Blood and Stone

by Chris Collett

  TWENTY-NINE

  Day Nine

  Despite the electrifying proximity of the near-naked Suzy Yin, Mariner must have dozed off again, because when he next awoke it was light and he could hear rooks cawing outside the window. The bed was empty beside him, and getting up to go to the bathroom he found a note on the kitchen table telling him to help himself to breakfast and stay as long as he wanted to. But without her presence the place was much less inviting and by the middle of the morning he was back at the pub.

  Climbing the stairs to the landing Mariner came face to face with Megan. For a moment he wondered why she was lurking there, until he realized she was waiting for him.

  ‘You’re a policeman, aren’t you?’ she said timidly. ‘I’m worried about Joe – Mr Hennessey. He hasn’t been to breakfast for the last two days.’

  ‘No law against having a lie-in,’ Mariner pointed out, then seeing her distressed expression immediately regretted his flippancy. ‘You mean you haven’t seen him at all?’

  ‘No, and he’s not answering his phone. What do you think I should do? I mean, I know he’s a guest here and doesn’t have to answer to anyone …’

  ‘He is a witness though.’ Mariner frowned. ‘The police won’t want him going AWOL.’ She stared at him blankly. ‘They won’t want him to leave without letting them know. When did you last see him?’

  ‘Monday lunchtime. He had a drink and a sandwich in the bar. We were going to spend the afternoon together, but then he suddenly said he had to go out.’

  ‘Did he say why?’

  ‘No, but it’s happened before. Sometimes the weather conditions are just right for taking photographs, or mean there’s more chance of seeing the falcons.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him at all for two days? What about his car?’

  ‘It’s gone from the car park.’

  ‘Are you sure he hasn’t just moved on?’ From what little Mariner had seen of Hennessey he could imagine that to be his style and Megan’s was a heart just waiting to be broken.

  ‘If he has, Dad will be annoyed. He hasn’t paid his bill.’ Her eyes glistened. ‘He said he liked me. I’m sure he wouldn’t have gone without saying goodbye.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re right,’ Mariner said. In truth he was anything but sure. Hennessey was an attractive young red-blooded male. The most likely explanation Mariner could think of was that he had met another woman, someone who was a bit less needy than Megan, and had shared her bed for the last couple of nights (he would have bet a week’s wages that Hennessey wasn’t plagued with any difficulties in that department). But that wasn’t at all what Megan wanted to hear.

  ‘Have you got a spare key to his room, and a pair of rubber gloves I could borrow?’ he asked her. She nodded to both. ‘Let’s have a quick look to see if he’s left anything behind, and if there’s any clue to where he might have gone.’ All of which, strictly speaking, was ethically questionable, given that Mariner was off-duty, but he was being pragmatic. Megan appeared to be quite a highly strung young woman and Griffith had enough on his plate already without worrying about a misper that might not be. This could save him a wasted journey and time he didn’t have.

  Turning the key in the lock of Hennessey’s room, Mariner had a sudden gruesome flashback to his discovery of Jeremy Bryce, but on pushing open the door he exhaled. Hennessey wasn’t there in any shape or form, but he had left a lot of stuff behind, and it looked to Mariner at first glance as if the room had been turned over.

  ‘He’s not a very tidy man,’ Megan said from over his shoulder, anticipating his thoughts. It was quite an understatement: stepping into the room Mariner had to pick his way over clothing, magazines and an impressive collection of empty beer bottles. It didn’t appear to be work that was keeping Hennessey out; if he had gone off on a photography expedition, he had neglected to take the crucial equipment – his camera bag with the camera body and half a dozen different lenses was still sitting on the floor. Mariner thought about cameras and how easy it was for them to get someone into trouble, should they be pointing in the wrong direction. A notebook-style laptop on the desk was switched off and closed, but Mariner knew better than to tamper with that at this stage. At first glance there seemed no sign of Hennessey’s wallet or phone, so using only his gloved fingertips Mariner eased open the camera bag, but there was nothing in there either.

