TWENTY

Thursday 11th April

PC MAYHEW loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. He slipped his boots off and put his feet up on the desk. It was after midnight, and no one would be coming round to check at this hour. For that matter, he hadn’t seen why he should have to be here at all, stuck out in the back of beyond in the mobile unit, but Ormside had soon set him straight.

‘Every thief in the country knows this unit’s here,’ he’d said. ‘They’d have it stripped in no time if we left it out here unguarded. That’s if they didn’t tow the whole damned unit away during the night.’

Still, he was on overtime, and he could use the money. Mayhew switched off the light above the desk, rested his head against the wall, and closed his eyes.

*   *   *

PETER FOSTER came out of a deep sleep to the sound of pounding on his door. The room was pitch dark. The noise disoriented him, and he couldn’t think where he was for a moment. As memory returned, he sat up in bed and switched on the bedside lamp. His heart was pounding hard, and he felt dizzy as he swung his legs out of bed.

‘All right! All right, I’m coming,’ he shouted as he stumbled down the stairs. ‘What’s wrong now?’

‘Police!’ bellowed a muffled voice, and Foster quailed. ‘Oh, God,’ he prayed. ‘What now?’

The pounding began again.

Foster unbolted the door and fumbled with the latch.

The door smashed inward, catching his knee and foot as it knocked him backward into the wall, and a dark figure hurled itself inside. Before Foster had a chance to catch his breath, blows rained down on his head and he felt himself slipping to the floor. Hands gripped his throat, choking him, and he gasped for air. Instead, he sucked in the foul smell of beer and smoke and whisky. He struck out with his hands and connected with a face. His fingers found soft flesh and dug in hard, clawing, scratching …

The dark figure cursed; the pressure eased, and Foster struck again. His fingers found an eye and he thrust with all his strength. The figure screamed, fell back against the door, and Foster scrambled crabwise across the floor. His hand came in contact with the doorstop, a heavy, cast-iron replica of a flat-iron used in summer to prop the door open. He grasped it by the handle, turned and swung it hard.

The long, piercing scream brought Mayhew wide awake. He scrambled to his feet, searching in the darkness for his boots. He listened as he found the switch and turned on the light, but the sound was not repeated. Probably a fox or something like that, he tried to tell himself as he shoved his feet into his boots, but there had been something very human about that cry. Jesus Murphy! Ormside would have his balls on a plate if something had happened over at the cottage.

His wavering torch picked out the black Volvo in the driveway, and he slowed his pace. Mayhew wasn’t one to walk blindly into an unknown situation. He inched cautiously toward the front door of the cottage and saw that it was open. He shone the torch inside.

The body of a man lay on the floor, and beyond him sat Foster on the bottom step of the stairs. He was clad only in pyjamas. One sleeve had been torn away, leaving his arm bare from shoulder to elbow. His head was in his hands, and he was shaking so hard his teeth were chattering. Blood oozed from beneath his chin. It soaked the front of his pyjamas, and even as Mayhew watched, the dark and ugly stain grew larger.

‘Jesus Murphy!’

Mayhew didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until Foster looked up. ‘I think I’m going to…’ he began, but choked on the words and toppled forward on to the floor.

*   *   *

FOSTER WILL BE in hospital for several days at least,’ said Paget. ‘His windpipe is damaged; and an artery was nicked during the struggle. It wasn’t all that serious, but he did lose quite a lot of blood. Fortunately, Mayhew knew enough first aid to keep it from becoming worse prior to the ambulance arriving.

‘As for Merrick, he has a concussion, and he has a damaged eye. He’s lucky, though. If that flat-iron had done any more than clip the side of his head, he’d have been dead. As it is, the doctors say he should make a full recovery.’

Christ! What a balls-up. Alcott looked grim as he squinted at Paget through a veil of smoke. ‘All right,’ he said wearily. ‘Let’s run through it all again. You say you can place Foster in Chester as late as nine o’clock on the evening of March 12th, and he paid his bill at the hotel at seven thirty the following morning.’

