Czech Mate (31 page)

‘Tom!' said Max's voice in his ear. ‘I've caught up with Gunner Kinsey and several of the chess players. All's well. I've told them to stay where they are until we give the word.'

Tom was relieved. ‘One problem out of the way. The youngsters of the discussion group are most likely to stick together. Find them and we'll have her.'

‘Where are you now?'

‘Third aisle. This one's very crowded. Hot punch, chestnuts, potato skins, waffles and frankfurters on sale on both sides. Static groups around each booth. Difficult to progress.'

‘Keep vigilant. Food is sure to draw teens.'

‘Had the same thought,' Tom replied, pressing his mobile closer to his mouth as he neared a speaker upping the decibels.

Five minutes later, as the human pattern shifted, Tom saw them buying waffles some twenty yards ahead watched by a middle-aged woman wearing a fixed smile.

‘Gotcha!' he breathed, then to Max, ‘I have her in sight. With the kids. All looks normal.'

A swift telephone interchange with the rest of the team ensured the guarding of those immediate exits from the aisle Tom was in. Fortunately, the seven youngsters with Estelle Robinson took time in choosing the various fillings they wanted, then stood together to embark on waffles overflowing with hot mixtures that tended to drip from the triangular containers. Tom remained at a distance, alongside a stall displaying decorated candles and blown-glass tree ornaments, but keeping watch over the heads of the shifting human stream by standing on a large wood block lying between stalls.

Fully ten minutes passed before Max appeared on the far side of the teenagers. ‘I have them in sight on my left, beside a stall hung with glove puppets. Where are you, Tom?'

‘Closing head-on.' So saying, Tom stepped from his perch and began to shoulder his way forward, thankful the danger had been averted.

Two girls in the group wore cute furry puppets on their hands and were causing much laughter from their friends, as Tom and Max arrived beside Estelle Robinson. She glanced up at Tom, her smile as bright as ever. Then he saw recognition dawn in her eyes.

‘Good evening, ma'am,' he said.

‘You're the policeman.' It sounded like an accusation. ‘Why are you here? Has something happened?'

‘We've come to escort you back to base. Captain Rydal has arranged for our sergeants to see the youngsters safely back to the bus that brought them here. Please come with us. We have a car waiting.'

Piercey and Beeny emerged from a nearby side aisle at that moment, and joined them just as the piped music changed again to a loud Oompah band playing German marches. The two sergeants had to shout above it as they told the boys and girls their visit had been unavoidably curtailed. They then skilfully separated them from the woman who had organized the trip, so that their attention was taken from the velvet-gloved arrest.

Max took Estelle's arm to lead her back to the park gates. Tom fell in beside her and was just able to catch his boss's words above the blast of music.

‘Too much noise here. No, your husband is fine, I assure you. I'll explain when we reach the car.'

It would have been near impossible to pull her kicking and screaming through the revellers who all appeared to be flowing in the opposite direction, but she went willingly in the apparent belief that her services as a padre's wife were urgently needed. Tom thanked her unassailable conviction of her own value that made her arrest so easy, yet her calm self-assurance put a flicker of doubt in his mind. Had they got this horribly and disastrously wrong? Could this stolid, smiling, well-intentioned woman really have run amok and killed indiscriminately?

Nearing the gates, they were brought to a standstill by a surge of new arrivals pouring in from the bus stops. Tom grabbed Estelle's other arm and turned sideways to shoulder a way through that inward tide. The piped Oompah music now vied with the drums, horns and bells of street musicians outside the gates. Although Connie Bush and Jakes had been told to make for the exit by their fastest route, Tom was glad to see Heather Johnson and Staff Melly climbing from an official police Land Rover. They needed another woman in addition to a third man in the vehicle for the return journey.

It grew even more clamorous as they passed through the gates and neared the medieval-style band accompanying students collecting money for charity. The thump of drums and blasts on antique horns were deafening, so Tom loosed his hold on the bewildered woman's arm to indicate in sign language that Heather and Pete Melly should go to his car twenty-five yards behind the Land Rover.

