‘It doesn’t matter,’ Patrick said. ‘Matlock actually carried on drinking at lunchtime despite his boss getting furious with him. Then he passed right out in the car park. Gill by this time was a bit tight too so was in a let’s teach the stupid bugger a lesson mood. So Matlock was delivered to the nick with his blessing. I think he thought that if he grovelled a bit to me I’d leave him alone and go home happy with a glowing report for Uncle. Not so.’
‘You didn’t beat him up, though.’
‘No, I don’t beat up overweight and unfit men older than me who haven’t done me any personal injury,’ Patrick replied evenly.
‘He refused to say what had happened to him.’
‘Good. Did you question him then?’
‘No, I thought I’d let him stew for a bit.’
‘You might regret that.’
‘I don’t think so. Where’s his car?’
‘Oh, I left it on double yellow lines in Wellow village and walked home by the rural route. It was pretty late by the time we’d finished getting Matlock ready for posting so I didn’t want to call anyone out to pick me up. Haven’t slept under a hedge since army days,’ he finished by ruefully saying.
Patrick’s service injuries have left him with a right leg of man-made construction below the knee and currently he is taking part in the trial of a prototype that contains springs, a lithium battery and a certain amount of artificial intelligence. Using it has meant the way he now walks is perfectly natural and we plan to pay out a five-figure sum when it comes on to the market. Our automatic Range Rover has been specially adapted with a hand throttle as driving with no sensation in your foot is not easy and something he will only undertake in emergencies or for short distances. Very relevant to this case was that he would not have wanted to bring Gill’s vehicle back into Hinton Littlemoor and, worse, be seen driving it.
He smothered a yawn. ‘Sorry, I know I didn’t do a very good job. I should have worked on Gill a bit longer but I didn’t, I cut it short, partly because I didn’t want to blow my cover and thought you ought to talk to him. There’s also something concerning Katie that Ingrid will tell you about.’
Which I did and Carrick made no comment.
‘There are a few more not very important details,’ Patrick said afterwards. ‘I’ll write out a proper report for you.’
‘I’ll write it, you dictate it to me,’ I told him. ‘I can email it to James a little later from home.’
Carrick arranged that we were given a lift to where the car had been left and I drove us both home in silence, Patrick half-asleep. The DCI had given no sign that he was disappointed with the outcome of the mission but we both knew that he was. There was no new or useful intelligence that could be used to move the case forward.
‘But at least you got hold of Matlock,’ I said when we arrived at the rectory. ‘He might sing his heart out.’
‘He’s next to useless,’ Patrick said. ‘As well as being on the booze for most of the time the man is genuinely mentally impaired. He forgets just about everything he’s told about five minutes afterwards. In my opinion he’s on the way to some kind of alcohol-induced early-onset dementia. All I really got out of him was where Gill’s living, which he has written down on a piece of paper and keeps in his wallet. He has to remind himself of the address every time he goes there. There was fear there too, not necessarily of me – just fear.’
‘Yet he can still drive a car.’
‘Sort of.’
‘Did it cross your mind that he was pretending to be stupid?’
‘Only to begin with. Then he muttered something about being out in Iraq. He’s probably an ex-squaddie – with his mind affected by what he’s seen and done.’
We met Matthew in the hall.
‘This is the job, Matthew,’ Patrick said, referring to his state of dishevelment before wearily making his way upstairs for a shower and some sleep. ‘Still want it?’
He did not see the boy’s reaction but I did.
Oh, brother. Oh, yes. The black jeans and matching leather jacket. That belt, the grinning skull, its red shining eyes. Wow!
Before making a move, and cautious as ever, Carrick had put a watch on Charlie Gill’s house, which was in Twerton. Nothing moved. No one went in or out. Then, getting impatient, he sent his temporary sergeant, Frank Keen, and a constable to have a quiet snoop around the exterior. They found an ‘open’ window and got in. The place was deserted but a TV was switched on and, in the kitchen, food had been removed from the fridge to prepare a meal. In the living room a coffee table had been knocked over and although these combined factors were not particularly sinister in themselves they did suggest that Gill had left in a hurry.
