Death in High Circles (The Falconer Files Book 10)

by Andrea Frazer

  In reply to her urgent pleas for information as to why his departure now seemed so urgent, he merely replied, ‘Carmichael’s car is outside The Retreat and, if I’m not mistaken, that mad dog is the one he’s looking after. He’s in some sort of trouble over there. Phone the station and see if they can get a car out here immediately. And you! Do not leave the house. Just watch from up here. If I need you, I’ll call. I’ve got my phone.’

  He shot out of the house as if taking part in a hundred-yards dash, and Stella could see him haring across the road towards the source of the howling and barking.

  Falconer dressed in a somewhat more leisurely way, in the mood to resent being roused from his bed on what was probably another wild goose chase. Carmichael lived nearer, and would probably get there first and, by the time he arrived, the sergeant would have whatever it was all sewn up, and the inspector would be surplus to requirements. For a few seconds, he even considered not answering the call at all, but this was against his basic nature. He just wouldn’t hurry, that’s all.

  It was an absolutely foul night, and he’d drive as carefully as one who had just passed the driving test. Why should he endanger himself because some old biddy was imagining things? How could anyone see anything in these conditions? No he’d get there, and it would all be a false alarm over an imaginary sighting.

  Such were the thoughts that ran through his self-pitying mind as he crawled through the countryside, fighting the fierce crosswinds that threatened to drive his Boxster off the road and making him realise how exposed and high Fallow Fold was, but confident that he would be back in his own bed within the hour, with absolutely nothing achieved.

  Doc Christmas followed the urgent summons of Mulligan, and found himself in the middle of hell itself. The dog was keeping two blood-stained people at bay at the end of the room that boasted no door, there were two dismembered arms on the floor in a welter of blood and, lying inside this stomach-churning sea of blood was another, identifiable as Davey Carmichael.

  ‘Carmichael!’ he cried hoarsely, noting with horror that the young man had a garden fork sticking out of his gut area and, although he was still breathing, was unconscious either from shock, loss of blood, or a combination of the two.

  After a moment of indecision as to what to do first, he retrieved his mobile phone from his pocket and rang for an ambulance, then for good measure, asked for police to attend as well. He next called Stella, just said ‘Blankets’ to her, and knelt to attend to his gravely wounded patient.

  His mind was in a torment of what to do for the best. Should he remove the fork and risk internal bleeding and seeping, which could produce septicaemia, or should he leave it in situ until paramedics arrived? He eventually decided that he’d remove the obscenity, so that he could at least pack the individual piercings to try and minimise blood loss.

  He’d been a qualified doctor for years, but tonight he felt like a first year medical student again. This was, after all, someone he knew. This was someone with whom he had shared a joke, and worked. This was a young man, not long married, with a wife and three children. Eventually, his professional attitude reasserted itself, and he decided on a course of action.

  As he surveyed the angle that the tines of the fork had entered the body, he began to work out the best way to ease the unlikely weapon from the young man’s body. Carmichael groaned, his eyes briefly opened, only to roll back again into the welcome embrace of unconsciousness, and all the while Mulligan kept up his growling and howling at the two people cowering at the other end of the room.

  Suddenly the cold wet cloth of reality hit the doctor in the face, and he realised that even to attempt such an action in his present surroundings would be foolhardy beyond belief. The fork needed to be removed in a hospital, where all the necessary staff and pieces of equipment were at hand to deal with the unexpected. In reality, the only course of action open to him was to make sure the fork did no further internal damage by steadying it until the paramedics reached their patient.

  As Falconer entered Ploughman’s Lays, he noticed Carmichael’s dustbin of a Skoda parked outside The Retreat, and smiled sardonically. That was it, then. The sergeant would have sorted everything out, and all there would be left for him to do would be to go back home, another disturbed night under his belt. Still, he’d better, at least, check in.

  As he reached to open the car door, he spotted a figure streaking across the road, and it seemed to have come from Christmas Cottage. That brought him up short. Maybe something was going on, after all. Opening the door only helped to confirm that, as he recognised the menacing baritone bark that could only belong to Mulligan, and he began to move a little faster.