At that moment, one of the students shaking collection boxes came towards them, arm outstretched for a contribution. On stilts, wearing a gaudy crown and dressed like a Teutonic king, he stood eight feet tall before them, rattling the money in his box as an inducement to add to it.

Tom was vaguely conscious of a curious moaning sound beneath the general din as Estelle Robinson broke from Max's hold and lunged at the carnival figure. During the next arrested moments, Tom saw her grab up a traffic cone to swing at the royal figure looming over her. The student's legs buckled and he fell backwards as Tom instinctively moved to restrain the maddened woman.

He was subliminally aware of pounding drums and vibrant brass, of frantic human activity, as she turned on him a smile that had become malicious. He saw her twirl like an athlete preparing to throw the hammer, but he was too close to avoid the blow. The base of the cone smashed into the side of his face then, as he bent forward, it hit the top of his head with the full force of a whirling dervish. The musical cacophony was silenced as the electric Christmas brightness vanished down a dark, endless tunnel.

Fifteen

F
our days to go and there was no doubt it would be a white Christmas. The long-range forecast predicted a further heavy snowfall on Christmas Eve. Pretty and festive for those already snugly gathered by the family fireside, but a probable nightmare for unfortunates having to work throughout the Christian festival.

Tom gazed from the window at his girls taking turns to be dragged along on a toboggan by Hans Graumann and his visiting male cousin. Nothing for a paternal hero on his way out to worry about. Maggie was all child in green trousers, padded anorak and jazzy woollen hat, shrieking with laughter as the boys lost their footing and fell in a heap. It brought the impulse to smile, but Tom winced with pain.

A dozen stitches in his left cheek made facial movement difficult. He had been fortunate to escape serious damage to his left eye, although the dark purple swelling circling it gave him a demoniacal look, and it throbbed unpleasantly. They had discharged him from hospital yesterday on condition that he remained under observation from the Medical Officer. That plain-speaking doctor had just left the house having told Nora to alert him, whatever the hour, if his patient became vague, excessively sleepy or his vision blurred. Nora had joked that her husband frequently displayed those symptoms after an hour or two in the Sergeants' Mess. Clarkson had not smiled.

Both Nora and Tom knew the dangers of severe blows to the head. Not having a thin skull, like Kevin McRitchie, the damage was nevertheless bad enough to cause concern about mental impairment. Tests had proved optimistic, but Tom was secretly worried. He had a persistent headache and felt little interest in anything. The experts told him this was quite usual, and it was early days yet. Basic calming medical spiel!

What if some of his millions of brain cells had been destroyed? At worst he could become dysfunctional; at best what his father would call ‘fivepence short of a tanner' and his mother ‘too slow to catch a cold'. What a prospect!

Installing him in this armchair by the window after breakfast, Nora had put on the small table the boxes containing his model steam engines, which he had had no time yet to unpack. They were still in their boxes. The painkillers Clarkson had given him were beginning to work. The headache was fading, the throbbing around his eye little more than a faint pulsebeat. His lids began to close, then they shot up in fear. He must stay alert, fight off the lethargy that heralded danger. With accelerated heartbeat, Tom stared wide-eyed from the window, defying any suggestion of blurred vision, and saw with perfect clarity Max approaching the front door.

Nora brought him directly to the room. No low-voiced medical report in the hallway that the patient should not hear. It was good to see this boss who was also a good friend. Max had twice visited the hospital, but he had then been warned not to tire or excite Tom. Well, he had been in no state to ask questions, anyway. Now he was, and would.

Nora left with a promise to bring coffee and cake in five minutes. Mince pies were never on offer from his wife. Max settled in the other armchair looking relaxed and happy, a pronounced sparkle in eyes that could look as bleak and cold as the Atlantic. ‘You're looking more yourself again, Tom. I bumped into Clarkson just now. He seems satisfied with your progress.' He grinned. ‘Knowing how hard it is to please him, I'd say you've nothing to worry about.'

‘Only the certainty that I'll be known as Scarface by squaddies from now on,' Tom replied, already feeling more optimistic.

‘Better than some epithets they've used, I'd guess. Clarkson also said it's all right to talk shop to you now.'

