The four men in the Volvo didn’t need a warning to remain silent. Tony had put his hand over the mobile and the others read horror in his face. Lamb took out a notebook and pen and began to write, then put a note in front of O’Reilly, who nodded.
He showed the note to the other two. ‘We’ve got to hang on to Alex but get off the speaker from our end. I can do that and listen.’
Silently, Tony gave the man his phone. Lamb slid on a headset and attached a wire to the mobile. He made some adjustments and said, ‘Now I can hear them but they wouldn’t hear us. We’re off at this end.’
‘Where are they?’ O’Reilly drove fast, while Tony prayed they wouldn’t have to deal with a zealous police stop. ‘Can’t use a light or siren,’ O’Reilly added, as if he read Tony’s mind.
‘They can’t be far from Bourton-on-the-Water but Will told her to turn off.’
‘Turn off where, man?’ O’Reilly said. ‘They’re headed for the A40.’
The rare sound of car horns blared all around them. A path had begun to open as vehicles swerved out of the way.
‘Alex is shrieking about something,’ Lamb said. ‘Laughing?’
Tony’s stomach turned over. ‘Is she still shouting about a llama farm?’
‘Yeah … No, not any more. She doesn’t know where they are … He keeps telling her to just drive.’
‘She was trying to let you know where she was,’ James Harrison said. Like Tony, he leaned forward to grip the seat in front of him. ‘Llama farm? You know anyone with llamas? Treat any?’
‘Will’s losing it,’ Lamb said, looking at Tony. ‘He hates her.’
‘I don’t care what—’
Lamb’s upheld hand shut Tony up.
‘According to him, if she’d kept her nose out of it he’d have been all right. The money had started coming again. It was more than I ever hoped for. I’m quoting Will here. That silly bugger Leonard found where that piece of filth, Cornelius Derwinter, kept an account he used to keep current with what he owed me.’
‘Owed him,’ James Harrison scoffed.
‘Psht!’ Lamb’s hand went up again. ‘The fool had started paying up again – took him a bit but he got the picture in the end. Either he paid me or I let everyone know about his sainted father. That slag of a wife of his, snooty bitch, she was on my side whether she wanted to be or not. She wasn’t having her crown tarnished. It was beautiful. If bloody Edward hadn’t come back from the dead, showing up at the Black Dog and wanting to do his holier-than-thou revelation of the truth so he could throw forgiveness around, we wouldn’t be here now – as long as you took the hint you weren’t wanted and cleared out. Uppity cow.’
‘Code,’ O’Reilly said, driving between two lorries with flapping canvas sides. ‘Sounds like code.’
‘I want to get my hands on him,’ Tony said, and didn’t even close his eyes against being turned into a lorry sandwich on a non-existent lane. ‘No more doubt it was Edward.’
‘Think about llamas,’ his father shouted. ‘And listen to me. Graham Cummings wasn’t Graham Cummings. He was Cornelius Derwinter’s boy.’
‘For God’s sake, Dad. Are you serious?’
‘Never more serious. I always wondered if Will had anything to do with Edward being sent away. A sort of payoff because Cornelius had his two sons and had even taken away the one Will thought was his. I heard Will try to say Edward pushed the little boy but he wasn’t like that. It would never have happened – and he was almost catatonic by the time I got to the river. And nowhere near where Graham had fallen.’
‘Shit,’ O’Reilly muttered. ‘That’s what this was all about. Will being cuckolded and turning it to his own advantage. Perpetual payoff. What kind of a man does that? If he’d killed Cornelius I might have got it, but all this?’
‘Listen,’ Tony’s dad said. ‘Will wasn’t to know what could happen if he left a young wife alone in a cottage up on the Derwinter estate. Cornelius had a reputation. After his wife died … well, with or without Cathy’s willing participation, she became pregnant but nothing was said. That’s how I pieced it all together. Cathy as good as admitted it to me at one point. It was obvious Will never knew until the accident, and given that there was never any sign of another pregnancy with him and Cathy, it could be he’s sterile. That drives some men mad. It wasn’t until the lad hit his head and drowned that it came out, and then it was only by chance I overheard what I did. When I got there Cornelius Derwinter had the boy’s body in his arms and he was crying over him. I heard him say, ‘My son, my son.’ Will heard it, too. I’m sure he didn’t know before that. But it was obvious he got it then. He looked at me and I saw it in his eyes. It was never mentioned again. Next we knew, Will and Cathy were in the Black Dog – it belonged to Cornelius, like most things around here.’
Signs for the villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter came up on the left.
‘Llama farm!’ Tony yelled. ‘I’ve seen it. Back there. We’ve gone past the bloody thing.’
‘Oh, fuck!’ O’Reilly checked his rear-and side-view mirrors. ‘Hold on. Use the light, Bill. Can’t risk the siren.’
Lamb lowered his window and slapped a light up top. O’Reilly leaned on the horn. Oncoming traffic in the other lane reacted slowly, a van driver hitting his brakes, then speeding up again. Two cars after him did the same thing.
A motorcycle tried to get off the road and hit an orange and yellow barricade, sending splintered wood and metal flying and workers leaping for a ditch.
‘Pay attention, you stupid gits!’ Lamb yelled. ‘Something’s changing in Alex’s car, boss. He’s yelling at her so loud I can’t hear a word. He’s threatening her, I can tell that much.’