  As he approached Black Beams, he became aware of Stella Christmas in dressing gown and slippers, in this weather, moving as fast as she could against the wind, and approaching Black Beams with an armful of blankets. Falconer began to run, and as he ran, he became aware of a familiar siren, some distance away still, but approaching fast. What the hell had happened? And where the bloody hell was Carmichael?

  He arrived in the ramshackle room at the back of the house just as the ambulance was screeching to a halt out on the road, and what he saw would be imprinted on his brain forever. Carmichael lay in a pool of blood, a garden fork protruding from his middle, Doc Christmas surveying this horribly out-of-place garden implement with a considering frown on his face.

  Doc Christmas knelt in the blood beside him, studying the garden fork so improperly employed. Stella Christmas stood beside him now, clutching an armful of blankets. Also on the floor, but currently ignored, were two dismembered arms and, at the other end of the room, crouched two figures, kept at bay by a furious Mulligan.

  Falconer heard someone scream, and realised it was he who had made that high-pitched noise full of anguish and fury. One of the figures at the end of the room suddenly made a run for it, taking the opportunity that the distraction of the scream had caused.

  No sooner had the sound died away, than Falconer was off after the figure. He threw off his jacket to free his arms, and Doc Christmas saw his face change from one of heartbreak to that of a newly minted demon. His eyes stared out, bulging as if they could catch the miscreant on their own, his mouth hung open, exposing his teeth in a parody of a wolf’s snarl, and he was away, easily catching up with the running figure, and bringing it down with a tremendous ‘whump’, with a rugby tackle.

  As this scene of incandescent rage was being played out, Mulligan took his place beside Carmichael and commenced to howl in grief and woe, but Falconer hadn’t finished with the man yet, though, and commenced kicking and punching him, with an occasional head butt, furiously screaming that he would kill him if anything happened to his sergeant. It took two paramedics and Doc Christmas to pull him off and handcuff the man. Mulligan continued to howl.

  ‘Now stop acting up, Harry. Distracting the paramedics from dealing with their patient won’t do Carmichael any good, and time is of the essence with an injury like this.’

  The doctor had been holding Falconer’s arms to restrain him, but the inspector suddenly threw off his hands and knelt down by Carmichael’s prone body. ‘Hang in there, Carmichael,’ he whispered, close to the sergeant’s ear. ‘Kerry and the children need you. Don’t leave them. Don’t leave me.’

  As he moved away from his ear, tears dripped from Falconer’s face onto Carmichael’s. ‘Don’t leave me. Don’t you dare!’ he said, once more, and then noticed that the injured officer was trying to speak.

  ‘Tell Kerry. Love them all,’ he managed to croak, before returning to a place where no one could hurt him.

  Falconer had sounded like a petulant child denied a treat, but had to eventually agree with Doc Christmas that, as senior officer on side, it would be dereliction of duty for him to abandon the proceedings and go off in the ambulance with his sergeant. He had other responsibilities, and had to stay at the scene to execute them.

  ‘I’ll go with him, Harry, and stay as long as I’m allowed t
o. Anyway, I want you to break it to Kerry. She’ll take it best from you. If you like, you can take Stella with you, and she can see about the children and getting Kerry over to the hospital. But you’ve got to stay here, for now. There’s ample evidence of another murder, and you need to see that the evidence is handled in such a way that its integrity isn’t compromised.’

  ‘You’re quite right, Doc. The only change I’d like to make would be to leave speaking to Kerry until the morning. There’s no point in shocking her into wakefulness at this god-awful hour, or the children. We’ll know by morning how serious things are, and she can be given an informed opinion, instead of just speculation about what’s happening.’

  ‘And what if he dies in the meantime? Would you deprive her of her last chance to say goodbye?’

  Falconer winced, but replied, ‘Yes. Let her remember him as he was. Anyway, he’s not going to die. NOT! Do you hear me?’ He was shouting by the time he finished his answer.

