Deadly Intent (Anna Travis Mysteries)

by Lynda La Plante

  Anna gave him a sidelong glance. “Yes, my thoughts exactly. It’s another link, because Julius D’Anton also knew Alexander Fitzpatrick.”

  “What if he was hiding out at the farmhouse and somehow D’Anton saw him?”

  “But if he was hiding out, he’s not likely to have been wandering around an antique fair, is he? It’s another schlep to check it all out; it’ll mean contacting all those dealers that had a stall, especially the guy that Sandra said owned a shop. It might be local, it might not, but that’s what you have to start on as soon as we’re back at the station.”

  “Okay.”

  Anna decided that she would go over to the forensic lab and see if they had any results from the tests being done on the Mitsubishi. This time, she wanted to find out if there was any crossover from the clothes worn by Julius D’Anton—anything that would place him in the jeep.

  Pete listened as Anna outlined what she wanted tested. He shook his head. “You must be joking. We’ve had it stripped down, and it was given a very thorough clean, apart from the small blood swipe.”

  “What about the map?”

  “There were prints, but nothing clean enough for us to run by the database.”

  “The note?”

  “Ditto. It does look as if the numbers were, as you thought, directions to the farmhouse. We’re testing soil samples, but they will take a while. Then we’ve got to match them with samples taken from the farmhouse.”

  Anna sighed with impatience.

  “You can well sigh, Detective Travis, but have you any idea of the amount of forensic work going on? The body count keeps on growing every time I turn around. This guy brought in from the Thames—his clothes are all pegged out, so are Donny Petrozzo’s clothes, then there’s the guy shot on his toilet…”

  “Stanley Leymore.”

  “Yes, him—we’ve got all his gear being tested. The cost is mounting. We’ve brought in three extra assistants and the path lab is screaming blue murder. They are as inundated as we are.”

  “What about the toxicology report?”

  “Jesus! Ask Fielding, I don’t know. I’m aware he’s getting in extra people too, but the costs—do you know how much it is just to get the soil samples tested?”

  Anna wondered if Cunningham was under pressure; her budget must be through the roof. Maybe that was why she was so bad-tempered all the time.

  “So, we still on for dinner sometime?”

  Anna suddenly relented and smiled. “I’m sorry. Yes, of course we are.”

  “When?”

  “Why not tomorrow evening?”

  “Great. You want me to bring anything?”

  “No. Say about eight?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Anna jotted down her address and asked if there was anything he couldn’t eat.

  “Nope. See you tomorrow night.”

  By the time Anna got back to the station, it was almost four. She hadn’t had lunch, but didn’t have time to go up to the canteen, as Cunningham had asked for yet another briefing. These were starting to get on everyone’s nerves: usually an inquiry spaced them out, to give the team time to do their jobs. There were a lot of disgruntled people banging down chairs. Anna could see that the incident board had more information, but much of it was eliminating the vehicle owners whose number plates had been listed by Jeremy Webster. It was the wait for evidence from the forensic and pathology reports that was holding them up. The body count was, as Pete Jenkins had said, mounting: Frank Brandon, Donny Petrozzo, Stanley Leymore, and now Julius D’Anton.

  Anna was quickly marking up the information on D’Anton that she’d got from his wife, the possible link to the farmhouse, and his association with Alexander Fitzpatrick, when Gordon hurried over to say that he had tracked down five stallholders’ names and addresses. He was waiting for the organizers to give him more details, but he had the name of two who also had antiques shops in the area, one in Oxford and another in the village of Shipston on Stour. Anna told him to form a new section on the board and write up everything.

  He was busy doing so when Cunningham made her usual scowling entrance. “Okay, everyone, listen up. I am getting a lot of pressure regarding the mounting costs. We have to really concentrate on…” She turned to the board as Gordon finished writing. “What the hell is this?”

  Anna stood up and explained that Julius D’Anton might have been in the area of Honour Nolan’s farm, and that he might also have been driving the Mitsubishi.

  “Might?”

