SIXTEEN

The next morning, having not really slept after Greenway’s call, I mentally consigned writing to a bottom drawer and threw myself into domesticity and innocent family matters, beginning by giving Carrie an unexpected day off. Perhaps Patrick had been right and I was trying to cut myself into too many pieces already, never mind taking on restoring a house.

‘I wish I could go with Unc— Dad on some of his assignments,’ Matthew said wistfully when he, Katie and Justin were having their breakfast. Vicky had woken early, as she tended to, been given a bowl of porridge sweetened with honey and promptly gone back to sleep on the sofa in the living room.

‘I want to!’ Justin yelled through a mouthful of boiled egg.

‘Don’t shout,’ Katie scolded. Lately, she seemed to have taken it upon herself to curb his noisier excesses. I found this quite amusing, and helpful, but made no comment – that’s what big sisters are for, isn’t it?

In an unfamiliar and happy mumsy glow I joined them with my buttered toast around the big farmhouse kitchen table saying to Matthew, ‘It’s not like the police shows on TV, not just exciting chases and always getting their man. Quite boring for most of the time really.’

‘I know. But I could help him. Someone my age wouldn’t be noticed by crooks if I was watching a place. They’d say, “It’s just a stupid kid.” I can do stupid.’ And proceeded to look very stupid indeed, setting Katie laughing.

‘Tell Mum how you found out who had pinched Tom’s pens and stuff at school,’ she urged. ‘Just by staring at the boy you thought had done it until he panicked and threw them back.’

‘You just have,’ Matthew whispered. ‘It’s nothing to brag about.’

This shook me to the core. It had never entered my head that he was like his uncle. No, stupid me; he looks very much like him at that age, as family photos prove and while Elspeth always says that Justin is exactly like his father as a child, being noisy, a show-off and naughty, here was another version, the clever bit.

‘You have to be very good with people,’ I said. ‘Know when suspects are lying, be able to get to the truth, be sympathetic with victims of crime but a bit horrible to people you know are guilty.’

‘He went off with DCI Carrick last night, didn’t he?’ Matthew went on, raising an eyebrow questioningly in the direction of one of my pieces of toast. ‘May I?’

I gave it to him and got up to make some more. So he possessed that mannerism as well.

‘I heard a car and looked out. I like James,’ Matthew went on. ‘He did say I could call him James. I just wish I could have . . .’ His voice petered out unhappily.

‘They’ll have gone somewhere nasty,’ Katie said matter-of-factly. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have gone in the middle of the night.’

‘How do you know they weren’t driving to London for a rugby match at Twickenham this afternoon?’ I enquired.

Matthew shook his head. ‘There are no matches there today.’

‘You thought of that then?’ I went on to ask, hearing the incredulity in my tone.

‘Yes, we were talking about it this morning. We know James plays rugby. He’s going to coach me when I start playing, but it can’t be that.’ Matthew regarded me brightly. ‘So they went to London?’

‘I can’t discuss it with you, I’m afraid.’

‘That might have to be today’s mystery then,’ Katie announced.

‘You have mysteries?’ I said, feeling that showing an interest would mitigate my negative response.

‘We work on them most days,’ she answered. ‘But if they’re not solved quickly they can go on for weeks until we either get an answer or put them in the question mark file.’

‘Mysteries such as what?’ I wheedled.

Eyes bright with enthusiasm she said, ‘Did you know that the man who digs the graves with that machine thing has a girlfriend and they smoke pot in the hut in the churchyard where the grass-cutting tools are kept?’

‘No,’ I said evenly.

‘We think they do other things in there too.’

‘Katie!’ Matthew hissed.

‘And there’s a wholesale butcher’s delivery-man . . .’ She broke off and asked Matthew, ‘Wholesale? Is that right?’

‘Wholesale,’ he confirmed.

‘Who often parks his lorry by the pub, takes a whole load of meat in and comes out with crates of beer and several bottles of whisky.’

‘That must have a perfectly logical explanation,’ I said.

She was unabashed. ‘Right now we’re working on the case of the man in the black Mercedes who’s been just sitting in it at the top of the village.’

I went cold. ‘When did you first notice him?’

‘Just before you had your accident. Then he disappeared. But he’s back now, we saw him yesterday on the way home from school.’

‘I suppose you didn’t get the registration.’

‘We did. I’ll get the case file,’ Matthew said and left the room.

I must have looked at Katie a bit wildly for she said, ‘We’re very careful when we’re operating. Just stupid kids, hanging out.’

