The following morning, Elspeth told us John had declared that the lychgate entrance to the churchyard would in future be locked at dusk, and a couple of parishioners, one a retired police sergeant, had volunteered to take it in turns to keep an eye on it during the day. A little later, James Carrick rang me with the news that one of the arrested ‘suspects’ – both were members of the travellers’ community mentioned – had been wearing a Rolex watch that had been stolen the previous week in the latest of a series of local burglaries. The travellers had packed up and disappeared overnight but were being sought as he had an idea other stolen items might be found in their vehicles. The DCI had finished by saying that someone had made a complaint about the brutal way the two men had been apprehended. Did I have any thoughts on that?
I told him that I had an idea who had made the complaint as she had been loudly proclaiming to that effect at the time. She was known in the village as an eccentric troublemaker who held the legalization of gay marriage against the rector personally and on those grounds, and others – fabricated – had tried to get Elspeth ousted from the WI. And yes, Patrick had floored each of the semi-inebriated men seemingly intent on mindless violence and rape with, for him, great restraint.
‘In that case, I hope he’s going to turn up for work on Monday,’ Carrick had replied glumly, for ever a Scot.
Patrick, who appeared to have suffered no lasting damage, did indeed set off on Monday, in a taxi as he was driving only for short distances, with a view to working mornings only throughout the week. Relieved and yet anxious at the same time, I was able to give time to writing, finding that I had to read my latest novel right through from the beginning as it had been such a long time since I had done any real work on it.
On the Wednesday, my mobile rang for the fourth time that morning and I almost hurled it into the wastepaper basket.
‘Hi, it’s Piers,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I tried to get hold of Patrick but he’s not answering his phone.’
‘I think he’s in court today,’ I said. ‘He’d have had to switch it off for most of the time.’
‘Is he recovering well?’
I mentioned the patient’s stubbornness, gave him a few other details and then asked if he wanted me to give Patrick a message.
‘Well, you can if you like. It’s just that I’ve run down Matt Dorney and thought I’d let you know.’
I promised that I would pass on the message as soon as Patrick got home and that one of us would contact him. Then I added, ‘How good are you at starting fires?’
I distinctly heard him draw in his breath through his teeth before he said, ‘I’m good at bonfires on November the fifth and barbecues.’ Then he laughed and rang off.
‘It’s real progress,’ Patrick said. ‘I’d like to know how he got the information.’
He’d had a late lunch at work and we were walking in the garden. I was holding Mark and Patrick. Vicky, who’d been to playgroup that morning, tripped on the way home and grazed both hands and her chin. Only being carried around by Daddy seemed to help the situation, and Daddy was being very stoical about it.
I had already passed on Ashley’s message and now said, ‘Dorney raged to Shandy that he thought someone was trying to drive him out and/or put him out of business. First the pub in Bath, then the club in Barking. Now Piers is saying that he’s tracked him down. To his HQ? Home? Business number three? He didn’t go into details, obviously preferring to talk to you about it. And, while we’re on the subject, what I didn’t feel I ought to bother you with is that my instincts tell me that Ashley started both fires.’
‘The oracle’s out of its bottle then.’
‘Only on licence.’
‘It’s quite a good theory. He’s been to Bath, he knew where the pub was and might have seen something that aroused his suspicions while he was there. Then he tracked down Dorney’s strip club and did the same.’
‘You don’t just burn down places on suspicion,’ I argued.
‘No, and if he did he appears to be the kind of guy who would have to have very good reasons.’
We strolled for a little longer and then, both offspring having nodded off, went back indoors and filed them appropriately, Mark in his cot and Vicky on one of the sofas, her favourite.
Patrick then gave me what I can only call an armed smile, which I hoped meant that he had no intention of committing himself to any rash enterprises, and rang Piers Ashley. Or tried to – his number was unobtainable and remained so for the rest of the day.
And the next.
This slightly alarming news was given to me when Patrick came home that evening having ended up working all day. He went off to have a shower and to say hello to everyone, came back with Vicky who was clutching a couple of teddy bears and still in need of cuddles, poured himself a tot and seated himself, his little daughter and her friends on his lap. The kittens, finding no room to curl up, perched on a shoulder each.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘From now on I refuse to have my conduct in this case dictated to by cops, ex-cops, barmy ex-army officers and a mobster who thinks he’s above the law.’
