by David Hodges
‘Allow me,’ he said cheerfully, letting Sharp through, then walking away humming to himself.
The detective was astounded at the ease with which he had managed to get into the place. Didn’t they know anything about security? He could have been anyone. But his luck did not last.
‘And who the hell are you?’ a voice snapped rudely from an open doorway. ‘And how did you get in here?’
He quickly flashed his warrant card at the young staff nurse standing there – although he didn’t know it, she was the same nurse who had confronted Kate not long before. ‘Police,’ he said, without giving his name.
She frowned. ‘You must be the police guard they said they’d be sending,’ she surmised. ‘At least they’ve had the good sense to send someone in civvies.’
Sharp was careful not to enlighten her and she nodded towards the window of the small room behind him. ‘She’s in there, conscious now fortunately, but still very fragile. I’ll get someone to put a chair outside the door for you.’
Sharp gave her his best smile. ‘Thanks. Any chance of speaking to her?’
The Staff snorted angrily. ‘No way. You keep out of there, do you understand? She’s far too ill to be interviewed.’
Her bleep sounded stridently and she muttered an oath. ‘Got to go. I’ll get you that chair in a minute.’
Then she was off down the corridor with a brisk tap of her shoes, shortly disappearing through double doors at the end.
Sharp waited a couple of minutes before entering the small room and, as he approached the bed, his eyes took in the tubes and wires connected to the pale-faced woman lying there. Her eyes were open and they seemed to jerk when she saw him.
‘Hi, Nom,’ he said. ‘Only just heard what happened. Didn’t have time for any grapes.’
He hesitated, feeling uncomfortable about his reasons for being there, then abruptly took the plunge. ‘Ansell’s on the warpath,’ he blurted clumsily. ‘You will keep shtum if he comes to see you, won’t you? I’m in enough shit already – you can forget the four hundred, OK?’
To his surprise, Naomi reached up and pulled away the mask covering the lower part of her face, then beckoned him closer. Her breathing was rough and her lips were trembling as she tried to say something. Curious, he bent closer and her hand grabbed his arm and pulled him down towards her pillow. Her voice was just a crackle and he shook his head. ‘Can’t understand you, Nom,’ he said.
He felt her take a deep breath and bent his ear to within a couple of inches of her mouth to listen. And it was at this point that she finally got through to him, the words jerked out in a halting rasping whisper that carried with it not only a sense of the terrible pain she was suffering, but revelations that pumped such a rush of adrenalin through his veins that he almost lost his balance and would have fallen on top of her if he had not staggered backwards.
‘Are you serious?’ he gasped, staring at her in a state of shock. ‘This is dynamite!’
He thought he detected a faint, grim smile, but that soon faded and then there was a dramatic change in her expression – a look of acute distress. As her hand fumbled to replace the mask over her face, her body arched and went into a series of violent spasms, her eyes swivelling upward to disappear beneath the lids and a choking gasp issuing through tightly clenched teeth.
He should have tried to help her – replaced the mask or done something – but instead, he simply shrank away from the bed and, as a high-pitched alarm sounded and footsteps hammered down the corridor, he stumbled out of the room in a panic.
The portly nurse slammed him aside as she raced into the room, followed by a doctor, with his white coat flapping around him. Staring with a sort of horrible fascination through the window into the room, Sharp saw them bend over the bed as Naomi continued to writhe and arch her body in the throes of some sort of seizure. Another nurse appeared, with the staff nurse in their wake and the look she gave the white-faced DS was vicious as he stood there helplessly watching the proceedings.
It was over almost as suddenly as it had begun. The team tried everything they could, including, Sharp thought, the use of a defibrillator and an injection of some kind, but in the end, the machine on the stand beside her bed changed its beeping note to a chilling continuous whine as it flatlined.
The staff nurse looked drawn and haggard as she came back out into the passage and gently closed the door behind her. ‘What the hell did you do?’ she almost snarled at him.
