Silvermeadow (47 page)

‘Really?’ Kathy brightened. ‘Is it still on?’

‘Of course. Unless you’ve had a better offer?’

‘No. You neither?’

‘No. We can call it the Rejects’ Lunch. The Salon des Refusés.’

Kathy laughed. ‘What can I bring?’

‘Well, since you’re at the shops, you could see if you can find a Christmas pudding. I’ve already got the duck.’

Kathy rang off and smiled to herself. A duck. So he’d been shopping too.

She continued along the mall, and reached Harriet Rutter. She seemed to be alone, only one plate and cup in front of her, her gaze aimlessly scanning the moving crowd. Kathy paused reluctantly and said, ‘Hello Mrs Rutter. How are you?’

The other woman turned with a vague smile that chilled as soon as she realised who had addressed her. ‘Ah . . . Sergeant.’

‘Are you on your own? Is Professor Orr not with you?’

Harriet Rutter shook her head abruptly. Kathy noticed that she seemed to be holding herself stiffly upright, like a widow at a funeral. And now she looked more closely, she was almost sure that there was moisture gleaming in the corners of the woman’s eyes.

She really didn’t want to stop and hear the story, whatever it was, but she felt compelled to ask. ‘Is something the matter? Are you all right?’

Mrs Rutter shook her head, speechless, and this seemed so completely out of character that Kathy was taken aback.

She took the other seat at the table. ‘What is it?’

‘Robbie and I . . . have had a falling out. That’s all.’

‘Oh. I am sorry. Do you know, I think it’s Christmas that does this. Everybody seems to have the same problem.’

The other woman looked at her doubtfully, as if to see if she was making fun of her.

‘It’s got nothing to do with Christmas. It’s my fault. I should have been more patient . . . more sympathetic.’

‘Oh dear. Do you want to tell me? Is there anything I can do?’

Mrs Rutter’s eyes widened. ‘You!’ she whispered, and turned abruptly away, behaving almost as if it was all Kathy’s fault.

Kathy was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

Mrs Rutter slowly turned back to face her, mouth set defiantly. ‘I mean that Robbie was devastated, utterly
devastated
, by the treatment he got from you people.’ She spoke in an uncharacteristically low tone, almost a whisper, as if she didn’t want anyone else to hear. ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about, have you?’

‘No, no I don’t.’

‘I suppose you deal with hardened criminals all the time, don’t you? And you assume that everyone’s the same. Well I can tell you, by the time you and that Sergeant Lowry had finished with Robbie, the poor man was a wreck. He hasn’t been able to sleep, or eat. And he’s not a weak man . . .’ The tears were flowing freely now. ‘He was in the army, long ago, and he’s coped with all the usual trials of a long and useful life. But you
humiliated
him. You made him out to be
rubbish
. You
hurt
him.’

Kathy was stunned, and felt herself wilting before the ferocity of the woman’s outrage. ‘Mrs Rutter, Professor Orr seemed quite all right when I last saw him. He didn’t like being questioned, of course, but he was co-operative, and didn’t seem too distressed.’ But that was before Gavin Lowry had had a go, and she remembered how angry Lowry had seemed afterwards.

Mrs Rutter wasn’t interested. She turned away and wiped her eyes and nose with a small handkerchief and recomposed herself. ‘What’s really galling is that that awful man has got away with it. That’s what Robbie can’t abide.’

‘DS Lowry?’ Kathy asked.

‘No!
Bruno Verdi
!’ She curled her lip as she pronounced the name like an obscenity. ‘He put those things in Robbie’s filing cabinet. Any fool could have worked that out in one minute. Even the police. He’s an evil and spiteful little man . . . But, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re afraid of Verdi?’

‘Of what Robbie may do. That’s why we quarrelled. I wanted him to put it out of his mind, forget about it, but he can’t. He says he’s going to expose Verdi. He’s become obsessed by the idea.’ She shook her head hopelessly. ‘How can he?’

Kathy had the sudden notion that Orr’s outrage at being accused of possessing a dirty video might just be because it had touched a nerve, and perhaps one that Mrs Rutter might have recognised. Maybe she had had her own suspicions about the great man’s proclivities. Didn’t they used to chat up the young people in the malls together? And then there was the matter of the coins.

Kathy mentally kicked herself; she had forgotten about the coins. What was happening to her memory? Maybe sex and shopping affected the brain.

