by Shaun Hutson
‘Perhaps I’d better just touch up the worst bits first,’ she said, smiling thinly.
Donna smiled too and walked out of the room.
She stepped back in only seconds later.
‘Julie,’ she said, her voice low, her expression troubled, ‘did anyone else come up here with you? Follow you up here?’
‘Like who?’ Julie wanted to know.
‘You haven’t heard anyone come up here since you did?’ Donna persisted.
‘No,’ Julie replied, looking puzzled. ‘Why do you ask?’
Donna stepped back onto the landing, followed by her sister. The older woman was looking down the short corridor towards the door which was normally kept shut.
‘I think there’s someone in Chris’s office.’
Twenty-Nine
As the two women approached the door, Donna noticed it was indeed ajar. From inside there was very little sound; just the soft rustling of paper on paper. Occasionally there came the furtive squeaking of a drawer or filing cabinet. Then there was silence.
Donna pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The man turned slowly and looked directly at her.
He was tall, his hair short and dark, cropped close at the nape of his neck. He had a thin face which rested on a very thick neck. Instead of looking surprised by the discovery, he met Donna’s gaze with one of such intensity as to make her appear the intruder.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ she snapped, looking first at the man and then at the office.
He still had a piece of paper in his hand, taken from one of the open drawers in Chris’s desk.
‘Who gave you permission to break in here?’ Donna hissed angrily.
The man smiled.
‘I’d scarcely call it breaking in, Mrs Ward,’ he said, his lip curling contemptuously. ‘I realize that perhaps I should have asked your permission first, but you seemed otherwise engaged.’ He made a theatrical show of dropping the piece of paper back onto the desk.
‘Get out of here now,’ she said, her angry stare never leaving the man.
‘If you’d just let me explain,’ he began.
‘There’s nothing to explain,’ she told him. ‘Now get out of here before I call the police. How dare you do this?’
The man looked at Julie, then back at Donna.
‘I was looking for something which belonged to me,’ he said evenly. ‘Your husband and I had been working together. He’d borrowed some reference books from me.’
‘Working together?’ Donna said incredulously. ‘Chris always worked alone. He never mentioned you or anyone else that he was working with. What’s your name?’
‘Peter Farrell. Your husband must have mentioned me at some time,’ the man said, smoothing his short hair down with a large hand.
Donna shook her head.
‘Why were you going through his papers?’ she demanded.
‘I told you,’ Farrell insisted. ‘I was looking for the books I lent him. I didn’t want to trouble you. You seem to have enough to worry about.’
‘Thanks for the concern,’ Donna said, sarcastically. ‘So, instead of worrying me you thought you’d just come up here and break into my husband’s office?’
Farrell laughed and shook his head.
‘Don’t laugh at me, you bastard,’ Donna snapped. ‘If you’re not out of this room, if you’re not out of this house in one minute, I’m calling the police.’
Farrell shrugged and immediately headed for the door, holding Donna in that steely gaze for a second before passing by.
‘I’d like the books back, Mrs Ward,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you my phone number. If you find them, I’d appreciate a call.’ He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out what looked like a business card. On the back he wrote a number and his name and then passed it to Donna.
‘What are the books called?’ she wanted to know.
‘They’re books about paintings. Catalogues. As I said, if you find them I’d appreciate a call.’ He walked briskly towards the staircase and descended. Donna watched him from the landing.
‘Do you know him?’ Julie asked.
Donna shook her head. She glanced down at the name and number written on the card.
PETER FARRELL
Books about paintings?
‘Jesus Christ,’ Donna murmured.
‘What is it?’ Julie asked, looking concerned.
Books about paintings.
What was the entry in Ward’s diary? JAMES WORSDALE: DUBLIN NATIONAL GALLERY.
Coincidence?
She looked over the bannister again and saw Farrell leaving, followed by two other men. The ones that had been at the funeral.
Donna walked across to the window on the landing and peered out, watching the three men as they clambered into a blue Sierra. Farrell sat in the passenger seat, glancing round once as the car pulled away.
A look of realization crossed Donna’s face and she spun round, hurrying to the bedroom where she pulled open the bedside cabinet.
The photos she’d taken from Chris’s office and Suzanne Regan’s flat were there; she spread them out on the bed.
‘I knew it,’ Donna said softly, her voice barely audible.
‘Look.’
She pointed to the photos of Chris and the five other men.
‘I knew it,’ she said again, more forcefully this time.
She recognised the dark cropped hair, the thin face and bull neck.
The image of Peter Farrell glared back at her from the photos.
Thirty
The last of the mourners left at just after six that evening and it was with something akin to relief that Donna graciously accepted the last words of comfort and bade the final farewells of the day. Those who had been friends of her husband told her to keep in touch, that they would ring her. The usual things people feel they have to say to widows. She wondered how many of them would keep their promises.
Martin Connelly was sitting in the kitchen when Donna walked in. He stopped chewing on a sandwich and smiled at her. She returned the gesture, wondering why the agent was still there.
Julie was pushing plates into the dishwasher.
