier assessment. ‘As a sniper’s weapon it’s a non-starter. Okay for bringing down birds or rabbits, and in military terms useful at close quarters for clearing houses. But for long-range accuracy they’re as much use as a box of eggs. Anyone hoping to hit a person on the ground from the roof would have sprayed too many other people as well.’
When Riley told him about her exploration of the stable block, and Rockface’s explanation about the use of the building, he seemed unsurprised.
‘It could be true,’ he commented reasonably. ‘Lads’ quarters aren’t exactly the height of luxury. They spend most of their time with the horses, so why splash out on soft furnishings?’
‘That place wasn’t just austere – it was grim,’ Riley murmured. ‘Whoever was sleeping there had time to heat some food and smoke a lot of cigarettes, but that was it. No pictures on the walls, no calendar glossies, no graffiti, no sense of who they were.’
‘Sounds like a field camp.’ Palmer changed down and powered through a long bend.
‘Meaning?’
‘Field camps are functional. You arrive, you eat, you sleep, you get up again when called, and you leave. Personalising your surroundings isn’t part of the deal. It leaves too much information.’
‘So what does that tell us?’
‘Either Sir Kenneth is mean to his employees, or whoever was in there had moved in without his knowledge or permission.’
Riley leaned her head against the window, finding the darkness outside soothing and almost restful. The thought worrying her, however, was how Rockface had turned up at the stable block so conveniently. The only way he could have known her location was if he’d been watching her. It was an unsettling thought.
; Palmer dropped Riley off outside her flat, but declined her offer of coffee and a shower.
‘I’ll go back to my place for a shower and some kip,’ he said. ‘Then I’d better get back to Colebrooke and see how they’re holding up.’
Riley waved him off, then went inside to be met by the bulky, grinning figure of Mr Grobowski in the hallway.
‘Good mornings, Miss Riley,’ he boomed, in what he probably thought was a considerate whisper. His accent was as heavy as a tank trundling over scrap iron. ‘I just getting backs, too. We have a party at the community centre. I feed Lipinski, by the way. He like my dumplings, you bet.’ His eyes twinkled wickedly as he nodded towards the street. ‘Was your friend Mr Frank, huh? He’s a nice mans.’
Riley smiled. For some reason, the elderly Pole was convinced Palmer was her boyfriend. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that John Mitcheson had been up and down these stairs more often than a mere friend. ‘You’re right, Mr G,’ she said. ‘He’s nice.’
She bid him goodnight and went upstairs, where she kicked off her shoes with a sigh if relief. The cat was asleep on the sofa, no doubt too full to move, so Riley left him to his dreams and checked her email before going to bed. There was one message. It was from Tristram.
Tomorrow. 34a, Almondbury Street, Barnston, nr Huddersfield. I hope I can trust you.
*********
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Although described as a part of Huddersfield, Barnston proved to be more of a self-contained satellite suburb, situated on the eastern outskirts.
After a three-hour drive up the M1, Riley found the town centre flush with shoppers, mostly attending a farmer’s market in the open square. She located a small car park and strolled along Almondbury Street, which became a pedestrian piazza complete with cast-iron benches and litter bins, and a line of flower tubs gleaming black in the mid-morning sunlight.
She was wondering if she had taken leave of her senses coming here without something more concrete to go on. Maybe she could blame it on lack of sleep after yesterday’s excitement at Colebrooke House. But after seeing Tristram’s latest message, she had been unable to get more than a brief nap, and had eventually given in to the inner voice telling her she needed to meet this person to hear what he knew and put a face to all the emails.
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