A Question of Guilt

by Janet Tanner

  ‘You really are a very stubborn young woman, Sally. But we’ll see how stubborn you can be when I let Jason loose on you. He doesn’t have my sensibilities when it comes to violence. Ah . . . that sounds like him now.’

  In my determination to resist Jeremy’s attempts to force me to reveal the whereabouts of Dawn’s diaries, I hadn’t heard the car driving up. Now, however, the warehouse door was scraping open and a big burly figure came in. He was still clad in black motorcycle leathers, but he was no longer wearing his crash helmet, and I could see it was indeed the same man who had been working at the warehouse on the night of the auction. I hadn’t taken much notice of him then, but now everything about him alarmed me – the bullet-shaped, close-cropped head, the heavy eyebrows meeting across the bridge of a nose that looked as if it had been broken more than once, the earring and the stud in his lower lip. Jason Barlow looked every inch a thug. I could well imagine that not only would he have no qualms about hurting me, he’d positively enjoy it.

  Worse. He’d enjoy staging my death, too. Hot and cold waves of fear washed over me. Josh had been right when he’d warned me I could be tangling with very dangerous characters. Why, oh why, hadn’t I listened to him? Against Jeremy’s ruthless cleverness and Jason’s brute force, I didn’t stand a chance.

  ‘Right, her car’s here then.’ Jason’s voice was gruff, as if he smoked too many cigarettes, and he had a marked local accent. ‘Have you decided what you want to do with her?’

  ‘Pretty much.’ Jeremy’s tone was dismissive – he didn’t care to discuss his plans with underlings, I thought; simply giving orders was more his style. ‘But first we have to persuade Sally to tell us where something rather important can be found. I’ve already warned her that you will be very good at extracting information. You won’t let me down, will you?’

  Jason smirked.

  ‘Right up my street, guv’nor. Where d’you want me to start?’

  Jeremy shrugged.

  ‘I’ll leave that up to you, though perhaps that broken leg might be a good place.’ He took a step or two away, distancing himself, then turned back. ‘Are you sure you aren’t going to be a sensible girl and tell me what I want to know without any of this unpleasantness, Sally?’

  I was shaking from head to foot, so violently that the ropes binding my wrists and ankles cut into the flesh. But one thought was uppermost in my mind – Jeremy wouldn’t want me killed before he knew the whereabouts of the diaries so that he could destroy them. But the moment I told him I would be signing my own death warrant.

  ‘Jeremy, this is crazy!’ I said, desperately trying to delay the moment the pain would begin. ‘We’ve known each other since I was a little girl. You taught me to ride – have you forgotten all that?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Unbelievably, he was the same suave character he had always been, except that now I’d seen the ruthlessness that lay beneath, driven, no doubt, by greed. ‘But it’s a long time ago now, Sally. Believe me, I am sorry, but I can’t take the risk of too much interest in me, or the warehouse. It’s too important to me.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Would it surprise you to know that there are treasures worth many thousands of pounds not more than a few yards from where you are sitting? This operation is a very profitable one, which is more than I can say for my investment business. But that makes a very good cover for my travels.’

  ‘When you arrange the transportation of stolen treasures.’

  Jeremy smiled slightly. ‘Something like that. But please, don’t let’s waste any more time. I need the diaries, Sally. And I will have them, one way or another, make no mistake of that.’ He turned to Jason. ‘I’ll leave this to you. Let me know when Sally decides to give us some answers.’

  He moved away, out of my line of sight, towards the rear of the warehouse, and Jason came closer. He was grinning, getting out a cigarette and lighting it.

  ‘First things first . . .’ He yanked open my top, exposing my décolletage, drew on his cigarette and brought the glowing tip close to my face, so close I could no longer see it, but could feel the heat.

  He was going to burn me. This couldn’t be happening . . . it couldn’t! But it was. I squeezed my eyes shut, gritting my teeth, determined, even now, not to crack, but more terrified than I had ever been in my life as I waited . . . waited . . .

