Dead Beat (32 page)

‘You were seen, Ted,' Barnard interrupted sharply. ‘You and Georgie were seen, not just at Mason's flat, but today, in the churchyard. And I guess there'll be more from Pete Marelli's place. Someone left fingerprints there. I saw them myself. I certainly didn't imagine it. And maybe there's more from the little cover-up you tried to do at the picture agency when you realized there was evidence of how cosy the two of you were together at the Delilah. Georgie even offered to cut me in with the two of you. It's finished, Ted. I've already filled the super in with the gist of it on the phone. There'll be warrants out for the pair of you as soon as I've made a full report, and added this little episode in as well. I don't imagine Mr Merryman will be reticent about giving evidence against you.'

‘You don't need to do that, Harry,' Venables said hoarsely. ‘There's enough in this to see all of us in clover. It's a little gold-mine Georgie's dug. You get these well-heeled beggars Ray Robertson's sucking up to, get them to a party where anything goes – women, girls, boys, a bit of rough stuff, and take a few snaps and how's your father. They'll pay up like lambs to keep it quiet. We'll cut you in. Keep you in fancy clothes and fast cars for years, it will.'

‘I told you. Georgie made me the same offer and I turned him down,' Barnard said, feeling weary. ‘You've blown it. You might be able to thump suspects who won't tell you what you want to know at the nick, but not a bloody vicar in suburban Guildford. It's probably the least of your crimes, but it's the one that'll sink you. And remember, I've seen one of the kids you lured to your parties. He wasn't a pretty sight.'

‘And since when were you so bloody pure?' Venables snarled. ‘Everyone knows what Vice gets up to. I bloody invented half the scams.'

Barnard shrugged. ‘Backhanders are one thing, we're talking murder here, and not just one, either, and illegal sex with children,' he said. ‘Was it Georgie with the knife or has he been giving you lessons?'

‘I had nothing to do with any killings,' Venables blustered, edging closer to the front door.

‘I don't believe you, Ted,' Barnard said. ‘Why else would you be so keen to lay hands on this boy if you didn't think he'd seen you at Mason's flat? Why else would you be so keen to pin that killing on Tom O'Donnell when it's perfectly obvious he had nothing to do with it? And at St Peter's you were seen going in, and coming out, and then coming back to lead the bloody investigation. You're on a hiding to nothing, Ted, and what you don't know is that Ray wants Georgie to go down. Even he's fed up with that nutter, getting in the way of his business deals and his social climbing. And if Georgie goes down, and Ray will make sure he does, one way or another, you'll go down with him. Make no mistake about that.'

Barnard thought for a moment that Venables was going to take a swing at him too, as he was wondering how to arrest him, but he seemed to think better of it at the last moment, spinning on his heel and hurling himself out of the front door before Barnard could get a grip on him. Within seconds, as he ran after him out of the front door, Barnard heard his car start up and roar away. Wearily he turned back into the house and the vicar's study to find Merryman still hunched in his chair looking white and strained. He would have a serious black eye by the morning, Barnard thought, and Venables would not get far once he reported what had happened. There was no point trying to chase him halfway across southern England personally. He was finished.

‘Who are you?' the vicar asked, nodding faintly as Barnard explained and showed him his warrant card.

‘I seem to be one of the good guys,' he said, with an attempt at a smile.

‘And was Mr Venables really an officer too?'

‘I'm afraid so,' Barnard said. He glanced at Kate with an ambivalent expression. ‘Are you OK?' he asked.

She nodded, beyond words.

‘To be honest, I thought David was exaggerating. I couldn't believe a senior policeman could be a danger . . .' Merryman shook his head in astonishment and glanced at Kate. ‘Can you find our young friend?' he asked her.

‘I'll go and see,' she said.

‘We really do need a statement from Jimmy,' Barnard said to Merryman. ‘But then I'll leave him safely here with you for the time being. And before I leave, I'll tell the local police that you need some protection.'

‘Thank you,' Merryman said. ‘I take it they'll be on the side of the angels too?'

‘I think you can bank on that,' Barnard said.

Harry Barnard drove Kate O'Donnell back to London more sedately than he had driven out, pushing his own anxieties to the back of his mind and concentrating on her obvious happiness at the outcome of the evening's dramas.

