Legacy of Lies

by Jane A. Adams

  He signalled for the armed support unit to move in, content to let them do their own thing. They would search, make everything secure. He heard their commander calling out ‘armed police’ and instructing anyone inside to come out with their hands raised.

  Nothing moved. Kinnear was gone, Fine was sure. All around them country silence reigned. Even the birds had shut up for the night and the faint rustlings in the undergrowth that Fine had been aware of when they first got out of the car had ceased as well.

  ‘Where was Kinnear holed up?’

  Sharon pointed to one of the out buildings. ‘In there. Derek said the owners started a conversion, ran out of money, then they sold up and moved on.’

  ‘So he knew something about this place. Did he know the owners?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe Rupert did. Rupert knew everyone. He might have mentioned it. They talked a lot about lost villages, the death of communities, that sort of political stuff. Round here Rupert was all het up about drainage or something.’

  ‘You mean way back when?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, something about the water table. There was a report or some such a couple of years ago. I didn’t take much notice. Sorry.’

  Fine nodded, he vaguely recalled it. There was some big debate about the extensions of the Peatlands trails and draining of what was left of the fenland. Worries too that peat extraction would lead to the flooding of farmland. Fine was familiar with the anxieties.

  He watched as the armed commander pushed the door, then gestured the other officers forward. ‘Armed police,’ he shouted. ‘We’re coming in.’

  Minutes later and he emerged again, gestured that Fine could come inside.

  ‘Long gone,’ he said. ‘We’ll secure the scene and get SOCO in first thing.’

  ‘Not tonight?’ Sharon asked

  He grimaced. ‘SOCO are civilians. Hard to get them out after hours unless it’s an emergency. I don’t think this qualifies.’

  ‘Not like CSI then.’

  ‘No, not like CSI. Get back in the car. I’ve arranged a stay at a safe house for you tonight. Tomorrow I’ll take you to see Danny.’

  It was late by the time Fine got to Fallowfields but everyone was still up.

  ‘We’ll be leaving in the morning,’ Alec told him. ‘Going home, I think. You’ve enough to do without protecting us.’

  Fine nodded. The chair in which he sat was comfortable and he could easily drop off to sleep. ‘At least Danny’s mum’s OK. That’s one small blessing, though I think it’s going to be a long haul making up for all this.’

  ‘When will Reid be fit to talk?’

  ‘Morning, we hope. I’ve got someone with him all night. Not much more we can do. I just thought I’d bring you up to speed.’

  ‘Appreciate it,’ Alec said.

  ‘Oh, and there’s one more thing. The laptop and the books. I think we can safely consider them evidence now. I should take them away.’

  ‘Welcome,’ Alec said. ‘Patrick, will you do the honours?’

  Fine bagged the books and laptop. ‘I’ll get these checked in tonight, then I’m off to my bed.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Alec agreed. ‘Reid should be able to give you the info on Kinnear and hopefully the worst is over now.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Fine said. ‘I really do.’

  Thirty-Five

  Danny had risen early and come downstairs looking for something to eat. No bread, no cereal, no milk to speak of and his father was still absent.

  He missed his mother.

  He didn’t regret hanging up on her the night before. She deserved his punishment, Danny felt, but at the same time he would have welcomed a call from her now, if only so he could hang up again.

  He wanted her home, or wanted them both to be somewhere else or … something. Danny really wasn’t sure.

  He made some tea, taking the last of the milk and ate dry cereal, wondered if there was any money in the house. If so, he could at least get some shopping done. His dad didn’t seem to have thought about that in a while and had been impatient when Danny pointed it out to him.

  He found a five-pound note and some pound coins in the biscuit jar, a place his mother regularly kept a spare bit of cash for emergencies, and another ten in his dad’s best jacket. Danny felt no qualms going through his parents’ things like this. He felt they’d both let him down so far and now it was up to him to manage any way he could.

  He didn’t want to stay here any more.

