by Jo Bannister
He got no immediate response. He took the silence as consent. ‘He threatened your way of life, so you killed him. You bust him up so badly the only story that would do was that a tractor landed on him.’ His gaze raked round them, still more bitter than afraid. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’
Sarah Turner said, ‘No!’ and Dr Chapel said, ‘Yes.’
She stared at him; he shrugged carelessly. ‘In all the relevant particulars. You weren’t told everything, dear. You and Jonathan were going to have to lie about whose body it was – it seemed unwise to let you in on all the facts.’
Jonathan Payne looked as if he was watching the man grow horns; as if no suspicion of this had ever crossed his mind. ‘You killed him? Simon? You killed him?’
‘In a way,’ said the doctor obliquely, ‘it was an accident. At least, it wasn’t premeditated. It was a fight that got out of hand. Some of the younger men wanted to have it out with him – persuade him, bully him, call it what you like, into selling the Mill to our co-operative. He wouldn’t listen; they tried to make him listen; it came to blows. When it finished Simon was badly injured.’
‘Not dead?’ whispered Sarah.
‘No. But he had head injuries he might not have recovered from.’
‘Didn’t get the chance, though, did he?’ sneered Donovan. ‘Because they did what people in this village had got in the habit of doing: they brought the problem to you.’
Chapel nodded calmly. ‘Of course they did. I’m the doctor.’
‘You were Simon’s doctor too. Much good it did him.’
Chapel shrugged. ‘A decision had to be made. If Simon lived, five decent lads were going to go to prison and their families would lose their homes. And there was no certainty that he’d recover, that he wouldn’t die anyway, just too late to do anybody any good. A judgement had to be made. I decided the greatest good would best be served by withholding treatment.’
‘You let him die,’ said Donovan baldly.
‘That’s fair comment,’ nodded Chapel.
‘Who knew about this?’ asked Payne.
‘Well – everybody, really. No, not everybody – it had to be kept a secret, we didn’t want the children growing up and leaving East Beckham with it. We didn’t want some tearful woman unburdening herself over the phone to her mother. But I called in the five lads responsible, and their fathers, and I told them what I was prepared to do – if I could count on their absolute support. Not just then, while their blood was up, but all the years thereafter. I could save them all, but I wasn’t going to put my head on a block to do it. They swore to me they’d keep the secret safe. And give them their due, they did. They made sure that all those who knew what had happened also knew the consequences for everyone if anyone had an attack of conscience.’
Donovan felt his jaw tighten as he listened. Simon Turner was still alive while they were debating the matter. He might still have been saved. But it was more expedient to let him die. It wasn’t enough that they’d beaten him to bloody sherds: now they took him into the fields and dropped a tractor on him.
‘Any way you cut it,’ he grated, ‘that boy was murdered. His life meant less to you than the trouble of moving house.
Chapel frowned. ‘That’s unworthy of you, sergeant. What was at stake here was the survival of a community. The mere accident of birth put one man, one rather greedy man, in a position to end a way of life three centuries old. We tried to reason with him, we tried to buy him off. He wasn’t interested. He was a vindictive young man: he was never happy here, now he had the chance to wipe the place off the map.’
‘That didn’t give you the right to murder him!’
‘Perhaps not. But it gave us a reason.’
Donovan fought to keep his voice under control. ‘And now you’re going to do it again.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘And again?’
‘If necessary.’
It was surreal. They could have been talking about scrapping a piece of machinery or replacing a leaky shed. About sacrificing a crop of bulbs to prevent a pest from spreading. Now he understood that too. They’d been talking about killing him that evening round the dinner table. The only one who wasn’t aware of the fact was him.
He barked a little snort of irony. ‘Oh, it will be. There’s never a last time. Ask any serial killer: it gets easier. The first time you kill it’s the most important thing in the world to you. You end up doing it because it’s easier than arguing.’
Incredibly, Chapel managed to look offended. ‘Young man, you don’t know us well enough to judge us.’