He shook his head several times, backing away from her. ‘I … I didn’t do anything,’ he lied. ‘She had some kind of fit and I went in there to see if I could help, then you lot arrived.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Is she … is she…?’
The staff nurse moved out of the way as the doctor left the room and strode off along the corridor with a sad shake of his head. ‘Let’s just say, you won’t be needed anymore,’ she said, watching as the two nurses remaining in the room started to disconnect the apparatus from the now motionless patient. ‘She’s beyond the reach of any assassin now.’
Toby Pomeroy lived in a big pseudo-Georgian detached house in the village of Wedmore and when Kate and Lewis arrived, a beautiful red Austin Healey 3000 was drawn up to one side of the front door. ‘Very nice,’ said an appreciative Lewis, ‘but I think I’ll stick to my Mk II Jag.’
The shining brass doorbell rang inside the house for ages before the door was opened by a diminutive dark-haired woman in her sixties. Her eyes widened when Kate produced her warrant card. ‘Nothing to worry about – er – Mrs Pomeroy?’ she queried and when the lady of the house nodded with a quick relieved sigh, Kate went on, ‘Mr Pomeroy at home?’
Mrs Pomeroy shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid he’s out at present – board meeting at his company’s headquarters in London.’
She smiled to see Lewis walking slowly around the Austin Healey, studying it with obvious admiration.
‘My son’s,’ she called out. ‘He’s on holiday with his fiancée at present.’
Kate glared at Lewis. ‘Any idea when your husband will be back?’
‘Not until very late tonight – they have a board dinner after the meeting, you see, and it can go on a bit. Can you tell me what this is all about?’
Lewis concluded his examination of the Austin Healey and turned back to the front door. ‘We understand Mr Pomeroy is a twitcher?’ he said.
Kate winced, but Mrs Pomeroy just chuckled. ‘Don’t let him hear you call him that,’ she said. ‘Actually he’s the president of the Somerset Levels Avian Society.’
Kate nodded and, explaining the reason for their visit, but excluding reference to the discovery of the body on the wildlife reserve, she produced the photograph of the flask with its inscribed initials clearly visible.
Mrs Pomeroy peered at the photograph. ‘Can’t help you there, I’m afraid, but if you can leave the photograph with me, I’ll get Toby to contact you tomorrow. If it belongs to one of his flock—’ and she chuckled suddenly at her pun, ‘I’m sure he’ll know.’
Kate handed the photograph and one of her business cards to her. ‘Thanks for your help,’ she said. ‘He can get hold of me at Highbridge police station.’
‘You might also ask your son if he fancies selling that Austin Healey too,’ Lewis said brightly, then hurriedly turned to follow Kate as she stalked back to the CID car after a courteous nod in Mrs Pomeroy’s direction.
‘Dipstick!’ Kate blazed at him through clenched teeth as they drove away.
‘What did I do?’ Lewis replied. ‘I was going to buy it for you.’
‘What with?’ Kate snapped back. ‘Buttons or confidence?’
chapter 28
PHIL SHARP TAPPED one foot repeatedly on the floor in an agitated rhythm as he sat in the worn armchair by the window of his flat, staring at nothing in particular. Downing the remains of the coffee he had made himself fifteen minutes before, he automatically reached for his packet of cigarettes, only to remember that he had smoked the last one when he had been released
from Bridgwater police station that morning.
Seeing someone you know dying in front of you is never pleasant and he also felt more than a little responsible for Naomi Betjeman’s tragic end. He had done nothing at the crucial moment, just stood there – not even tried to replace her oxygen mask. He felt even more guilty at his sense of relief over her death, knowing that maybe his lack of action had been motivated by self-interest, bearing in mind that she could have given evidence against him in any police inquiry.
Anyway, at least now, provided he kept his cool, he was in the clear. No one at the hospital was aware of his identity and luckily he had caught early sight of the uniformed policeman – almost certainly the plod sent to guard Naomi – climbing the stairs as he’d headed back down, which had given him just enough time to duck into an adjacent ward until the other had passed.
