Soft Summer Blood

by Peter Helton

  ‘No one mentioned a daughter,’ Austin said. ‘And there was no mention of a daughter in the will—’

  ‘I spoke to Elaine Poulimenos. According to her, Vicky went feral as a teenager, got into drugs and started stealing from her father. He threw her out. Mrs Longmaid said she’d forgotten all about her. I spoke to Mendenhall’s housekeeper woman, Mohr. She said her employer had disowned the daughter and forbidden anyone from ever mentioning her in his presence. When I objected that Mendenhall was dead and not present, she said, “You never asked.” And she was bloody right. How come a background check on the family did not dig her up?’

  Dearlove had been busy hammering on his keyboard. ‘Found her, sir; born 1985.’

  McLusky tapped the envelope of photographs. ‘That means she was about thirteen when Ben Kahn had her naked in his studio.’

  ‘No Victoria Mendenhall on the electoral register …’

  ‘If she’s a drug addict, she’s unlikely to bother to vote. Does she have a VW registered to her?’

  Deedee accessed the DVLA files. ‘No. She doesn’t have a licence for a car and no vehicles registered to her.’

  ‘Details like that never stopped people with chaotic life styles. Find her!’ He stormed out of the incident room to his office, Austin following at a safe distance. In his office he scrabbled around on his desk for a scribbled number and called it. Austin was amazed at the happy politeness in the inspector’s voice. ‘Good afternoon, McLusky here. Is Mr Mendenhall there, please? Oh, not to worry, thank you.’ He hung up. ‘David’s secretary. He’s not been at his drinks empire today.’ He snatched up his car keys. ‘We’ll see if he’s home, shall we, Jane?’

  As they strode across the Albany Road car park towards his car, his phone went; it was DC Dearlove. ‘Hospital just called. Jamie Fife’s girlfriend briefly regained consciousness. Her name is Nicola Bacham. She was awake just long enough to say her attacker was a woman.’

  ‘Ta, Deedee. Nice to have one’s suspicions confirmed.’

  McLusky drove fast. In his mind, the murder of Jamie Fife for the sake of a few bullets suggested that Victoria Mendenhall, if she was behind the killings, was about to strike again. ‘And who is left apart from the women? Only David.’

  ‘But why would David not have mentioned her?’ Austin objected as he clung to the door handle for support through the corners.

  ‘Because he knew it was her? Because he was in on the killings from the start? I thought he was behind it right from the start. He is the one to benefit from his father’s death. And the moment I saw the photographs of the naked Victoria I realized I had seen the face before. It was in a family photograph on the mantelpiece at the house. When David turned it around, I thought it was a gesture of grief, but he wanted to make sure I did not see the girl in the picture. It had barely registered at the time.’

  ‘But the next two murders …?’

  ‘She killed them to suggest a different motive for the first murder. It’s Sherlock bloody Holmes’s bloody letter rack. Where to hide a letter? Among a lot of other letters. By the time Poulimenos was dead I was convinced David had nothing to do with it.’ On the dashboard McLusky’s airwave radio, which had been sliding back and forth during cornering, came to life. ‘Answer that for me, Jane.’

  ‘Alpha nine.’

  ‘We have just received a nine-nine-nine call from a Mr Mendenhall at Woodlea House. Request for an ambulance.’

  McLusky called loudly, ‘Thanks, control. DS Austin and I are nearly there.’ He speeded up even more, fishtailing around the turn-off towards Woodlea House with a tense and wide-eyed DS Austin beside him. One leaf of the double gate stood open. It was not quite wide enough for the Mercedes, as McLusky found out as he barged though it, crumpling the left wing against the second leaf, pushing it wide.

  He raced up to the house. David’s BMW was the only vehicle in front of it. Its windscreen was shattered, now a blind cobweb of broken glass; both headlights had been staved in and the driver window shattered. A red brick lay on the bonnet.

  Austin ran to it. ‘No one in the car.’

  ‘Front door locked. Round the back.’ Austin was already running around the house, but McLusky turned back, picked up the brick from the bonnet and followed. He caught up with him at the French windows.

  ‘Locked,’ said Austin.

  ‘Open,’ said McLusky and threw the brick through the glass. Once inside, they started searching the rooms, calling David’s name. They found him upstairs, slumped against the wall in his father’s office next to a blood-smeared phone. He was conscious. He held a seat cushion pressed against his side. Blood had soaked into his pale pink shirt.

  ‘Ambulance is on its way,’ said Austin.

  McLusky nodded his head at the door. ‘You’re an expert at this now, Jane; see if there’s a first-aid kit in the BMW and leave the front door open for the ambulance.’ He turned to David who was looking straight at him, alert but in obvious pain. ‘Your sister?’ David nodded. ‘All the killings?’

  He nodded again, then made an effort to speak. ‘She was cut out of the will. We were going to share it.’

  ‘But the other two murders?

  ‘To lay a false trail. I had nothing to do with that. Vicky is quite mental. I had no idea. I threatened to give myself up. She shot me. I think she knows I’m not dead. I think she couldn’t bring herself to shoot me again. That means she can’t be all bad, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘She’s been living in a derelict pub down by the canal near Limpley Stoke. The Moon.’

  ‘I’ll find it.’

  Austin returned with a first-aid kit and began to rip open packs of gauze and bandages.

  McLusky was already by the door. ‘What does she drive? A VW?’

  David spoke with difficulty now. ‘She rides a trike. Beetle engine.’

