The Pact

by Roberta Kray

  ‘What? That it’s an invitation to anything else?’

  ‘It’s been known.’

  ‘A nostrings coffee would be great,’ he said.

  She had another moment of doubt as he paid off the cabbie. It wasn’t so much to do with his integrity as hers. Jack Raynor was a very attractive man. He was a smart one too. A fatal combination.

  As they climbed the stairs, she was aware of him following close behind, aware too of the echoing clatter of their shoes on the old stone steps. The dim forty-watt bulbs were on a timer that clicked off every fifteen seconds. She pressed her hand against the switch as they reached the first floor.

  They were on the landing of the top floor when the light turned off again. She reached out, searching for the button. His hand stretched out too. As their fingers touched, they both started to laugh.

  But as she turned, the laughter caught in her throat and a half-scream hurled its way from the pit of her stomach and out through her mouth. The breath rushed from her lungs and her heart began to race. She staggered forward a step, reeling. Jack grabbed her elbow.

  ‘What the …?’

  Emblazoned across the door in bright white paint were the words, Last chance, Evie. And, running the entire length, was a childlike illustration of the hangman’s noose.

  ‘Jesus!’ he hissed. His grip tightened protectively around her arm.

  Eve stared wide-eyed at the threat before the landing was plunged into darkness again. As she scrabbled for her keys, she could feel her knees starting to buckle.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Jack was forced to let go of her. He reached quickly back and slammed his palm against the switch. ‘Don’t touch anything,’ he insisted.

  But it was too late. She’d already unlocked the door, stumbled inside and turned on the light. Before her legs betrayed her, she hurried across the room and sank down on the sofa.

  ‘You shouldn’t have—’

  She lowered her head into her shaking hands and waved his objection away. Damn it! She’d thought it was over but it had just got worse.

  He got out his phone and started dialling.

  Eve looked up. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Calling it in,’ he said.

  ‘No!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said no. I don’t want you to.’ She saw his eyes narrow into confusion. Christ, this was all turning into a nightmare. She tried to shake her brain into some semblance of coherency. ‘Please. I mean, what’s the point? It’ll just be a waste of everyone’s time. They won’t find anything, will they – they’re hardly likely to have left any prints.’

  ‘You don’t know what they may have left.’

  ‘No offence, but it’ll be a waste of time. I’m sure it will. And I just don’t need the aggravation, all the fuss and the questions and …’ What she did need was a stiff drink but she’d given the last of the brandy to Sonia.

  Jack looked bemused. ‘But you can’t let them get away with it.’

  ‘They already have. Come on, be realistic. Are you telling me that you’re likely to catch them?’

  ‘Don’t you even want to try?’

  ‘I’ve said no, haven’t I? Can’t you just leave it?’

  He sat down beside her. ‘Eve, what’s going on?’

  She shook her head. Then she jumped to her feet again. There was still some wine in the fridge. That would have to do. She went through to the kitchen and brought the bottle back along with a couple of glasses. She placed them on the coffee table and then went and shut the door; if she couldn’t see the words, perhaps she could pretend that they weren’t actually there. ‘Nothing,’ she said again. ‘It’s probably just some prank. Kids. You know what they’re like. That intercom’s been broken for months. Anyone can just wander in off the street.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Anyone who knows your name is Evie.’

  Ignoring the comment, she carelessly splashed out the wine, pushed a glass towards him and took a large gulp from her own. ‘Do you think it will come off?’ she asked. ‘Maybe with soapy water or white spirit or … I could paint over it, couldn’t I? If I buy some white gloss in the morning, I might be able to—’

  ‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you won’t let me call it in, at least talk to me. Tell me what’s been going on. And please don’t say nothing again.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘Trust me. I might be able to help.’

  Now the shock was subsiding, it was being replaced by a faint sense of nausea. She struggled to clear her head, to come up with any sort of feasible explanation – at least anything she could tell Jack Raynor – as to why she might be the target of such an attack. God, they must have done it when she’d left to take Sonia to Val’s – which meant they must have been watching the flats, hanging around outside, waiting for her to leave.

