by Faith Martin
Lying carefully prone on his stomach now, the bomb disposal man studied the fishing lines, and realised at once that one end of each of them disappeared behind a door. ‘Thorough sod, aren’t you?’ Neville muttered to himself.
He set up a mini camera on two of the doors and set the monitor close to his face. Whilst dealing with his first choice of door, he also needed to keep an eye on the other two.
Just in case Clive Myers decided to peep out and shoot him.
* * *
‘I was parked by Gregg’s place, and this white van passed me,’ Janine began, her voice shaking. ‘He didn’t look like Myers, but I recognised his ears.’
Hillary nodded. ‘Good. Go on.’
‘I followed him, and he parked just by the allotments that come to the backs of these houses.’ She jerked her head backwards, and again Hillary nodded encouragement.
‘I thought I’d lost him there, but I tried each of the back garden doors, and found this one was open. I walked around and to the front gate, and sensed a movement in the shed behind me, over in the corner there. I crouched down and moved backwards. Then I saw a knife cutting a hole in the plastic window.’
Hillary glanced nervously up the path, but apart from the odd passing car, there was no sound of voices or approaching feet.
‘OK. What did you do next?’ she encouraged softly.
‘I pushed open the door,’ Janine said in a small voice, and Hillary tried not to wince at such crass stupidity.
‘He was on the floor, about to look down the rifle sighting. He twisted and turned, so fast. I could see his hand had a knife in it and I shot him,’ Janine got it out all in a rush, and in one single breath.
Hillary flinched again.
‘You shot him with what?’
‘With my gun.’
‘You don’t have a gun.’
‘I . . . got one the other night. Off a skell I know.’
Hillary closed her eyes briefly as her heart sank. That, of course, changed everything. ‘Where is it now?’ she asked tightly.
Janine blinked, then stared down at her hands. ‘I don’t know,’ she wailed.
Hillary nodded. ‘Shush! Not so much noise. OK. Wait here.’
She turned and went back to the shed. This time she saw a long, greasy-looking heavy canvas bag that was lying against a wall, and presumably belonged to Myers. And just a few yards in front of it, she saw the gun, an unfamiliar cheap-looking model, probably one of the many unreliable makes that were flooding out of the old Eastern bloc nowadays.
She also saw the blackened end of the lemonade bottle and swallowed hard. Not only had Janine Mallow armed herself, she’d rigged up a crude silencer as well. So it wasn’t any wonder the cops down the road hadn’t heard the shot. The confines of the shed would have helped muffle the noise as well. Although a second shot fired from it would have been loud enough to be heard, Hillary guessed.
Feeling sick to her stomach, she got up and went back to Mel’s widow. Both the presence of the gun and the silencer had premeditation written all over them.
Feeling ill, Hillary forced herself to stay calm. ‘You fired just the once?’ she asked urgently, and Janine nodded.
‘I don’t even remember doing it,’ Janine said, sounding bewildered. ‘He just moved so fast. And the look in his eye — I knew he was going to kill me.’
Something in the way she spoke made the tension drain out of Hillary Greene. She’d always had a good sense of when somebody was lying to her, and she’d have bet her last penny that Janine wasn’t doing so now. So it had been self-defence after all.
But who’d believe it?
‘Hillary,’ Janine’s small voice snapped her back on track. ‘I’ve really killed him, haven’t I?’
Hillary licked her dry lips and nodded. ‘Yes. But you have to remember, he was ex-army,’ she said gruffly. ‘He was getting ready to throw the knife at you. Hell, he already had it in his hand when you fired. You had no other choice.’ And, when Janine continued to stare at her, a growing horror building in her eyes, Hillary scrambled for something to keep her from going under.
And found it. ‘Think of the baby,’ Hillary said urgently. ‘Mel’s baby. If you’d died, he or she would have died too. And that bastard already did for Mel. You couldn’t let him do for Mel’s child as well, could you?’
Janine Mallow took a deep, shaky breath. ‘You’re right,’ she said.
