Aim High (The Eddie Malloy series Book 7)

by Joe McNally

  Eddie got out, smiling. ‘Dazzling, ain’t I?’

  ‘Well, your car certainly is.’

  ‘Been waiting long?’

  ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘Come inside. You should have rang me on that number I gave you this morning.’

  ‘I was going to. But I’m bloody paranoid now.’

  Eddie made tea, and sat Mac down in the Snug. ‘Talk away, while I get a fire going. Hard frost on its way, I hear.’

  ‘We got the results on Mister Saroyan’s autopsy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He died of sulphur dioxide poisoning.’

  Eddie stopped his fire building. ‘How does that happen, do you know?’

  ‘Quite a few avenues, apparently. Heavy industry, agriculture, sewage treatments, bleaching paper or wood pulp, food processing. It can build up through physical contact, but not to deadly levels. It’s the gas element, inhalation, that kills.’

  ‘Any estimates on how long he’d been dead?’

  ‘Months.’

  ‘Jeez, he must have been a grim site in that boiler room.’

  ‘He was. According to Broc Lisle.’

  ‘Was it him who told you?’

  ‘Yes. We met the other day, just to exchange thoughts. He rang me late this afternoon.’

  ‘On your JCR number?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘You might just want to be careful in case the old major’s listening in.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘So the cops have added Saroyan to their list?’

  ‘Reluctantly. They’ve made no progress whatever on Kellagher, Sampson or Blackaby.’

  Eddie returned to the logs and firelighters. ‘No surprise, there. No contact from the killer. No witnesses. No informants, unless it’s the same guy who was pulling the laser pen stunts etcetera.’

  ‘Which brings me to my next point. How long can we hold off from telling the police about the major and Ivory?’

  ‘Well, how long do you want to spend dissecting the legality of what they’ve done, and who’s going to do that for you and how will you keep it all away from the major and his pal?’

  ‘Question is, is that really our job, or is down to the police?’

  ‘Whatever, Mac. Open it up and the one thing you throw away is the advantage of knowing something when those two think you don’t. Let’s just keep it quiet a while longer, eh?’

  ‘I’m getting edgy.’

  Eddie struck a match. A firelighter flared. He turned to the big man. ‘Keep your nerve, Mac. The police can occupy themselves with Saroyan. How long had he been in that boiler room? Not for months, surely? A guy who announces some vigilante campaign by shooting a jockey in front of twenty-thousand people is hardly going to have quietly planted a corpse months before it, is he?’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘So why did he kill Saroyan, if indeed he was killed? Why go to the trouble of poisoning him when a bullet in the brain would have been easier, and why store him for months then dump him at Haydock, in a very private, very secluded place?’

  Mac had been nodding slowly all the time Eddie had been talking. Eddie said, ‘Does that sound like our man’s M.O.?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then maybe the cops should be looking a lot more closely into Mister Saroyan’s past affairs.’

  ‘Fair point. I’ll see what Broc thinks.’

  ‘He riding shotgun with you, now, then?’

  ‘He’s a pleasant man, and a bit of a character. I can think of worse partners.’ Mac’s eyes narrowed. Eddie was well acquainted with the big man’s mischievous smiles. ‘Mac, you wait and see how Broc Lisle is when your backs are to the wall before you desert your old pal!’

  They laughed.

  65

  Mave, so long unused to company, began feeling more settled with Kim and Marie. She’d taken to helping with the four stallions they had in, and Kim had been protective of her around the horses.

  She enjoyed Kim’s company more than Marie’s. The bitchiness from her schooldays had left marks she had thought she was over. But she found herself uncertain and guarded when Kim wasn’t around and Marie was, even though Marie was always polite and welcoming.

  That evening, in the dim light of a corner stable, she watched Kim groom Garamond, a big bay, still covering mares at the age of nineteen. Kim worked rhythmically with the brush, showing Mave the areas where Garamond was sensitive, smoothing those parts over softly.

  ‘Why don’t we go on a ride at the weekend?’ Kim asked.

  ‘Because I’d fall off and break something.’

  Kim stopped working and looked at her. ‘Haven’t you ridden before?’