‘Bugger Clarkson! On a need-to-know basis, I'm top of the list.'

‘Good news first. Mavis McRitchie's parents are keen to have Kevin to live with them, and they've been positively vetted. Heather Johnson is going on home leave tomorrow and has offered to take him to them. Seems the grandparents live within thirty miles of her family. She's a good soul. Plans to introduce Kevin to her brothers; thinks it'll be good for him to have knowledge of a more normal family group.'

Tom nodded. ‘Who says Redcaps are all dyed-in-the-wool bastards?'

‘In my opinion there's hope for that boy. He still refuses to see his mother and sisters, so Welfare will have to come up with a separate plan for Shona and Julie once they're released from hospital. Professor Braun says that'll be a long haul and he feels they should be transferred to a trauma clinic in the UK. Same for Mavis, but they'd have to be kept apart. Those girls are terrified of their mother.'

‘Have they spoken yet about that night?'

‘No . . . but they've
drawn
it. You know how child psychologists work, with dolls and pictures. There's no doubt Mavis killed Greg and slashed Shona. We'll never know what precipitated the attacks, but lack of forensic evidence showing the presence of someone else in the house at the time gives us a solid case.'

Nora came in with a tray bearing two mugs, and thick slices of cake topped with icing and halved walnuts. She shook her head in response to Max's appeal to join them.

‘Duty calls,' she said with a grin. ‘I've had an urgent plea to make a bridal gown for a mechanic's girlfriend. She was promised the loan of one, but she's been let down at the last minute.'

‘How long do you have?'

‘Three days.' Her grin widened. ‘She's a very
large
bride-to-be, so the dress will be more like a satin sack. Straight up and down with lace and sequins at the neck. Won't take me long, and I'll ensure that she'll look gorgeous in his eyes.'

‘She's one in a million, Tom,' Max said after Nora departed.

‘I know it.' He frowned. ‘Mavis could have been much the same to McRitchie, but he was too blinded by self-importance. Has Braun given any hint on her chances of recovery?'

‘He says it's too soon to tell, but the courts are unlikely to give her back her girls at any time in the near future, even if she emerges from the traumatized state she's in.' He munched his cake with enjoyment, then said, ‘McRitchie's body was flown home yesterday. His people want to bury him with his younger brother who was killed on his motor bike. More tragedy at Christmastime!'

Tom left his cake on the plate. Now he was hearing news of vital interest he wanted the full quota. ‘Have Clegg's parents been told we know who killed him?'

‘Someone from Army Welfare will call to explain once we've consolidated all the data. It'll be a few weeks yet, Tom. Medical evidence will be essential to our case, of course, but we now have DNA samples from Estelle's car that match Clegg's, and the dark hairs found at both crime scenes are indisputably hers.'

Tom stared into his coffee mug. ‘It's awesome how a personality can change in an instant. She accompanied us so calmly I was beginning to doubt our reasoning, believe it or not.'

‘It all added up,' Max pointed out quietly. ‘I'm sorry you figured so drastically in gaining unshakeable evidence of her guilt, but none of us was ready for the sudden appearance of a king just as we were congratulating ourselves on avoiding further tragedy.' He drank some coffee. ‘The Padre is badly broken up. He was apparently deeply fond of her.'

‘Didn't he have
any
idea of her instability?'

‘He says he knew about the tragedy with her son, and the subsequent public investigation and trial. His wife having recently died from cancer he felt great sympathy for Estelle's loss, particularly after her husband deserted her because he found the publicity was harming his standing as manager of the local bank. Robinson's ecclesiastical approach turned into mutual solace. He's taken compassionate leave and holed up somewhere. The Christmas services and any other church functions will be conducted by his deacon.'

Tom sighed. ‘He's a decent sort. The men liked him, as much as they can ever like a padre, because he was one of the lads in his approach. This'll be a heavy test of his faith, I'd guess.'

‘Being a military padre must be a test of faith itself. It can't be easy to equate God's goodness and mercy with the sights of a battlefield.' Max got to his feet. ‘I'm taking ten days of my accumulated leave, starting tomorrow. Staff Melly will hold the fort. I think we're due a quiet spell, don't you?'