I was still carrying on liaising between SOCA and Bath and Bristol CID departments. Patrick had contacted Commander Greenway who said he was content, for the present, for the local police to get on with their investigations with us present if needed. Patrick, meanwhile, was finding out all he could about Colin Andrews, the manager of the Ring o’ Bells.
As predicted, Carrick got almost nowhere with Matlock in connection with the various charges against him, which were mostly of the oaf-in-attendance at beatings and assaults variety, and he was put on remand with a request for urgent psychiatric reports. Despite Patrick’s comments to the contrary the DCI was of the opinion that his suspect was playing dumb. Carrick had already had another setback when the medic at the remand centre had contacted him to tell him that Derek Jessop’s condition was no longer considered good enough for him to be interrogated as he had developed a temperature and an infection was feared.
Five days later Charlie Gill’s bloated body was fished out of the River Avon. Under the gaze of an audience of tourists who watched avidly from the perfect viewpoint near Pulteney Bridge, the police had removed it, with difficulty, from where it had become jammed on the weir a short distance downstream. After being carried, with even more difficulty, up the narrow steps to road level the corpse was taken away in a plain van.
SEVEN
Gill had been killed with a single shot to the head but not before being subjected to a savage beating.
‘We need to know exactly what you did to the man to enable us to know what someone else did to him afterwards,’ Carrick said, pausing in a whirlwind progress through the nick when he saw Patrick and me.
‘Nothing,’ Patrick answered in surprise. ‘I told you I didn’t.’
‘But look, Gill didn’t let you tie a rope around his ankles and hang him from a beam without some kind of struggle!’
‘Yes, he did. I said I’d been ordered to put him in hospital for a couple of days but was in a tearing hurry. So as I was worried about being watched by Uncle and if Charlie cooperated we could come to a satisfactory arrangement.’
‘He’s much heavier than you.’
‘We arranged a few hay bales underneath; he lay down on the top one and I pulled them away afterwards. You should have questioned him when you found him.’
Carrick threw his arms up in the air and went away.
‘Cops don’t think like you do,’ I explained.
‘I gave him that man on a plate,’ Patrick said furiously. ‘And now he’s dead, murdered. He should have been questioned and given police protection. As it was he went home, rang Uncle to complain about his treatment and they promptly took him apart and then killed him to teach the interferer a lesson. Uncle – and who the hell else could have done it? – now knows someone’s on to him. It wasn’t me who screwed up, was it?’
‘No,’ I agreed calmly. ‘But don’t forget Joanna’s due to give birth at any time and James is dead worried about her. And while I remember it, Matthew has his appointment with the Youth Offending Team a fortnight tomorrow. Will you be there?’
‘Of course.’
‘What are you going to tell them?’
‘The truth.’
‘What, about Andrews having a possible connection with criminals?’
‘If necessary. That boy’s fu
ture is far more important than a bloody police investigation.’
Michael Greenway was furious, blaming both Carrick and Patrick for what he called ‘their appalling lack of consultation and communication with one other’. As the commander was the latter’s immediate superior it was he who received the reprimand, and I am sure, having overheard that bit without difficulty, the fact it was delivered over the phone did not dilute it one iota.
I had tactfully withdrawn from the room – the call had come during that evening only a few minutes after Patrick had come home from work – and when I returned from my little walk around the garden he was pensively pouring himself a tot of whisky.
‘I screwed up,’ he said. ‘Official.’
I refrained from trite statements along the lines of ‘you can’t win ’em all’ and reckoned the oracle was about to be released from her box.
‘So what do I do?’ he asked.
