Deep Waters

by Patricia Hall

  ‘Nah,’ Robertson said. ‘It’s a load of bollocks and I’ll be out of here in a day or two. Go back to London and get your beauty sleep, Flash.’ He glanced at Kate with something approaching a leer. ‘If she’ll let you.’

  FIFTEEN

  ‘So what are you going to do with your day off?’ Harry Barnard asked Kate on Monday morning as they lay in bed taking in the pale sunshine filtering through the curtains.

  ‘Can’t you take a day off too?’ Kate asked. She knew he had slept badly, feeling the tension as he lay beside her in the darkness. Both of them had slept fitfully at best. She glanced at the clock and realized that if Barnard was going in to work he was already late. But Harry kissed her and slid out of bed quickly.

  ‘I’m in enough trouble with the brass already,’ he said. ‘I don’t dare push my luck.’ She sat up on the pillows and watched him dress, wondering how long their relationship could go on. Although her attempt to leave had been short-lived, since then there had been an uncertainty between them that she didn’t seem able to forget. Nor, she thought, could Harry.

  ‘I’ll take the chance of doing some window shopping,’ she said, hearing the lack of enthusiasm in her own voice and guessing that he would hear it too. When he came out of the bathroom, he sat on the bed beside her for a moment.

  ‘Don’t do anything silly,’ he said. ‘We’ll go out for a meal tonight if you like. I’ll get away as early as I can. Enjoy your day off. Don’t forget you’ll have to convince Ken that you’ve been in Liverpool when you get back to work.’ In a second he was gone, and Kate lay back glad he had not stayed long enough to see the tears in her eyes. She knew he would not approve of the plan she’d already worked out at three in the morning to find out exactly what was happening to Connie Flanagan in the not very tender clutches of DCI Jack Baker. The only way to do that, she reckoned, was to take the train back to Southend and talk to Connie and her solicitor.

  Barnard did not hurry to the nick. He parked the Capri in Soho Square and took a leisurely stroll down Frith Street, dropping into a few shops and restaurants and chatting to acquaintances, legitimate and illegitimate, on the street corners before turning west to cut through to Regent Street and head towards the nick. He wondered how much longer this would remain his manor, aware that he was trying to avoid the main issue. He should have reported Ray Robertson’s whereabouts the previous day, but he had hesitated to call in the cavalry and have him arrested. The old loyalties had kicked in and in all likelihood would cost him his job, or worse. Kate, he thought, would probably never forgive him.

  As he walked into the CID room and hung up his coat, his arrival seemed to attract some curious glances. But, he told himself, he might have been imagining it. He flicked through his case files without taking much in, then finally shrugged his shoulders and set off down the corridor towards the DCI’s office. Jackson’s secretary looked up in surprise when he approached her.

  ‘I was just about to come and find you,’ she said. ‘The DCI wants to see you. You’d better go straight in, I think it’s urgent.’ Barnard’s mouth was dry as he knocked on Jackson’s door and responded to his instruction to come in. This time the DCI was alone but his expression was no more friendly than when he had been backed up by ACC Cathcart. Barnard took a deep breath and prepared for the worst. Before he could speak Jackson himself spoke, with a certain amount of grim pleasure on his face.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Hertfordshire,’ he said. ‘They’ve had a tip-off from someone in a village called Lower Radford who saw a picture of Ray Robertson in the Daily Express and reckons he’s seen him fishing round there. Does that sound at all likely to you?’ Barnard drew another deep breath, although this time the anxiety accommodated just a glimmer of relief.

  ‘Lower Radford was where we were evacuated during the war,’ he said warily. ‘The three of us from our school, Ray and Georgie Robertson and me. We lived on a farm. I went home after about eighteen months to go to grammar school. The other two stayed on a bit longer, but eventually they came back to the East End. They lived just around the corner from my house. I can’t imagine Ray fishing, but I suppose he could have found somewhere to hole up there well out of the way. He certainly knows the area.’