  “Yes, it’s possible, but my interest is that D’Anton knew Alexander Fitzpatrick—”

  “Right now we do not have any evidence that this man is involved, Travis. We have not a shred of evidence that he is even in this country. What we do have are four dead men and very little else. The killer, or killers, are dropping these bodies like flies without anything that helps us with the murder of Frank Brandon.”

  “I’m sorry, but I disagree with you. We know Frank worked for Donny Petrozzo, we know Donny bought hot cars from Stanley Leymore, and we know that at one time Julius D’Anton knew Fitzpatrick.”

  “What exactly does that give us?”

  “A link!”

  “Bloody fantastic, a link. We still don’t know who was the main dealer in that stinking squat, nor why Frank Brandon was there, and we don’t have any clue as to who the man was possibly standing behind him. I don’t buy that it might have been Fitzpatrick. You tell me why an internationally infamous drug operator would risk entering the UK to schlep over to Chalk Farm, and for what—to score some cocaine? It doesn’t fit. He is on our Most Wanted lists. All this supposition about this couple and their farmhouse has not brought in any connections.”

  “Bar the fact that Honour Nolan is Julia Brandon’s sister.”

  “So what does that give us? We don’t have any connection between Julia Brandon and the dead men, apart from a dodgy marriage to Frank Brandon. We’re going round in circles.”

  “But the circles keep on joining up,” Anna said defensively.

  “Do they hell! Show me—I am all ears. We need a break, and I can’t see us finding it by constantly bringing in supposition instead of hard evidence.”

  “I think both Honour Nolan and her husband, Damien, lied about how well they knew Alexander Fitzpatrick.”

  “But, Travis, what does that give us?”

  “Well, there is the painting of a boat.”

  “Painting?”

  “Yes, it’s of a very large, oceangoing yacht called Dare Devil, painted, I think, by Honour Nolan. If she didn’t know Fitzpatrick, as she claims…”

  “Is it his boat?” snapped Cunningham.

  “I don’t know. I am still checking it out.”

  “Did she actually paint it?”

  “I don’t know that either,” Anna said lamely.

  “So all this is still just your supposition. It’s no good going off to interview these suspects if you just come back with ‘possibles,’ for Chrissakes. Get your head down and check it all out.”

  “We have asked for the soil from the wheels of the Mitsubishi to be tested, prove it was on the Nolan farm.”

  Cunningham folded her arms. “Okay, and that, we know, is going to take weeks. We are waiting on fucking forensics to bring us something—and running around like blue-arsed flies is not, to my mind, bringing us anything we can get to grips with.”

  Anna sat back in her chair, furious at the way she had been spoken to.

  Phil Markham raised his hand. “What do you suggest we do, ma’am?” His sarcasm was obvious.

  “I want the Frank Brandon and Julia Brandon relationship delved into. I want to know where she got her millions. I want her under the hammer—put as much pressure on her as possible.”

  “Hard with that bastard Simon Fagan watching over her,” Phil muttered.

  “Then put the pressure on her weasel-faced accountant. Get whatever warrants we need to make him squirm,” Cunningham continued. “Above all, I want to know w
ho was running that fucking drug squat. Any vehicle still not traced, get out there and find who owns it and who was inside that squat.”

  “Well, we know Leymore was there at some point, because of his missing fingertip and the prints.” Again this was Phil.

  Cunningham folded and refolded her arms. “Small fry, dealt in stolen cars. So, we are now going to focus on why Frank Brandon was shot? Why were they at this drug squat?”

  Anna coughed. “Maybe the scoring of drugs is not the reason. Maybe there was something else inside that squat.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Terrific, thank you, Travis. Now, all of you get back to basics. This is a murder inquiry and the main development has to come from why Frank Brandon was shot.”

  “Because maybe he was protecting someone?” Phil said.

  “Find out who.”

  “But what if Travis is right? What if Fitzpatrick is back in the UK?”

  Cunningham sighed and threw open her arms. “Then give me proof!”