  Danny went back into the kitchen and stared hard at the phone, willing it to ring. It was only just after eight and he’d already been up since six. He wasn’t sure what time they’d all wake up at Fallowfields. He thought about calling his aunt. She had invited him to stay when his mum had left. He liked his auntie Paula but wasn’t sure if he could face the questions and the pity and the sharing a room with his cousin.

  He wanted his dad to come back or his mum to call.

  ‘Fat chance,’ he muttered and turned his back on the offending telephone.

  His mobile did ring though a few moments later. He grabbed it, read the name on the display. Patrick.

  ‘Yeah?’ He sounded too eager, Danny thought. He tried to modify his tone. ‘I mean, hi.’

  Fine had called, Patrick told him. He’d asked if Danny’s mum could come over to Fallowfields so they could meet on neutral ground. She’d be there about noon but if Danny wanted to come for breakfast to come now, Harry was cooking.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Danny told him. He wasn’t sure about the meeting with his mother but breakfast sounded good.

  He pulled on his shoes and slammed the farmhouse door, only wondering later, as he set off across the field at a steady run, if his father had his keys.

  Kinnear heard the door slam and looked down. He saw Danny crossing the yard. Earlier, the boy had gone out to check the feed bins for the cattle. The father had still not returned.

  Kinnear had been thinking hard about what his next move might be. He needed to scout the police presence at Fallowfields. They’d be out looking for him, of that he was certain. He wondered what had happened to Derek Reid, not because he felt concern, but because whatever Reid had told the police might direct their next moves and so affect Kinnear’s. Puzzled, he saw the boy was heading across the field, not towards the road. He fished in his pack for the binoculars he’d brought with him. Trained them on the running figure of Danny Fielding.

  Danny was running towards a gap in the hedge. Looking closer, he glimpsed a second figure waiting by the bit of a fence that blocked the way.

  There was only one place the second figure could have come from, wasn’t there? It all clicked into place. Danny was headed for Fallowfields, coming in by a back way.

  Kinnear restrained his urge to chase after the boy right then and there. No, give them time to get inside. He didn’t know if he could be seen from the house should he choose to follow. Take it slow, take it steady.

  He packed his belongings back into his pack, undecided if to take it or to leave it in the barn. In the end he hoisted it on to his shoulder and started down the ladder back into the body of the barn. His gun felt heavy in the pocket of his coat and he felt hot, the day already warm, but it was a reassuring weight and the easiest way to carry it. Kinnear was not one to risk shoving a loaded gun into the waistband of his trousers.

  Checking for signs that the father might have returned, but finding none, Kinnear strode straight across the yard and behind the house. Once in the field he breathed a little easier. He took his time, following the perimeter of the field, doing his best to ignore the bullocks and avoid their dung. The fence was an easy climb and the overgrown meadow no real obstacle. But then there was the wall.

  Kinnear swore. Seven feet tall, he estimated, little in the way of handholds, still less places for his booted feet. The gate when he tried it, was locked. He could kick it down but that would be noisy and he had no way of knowing how far he was from the house. A fair way back, he gue
ssed, seeing as how he had to stand well back, close beside the fence, even to glimpse the roof … If he could do it without noise then he better had.

  Kinnear followed the wall right round, found a possible place to climb where the field curved and a tree branched further into the grassy area in which he stood. He dropped his pack and climbed the tree, edging along the branch. He could now just see over, well enough to get his bearings as regards the garden beyond and the house beyond that.

  He sensed movement in what looked like the kitchen and an open door. Kinnear grimaced. He could see, but still needed to get over the wall. He was a heavy man and not the most agile; the branch he sat astride was some five feet off the ground, but it was a lone limb, reaching out with nothing above to grip. Vainly, Kinnear tried to get to his feet, balance on a moving branch that shook beneath his efforts to balance.

  Kinnear fell, heavily. He lay, winded, sure he must have been heard.

  In the kitchen at Fallowfields, Danny wolfed down his breakfast. Bacon, eggs, sausage. Toast to follow. He hadn’t eaten this well in ages. Lunch with Patrick and Harry a couple of days before being the last decent thing he’d had.