‘You could turn everything around by working with what you’ve got. As you said yourself Uncle knows someone’s on to him but he probably won’t think it’s the police as cops don’t tend to string mobsters up by the heels. I’m sure you’ve created a certain amount of confusion so Uncle might be on the trail of Mick the Kick right now, assuming he was behind it.’
‘And?’
‘Stay in character.’
‘Go after him, you mean?’
I did not want to say it but did. ‘You might have to gain his interest even further in order to get inside his organization.’
‘People like him are always on the lookout for specialists.’
‘That’s right. He might offer you a job in order to get you off his back. He might think that’s what you’re after.’
‘Serious criminals are always on the lookout for experts, in money laundering for example. I’ve done a bit of work on the ins and outs of international finance but that kind of thing has never been my strong point.’ Patrick pulled a wry face. ‘He already has an in-house psychopath: Murphy.’ He added wistfully, ‘I’m good at those.’
‘She could always be taken out.’
‘Ingrid, you don’t normally suggest I top women.’
I tut-tutted and then smiled at his concern. ‘I’m not. Surely she’s wanted in connection with several crimes – under suspicion for murders committed during the Bath turf war, for one thing. Arrest her.’
‘Or I could play the alcoholic, junkie, psychopathic cop with a long tongue that zaps people around the ears like that alien who wears his innards on his head in Farscape,’ Patrick muttered after a short silence, throwing himself down on to the sofa.
‘OK, delete all the above and just go after him.’
‘As me.’
‘Yes, as you, the man from SOCA.’
‘But not in character as a lean, mean, gunning machine?’ he asked sadly, very much tongue-in-cheek.
‘There’s very little difference. Just forget the hair gel and leave off that confounded belt with the skull buckle.’
He went into a reverie and I left him to it to deal with domestic matters, wondering if I had just written myself out of the job.
‘I might take your advice,’ Patrick said at just before eleven that night, coming into the bedroom. ‘But there’s something else I want to do first. It’s really important to . . .’
The rest of what he was saying was muffled as he pulled his open-necked shirt over his head. Most men undo a few more buttons first.
‘Say that last bit again,’ I requested.
He delved into a drawer and unearthed a dark blue sweatshirt. ‘Find out what’s going on at the pub.’
I stared at him. ‘Do I take it you’re going to break in?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, now?’
‘In around an hour’s time.’
‘You don’t need me to list the consequences if it all goes wrong.’
No, and he did not need reminding that he was a cop now and should have a search warrant; that his MI5 days, when he had not needed one, were over and it would probably be the end of his job with SOCA, etc., etc.
‘Are you coming with me, or not?’ Patrick asked in the manner of one who had asked the question before and received no response.
Oh, God, the headlines in RECTOR’S SON AND DAUGHTER-IN-LAW CAUGHT BREAKING INTO VILLAGE INN. Or: AUTHOR ARRESTED FOR PUB BURGLARY – ‘SHE ALWAYS WAS A BIT ODD,’ SAYS NEIGHBOUR.The Bath Chronical:
‘Are you doing this mostly for Matthew?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
‘We may as well hang together,’ I said.
At least he and Katie would be immensely proud of us.
There is a gateway in our garden wall that leads directly into the churchyard which has provided a shortcut for the incumbent and his family for several hundred years, initially so they did not have to mingle with potentially verminous villagers in the lane. It was to be very useful to us tonight as it was vital that no one saw anyone acting furtively in the vicinity of the rectory and the Ring o’ Bells. Between both properties is a road and the larger-than-average village green and we would not set foot on one inch of it.
It was around midnight as we went through the gate but the church clock would not strike the hour as it had stopped and was awaiting repairs. Patrick led the way and I did not follow right on his heels in order not to cannon into him should he stop suddenly. It was up to me to fend for myself and not trip over any of the gravestones, which was fairly easy to begin with as there is a path that leads around the side of the church to the main door. Before we reached this we struck off across the grass and progressed more slowly and carefully. There was no moon but as often happens in high summer it was not quite dark and the worn stones seemed almost to possess an afterglow from the brilliant sunset.
