Deadly Intent (Anna Travis Mysteries)

by Lynda La Plante

  Damien glanced at it. “I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to get another one. The farm was thoroughly searched when it was presumed there were drugs hidden here.”

  “Well, I am going to do another. You can join me or remain here with Detective Travis.”

  Damien smiled, and drew out a chair to sit down. “Carry on.”

  Langton gave Anna a cold look and took off his coat. He tossed it over a chair and went to the sideboard. He began to search through the drawers and the cupboards below them. Satisfied he had found nothing of importance, he looked toward the small office room located off the main kitchen. This was the room where Gordon had taken the photographs of the boat, the Dare Devil. Langton left the door ajar; he could be seen checking over the desk, opening more drawers, working quickly and methodically.

  Anna stayed sitting at the table. Damien was opposite her, twisting round and round the large signet ring he wore on his left pinkie finger.

  Gordon then appeared at the open door; he rapped on the frame with his knuckles and Langton walked out. He went to Gordon’s side and they had a whispered conversation. Langton then continued his search of the office. Gordon remained standing outside.

  Anna joined Gordon to find out what was going on. Gordon glanced back into the kitchen and moved away a fraction. “We reckon Fitzpatrick has escaped using Damien Nolan’s passport. We’re checking all ports now.”

  Anna kept her voice low. “So Fitzpatrick made it back here, took his passport, and cleaned out his mother’s bank account? He couldn’t have been given it by Damien—he was at the station being questioned.”

  Langton asked for Damien to join him in the office. He had lifted a loose floorboard from beneath a rug. It had, by the look of it, been checked out before: there was no dust. “Mr. Nolan, I want you to see this.” Langton held up a plastic-wrapped bundle of fifty-pound notes; they matched a large amount more, neatly stored beneath the floorboards.

  Damien got slowly to his feet.

  “We can get these serial numbers checked out, but why don’t you tell me about how they come to be here?”

  “I have never seen them before. I certainly had no idea there was this much money hidden in here. I mean, the farmhouse was almost stripped bare the last time your officers searched.”

  Langton continued to lift out bundle after bundle; all had clear plastic bags wrapped around them, with a paper wrapper giving the amounts of each bundle. Langton was hardly audible as he counted: ten thousand, twenty, thirty, forty…And still he kept on stacking the bundles.

  The money was taken from the office and carefully put on the kitchen table. Damien looked on with a puzzled expression; as the amount grew, he kept on shaking his head.

  “I make it close to two and a half million,” Langton said, to no one in particular.

  “I have absolutely nothing to do with this. I had no idea it was hidden in the house, but I am nevertheless interested: that is a lot of money. I’ll be very keen to know whether, as you found it here, if no one claims it, it will automatically be returned to the property owner.”

  “Don’t get cheeky, Mr. Nolan. You are in a lot of trouble.”

  “I didn’t know it was there!” he exclaimed.

  “Just like you didn’t know your passport was missing?”

  “I had absolutely no idea.”

  “I am arresting you on suspicion of aiding a wanted criminal to escape justice.”

  Gordon took Damien to the station in a patrol car while Anna traveled back to London in her Mini, Langton beside her, his anger palpable.

  “Can I just say something?” she asked.

  “By all means. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say for yourself.”

  “I honestly do not think Damien is involved. I really questioned him—”

  “I’m sure you did—over a BLT, wasn’t it? Very chatty and comfortable—so much so, he was asking for a bloody date when I turned up.”

  “Then you must have also heard that I turned his request down! You have had surveillance on the farm: if Fitzpatrick returned there and took Damien’s passport, then they must have seen him.”

  Langton snapped that they were not in place until Nolan was released from custody. It would have given Fitzpatrick time to go back to the farmhouse, stash his money, and then get a plane ticket out from the UK to anywhere.

  “Can we check if the money was the payout from Julia? We know Rushton handed over close to four million in cash,” Anna said.