Hillary managed a wan smile. ‘Just hold on to that thought, no matter what,’ she advised firmly. For no matter how foolish Janine had been, no matter how bent on revenge or how vigilante her actions might have been, she had acted in genuine self-defence.
But the gun was a problem. A huge problem.
‘Janine, the skell you got the gun from. Will he keep his mouth shut?’ she asked.
Janine stared at her. Hillary felt ice trickle through her veins.
‘Janine, listen to me,’ she said urgently. ‘This is how it has to be. You read about DI Gregg’s return in the papers, and you were worried. You went over there to talk to him, and saw a man who looked like Myers pass in a white van. On impulse, you followed him here. You saw him go into this shed with a suspicious-looking canvas bag. You waited, wondering what to do for the best, then saw something curious happening at the window. What you saw made you suspicious and you went inside. There you saw a man looking down a rifle barrel. You panicked and made a sound. He heard you and looked around. You saw a small handgun attached to a lemonade bottle lying on the ground near his feet and you picked it up. But when you straightened from picking it up, the man was crouched down with a knife in his hand, and was either about to throw it at you or come at you with it. Instinctively and without thinking, you fired the gun. Then you dropped it, came out here and called me.’
Hillary paused and took a long, slow breath. ‘Can you remember that?’
Janine Mallow felt something warm and wet on her face and realised she was crying again. Absently, she reached up and wiped the tears off her face.
‘I think so,’ she said unsteadily.
‘You should,’ Hillary said, squeezing her hands hard. ‘It’s the exact truth, with just one exception. The gun with the silencer was already here, OK? You saw it, crouched for it, and when you straightened up you were in dire peril of your life. That’s the only thing that’s different from the truth right?’ she asked sharply, and Janine nodded.
‘Right.’
‘Janine, you mustn’t ever, no matter what, tell anyone that you came here with that gun in your bag. Shit!’
‘What?’
‘Your bag. Where is it?’
Janine blinked, then realised it was still slung over her shoulder. She pulled it off and handed it to Hillary. ‘What?’
‘The gun oil,’ Hillary said. ‘If you had the gun in your bag, forensics will find traces of it. Janine, do you keep a spare bag in your car?’
‘Sure — a fancy one, in the boot.’
‘All right. Give me your car keys — I’ll have to go and get it and hide this one. Where’s your car parked?’
Janine told her as she handed over the keys then watched dully as Hillary Greene disappeared behind the house. She sat on the wall, her stomach aching, feeling bereft and abandoned and — belatedly — badly frightened.
Only now that it was all over did Janine Mallow realise the full horror of her predicament.
* * *
‘OK, I’m going in,’ Neville Colt whispered towards the top of the stairs, and grinned as he received a thumbs up in reply.
He’d cut the fishing wire a moment previously, and now he belly-flopped to the door and peered underneath the gap. He could just about make out the white porcelain trunk of a toilet, and realised it was the bathroom. He got to his hands and knees and minutely scanned the doorknob.
Then, gently, infinitely slowly, he pushed the door open.
* * *
The allotments, she was glad to see, were deserted. Hillary ran quickly along the grass pathways and out
on to the road, where she then walked more circumspectly to the T-junction, relieved to see Janine’s car parked where she’d said it would be.
She was careful to wait until there was no traffic passing before she opened the boot and saw a blue soft-leather handbag, wrapped in a clear plastic bag, resting on top of the spare wheel. She removed it and slung it across her shoulder. As she did so, she heard the unmistakable sound of a dustbin lorry.
Unable to believe her luck, she glanced up and down and noticed for the first time that the pavements were lined with blue and brown bins.
‘Yes!’ It was like a gift from fate.
She hurriedly walked up to the nearest bin and emptied the contents of Janine’s bag into one bin, careful to remove any identifying papers first. Then she frantically ripped out the silk lining on the bag and stuffed it into another bin further down, before finally putting the bag itself into yet a third bin.
Perhaps the precaution was overkill, but Hillary was in no mood to take chances.
Then, hiding the blue leather bag as best she could under her coat, she ran across the allotments and back to Janine.