Donna wondered briefly whether or not she should mention the incident with Farrell, then decided against it.
‘He had a lot of friends, Donna,’ said Connelly.
‘Did he, Martin?’ she said wearily.
Connelly looked puzzled.
‘There were lots of people at the funeral, but I’m not sure how many of them Chris would have counted as friends.’ She sighed. ‘He was popular but I don’t think he had any real friends. He couldn’t give a fuck about anyone.’
‘Come on, Donna,’ Connelly began.
‘I’m not being nasty,’ she explained. ‘I’m just telling you. People liked Chris but he rarely let anyone get close to him. People would ring him, write to him, but he hardly ever rang them back. You and a couple of others, that was it. He used to say, “If people want me bad enough they’ll call me”.’ She smiled at the recollection. ‘He was a solitary man. He liked his own company.’
And the company of Suzanne Regan.
‘I think that’s why a lot of women found him attractive,’ she continued rather sadly. ‘He genuinely didn’t give a shit.’
Connelly dropped the remains of his sandwich onto the plate, wiped crumbs from his mouth and got to his feet.
‘I think you’re being too hard on him, Donna,’ he said.
She smiled.
‘That was one of the things I loved about him,’ she said.
Connelly kissed her gently on both cheeks.
‘I’d better go, unless there’s anything I can do.’
‘We’ll be fine now, Martin. Thanks, anyway.’
He headed for the door.
‘See you, Julie,’ he said, looking at the younger woman.
She didn’t turn to face him.
‘See you,’ she said and continued loading the dishwasher.
‘You’re determined to go on this trip to Dublin still?’ he asked.
She nodded.
Should she mention Farrell?
‘Humour me, Martin,’ she said as he slid behind the wheel and placed the key in the ignition.
‘Is Julie going with you?’
‘She’s going to stay and look after the house.’
Connelly tapped the wheel gently and looked up at Donna.
‘If you want company ...’
He allowed the sentence to trail off.
‘I’ll speak to you when I get back, Martin,’ she said sharply.
The agent nodded, started the engine and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The back wheels spun noisily for a second before the car pulled away.
Donna stood in the driveway, watching as the tail lights disappeared around the corner.
As she headed back to the house a cool breeze ruffled her hair and she shivered.
That involuntary movement might have been more extreme had she realized she was being watched.
It took the two women less than thirty minutes to check through the books in Chris’s office.
There were atlases, dictionaries and at least a dozen books on weapons but not one about paintings.
‘Paintings,’ muttered Donna irritably.
‘Donna, try his number,’ Julie suddenly said.
The older of the two women hurried back into the bedroom for the card the tall man had given her, then picked up the phone and jabbed out the digits. Julie wandered into the room, watching intently.
Donna heard the hiss and buzz as the number was connected, then all she heard was the single unbroken tone of a dead line.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘We should have known.’ She tried once more, got the same monotonous sound and dropped the receiver back onto the cradle.
‘His name’s probably fake, too,’ Julie offered.
‘Maybe, but he’s real enough and whoever he is he wanted something in Chris’s room.’ She looked at Julie, her brow furrowed. ‘But what was it?’
Thirty-One
The roar of the Porsche’s engine filled the garage as Martin Connelly left his foot on the accelerator a second before easing off. Through the open window he could smell the acrid stench of carbon monoxide fumes. He took his foot off the pedal and sat back, switching off the engine. It gradually died away.
Connelly rubbed both hands over his face and sighed wearily.
‘I’ll call you when I get back,’ he said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly, imitating Donna’s words. He swung himself out of the car and slammed the door hard.
Connelly walked to the garage door and pulled it down behind him, locking it from the inside. There was a connecting door through to his house; he didn’t switch on the fluorescents inside the garage as he locked up. The only light coming into the garage was from a tiny skylight window above him. Glancing up, he saw that night was now in command of the sky. The blackness outside was almost as total as that surrounding him in the garage.
He could smell the drink on his breath. He’d stopped off at a pub on the way home for a couple of vodkas. Neat. No fucking about. He promised himself a couple more when he got in. The agent selected a key on the bunch in his hand and slipped it into the lock of the door which joined the house and the garage. He stepped through into the hall.
The arm which snaked round his throat took him by surprise, both by its speed and its strength.
Connelly was practically lifted off his feet by his assailant.
He tried to cry out but a powerful forearm was wedged hard across his windpipe.
The tip of a knife was pressed against his neck just below his left earlobe.
The touch of it made him squirm; he felt his bowels loosen slightly.
‘Keep still,’ the voice behind him rasped.
In front, the shadows in the hallway seemed to be moving independently, dark shapes detaching themselves from the umbra and gliding towards him.
Two more figures stood close to him; because of the darkness he couldn’t see their faces. They stood like sadistic spectators at some violent exhibition.
‘Where’s the book?’ said one of them.
‘What book?’ Connelly managed to rasp as the arm loosed its grip slightly.
The respite was only temporary, however. The grip was re-applied with even greater ferocity.