That did it. Donovan started to laugh. It was the absolute absurdity of it. He’d faced gangland bosses and homicidal maniacs; he’d faced guns and knives and fire and worse. And he was going to die at the behest of a retired family doctor and at the hands of a bunch of Morris Dancers. The situation was too ridiculous for tears, so he laughed until he started to cough. His damaged lungs spasmed and slivers of pain slipped under his ribs. He put one hand on the wall to steady himself, clasped the other hard against his side. His knees started to go and he slid down on to the hall chair, fighting for breath.
Sarah hurried to help him. He waved her away. ‘Fundamental error,’ he gritted. ‘I guess it’s different with flowers but the first thing you learn on a farm is, Never make friends with anything you’re going to eat.’
She recoiled in anguish. ‘Cal – I never thought this was going to happen. If I’d thought—’
‘What? You’d have left me on the boat? You should have done, at least I had a chance there. Maybe I’d have beaten the pneumonia. Maybe someone else would have found me. Only then they’d have wanted to know why you hadn’t tried to help, and you couldn’t cope with people asking questions. I was dead from the moment Elphie found me. You weren’t taking care of me, you were just managing my death. Making sure I couldn’t do you more harm dead than alive.’
He’d made her cry again. Payne moved to his mother’s side, put an arm about her. ‘Don’t blame her,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve every right to be angry, but not with her. She thought it would be all right. She didn’t know how high the stakes were.’
‘I don’t think you do, either.’
‘No,’ agreed Payne. ‘Maybe it suited us to be deaf and blind, but neither of us knew that Simon was murdered. I thought the worst that could happen was that the fraud would come out, I’d go to prison and we’d lose the Mill. I never guessed how far they were prepared to go.’
Donovan shook his head. ‘That’s not what I meant. After me they’ll kill Elphie.’
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock. If they hadn’t feared for the child, why ask him to take her away? But they still weren’t able to confront the monster they’d helped to create. Sarah’s hands flew to her mouth as if to catch the little choked denial in her throat. Hollow with fear, Payne’s eyes flicked between the policeman and the child as if Donovan were the one threatening her.
Elphie’s little pointed chin dropped and her eyes saucered, and she clung to Donovan’s hand as if she’d never let him go. He knew he’d frightened her. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t making this up: he knew how events would proceed. If they got away with killing him, soon their eyes would turn to her.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snorted Dr Chapel. ‘Elphie’s one of us. She’s safe here. This is the only place she can be entirely safe.’
Donovan didn’t believe him. ‘After I’m dead, she’s the main threat to your security. You can count on one another to keep the secret – you all know what the consequences would be if anyone let it slip. But you can’t count on Elphie, and you never will be able to. She talks to people. There’s no guile with her – she couldn’t lie to save her life. If the police come back here looking for me, and they ask Elphie what she knows, she’ll tell them. She won’t think she’s avenging me, she’ll just think it’s interesting and they’d want to know. She’s going to betray you all. You’ll never be safe as long as she’s alive.’
>
His eyes swivelled from Chapel to Payne. ‘Right now I’m the only thing stopping them from killing her. There’s no point while I’m the problem; but they won’t risk leaving her alive once I’m gone.’
‘Damn you!’ cried Jonathan Payne in agony. ‘That’s my daughter you’re talking about!’
‘She’s living proof of what happened here.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Chapel warned gruffly. ‘He’s trying to save his own neck. Nobody’s going to hurt Elphie. Yes, we killed Simon. It’s the only reason any of us is here today. And now we have to deal with another threat. That should buy us another fourteen years; or forty. He’s supposed to be dead already: when he turns up in the canal nobody’ll suspect us. They’ll think they know what happened. That’ll be the end of it. I promise.’
‘Believe him,’ suggested Donovan negligently. ‘Bet your daughter’s life on it.’
Payne was standing beside the front door. It was shut: now he reached out and quietly locked it. ‘Go,’ he said softly. ‘Go now. Take Elphie and get away. Take the Land Rover if you can reach it’ – he proffered the keys – ‘otherwise I don’t know what to suggest. I’ll hold them here as long as I can.’