  She then gave the main team the following day off, saying she wanted them all to take a breather and come back refreshed, with details and not supposition. Hopefully, by that time, they would at long last have some details from the labs.

  Anna packed up her briefcase. At least she would be able to sort her flat out and buy some groceries for dinner with Pete. Just as she was about to leave, Gordon called. There was someone she should talk to on line two—a Michael Sudmore, antiques dealer and owner of the shop in Shipston on Stour.

  Mr. Sudmore had a very fruity voice. Anna held the phone away from her ear, as he spoke so loudly. Sudmore had known Julius D’Anton quite well and was not that fond of him, as he often took a long time to pay for goods. D’Anton had such a poor record that Sudmore refused to sell him anything unless it was for cash. Sudmore had been at the village fair and met D’Anton, who was interested in a table but, as usual, tried his bouncing-check routine. When Sudmore had refused, D’Anton had agreed to come to his shop with the money within the next week. He had left twenty pounds for Sudmore to hold it for him. Sudmore was really not expecting D’Anton to show, as he had done this many times before.

  He also reckoned he had undersold the table, and was hoping D’Anton would not actually turn up to buy it. It was almost three days later when D’Anton returned with a large wedge of fifty-pound notes. He paid over the cash but said his van was in the garage, so he would not collect the table until the following week.

  Sudmore recalled that D’Anton was driving a black Mitsubishi jeep; it was not large enough for the table to fit in the back. He described D’Anton as being very full of himself, a bullshitter, saying that he would soon be opening up a shop in Chiswick, as he now had financial backing. Sudmore recalled as best he could the clothes D’Anton was wearing—a polo-neck sweater and tweed jacket. He suggested that they call his assistant, who had met him, and ask her if she could remember anything else that might help them. When she asked for the woman’s name, Anna almost dropped the receiver.

  “She lives quite locally; she’s an artist and only works part-time when I need her. Honour Kendal, lovely lady.”

  Anna asked him to repeat the name, to be 100 percent sure.

  “Honour Kendal. Her married name is Nolan.”

  Anna replaced the receiver. She was buzzing. Could it have been coincidental that Honour Nolan was working in the same antiques shop that Julius D’Anton walked into? Was it coincidental that perhaps Alexander Fitzpatrick was there? Did D’Anton recognize him? Was he paid money to keep his mouth shut until they could get rid of him? Anna sat back in her chair. Coincidence? Langton always said there were no coincidences, just facts.

  This time she would make Cunningham wait until she was positive. She was certain that Alexander Fitzpatrick was in the UK, and he had to be here for a reason. If she was correct, he was taking out anyone connected to him. Uppermost in her mind, though, was still the question of how it all linked to Frank Brandon’s murder in the drug squat on the Chalk Farm Warren Estate.

  11

  Friday morning, and Anna really intended to do a grocery shop before cooking dinner for Pete Jenkins. She had even attempted to clear some of the packing boxes, but she kept on thinking about Honour Nolan and the possibility that she and her husband were involved with Fitzpatrick. Eventually, she decided that, contrary to what she had been instructed to do by Cunningham, she could legitimately pay another visit to Oxford, to check on the antiques shop and to follow up on Honour Nolan’s meeting with Julius D’Anton. She rang Pete.

  He sounded as if he was half asleep. “Hello?”

  “Pete, it’s Anna.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me you want to cancel dinner.”

  “Well, not exactly. It’s just I sort of need to take a trip to Oxford and I won’t be sure what time I’ll get back.”

  “This got something to do with the case?”

  She said that it did, in a roundabout way.

  “You want company?”

  She hesitated.

  “There are some really great restaurants,” he said persuasively. “One called The Bear, something like that—it’s got Michelin stars up the yinyang. I’ve always wanted to try it out. I could drive?”

  “Well, if you can take the rest of the day off, then great,” she said.