‘How long before they let Tom out?' she asked as the road swooped around the dark expanse of Wimbledon Common and into the bright lights of the south-western suburbs.

‘It'll take a couple of days to collate the evidence we've got now and charge the real culprits, but they should drop the charges against Tom after that,' Barnard said. ‘Jimmy's evidence really was crucial and he'll be kept safe now.' He glanced at his companion, who seemed remarkably untroubled by her brush with danger.

‘Can I buy you dinner before I take you home?' he asked.

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled. ‘I'm bloody famished,' she said. ‘Let's do it, la.'

‘We're relying on a bunch of vagrants and queers for evidence,' DCI Keith Jackson complained when Harry Barnard faced him and other stony-faced senior colleagues the next morning.

‘This investigation will be conducted from the Yard from now on, Sergeant,' one of them said eventually. ‘Have you spoken to DCI Venables since last night?'

‘No, sir,' Barnard said. ‘I looked into his office when I came in but he doesn't seem to be there.'

‘Right, we'll deal with him. You are to hold yourself ready to make a witness statement when we are ready to hear from you in more detail. Understood?'

‘Sir,' Barnard said gloomily, getting to his feet. This, he thought, might be the end of his career too before it was over.

‘And next time you get even the slightest hint that something like this is going on, can I be assured that you will report it very much sooner?'

Barnard nodded, wondering how many other murderers the men from the Yard thought might be lurking in the ranks of CID.

As soon as he could get away, he left the nick quickly and drove out of town to the south west where he knew Ted Venables and his wife Vera lived in a substantial semi in Purley. He knocked tentatively on the door and it was opened quickly by Mrs Venables herself, a well-built woman in a smart beige blouse tucked into a dark skirt. She looked tired and strained, no doubt regretting her return home.

‘He's not here,' she said sharply. ‘I told the uniformed officers who came at breakfast-time. He didn't come back last night and I don't know where he is. What on earth is going on, Harry? What's he supposed to have done? He's going to retire in six months, for goodness' sake. What's gone wrong?'

‘Have you no idea where he might have gone?' Barnard asked.

‘You've always been a good friend of Ted's, haven't you, Harry? If he's in trouble, can you help him?'

Barnard shrugged but Vera Venables didn't seem to notice.

‘He's got a boat down at Chichester,' she said. ‘The
Vera V
, it's called. Got it a couple of months ago. Said he's had a good win on the horses. I reckon he's probably gone down there.'

‘Would it get across the Channel, this boat?'

Mrs Venables looked blank. ‘He uses it for fishing. I don't know how far it would go.'

It took Barnard another hour to drive down to Chichester and find the moorings where Mrs Venables had told him her husband kept the boat which Ted had always claimed he would buy after he took his pension. Obviously his finances had taken a sufficiently dramatic upward turn to enable him to get his pride and joy much sooner than he had hoped. Walking along a jetty, slightly bemused by the ranks of dinghies and cruisers on display, Barnard noticed a group of men talking animatedly at the end of the pier.

‘I'm looking for a boat called the
Vera V
,' he said as he approached. ‘Any idea where I'll find her?'

One of the men spun round with a look of surprise. ‘We were just talking about her,' he said. ‘My mate here's just come in from a fishing trip and says he saw her adrift about a mile out. No one on-board that he could see. Do you know the owner? We should report it. It's a hazard to shipping.'

Barnard gazed out over the choppy grey sea beyond the harbour for a moment.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I did know the owner.'

Kate O'Donnell was late for work the next morning, after a night spent tossing and turning as she tried to process the events of the previous day, and before she could take her coat off, Ken Fellows called her into the office. Expecting nothing less than a rocket, she was surprised to see him still clutching his phone with a smile on his face.

‘Get yourself down to Oxford Circus,' he said. ‘Apparently there's a couple of hundred screaming teenaged girls down there chasing after four young men called the Beatles. We need some pics and we need them quickly.'

Kate gave him a flashing smile. ‘I did tell you what to expect,' she said, realizing that at last the Mersey Sound had really come to London.

‘You did,' Ken said. ‘And I'll want all those pics of these boys you've already got. And for that, I suppose you'll expect to still be here next Christmas.'

‘That would be good,' Kate said with a grin as she re-buttoned her coat. ‘That would be really good.'