We came to an older area, the original part of the graveyard that dates back to the Middle Ages, most of the burial sites now just grassy mounds. Then the boundary wall, much higher on this side, reared up before us. There is a gateway here, too, that I knew had once led into glebe land but these days this is the gardens of private houses with a public footpath running between them. Not many people use it now but the ancient iron hinges and latch on the gate are well oiled and silent: one-time MI5 operatives keep their escape routes easily accessible.
The footpath meandered between fencing and hedges for a short distance and then swung hard left and downhill into a lane. I expected Patrick to turn left again but he went the other way and after fifty yards or so went up a bank surmounted by a field hedge. There was a stile in it and we climbed over it, the author swearing under her breath as her dark sweatshirt caught on a thorn. My companion did not wait but loped off into the near darkness. I have never been able to understand how he moves so quietly, catlike.
I followed the hedge for around fifty yards before coming to a gate. What my gaze had slid over as part of the old stone gatepost came alive, making me start, sort of flowed over the gate and was gone. Grimly, I dealt with the gate, not flowing, and set off after him, seemingly in another field, not exactly sure of the direction he had taken. Surely, somewhere, we would have to cross the road that ran through the village.
The hedge curved around to the left. I stopped to listen but all I could hear were the night sounds of the countryside: a distant owl, cows chewing the cud somewhere quite near to me, the light breeze rustling through foliage. Then, close by, a fox yapped. It is a strange sound, not much like that made by a dog. I went in the direction I had heard it, leaving the hedge to strike across what appeared to be a narrow tapering corner of the field as I soon came to another boundary hedge. A piece of shadow, the fox, moved and went over another stile; at least that was what it turned out to be when I groped for it in the dark. The foot rest on the other side of it was slippery, my foot skated off it and I went down heavily, hitting my head on a branch. No stars, just pain.
In the earthy blackness a tiny beam of light found my face, went on a short exploration and snapped off again: Patrick’s ‘burglars’ tor
ch. Nothing was said. I got to my feet and stood quite still in the blackness of what was probably a little wood. I knew he was nearby, waiting – waiting patiently, I suddenly realized, for me to recover and the training in night surveillance he had given me some years previously when we were still with MI5 to kick in.
Something that is part of his make-up after special services training and happens without him thinking about it had taken time for me to acquire. You have to learn to switch on those senses other than sight and, told to follow him in a Dartmoor forest on several cold winter’s nights, I did, after walking into umpteen trees, get quite good at it.
And no, don’t speak.
He was still standing very close to me, I knew that; I could actually feel the warmth of his body. Then there was the soft rustle of his clothing as he turned and went away from me. My eyes were more accustomed to the darkness by now and I could make out the outlines of the trunks of trees, the low branches that might hit me in the face, the trailing leaves. I could just pick up his soft footfalls.
It quickly became lighter ahead, the tree cover opening out and then we were walking down a stony track. Patrick almost immediately – I could see him clearly now – turned aside, crouched and then disappeared downwards. He had slithered down an embankment and I did likewise, arriving on what I now knew to be the track bed of the old Somerset and Dorset railway line. We turned to the left, going beneath a road bridge and I heard a vehicle whoosh across it above our heads.
A minute or so later we climbed the embankment on the other side, emerging on a rough path that led gently downhill and into a lane with high hedges. Before us was the clear outline of a huge weeping willow against the night sky. I knew where I was now as I had explored some of these little back ways since moving to the village. We were around a minute’s walk from the rear of the Ring o’ Bells.
Even without the ‘no talking’ rule I would not have asked about hazards like alarm systems, dogs, people living on the premises and so forth as I knew they had already been taken into consideration. This did not mean that I was not sweating from nerves: our sortie was far too close to home and had all the potential to be a disaster.
Rat Poison Page 8