  ‘Your uncle warned me to steer clear of them. He says they bite at one end and kick at the other.’

  Kim smiled, ‘He was just kidding!’

  Mave squatted in the straw and pointed to Garamond’s hind feet. ‘Er, excuse me, aren’t those hooves? With the equine equivalent of Doc Marten boots on?’

  He laughed. She shuffled sideways toward Garamond’s head. ‘And isn’t that a row of one-inch teeth under those big lips?’

  ‘You’d be fine, Mave. I’ll teach you. We can start lessons on Saturday.’

  ‘That’s good. You have a Shetland pony hidden away then?’

  ‘We’ll find you something docile. Marie has plenty friends with horses.’

  ‘I’ll think about it. I’ll check and see if I can find my docile meter before Saturday.’

  ‘Ha! You’ll love it. I promise. It’s the greatest feeling to be part of something where you’re both sensing things from each other and kind of reading each other’s mind and trusting each other. The horse is always learning and you’re always learning. It’s never boring.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. You’ve convinced me. And if you decide the jockeying game isn’t for you after all, you’d make a hell of a salesman, and a fine husband, to boot.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. This has got nothing to do with girls.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  Kim worked his way to the other side of Garamond, where he could see Mave if he ducked or stood on tiptoes. ‘What about you and Eddie, if you want to talk about girls! He seems mad about you. It’s him that’ll be making a good husband.’

  ‘Your uncle will never marry.’

  ‘No way! Of course he will! He’s still young and once he’s done riding, he’ll settle down, with you. I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Well that’ll be most gracious of him. I can’t wait.’

  Kim stopped brushing, unsure, straight-faced. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be patronizing.’

  She laughed. ‘You weren’t, Kim. I’m just kidding you.’

  ‘I just sort of took it for granted you were a couple.’

  ‘We are. In our own way. An odd couple.’

  ‘Do you love him?’ Kim kept up the steady sweeps, not looking at her. Mave found herself holding her breath. ‘I…hadn’t analyzed it quite that deeply.’

  ‘That means yes,’ he said brightly.

  ‘It does?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Mave put her hands on her hips. ‘Well blow me down!’

  Kim ducked low and blew hard toward her and she took a mock tumble in the dry straw, laughing in a way she had never laughed before, overcome for a few moments by a sense of utter freedom.

  Mave smiled at the webcam. ‘Your nephew is some kid.’

  ‘The boy’s a diamond. I don’t know about him wanting to meet his father, I certainly would. And, God, how I wish I’d known his step-parents. There can’t be many who’ve made a better job of raising a child. I envy him what he had, Mave. I wouldn’t tell anyone else that, but I do. And it guts me, when I think about how he must have felt losing them both.’

  ‘I know. But he’ll be all right, Eddie, He’ll be fine. They say kids are resilient. Kim just seems to handle everything and care for everyone. He’s a real gem.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re getting on so well there. I was worried.
’

  ‘You were worried! Well, it shows that it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good right enough. Out of all this bloody chaos, I’ve learned that locking myself away from the bitches and the bad guys means I miss out on all the good folk too.’

  Eddie took time to look at her. And she looked at him. He said, ‘Maybe there’s a lesson there for me too, Mave.’ She shrugged and raised one eyebrow.

  Eddie said, ‘Seems strange moving back to the depressing side, but Mac was waiting for me when I got home…’

  He told her about Jonty Saroyan.

  ‘Sulphur dioxide?’ Mave asked.

  ‘Plenty sources, apparently.’

  ‘One of them is a darkroom.’

  He looked at her. ‘As in photography darkrooms?’

  ‘As in the place they locked Sonny up in. The place where you backed straight out of when the door opened. What caught your throat was sulphur dioxide.’

  ‘So why isn’t Sonny dead?’

  ‘Because most of the time, the room was properly ventilated.’

  ‘So, if Jonty took such care with ventilation, why is Jonty dead?’

  ‘Good question.’

  Half an hour later, Mave had connected Sonny securely to the conversation, but only in audio.