She was breathless by the time she got there, but at least Mel’s widow was still alone.
‘All right. Let’s go over the story again,’ Hillary said. ‘Now, when you parked the car, did anybody notice you get out? Any old lady walking a dog, or a mother pushing a toddler’s chair?’
‘No.’
‘Anybody on the allotments?’
‘Yes, the old man who was hoeing.’
Hillary drew her breath in sharply. ‘Did he get a good look at you?’
Janine nodded miserably.
‘Then he probably saw the bag you were carrying,’ Hillary responded grimly. ‘Your old one was black, this is blue. Let’s just hope he wasn’t very observant.’ She thought it unlikely the man would remember. From bitter experience she knew just how unobservant witnesses could be. ‘Anyone else?’
‘No. There was a middle-aged woman going into one of the sheds, but I saw her, she didn’t see me.’
‘OK, so it’s just the one witness. He’s old, and was presumably a fair few feet away when he saw you?’
‘A good fifty yards, I’d say, boss,’ Janine said, automatically using her old title for Hillary.
‘OK. So we’ve got the eyewitness covered, and we’ve got some of the forensics sorted. Just a sec.’ She scooted back to the doorway of the shed, and glanced inside. What she saw made her heart plunge. Clive Myers’s hands were bare of any gloves — which meant that he should have left his fingerprints on the handgun.
Most people in her situation would have been tempted to take the gun and wrap Myers’s fingers around it, but Hillary knew better. No matter how much you tried, it was hard to make a dead, unresponsive hand curve around a complicated piece of kit like a handgun in the same way as a living person’s would.
Instead, Hillary stood on tiptoe and peered down into the long greasy canvas bag lying on the floor. Inside, she could see what looked as though it could be a beige-coloured glove, tossed carelessly down.
She longed to go and check, but daren’t. Forensics would know at once if she’d gone inside, and she intended to tell them that she hadn’t. It would make their story more believable. The less messing around with the scene she did, the better.
She went back to Janine. ‘It makes sense for Myers to have been wearing gloves, right up until the time he set up the rifle,’ Hillary said, explaining her thoughts. ‘Then he’d have needed the tactile advantage of bare hands. That will explain his lack of prints on the handgun, and the presence of yours. Will your skell have had the sense to wipe the gun clean of his prints?’
‘I gave the gun a good clean when I got it, boss,’ Janine muttered.
Then she drew in a deep, shaky breath. ‘I can’t go to gaol,’ she whispered. ‘You know what a cop’s life will be like in gaol.’
Hillary paled. ‘You won’t go to gaol,’ she said, clutching Janine’s hand compulsively. ‘Nobody is going to want to jam you up. Myers is in there with a rifle, and was obviously about to try and kill DI Gregg. Ballistics will prove that it was the same gun that killed Mel. You acted in self-defence. OK, you shouldn’t have been here, and you should have told someone the moment you saw Myers cut that hole in the window, but even that won’t be enough to do you serious harm. And you can bet your life that the PR machine will go into overdrive to make sure that the media depicts you as the heroine of the hour — the pregnant widow of a murdered hero saving DI Gregg from the same killer. Nobody’s going to be looking too hard for evidence to contradict our story.’
Which was true. Up to a point. But the investigation was bound to be painstaking, and Janine’s part in it was bound to raise some serious issues. All it would take would be one unknown witness to come forward, or an unlucky piece of evidence to come to light, and they’d both be in hot water.
‘Remember, everyone’s going to be on our side,’ Hillary said, not sure whether she was trying to reassure Janine or herself.
Janine nodded and swallowed hard.
Hillary watched her closely. ‘Listen to me, Janine. They’ll be coming soon. They’ll separate us, and grill us closely. You know how it is — the urge to confess everything will be immense. But once you do, once you deviate from the story, once you tell them you came here armed, it’s all over. They’ll have no choice but to take it to trial. You might be lucky with the jury or you might not. But, like you said, you can’t go to gaol. So stick to the story, no matter what. You have to ride it out, no matter how hard it gets. Do you understand that?’