‘Do you think, if I spoke to him, apologised?’

‘Oh, I really don’t think that would do any good. Not now.’

‘Is he at home?’

‘No, we came here together. That’s when we quarrelled.’

‘He’s here, is he?’

She nodded. ‘I think he’s gone to that hut.’

‘Well, I might call in on him and see if I can calm him down.’

Mrs Rutter looked doubtful, then relief began to soften her face. ‘Would you? It might help.’

As she continued along the mall Kathy passed a deli, and selected one of the small gourmet Christmas puddings they had on offer, and a box of mince pies. She also noticed a sign advertising a delivery service to anywhere in the UK, and with relief ordered a presentation box of delicacies to be sent up to Sheffield, with a hurriedly written card which she backdated to the twentieth. She had a moment of anxiety as the machine scanned her card, but some residual credit still apparently remained, and she emerged from the shop contented.

The icy wind caught her breath as soon as she stepped out of the shelter of the east entrance. She lowered her head, turned up her collar and strode towards the top of the grass bank that separated the upper and lower carparks, where she could see down the bare flank of the centre to the two steel containers in their water-logged compound at the far corner. It occurred to her that Orr couldn’t be in his hut, because they had put a new padlock on the door, one to which only the police had a key. And yet, screwing up her eyes against the wind, Kathy was almost convinced that she could see a glimmer of light reflecting from the puddle at that end of the container. Puzzled, she began the tricky descent down the slippery grass slope and across the muddy ground below.

There was definitely light coming from the bottom edge of the door, and when she reached it she was able to make out the hasp that secured the door dangling loose, and still locked by the padlock to the staple which had been forcibly wrenched from the jamb. Robbie Orr had obviously come prepared.

He literally jumped into the air when she pulled the door open and said hello. Coat flapping, arms flailing, he scrambled to hide whatever he had been examining on the table as he turned to face her.

‘What do you want?’ he barked.

He was certainly the worse for wear, she saw. He looked older, clothes dishevelled and splashed with mud.

‘I bumped into Harriet in the mall. She said you might be down here. Can I come in?’

She stepped in before he could reply, and swung the door to.

‘I’m busy,’ he said angrily, and she caught a whiff of whisky. ‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’

‘What are you doing?’

She stared at the tabletop behind him, and he shuffled sideways to block her view. She was startled to see what looked like copies of the computer plans that Allen Cook had provided for their search. Even more disconcerting was a glimpse of what looked like several fat brass cartridges. He began feeling along the edge of the table with the long, bony fingers of his left hand towards the jemmy he’d presumably used to force open the door. His right hand was plunged deep in his coat pocket, and he seemed reluctant to take it out. The coat was dragged down on that side of his body, as if the pocket contained something heavy.

‘DS Kathy Kolla,’ Kathy suddenly said with a big smile, and stuck out her hand. ‘Remember me?’

He jerked back from her hand, then flushed when he realised she was offering it to shake. ‘Of course I do!’ He flapped his left hand at her, while his right remained firmly in the pocket. ‘Please go away.’

‘I thought maybe we could talk things over. I think we could help each other.’

He leant forward, eyes glittering with anger. ‘Don’t try your soft soap on me, lassie,’ he said. ‘I know why you’ve come.’

‘Do you?’

‘Aye. To save your corrupt friends. To have me take the blame for your bungling. What have you got in your bag, eh? What did you bring to hide in my drawers this time? More filth? Perhaps you’d like me to tell you what an attractive wee girl she was? How she liked to tease old men like me for a pound or two? Is that what you want to hear?’

‘I want to hear the truth, Robbie. Did she tease you?’ Kathy searched his face, trying to read it. Inside the pocket of her coat her fingers found the small black disc she had taken from the box on Kerri’s desk, and she held it up for him to see. ‘You did give her old coins, didn’t you? What were they? Gifts, tokens?’

Orr stiffened. ‘I gave coins to many of the young people in the mall,’ he growled.

‘Why?’

His lip curled at her with contempt. ‘Not for the reason your sordid police mind imagines, I dare say. I wasn’t trying to buy them, Sergeant. They have far too smart an estimate of their own worth to sell themselves for trinkets. I wanted them to learn a different lesson about money. The coins came from this hillside. I found them near the bones of the Saxon children. Small change. Part of the hoard the Vikings were looking for. I wanted them to know that children like them were murdered for these coins. That the coins survived, but the children did not. But I was naïve. Today the children are more greedy, and the people that hunt them more evil.’