  Trying to work back through the timeline on Jonty was getting complicated. Sonny said, ‘Mave, I never went back to the house after you guys got me out of there. Yes, I was seeing Nina after Jonty disappeared, but she’d come to Stourport or we’d meet in Worcester.’

  ‘But she was still living in that house they took you to?’

  ‘So far as I know.’

  Eddie said, ‘Sonny, can you recall when it was that Jonty went missing?’

  ‘Late August, I think, or early September. That’s when Nina and I were talking about going to Turkey.’

  ‘What about the house? Did she sell it?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘It was a rental.’

  Mave said, ‘Must have been a long bloody rental if he’d built a darkroom in it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sonny said.

  Eddie looked at Mave through the webcam, raising his eyebrows. Mave nodded to him and he said, ‘Sonny, Mave and I put a possible plan together earlier. You’re the one who’d have to make it work, and it could be dangerous.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘And it could put Nina Raine in jail for a long time.’

  After a moment’s hesitation Sonny said, ‘I’m still listening.’

  66

  Nina Raine woke up in her flat in London, a home that was now one hundred percent hers. The mortgage had been paid off with the winnings from the bets and the fine flat and the free flowing cash had given Nina a taste for property speculation.

  She’d stolen Mave’s PC more in hope than confidence. She knew nothing of the software world but she’d grown accustomed to what she believed was a charmed life. The men she had needed, for whatever task was in hand, had always seemed to turn up. She was now on the hunt for a software engineer or a hacker. A Russian made plenty appeal.

  She checked her messages and saw one from Sonny. She sighed and said aloud, ‘This is getting fucking tiresome.’

  She played it: “Nina, I found the pendant. It was at Mave’s place. You left it there when you broke in. If you can think of any reason why I shouldn’t tell Mave, and then the police, call me.”

  Her fingers went to her neck, touching her collarbone, where the diamond had rested. She stared at London’s cityscape. Her future lay out there among the high fliers and the big deals. Now this.

  She undressed, and went to the shower to try and work things out.

  Ten minutes later, hair still wet, she sat on the edge of the bed again, looking through the picture window. She brought up Sonny’s number. She needed no mental or emotional preparation. She’d done this a hundred times.

  He answered, ‘Oh, Sonny, what are we going to do! I got your message. I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I know how much that pendant meant to you and you couldn’t live long enough to figure out how much it meant to me. I was heartbroken. I know we fought about it. I know I was a bitch, but believe me, I’ve never stopped thinking about it, or about you.’

  ‘Listen, Nina-’

  ‘Please, Sonny. I know you mentioned the police and, well, if it comes to that, I deserve it. But at least the pendant’s safe.’

  ‘Nina, it’s not about the pendant anymore, for God’s sake! You broke into Mave’s house. You stole her PC!’

  ‘Sonny, darling Sonny, you know how desperate I am to find Keki. You know I’d risk anything. I’d rather it wasn’t breaking the law and it wounded me to have to betray you and Mave, but I had to try. You know that. More than anyone in the world, you know that! Mave must have been devastated. I’ll crawl on my hands to knees to her, honest to God, I will!’

  ‘She doesn’t know. Thank God. She doesn’t know yet.’

  ‘How can she not know?’

  ‘She’s away. Remember she said she was giving up and travelling?’

  ‘Well, that’s a blessing. At least you’ll be able to prepare the poor woman, and maybe tidy the place so it’s not so much of a shock.’

  ‘You’re kidding me! You want me to tidy up my dearest friend’s house, that you broke into, that you messed up!’

  ‘Sonny! Sonny, don’t shout at me, please! Don’t let’s start another fight, please. I’m so very near the end. So very close to just…just finishing everything.’ She frowned and raised a bare foot to rub at some old nail polish on her toes.

  ‘What do you expect, Nina? What about me? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Darling, why don’t we meet?’

  Mave set up the evening conference call. Again, Sonny was on audio only. Mave and Eddie could see each other.

  ‘So she bought it?’ Eddie said.

  ‘She did, but left me thinking, as she usually does, that it was me who’d fallen for something.’

  Mave said, ‘Sonny, if this is, well, too soon for you, we can leave it a while.’

