She heard the sound of an ambulance siren and thanked God for it. Still hauling Keith around, she opened the door and let the paramedics in, a man and a woman in practical green overalls. Practically Casualty clones, she thought wildly, near to hysterics herself now.
‘An overdose, is it, Miss? Boyfriend, is he? Name?’ the man said efficiently.
‘I think he took some of these,’ she stuttered, handing him the bottle. ‘We had dinner and he drank a lot of wine, and then he threw up in the bathroom. I suppose that’s when he took the pills, and then he just collapsed. I didn’t know he had them. His name’s Keith Martin. He owns the hardware shop downstairs.’
‘And you are?’
‘Audrey Barnes. I’m just an acquaintance.’
God, if ever a suspect sounded guilty, she must do so now, she thought. She was desperate to get away from here. She wasn’t heartless, but Keith was in safe hands now. They had put an oxygen mask over his face and his eyes had begun to roll a bit, instead of remaining glassily still. The woman medic was murmuring that he was stabilizing, and the sooner they got him into hospital and pumped out his stomach the better. He was lucky.
From the look the woman gave her, Alex guessed she was being considered a pick-up, a tart. With weedy Keith Martin? The thought was so ludicrous she could have laughed out loud, but if she did that she’d probably be blubbing too, because this night had turned out to be so nearly tragic.
Chapter 17
She told the paramedics she would follow them to the hospital in her car, knowing she had no intention of doing so. There was nothing she could do for Keith, and she certainly didn’t want him coming round to start raving at her in public. She managed to give the ambulance the slip at some traffic lights, and headed back the way she had come. All she wanted was to get home, crawl into bed, and wake up as if none of this had ever happened.
But she knew it was a futile hope. It was unprofessional. It wasn’t the way Nick would handle things. Nor any of the police force. As she drove back to Bristol, going too fast around bends that she didn’t know, and half-sobbing with nerves as she did so, she told herself to calm down and remember that she still had a job to do. She still owed it to Jane Leng to find out what had happened to Steven, even though she cursed the day she had ever met her and listened to her sob story. She should have listened to Nick instead.
Presumably neither Nick nor any of the police investigations had got wind of this pact to keep silent that the group of friends had made — the pact that Lennie Fry had orchestrated (good that, since he was a small-time musician, her fractured thoughts added). And the fact that they had all been so high on drugs when they scattered meant that none of them knew whether or not Steven Leng had actually gone home — or been inside the hut when it exploded. Or near enough for him to be blown to bits, with most of him perishing in the explosion — most of him, except for one disembodied hand that had been thrown clear a good distance away, to be found some weeks later, mouldering and maggot-ridden, by a dog ferreting about in the undergrowth. A dog belonging to Bob Leng, Steven’s father.
She gasped as the vitriolic blast of a car horn reminded her that she was veering towards the white line in the middle of the road and hardly noticing where she was going. She slowed down and corrected the steering at once. A fat lot of good she would be to herself or anybody else if she was involved in an accident and pulled in for a breathalyser test. Worse still if she ended up in the morgue.
It was enough to sober her up, as far as driving more carefully went, but she was filled with an adrenalin rush of gigantic proportions now. She knew she was on to something. She knew it. Excitement shot through her every time the possibilities ran through her mind. She still didn’t know why nothing of Steven’s body-minus-one-hand had ever been discovered, even though the evidence said that the ferocity of the fire and the fire officers’ frantic attempts to stop it spreading through the tinder-dry woods had reduced everything to ash and scattered it far and wide. Maybe it had also thrown Steven’s hand ... maybe it had been his ghoulish way of saying, hey, don’t forget about me ...
Alex tasted bile in her mouth then, and knew that the events of this night were having their effect on her, and she turned on her car radio to blot out the unwelcome images she was beginning to see in her mind, and also any suggestion of anything weird and unnatural.
Wait until you get home, Alex, she told herself grimly. There were some things that were best done in the privacy of your own bathroom, and throwing up was one of them. She just made it, weakly thinking what a bloody good waste it was of a couple of bottles of wine and an expensive meal at a good restaurant, when the two of them had ended up depositing all of it in various lavatory bowls.
Black coffee was next on her list of things to do, and then she was going to take a shower, simply because she couldn’t settle to anything else until she had called the hospital and found out if Keith was all right. But it was too soon to do that. She had to give them time to pump out his stomach — ghastly thought, tube up the nose and down the throat — and then assess the outcome of his overdose. She wondered uneasily if he had meant to do it, or if it had been an accident as he fumbled for a couple of pills to calm him down — or pep him up as the case may be. In any case it had been a bad move, considering the amount of wine he’d drunk, and he must have known that.
She gave up surmising and made her coffee very strong, and her shower as hot as she could bear it. She found the local radio station to check if there was any information about a drug related incident in Bath that evening. But why should there be? These were depressingly all-too frequent. Except that this time, if Keith died, they would want to question the woman who had been with him and sent for the ambulance.
Her hand jerked over the radio and she knew she couldn’t bear to wait any longer for news. She found the number of the Bath hospital in the phone directory, and dialled it with shaking hands.