Chapel looked up at him, no match physically, infinitely tougher psychologically. ‘If you do this,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I won’t be able to help you. I won’t be able to help any of you.’
Payne looked at him as if seeing him clearly for the first time. How small he was, how vicious. ‘Do you know something, Doctor? I think my family might do better without your help.’
He was small, and he was vicious, but even his detractors had to admit he was as brave as a lion. He filled his narrow chest to call for help.
Donovan was too far away to stop him. Payne shook him, hard; which might have introduced an interesting tremolo into his yell but would have done nothing to muffle it.
Sarah Turner lifted the brass candlestick off the hall table and hit him over the back of the head with it.
Dr Chapel gave a choked little grunt of surprise and dropped where he stood. A spurt of blood painted bright splashes on Elphie’s white cheeks.
‘Go,’ Sarah said, and her voice was hard. ‘It’ll be ten minutes before they get up the nerve to break in, and that’s the only way they’re getting in or he’s getting out. Leave by the back door and stay close to the wall. If you’re careful you can reach the sheds without anyone seeing you; unless they’ve put a guard on the Land Rover. If they have you’ll have to fight your way out.’
Donovan nodded. He knew she wasn’t doing this for him but because she saw in him Elphie’s only salvation. Still, it would have been easier to do what they’d done before: believe Chapel when he said everything would be all right. She’d trusted a stranger with her most precious possession, and pushed the limits of her own character to buy a chance for both of them. Now wasn’t the time to tell her he hadn’t the strength to fight his way out of a wet paper bag. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Remember this,’ she said tersely. ‘Nothing matters – nothing —besides getting that child safe.’
He nodded. He took Elphie’s hand and stepped over the unconscious body on the hall floor, and went from the house.
The doctor who met them on the steps of the fever hospital looked both anxious and relieved. ‘That was quick.’
Liz and Shapiro traded a puzzled frown. ‘Sorry?’
‘It can’t be ten minutes since I phoned. I wasn’t sure you’d come at all, let alone that quickly. I didn’t think I was getting through to you about the seriousness of the situation.’
‘Situation,’ echoed Shapiro. He thought about it but no, it still didn’t make any sense. ‘This is the first time we’ve spoken.’
‘It wasn’t you on the phone?’
‘It wasn’t anyone at Queen’s Street.’
‘Queen’s Street?’
Shapiro took a deep breath and started again. ‘Queen’s Street Police Station, Castlemere. That’s where we’re from.’ Light dawned. ‘You’ve been talking to the police in Cambridge? About Martin Wingrave? Why, what’s happened?’
‘He’s gone!’
‘Gone? You don’t mean died?’
‘There’d be nothing to worry about if he was dead,’ said the doctor impatiently. ‘He’s not: he’s a lot better. Well enough to have put his clothes on and walked out. He knocked one of my nurses down.’
Liz was frowning. ‘I thought people had the right to discharge themselves.’
‘They have; even from here, most of the time. They don’t have the right to help themselves from the samples cabinet before they go.’
Liz stared at him. ‘Samples of what?’
‘Anything from E. coli to haemorrhagic fever, for God’s sake! This is a fever unit: we deal with agents too dangerous to leave in the general hospitals. We’re still working out exactly what he got away with, but there was nothing harmless in that cabinet.’
‘Where did he go?’ asked Shapiro.
The doctor shook his head. ‘Nobody saw it happen – well, the nurse he knocked down did, but by the time she was up to raising the alarm he’d vanished. We’re searching the hospital right now, but nobody’s seen him. I think he’s gone.’
‘How was he?’ asked Liz. ‘I mean, should we stake out the public conveniences?’
‘He was fine. He was ready for home. Why would he suddenly do this? All right, he’s an odd sort, there was a general consensus here that a dose of poisoning might have been God dropping hints, but still …’
‘Mr Wingrave deceived us all,’ said Shapiro. ‘Nobody poisoned him: he poisoned himself. We think he’s the blackmailer who’s been holding Castlemere to ransom.’
