Rainstone Fall (16 page)

‘Yes. He’s a charmer. Do you think he’s the one who killed your dog?’

‘Don’t know. Probably. Didn’t I ask you to go a while back?’ She looked a tired pointy-hatted pixie now, gazing past me, unfocused.

‘All right. Look, I’ll leave you my number.’ I made her accept one of my cards. Then I looked around. ‘You’ve got a phone, I take it?’

She snorted. ‘Dream on. They refused to give me a land line since none of this,’ she waved her arms in an irritable gesture, ‘amounts to a
permanent abode
. And you can’t get a mobile signal down here.’

That explained why Annis had had trouble getting hold of me. ‘How do you conduct business?’

‘Look, I get by, okay? Perhaps we could discuss my communication problems at some other point in the future? The
distant
future?’

‘Right. Take care.’ I didn’t want to leave, even though I wasn’t wanted, even though I was very much wanted elsewhere. ‘Perhaps you really should get a noisier gun.’

As I rode back towards Larkhall and the London Road I thought I could hear another motorcycle engine behind me but I didn’t see any vehicles, though I kept looking over my shoulder. Then the sound was drowned out by the drone of a microlight plane flying lazy circles under the clouds.

Chapter Thirteen

I stared at the cordless handset I had carried round the house since my arrival, waiting for the hated electronic warble that would announce the dreaded call.

‘Am I failing Jill? And Louis? Am I doing it all wrong?’ I asked Annis.

She buried her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans and shrugged heavily. ‘If he managed to intercept you before you even got to the police station then you were right, he knows what you’re doing and probably has you watched. I’m not sure we can do much about it. You can try and give your tail the slip but that doesn’t mean you can keep police involvement hidden from him. The police might cock it up just as easily as we could and he might kill the boy in revenge or to avoid detection. If Louis has seen his face he’s probably doomed anyway. He’s not going to be allowed to give the police a detailed description of his kipnapper after he’s released. And you have to consider the possibility that he’s dead already.’ She patted me on the arm in a gesture that was meant to be sympathetic but made me feel worse. There, there. ‘I’ll make us a nice pot of tea, how about that?’ she said in a creaky Miss Marple parody, but I had to admit that the British panacea for all ills and crises was just what I wanted right now. I never got it.

Just as soon as Annis had left the room the phone trilled in my hand and my stomach muscles contracted into an aching mess.

‘Honeysett.’

‘I’m disappointed in the kind of service you run, Honeysett. I expect more when I hire staff. So listen closely, shithead, and don’t interrupt, here’s how you can make good your earlier cock-up, though I’m still not completely convinced you aren’t trying to pull a fast one. But then again, I can’t believe you would jeopardize a boy’s health like that.’ His distorted, tinny voice sounded as inhuman and robotic as ever. I found it impossible to picture Louis’s kidnapper; he remained a shadow attached to a sound that emanated from this piece of plastic I held against my ear.

‘How is the boy, how is Louis?’

‘Bored and whining and annoying as fuck but he’ll be all right if you do what you’re told. So listen carefully. Write this down because I won’t tell you again: Rufus Connabear, at Restharrow, near Monkton Farleigh.’

‘Hang on, I need to find a pen.’

‘Don’t fuck about, I haven’t got time to spell it for you!’ he shouted down the phone as I scrabbled around for a biro. ‘Connabear. Retired businessman, and very comfortably retired he must be. He has to have more dosh than sense because he spent an awful lot of it on rare stamps. And I have it on good authority that he owns something very rare indeed, a Penny Black. The world’s first ever stamp. Worth an absolute fucking fortune and he keeps it at home instead of the bank where it belongs, so you can see he’s a nerd, an anorak, a stamp-collecting loser who deserves what’s coming to him. Which is you. Because you shall relieve old Rufus of the Penny Black.’

Even I had heard of the famous stamp. After all, it was from Bath that the first ever postage stamp, printed in black ink and then costing one penny, was sent in 1840, every school kid probably knew that. I wondered just how many shiny pennies it was worth now.

‘You have three days, Honeysett, and no fuck-ups this time, I won’t believe another disaster. I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, just to make sure.’

I was going to protest that three days didn’t leave me much time to plan the robbery when engine sounds made me rush to the window. I recognized Superintendent Needham’s big grey saloon barrelling self-importantly through the gate. ‘I’ll do my best. Got to hang up now, unexpected visitors.’ I cut the connection. My head was buzzing. When did I sign up for this much excitement? Perhaps retired stamp collectors had entirely the right idea. I stepped away from the window so I could spy on Needham unobserved for a minute. I could see he was using DS Sorbie as a driver. And as though a visit from Needham wasn’t bad enough, no sooner had he squeezed out of his car than DI Deeks made an appearance, driving himself and even more self-importantly blocking the exit with his big ugly Ford.