  ‘Cool it, Harry. I’m off with the ambulance now. Do your job thoroughly, and then join me at the hospital.’

  Once more, Falconer had to wear his professional mask, try to ignore his own scattered emotions, and deal with the scene in which he found himself involved. As the ambulance drew away, a car with extra officers arrived, along with a SOCO team, yawning and complaining that it would have kept till the morning, and why did they always have to be disturbed in the middle of the night?

  ‘I don’t see why you should lie in the arms of Morpheus when I’m up and about,’ the inspector upbraided them, real anger in his voice. ‘Do like me, and just get on with your job. And no more moaning. This is what you get paid for!’

  He’d kept himself well away from the couple in handcuffs and, when he was handing them over to be taken to the station, introduced them to their new guardians. ‘May I give you Mr and Mrs Melvyn Maitland?’ he said, only to have a chorus of denials from the handcuffed ones, who were standing to one side of him out of the light.

  Turning in utter surprise at their reaction, he pulled the man into the light, only to find himself staring into the face that appeared in the photograph that he had obtained from The Retreat. ‘Mr Dixon?’ he squeaked, in surprise. ‘Then where’s Mr Maitland?’

  ‘Oh, he’s in bits about the affair,’ said Marilyn Maitland, and began to giggle.

  ‘He’s completely ’armless,’ quipped Dixon, and chortled heartily.

  ‘Where’s the rest of him?’ barked Falconer, disgusted by their behaviour.

  ‘Chilling out,’ replied Marilyn.

  ‘In the freezer,’ sniggered Lionel.

  ‘But why?’ Falconer was dumbfounded. ‘Take them away. I’ll deal with them in the morning, when I’ve cleaned up this mess.’

  Good God! What on earth had gone on here? He’d been sure that Lionel Dixon was dead, and the blood sample obtained from his house would prove it. Now Dixon had assaulted Carmichael, possibly fatally – no, he couldn’t think about that at the moment – and seemed to be in cahoots with Marilyn Maitland.

  Between them, he supposed, they had murdered Melvyn, cut up his body, and just been finishing the job of dismembering him and hiding the body parts in the freezer. He could leave the sealing-off of the scene, and all the photographing and clearing up, to those whose speciality it was.

  His first priority at the moment, was to get over to the hospital, and he’d have to visit Kerry, whatever the outcome. Then he’d have to interview the two murdering bastards that had been caught on the premises. Then …? Then …? He couldn’t think any further ahead. His brain was paralysed with shock and grief.

  A voice delayed his departure. ‘Hey, sir, I’ve found a bundle of old letters in the woman’s shoulder bag. Do you want to see? They seem to be love letters between those two they’ve just taken away, and the postmarks are really old.’

  ‘Put them in an evidence bag, take them back to the station, and leave them on my desk. I don’t have the energy to deal with them at the moment, but they might provide the answer for all this palaver.’

  Inspector Harry Falconer walked briskly down the garden path, his head held high, his shoulders back, his sheer strength of will trying to hold body and soul together. If he loosened his grip, he’d either fall to pieces or implode.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Saturday

  When the surgeon who had assessed Carmichael in the emergency admissions room returned, hours had passed, although it felt more like days – even weeks – to Falconer, who had played out every possible outcome to the tragic situation, and most of them were bleak in the extreme.

  The surgeon’s face was drawn and exhausted, and his expression was serious as he approached to explain his patient’s post-operative condition.

  Falconer’s mouth was so dry, at the lack of a smile on the approaching figure’s face, that his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he could not speak.

  DS Roberts, to whom the news had filtered through via the nurses, to the general ward, had persuaded a nurse to convey him, in a wheelchair, to join Falconer and Doc Christmas in their vigil, and managed to ask, in his usual tactless way, ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘He’s not that easy to kill,’ replied the surgeon, finally allowing himself a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth. ‘But it was touch and go in the theatre. His heart stopped at one point, and we had to resuscitate him, but it was only a short break in output, so I don’t expect there to be any permanent brain damage.