  She hesitated. There was no point in claiming absolute ignorance – that was more likely to provoke suspicion than to detract from it – but she had to be careful about what she chose to divulge. ‘Well, there have been a few phone calls recently but nothing too awful, just the usual heavy breathing kind of stuff. I didn’t take much notice of them.’

  ‘And there’s no one you can think of – any enemies, people you’ve crossed, old boyfriends …’

  ‘I’m not that bad a girlfriend,’ she said, forcing a smile.

  But he continued to frown at her. ‘This is serious, Eve. Think about it. If not in the past then maybe someone you’ve met more recently’

  She immediately thought of Martin Cavelli – and as quickly put him out of her mind. No, she wasn’t going there. She couldn’t afford to jeopardize Terry’s future. A few months, that’s all he needed, and then he’d be free. If the cops started sniffing round, asking awkward questions, one thing would lead to another and – if what Cavelli had told her was true – they might discover he’d been doing more than handling stolen property. And if that was the case he wouldn’t get further than the prison gates before they arrested him again.

  ‘No,’ she said firmly.

  Are you sure?’

  She pretended to think about it. ‘No, honestly, I can’t think of anything.’ She paused again, trying to decide how much more she should tell him. ‘Well, I suppose there was the breakin but I don’t see how that could be connected.’

  And nothing else?’

  Suddenly, she felt an almost desperate urge to confide, to share her fears, to let it all come spilling out – but she held her tongue. It was only a knee-jerk reaction to that vile warning on the door. If she came clean and told him about the attack in the alley, about being followed, there’d be no going back. The cops would get involved and then …

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said. ‘I don’t get it. I don’t understand. No one has to put up with this kind of stuff. Why won’t you let me call it in? We can help you. I can help you.’

  ‘By doing what – dusting for prints, testing for DNA, putting a twenty-four-hour guard on my door?’ She tried to sound blase but her voice had a thin nervy edge. ‘Whoever did it is long gone.’

  ‘Do you really hate the police that much?’

  Eve turned her face towards him, startled. ‘I don’t hate them,’ she insisted. ‘Of course I don’t. I’m here with you, aren’t I? It’s just …’

  ‘Just?’

  She leaned back, releasing a prolonged and weary sigh into the room. ‘God, you know who my father was. What he was. Let’s not play pretend. I was hardly raised in the spirit of friendly cooperation with the boys in blue. And this, this … graffiti business, isn’t anything that serious. I’m sure it’s not. It’s only a bit of nastiness. There’s no point in wasting everyone’s time. Perhaps you were right, what you said before. Perhaps it is someone with an old grudge but whoever it is, they’ll soon grow tired of it.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’

  She shuddered. That was a scenario she didn’t want to think about. ‘Well, if anything else happens, then I promise I’ll report it. How about that? Does that
sound like a reasonable compromise?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, his hand still grasping hers and squeezing it more tightly. ‘But I get the distinct impression it’s the best you’re going to offer.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Half a bottle of whisky and a handful of aspirins hadn’t done anything to help Eddie Shepherd sleep. He’d dozed briefly through the night but woken over and over with the same question rolling through his head. What the fuck was going on?

  A series of ideas niggled at the back of his mind but he couldn’t quite pin them down. Which was why, at the ungodly hour of seven thirty, he was already at the lab trying to squeeze some information out of the pathologist.

  ‘Come on, Ken, give us a break. You must have something by now.’

  ‘He drowned,’ he replied shortly.

  ‘I kind of got that idea when we dragged him out of the water.’

  Kenneth Pugh gave him a despairing look. ‘Just because you pull a man from the river doesn’t necessarily mean he died there.’

  ‘But this was one that did?’

  ‘Yes, he was definitely alive when he went in.’

