Souvenirs of Murder (6 page)

I immediately rang Michael Greenway to tell him that I had not been guilty of leaking the story, and would hardly have mentioned Patrick's name if I had, but had to leave a message as his phone was, unusually, switched off. I could imagine him in a top-level meeting, perhaps with Richard Daws. He returned the call shortly afterwards.

‘We know you didn't,' was his first remark. ‘There was an anonymous call to a news agency from a man who described himself as an insider.'

‘I do know insiders,' I said.

‘Yes, but – well – Ingrid, we knew you wouldn't really do it. He's on his way home for at least a week's leave, by the way.'

‘I'm sorry I bawled you out.'

‘It looked very bad from where you were standing yesterday. It
is
very bad with the death of the child. And please believe me when I tell you that Patrick's training was no more than a refresher course with weapons and so forth and a regime to get him as fit as possible.'

I knew that if I was to carry on working with Greenway I had to believe him. A short while later the phone started ringing; friends, acquaintances and finally, when he could get through, Patrick's father, all wanting to know what was going on. All I could say to everyone was that he had been working undercover, adding that he was not under arrest and had had nothing to do with the killings. John I invited over later, with Elspeth if she wished, so they could talk to him themselves. It was all I could do.

Carrie put her head around the living room door. ‘I take it the news about Patrick is a smoke and mirrors thing and there's nothing to worry about.'

‘There's a little concern,' I told her. ‘But no, basically, you're right. Patrick'll be home later and if Matthew and Katie ask questions we'll deal with it.'

‘Oh, good. That baby of yours has been nominated for a sainthood, by the way.'

It was actually a little after eleven when a car pulled into the large gravelled parking area in front of the rented house – not a blade of grass, tub of plants nor tree in sight, a situation that had led us to call it ‘the helicopter landing pad' and making me desperate to move to my new home, which was at least another three weeks away. Patrick got out, went round to retrieve a bag from the back, waved his thanks to the driver and the car left immediately.

I went out to meet him.

Standing face to face after a kiss and a hug Patrick said, ‘I'm OK. Are you?'

He was not at all OK and I rather felt from his guarded expression that he was asking me if I was going to divorce him. ‘Absolutely fine,' I told him, meaning it.

‘Is the sprog asleep or am I allowed to have a quick gloat?'

Mark woke up, blinked twice and then drifted off again in his father's arms. Patrick sat down with him in the first floor living room, facing the picture window that gave a fine view over the Somerset countryside, while I brewed coffee.

‘He seems very placid,' Patrick commented when I went in.

‘Heaven after Justin,' I said. I had brought a shawl. ‘Lay him on the sofa in this while you have your coffee in case you spill it on him.'

‘Can I let it get cold so he won't be scalded if I do?'

I had to smile. ‘If you want to.'

‘He's all right though? Not quiet because . . .'

This time I laughed. ‘Of course he's all right! You can bath him tonight if you like and hear him yelling for his feed.' I sipped my coffee. ‘So you're on a week's leave.' I had hoped that he would look better than he had in the clinic. He did not: still like something poisoned.

‘In a way.'

‘There had to be a catch.'

‘Greenway's working on the theory that the so-called insider who leaked the story is either the killer or someone with a big grudge against me. The call was made from a mobile phone.'

‘Sorry to be so negative but how can everyone be really sure that you didn't go right off your head with the mixture of drugs you'd been given and fire shots in all directions?'

‘Overnight testing has proved that the shots
were
fired from the gun I was holding when I was found nearby. It
was
my Glock 18. But my prints are the only ones on it, just the one set, not lots of others of mine that would be the normal state of affairs. Which would suggest it had been wiped and then put in my hand.' At this point Patrick changed his mind and rose to place Mark in the shawl on the sofa, watched for a few moments to make sure that all remained peaceful and then sat down again and picked up his coffee mug. ‘As you might know already they were all killed with a single shot to the head, except for Leanne who had been hit in the chest.'