  ‘We also didn’t find any previously undiagnosed or unexpected problems, so it’s all in the hands of the gods, now. He’s a strong young man, so I assume he has a strong constitution to help him through this ordeal. What we do need, are some emergency stocks of blood; he’s an unusual group – B Rhesus negative, and we’ve used most of what we carry, pumping it into him, as he leaked it out.

  ‘That’s my group!’ exclaimed Falconer. ‘You can take some of mine, and I’ll ring the station. I’m sure there’ll be volunteers there willing to contribute.’

  ‘Park yourself in that side ward when you’ve made your call, and tell any volunteer donors to come to the A&E reception desk, where someone will be waiting to receive them,’ said the surgeon, with relief in his voice. ‘We’ve got some more on its way, but, boy, can your colleague bleed. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a right little – or not so little – bleeder.’

  ‘After I’ve been bled, can we see him?’ asked Falconer, having detached his tongue from its prison on his palette, and summoned up sufficient spit to be able to utter.

  ‘Not for a while yet, I’m afraid. We’ll be keeping him sedated to give his body the best chance to start the healing process. I’ll have you informed as soon as it’s possible for him to receive visitors. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a very long night for all of us, and I’m sure we could all do with some rest.

  As Falconer exited the hospital after making his contribution, he caught sight of Merv Green and Bob Bryant at the reception desk, and stopped to have a word with them.

  ‘Where the hell’s Mulligan?’ was his first question. ‘Surely he wasn’t abandoned at the scene?’

  ‘You mean that racehorse? No he wasn’t! He’s in the cell next door to those two murdering bastards, with a bowl of water, a custody blanket, and a huge helping of canteen corned-beef hash. If anyone can stop those two from making a nuisance of themselves, it’s that animal. He only stops growling at them when he’s eating or drinking.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to him? His owners aren’t back yet, and Kerry can’t handle him with everything else that’s happened.’

  ‘I’m going to take him home with me for as long as necessary. He’s a great dog, and it’ll be company for me until I can persuade Twinkle to walk up the aisle and make an honest man of me,’ offered Merv generously. There probably weren’t that many who would offer Mulligan temporary shelter willingly.

  Roberts had been wheeled back to the ward, and Doc Christmas, as he was leaving, advise
d Falconer to stop blethering and go home, have a shower and a couple of cups of strong coffee, get some food in his stomach, and he’d send Stella to meet him in Castle Farthing. Kerry had to be told, and it would be better if there were a woman present.

  Falconer declined his kind offer of Stella’s presence, telling him that he’d get PC Starr to accompany him, thus keeping the whole thing within the force. He felt like a robot, his thoughts and actions all on automatic pilot. He was numb, both physically and emotionally, but at least he wouldn’t have to tell Kerry that she was a widow – for now.

  That thought brought back Carmichael’s comment about the recent baptisms, and how his whole family now had their entry to heaven, and he hoped fervently that their father wouldn’t be the first to present this ticket to St Peter. He’d have a long lonely wait for the rest of the family.

  The inspector drove home in a state of fugue, and only began to thaw a little when the hot needles of the shower prickled his skin. Slowly, he began to fill with fury: fury at the casual way that Honey had betrayed the budding relationship they had had; fury at the fickleness of fate that had allowed Carmichael to fall prey to a silly little man who had struck out with a deadly weapon; guiltily furious at Roberts for going down with appendicitis and not being there in Carmichael’s place, although he acknowledged that this last was totally unfair, and just a product of his confused mental state.

  Falconer had changed his mind about PC Starr accompanying him to Jasmine Cottage, as it was his tardy arrival in Fallow Fold that was at the root of the situation. He dressed with particular care. He had a heartbreaking task ahead of him, and he owed it to Kerry to be well turned out. It wouldn’t make the news any better, but it would be a mark of respect for his colleague, and the esteem in which he held his family.

  His stomach was churning as he knocked on the door of Jasmine Cottage, and a sheen of sweat adorned his forehead and top lip. This was going to be one of the hardest things he had had to do in his life, even though Carmichael was still in the land of the living, for there was no guarantee that he would remain there.