  The crash of the warehouse door bursting open made me jump so much that the burning cigarette did actually make contact with my skin, and I screamed. But the pain lasted a few seconds only.

  Startled, I opened my eyes. Two uniformed policemen were running across the open space, and Jason was diving for the open door. But a tall figure was barring his way.

  Josh. Oh my God, it was Josh.

  What happened next is all rather a blur to me. I remember screaming Josh’s name, as he and the two policemen grappled with Jason Barlow. I remember struggling frantically and futilely against the ropes that were binding me. I remember trying to tell them that Jeremy was somewhere in the warehouse. Later I learned that he had escaped through a rear door and driven off, but he didn’t get far. In the narrow lane he had met another police car racing to the scene and when he tried to squeeze past it he had run into the ditch and been apprehended.

  I remember Josh freeing me from my bonds, chafing my wrists and ankles, calling for an ambulance that I was trying to tell him I didn’t need. And I remember his arms around me, holding me close, whispering against my hair. Of all my memories of that awful day, it is that one that I want to hug to me and cherish forever.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t come with you, Sally,’ Josh said when the ambulance arrived and the paramedics insisted on taking me to A & E to have me checked over. ‘I’m afraid there are things I have to do, and I’m needed here.’

  He nodded in the direction of the warehouse, where no fewer than three distinctive police vehicles were now drawn up at crazy angles in the parking area outside, hemming in Dad’s car, Josh’s and Jeremy’s, and Jason’s motor bike. I looked at him blankly.

  Needed here? What was he talking about?

  Josh grinned faintly. ‘I know, I’ve got some explaining to do. But I expect you’ve realized by now that newspaper photographer isn’t my usual day job.’

  ‘Well, yes, but I thought . . .’ I broke off. I didn’t want to admit what I’d thought – how could I ever have suspected for a moment that Josh was an international criminal? But my brain still wasn’t working properly – I was still a bit woozy from the drugs Jeremy had given me, and reaction to what I’d just been through had kicked in too, so that I was shaky and confused.

  ‘I’ll fill you in properly later,’ Josh went on. ‘But the fact is the job at the Gazette was just my cover story. Actually, I’m afraid, I’m a policeman with the regional crime squad. We’ve known for some time there was a clearing house in the locality for art and curios coming in from the continent – stuff worth millions that’s been stolen to order. I’ve been working under cover, gathering information, and waiting for the evidence – a big shipment and the brains behind the outfit both to be in the same place at the same time.’

  ‘Oh!’ I was too startled to say more, but suddenly things were falling into place. The very things that had made me suspicious of Josh when I found Dawn’s diaries in his cottage were pointing now in exactly the opposite direction.

  ‘I’m really sorry I had to deceive you, Sally, but I absolutely couldn’t blow my cover. Too much depended on it – not to mention the best part of a year’s work,’ Josh went on. ‘And now, I’m afraid I’ve got a full day’s work, and the rest, ahead of me tying up my side of things. I’ll see you just as soon as I can – OK?’

  I nodded. ‘OK.’

  The paramedics were hovering, anxious to get me to A & E.

  ‘Off you go then. See you soon.’ He gave my hand a quick squeeze.

  As I climbed into the ambulance I glanced back. Josh was still standing there, watching me. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed. Then the doors closed, and though I could no longer see
him the look on his face as he said it remained with me.

  Twenty

  ‘You’ve no idea the trouble you caused me, Sally,’ Josh said. ‘Quite apart from worrying me half to death, I was afraid you were going to blow the whole job wide apart with your investigations.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice!’ I said, mock-sarcastically.

  It was early evening. It was some hours now since I’d been sent home from A & E with a clean bill of health, but only twenty minutes or so since Josh had arrived to see me. He’d been kept busy all day working on his case and still had to go back to the police station to complete yet more paperwork, but he’d snatched a break of an hour or so, and now he was sitting at the kitchen table with me and Mum.