Although he felt relieved at his lucky escape, he was unable to relax, for his head was still spinning over the reporter’s last painful, gasped disclosures. He could hardly believe what she had told him; it was too fantastic for words. Yet, when he thought about it, it all fitted, just like the last pieces of a complicated jigsaw. But what to do with the information, that was the point? Running to Ansell with it was the proper thing to do, for, if Naomi’s allegations were true, it would bring the inquiry to a very speedy end and maybe save Kate Hamblin’s life.
He scowled to himself. Problem was, did he want Kate Hamblin to survive – any more than he’d wanted Naomi Betjeman to survive? She had always been an irritant to him and now it seemed very likely that she would be given his job if, as he suspected, he got the push or was thrown off CID when he was finally done for drink-driving. Could be that this guy, Twister, would be inadvertently doing him a favour by wasting her? He might still lose his job, but at least he would have the satisfaction of knowing Hamblin would not benefit from it.
Yeah, and then there was the question of Ansell. If he did spill the beans to the cold clinical DCI, would it make any difference to his own precarious position? Ansell wouldn’t be able to do a touch of the quid pro quos and get him off his drink-driving charge in any case; it wasn’t within the DCI’s power. So the best thing he could hope for from his boss was a word in the right ear at the top to stop him being sacked. But even if Ansell was prepared to do that, and he doubted it with all the other baggage he was already carrying, it would still mean the humiliation of being put back in uniform – maybe even reduced to the rank of constable. And it would also mean having to admit to being in cahoots with Naomi Betjeman, which would land him in an even worse predicament over any subsequent inquiry into the leak of information to the Clarion. Shit, he couldn’t risk that!
So what then? Forget what Naomi had said? Let the psycho get on with his stuff regardless? Make out he knew nothing? Tempting, very tempting. But he knew deep down that that would not be enough for him. Knowledge was power, and, like most CID officers, he loved having information about something that no one else had access to.
Then he frowned as another option occurred to him, one so obvious that he was surprised he hadn’t considered it before, for it had the potential of not only solving his present dilemma, but his financial problems as well. It was risky, but there again, if he took the right precautions, there was no reason why it shouldn’t succeed. Then Ansell could stick the bloody job right up his trim little jacksie!
Feeling nervous, but excited, he slipped into his bedroom and bent down to pull open the bottom drawer of a small chest of drawers. Feeling beneath a pile of sweaters, he extracted a bulky object bound up in an old oily cloth. Carrying it gingerly through to the living room, he unwrapped it on the dining table and stood for a moment staring at the old snub-nosed Smith & Wesson revolver, his stomach twisting as he looked at it.
He had had the gun ever since the drugs raid on the house in Bristol several years before. He’d been on uniform at the time – part of a detail supplying mutual aid from his own district – and he’d found the gun hidden in an external waste pipe. Should have handed it in as evidence, of course, but he’d decided to keep it as a souvenir instead, hiding it in the plastic lunchbox of the rucksack that he’d taken with him on the operation. No one had suspected a thing and none of the low-life they’d arrested at the place were going to come forward and report the gun missing, were they? Yeah, unbeknown to his colleagues, he’d been a bad boy throughout his short service, but he’d always managed to avoid getting caught – until the drink-driving thing came along anyway.
Weighing the gun carefully in his hand, he felt a thrill run through him. He had once fancied himself as a member of the force’s armed unit and had actually applied for a vacancy earlier in his service, but his application hadn’t got beyond the ‘in’ tray of his wily old sergeant, so he’d gone for CID instead. Now that job looked like heading for the buffers, maybe, just maybe, this little souvenir would help him to get him some compensation for the way he had been treated.