‘Piers might be in danger,’ I pointed out.
‘Everyone who goes near Dorney is in danger. But let’s put this in perspective. A man who must now be regarded as a member of the public, as Shandy is, is messing around with serious criminals. The police can’t be expected to go running to their aid without any indication of where they actually are.’
Which, of course, made me feel dreadful for not having asked Ashley for more details at the time.
In the early hours of the following morning, a wine bar not far from the Roman baths in the city was raided by several masked men who had driven down the pedestrianized street in a stolen 4x4, a Shogun, and rammed it into the building, smashing through the windows and door. The place was closed and not their main target, for they then used powerful drills to make holes in a party wall, set charges and blew a large hole through it into the jewellers next door, the front of which was protected by steel shutters. By this time, at least two intruder alarms were going off but they coolly grabbed everything they could lay their hands on in both premises, including cases of spirits and a small safe. All this was manhandled outside where, by this time, a getaway van was waiting.
A woman looking out of a window in a second-floor flat over a shop opposite had been awakened by the noise and had already dialled 999. She could only watch, horrified, as a man who seemed to be the leader of the gang appeared on the pavement shouting and swearing at the others and then shot two people who were running towards the scene, one of whom was later found to be an off-duty community support officer. Later, both he and the other man died.
‘And that wasn’t the end of it,’ James Carrick said grimly. ‘On their way out of the city, on the London Road, they deliberately knocked a nurse off her bike. She was cycling home from her shift at The Royal United Hospital. She’s back where she works with multiple injuries that she might not die from. The van was then aimed at a couple of people on a zebra crossing who managed to jump out of the way, and then the bastards fired several shots at a man sleeping rough in a shop doorway, all of which, miraculously, missed. The van has subsequently been found burnt out near Chippenham. This has all the hallmarks of someone we’ve heard of before, hasn’t it?’
Together with quite a few other people, we were in the general office of the temporary police station where, later that same morning but early by most people’s standards, the DCI was partway through holding a briefing. I rather got the impression that he hadn’t noticed we were present, which was fine by me as I love being a sort of fly on the wall.
Carrick continued, ‘A witness living in a flat opposite reported seeing four men load boxes and other stuff into a white Transit van that turned up a few minutes later. She thought the driver stayed behind the wheel of the vehicle while this was going on, although in the confusion she can’t be sure. I think one can safely assume that those same four were inside the Shogun when it rammed the wine bar premises and, rightly, the witness pointed out that she couldn’t see what was happening as the vehicle was mostly inside the building and blocked her view. One wonders why they didn’t reverse it out a bit to make getting past it with the stuff they’d stolen easier. It doesn’t appear there was any inside help – that is, no one had stayed behind in either premises to assist. Both proprietors and their staff will be interviewed as soon as we’ve finished here.’
Lynn Outhwaite entered the room in some haste and apologized for being late.
‘Any developments?’ Carrick asked her.
She said, ‘Well, as everyone will know, the badly damaged Shogun has been taken away for forensic examination. The vehicle was very dirty. The inside appears to be filthy too and, at a guess, regularly carried around several dogs. There is hay and straw on the floor, so farming or what I shall call rural pursuits might be involved. In short, there’s every chance that the fingerprints and DNA of half the population of Somerset are in, and on, it.’
‘Do we know who the owners are?’ someone wanted to know.
‘Not yet. Both registration plates had been removed.’
I wondered if whoever it belonged to had been involved in, or connected to, the raid and just happened to have a fairly worthless vehicle they wanted to get rid of.
‘There were a couple of other witnesses,’ the acting DI resumed. ‘They dived into shop doorways when the shots were fired, and after the van drove off went to the aid of the men who had been hit. Luckily, they stayed around until the ambulances and an area car arrived and left their names and addresses with the crews. I thought I would talk to them when I leave here and get any more details they might be able to give me.’
‘Then go,’ her boss said, making shooing gestures.