  ‘I’ll ask Hertfordshire to have a closer look,’ Jackson said. ‘It sounds like a long shot but the Yard won’t be pleased if we don’t explore every possibility. As for you, I want you to keep up your inquiries. My own feeling is that Robertson is well out of the country by now. However, you say you’ve seen his wife. I want to know the moment either of them contacts you again. I’ve some questions for the ex-Mrs Robertson as well.’

  ‘I’ve no idea where she might be, guv,’ Barnard said. ‘But I’ll ask around. As far as I can remember, she had a sister somewhere in Essex when they got married but I’ve no idea what her married name might be. I suppose old Mrs Robertson might know, though the last time I mentioned Loretta to her she said she was a gypsy and that she wouldn’t give her the time of day. I might be able to persuade her to get her daughter-in-law – ex-daughter-in-law – into trouble, I suppose. She’s certainly someone who bears grudges. I’ll see what I can do, though I must say Loretta Robertson looked as if she was doing all right for herself when I saw her, so my guess is that she’s got a new man dancing attendance. She’s still an attractive woman. One thing that’s certain, she’s not likely to go anywhere near her ex-mother-in-law. There’s no love lost on either side.’

  ‘And Sergeant,’ Jackson snapped. ‘Don’t forget our last conversation with the Assistant Commissioner. If Hertfordshire don’t pick Robertson up for any reason or if it isn’t Robertson at all, I want you to redouble your own efforts. After all, he’s contacted you once. If he does that again, I want to be the first to know about it. Understood?’

  ‘Understood, guv,’ Barnard said, hoping he was keeping the relief he felt under wraps. He felt like a man reprieved on the steps of the gallows. As he left Jackson’s office, his hands were shaking and sweat was running down his back underneath his shirt. He walked past the CID office and out of the building without picking up his coat and hurried across Regent Street and through the swing doors of the Delilah Club. The young barman, Spike, was fiddling with the optics and looked surprised at Barnard’s arrival in the deserted club.

  ‘Give me a large Scotch with plenty of ice,’ Barnard said. Spike looked as if he might demur but thought better of it and gave Barnard a generous measure, which he drank down in one and pushed the glass back for a refill. He took a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Ray?’ he asked. Spike shook his head.

  ‘No, he hasn’t been in. The staff were getting stroppy again earlier in the week about not being paid. Mr Clarke said he hadn’t heard anything from him, but then yesterday a registered letter came with enough cash in it to see everyone right. I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen so much cash at one time. So everything’s hunky-dory again.’

  ‘For the moment,’ Barnard said sceptically. ‘He didn’t send a message with the cash, did he?’

  ‘Just a scrap of paper saying “Keep calm and carry on”. Didn’t that come from the war or something?’

  ‘It did,’ Barnard said, as he sipped his second Scotch more slowly, feeling himself relax for the first time since he and Kate left Ray Robertson in the Green Man. ‘And it’s not a bad bit of advice at any time.’ Barnard finished his drink and rang his own flat from the phone in the entrance lobby. Kate picked up quickly.

  ‘Do me a favour, honey,’ he said. ‘Give the Green Man a quick call and see if Ray’s still there. And if he is, tell him to move out quickly. Apparently the Hertfordshire police are heading in his direction. You’ll get the number from directory inquiries. Make the call from a call box. I don’t want anything traced back to the flat.’

  ‘Are you really sure about this?’ Kate said.

  ‘It’s the last thing I’ll do for Ray,’ Barnard said. ‘I promise.’

  Kate took the tra
in to Southend with a sense of foreboding. The phone in Barnard’s flat had shrilled again almost as soon as she hung up and she’d immediately identified the almost inaudible breathless voice at the other end as Connie Flanagan’s. She’d been planning to go to Essex anyway, but what Connie told her convinced her the trip was more urgent than she had realized.

  ‘I found Luke,’ Connie said. ‘He was locked up in one of the sheds under the pier. Uncle Jasper had been keeping him there, Luke said. I don’t know what he thought he was doing. Luke’s very frightened and I need to get away from here. But I’ve got no money and I don’t know where to go. Can you help? I don’t know who to trust here any more.’ Kate could hear the fear in her voice and was not surprised when she broke down in tears.