I respected the silence that followed, Patrick turning away from me, in the direction of the window.

‘Apparently it was a mass execution,' he continued, after clearing his throat. ‘In the living room, where they were found.'

‘Greenway took me there.'

‘Someone said that it would have been a medical impossibility for me to have fired such accurate shots in the condition I was in.'

‘So what did the killer do, line them all up against the wall and shoot them?' I said, aware of occasions when this man of mine had achieved things not reckoned at the time to be medically possible, like laughing when he was in intensive care, for example. ‘He would only have been able to kill one at a time. Did the others just line up waiting to die like sheep?'

‘A scenes-of-crime team is still working there. No one knows – yet.'

‘You went back to the house to try to get Leanne out. That means you must have been mobile, after a fashion.'

‘Look, Ingrid, I didn't kill those people!'

‘I know, sorry, but I'm playing your hard-hearted consultant and trying to get to the bottom of this. Frankly though, I can't understand why you're not under some kind of arrest or suspension. After the party you went back to your digs, presumably in the early hours of the morning, and were still under the influence of whatever you thought had been slipped into your drink.
Then
someone broke in and doped you with truth drug. It was after that, after I'd spoken to you, that you went back to the house to rescue the girl and that's when the shooting started. How did you get there?'

‘I can't remember,' Patrick answered after another silence.

‘
Why
did you feel she needed rescuing?'

‘I'm not sure now. It might have been because she was around during the party – or rather binge.'

‘Around?'

‘Saying she was hungry and why wasn't there anything to eat. I got her out of the room, made her some supper, and told her to go to bed.'

‘While her mother was high on God knows what and having it away with any number of men.'

‘Drink and drugs yes, but as far as sex went only with Hulton.'

‘Not you?' I enquired ruthlessly, not knowing how much he could recall of what he had told me the previous day.

‘No.'

‘No?'

‘No. The situation's clearer to me now. She was too scared of him to go with anyone else.'

I left that subject, thankfully, and said, ‘Why didn't you get Leanne out of the place while the party was going on if you were worried about her safety?'

‘I didn't think she was in the kind of danger you're thinking about. A bad situation for any child, I know, but she was used to such happenings and had only come downstairs because she was hungry. And at that stage I didn't know anyone suspected me.'

‘It might follow then that when those people broke into your digs they said something to you that made you think
everyone
at the house was in danger, not just Leanne.'

Patrick shook his head. ‘If they did I can't remember what it was.'

‘Why didn't you phone Greenway? They must have left your mobile behind because I rang you.'

‘It was my work mobile I had with me – which is fixed up so that your calls are automatically forwarded. I still have it with me. Mine's in my locker at HQ.'

‘In that case, with that literally at your fingertips, why didn't you call out the cavalry instead of going back to the house on your own?'

Patrick had a mouthful of coffee and then said, ‘You're getting as good at interrogation as me. So if I ask you for something to eat before I answer any more questions you refuse, eh?'

We eyeballed one another. He hadn't exactly been joking.

‘I don't know why I didn't call Greenway,' Patrick then said. ‘But if it wasn't because I was sozzled and had forgotten the codes I might have been hoping I could salvage the job even at that late stage.'

‘Please tell me what your rôle was as far as this woman was concerned, your undercover rôle, I mean.'

‘I was brought in by someone who penetrated the gang years ago and who worked as a kind of Bloke Friday; driving their cars, fixing things and so forth. He then had a faked road accident and was pulled off the job. I'd been introduced as an ex-serviceman with a grudge against this country after being injured and invalided out who had plenty of specialized knowledge about MoD installations and weapon stores and wanted a job. The idea was that she'd find me – well – attractive and confide in me.'

I stood up. ‘I'll fix you something to eat.'