‘I’m enquiring about a young man brought in by ambulance this evening,’ she said crisply, hoping her accent would impart efficiency, and thinking it was a good thing the woman at the other end couldn’t guess at the way her stomach was churning.
‘What name?’ came the voice. ‘Are you a relative?’
‘His name’s Keith Martin,’ she said. ‘I’m his sister.’
‘Hold on, Ms Martin. I’ll check it out for you.’
There was an endless wait, and then a man’s voice came on the line. Please don’t be a police officer, she begged silently.
‘Doctor Kane speaking. You were enquiring about Keith Martin, I believe.’
‘Yes. I was told he was brought in earlier. Is he all right?’
‘Mr Martin has had his stomach pumped and he should recover fully, barring a very sore throat. He’s a very lucky young man and if it hadn’t been for the quick action of the young woman with him, it might have been a different story. Do you know where we can get in touch with her?’
Alex slammed down the phone, relief flooding through her so fast she thought she was going to faint. Keith wasn’t going to die, and she had probably saved his life. It was the one tiny thing — the one gigantic thing that she felt had justified the means she had employed. How was she to know he was addicted to amphetamines or anything else? He had so vehemently denied it.
Her coffee had gone cold by now, and anyway, she needed something stronger. She poured herself a large vodka and lime, and sipped it with something like relish before she played back the tape. She was so wound up with a mixture of terror and relief that there was no way she was going to sleep for hours. And now that she knew Keith wasn’t going to end up in a wooden box she might as well try to make sense of all she had learned.
*
To her frustration and fury, the tape had run out before she reached the end of the conversation. It ended with the words ‘larking about’, which was something that had had more devastating consequences than any of them had bargained for, Alex thought. It also meant that she had no verbal evidence about t
he explosion and the calor gas bottles, and unless she could get Keith to talk again ... but she immediately discarded the idea of seeing him again.
In any case, she had probably frightened him off for good now, in the wake of some anonymous letters and a cutting he had been sent through the post containing one of Jane Leng’s letters. The one naming her, presumably, which meant that whoever had sent it to Keith must have wanted to warn him to be on his guard in case she came snooping around. Which meant it could be any one of the six — no, five — boys involved, and anyone else who knew their names.
It left the field wide open. The case had been thoroughly investigated years ago, and the boys had been extensively interviewed in the press at the time. She knew that from reading Gran Patterson’s press cuttings, and the newspaper archives. But that was years ago. Alex remembered how Nick had always told her to think laterally and never to take the obvious route as the only one available rather like ignoring the motorway and taking an interesting side road to reach your destination. You never knew what bits of local colour you might pick up along the way.
So who else knew the boys’ names, who hadn’t been involved at the time? Other kids their age would probably have found it a nine days’ wonder and then forgotten it. So who else had she been in contact with since coming here, apart from the newspaper guys, and Mavis Patterson and her Gran? She didn’t think any of them qualified as a villain, even if the only villain she had in mind now was someone who sent threatening letters and stuff to Keith Martin. It was hardly big-time crime, but she knew from personal experience how threatening it could be.
Ray Smart hadn’t been around at the time, Alex recalled suddenly. He would have been seven or eight years old then, but he’d seemed pretty interested in the case she was working on. She let her thoughts mull on him for a moment. Ray Smart, the nerdy computer whizz kid who had found details of the Followers for her, practically at the touch of a button and without too much input from herself. Ray Smart, who had been recommended by Philip Cordell, whom she didn’t really know at all, but who had turned up out of nowhere when she first arrived in Bristol, and had seemed keen on following her progress, rather like an eager puppy — or a waiting Rottweiler.
Her heart was thumping now, and she told herself it was crazy to jump to conclusions. None of it fitted anyway. Phil was nice enough, even though he had never turned her on, and she had always had a slight sense of unease with him. It didn’t mean he was involved with any of the camping group, nor that he had known any of them.
Think laterally, Alex. He was a head of sports tutor, and although he had initially led her to believe (despite his denial) that it was at the university, it was at a much smaller college, where he was friendly with lots of students and teachers. Presumably some of them would have known him before he got his present job.
She was clutching at straws, and was probably doing Phil an injustice in suspecting him. And what of, for God’s sake? Keith had confirmed, along with all the newspaper reports at the time, that there were only the six students involved in the firework incident. There was no reason to think that a seventh person had had anything to do with it, or them. As far as she could remember, Alex had never asked him if he knew any of the boys. It was a shot in the dark, and it was fizzling out as fast as it had come.
She suddenly felt very tired as the events of the night crowded in on her, and she finally gave it all up and fell into bed, knowing she was doing no good by going over and over it and getting nowhere. Short of asking Phil if he had known them — and why on earth not, except for a gut feeling of not wanting to stir up suspicion in his mind — she had to go about this in a lateral way too. Like checking on his credentials and his background. So who could she ask? Not Ray Smart, for sure.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Nick,’ she murmured into her pillow, seconds before she fell asleep.
*
‘DCI Frobisher,’ came his efficient voice at the other end of the line.
‘Nick, can we talk?’
His tone altered at once. ‘I thought I was coming down to see you soon. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind —’
‘No, of course not.’