  ‘I still don’t think there’s anything to worry about,’ Mariner said to Megan. ‘But I’m going to just let DI Griffith know. Can I leave you to lock up?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You think this is bad too, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure there will be a simple and innocent explanation,’ said Mariner, not entirely truthfully. ‘But Mr Hennessey is an important witness and DI Griffith does need to know where he can get hold of him.’ She’d have to make of that what she liked. Mariner hadn’t overlooked Joe Hennessey as a possible suspect. If not at the pub, then where was he on Monday night when Bryce was killed? And why had he disappeared? At the back of his mind Mariner had always acknowledged to himself that he could have misread the reason for Hennessey’s panic in Plackett’s Wood, when Theo Ashton’s body was found. Fear and guilt could present in exactly the same way, regardless of the reasons behind them, and it didn’t take too much imagination to see Megan lying, or perhaps stretching the truth to provide Hennessey with an alibi. In the privacy of his room, Mariner got on the phone to Griffith.

  ‘Did Joe Hennessey let you know that he was moving on?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ said Griffith.

  ‘Well, this might be nothing, but he hasn’t been seen for a couple of days,’ Mariner went on.

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ Mariner could hear the weariness in Griffith’s voice.

  ‘There may be no need for concern,’ Mariner said. ‘His car has gone from the car park. I took the liberty of having a quick look around his room – don’t worry, I didn’t interfere with anything. He’s left some of his stuff behind and I couldn’t at first glance see a phone or wallet, so it could just be that he’s gone away for a day or two and plans to come back.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Megan here is pretty intense. He may have just needed some time to himself.’

  ‘Might he have gone on a longer expedition?’ Griffith asked.

  ‘Not to take photographs,’ Mariner said. ‘He’s left the camera equipment behind.’

  ‘And now he’s disappeared,’ said Griffith. ‘This I could do without.’ There was a momentary pause while Griffith gathered his thoughts. ‘Ordinarily it wouldn’t matter of course, Hennessey’s life is his own, but I did specifically ask him to notify us of any movements. He didn’t seem to have a problem with that.’

  ‘He might have just forgotten,’ Mariner pointed out. ‘He seemed a relaxed sort of guy.’

  ‘I’ll send over a couple of lads, just to give his room the once over. They can talk to Megan as well. She might have some idea of what he’s really up to.’

  ‘You can try but she was the one who alerted me. Wherever he might be, it doesn’t seem as if he’s let her in on it.’

  ‘Have you got the details on his car? I’ll get my boys to keep a look out for it.’

  Mariner passed on the make, colour and registration as Megan had given it to him. It was unremarkable; the kind of car that would blend in. ‘If he’s taken his phone with him it might help you to locate him, as long as he’s not in a dead area.’

  ‘The way my luck’s going? What are the chances of that?’ Griffith said wryly.

  ‘Like I said,’ Mariner reassured Griffith, ‘it’s probably nothing at all; he may well show up again at any time. I just thought that given what else is going on around here and his proximity to it, you wouldn’t want him going completely off the radar.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Griffith. ‘I appreciate it. And you’ll let me know if he shows up again?’

  Mariner assured Griffith that he would.

  In the event Ryan Griffith himself came down to supervise the sea
rch of Hennessey’s room. Mariner had returned to his own room along the landing by now, but he heard voices and the heavy footfall on the stairs. Shortly afterwards there came a knock on Mariner’s door. It was Griffith.

  ‘Anything?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘Not much more than you already told me. But you might want to come and have a look at this.’

  Mariner followed Griffith down the landing to Hennessey’s room, where he nudged the wireless mouse that sat beside the laptop on the little wooden desk. ‘It seems Mr Hennessey is interested in a little more than the wildlife.’

  The screen revealed dozens of folders of photographs, many of which seemed to relate to the locality; they were simply labelled with dates, all of them in the last couple of weeks. Griffith double-clicked on one of the folders. It contained a few close-range shots, but none of them were of wildlife, nor even any particular subject that Mariner could see. If anything they just seemed to be random shots of the village and its inhabitants. ‘From what I can determine so far, the early stuff seems to concern the village itself and then moves on to the farm. Later ones seem to centre on Gwennol Hall. I’d love to get into the hard drive to see what else is on here, but if we start poking around that and Hennessey shows up again, he’ll probably sue.’