  Eddie tried not to breathe too deeply. Even through his blocked nose, and despite the powerful disinfectant, he could still smell the stink of death. He hated this place and avoided it whenever he could.

  ‘So it was an accident,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You sound disappointed.’

  ‘Nothing unusual then – nothing at all?’

  This time Pugh hesitated. ‘Well … it might not be important but there was some bruising to the left shoulder. Hard to tell though exactly how it was inflicted.’

  Eddie felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach. It could have been hunger – he hadn’t eaten yet this morning – but he suspected it was one of those tiny breakthroughs that came along when you least expected it. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Now I wouldn’t swear on oath but it could be consistent with a weight being placed against it.’

  Eddie stared at him. ‘A weight?’

  ‘Like a foot.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Yes. Someone could have prevented him from getting out of the water.’ Then, observing the light that must have come into Eddie’s eyes, Pugh quickly added, ‘But it could also have happened before he fell in or, if he was still alive, when he was pushed up against the side of the boat.’

  ‘Is that likely?’

  ‘It’s not impossible.’ He paused. ‘Would you like to see?’

  Eddie wouldn’t like to see, not one little bit. ‘I’d rather you just explained it to me.’

  Pugh smiled at him thinly. His expression seemed to combine a mixture of pity and contempt. ‘Here,’ he said, laying his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, in the shallow dip between the top of his arm and his neck. ‘And here.’ He moved his fingers a fraction to cover the curve of the shoulder itself.

  ‘And nowhere else?’

  ‘No,’ he said, standing back.

  ‘I don’t get it. I mean, if he was thrashing about, hitting the boat, wouldn’t you expect there to be other bruises?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed. ‘But he could have got these before he even went in the river.’

  ‘But they were fresh?’

  ‘Oh yes, no doubt about that. They definitely occurred around the time of death.’

  Eddie touched the outer edge of his own shoulder. ‘Okay, I understand how this part could get damaged by the boat – it’s exposed, right? But this part …’ He moved his hand towards his neck. ‘It’s more awkward, harder to reach.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He thought about it. ‘So someone could have …’ He had a mental image of Marshall reaching out towards the bank, drunk and scrabbling for a foothold, only to be pushed back, again and again, into the icy black water. It was a nasty thought and not one to linger over.

  ‘All I’m saying is that it’s a possibility. It’s a theory, nothing more. There’s no conclusive evidence.’

  But Kenneth Pugh knew his stuff and Eddie was certain he wouldn’t have even raised the subject if he didn’t see the death as leaning towards the suspicious.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ He was at the door, about to leave, when another idea occurred to him. ‘I don’t suppose you remember Alex Weston, do you?’

  Pugh looked back at him blankly.

  ‘Another death by drowning. A month or so ago. Walked into the river with his pockets full of—’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, nodding. ‘The suicide.’

  ‘Nothing struck you as odd about that?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Why should it? It was perfectly straightforward.’ Then his mouth slowly crept into a smile again. ‘Well, apart from the obvious literary allusions.’

  Eddie tried not to sigh. He didn’t have a clue what he was going on about. Why couldn’t these people speak in fucking English? ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Virginia Woolf,’ he said, patiently. ‘She was—’

  ‘Yeah, a writer. I’ve heard of her. I’m not completely stupid.’

  As if this was news to him, Pugh’s bushy eyebrows rocketed upwards. ‘Indeed she was, Sergeant! Well done! And a very good writer too. I didn’t realize you were quite such an expert. But as you are, you’ll also be aware that she walked into a river with her pockets full of stones. In her case, she was suffering from severe depression. However, Mr Weston, if I remember rightly, was suffering from cancer.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Quite,’ Pugh agreed. ‘But to answer your question – or rather the implication behind it – no, there was nothing suspicious about his death.’ And then, as if to prove his remarkable powers of memory, he scratched his forehead, closed his eyes and slowly opened them again. ‘Yes, there was a fair amount of alcohol in his bloodstream and a lot of painkillers. With the stones and all, he wasn’t taking any chances. If there was one thing that could be said for Mr Weston, it was that he intended to die.’