  ‘What about your solicitor?’ Kate asked. ‘Won’t she help?’

  ‘She’ll just tell me to go back to the police station,’ Connie sobbed. ‘And Luke says he won’t do that. He doesn’t want to get Jasper into trouble. He says Jasper thought he was keeping him safe from some dangerous men.’

  ‘The men who killed your husband, maybe?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Connie whispered.

  ‘Can you keep out of sight until I get there? Meet me at the railway station at twelve o’clock and I’ll come with you to talk to your lawyer.’

  She stopped at a call box in Fenchurch Street station and made the call to the Green Man that Barnard had asked her to make, but the voice that answered was not the landlord’s and she guessed from the tone that it might well be a police officer. She took no more than a second to decide to hang up without a word. Ray Robertson, as far as she was concerned, would have to look after himself.

  The train pulled into Southend station after what seemed an interminable journey and she scanned the platform for a glimpse of Connie and her son before it finally ground to a juddering halt. She could not see them at first, but as she handed in her ticket at the barrier she caught a glimpse of a pale, anxious face peering through the window of the refreshment room.

  She went in and saw that Connie had a tall skinny boy with her who looked even more distraught than his mother.

  ‘This is Luke,’ Connie said. The boy said nothing and continued to pick at the half-eaten sandwich in front of him. His mother drained her cup of tea.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ she asked Kate, a look of desperation in her eyes. ‘I don’t know who I can trust now.’

  ‘I really think you should talk to your solicitor,’ Kate said. ‘She’ll go with you to the police station and sort this whole thing out. If you run away, DCI Baker will only be more convinced that you had something to do with your husband’s death and he’ll hunt you down. He’s not just going to forget about you if you disappear. That’s not the way they work.’ Connie shrugged and looked at her son.

  ‘I don’t want to go to the police station,’ he said sulkily. He ran his hands through a thatch of red hair. ‘Why can’t we go and stay with Auntie Delia? No one would ever find us out there.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Connie said. ‘You know there’s soldiers crawling all over Foulness.’

  ‘I know a way in,’ Luke said, his face mutinous. ‘Dad showed me. He said it was useful sometimes.’ Kate wondered exactly what it had been useful for, but left it at that.

  ‘We’d better see what Miss Driscoll says first,’ Connie said, finding some determination of her own at last. ‘Someone needs to tell the police I’ve found you, Luke, else they’ll carry on hunting and that won’t help anyone. Auntie Delia was never much help to us when your dad was alive, so I shouldn’t think she will be now.’

  ‘Come on then, let’s talk to your solicitor and get something sorted out,’ Kate said. She paid for the drinks and Luke’s sandwich and led the way out of the station towards Janet Driscoll’s office, close to the police station. But as she went round the last corner ahead of the other two she stopped dead, her heart thumping. Three police cars and several uniformed officers could be seen outside the office block where Connie’s solicitor worked.

  Kate turned back and shepherded Connie and her son out of sight just as DCI Jack Baker got out of an unmarked car, red-faced and furious.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on there,’ she said to Connie quietly, holding on to her arm tightly. ‘But I think I’d better try to find out before we go barging in. You stay over there in that little park.’ She gestured across the road to a playground where some mothers and small children were congregated. ‘I’ll come back in a minute and tell you what I find out.’ She made sure Luke was close to his mother. ‘Whatever you do, don’t try to take off anywhere. That really wouldn’t be a good idea. Do you understand that, Luke?’

  The boy muttered something under his breath, but although he dodged Connie’s outstretched hand he seemed to be following her willingly enough as Kate watched them go into the park – where in spite of the outraged glances of some of the mothers Luke, looking even taller than he was, began pushing himself on a swing intended for much smaller children. Connie slumped on to a bench not far away, watching him.

  Kate turned away slowly and walked back round the corner, where even more police cars had assembled outside the office block and an ambulance, blue light flashing, had pulled up beside them. She crossed the road and went up to one of the uniformed constables who seemed to be in charge of the entrance, through which a number of people, who presumably worked there, were emerging. Most looked bewildered and a few were looking at their watches and complaining to each other.