  ‘Good old data protection,’ said Mariner grimly.

  ‘If he’s trying to disguise his real intentions he’s been pretty smart about it,’ said Griffith. ‘There’s such a wide range of pictures on here that it would take an age to figure out what his actual target is.’ Mariner could see long-range shots of a helicopter and some passengers getting off. Further scenes had been captured of the farm, including, Mariner noticed, his conversation with Willow. Mariner suddenly wondered if Hennessey held the same suspicions about Abbey Farm that he did.

  ‘So what the hell is he doing out here?’ Griffith was thinking aloud.

  ‘Based on this folder, I’d start with Shapasnikov,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Any particular reason?’ asked Griffith.

  Mariner indicated a couple of the pictures that had caught his eye. They were a sequence of shots recording the arrival of Shapasnikov’s helicopter, with Shapasnikov walking out to greet his guests. ‘That might be one good reason,’ he said, pointing to a man alighting from the chopper.

  ‘I understand Shapasnikov made much of his fortune out of gas and oil. Is there a reason he’s cosying up to the energy secretary, do you think?’

  ‘Well, when Hennessey shows up again he’ll be able to enlighten us himself,’ said Griffith, optimistically. ‘Anyway, aside from being desperate to get out of that MIU, one of the reasons I wanted to come down here is to run a couple of things by you.’ He looked at Mariner. ‘Have you eaten? I’m starving. Want to grab a sandwich?’

  They went down to the bar where Ron Symonds found them a private corner and brought them some food including bowls of chips hand cut from Abbey Farm organic potatoes. Griffith waited until Symonds moved away before saying: ‘We’ve been up to the byre Jeremy Bryce told you about. He was right, there’s plenty of evidence that someone has been living there, probably for some days, and fairly recently judging from the dates on some of the food packaging. And we could have had a breakthrough. Screwed up and stuffed into a crevice we found a set of waterproofs covered in what looks like blood. They’ve gone to the lab. We’re also looking at a burglary at a holiday home about twelve miles west of here. We’re not sure yet if that’s at all related, but if whoever was hiding out at the byre escaped on foot, they may have stopped off there too.’

  ‘But going west? If it’s someone who followed me out here from the Midlands, wouldn’t we expect them to go back the way they came?’

  ‘Like I said, the break-in is probably no more than coincidence. But we also found this at the byre.’ Putting down his knife and fork, Griffith fished in his inside jacket pocket and produced an evidence bag, which he passed to Mariner. Mariner stared at it blankly for several seconds, trying to make sense of what it contained. It was a white pamphlet with a photograph on the front of a smiling young woman. Anna. ‘That’s the funeral I was at last week. She was my …’

  ‘I know,’ said Griffith. ‘Tony Knox filled me in.’

  ‘But I don’t get it,’ said Mariner, baffled. ‘How the hell could that be there?’

  ‘Who else knew that you were coming out to Wales after the funeral?’ asked Griffith.

  ‘No-one,’ said Mariner. ‘I mean, my gaffer, DCI Sharp, but literally no-one else. I didn’t even tell Tony Knox or DC Khatoon until I was leaving.’ Mariner thought back to the journey over to Tregaron. ‘I might have been followed though.’ He told Griffith about the SUV. ‘At the time I thought I must be imagining things, but maybe I wasn’t.’

  ‘You said there was a Range Rover hanging around the village the other night too.’

  ‘That may have belonged to Shapasnikov. He’s got a couple of those in his garages.’

  ‘Okay, so that might account for that one,’ Griffith said. ‘But was there anyone at the funeral you didn’t recognize?’

  Mariner grunted. ‘Loads of people. Anna had only recently moved out there from Birmingham, but she’d already picked up a whole new set of friends. In fact it was a perfect funeral for anyone who wanted to blend in; new friends would assume that any strangers were from her old life and vice versa.’