‘Right,’ said Paget. ‘He left the hotel and went directly to a meeting with people from British Rail and the advertising firm hired to do the brochures. We’ve spoken to the people who were there, and they all say that Foster was perfectly calm and focused on the job in hand. I can’t see Foster remaining that calm if he’d just killed Gray and was worried sick about where Lisa was and whether or not she was alive. Neither can I see him coming home that evening and going through an elaborate charade to cover up the killing if he’d done the killing himself. It makes no sense at all.’

Alcott gave a grudging nod. ‘What about Merrick?’

‘He could have done it,’ Paget agreed. ‘He was close by. He could have returned to the house, found Gray there with Lisa, and gone berserk. Foster’s shotgun was there to hand, and I’m sure Lisa would have reloaded after shooting at him in case he decided to come back. But we have no evidence to connect him to the killing. Foster saw to that by his meddling. We’re working on it, but we’ve had no luck so far.’

Alcott swung round to face the window, but he was oblivious to the view across the playing fields. ‘You say Foster’s a nonstarter,’ he said irritably, ‘and we can’t question Merrick. What the hell can we do?’

‘There are several things,’ said Paget more confidently than he felt. He pulled his chair closer to Alcott’s desk. ‘Melrose has been busy trying to find out what happened to the company car that Gray used the day he went to meet Lisa. No one admits to seeing it again until it turned up at the weekend in the car-park behind Freeman Protronics, and I’ve always been curious about that. I think it’s possible that someone in the firm could be involved in all this, and I intend to do more digging there today.’

Alcott swung back to face him. ‘What about Merrick?’ he demanded.

‘We haven’t forgotten Merrick,’ said Paget quietly.

Alcott grunted. He’d hoped that Paget would have more than this. Hoped, but he knew better than to expect it. Alcott had been in Paget’s shoes, and he knew how hard it was. But Chief Superintendent Brock was breathing down his neck, and he felt so damned helpless.

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Get on with it, then. And for God’s sake let me know the minute you get anything positive. I could use a bit of good news.’

Paget rose to his feet, pausing as he reached the door. ‘Lisa’s mother is coming down this morning to verify that the body of the girl we brought in yesterday is in fact her daughter,’ he said.

Alcott grimaced as he pulled a pile of reports towards him. ‘I hope Starkie has been able to make her look better than when we saw her last,’ he said. ‘Anything else from him yet about how the girl died?’

‘No. Not till later on today.’

Alcott nodded gloomily. ‘It’ll rain tonight,’ he said.

Paget searched for the connection. ‘Sir?’

Alcott flexed his arm. ‘Bloody elbow. Hurts like hell. Sure sign of rain.’

*   *   *

‘I PICKED IT UP from your own notes, sir,’ said Melrose smugly. ‘You say in there that Porter never uses a company car. Yet I have a statement from a Miss Emma Lake—she lives in a flat on the top floor overlooking Porter’s driveway—in which she says she saw a company car parked there several days running last month. Porter’s house sits back a bit, and you can’t see much of it from the road because of high hedges and shrubs. But you look right down in there from her window. The only trouble is, she can’t remember the dates. She knows it was around the middle of the month, but she can’t swear to the dates.’

It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Porter had been nervous about something throughout the interview. Perhaps this was it.

‘How old is this woman?’ he asked abruptly. ‘And how’s her eyesight?’

‘She’d be about fifty, I’d say,’ said Melrose. ‘She’s a teacher. Lives alone, and her eyesight is good. I asked her to identify several cars and tell me what people were wearing down in the street, and she was spot on every time.’

‘Glasses?’

Melrose felt pleased with himself. Paget wasn’t going to catch him out. ‘Wears them all the time, sir. Never without them.’ He waited, but Paget appeared to be deep in thought. Now, he thought, was as good a time as any to produce the prize.

‘There was one other thing,’ he said casually. ‘Miss Lake saw the car being driven away early one Sunday morning just as she was getting ready for church. Eight o’clock service. She said she hasn’t seen it since.’

‘And the driver? Was it Porter?’

‘Sorry, sir. She didn’t see who it was. She just saw the car going out into the street.’

‘Turning in which direction?’

‘Ahh!’ Melrose swallowed hard. ‘I—er, forgot to ask that particular question, sir,’ he said. Paget glanced up sharply. ‘I—um, I’ll ring her straightaway.’