Even if she’d completely forgotten it until this minute. ‘I wondered if you could run a check on somebody for me? I don’t think there’s really anything wrong, but I’d feel easier if I knew for sure. I know I shouldn’t ask —’
‘What are friends for?’ he put in. ‘And if it means you’re finally off the other dead loss affair, it’ll be a plus, babe. What’s the name?’
Alex was thankful he hadn’t questioned whether or not this had anything to do with Steven Leng, and had just assumed it was a new case.
‘Philip Cordell. He’s in his mid-thirties, I’d say, and currently head of sports at St Joseph’s teacher training college in Bristol. I’d like to know a bit more about him, in particular what his previous employment was — well, you get the idea.’
‘It’s a missing relative thing,’ she added, when she didn’t get any immediate response.
‘I’ll get back to you sometime, Alex, but I’m a bit tied up here now, so it may not be for a day or so. Sorry.’
‘Oh yes, that’s fine,’ she said, even though it wasn’t. ‘It’s just that I want to fill in a few blanks.’
He hung up, and she couldn’t be sure if he believed that this was a new case or not. He had an uncanny way of sensing when she was uptight, or boiling with adrenalin at the thought that she might be on to something.
Right now, she had to admit she didn’t really feel like that at all. It was just that she never ignored gut feelings, even when they sent her down a completely wrong trail. But sometimes they didn’t.
She tried to assess Philip Cordell in her own mind. He was an upright citizen, as far as anyone could tell. But weren’t they all? Even serial killers could look no different from the man — or woman — next door.
*
Chain reactions were the pits, she thought some time later. If it hadn’t been for her instinctive call to the hospital to find out if Keith had survived, which in all common humanity, she had had to do, the night sister at the hospital wouldn’t have reported to the local Bath police that there had been an enquiry from an unknown woman. And they wouldn’t have registered the Bristol phone number and got on to their local branch to check her out. And she wouldn’t have got the visit from DI Frank Gregory and one of his minions. Though since it was late the next evening, they certainly hadn’t rushed, she thought, half-resentfully. Maybe they hoped to take her off guard at such an hour. Although of course, coppers never slept.
‘Do they always send DIs out to investigate a perfectly innocent enquiry after a patient?’ she countered the question, while she got her wits about her.
‘It does when a patient is brought in after an overdose, and when the caller is known to us for meddling in a closed police investigation, and we’d like to know just what she was doing with a young man who was a known acquaintance of Steven Leng,’ he snapped, his former pleasant manner gone in an instant.
The young constable with him was busily writing down everything that was said, Alex noted. She could have saved him the trouble by handing over her tape, but she was damned if she was going to be browbeaten by this arrogant attitude. Besides, it was still her investigation, and until she heard something more from Nick she was keeping everything under wraps.
‘You know what I was doing,’ she snapped back. ‘You know very well I was looking into the Steven Leng case on his mother’s behalf, and I’m still tying up loose ends.’
‘There are no loose ends, Miss Best. The whole family is dead, so for Christ’s sake let them rest in peace. And just for the record, I would remind you that if Keith Martin makes a complaint against you for harassment, you could find yourself in serious trouble.’
‘Is that a threat, Mr Gregory?’
‘It’s a warning.’
And I wouldn’t put it past you to get him to file a complaint against me either, you
bastard.
‘I’m only doing my job, the same as you’re doing yours,’ she said coldly.
He gave an elaborate sigh. ‘You’re becoming a nuisance, Miss Best. I advise you to leave things alone.’
‘And they’ll go away? Well, this case hasn’t. Jane Leng saw to that —’
‘And ended up dead,’ he said brutally.
Alex stared at him. ‘You said you’d got her killer. I identified the bogus window cleaner. I thought there was no doubt.’
‘There isn’t. But since he swore he thought the gun was loaded with blanks and that he’d just meant to scare the old girl, it may just be that someone else was pulling his strings. Or he may be a congenital liar. Take it or leave it.’
When they had gone, Alex was left thinking over those last remarks. Someone else pulling the killer’s strings? Something similar had happened on her last case, and she knew damn well it happened with depressing frequency. Someone fired the gun and got done for the crime, but the real villain was the one who loaded it with bullets. Real bullets, not blanks. Who would have access to such things? It may be practically de rigeur in the States to have hand guns at home, but not here. Maybe a keen sportsman, a karate black belt, head of sports at a college, maybe someone who was a member of a bona fide gun club ...
She was really letting her imagination go wild now, she thought angrily. Why would Phil Cordell have the remotest interest in disposing of Jane Leng? He looked affluent enough, so presumably he didn’t need her money. He hadn’t seemed particularly interested in the Leng case, except for the usual probing she always got from people wanting to know what she did, and how she did it.
But he hadn’t asked that, she thought suddenly. He’d just sent in Ray Smart, gullible, computer-mad Ray Smart, as her assistant — and just as quickly, Ray had backed out of the job because his parents hadn’t liked the idea of him possibly getting into trouble. Or maybe Phil had decided he didn’t need him there any more.
Deadly Suspicions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 3) Page 23