  Griffith was studying the order of service. ‘Anna Barham,’ he said, as if testing out the name. ‘She was in the job?’ he asked. It was a reasonable assumption.

  ‘No.’ Mariner shook his head as if trying to shake off the memory. ‘She was my ex-girlfriend. We’d lived together for a while. I was still … very fond of her.’

  Then it came to Griffith. ‘My God. She was the girl involved in that incident off the M5, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mariner, and the old familiar pain in his chest that had lain dormant for a couple of days chose that moment to cut through him with renewed intensity.

  ‘Jesus, I’m sorry,’ Griffith said. ‘It was a well-publicized case, wasn’t it? It would have been easy for anyone to get information about her funeral. Would it have been reasonably expected that you would be there?’

  ‘Anyone who knows anything about me would put it together. This isn’t the first time I’ve wondered about Goran Zjalic’s reach either. At the time I thought that he might have had something to do with Anna’s murder; that perhaps it was more than just a random attack. I’d met Anna in the city that day and if I was being watched …’

  ‘Didn’t they have a couple of blokes in the frame for her killing?’ asked Griffith.

  ‘Yes, but there hasn’t been enough evidence to arrest,’ Mariner said.

  ‘It was Hereford, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Very near there.’

  ‘My old stamping ground.’

  ‘Elena told me you were SAS.’

  ‘I still have a few mates out that way. If you think there’s anything I can do …’ He let the sentence hang.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mariner, briefly wondering what he had in mind. ‘Anyway,’ he said, pulling himself together. ‘This isn’t helping you.’

  ‘This man Zjalic, he’s into organized crime?’

  ‘Everything you can imagine,’ Mariner said. ‘Has anyone come forward to claim Jeremy Bryce?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Not yet. The mocked up photo isn’t ideal, but even so …’

  ‘Early days,’ Mariner said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Griffith tucked the funeral brochure back into his pocket. ‘Although strange that no-one should come forward.’

  ‘Well if you get stuck there’s always the locket.’

  ‘Locket?’

  ‘I found it in the footwell of my car the morning after I gave Bryce a lift. It’s a gold locket, like a woman or child might wear around their neck. I didn’t get round to giving it back to him, so it’s still in my rucksack. You must have it. It contains a lock of his daughter’s hair. Something happened to her, but again, he didn’t g
et the chance to tell me.’

  ‘You mean he was hiding it?’

  ‘No, it was just late at night when we had the conversation. The timing was wrong. It’s a long shot, but if hers was some kind of unnatural death there might be something on record, and it would be a start.’

  ‘It would. I’ll get someone on to it.’ Griffith looked momentarily sheepish. ‘We should be able to let you have all your stuff back soon.’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ said Mariner. ‘And let’s hope that in the meantime Joe Hennessey decides to show his face again.’

  THIRTY

  Tony Knox had learned that wherever Kat might be she was still accessing her bank account. At least he hoped it was her. When he finished work on Wednesday he went back to her apartment building. As he was inserting the key in the door he noticed that the lock had been patched up, as if it had broken, or been smashed. He tried not to worry too much about that, but opening the door he walked into something odd, as if a burglar with a conscience had been at work. Drawers and their contents had been pulled out, but haphazardly replaced again. There was no sign of a handbag or phone or any of the personal items that women were in the habit of carrying round with them, nor was there much evidence from the kitchen that anyone had cooked or even eaten there for some time. The place had a strange feel to it and it wasn’t good. Learning nothing from it, Knox let himself out again and as he stepped into the hall he heard a door nearby click shut, very carefully. He walked along the passage to Saira’s apartment and rang the doorbell. There was no response.

  ‘Saira,’ he called impatiently. ‘It’s DS Knox. I know you’re there, I heard you close the door.’ He was rewarded by the door opening just a crack.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I knew it was someone in Katarina’s flat, but I didn’t know who.’

  ‘Can I come in?’Knox asked.

  ‘All right,’ she said, though she didn’t sound too keen.

  They sat across from each other on Ikea reclining chairs.

  ‘How long ago was Kat’s flat broken into?’ Knox asked.