Matthew came back with a red folder, explained that they were colour-coded depending on the perceived degree of potential seriousness – only he didn’t use such long words – and opened it to reveal a single sheet of neatly printed information.

‘May I have a look?’ I asked.

He passed it over.

Noted down were the dates and times when they had seen it, where the vehicle had been parked, and the registration. Fantastically, there was also a description of the driver as he had got out of the car to stretch his legs.

‘This might be important,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘Is it all right for me to take a copy of it?’

They were delighted.

‘And you must promise me, really promise, that you won’t, under any circumstances, go near this car again or even watch it from a distance. If it does have a bearing on a case Patrick told me about then you’ll very likely risk the outcome of the investigation. Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ they said in unison.

‘Promise?’

They promised.

‘We’d better make it the rubbish dumping in the lane job then,’ Katie was saying as they left the kitchen. ‘Look for names and addresses in it. Oh,’ she put her head around the door. ‘If we just happen to spot the car when we’re around do you want to know?’

‘Don’t happen to be anywhere near where it was. And wear my gardening gloves if you’re handling rubbish.’

Feeling a bit weak and picturing broken glass, used syringes, razor blades and tin cans, I glared at Justin who immediately stopped what he was doing, smearing spilt egg yoke more widely over the front of his clean-on teeshirt.

‘Ever seen Daddy do that?’ I asked grimly of him.

He nodded solemnly and then gave me Patrick’s lovely smile.

The description did not match that of the man who had attacked me in Boyles House so, whatever the truth of Alexandra’s past or present circumstances, she was a three-yob woman, at least. This one was fifty to sixty years of age, grey-haired but balding, of medium height and had appeared to be wearing a lot of gold jewellery. I sent the information listed on the sheet of A4, exactly as it was, to Greenway’s work email address, there was no point in bothering him with it at home. I knew that his mobile was never switched off except when he was on holiday, presumably taken on an Antarctic ice shelf, but was determined to contact him only as a last resort. Having access to vehicle records I set about finding out to whom the Mercedes belonged. Anything I found out could be relayed to Patrick.

The car was registered to one Romano Descallier, his address in Berkshire. I ran the information through crime records and discovered that this gaming club and wine bar proprietor – he owned several businesses in London – had served twelve months for demanding money with menaces in his youth but had since matured sufficiently to be charged with tax evasion, GBH, of which he was cleared on account of witnesses failing to turn up in court, a hit and run offence for which he lost his licence and served two years, culminating in driving whilst disqualified and assaulting a police officer. This case was still on the book as he had jumped bail.

‘So he’s another one who’s fallen through holes in the system,’ I muttered.

After checking on my family, Mark asleep in his pram in the garden just outside the window, Vicky awake but still on the sofa in the next room playing happily with her three Teddies, Justin in the dining room with me crawling around the floor with toy cars and spittily making all the sound effects, the elder two presumably picking over someone’s rubbish, I rang Alan Kilmartin.

Why did my heart still thump madly every time I heard his voice?

‘Did Alexandra ever mention a man by the name of Romano Descallier?’ I asked when we had exchanged greetings and I had told him that Patrick and the Met police were working on the phone call he had received from her.

‘Yes, she did. He was one of her clients.’

‘He may well be involved. Do you know what kind of staff she supplied him with?’

‘A butler, a nanny, I think, plus other people like gardeners and cleaners. It seems he was very fussy – always sacking his staff on excuses that Alex said were downright flimsy.’

‘It doesn’t sound as though she liked him.’

‘He infuriated her but – and I might be quite wrong here – I think, on the quiet, she came to quite fancy him, perhaps on account of his being loaded.’

I filed that snippet away and said, ‘Do you know if she ever went to his house?’

‘We both did. We were invited to a Christmas bash one year.’

‘Look, I know you’re terribly busy but—’

‘I’m not, it’s Saturday and anyway there’s nothing pressing.’

‘Would you write down what you can remember about this man, his home, any family, everything you noticed, and email it to me?’

‘It might be easier for me to come over – that’s if you don’t mind. I can do you a drawing of the place and a rough plan of the room layout as well if that might be useful to the police. He insisted on showing everyone round – a complete poser if you ask me.’

‘Please do, but as Patrick’s parents have gone out for the day I have full charge of five children.’

‘Oh, I like kids.’

I then went into panic mode over what I could give everyone for lunch.