He rocked back on his heels, and reached behind him with his left hand to grip the table, as if running out of steam.

‘I didn’t come here to trap you,’ Kathy said quietly. ‘If you know something, let me help you.’

He looked at her sadly. ‘Have you arrested Verdi?’

‘No.’

‘Have you found his lair?’

She shook her head, startled.

‘Then you can’t help me.’ He turned away dismissively.

‘What do you know about a lair?’ she asked. ‘We’ve been looking—’

‘In all the wrong places, no doubt.’ He turned to her again, a smile of patronising superiority twitching his whiskers.

He’s been a teacher for years, she thought. He can’t help turning every conversation into a seminar. ‘Well, I don’t know. We know its walls are bare concrete blocks—’

He looked sharply at her. ‘Oh yes? How do you know that?’

‘A witness says she saw a photograph of Verdi in a bare room, with a girl.’

He nodded. ‘But
where
is it?’

‘We don’t know. We’ve been searching disused factories, garages—’

He made a scoffing noise. ‘Pathetic!’

‘It was the best we could come up with.’

He pondered, and she thought, Come on, you can’t resist telling me something.

‘Are you familiar with the legend of the Minotaur, Sergeant?’

‘Not really. It was a monster, wasn’t it?’

‘Aye, half man and half beast. It lived on human sacrifice, the youth of Thebes.’

‘And where was its lair?’

‘In the labyrinth at Knossos, on the island of Crete. I spoke to your chief inspector about my time there, you may remember. The labyrinth was within, or some said beneath, the palace.’

Kathy thought about that. ‘If you’re suggesting that Silvermeadow is the palace . . . We’ve been all over it, and beneath it. That’s where we found—’

‘Aye, I heard. The remains of human sacrifice.’

‘But no lair.’

He said nothing.

‘Did they catch the Minotaur?’

‘The hero Theseus slew it, yes.’

‘How did he find it?’

‘A young woman showed him the way. Ariadne. Alas, I fear you will not be my Ariadne, Sergeant. Too bad. Now please go away.’

Kathy felt her patience ebbing. His dismissal reminded her of every dismissal she’d ever experienced at school. ‘Sorry,’ she said briskly. ‘I can’t do that. It looks as if someone’s forced that lock. I’ll have to get security.’

She reached into her bag and took out her phone.

‘Don’t do that!’ He spun round and shouted at her, his earlier agitation flaring up again.

She glanced at his right hand, still jammed in his coat pocket, then began to press the numbers.

The hand suddenly lurched into movement as if of its own accord, hauling out of the pocket one of the largest and heaviest-looking handguns Kathy had ever seen. He pointed it at her, the barrel wobbling alarmingly, and lifted his other hand to try to steady it.

‘Bloody hell!’ Kathy breathed. ‘What is
that
?’

‘The phone!’ he barked, flecks of spittle on his lips. ‘Put it down! Put it down!’

She shrugged and slipped it back in her bag.

‘No, no! Put it on the floor! Put it on the floor and step back!’

Kathy did exactly as he said, her eyes on the trembling fingers that held the swaying ordnance.

He stepped forward and swung a clumsy kick at the phone, missed, tried again and connected, sending it spinning away. ‘Foolish woman!’ he gasped. ‘You foolish, foolish—’

‘Where on earth did you get that?’ Kathy asked, trying desperately to sound completely calm and unconcerned by his obvious incompetence with the gun.

‘The very place,’ he said, and gave a rather wild little laugh. ‘Knossos, Crete. The island was full of small arms after the war. I bought this from a village boy for two packets of cigarettes—two more for the box of ammunition.’

‘Over fifty years ago? Have you ever fired it?’

‘I tried it once after I bought it, on the beach. Nearly deafened me.’

‘Are you sure it still works?’

‘We’ll have to see, won’t we? Sit down.’

He nodded towards the chair. Kathy moved carefully towards it, and he matched her steps in a slow-motion ballet to position himself between her and the door. When he was satisfied, he lowered the gun to his side, much, Kathy suspected, to the relief of them both. She tried to read the expression on his face. Not anger, she thought, nor fear. More like perplexity.