Making A Killing (The Romney and Marsh Files Book 2) (20 page)

*

Marsh had missed the turning once and, being on the one way system and not knowing the shortcuts, had decided to go around again. On her second circuit a light pattering of rain began to fall. She left her window down and savoured the damp air that it funnelled in.

It had taken her longer than she had expected to locate Dorothy Mann’s street. What had seemed a just about justifiable time to go making house calls when she had thought of it now looked highly unreasonable. But, since she was out she saw no harm in driving by and familiarising herself with somewhere she might have to visit in daylight. She turned into the quiet road and began to crawl its length peering between parked vehicles, through shrubbery and the dark at house numbers.

*

Romney pushed his dessert plate away with a satisfied sigh. Rarely had he tasted such exceptional cheesecake. He helped himself to another glass of the wine, although it wasn’t something he particularly wanted. He wasn’t driving. Julie Carpenter had managed a small one and he intended to leave as little as he could, costing, as it did, three times what he could buy the same bottle for in his local supermarket. But it wasn’t the kind of place or evening where he felt that being cheap and ordering as they consumed was appropriate. They ordered coffee.

He was craving nicotine, but was equally keen not to break the spell of the wonderful meal by skulking off for a smoke, leaving his date twiddling her thumbs while he got his dirty little fix. Several times during comfortable lulls in the conversation, he’d found himself preparing to broach the subject of the key. Each time, he’d either bottled it or been diverted by attentive staff. With the arrival of the coffee and complimentary chocolates, he realised a window of opportunity had opened. Romney felt in his pocket and brought his closed hand to the table. As Julie Carpenter raised a questioning eyebrow a shadow fell across their table.

*

The pressure on his bladder was intense. Wilkie watched with bated breath and an overwhelming feeling of inevitability and destiny as the figure moved in the direction of his car. He was pleased to see that whoever it was was not particularly large. Not broad, not tall. Manageable. A long dark overcoat and dark hat further added to Wilkie’s gut instinct that this was the crazy. Normal people wouldn’t wear such clothing on a summer’s night. As the figure reached his vehicle, he reflected it would have been better if he could have parked nearer to a streetlight. It also would have been better if he’d pissed five minutes earlier. The darkness seemed to consume and merge car and human. The figure had stopped. Wilkie could no longer make out individual details through the gloom and the steady rain. When it came, the crack of metal striking metal made him start. Like a pistol shot it resounded around the houses. And, like a single pistol shot, it was swallowed up in silence in an instant. Wilkie tensed waiting for the crazy to make a run for it, to expose himself and his direction in guilty flight. The adrenalin coursed freely through his system and he realised with a silent curse that he was in danger of wetting himself. When he saw the culprit emerge into the faint lighting, continuing on his way, as though nothing had happened, he left his position. At least it looked like he wouldn’t have to sprint for an arrest with a thermos of instant coffee sloshing about his insides, threatening to embarrass him.

The rain was harder out of the shelter of the leafy canopy. Wilkie wiped at his eyes and saw The Parking Medal Fucker moving slowly up the street, head lowered. Wilkie had to admire
his cool. A smile cracked the sergeant’s face as he appreciated that, given the noise of the rain, he would be able to gain ground from behind and probably surprise the suspect with unreasonable force and little risk to himself if he could get a good blow in first.

*

Marsh drew up outside number twenty-four leaving the engine running as she occupied the middle of the road. There were lights on in what looked like the kitchen. She squinted looking for movement. A female crossed the room and Marsh’s belief that it could be Dorothy Mann was strong enough to encourage her to park and take a closer look.

She was walking back to
wards the house when she heard the screaming – the high-pitched distress of a female. The hair on her neck stood erect as she froze, rooted to the spot. Marsh had spent long enough in uniform on the lively weekend streets of North Kent to recognise the difference between drink induced loudness and sheer terror in a woman’s screeching.

Before she had managed to pinpoint the direction it had ceased. She strained her hearing, her whole body alert for the assistance she would be obliged to give as a serving police officer, on duty or not. She looked up and down the street and saw nothing. The clarity of the noise encouraged her to believe the scream had been out of doors. Perhaps it was in a garden. Angry male voices rose to fill the vacuum and Marsh was moving, running, not wasting a second. The noise was to her left, but to her left were only high fences. Ahead she spotted a narrow opening, a footpath. She took it running still, although she was nearly blind in the darkness. It exited onto a parallel road. She stopped, breathing heavily. Fifty yards ahead of her, beneath a streetlight, a small gathering filled the little road. Their voices were charged with fury. As she ran towards them lights came on in the houses and people began to spill out of their homes.

In the violent tableau she arrived at, two bodies lay on the wet tarmac. They were receiving wildly differing treatment. One, apparently injured, had people fussing around it, the other had three men kicking it as it huddled itself into a ball. Excited voices competed for attention and position.

Marsh shouted the only thing she could, ‘Police
!’ and held up her identification for all to see, thankful that it was the one thing she had stuffed in her pocket as she left her vehicle in search of Dorothy Mann.

*

The shadow had clearly been drinking. It wavered as though in a stiff breeze and its words, when they came, lacked clarity. It clearly knew Julie Carpenter and from the horrified look on her face she clearly knew it. It ignored Romney completely. It embarrassed itself and them with ill considered statements. It was big and handsome and ten years younger than Romney. To her credit, Julie Carpenter did her best to politely, but firmly, dismiss the man who stood too close to their table. She looked mortified at the intrusion. The man prattled on oblivious until Romney stood. An onlooker might have described Romney’s behaviour as aggressive. Romney would have countered by declaring himself restrained.

