Strike a Match (Book 1): Serious Crimes (14 page)

“It is?” Riley raised a hand, wincing as she touched the gash above her brow. “Oh. Must’ve been a low branch. I got knocked off the horse. What about your face?”

“It’s not my blood,” Ruth said. “It’s the woman’s. Hailey Lyons. She was shot by that scarred man.”

And as she remembered the moment, and saw herself uselessly pulling the trigger of the unloaded gun, the obvious question came to her. “Why didn’t he kill me?”

“Be thankful he didn’t,” Riley said, staggering as she bent to pick up her bike. Ruth caught her arm.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Riley said. “It’s been a long day, that’s all.”

Nevertheless, Ruth had to steady the bike as the constable climbed on to it.

“Maybe you should stay—” Ruth began.

“I said I’m fine,” Riley said, setting off unsteadily. “Tell me what happened.”

Keeping her eyes on the constable in case she were to fall, though feeling no less unsteady herself, Ruth did.

“Usually when you find the criminals you get answers, but not this time,” Riley said when Ruth had finished. “This time it’s nothing but more questions. Did you take any?”

“Any what?” Ruth asked, though she knew what Riley meant.

“Money,” Riley said.

“No. Of course not.”

“Good. It’s not worth it,” Riley said. “That’s what criminals don’t understand. They don’t weigh up the risk against the reward. Except this time. This time the reward is… it’s too big. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Ruth said, though her mind was once again on the banknote in her pocket.

They didn’t go to the factory, but to the railway station, and sent a message back to the city via telegram. It was only as they were heading back to the crime scene, this time walking the bicycles, that Ruth was struck by a thought.

“We should go back and ask the station master if he saw anyone matching Clipton or Emmitt’s description coming through there in the last hour. Or at least give him a description in case they go through soon.”

“No point,” Riley said. “Trains go to the cities, and neither of them will want to go there. If they were to board a train and jump off in the middle of nowhere, the guards would notice and report it. No, they’ll keep running until nightfall, and then find somewhere remote to hide until it’s all quietened down.”

“Are you sure?” Ruth asked, because she wasn’t.

“We’re nearly at the house,” Riley said by way of answer.

As they approached the building, Mitchell came outside to meet them.

“There’s been no sign of Emmitt,” he said.

“Did you think he’d return?” Ruth asked.

“Not really, but it says a lot that he didn’t. Reading between the lines of what Turnbull said, it sounds as if Emmitt was the one running the operation, not Clipton.”

“Did he say anything else?” Ruth asked.

“A few details that might help us, but he doesn’t know much more than we can gather from looking around. Did
you
want to have another look around the house, cadet?”

“No, I…” Ruth began. There was knowing understanding in Mitchell’s expression. “I would like another look at that printer,” she said.

Turnbull was still handcuffed to the chair. He looked up as she entered and dropped his head when he saw it was her.

“Who were you expecting?” she asked. The man didn’t answer. Ruth walked around the room, waiting until she was hidden behind the printer before she pulled the banknote from her pocket and let it drop to the floor. Then she walked through the house again, looking in the kitchen, and then the rooms upstairs, though she didn’t take in any details. All she could see was Hailey Lyons’s face, followed by Emmitt, and his expression after he lowered his rifle. He could have killed her. He should have.

When she went back outside, she found Riley sitting on the porch with her eyes closed. Mitchell sat nearby, his eyes on the distant trees.

“Did you learn anything?” he asked.

“Not really. I mean… um… I don’t really understand what we’ve found.”

“To summarise,” he said. “Turnbull and Lyons were recruited by Clipton in June. By that stage Emmitt, and perhaps Mr Anderson, were already working for him, or with him. Lyons took the cart out to buy supplies. According to Turnbull because it was less suspicious for a woman to do that. I get the feeling the real reason was that they didn’t trust Turnbull to do it. The printing was done at night, and the notes were taken away, in the cart, by Clipton.” He gestured to the suitcase that Emmitt had been carrying to the cart when they had arrived. “Emmitt was in charge of the machines, and he would fix them when they broke. However, he wasn’t here all the time, and if they went wrong while he was away they would have to wait for his return. From what Turnbull says there is almost certainly at least one guard in the recycling plant on their payroll. There is also someone who laid an underground cable from there to the house. Since that involved digging a trench and then filling it in, I’d be surprised if anyone on the factory’s security detail hasn’t taken a hefty bribe. As to where the money went, Turnbull doesn’t know. Nor does he know the identity of the guards, or of this electrical engineer. He doesn’t know Anderson’s real surname, or precisely what the man’s role was in the operation. What is telling is that he called him Charles. Why is that significant, cadet?”

“When he got involved with the gang he didn’t realise he would need a fake name?” Ruth answered.

“Or they already knew what his real name was,” Riley muttered.

“What about the radiators in the cart?” Ruth asked.

“They’re junk. Camouflage,” Mitchell said. “But I did find a scavenging licence inside the house that had Hailey Lyons’s name on it, and that is interesting. If they’d shown it to us we might have gone away.”

“Instead they shot at us,” Ruth said.

“No,” Riley said. “Emmitt signalled to Turnbull to shoot at us. Did he recognise you?”

“I didn’t recognise him,” Mitchell said. “And with a face like that I’m sure I would. But it’s possible. Certainly there’s some reason why he decided not to brazen it out. I did get Turnbull to admit that there are two bodies buried in the paddock. There may be more. From what he says they sound like people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ll know more when we’ve exhumed the bodies. I’m starting to regret offering him a deal.”

“Can you really do that?” Ruth asked. “Offer him that kind of deal, I mean?”