  Langton said nothing, sitting in moody silence. Anna continued to drive; she could not think of anything to say that would ease the tension between them.

  By the time they approached the station, Langton was in a contained fury. He got out of the car, slamming the door hard as he walked off.

  Anna got out and was about to shut her door, when he returned and leaned his elbows on the roof. “You are in trouble, Travis. I don’t like it, but I am putting you on report. I gave instructions that you were not to interview Damien Nolan, and you ignored me.”

  She went right back at him. “For goodness’ sake, I was there! Why not interview him? And, excuse me if I am repeating myself but I do not think Damien Nolan is involved.”

  “Because you fancy him?”

  “For Christ’s sake, that has nothing to do with it. My concern is we are wasting time; right now Fitzpatrick has got his brother’s passport, and if the cash at the farmhouse wasn’t from his local bank account, then he’s got money.”

  “Well, sweetheart, I bet you any money he’s out of our reach. We’ve lost him!” And he turned and walked into the station, leaving Anna seething.

  Langton paced up and down the incident room as they waited for a hoped-for sighting. All ports had been warned to look out for Fitzpatrick; his description, and details of the missing passport, had been forwarded, with photographs, to customs, ferries, trains, and Eurostar stations. They had also contacted heliports, private airstrips, and private plane charters. The Evening Standard had front-page coverage, and the morning papers all had been given details and photographs.

  They knew that there had been two days and nights when there was no surveillance at the farmhouse. If he had taken the passport and hidden the money, it had to have been done inside that time frame. Langton had questioned the SOCO officers who had instigated the search of the farmhouse; the office room had been very thoroughly searched and they were certain that no money had been beneath the floorboards. The money removed from the farmhouse was held in the property lockup as they tried to verify by the note numbers if it was recently withdrawn.

  It was 6:15 P.M. when Anna handed in her report, keeping a good distance from Langton. She had checked and double-checked her notes, making it clear that she had agreed to eat with Damien, as she had wanted him very much at ease, and so had been able to gain a considerable amount of background information. The threat of being put on report really infuriated her; considering the amount of work she had done to move the case forward, she felt Langton had been unnecessarily vindictive.

  Damien’s solicitor had agreed to come in so that they could interview his client first thing in the morning. The charges were withholding evidence and assisting a known criminal to escape arrest. Damien had remained calm, almost resigned to being banged up for yet another night in the cells. He had asked the uniformed officers who brought him from the farmhouse to the Chalk Farm Station if they could take the clothes he had packed for his wife to Holloway jail.

  The overnight bag was still at the station, and no one appeared interested in delivering it. “Is anyone taking this to Holloway?” Anna asked as she was leaving. The desk sergeant just shrugged, so Anna said she would take it. She carried it out to her car and placed it on the passenger seat. She drove from Chalk Farm over to Camden Town, heading toward Holloway Prison.

  Parking in the spaces allocated for prison staff, Anna picked up the case and then unzipped it. She took out the contents: a bar of soap, moisturizer, and hand cream in a small satin vanity b
ag; two pairs of new tights, a navy cashmere sweater, a dress and three pairs of panties and brassieres; combs and a hairbrush. Rather sadly, she saw that Damien had also included a box of dark chestnut-brown hair dye and shampoo.

  As she replaced them, she felt down the sides and under the base of the bag, but there was nothing else. She zipped up the bag, and then unzipped a small pocket at the side: it contained a folded slip of paper. In faint pencil handwriting was the list of items she had just checked over and, beside each one, a tick in red pen. There was nothing else. She felt, as Honour probably would, disappointment that there was no other message. There was finality about the ticks, like a schoolteacher’s appraisal. She returned the note to the pocket and carried the bag to the prison reception.

  Anna was not allowed to see Honour, as it was after visiting hours and the inmates were locked up for the night. She signed over the bag and wrote that the contents were on a list in the pocket. “Has anyone been to see her?”