At six feet two inches tall Romney was only slightly shorter than the oaf in front of him. He put his ha
nd on his arm and applied gentle steering pressure. In the man’s drunken state, it didn’t take much to get him moving, but he protested loudly at it. People turned to observe the commotion and the spectacle. Another man: shorter, fatter, meaner looking and clearly with the drunk moved over to offer his comrade his support. He coloured the air with his opening remarks and Romney saw nothing for it but to take out his police identification and give them both a good close look. Then he offered them a simple, reasonable choice: leave or get themselves arrested. The drunk made to protest, but his friend pulled him away. With fewer witnesses Romney would have hit him without leaving a mark, like only an experienced policeman could, and then arrested him anyway. He wouldn’t forget him. He’d just ruined the best night of his year.

The staff were apologetic. Julie Carpenter was apologetic. Romney got some appreciative nods from fellow diners, but nothing would repair the evening torn apart by a visitation from a drunk ex-boyfriend. As
Julie Carpenter explained the man away, as she felt she must, Romney sat listening sympathetically, wishing they were talking about anything else, as he got an insight into her romantic past. Inevitably, the key found itself safely back into his pocket.

Romney was waiting for the waiter to return with his credit card when his phone began vibrating silently in his pocket. If things had continued to plan
, he might have ignored it pleading a poor signal, if it turned out to be important. Marsh’s name lit the screen. He looked across at his date and noticed with a pang that the light had gone out of her eyes. For the distraction, he answered and was glad that he did. At least what he heard took his mind off his own situation.

***

12

Despite Julie Carpenter’s insistence, Romney stubbornly wouldn’t hear of her driving him to the hospital. He organised a car to pick him up from in front of The Marlow Theatre and saw her safely to its car park and the vehicle they had travelled to Canterbury together in. He waited for her tail lights to disappear around the curve of the road before lighting the cigarette he’d craved for the last half an hour. It began to drizzle and he lifted his face to it.

*

Marsh was waiting for him in a dry rectangle of brightly lit flagstones outside the hospital entrance. He noted her casual clothing and her worried, drawn expression; she, his clenched jaw, his purposeful walk and then the barely suppressed fury burning in his eyes. She stepped towards the entrance as he approached and the automatic doors slid back. The hospital smells rushed out to greet them.

‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I need a cigarette.’

Despite the time of night, there were others milling in and out and around the entrance. The officers found a private corner that offered shelter from the continuing light rainfall.

Romney rubbed vigorously at his face for a moment and breathed deeply in and out. Marsh caught a whiff of alcohol, garlic and stale cigarette smoke. She expected a drink and the interruption of his evening to make the DI irritable. She didn’t expect him to stay that way. She knew he couldn’t be prepared for what she was about to tell him. She waited while he shook out a cigarette and lit it. As a smoker, he’d need it. His lighter flared illuminating and exaggerating his grim expression.

‘First things first,’ he said, filling the air with smoke. ‘What medical state are they in?’

‘DS Wilkie is stable. He took quite a beating, but most of his injuries seem superficial. He’s lost a couple of teeth. They were about to take him for x-rays when I left. They want to check him internally.’

‘And the victim?’

Marsh’s power of speech deserted her momentarily as she rummaged for words to express the news. In the end she decided on the plain truth. ‘She had a heart attack at the scene. She died in the ambulance.’

‘She? Died? Oh, Jesus-fucking-Christ. What has he done?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Marsh, ‘it gets worse.’ Romney waited
, not believing that it could. ‘She was old. Possibly in her seventies.’ It could and it had. The DI was stunned into silence. Marsh ploughed on. ‘It looks like she could be
The Parking Medal Man
. A hammer was recovered from the scene. Wilkie’s car is there. It’s blocking the pavement. It’s been damaged. It looks to me like he set a trap and then waded in expecting violent resistance, only it was just some mad old insomniac woman with a thing for bad parking.’

Romney pulled on his cigarette absently. He was somewhere else. Marsh shut up and wondered whether it was the future or the past. She also worried whether Wilkie had the c
onnivance of the DI in his harebrained scheme.

‘What were you doing there?’ said Romney, breaking the silence. ‘Tell me you weren’t involved.’

In an instant the tables had turned. The question prompted Marsh to realise that her own position in this would come under legitimate scrutiny. It hadn’t occurred to her that the coincidence of her presence in the immediate area might take some believing. ‘I was in the next street looking for Dorothy Mann’s house.’

‘Who’s Dorothy Mann?’

‘Duncan Smart’s ex-wife. I had an idea that the business dealing between Emerson and Smart might have just been the innocent removal of furniture from Smart’s house. The dates coincide roughly with the divorce of the pair. I think she just had her stuff moved out and put into storage. I was going to ask her.’

‘Late for that wasn’t it?’

‘I was nothing to do with Wilkie’s idiocy,’ she blurted. ‘Yes, it was late. I was restless at home. When I thought about it, it seemed like a good idea. It took me a while to find her address. In the end I don’t think I would have called on her. I heard the fracas and investigated. Like a good police officer.’

‘People,’ he said, holding her gaze steadily, ‘
sceptical senior police officers are going to ask you harder questions than that. They’re going to ask us all difficult questions. Make sure what you tell them is the truth and that you can verify everything. Make sure you have nothing to hide because they’ll find it. They’re trained to and they always do.’

Romney’s thinking had sprinted ahead of her own. He was lapping her. If he was trying to frighten her it was working. The
reputations of staff and procedure of an IPCC investigation were well known and feared by every police force in the country. They had to be. Until that moment, she hadn’t thought of the repercussions of Wilkie’s actions. The whole department would come under the microscope. They would all be tainted with what he had done. Wilkie would be thrown to them. For the rest, individually, and collectively as a station, it would be damage control, tarnished reputations, notes on files and disciplinary and operational recommendations. None of them would escape being spattered. All that mattered now was how close to the steaming turd of a mess one was standing when it hit the fan.