  ‘You’re leaving then?’ he asked. Suitcases stood in the hall and Naomi had excused herself to finish off her packing. Napoleon had followed, disliking the upset of people moving around him with big bags. He liked a settled life. She had asked Patrick and Danny to come up when they were done, help her down with her things.

  Patrick nodded. ‘Sergeant Fine can’t promise police cover, Alec’s handed over all the evidence we’ve got on Kinnear and Rupert, but until things are sorted he doesn’t feel he can have anything much to do with Fallowfields. So, we’re off home.’

  ‘If your mother agrees, you could come and stay for a while,’ Harry offered. ‘It is the holidays after all. No school to worry about.’

  Danny looked eagerly at Harry, wondering if he meant it.

  ‘I could use the company,’ Patrick said. ‘If your mum and dad say its OK.’

  Danny didn’t think they’d have any right to object, not really. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’d like that.’

  He finished off his tea and stood up. ‘Better go and help Naomi,’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot for breakfast and, you know, everything else.’

  Harry nodded. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.

  ‘I like this place,’ Danny said as he and Patrick wandered into the hall.

  ‘Yeah. I could live here, I think.’

  ‘It’s a bit out of the way for a townee.’

  ‘I’m not much of a townee,’ Patrick said. ‘We’re right on the edge of town anyway. Where I live you can get down on to the canal and walk right out into the country and the sea’s only five minutes the other way. That’s the only thing living here. I’d miss the sea. My mum lives near the sea too. In Florida. When I visit my room looks right out on to the ocean.’

  ‘You get on OK with your mum?’

  Patrick nodded. ‘When mum and dad got divorced I went to live with her. She met my stepdad when she was out there on business. He’s OK, got two sons of his own, but I didn’t fit in there and I missed my dad and, I don’t know, I came home for a trial, just to see how it worked out and I decided to stay. Florida’s nice and my mum’s family are nice, but it never felt like home.’

  Danny shrugged. ‘Don’t know where I’ll end up,’ he said. ‘Mum won’t come home. Dad is acting strange, like he doesn’t belong at the farm any more. You know what I wish? I wish they’d just sell the lot, set up somewhere else and just … I don’t know, make their minds up. It’s crap this idea of staying together for the kids. Mam said a couple of years ago that they wouldn’t split up ’cos of me. I mean, like that makes me feel better or something.’

  Patrick nodded. ‘Maybe you need to tell them that,’ he said.

  Kinnear had found his entry point. It was off towards the road end of the meadow and far too distant from the house for his liking, but there was a place where a stretch of dilapidated-looking fence met the wall. He tested the fence nervously. He was no lightweight. It creaked ominously, but held. Panting with the effort, Kinnear hauled himself up on to the wall and rolled, keeping his body low, then dropped, lowering himself the length of his arms, down on the other side.

  Pausing only to check his weapon, Kinnear raced across the lawn and towards the house. He entered through the kitchen door.

  Harry and Marcus were clearing away the breakfast things. Marcus was still nervous, still jumpy. He planned, he told Harry, to close the shop for a while and go away. Far away. He had friends in Scotland, surely that was distance enough.

  ‘Depends what you’re running from.’

  Marcus froze. Harry, turning from the sink found himself facing Sam Kinnear, gun in hand.

  Dimly, Harry recognized it as an automatic and some odd bit of his mind suggested that Patrick would know the make and model. It was the sort of oddity that Patrick always knew when they watched films together. But this was not a film.

  Marcus had begun to panic. Gibbering wordlessly. Harry shushed him impatiently. ‘What do you want?’ he asked Kinnear.

  ‘What do you think I want?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Don’t try to be smart,’ Kinnear told him. ‘Give me what I came for and I’ll be out of here. I want the numbers, the accounts. I want the lot, everything he owed me.’

  ‘I don’t have them,’ Harry said, oddly relieved that he could tell the truth. Harry was never very good with lies. ‘The police have everything we found.’

  Kinnear laughed out loud. ‘Like I believe you.’

  ‘Harry, give him what he wants.’