“Technically? No. But I can ask a favour of the people who can. I was being honest about his chances if we place him in a cell. I doubt he’d make it to trial. And now, cadet, we brace ourselves to answer a lot of questions.” He pointed towards the plume of dust approaching along the track. It soon resolved into a column of Marines running almost at a sprint towards them. At the front, easily keeping up, was Captain Weaver.

“She got here fast,” Mitchell said.

“We have a suspect inside, another dead in the field over there. Two other men got away,” the sergeant said, speaking more to the major than to Captain Weaver. “A man named Emmitt took to the woods on foot. He’s armed with an automatic rifle. Old-world. Optical sight. Another escaped on a horse, heading in that direction. His name’s Clipton. He’s about—”

“Emmitt and Clipton. You’ve got the descriptions?” Weaver cut in.

“Yes ma’am,” the major said, and went to deploy his troops.

“You know what they look like?” Mitchell asked.

“What do you think I’ve been doing with my time?” she snapped. “You said Turnbull’s inside?”

“That’s right,” Mitchell said.

“Fine.” She pushed open the door. “No,” she added. “You three stay out here.”

Ruth looked at Riley, she at Mitchell. He stared at the ground, his mouth chewing on nothing, as if he was eating the words he desperately wanted to shout. After a few minutes there was a yell.

“Mitchell! Inside.”

“Excuse me,” the sergeant said, and pushed open the door.

Ruth watched the Marines as they split into three groups. One deployed in a loose ring around the house, another ran towards the woods, the third double-timed it across the paddock in the direction Clipton had gone.

“Maybe they’ll catch them,” Ruth said.

Before Riley could answer, there was a fusillade of swearing from inside the house, followed a moment later by Mitchell barging through the door.

“Come on. Time for us to go,” he said.

“Sir?” Riley asked.

“That…” Mitchell began. He shook his head. “We’re…” he tried again, but words seemed to escape him. He shrugged and stormed off towards the track. Ruth helped Riley to her feet, and they followed the sergeant.

They’d reached the point where the track joined the old road before Mitchell brought his bike to a halt and threw himself off it. Ruth pulled on her brakes a dozen paces from the sergeant, watching as he paced up and down, fists clenching and unclenching. Finally, it was Riley who spoke.

“Is it that bad?”

“She wouldn’t honour the deal. Turnbull stopped talking,” Mitchell growled. “I’ll have to spend the evening finding someone to persuade her to get off her vertiginous horse. In the meantime, Clipton could be halfway to the Thames. I’ll admit we might have stumbled across the place by accident, but…” He took a deep breath, and Ruth thought he was going to scream. He didn’t. “It is what it is.” He picked up his bike and began walking it towards the train line.

“You want to go after Clipton?” Riley asked.

“Emmitt is the one in charge. Or is he?” Mitchell stopped again. “Would a man like that allow someone like Clipton to order him around? Certainly Clipton was the frontman, the one who hired Lyons, Turnbull, Anderson, and whoever else. Emmitt has skills, we saw that. Not just with the rifle, but with the printer as well. There would have had to be a lot of money involved for him to take orders from Clipton.”

“Well, there is, isn’t there?” Ruth asked. “I mean, he could have printed however much Emmitt wanted to charge.”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?” Mitchell replied. “You saw how Emmitt killed that woman. If he wanted fake currency for himself, he would have shot the others long ago. There was so much money, too much, in fact. If it were to enter the market, it would completely devalue the currency, destroy the economy, and so make itself worthless. Whatever this is about, it isn’t money.”

“Why would it devalue the currency?” Ruth asked.

Mitchell turned to face her. His expression changed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I asked why would—”

“No, I heard the question. I mean that I’m sorry. I made an assumption about what those people were up to, I was wrong, and you almost paid the price. I apologise.”

“Oh. Right. Um… that’s… okay,” Ruth said uncertainly.

“No, it’s not,” Mitchell said. “You could have died.”

“So could I,” Riley muttered.

Mitchell waved that away. “When I—” he began and stopped. “This isn’t what—” Again he stopped. He sighed. “Let’s get back.” He started walking again. “When I saw the dead body, I assumed this was going to be a simple case. I imagined it was the idle fantasy of some group of ageing physicists who saw it as an easy way of getting rich. They’d teamed up with a younger crowd and, inevitably, they’d turned on each other. Had I known then what we know now, I would have left you at Police House.”

And again Ruth was at a loss as to what she should say. “I’m glad I came,” she finally said. “I mean, I know I wasn’t much use—”

“You arrested Lyons,” Mitchell said. “That was impressive.”

“For all the good it did,” Ruth said, as an image of the dead woman’s face came back to her. “But why didn’t Emmitt shoot me?”

“A good question. One of many. Let us be thankful that there are enough to keep us busy for some time.”

“Then we’re still investigating?” Ruth asked.

“Of course. When they start shooting, you know you’re on the right track. The question is what line of enquiry we should follow next.”

Ruth waited to see if he would go on, but though the sergeant’s lips moved, he kept his thoughts to himself.

They reached the old main road, along which the new train line had been laid, and turned their bikes towards the city. Ruth was still running over the events of the afternoon when a whistle pierced the air behind them. Mitchell stepped onto the tracks as a train approached. It came to a screeching halt, but not before the sergeant had to jump out of the way.

“What do you think—” the driver began, but stopped his angry tirade when he saw Ruth’s face, still covered in dried blood.

“Tell the train to stop,” Ruth heard Mitchell say. She opened her eyes, and only then did she realise she’d fallen asleep.

“We don’t stop until we get to the main station,” the driver replied.

“I said stop the train,” Mitchell said, his voice tempestuously calm.

As the driver applied the brakes, Ruth looked around, trying to spot what Mitchell had seen, but it looked like they were in the middle of nowhere.

“This is as close as we get to your house, cadet,” Mitchell said. “Go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”