  The receptionist reached for the visitors’ book, and flicked over until she came to Honour’s name. “Yes, her husband was here this afternoon.”

  Anna’s nerves jangled. “Her husband?”

  “Yes, Mr. Damien Nolan came in at two-thirty.”

  “Did he show any identification?”

  “Yes, his passport. She had a visit from her solicitor; that was in the morning, but no one else.”

  Anna hurtled into the incident room. There were only skeleton staff on duty, so she asked if Langton was around. She was told he was in Cunningham’s office. She barged in, gasping, “He was still in London at two-thirty this afternoon!”

  Langton sprang up from behind the desk. “What?”

  She tried to get her breath. “He visited Honour Nolan in Holloway; he bloody gave Damien Nolan’s passport for identification!”

  “Jesus Christ! Did you talk to her?”

  “No, I came straight back here as soon as I was told! This narrows down where he might have gone to next, so we can step up the search for him…”

  Langton was already out and yelling for everyone to get onto the airports; then, gesturing for Anna to join him, he said he would telephone the prison. “They won’t let you see her,” she responded.

  He turned on her, and snapped that they would drag her out by her hair if needs be.

  26

  Anna again made the journey across London, this time in a patrol car, with sirens blasting. By the time they had been checked through the prison reception, and led along various corridors to wait in a small anteroom, it was after 10 P.M. Langton had a terse conversation with the prison governor, who, as Anna had said, did not approve of a visit at this time of night. They had to wait another fifteen minutes before Honour was brought in.

  She was wearing a prison-issue nightdress; for a dressing gown, she wore her coat. Her hair was in two braids, the gray parting even more prominent.

  “Sit down, Honour,” Langton instructed. “I’ll get straight to the reason why we’re here. You had a visitor this afternoon. Don’t waste our time pretending it was your husband, because we know it wasn’t. It was Alexander Fitzpatrick, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said, hardly audible.

  “Okay, Honour, it will really help your defense if you now tell us where he is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must have talked about where he was going?”

  “No.” She had tears in her eyes and chewed at her lips.

  “So, tell me—what you did talk about?”

  Anna leaned forward and touched Honour’s hand, going for a softer approach. “Your husband has been arrested again.”

  “Oh God.” She bowed her head.

  “We know Fitzpatrick has Damien’s passport, Honour. We also found a large sum of money hidden under the floorboards at the farmhouse.”

  She shook her head, trying not to cry.

  “Did Damien know about this money?”

  “No, no, he didn’t. It was for me, for my lawyers, and to help his mother. He said he’d used her savings—had them transferred—so he was concerned about who would look after her.”

  “So Damien didn’t know he’d hidden the money,” Anna said again, and glanced at Langton.

  “No. I knew he was using Damien’s passport; he said he’d taken it out of a drawer in the kitchen. I’m not sure where the money came from.”

  “So he told you all this, Honour, and yet didn’t tell you where he was going?”

  “No. I swear to you I have no idea. This is probably why he didn’t tell me. I have never known where he was; it was always that way.” She started to cry, and searched in her coat pocket for a tissue. “He said the money was not stolen, that it belonged to him, that Julia had given it to him. It’s all been her fault.”

  “She’s dead, Honour, your sister was murdered. The brakes of her car slashed!”

  “He had nothing to do with that. I know he would not have done that. You keep on making him out to be this monster but he isn’t, I know he isn’t; she made it impossible for him.”

  Langton slapped the table with the flat of his hand, his patience running out. “You mean impossible to pay for shipping in a fucking cargo of lethal drugs? You need to get yourself straightened out, Mrs. Nolan. You are going to have a lot of time behind bars to come to terms with the fact that you were used.”

  “I was not!” she said angrily.

  “Alexander Fitzpatrick used everyone he came into contact with; either that, or he killed them. You have protected him and you seem prepared to let your husband take responsibility. He’ll be charged—”

  “No, please, he was never involved, I swear to you!”