  ‘You just wouldn’t be warned off, would you?’ Josh chided. ‘Wouldn’t accept the danger you were in, even though you were convinced Dawn had died because of what she knew. At least Alice had the sense to realize the gravity of the situation. When I learned she was about to talk to you I had a word with her, and she agreed straight away to let me get her to a safe house until it was all over. But you . . . no, you had to go right on, ploughing in deeper and deeper. If I hadn’t found you when I did, I dread to think what might have happened.’

  I shuddered. I didn’t want to even think about that.

  ‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

  ‘When I realized you’d gone I went out looking for you. I passed your car heading for Stoke Compton, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t you driving it, so I called for reinforcements and turned around myself. By the time I caught sight of it again I guessed it was heading for the warehouse and radioed in. The local officers and I arrived at more or less the same time and the rest you know. It was a bit of gamble to come in with all guns blazing, but it paid off. We caught the man behind the operation and one of his goons red-handed, and there’d been a shipment just a couple of days ago – art and curios worth a king’s ransom that had been stolen to order on the continent and were stored in the warehouse awaiting delivery to the collectors in this country who had placed orders for them. Result. Though I have to say at the time we barged our way in I was thinking more about you than the job. Jeremy Winstanley would have had no more scruples about dealing with you than he did in disposing of Dawn when she became a threat to the operation. There was just too much at stake.’

  I closed my eyes briefly. I knew all too well how close I had come to ending up as Dawn had.

  ‘I just can’t believe the Jeremy I knew could be so evil,’ I said. ‘To dispose of anyone who got in his way without a second thought . . . risking Dad’s life by stampeding the cows, having Dawn killed . . . I know he was squeamish about actually doing the deeds himself, but that thug was acting on his instructions, which is just as bad.’

  ‘And what about the fire?’ Mum put in. What wickedness is that – trying to have her burnt in her bed and then getting Brian Jennings blamed for it! Or was it Brian Jennings all the time? He used to work for Lewis Crighton, Sally said . . .’

  ‘He did, yes, but it wasn’t him who set the fire, and it wasn’t directed at Dawn,’ Josh said. ‘In fact, at the outset, the fire was totally unconnected to Jeremy Winstanley’s operation. He simply hijacked it for his own ends.’

  ‘You mean it was local louts all the time?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Not unless you count Paul Holder in that category,’ Josh said.

  ‘Paul Holder. Lisa’s husband.’ It had occurred to me when I’d sensed Lisa was hiding something that he might have been responsible – it had, after all, been very convenient that he had been on the scene so quickly with a ladder, and that Lisa had been jumpy all evening, and awake when the fire started, but, unable to see a link, I’d dismissed it.

  ‘Paul and Lisa were desperate to get their hands on the shop to start a business of their own,’ Josh went on. ‘But it was on a long lease. They knew the shopkeeper was struggling and wasn’t insured, and came up with the idea that if he lost everything and couldn’t afford to start again they’d be able to step in. Paul was friendly with Jason Barlow – he enlisted his help, and through him, Lewis Crighton got to hear of what they were planning. It was he who suggested they frame Brian Jennings. He had become something of a danger to Lewis and Jeremy – Lewis thought he knew too much about what was going on at the warehouse and couldn’t be trusted. Seeing him charged with arson seemed a good way of getting him out of the way. Not only was he locked up, he’d been portrayed as a complete nutter – if he did ever start talking about what he’d seen no one would pay him any credence. Framing him was easy. It was already well known that he was obsessed with Dawn – she’d actually gone to the police about him stalking her. Jason Barlow came forward to say he’d seen him hanging about outside on the night of the fire, and just to make sure he would be charged and convicted, managed to plant a handkerchief with traces of petrol on it in the pocket of the jacket he always wore.’

  ‘How on earth do you know all this?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘From Dawn. At the time of the fire, she had no idea what Lisa and Paul were planning, and although she knew by then that Lewis was involved with Jeremy Winstanley in his international art and curio robberies, and was worried about it, there was no way she’d have given him away. She was still completely under Lewis Crighton’s spell, though he was tiring of her and the affair was past its heady heights. But afterwards, when she went home, she began to wonder. She came back to Stoke Compton to see Lisa, and discovered the truth – that she had been implicit in sending an innocent man to jail. That was something she couldn’t stomach. Whereas she had been prepared to keep what she knew about Lewis to herself so long as it was only about stolen property, now her conscience wouldn’t allow her to keep silent. And the last straw, I think, was when Lisa told her that Lewis had a new love – Dawn’s replacement at the estate agency, a girl called Sarah.’