The kitchen was on the ground floor, reached through a wide archway from the dining area, this part of the house being mostly open plan. This was a pity as I could have done with a door to shut right now. Mind a blank I found myself looking into the fridge. Yes, that's right, lunch. Bread rolls, tomatoes, ham, butter . . . I took a double handful of stuff to the nearest work top and dumped it all down, tears dripping on to the pack of rolls.

I became aware of Patrick standing in the archway.

‘It's called baby blues,' I told him, or rather gulped. ‘Quite common and I had it after Vicky was born. Take no notice of me.'

‘She didn't,' Patrick said.

‘What, confide in you? That's a shame,' I said brightly after a big sniff.

‘No, find me attractive.'

‘Oh.'

‘She preferred hairy men.'

I stared at him. ‘
Hairy
men!'

‘Yes, Hulton's like a yak. It was rumoured that he carries a gun hidden under all the fur.'

I really thought for a moment that he was having me on but he came over and solemnly dried my tears on his handkerchief.

‘I think I'll put smoked salmon and cream cheese in the rolls,' I said with a silly laugh. ‘And we'll have a glass of wine with it.' Then I said, ‘Did you try to make yourself attractive to her?'

Patrick kissed the end of my nose. ‘No, but don't tell himself.'

‘I forgot to wish you a belated happy birthday. Your presents are upstairs.'

Which were a bottle of his favourite single-malt whisky and a large framed photograph of George, his horse.

‘Greenway told me that Hulton wasn't among the dead,' I said later after we had eaten and Patrick had slept for an hour and a half.

‘I can't remember seeing him when I went back but that doesn't mean he wasn't in the house. Or he might have either left the previous night or did a runner when the trouble started.'

‘Would he have killed Pangborne if she'd had sex with another man?'

‘Hulton'll kill anything.'

I was just going to ask Patrick if he thought the man guilty of the murders when a car drew in.

‘It'll be your parents,' I said. ‘Do you want to talk to them alone?'

‘No, by no means,' Patrick replied emphatically.

Dreading any awkwardness I went down to let them in. Elspeth delightedly commandeered the latest addition to the family who had just been given a feed and was wide awake. John said nothing, other than to greet me, and led the way upstairs.

There was a little general conversation; the ongoing police investigation into Blanche's murder, the building progress, the weather, and I stuck it out, unwilling to leave the room to make tea and thereby abandon Patrick with them. I could understand their concern but although they love him dearly they are not the sort of people to be pleased by anything they regard as a drop in standards so, from their point of view, were facing family disaster.

Then John said, ‘This job of yours seems to be getting totally out of hand.'

‘No assignment goes strictly to plan,' Patrick told him.

‘Are you under suspicion for these murders?'

‘Unofficially, yes.'

I heard Elspeth gasp.

‘But as you can see I'm not under arrest,' Patrick went on. ‘I can't water this down for you but feel you ought to know that I was sent in to try to bring to justice a woman and her gang who were international criminals; killers and thieves. Someone, somehow, must have suspected me. I was drugged and dumped in a lane behind the house and a person unknown must have put the gun in my hand that had been used to commit the murders so I would get the blame. It was my gun. I hadn't fired it. I know when I've fired a gun because my right wrist aches slightly for a few hours afterwards, a legacy of old injuries. My memory is returning but I still don't have the full mental picture because of the drugs. That's all I can tell you. It's the truth and, frankly, Dad, I don't need you coming here wearing your dog collar and with a face as long as a fiddle. I
do
need your support, a prayer perhaps or a blessing so that I don't feel so bloody wretched about trying to get a child away from danger only to have her shot in my arms.'

I left the room to put the kettle on. He did not need my presence. Not only that, he had remembered being dumped out the back, something that I had not mentioned along with other details at Greenway's suggestion. When I returned with the tea things I rather got the impression that a prayer had been said and a blessing administered – verified by Patrick later – because the atmosphere was much more relaxed and Elspeth was smiling broadly as she talked to Mark in her lap.