  Eddie glanced at her, wondering if she was serious. She didn’t look at him. Sonny said, ‘No. I’m on a reparation job now, Jo. Anything I can do to help put things back the way they were…that’s what I want to do.’

  ‘Okay. But you don’t have to. I want you to know that.’

  ‘I know it. And I appreciate it. But this is the right thing to do.’

  ‘Well, let’s hear it.’ Mave said.

  ‘She wants to meet me in Liverpool. She asked if I was still at the Shack. I told her I was back in Stourport and that Worcester would have been easier. But she said she had a special weekend in mind. There’s a holiday property bang in the middle of Aintree racecourse. It’s called Steeplechase Cottage. They rent it out on non-racing days. She’s booked it for this weekend.’

  When the conference call ended. Mave immediately reconnected with Eddie. He was waiting, looking right at her via the webcam. Both were silent for a few seconds, and serious-faced. Mave said, ‘Looks like your hunch was right.’

  ‘It does. The trouble is, how do we protect Sonny?’

  ‘We’re going to have to tell him, aren’t we?’

  Eddie thought about it. ‘Probably. But we’ll still need back-up…something formal.’

  ‘Mac?’

  ‘Mmm…might be a bit risky for him.’

  ‘We can’t get the police in, can we?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mave. I’d rather not, but there’s no way of knowing what she’s got planned.’

  ‘Could we watch the place? You and me?’

  ‘Let me think about it. Maybe I will talk to Mac. If it goes the way I expect, he’d be the next man in anyway.’

  Mave looked at the clock in the corner of her PC screen. ‘I’ll be around for a while. I’m going out to help Kim with evening stables.’

  ‘Good. I thought you’d suit each other, you two. Kim’s still quite formal with me, and kind of adult, and manly, but it sounds like he’s himself with you.’
/>
  ‘He seems to be. And, oddly, I’m myself with him. I only realized that last night. His appetite for life, after all he’s been through, his ambition, in the best sense of the word, is just, well, inspiring. It’s definitely infectious. I felt like a girl again, last night. All my own old hopes and dreams seemed fresh again, and real, and achievable.’

  ‘Youth. I suppose we forget how simple everything seemed then. How straight the road ahead looked.’

  ‘Kim won’t let anybody forget that. I’m for my first riding lesson on Saturday, apparently.’

  ‘I hope you can steer a horse better than you can steer a car.’

  ‘You’re not the only one.’

  Eddie decided to drive to Mac’s place.

  Mac was stepping away from the burning stove as Eddie settled in the chair. Mac said, ‘Thought I’d get your favourite fire going to thaw you out a bit.’

  ‘Frost’s all in the air, just now. Be in the ground overnight. Plumpton are inspecting in the morning, and I don’t think Hexham are confident.’

  ‘Well, it’s January. We haven’t lost many meetings so far, so we can stand a few, I suppose.’

  Eddie looked at him. ‘You mean you haven’t lost many to the weather. How many have JCR cancelled now?’

  ‘Twenty-seven. But bear in mind that twenty-one of those were transferred and all future ones, until we get going again, should also be run elsewhere.’

  ‘Happy days, then?’

  ‘Worse things have happened.’

  ‘I know, Mac. Maybe we can start to make some kind of headway now.’

  Mac grunted as he flopped back in the chair. ‘That’s good to hear. Please elaborate.’

  Eddie told him the story of Sonny and Nina, then said, ‘Now that’s by way of background. She’s arranged to meet him on a JCR property at the weekend, a holiday cottage on Aintree racecourse. That backed-up a hunch I had, no pun intended.’

  Mac smiled.

  Eddie said, ‘Saroyan’s body at Haydock seemed so far out of line with everything else that’s happened to JCR that it set me thinking. The first time I came across the guy was when he got into this blackmail stunt with Nina Raine. Saroyan then disappeared. She said he’d stolen money and run out on her, but that made no sense because my friend was feeding them tips at the time. Why wouldn’t Jonty Saroyan have waited until the tips dried up? Anyway, the last one to see him was Nina Raine.’