I need not have worried. From the moment he walked through the door carrying a large cardboard tube that contained sheets of drawing paper everything was in hand. First, we lunched on jacket potatoes with various fillings and salad followed by what was left of a large home-made chocolate gateau that Elspeth had won in a village raffle and had begged me to help them finish. Then, while I quickly tidied up, Alan Kilmartin spread a few sheets of paper on the kitchen table, together with some professional felt-tip pens in the most fantastic colours I had ever seen and got the three eldest busily designing their dream houses. Having already told me that his two sisters had babies he then dandled Mark, who had been squalling, on his knee. Vicky, bless her sweet little soul, was still having a quiet day, had eaten a large lunch and was, once again, asleep on the sofa.

We took our coffee, and Mark, into the dining room where I cleared a corner of my desk and Alan got to work.

‘How do you write in here?’ he broke off to ask. ‘There must be far too many distractions.’

‘With difficulty,’ I answered.

‘You ought to have your own space.’

‘That’s why I wanted to buy a house in Bath. Unfortunately, you-know-who had seen it first. I’ve lost it now, she put in a higher offer.’

‘Don’t give up hope. She often sees something she decides she wants even more and drops what had been the latest toy. Unless she’s an innocent victim in all this she’ll end up in court and probably won’t need it anyway. Nasty of me, I know, but I rather hope she gets locked up.’

What he had said would be a rough sketch was turning out to be what looked to me like a finely executed and detailed plan.

‘Please be very careful over this Descallier character,’ Alan said a couple of minutes later. ‘Since you rang I’ve been thinking about what went on that evening and have decided that my conclusions that he was merely a poser with very poor taste was because I had been looking at him through the bottom of a champagne glass for a lot of the time. There were some dodgy-looking people there with whom he seemed to have some kind of understanding.’

‘What else went on that made you suspicious?’

‘It was just the atmosphere. Convivial on the surface but with not too pleasant undertones. Meaningful looks, Descallier sending people off on some errand or other with a scowl and a jerk of his head, a general feeling of unease – hard to describe actually.’

An argument, Justin shouting, again, having broken out in the kitchen, Kilmartin left the room before I could move and I heard him point out that drawing offices were very quiet places and any real problems should be referred to the dining room. Silence fell.

No one, he went on to tell me, had been introduced to the guests as a wife or partner and no children or very young people had been present. There had been plenty of young women around though, some of whom had given the impression they lived there. The house was large, modern and situated close to Windsor Great Park.

‘Is your husband planning to break into this place and that’s why you want the information?’ he went on to ask lightly.

‘I don’t think so, but he might when I tell him about it.’

Later, when he had gone, I rang Patrick and left a message, his phone being switched off, which I had half expected. There was no response until quite late in the evening when I was able to relax, Carrie having returned and happy to carry on with her duties.

‘We’re in a pub,’ was Patrick’s first piece of news.

‘Fancy that,’ I said.

‘We deserve a pint and something to eat. James broke all the speed limits except where there were cameras and we got here in time to take apart four one-time or active pimps who he knew about before they crawled back into their sewers. Another two were in prison and the last was dead. We didn’t learn an awful lot but got the whereabouts of an old warehouse that’s known to have been used to conceal female immigrants, legal and otherwise, and went there. The place is deserted but it’s obvious that people have been living there quite recently. Boyles House was mentioned by one man but he didn’t know any details. We’d called there on the off-chance on the way but Fred doesn’t work nights. Then we had a kip in the car and now we’re fuelled to follow another lead, an address in east London that someone swore is being used for what was described as a holding pen. What’s this about something the kids have found out?’

I had not previously gone into details but did so now, finishing by saying, ‘In my view this would be a more profitable line of enquiry. This man could be the boss. He followed me to Warminster, and now he’s back. Matthew and Katie saw him the day before yesterday.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that. I’ll ring you back when I’ve spoken to James.’

Quite a while went by before my phone rang again.

‘Understandably James doesn’t want to get involved with breaking into a private house without a warrant,’ Patrick said. ‘And I’ll have to get Greenway on board, ditto. We’re going to have a nose around the place in Chingford that I mentioned just now and then, if that doesn’t lead anywhere call it a day. James will then drive back home and organize some surveillance around Hinton Littlemoor. I’ll go to my club and contact Greenway. Would you email me the drawings and plans Kilmartin drew up?’

‘I can’t, they’re on A3 paper, too big to scan in to our machine. I’ll bring them.’

‘There’s every chance that Descallier, or one of his minions, will follow you.’

‘He might not be around at four in the morning if I leave then. If he is, or someone else is standing in for him and tails me I’ll just shoot out his tyres.’