  ‘Sarah. Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I knew they were carrying on. So in the end it was Lewis’s wandering eye that was his undoing.’

  ‘That certainly had a part in it, though I don’t think Dawn’s conscience would have allowed her to leave Brian Jennings in prison for something he didn’t do for very long. Lewis must have thought so too. He contacted Jeremy Winstanley and told him there was a problem, and Jeremy organized the accident to silence her. Not knowing, of course, that he was too late. Dawn had gone straight to the police, handing over her diaries as evidence, and it was passed to the regional crime squad. Which is where I came in.’

  ‘How did you manage that, though?’ I asked. ‘I’ve heard of undercover officers posing as all kinds of things, but a newspaper photographer! I don’t know how you pulled that off.’

  Josh grinned. ‘It came as second nature really. That’s exactly what I was before I joined the force. When a vacancy occurred on the Gazette it was the perfect cover. I could nose about without arousing anyone’s suspicion. Strings were pulled in high places – and I got a new persona. So I’m afraid we’re not actually in the same line of business at all, Sally. Though if you fancied a change of career, I reckon we still could be. You’d make a better detective than some I know.’

  ‘I’m perfectly happy as I am, thank you!’ I retorted. ‘And while we’re on the subject of deceit, I suppose you didn’t walk the Cotswold Way either.’

  Josh held up his hands in surrender.

  ‘Not last week, no, though I did do it a couple of years ago. In actual fact, I was at headquarters, reporting on the latest developments. I am really sorry about keeping you in the dark, but I had no choice. I couldn’t risk being unmasked.’

  ‘You could have trusted me,’ I said. I was feeling a little miffed, actually, that Josh had kept me in the dark.

  ‘It’s the nature of the job, I’m afraid. Living and breathing the assumed identity, and getting enough evidence to secure a conviction.’

  ‘And so you cultivated me in case I found out anything useful to you, or did something that threatened to upset your operation.’

  Mum
got up and excused herself. She was a bit uncomfortable with the personal way the conversation was going, I guessed.

  ‘Well?’ I said bluntly when she was out of earshot. ‘Is that how it was?’

  ‘In the beginning, yes, I suppose it was,’ Josh admitted. ‘It was no hardship, though.’ He gave me a wicked grin. ‘I fancied you right from the off. Crutches and all.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ I said sharply. I wasn’t in the mood for his banter. ‘At least we know now where we stand.’

  Josh reached across the table for my hand; I jerked it away. He grabbed it again, more securely.

  ‘Come on, Sally, surely you know better than that. Yes, I admit, I did ask you out at first so that I could keep an eye on you. But it wasn’t long before I was having feelings for you that really didn’t help with what I was supposed to be doing. You worried the life out of me, damn it! You were so stubborn, you just wouldn’t listen when I told you that you were playing with fire. And you were a whole lot too friendly with Jeremy Winstanley, too. For all I knew you could have been playing a double game – trying to get the low-down on who I really was, and what I was doing.’

  ‘You couldn’t really have thought that!’ I said, shocked.

  Josh pulled a face.

  ‘In my game you can’t be too careful. A pretty girl is often the downfall of an undercover officer – well, never mind the undercover officer, the downfall of a man, full stop.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Something about the way he was looking at me was making my anger dissolve, starting the treacherous warmth deep inside me once more. ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘You know very well. Now this is all over, we can start again. If you want to, that is.’

  Oh I did, I did. But I wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

  Josh glanced at his watch.

  ‘I’m going to have to go. I’m afraid a normal working day doesn’t exist for a policeman. But I reckon I can drop by again tomorrow evening. Will that give you enough time to think?’