‘Shit. That’s all we needed.’ Annis joined me by the window. ‘What does the bastard want this time?’

‘Needham, he’ll –’

‘No, Louis’s kidnapper.’

‘Another burglary. Stamp collector’s house. He wants us to steal the Penny Black.’

‘Is that all?’

Outside the three officers had a quick pow-wow, then the besuited Needham and leather-jacketed Sorbie moved towards the house while Deeks, wearing his horrible rainproof, settled on the bonnet of his car, arms folded.

‘Hard to pull off?’ Annis asked.

‘Won’t know until we’ve taken a look but he’s only given us three days. Do you see what I see?’

‘The new boy is carrying what will no doubt be Needham’s search warrant.’

‘Yup, with the ink still wet.’

The doorbell jingled loudly and the door was being rapped in typical police fashion. I opened it before someone decided to kick it in again.

‘Honeysett, this is DS Sorbie and he has a search warrant. Show the man,’ he encouraged him as he hefted past me. I barely glanced at the paper, looking instead over Sorbie’s shoulder to check on Deeks, but he no longer adorned the bonnet of his car and was nowhere to be seen, which was a bit worrying.

‘After you.’ Sorbie made an inviting gesture down the hall with his warrant.

I had little choice. Needham had already disappeared right towards the kitchen. I hurried after him. ‘Keep an eye on Sorbie, there’s something weird about this,’ I managed to murmur to Annis as I passed her. Needham was already half-heartedly furtling about in the kitchen, opening cupboards without bothering to search them, letting his left hand trail over objects as though he was thinking with his fleshy fingers. I decided to play it by ear. The kettle was already quietly singing on the back of the stove.

‘Coffee?’ I knew Needham loved real coffee while his life was plagued by the ersatz brew his underlings invariably brought him, mostly in plastic cups.

‘And why not,’ he conceded without hesitation and disappeared into the pantry, where he inspected the shelves with his head gently cocked to one side and his hands behind his back. I had the distinct feeling that, perhaps unlike Deeks and Sorbie, he was here on a culinary search but I didn’t think this was the time to ask him how his diet was going. I could hear Sorbie rummaging in the cupboard under the stairs. I suddenly broke into a sweat. If Sorbie demanded the key for the gun locker and found my shotgun missing some awkward questions might be asked, since I had never reported the thing stolen. I knew who had it and still harboured hopes of retrieving it. But the question never came and I could soon hear him moving upstairs, shadowed by a vigilant Annis.

Watched by an appreciative Superintendent I spun out the ritual of coffee making, ground the beans finely in the noisy little mill, transferred the fragrant grounds to a cafetière, splashed recently boiled water on it, depressed the plunger and decanted the resulting brew into a warmed coffee pot. The cat appeared as if from nowhere, swished around Needham’s legs and gave his polished shoes a deep sniffing.

‘Didn’t know you had a cat.’

‘He’s just passing through.’

‘What’s his name?’ He bent down and scratched the cat’s ears.

‘He hasn’t got one.’

‘You could call him Mackerel.’

‘Not a chance.’ Eventually I poured two cups and handed one to Needham, who accepted it with only the faintest hint of a smile and let himself sink on to a chair with a little grunt. ‘You’re a damn nuisance, Chris, but at least you’re a civilized nuisance. You wouldn’t have any sweetener of course?’ he asked while tumbling sugar cubes into his cup.

‘What are you after, Mike?’ Something about this visit was decidedly odd. ‘You’re not looking for blunt instruments, are you? What’s the latest on Barrington’s death? You must know by now it wasn’t me, so why keep harassing me?’

‘Harassing? You feel harassed? You really shouldn’t. Relax,’ he said with an expansive sweep of his arms. ‘It’s all routine. You know the drill.’

I patted my pockets in search of cigarettes and came up with nothing. I made to get some but he was well ahead of me.

‘Sit down, Honeypot, have one of mine.’ He slithered a packet of Camel across the table.

‘But you don’t smoke,’ I protested while I peeled the cellophane off the brand new pack.

‘Took them off an underage kid earlier.’

‘Who happened to smoke my brand.’ Why did I get the feeling he didn’t want me to leave the kitchen while his minions rummaged around my place?

‘You don’t smoke anything else, do you?’ he asked casually.

‘You know I don’t. It bores me.’