  ‘Hello,’ Kate said. ‘I was due to see Janet Driscoll this morning. Is there any chance of that?’ The officer looked slightly startled.

  ‘And your name, miss?’ he asked. Reluctantly Kate told him and the PC immediately signalled to a sergeant who hurried over as she realized it was one of the officers she had spoken to on her last visit to the police station.

  ‘You again,’ the sergeant said. ‘I think you’d better come with me. I reckon DCI Baker will want a word.’ He led the way through the crowd of displaced workers and into the lobby, where she could see the DCI in animated conversation with the ambulance driver. When he spotted her with his sergeant, his face flushed and he waved the ambulance driver through into the building and hurried towards Kate.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here again?’ he asked. ‘Is your boyfriend with you? I thought I made it clear I didn’t want either of you on my patch.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ Kate said. ‘As far as I know, he’s at work in London. But I was worried about Connie Flanagan and thought her solicitor would probably know where she is. She’s desperate to get her kids back.’

  ‘Well, her solicitor might know,’ Baker said angrily. ‘But she’s not likely to be telling anyone anything for a while. The caretaker disturbed an intruder earlier this morning. Saved Miss Driscoll’s life, he reckons. The bastards who were in her office were doing their best to kill her. She’s on her way to hospital right now.’ He glanced behind him to where the ambulance crew were manoeuvring a stretcher down the stairs. They were followed by a man in a formal suit carrying a doctor’s bag.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Baker asked. The doctor shrugged.

  ‘Touch and go, I think,’ he said and hurried out. Baker turned back to Kate.

  ‘Your friend Connie Flanagan was due to see me back at the nick in about half an hour, no doubt with her solicitor in tow. Where she is now and whether she’ll turn up is anyone’s guess. But I’ll find her, don’t you worry, especially after this little lot. And if she thinks she’s going to get her other kids back while her older boy’s still missing and she’s a witness – possibly even a suspect – in a murder case, she’s got another think coming. If she doesn’t turn up this morning, I’ll take that bloody fairground apart. I’m damn sure that’s where she’s hiding.’

  ‘You can’t really imagine she killed her husband!’ Kate protested.

  ‘Perhaps not personally,’ Baker said, ‘but I reckon she knows who did. Now get out of my hair, Miss O
’Donnell. I’ve got some sort of madman to track down, so stop getting in my way or I’ll find something to charge you with as well. You’ll know from your boyfriend that’s not too difficult.’

  SIXTEEN

  Kate walked away slowly, knowing that if she hurried it might occur to Baker to send someone after her. But once round the corner she speeded up, anxious that Connie and Luke might have decided to disappear again. To her relief she found them both more or less where she had left them in the park, although Luke’s acrobatic efforts on the swing had cooled to a desultory rocking, his head hanging on his chest in what looked like despair.

  Connie got up quickly when she saw Kate, and listened in horror to what had happened to Janet Driscoll.

  ‘I need to get away from here,’ she whispered. ‘I might be next.’ Which seemed only too likely.

  Kate seriously considered taking the two of them back to London, but realized that if she took them back to Harry’s flat neither the Essex police nor the Met would believe Barnard had not been involved in the manoeuvre.

  ‘Do you really think Luke could get you out to your sister-in-law’s place on Foulness without anyone knowing?’ she asked. ‘I went out there with my boyfriend and we went through the checkpoints by car. But Delia said she was planning to move out. You might find the place empty.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Connie said. ‘I’m sure we could get inside. It’s a dilapidated old place. It was damaged in the floods and no one’s bothered to put it back together again really. But at least it would be safe for a while.’ Kate thought for a moment, not believing for a moment that Connie and Luke would be safe on Foulness.

  ‘I’ve got a better idea. I’ll take you back to London with me,’ she said tentatively, knowing that Harry Barnard would consider this a very bad idea indeed and not sure how many crimes she’d be committing if she went ahead with it or how many risks she might be taking.