Anna told Sweeny to follow her as she broke into a run.
‘Forget about the car,’ she called out. ‘It’ll be just as quick on foot.’
‘Where are we going, guv?’
‘The Falconer’s Arms,’ Anna said.
The blood pulsed and hammered inside Anna’s head as she raced along the street towards the pub. It was in the direction that the neighbour had said Benning had walked off in, and it was only a few minutes away from the café.
Anna’s gut was telling her that Benning had gone there because the building obviously held a special place in his heart and mind. So if he intended to end his own life then it might well be where he’d decide to do it. If she was wrong then no doubt he’d be long dead before they found him.
Her breath was constricting every time she inhaled, and when she saw the pub up ahead she felt a hot flush in her veins.
A sign had been hung on a chain across the entrance warning people that the building was unsafe and not to trespass. Anna stepped over it and jogged across the forecourt to the double doors that had been put back in place with boards across them.
She hurried around to the back of the building with Sweeny close behind her. Straight away she saw that since the fire nothing much had been done to make the place more secure. The lock on one of the back doors was still broken, and the glass that had been missing from two of the ground-floor windows still hadn’t been replaced. Anna and Sweeny gained access to the badly damaged interior within seconds.
It still stank of smoke and damp, and they had to take great care as they made their way across the debris-strewn floor.
There was no sign of life in the ravaged bar area, so Anna headed for the stairs that led down into the cellar.
Shafts of light seeped through gaps in the ceiling created by Friday’s fire. So even before she reached the bottom of the stairs, Anna was able to see that once again she’d been right to follow her instincts.
Joe Benning was sitting on the floor, in the exact same position where Jacob Rossi had been lying on the inflatable mattress while chained to the wall by his wrists.
The detective watched Anna and Sweeny descend the stairs. In one hand he held a bottle of whisky, and in the other what looked like a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.