Opening the cylinder, he inserted the three .38 calibre shells, with which the gun had originally been loaded, into three of its chambers, wondering, with a sense of perverse excitement, why the weapon had not been fully loaded when he’d found it and whether it might have been fired by the previous owner in the commission of some serious crime, maybe even murder. Finally closing it, he held the revolver in the two-handed grip he imagined to be the combat stance of a member of the firearms team – and which he had so far only seen demonstrated in television dramas – swinging around the room and aiming at nothing in particular, while grinning inanely.
Then, abruptly straightening, he returned the revolver to the table before crossing to his drinks cabinet to pour himself a whisky. Slumped in his armchair again, he sat there, sipping his drink and going over the haphazard plan that was forming bit by bit in his mind. It could work, but did he have the balls for it, that was the point? Once he slipped that gun into his pocket and went through his front door into the street, it was the point of no return for him; he had crossed the line for good. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ a voice in his brain warned. ‘Put the thing back in the drawer.’ But there was another voice chiming in too. ‘It’s your big chance,’ it urged. ‘You’ll never get one like this again.’
Plagued by nail-biting indecision, it was late in the afternoon before he finally made up his mind. Then, slipping the revolver into his coat pocket, he jerked open the front door and stepped out into the communal hallway, slamming the door shut behind him with an air of finality. Doctor Jekyll had become Mr Hyde; he had decided to cross the line. But, as he headed out of the building and over the road towards his parked car, he was unaware of the fact that police colleagues were already on their way to see him and that, had he decided to leave minutes later, he would have been prevented from heading into yet another personal disaster.
Kate and Lewis had received the radio call as they were heading back to Highbridge police station and they were at the hospital within twenty minutes.
The staff nurse Kate had had words with before was still on duty and she gave a faint bitter smile of recognition the moment she clapped eyes on the detective. Naomi had been moved from the critical care unit to the mortuary, but the uniformed police constable who had been sent to the hospital had used his common sense, after telephoning the police control-room, and stayed with the body.
‘This is now a suspected murder,’ Kate commented, ‘and we will need the Home Office pathologist to examine the body before anything else is done. We will also be needing a statement from you and the doctor who certified death.’
The staff nurse nodded, obviously anxious to get back to her duties in the CCU. ‘No problem,’ she said, ‘but your officer was actually at the deceased’s bedside moments before she died, so he could obviously tell you more about her last moments.’
Kate raised an eyebrow and nodded toward the uniformed man standing to one side of her. ‘You mean this officer?’ she queried, while the young bobby shook his head several times in absolute denial.
The st
aff nurse hissed impatiently. ‘No, not him – he arrived afterwards – I am talking about the plainclothes officer you sent.’
‘Plainclothes officer?’ Lewis chimed in. ‘What plainclothes officer?’
The Staff shrugged. ‘He flashed his ID card, but didn’t leave his name.’
‘And you let him in here just like that?’ Kate exclaimed, adding before the nurse could respond, ‘You seem to make a habit of this, don’t you? Like the woman visitor you admitted earlier.’
The nurse seemed to shrink into her uniform. ‘I … I’m a staff nurse, not … not a security officer,’ she blurted. ‘I have other seriously ill patients and—’
Lewis interjected with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘This is getting us nowhere,’ he said. ‘What did this officer look like?’
The nurse swallowed several times, plainly very worried now, but she was able to give a very clear description, so clear, in fact, that Lewis interrupted her again halfway through. ‘Phil Sharp,’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s him down to a tee.’
Kate threw him a penetrating glance. ‘Sharp? But why would he be here?’
Lewis grunted. ‘Speak to you in the car,’ he muttered, then turned to the nurse. ‘Sounds like one of our CID sergeants, dear,’ he patronized. ‘So, don’t worry about it. But we’ll leave this officer here to prevent any other visitors dropping in before we can get the pathologist out. OK?’
The nurse left quickly then, seemingly much relieved, but Kate was in a completely different frame of mind when they got back to the car. ‘Bloody hell!’ she exploded. ‘Why was that little shit here?’
Lewis winced at her language. ‘Maybe trying to make sure she kept quiet about their little arrangement,’ he replied grimly.