‘Well, Albert Barrington didn’t find it boring, that’s for sure. And at his age. Pot-head pensioners, that’s all we need now. Where do our senior citizens go to score these days, what do you reckon? Do dealers hang around their minibuses outside the bingo halls? Or do they grow the stuff down the allotment? A new category for the show bench, I dare say . . .’ Needham appeared to be talking to himself and between occasional sips of coffee kept up a leisurely stream of whimsical observations about the changing nature of drug crime on his patch. There didn’t seem to be anything he wanted from me. Though if he really didn’t know who Barrington used to buy his blow from then he and Deeks had to have had a complete communication breakdown. I began to wonder just how good a deal Gem Stone had struck with him that he managed to keep her out of a murder inquiry. The longer we sat around the more fidgety I became, with Deeks and Sorbie crawling all over my place. I lit another cigarette with the stub of the first and poured more coffee. Through the half-glazed kitchen door I saw Deeks trundling past across the meadow, returning from the studio no doubt. I trusted Needham, as a due-process-by-the-book-god-honest copper, but Sorbie was still an unknown quantity and I did now know that Deeks was bent, which made his traipsing round the property without an escort rather nerve-racking. My skin tingled with sweat. Needham didn’t comment but probably hadn’t made Detective Superintendent without having a nose for other people’s fear. At the same time as luxuriating in his coffee break and wittering on about Policing the City of Bath (you could hear the capital letters) as though he was addressing a committee of concerned citizens he seemed to be listening not to my answers but to the house around him.

‘This is just a formality, Honeysett, we must be seen never to leave a tern unstoned, as they say.’ He chuckled to himself. I just hate it when he chuckles. ‘A pensioner getting murdered excites the press for some reason and then the press go and excite the pensioners. Old people feel the most vulnerable to violent crime, even though in reality they’re the least likely to suffer from it. Or any other crime, for that matter. The group most likely to be victims of crime are the fifteen to twenty-five-year-olds, which is the very group that scares the pensioners. But statistics mean nothing and perception is everything.’

‘Oh, quite.’ I didn’t find it easy to join in with this drivel, whether it was true or not. ‘Did you ever find a weapon?’

‘The Good Old Blunt Instrument? No. But we have a notion it might have been a cricket bat that rendered him senseless. Your car then finished him off. Shame you didn’t report it missing earlier, you’d be completely in the clear now.’ He shrugged it off as though it was of little real importance.

‘Cricket bat, how very British,’ I observed.

‘Well, believe it or not our hoodlum fraternity have started trading in their American ash for English willow recently. Ever since prosecutors started asking defendants – who just happened to have baseball bats in their cars at the time of their arrest – to explain the finer details of the game for the benefit of the court. Long faces all round of course, it’s like asking a kid from the Bronx to explain the rules of cricket. Personally I believe as a weapon the cricket bat has the edge. You play at all? Ah, here comes the faithful Sorbie,’ he said, drained his cup and rose. ‘Thanks for the coffee, Honeysett, we shan’t bother you any longer. For now.’ He silently directed DI Sorbie out of the house. ‘Miss Jordan,’ Sorbie said flatly in farewell to Annis. Deeks already stood by his car. We watched as doors slammed and the drivers sorted themselves out, turning their ugly big saloons around in my potholed yard. I was so relieved I barely managed to suppress the impulse to give them a cheery wave as they surged out of the gate.

‘Phew,’ I observed eloquently.

Annis let out a deep breath with puffed-out cheeks. ‘What did they want?’

I shrugged. ‘What could they have been looking for?’

‘Sorbie didn’t say. He didn’t answer any of my questions and never volunteered a word. I annoyed the shit out of him for sure.’

‘Did you see at all what Deeks was up to outside?’

‘No, I couldn’t keep an eye on both. Nothing much to find, though, is there?’

‘That’s not necessarily what I’m worried about.’

‘You don’t think Deeks would plant stuff on us? You’re getting paranoid, Chris.’

‘You’re right. Nevertheless, I’ll have a wander about, see what Deeks saw.’

I pulled on my jacket and made myself walk slowly all over my little realm; I kicked at things rusting and mouldering in the outbuildings, got my trouser legs damp crossing the meadow, stood by the mill pond reflecting the dull lead of the sky. The feeling of being watched was growing all the time and I began to imagine eyes and ears in every shadow. Indeed, if Needham was half as clever as I suspected him to be then he had come here to stir things up so he could watch what happened next.

I made doubly sure that no one was hanging around among the hedgerows. The more I thought about it the less sense the last twenty minutes made. I had seen police searches before and they’d been protracted, painstaking affairs involving many officers and technicians, not a couple of CID types wandering about the place with their hands in their pockets while their superior officer took coffee in the kitchen. But when I found no sign of them anywhere I was just too relieved to worry about it for long.

‘It’s out near Monkton Farleigh,’ I explained to Annis while I topped up the Norton’s tank from a jerry can. ‘Rufus Connabear, at Restharrow.’