Janine nodded. Then her eyes widened and she drew in her breath sharply, her arms hugging her middle.
‘What?’ Hillary asked sharply.
‘My stomach’s killing me,’ Janine said. ‘It’s been playing me up all day.’
The words hit Hillary like a hammer blow, and for one sickening moment, she felt the world tilt suddenly around her. She took a staggering step backwards. Then, white-faced, she fumbled for her mobile and dialled 999.
* * *
In Thame, Neville Colt stared down at a small cassette recorder on the bathroom floor. The fishing line had been attached to it. But he had no desire to switch it on and listen to Clive Myers’s message.
Instead he left the room as it was, backed out and had a quick whispered conversation with the two men on the stairs. Then he went back to the next door, cut the fishing line, and went in.
It was a small bedroom, feminine in appearance, with posters of a pop group fixed on the walls. Again, there was a cassette recorder.
Grimly now, almost sure of what he’d find, Neville Colt went to the last door. This must be the master bedroom. This would be where Clive Myers, if he was at home, was lying in wait.
He cut the fishing line, turned his head to nod at the two armed men behind him, checked the door handle, then opened the door from his prone position and lay flat as the two men vaulted over him and went in.
Neville quickly followed when they gave the all-clear. The room was empty. Inside, the now expected cassette player was placed on the floor by the bed. Neville got to his feet. It was time to go down and check the lounge door and let those two poor sods sweating it out downstairs get out and back to their families.
* * *
‘Yes, I need an ambulance,’ Hillary Greene said to the female voice that answered her call. She cited her rank and gave the address. ‘I have a pregnant woman in difficulty,’ she added curtly.
On being told one would be there within five minutes, Hillary thanked the voice and hung up.
‘Why’d you do that?’ Janine asked, genuinely puzzled.
Hillary looked at her helplessly. Did she really not realise how ominous a ‘stomach ache’ from a pregnant woman sounded? Obviously she didn’t. And remembering Janine’s problems with hypertension, and not wanting to scare her even further, Hillary forced herself to smile craftily. Silently, she tapped a finger to her temple.
&nbs
p; ‘Think about it, Janine. If you get carted off to hospital, they can hardly question you right away, can they? It’ll give you some breathing space and give me time to get my version in first. Hopefully, if you can convince the docs that you need to be kept in overnight, by the time they get around to questioning you most of the hard work will already have been done.’
Janine nodded, impressed. Trust Hillary to think of everything. ‘Look, boss, thanks for all this. I know you’re going out on a limb for me. Well, I know it’s really for Mel, but well, you know. I am grateful. I know you well enough to know this can’t be sitting right with you either. So thanks.’
Hillary swallowed a hard lump in her throat and nodded. Then she started dialling another number.
Janine watched her, fascinated. She began to feel oddly unfocused and vague. In fact, she felt as if she could just curl up and go to sleep, and recognised the symptoms of shock. Suddenly she yawned hugely.
‘I need to speak to Chief Superintendent Donleavy,’ Hillary Greene said into the phone.
‘I’m afraid he’s in a meeting,’ the calm voice of his secretary informed her.
‘It’s urgent,’ Hillary insisted. ‘This is DI Greene. Please interrupt the meeting and tell him I need him to come to the phone at once. It’s crucial that he does so.’
Donleavy’s secretary knew a crisis when she heard one. And, like most good secretaries, she also knew who her boss trusted and would want to speak to at such a time, and who he wouldn’t. ‘Just one moment.’
Hillary watched Janine anxiously, her eyes on the blonde woman’s legs. No blood was running down them, so surely a miscarriage couldn’t be imminent, could it? She didn’t know what she’d do if her old friend’s unborn child should be lost now.
In the distance she could hear a siren. No doubt the police officers watching Gregg’s house would be thrown into a flap, wondering if it could be a diversion.
‘DI Greene?’ Donleavy’s voice in her ear distracted her thoughts.
‘Sir. We have a problem,’ she said, with massive understatement.
* * *
In Thame, DCI Evans slapped the backs of Mervyn Jones and Ray Porter as they jogged past him.