‘Or would you rather I gave priority to interviewing the owners of the businesses?’ she queried.
‘No, it’s OK Lynn, I’ll get someone else to do that.’
‘I’ll do it if you like,’ Patrick offered.
No, the DCI hadn’t noticed us standing at the back. ‘Something’s cropped up that I need to see you about first,’ he called.
Lynn departed and the DCI carried on with the rest of what he had to say, for a couple of minutes outlining why he regarded Matt Dorney as the main suspect.
Carrick caught up with us as everyone filed out. ‘By the way, I contacted that woman who complained about your hardline tactics and told her that you were officially on sick leave, having been shot and wounded, so I could only think that she was exaggerating.’
Patrick blew a kiss to him.
‘Just don’t go over the top with Dorney as we really, really need him alive after what’s just happened,’ the DCI said, and led the way to his office. When we arrived, he invited us to be seated and dropped into the chair behind his desk in the manner of someone who was extremely weary.
‘I got a call from Rolt, very early this morning,’ he began. ‘Apparently a man by the name of Piers Ashley, who he said used to be his assistant, appears to have gone missing. The name seems familiar and I might have seen it on the restricted access F9 website. Do you know anything about him?’
Patrick gave me an ‘over to you’ look and I told James the whole story right from when I had gone to Ashleigh Hall to talk to him on Rolt’s suggestion, mentioning that we had been unable to return a call from him.
‘What kind of man is he?’ Carrick asked me when I had finished.
‘Think of a young, upper-class ex-policeman recently crossed in love whose much respected one-time boss was violently attacked,’ I said. ‘Add hot-blooded ancestors in armour who thundered off on horses referred to as destriers, sprinkle in a bright sword, a couple of lances and a shield and stir gently. His sister appears to be Rolt’s new girlfriend and that’s the connection with Piers now.’
Carrick put his head in his hands. ‘God. What have I done to deserve this?’ There was then a fairly long silence which he broke himself by saying, ‘I’m not sure Rolt wanted me to do anything about it. Perhaps he was just keeping me in the picture.’
‘He wouldn’t feel that he was in a position to give you orders,’ Patrick observed. ‘He’s a greater stickler for protocols than Mike Greenway.’
‘So we have to ask ourselves if the apparent disappearance of Ashley is closely connected with the case of Rolt’s attempted murder.’
‘Given that he’s said he’s located Dorney, it is,’ Patrick said. After a pause, he added, ‘I know what you want to say – say it.’
The DCI met his gaze. ‘Are you well enough?’
‘Yes.’
He wasn’t.
‘OK, go and find him. See what he has to say. He might provide the golden shortcut to getting hold of this bloody mobster.’
Now, of course, I had my huge problem again – the old dilemma. Leaving Patrick out of it for a moment, there was no escaping the fact that I’m responsible for five children. Our working rules have always insisted that if one partner went away, engaged on a dangerous mission, the other remained at home or, at least, within easy reach. As previously stated, I’ve broken that rule on several occasions when I felt the situation demanded it. I supposed that if I resigned altogether from the NCA instead of working part-time they would have to find him an assistant. But would they? Not in the time available with regard to this assignment, that was for sure.
If I’m honest and admit that my first loyalty has always been to my husband, not the children, it probably makes me a freak among women, someone to be despised. We had met at school and, at fifteen, I had instantly fallen in love with him. Other girls had been put off by his somewhat lofty manner and it was only much later that I realized – he was gifted in assuming various personas, even then – that he displayed this chilly reserve with females whose motives he thought were iffy. Initially, my only motive as far as he was concerned was the fact that he had been sent round to our house – our fathers were friends – to help me with my physics homework. Soon we had become involved, not with physics but chemistry.
Now, quite a few years later, I had a good idea what would happen as it wasn’t the first time the situation had arisen recently, but this time were we not talking about going to London merely to gather evidence. There was every chance that when I told him I intended to accompany him to search for Piers Ashley he would say no. He would then instantly recollect that under such circumstances I usually follow him. On the other hand, he was certain to say, after a few moments’ thought, it was better to have me right under his nose than God knows where. There would then follow a short period of the above mentioned chilly reserve while he thought about it some more.