  They arranged to meet at his house in Hampstead, as he said he would need to take a shower and have a shave. They would then drive from there in his car, as he said it needed a “blow out.” She was unsure exactly what he meant but agreed. An hour later, Anna parked outside Pete’s house and was concerned that there was no response when she rang his doorbell. The sound of his Morgan sports car roaring into the street made her turn; he also blasted the horn.

  The hood was down; it was already a pleasant morning, which she hoped would bode well for a sunny day. She parked in his garage around the rear of the house and then, armed with a bag of fresh fruit, water, and chocolate bars, they set off toward the M40.

  “This is a great car,” she said, above the noise of the engine.

  “Yeah, I’ve had it for years, but don’t drive it in to work as it’s too much aggravation. It’ll be good to get a long drive, blow the cobwebs off the engine; these old cars need to be driven.”

  The interior smelled of old leather and mildew; the dashboard was a lovely polished wood, with a few bubbles and cracks. Pete drove fast, but was competent and didn’t take any risks. It was refreshing to drive into the country after picking their way through the city and onto the motorway.

  This time, Anna didn’t think of the many trips she had made to see Langton in the rehabilitation home. With the wind making her hair stand up on end, she rested back with her eyes closed, the sun on her face, glad Pete had come along. They didn’t make much conversation, as they couldn’t really hear each other, until they branched off and headed toward the village of Shipston on Stour.

  Michael Sudmore’s antiques shop was on High Street. There were a number of items on a table outside the shop and an antique rocking chair with embroidered cushions. The shop was well stocked, with a lot of spindle-backed chairs, small Edwardian tables, and many prints and cabinets covering the walls; on one table, a large china dinner service was set out with a bowl of fresh flowers. The florid, fruity-voiced Sudmore was sitting behind a small counter, reading The Times. He was wearing half-moon glasses and peered over them as Anna and Pete entered the shop.

  Anna introduced herself, and left Pete to wander around the shop, as she went over everything they had discussed on the telephone. Sudmore could add little, apart from a few anecdotes about Julius D’Anton and his notoriously bad checks. He did say that D’Anton had a great charm to him and was always very affable, yet over the years had become rather seedy, and was mistrusted by the other antiques dealers. For all his faults, Julius did have a very good eye and considerable knowledge.

  Sudmore then showed Anna the table Julius had put twenty pounds deposit down on. I
t was an oval shape with cabriole legs and a folding arm, and it resembled a small version of the old hunting tables used by the gentry when they were served drinks after a foxhunt. He had, as he had said on the phone, undersold it.

  “He was a wily old sod, asked me where I had bought it. You know, dealers have this nose—maybe where I had got it from, there could be more bargains—but I told him he wouldn’t get anything else. The old lady has an eye for IKEA! She lives in a cottage not far from here. This table was about the only thing left of value and it was in a terrible state, standing outside her kitchen door!”

  Anna took down the exact dates of Julius’s visit and worked her way around to asking about Honour Nolan.

  “Adorable! She used to have her own little shop, but closed it up years ago. Now she just does odd days for me when I am off buying. As she lives close by, it’s convenient for me; sometimes I sell some of her paintings.” He raised an eyebrow. “Not what I would call works of art, but very colourful, and she buys some of my old frames. I have a couple of pots she’s made. She had a kiln in one of her barns. But they don’t sell. Well, anyone coming in here is not after anything modern.”

  Anna glanced over to Pete. He had walked out of the shop and was sifting through the items for sale outside. She could see that anyone standing in the shop had a very good view of the front and road, even over to the local pub and car park where they had left their car.

  “Do you ever socialize with Mrs. Nolan?”

  “No. I have been over to Honey Farm once. I was in the area and I needed to see if she could come in and watch the shop for me. She rarely answers her phone and they don’t have an answer machine.”

  “You have met her husband?”

  “Oh yes, he often collects her. Lovely man, very pleasant, but they are a very private couple. In fact, I hardly ever see them, even at the local pub. They keep very much to themselves.”

  “Did you ever meet her sister?”

  “No, I didn’t. I know she came to stay once. I only remember because I needed Honour, and she said she had people staying.”