The leading figure stepped forward a pace and drove a fist into Connelly’s stomach with incredible force. The blow tore the wind from him and left him wheezing, wanting to drop to his knees but still supported by that choking grip.
The knife was pressed slightly harder into the soft flesh beneath his ear.
‘You stupid bastard,’ said the first man contemptuously. He leaned forward so that his face was only inches from Connelly’s. The weak light coming through the hall window illuminated parts of the visages, but otherwise Peter Farrell remained bathed in shadow. ‘Do you want to play games?’ He snapped his fingers and the knife was handed to him.
He pressed the point to the tip of Connelly’s nose and pressed gently, hard enough to make an indentation but not with sufficient force to draw blood.
‘I don’t know where the book is, I swear to Christ,’ Connelly gasped, still held by that vice-like grip.
‘Liar,’ said Farrell. He began tracing the tip of the blade around the agent’s cheek, pausing at the corner of his eye. ‘I could have your eye out with one turn of this knife. You know that?’
‘I don’t know where the fucking book is, I swear to you,’ Connelly gasped, his eyes bulging madly in their sockets.
‘You were his agent. You knew what he was working on.’
Farrell trickled the knife point down to Connelly’s bottom lip and pressed. Gently at first.
‘No,’ Connelly said, fearing that to move his mouth would cause the blade to cut it.
Farrell withdrew it slightly.
‘Did he tell you what he was working on?’
‘Some of it. He was very secretive about his work.’
‘And you never asked?’
Farrell pressed the point against the underside of the agent’s chin.
‘Tell me what you did know,’ the big man demanded. ‘Tell me what you knew about the book.’
‘I told you, he never spoke about what he was writing.’
Connelly’s words were interrupted as Farrell pushed the blade up harder beneath his chin, hard enough to break the skin. Blood welled up from the puncture and ran down Connelly’s throat, staining his shirt collar.
‘Find the book,’ Farrell said quietly, drawing the blade across the agent’s cheek, stroking his earlobe gently with it. ‘Find it. Someone will be watching you, not all the time, but you’ll never know when. If you go to the police I’ll personally come back here and cut your fucking head off. Understand?’
Connelly closed his eyes, aware that blood was still running from the cut beneath his chin.
‘Understand?’ snapped Farrell angrily.
‘Yes,’ Connelly croaked.
Farrell whipped the blade to the right swiftly and powerfully. The cut sliced open the lobe of Connelly’s left ear. The fleshy bud seemed to burst, blood spurting from the gash. As the pressure on his neck was eased the agent fell forward, one hand clutching at the bleeding lobe. Crimson liquid streamed through his fingers.
Farrell looked down at the injured man as he opened the door, allowing his companions out first. He saw the blood puddling on the hall carpet as Connelly tried to staunch the flow.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ Farrell said.
Then he was gone.
Thirty-Two
At first she thought she was dreaming, that the sound was the residue of a sleep-induced image. But as Julie sat up she realized that it wasn’t.
She listened intently for a moment, the silence of the house closing in around her, the
n she heard it again.
Below her.
Movement.
Soft and furtive, but nevertheless movement.
She shot out a hand and pushed Donna hard, shaking her when she got no response. The other woman rolled over slowly and looked up, her eyes heavy with sleep.
‘What’s wrong?’ she murmured, rubbing her face lazily with one hand.
‘I heard something,’ Julie told her, keeping her voice low. ‘I think there’s someone in the house.’
Donna blinked hard, her head suddenly clearing. She swung herself onto the side of the bed and sat there, her feet just touching the carpet, ears alert for the slightest disturbance.
‘There,’ said Julie as she heard another sound beneath them.
Donna nodded and got to her feet, moving swiftly and quietly across the room towards one of the wardrobes.
‘Call the police,’ she whispered to Julie, who needed no prompting and had already reached for the phone beside the bed. She frowned and flicked at the cradle. The line was dead.
‘Nothing,’ she said, a note of panic in her voice. ‘They must have cut the lines.’ She replaced the useless receiver, her attention now divided equally between listening to the sounds from below and watching her sister.
Donna slid the wardrobe door open, pulling the light cord inside. In the dull glow she was hunkered over what looked like a safe, a metal cabinet encased in oak. She took a key from the top of the cabinet and inserted it into the small lock, pulling the door open.
‘My God,’ Julie murmured as she stared at the contents.
There were four pistols inside the gun cabinet. The light reflected dully off their metal lines.
A .38 Smith and Wesson. A 9mm Beretta 92S Automatic. A chrome-plated .357 Magnum and a Charter Arms .22 Pathfinder revolver. Stacked at the bottom of the cabinet were boxes of ammunition.
Donna took the .38, pushed open a box of shells and flipped out the cylinder, thumbing the high-velocity ammunition into the chambers.
Julie looked on in disbelief, jumping involuntarily as Donna snapped the cylinder into position. She got to her feet and Julie found the image before her disorientating: her older sister, hair still ruffled, dressed only in a thin, short nightdress, gripping a gleaming revolver in her hand. It would have seemed absurd but for the seriousness of the situation.