  “So, you care for him, do you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “But you are prepared to let him take the punishment? He’s in the cells right now, Honour. If you say he’s innocent, prove it—tell us where Fitzpatrick is.”

  “I don’t know, but I do know that Damien was not involved, you have to believe me.”

  “Give me one good reason,” Langton said, leaning forward.

  She cried and twisted the sodden tissue round and round. “You just have to believe me. Alex didn’t even want to get me involved, but then that man Julia had got working for her got shot, and Alex was injured…”

  Langton snapped bitterly, “‘That man’ was an ex–police officer, Honour, a decent hardworking guy who was about to get married; but between you, and that sister of yours, he got drawn into your lover’s dirty business.”

  “I’m sorry about him, I am really, but after that happened, it just all spiraled out of control. I only agreed to hide the drugs because he had no one else he could trust.”

  “So whose idea was it to move them to Mrs. Eatwell’s?” Anna asked quietly, trying not to get Honour too upset—unlike Langton, whose patience was exhausted.

  “Mine. She called to say the police had been round asking about him. All the time he was there at the cottage, he had told her they had to be moved quickly. He didn’t believe that anyone would make the connection. So that’s why I did it.” She blew her nose and wiped her eyes, then looked up. “You have to understand something: I have loved Alex for many years. I still love him and, you may find it hard to believe, but he loves me.”

  Anna patted her hand again. “I am sure he does, to take such a risk, coming here to see you.”

  “To make sure I will be all right, and his children, and his mother; he’s not a bad person.”

  Langton banged back his chair and stood up. “Not a bad person! Tell that to David Rushton’s relatives, to Donny Petrozzo’s wife, to that boy in Brixton Prison, Adrian Summers—even your sister! Those kids are going to grow up and find out their father killed her. Whatever excuses you give, you are just as despicable as he is. And, I’ve not even brought up how many people would have died if that Fentanyl had got to be sold on the streets.”

  Langton walked to the door and rapped hard with his knuckles; a female officer was waiti
ng outside. “We’re through. Take her back to her cell. She’s going to have to get used to sleeping in one.”

  “As long as he is free, I don’t care where I am,” Honour said defiantly.

  Langton turned back and pointed. “You think he’s out of reach? Think again, Honour. I will get him—then watch the two-faced bastard turn into a sniffling wreck.” He stalked out.

  Anna sat for a moment longer and then she stood up too. Honour gave her a sad look, and then looked down at the damp tissue in her hands. “You don’t choose who you love; it’s fate. I married Damien because he reminded me of Alex, only to find out just how close he was—his brother. That’s fate, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sure it is. Is it also fate that your own sister became his mistress? Or was that just to keep it in the family?” She could see the hurt flash across Honour’s face. Anna leaned across the table. “If you care anything for Damien, then for God’s sake, tell me if you know where Fitzpatrick is.”

  “You know something? I think I would, if I did know, because Damien is a really wonderful person and doesn’t deserve this, but I truthfully don’t. Alex wouldn’t have told me anyway; you see, he lives on secrets. It’s what makes him always so unobtainable. I was foolish enough to be satisfied with scraps, until this time; we were going to be together.”

  “But it wasn’t going to be you, Honour. Julia was driving to meet him with the children. She was going to meet up with him on the boat.”

  “That’s not true! That is not the truth!”

  Anna turned and walked out toward the waiting prison officer. She left Honour sobbing, but she didn’t feel any compassion for her; quite the reverse.

  Langton was standing by the patrol car, smoking; he turned as she approached. “You get anything from her?”

  “Nope. I don’t think she does know.”

  “She made out that Damien was in the clear,” he said, stubbing out his cigarette on the ground.

  “Yes, well, I told you that.”

  Langton gave instructions to drive back to the station; again he constantly used his phone to answer and send messages. “Still no sighting, and we’ve no way of tracing where all that cash came from, as Rushton’s dead along with Julia. If it came from her we’ll never know,” he muttered.