  Harry glanced sideways at Marcus. ‘You know I can’t do that. Sergeant Fine took the books away last night. You were here, you saw it.’

  ‘But your notes, you must have kept notes. I know you kept notes.’ Marcus started to run, he leapt for the kitchen door. Kinnear fired and Marcus went down. Blood poured from his torn calf.

  Harry grabbed a towel and made to move towards the fallen man. He could hear footsteps, running down the uncarpeted hall. ‘Alec, stay back.’

  ‘And you bloody well stay there.’ Kinnear had crossed the space between them and the muzzle of his gun pressed hard against Harry’s side.

  Alec appeared in the doorway and Kinnear motioned him through. Harry could see Alec cursing himself for running in like a green fool.

  The boys and Naomi were still upstairs, Harry thought. He prayed they had heard the shot but would have the sense to stay put.

  ‘You. Who else is here. I know about Danny and there’s another one, I saw him. Anyone else?’

  ‘No,’ Harry said firmly.

  Alec shot him a look, nodded almost imperceptibly.

  He hoped fervently that Marcus would not contradict but the man was lying on the floor clutching at his injured leg and seemed not to have even heard.

  ‘You.’ Kinnear prodded Harry in the side. ‘Tie them up.’

  ‘Marcus is hurt, at least let me help him first.’

  ‘Just do as you’re told.’

  Having nothing else to hand, Harry tore the tea towels into strips and used them to bind Alec and Marcus’s hands and feet to the kitchen chairs. He dare not tie them too loosely, knowing Kinnear would check. He tied another strip around Marcus’s bleeding calf, padding it with a towel and hoping that the bleeding would stop. It looked very red, Harry thought. Very red and very painful. He tried to think if there were any major arteries Kinnear might have hit, but he really didn’t know. He found himself thinking that Patrick would know that too. Patrick or Naomi.

  Harry took a deep breath. He was oddly calm in the face of the gun; less so having witnessed the sheer unpredictability of Kinnear. Last year he and Patrick and Naomi had found themselves caught up in a hostage situation, Harry’s first encounter with weapons. He had seen then just what a gun in the hands of a madman could do, but he had faced his fear back then and somehow that fear had diminished.


  He was wary, certainly, but as he set about the practical task of binding Marcus’s wound and tying his friend’s hands and feet he found that his mind was oddly calm. Out of sight of Kinnear, he slid his hand into his trouser pocket and withdrew a small penknife, the twin to the one Patrick had given Alec last Christmas. He managed to open the knife, slid it into Alec’s hand.

  So far no sound of running feet on the stairs, no indication that Naomi and the boys were coming down. Harry held his breath, released it slowly. He straightened.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘You come with me.’

  Harry went.

  ‘That was a shot.’

  ‘A what?’ Danny stared at her. ‘Didn’t sound like no shotgun.’

  ‘That’s because it wasn’t,’ she told him. Of course, Danny would be familiar with the sound of shotguns and maybe even rifles. ‘That was a pistol, Danny.’

  ‘Kinnear,’ Patrick said. Then: ‘Dad.’

  He was making for the door. Naomi threw herself in the direction of the sound and grabbed at him. ‘No, stay up here. In the study. Danny, do you have your phone?’

  ‘Yes, but there’s not much credit on it.’

  ‘You don’t need it for the nines. Quick now. We’ve got to contact Fine.’

  Patrick led the way and they piled into the study. Naomi locked the door.

  ‘What if he shoots the lock?’ Patrick said.

  ‘The desk. Do you think you could move it between you? I can help if you tell me where I’m going.’

  ‘Give it a try.’

  The desk was heavy, antique oak, They struggled between them to drag it across the rugs and bare floorboards, hating the noise it made, though Naomi guessed that Kinnear would know where they were anyway. They shoved it hard against the door and then Naomi called the police, telling the controller where she was and what was wrong and to patch her through to Sergeant Fine.

  It wasn’t easy persuading the woman but Naomi persevered. To her profound relief, Fine’s voice was soon on the phone.