‘No, I think you should concentrate on losing him – we don’t want this character to know we’re really on to him.’

It was nice to know that he took my threat seriously.

Brave statements apart I still tended to unlock the Range Rover with fear gnawing at my insides. I had been keeping it parked as close to the house as possible so that if anyone approached it during the night the outside security lights would come on. Still not being able to recollect those few minutes of my life made it worse and every time I went anywhere near the vehicle I checked that there were no tell-tale drips of brake fluid on the ground beneath it.

Those still abed had been warned of my early departure and as the tyres crunched over the gravel of the drive I wondered if Matthew and Katie were now awake and this would be their new mystery. Perhaps Mike Greenway would permit us to show them a small part of SOCA’s HQ next time we took them to London.

No black Mercs were parked in the High Street of the village and no one appeared to follow me. I had been on the road for over an hour, the sky lightening, before I saw a familiar black shape in my rear mirror. I was on the outskirts of a village and immediately turned left into a small housing estate where I did a U-turn and then parked, facing the way I had come in. Switching off the ignition and lights I waited.

Five minutes went by. Light traffic whooshed to and fro on the main road but no one came into this quite little enclave, not even a dog barked. I set off again, prepared for the vehicle to be similarly parked in a side road while the driver waited for me to pass. A few miles farther on I had not seen it and began to relax, chiding myself for having got in a mild flap over what had obviously been another black Mercedes, hardly an uncommon vehicle.

Patrick’s club – a low-key, but frankly, sumptuous affair for ex-officers who have been severely injured in the course of duty – is in Chiswick and I got there just in time for breakfast. This, and my arrival, had previously been arranged, the club being sufficiently old-fashioned to prefer members not to have females arrive out of the blue. I had asked on a previous visit if ladies who fitted the criteria were allowed to join and had been told they were: it was just that there weren’t any. And no, the place isn’t one of those stuffy establishments where old fogies sit around dozing, waiting to die. Behind the scenes it is a meeting place, the heart of an information network, a grapevine, for MI5, MI6, covert police departments, including SOCA and Special Branch. Most of the people who go through its doors are not members at all, but, like me, ‘visitors’.

Patrick, who keeps a change of clothing on the premises as a certain standard of dress is expected, was waiting for me in the entrance hall, actually a large room furnished with armchairs and sofas with a coffee bar in one corner. When I first glimpsed him, standing by a table reading the headlines of one of the morning newspapers placed upon it, my heart turned over, as it usually does. Here, surely, was the other side of the coin to the man who had gone away just over twenty-four hours previously with murder writ large in his eyes. But not so, I saw when we were close: his smile when he looked up and saw me was genuine but he was as taut as a bowstring.

‘No luck then?’ I said, after I had signed the visitors’ book at reception and we had exchanged a quick kiss.

‘Yes, in a way. I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Were you followed?’

I handed over the drawings in the cardboard tube that Alan Kilmartin had left behind for me to use. ‘There was a Merc behind me at one stage but it hadn’t followed me from the village. And this man or his henchmen can’t possibly wait for me to go somewhere around the clock.’

When we were seated in the dining room; heavy blue brocade curtains, gold-coloured carpet, marble fireplace, chandeliers, discreet bar, Patrick signalled to the waiter. Then he said, ‘I’ve been on to Greenway with your info. Descallier’s hot. Friend of Cabinet ministers – on the quiet – financier of political parties, whichever one best suits his inclinations, racehorse owner and on nodding terms with minor royalty. There’s no question that any vehicle registered to him – and it would have been driven by an employee – could have been remotely connected with what happened to you as it would retrospectively be reported stolen as he’s a chum of a couple of top cops too.’

‘We have a problem.’

‘Quite.’

We ordered our breakfast and then I said, ‘I know he has a criminal record.’

‘Yes, as long as your arm, under different aliases and in different countries.’

‘I can’t understand why he’s bothering himself with what would appear to be taking over Alexandra’s business.’

‘It’s the contacts he’d be after. And people like him have their dirty fingers in so many pies, employing so many bit players who are terrified of them that it becomes almost impossible to trace crime back to the man at the top. Like Martino Capelli, only worse.’

‘I take it then that Special Branch is already working on this.’

‘Any number of branches are.’

‘Are there undercover people inside the house?’

‘According to Greenway, no – too risky. I shall take these plans to Mike.’

‘What about the couple of top cops?’

‘Being watched – and due for retirement.’

‘Which makes it stalemate as far as we’re concerned.’

‘We could go and have a look at the place.’