The doctor went on staring at him as the implications fell slowly through his eyes and began to hit bottom. ‘Then — what’s he going to do with the samples he’s taken?’
Right now that was the only important question. And it wasn’t going to be resolved in Cambridge. Liz and Shapiro headed back to their car.
‘He isn’t going to win now, is he?’ said Liz. ‘It’s too late for that. We know who he is, he can’t take the money and disappear – he’s lost.’
Shapiro thought then nodded. ‘I suppose.’
‘Then what he wants those samples for is vengeance. He’s not going to get his money, he’s probably going to prison – but by God he can make sure we’ve no cause to celebrate either. While he expected to succeed he was willing to see how far he could go on threats alone. Now he’s lost he’s going to show us what he’s capable of. He’s going to hurt as many people as he can before we catch up to him.’
‘So he’s heading for Castlemere.’
‘I’m sure of it.’
‘Even though that’s where we’ll catch him? Anywhere else he has a chance, but in Castlemere we will catch him. He must know that.’
‘I don’t think he cares. I think, if he can’t have what he wants, the only thing left that matters to him is punishing those who got in his way. He’d rather go down in history as a mass murderer than someone who tried to blackmail a town and failed.’
‘If it’s a numbers game, I suppose the water supply would be a good place to start.’ Shapiro called Queen’s Street, despatched a patrol to the water treatment works on the edge of The Levels. ‘Where else?’
‘Anywhere.’ Liz shook her head despairingly. ‘Anywhere! If he stands on the castle ramparts and smashes the bottles on the cobbles in the square he can be pretty sure of spreading something nasty. It might be a scattergun approach, but if all he wants is bodies …’
Her voice slowed down as her thought processes caught up. ‘But that isn’t all he wants, is it? He also wants to punish Sheila. He’s worked out by now that she’s in custody – maybe he’s been trying to call her at home, when he couldn’t get through he guessed she’d been picked up and we’d be after him next. That’s why he left the hospital, and why he left it equipped to do some damage.’
‘Sheila’s safe enough,’ sai
d Shapiro. ‘He can’t get at her in the cells:
‘He doesn’t need to.’ Liz’s eyes were wide and she took the phone from his hand. ‘Frank, we know what matters most to Sheila, and it isn’t her own safety. He’s going for her baby.’
6
They’d have him within the hour. Wingrave wouldn’t be sure where Jason was: he might go to Sheila’s flat first or he might go to her mother’s house. Another phone call sent officers scurrying to both addresses.
He had a half-hour start on them. Even if he’d hijacked a Porsche he couldn’t have got from Cambridge to Castlemere in under an hour so there was time to intercept him. When Shapiro had explained the situation to Superintendent Giles he took a deep breath and proposed that firearms officers be part of each group, at Arrow House and at Coronation Row.
Giles sounded shocked. ‘Is that necessary?’
‘Yes,’ said Shapiro plainly. ‘This is a deeply dangerous man. A psychopath equipped for germ warfare: it’s hard to imagine a more lethal combination. He raided that hospital cabinet with the explicit intention of spreading fatal diseases. He doesn’t care who falls sick, who dies, except that the longer the casualty list the more vindicated he’ll feel. It’s his way of paying us back for outmanoeuvring him: if he’s not going to get his money he’s going to create as much mayhem as he can before he’s caught. He won’t be stopped by the flash of a warrant card and a firm hand on his collar.’
‘Can we prove he’s behind the blackmail?’
‘I’m sure we can,’ said Shapiro. ‘With Sheila Crosbie’s testimony and a thorough search of his house I’m sure we’ll put it beyond any doubt.’
‘But not in the next half hour.’
‘Well – no.’
‘Frank, before we kill this man we have to be absolutely sure he is who we think he is.’
‘I hope it won’t be necessary to kill him,’ growled Shapiro. ‘But if we have to fight him to the ground, a lot of people are going to be in danger. Our people. It isn’t reasonable to ask unprotected police officers to engage in a wrestling match with a plague carrier.’