  ‘Right.’ Eddie glanced down at his watch. He had things to do. Best to make his escape before Pugh went off on another of his tangents. He had once endured a twenty-minute discourse on the merits of Tolstoy and had no desire to repeat the experience. ‘Well, thanks. I won’t keep you.’

  Paul Clark went into the computer and deleted all the entries relating to the surveillance of Eve Weston. He could feel his palms sweating. This was madness. Even as the files disappeared into the ether, he knew that they weren’t gone forever; any computer geek could eventually dig them out from their resting place.

  But there was no going back now. He’d just have to pray that this side of the police investigation came to nothing, that Ivor Patterson had been the victim of an arbitrary attack. And if he hadn’t? God, he didn’t want to think about that. The fat cop had asked a lot of awkward questions, given him the third degree. Well, he’d held his own, just about, but he didn’t fancy going another round with the bastard.

  He went to the filing cabinet and removed the hard copy. Flicking through the pages, he wondered if there was more to the Eve Weston case than Baxter had told him. A divorce job, that’s what he’d said. So why all the fuss? Why the need for the cover-up? Unless Baxter’s client was so high-profile, he couldn’t afford even a whiff of scandal. What if Ivor had stumbled on something and …

  No, he mustn’t panic. A cool head was what was needed now. He had to stay calm. He carefully went through the report again. There wasn’t much in it. Ms Weston either led a very quiet life or was deliberately keeping a low profile. She did, however, have a brother in jail, a brother she visited regularly. Was that anything to be concerned about?

  But surely if Ivor had stumbled on something dodgy, Charlie May would have picked up on it too. Not necessarily. Charlie wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Especially when he was working nights. Which reminded him – he’d better shift him out of town in case fat boy came sniffing round again.

  It was only as he started trawling through the photographs that he felt his
heart skip a beat. There was a series of shots of her emerging from a pub by the river. He recognized the man she was with. Raynor. Inspector Raynor. A small but violent jolt of fear, as fierce as an electric shock, jumped across his hands. The papers fluttered in his fingers. If Raynor had a personal involvement then …

  ‘Shit,’ he murmured under his breath. That might explain why Shepherd had given him such a hard time.

  He leaned back against his desk. As he tried to get his head together, one good point found its way into his reasoning: surely, if the cops knew that she was the subject of Patterson’s last case, that she was being officially watched by Clark & Able, they’d be crawling all over the office by now. And they weren’t. So they didn’t know. They couldn’t. They were just whistling in the wind. Where was the evidence? There wasn’t any. They’d simply found a business card in his pocket and were going through the motions.

  Paul took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. He had to stop stressing. The chances of Ivor’s death being connected to the business were slight. His wallet and his keys had been stolen. His car had been found burning on Mousehold Heath and hopefully, fingers crossed, his laptop had gone up in the blaze. It was a violent assault. He’d been attacked and robbed. It was vile, gross, but it had nothing to do with the company. There was still a chance the cops might find some written notes in his flat but so what? They couldn’t prove that Patterson had been working for Clark & Able within the last couple of weeks. And nothing to prove that Clark & Able had ever heard of Eve Weston.

  He stared around the empty office and nodded. What he’d done, and what he was about to do, didn’t really matter. He didn’t need to justify his actions; he was only trying to keep things simple. There was no point in confusing the situation.

  And as for Richard Baxter’s part in this whole lousy mess … Well, he was only doing what he always did – behaving like an arsehole while he covered his back.

  Turning on the shredder, Paul waited for the green light to come on. He only paused for a second before he slowly fed the papers into its jaws.

  Eve opened the tin of paint and gave it a vigorous stir. As soon as Jack had left, she’d got up and dressed and then walked straight over to the hardware shop. They had tried to scrub the words off last night but without much success. The threat was still clearly legible and she worked quickly, slapping on the white gloss with strong firm strokes.