  On his way downstairs McLusky called control, told them the victim was being looked after by a trained first-aider and ordered an armed response unit to Victoria Mendenhall’s address.

  The Moon Inn by the Kennet and Avon canal had closed three years previously and had stood empty and unloved. The few boaters who tied up on the short mooring and the sparse walkers at this overgrown bit of the towpath had not been enough trade to keep it going. The Moon had always suffered from the fact that access from the road was along a narrow potholed track and the complete absence of any parking spaces by the building which was hemmed in by the canal on one side and large trees and water meadow on the others. Now it was also in danger of being swallowed up by brambles which had grown right up to it. A few slender self-sown trees grew close to the hundred-year-old building.

  McLusky had left the car on the road and taken to the narrow lane. The verges were overgrown with high grasses, and the trees to either side had deposited three autumns’ worth of leaves on to the perished tarmac where they had formed an incomplete layer of leaf mould. Three lines of marks were clearly visible where a heavy trike had moved back and forth. Moving from tree to tree for cover, he did not see the trike until he had nearly reached the building. Although the blue-and-yellow pub sign was missing, faded ancient writing on the sandstone above the door still proclaimed this to be the Moon Inn, Free House. The windows were boarded up but the front door had its board removed and stood ajar. The trike was parked to the left of the frontage, pointing towards the track. It was a large machine, nearly as broad as a car at the back, with the single front wheel on long raked-out forks, surmounted by cow-horn handlebars. The trike had a single seat at the front and a two-seat bench at the back, which had disappeared under a large overstuffed holdall and two bin liners tied on with bungee cord. The logical and operationally sound procedure would be to wait for armed response to make the arrest, but the bike looked as if departure was imminent. McLusky approached the machine cautiously, keeping half an eye on the front door. The ignition was next to the speedometer on the handle bars and the keys were in it. He had taken three quick steps towards it, his hand
outstretched towards the keys, when Victoria Mendenhall’s voice stopped him.

  ‘Keep your filthy paws off my bike.’ She emerged from the front door gun hand first, pointing the muzzle of an old Webley army revolver at him with her right while carrying a brown tasselled leather bag in her left. She was wearing jeans and black trainers and a zipped-up black biker jacket. ‘He told you, then? The stupid coward. David was always useless. And you’re a fucking nuisance.’ She slammed the bag on top of the bin liners and snapped the bungee cords across it.

  ‘Yes. He told us about the killings. That you killed your father for the inheritance. A bit tacky, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  Her hand tensed on the heavy revolver that she kept pointed at his chest. ‘What the fuck do you know? I had plenty of reasons for killing my dear daddy.’

  ‘Because he threw you out?’

  ‘Bullshit! Because he threw Ben into the Atlantic.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘How else do you think it happened? All three of them.’ She swung herself into the saddle. ‘Dad found out he had been sleeping with me. The fat Greek had seen the paintings and drawings he had done of me. So they pushed him overboard, I’m sure of it. I never believed any of that accident crap – not then, not now. And poor, poor Elliot. They were all so sorry for poor little Elliot who had lost his dad. What about me?’ She was shouting now, spit flying. ‘I had lost a lover! I was thirteen and my whole world had disappeared! My father treated me like I had an infectious disease after that. And he didn’t chuck me out – I left. Then he disinherited me because having been seduced by one of his bloody friends was my fucking fault, of course!’ She started the engine which rattled into life with the distinctive Beetle sound. ‘I know I should shoot you, but I only have five rounds left and I have a feeling I’ll need them when I get to the end of the track. Because you wouldn’t be stupid enough to turn up here all by yourself.’ McLusky made no answer. ‘Would you?’ A brief smile flickered on her face, then she stuffed the gun into the top of her jacket and opened the throttle. The trike noisily clattered past McLusky to the head of the track where Victoria lined it up and accelerated. McLusky ran to the track, pulled out the Derringer and cocked it. He shouted over the engine noise, ‘Stop or I’ll shoot!’

  Whether she had heard the actual words or not he could not tell, but he saw her look into her mirror. He aimed to miss, but not by much, and fired. The bullet whisked past her close enough for her to look over her shoulder. Her expression was more of surprise than fear. She opened the throttle wide, accelerating away. Only one bullet remained. Was he going to waste it too on a warning shot? He closed his eyes and fired the second and last bullet. It too missed yet it whisked so closely past Victoria’s left ear that she jinked violently to the right. The front wheel of the trike slid into a pothole, she overcorrected and the trike shot at a violent angle to the left. Its front hit the tree as it overturned, burying its rider underneath. The engine raced for an instance, then stalled in a puff of smoke.

  McLusky ran towards it, then slowed, then stopped and stood in the sudden silence twenty paces away from the twisted, ticking wreck. He could see one arm moving, pushing ineffectually against the weight of the heavy trike. He stared at it as though he were watching a reptilian movement; he could not find in himself the slightest impulse to help. With a soft coughing sound the trike caught fire. Victoria, trapped underneath with one arm and ankle broken, her clothes soaked with petrol from a severed fuel line, was enveloped in flame. For a moment McLusky saw her struggle, then the flames and smoke obscured his view.

  He turned his back on it and walked back to the pub. On the left hand side was an overgrown area bordering the towpath, where once the beer garden had been. He made his way through the high grass to the edge of the canal. There were no boats or walkers in sight. He waited until a family of ducks had passed before lobbing the Derringer into the middle of the canal.