We were seated in the conservatory at home when I brought up the subject. He had just brought Katie back from the livery stable where they had checked on the well-being of George and Fudge. Matthew was at a friend’s house in the village, the two youngest were in bed and Justin was kicking a football around the lawn, gently, with John, the pair under the watchful eye of Elspeth as she dead-headed the last of the roses.
I stated my case. This resulted in Patrick fixing himself a tot of whisky – a bit like Sherlock Holmes’ three pipe problem, perhaps – and reseating himself at my side to pensively stare at nothing. Then, after about half a minute, he turned to gaze at me with a hint of a smile and I saw that it had been a sham.
‘Subject to the usual terms and conditions,’ he said.
I removed the whisky glass from his grasp, took a sip and gave it back. I tend to do this at New Year and in what I regard as emergencies.
‘Remember Kenneth Mackie?’ he said.
‘One of the three names on that list of mobsters being investigated by both the NCA and F9?’
‘That’s him. I found out today from someone in the Met that he’s the one trying to take over Matt Dorney’s manor. Dorney was blaming Dark Horse, Phil, for the failed raid on the off-licence, if you remember, thinking he was in the pay of a rival who hoped to get him arrested. Well, we know it was poor Phil who alerted his colleagues but that’s unimportant now. And as we also know, it’s Mackie’s policy to have a rapid turnover of what he refers to as staff in order to stay ahead of the game and confuse the cops.’
‘Rolt thought that Dorney might assume you were from an outfit like that when you almost chucked his thugs into the canal.’
‘Yes. So if I improve on what must have turned into a fairly strong rumour doing the rounds among the criminal low life by going to work for Mackie, I shall be in a position to hear all the gossip and hopefully discover where Dorney is. If, in the process, I find Ashley, so much the better.’
‘That’s if he’s still alive.’
‘It’s important to remain positive. What I suggest we do is go back to Hackney, find you somewhere low-key to stay and play it like we did when we met Phil in The Barge. I’ll contact you, we can meet for a drink and you can pass on any useful intelligence I give you to relevant parties.’
‘Patrick, this Mackie character might not want you to work for him,’ I protested. And then the full meaning of what he had said hit me. ‘Not only that, I don’t think you’re strong enough yet.’
But, looking at him, I knew that particular argument was a non-starter. ‘You’ll have to prove yourself. Commit crimes!’ I persisted.
He just laughed and then, with a winning smile, asked, ‘Do you want to start by helping me write a CV?’
It occurred to me years ago that it was no good professing to be a writer of fiction if I bleated when asked to use my imagination. Pushing to the back of my mind the problem of what I was going to do all day long in Hackney in between lurking around The Barge waiting for him to put in an appearance, I set my mind to creating a persona, a ‘history’ for him. Appearance-wise, there was no point in straying too far from how he had looked during the episode in that pub, so that could be regarded as done.
This CV, of course, was not going to be handed over to anyone, merely memorized by Patrick in order to appear convincing. He had not done this before – not for any length of time, that is – and I was hoping he was going to abandon wearing the leather belt with a brass buckle in the shape of a skull that has red glass eyes. He says it brings him luck. In the past, this has usually been teamed with black jeans, a matching silk shirt and leather jacket, smarmed-down hair and a nasty scowl. This was effective and ghastly.
I felt it was important that the prospective hireling hadn’t committed any serious crimes in the past or he might be asked to repeat them. Perhaps he ought not to appear too intelligent and be capable only of beating up other mobsters’ honchos, acting as a scout while others carried out whatever crime was planned or …
I broke off from making notes, ideas having fizzled out. ‘Patrick, where are you going to draw the line? You’ll have previous convictions for what? How can I do this so you don’t end up breaking the law?’
Patrick looked up from reading, saw that Justin was still playing in the garden, glanced at his watch, realized that it was past his bedtime and got to his feet. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘You asked me to write a CV.’
‘Sorry, I’ve had a rethink. I’m going to be a one-time special operations soldier who’s killed quite a few people. I can easily do that because it’s true. So, yes, a killer.’