‘You’re not being at all clever,’ Brandon sneered.
‘And you thought it was really neat to throw away the murder weapon in Brian Stonelake’s tractor shed, being as you’d used his barn as a charnel house. He was the local bad boy and the police were bound to turn the whole place over when the bodies were discovered and find the knife together with all kinds of stolen property. But it was a pure coincidence that Stonelake’s father’s coffin had ended up being used to hide the gold. I bet you had a really good laugh with Davies about that. Where did that blood on your sleeve come from?’
‘He must have brushed against the steak that’s ready for grilling in the kitchen,’ said a voice behind me.
I whirled round and the person I really thought he had just done to death stood before me. Not a frail and gently smiling Marjorie Brandon but a wiry, ferocious-looking woman who then struck me with a fist, just like a man might do. Pain exploded in my face and then I was flat on my back on the marble tiling, my head having come into violent contact with a wall. She dragged me inside the flat by my feet, dropping them on the hall carpet. I heard the front door slam.
She was not finished with me and actually pulled me to my feet so she could hit me again. ‘Stupid little cow!’ she screamed at me, spraying saliva, as I lay on the floor. ‘People like you are shit! And that husband of yours! If there’s one thing I loathe it’s holier than thou, Daddy’s a vicar, I’m an army officer saving the world and raising money for charity SHITS!’
‘You haven’t seen Patrick on one of his bad days,’ I told her.
This time she hit me so hard I passed out.
It was a surprise to recover consciousness and realize that I was still alive and not existing as some kind of shade hovering in the roof of the barn watching the blood drain from my lifeless body below. With an effort, for my imagination is formidable and has to be controlled sometimes, I did not decorate this sad little picture with grieving husband, family and friends but slew the whole bloody thing and concentrated on escape.
I was lying on my right side, still on the hall carpet, and although they had tied my hands behind me and my feet together I could feel the heavy lump that was the short-barrelled police-issue Smith and Wesson in my pocket. I had no idea whether they had removed the mobile phone from my other pocket.
These lovely people were having dinner, judging by the tinkling of cutlery on china, the smell of seared meat heavy in the air. I lay quite still, eyes closed, when I heard footsteps approaching and someone walked close by, her, she kicked me as she went by, and went into the kitchen. I heard a bottle crash into the rubbish bin, the fridge door being opened and the distinct squeaky sound of the cork being drawn from another. Were they drinking themselves into a state where they could happily contemplate murder? It did not seem to me that she needed much, if any, artificial help. She was also firmly in charge of everything that went on here.
How long had I been away? How long did I have left? My fiendish imagination presented me with the rectory dining room, the three of them eating, my dinner drying up in the Rayburn while Patrick and his father discussed the village cricket team. I actually banged my head on the floor a couple of times to stop this flight of fancy, making myself nauseated with the pain. Truly, truly, I would stop writing novels and have a brain operation to rid me of this curse.
My sight was blurred but I twisted my neck and looked around. Nearest to me was a bathroom: the door was ajar and I could see inside and next to it another door, also not pulled quite closed. The toilet? If it was a really small room I might be able to …
Moving as soundlessly as possible I started to hump myself along the floor, pausing frequently to listen. They were still eating, talking in low voices. Then I achieved sitting up and, head spinning, reached the door and gave it a gentle push. Yes, a small loo. The door was still slowly moving and then the hinges squeaked.
There was a crash as cutlery was dropped on to plates and in the same moment I hurled myself into the little room, twisted round and kicked the door shut with my feet. Bracing them against it, my back to the toilet, I waited, shivering.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
Someone opened it and I heard Marjorie say, ‘Oh, it’s you, Teddy.’ They then carried on talking in an undertone.
I really did not stand a chance. The door was suddenly rammed open and it was either move or have my legs broken. A thick-set individual hauled me out, backwards, by my arms and dumped me back down on to the hall floor.
‘Who the hell is she?’ he demanded to know.
‘Daughter-in-law of the local vicar,’ said Brandon, coming into my line of view, puffing at a cigarette. ‘Playing policeman.’
‘More realistically, from our point of view,’ Marjorie said coldly, with a dismissive glance in his direction, ‘she’s the wife of the rector’s son, who I understand has just started a police career at senior level. He’s working on the investigation of our little escapade in the barn.’
‘So we just wring her bloody neck. What’s the problem?’
‘Teddy, you really must stop thinking you can solve everything with violence. Someone must know she’s here.’
‘Do they?’ the bull-necked moron shouted at me.
‘Of course.’ My own voice surprised me, slurred and faint.
‘Where’s your car?’
‘I didn’t bring it.’
I thought for a moment that he might resume where Mother had left off but his fists dropped back to his sides. ‘We’ll clear out for a while until the heat’s off.’
Marjorie appeared to count up to ten. ‘Teddy, you’re not in the US now. The heat, as you put it, won’t go off and –’ her voice rose – ‘everything would have been perfectly in hand if you hadn’t come back and interfered!’
Teddy gave his brain cell a quick trot around his cranium and grabbed the cordless phone from a small table. ‘Here, you,’ he said to me. ‘Ring your old man and tell him you won’t be home for a while. Say you’ve been delayed.’
Marjorie groaned. ‘This is not some country plod you’re referring to but a man who used to work for MI5! His mother told me and she should know!’
‘You’ll have to untie my hands,’ I said encouragingly to Teddy.
‘Tell him you’ve had an interesting lead that you’re following up,’ Marjorie said after a pause. ‘Say there’s no need for him to become involved and you’ll be back shortly. Say that, nothing else, or I shall kill you. Right now.’
Teddy took a flick knife from his pocket and sprang the blade, smiling at it. I was looking at the murderer.
I was in no shape to outwit even a bunch of fourth-rate crooks. It took a few minutes to massage the circulation and feeling back into my fingers, during which time the execrable Teddy walked up and down the hallway, thrusting the knife into the woodwork, farting at intervals and carrying on a shouted conversation with the other two discussing where in France they would go for a couple of months when they had collected the gold, there having been a change of mind on Marjorie’s part. At last, I could delay no longer and the three of them grouped around me as I sat on the floor.
I rang Patrick’s mobile number.
‘Gillard,’ said the man I had known for most of my life.
I repeated the message, word for word, not taking any immediate risks by adding any of our code words or changing the tone of my voice. The gun was still in my pocket – I could not imagine why – but I simply did not trust myself to use it there and then against the three of them. My mobile was in my other pocket, I could feel its slim shape against my side with my elbow.
I obeyed all the instructions but after I had rung off everything went black.
Fifteen
On two previous occasions, when Patrick and I worked for D12, I have woken up in hospital to see him, and James Carrick, sitting by my bedside, looking worried. This time though I immediately knew that something was different and it probably had something to do with the fact that, for one shocking moment, I ha
d not been able to remember who these two men were.
‘How do you feel?’ Patrick asked quietly.
Yes, I reminded myself, he was my husband, but it seemed that I was looking at him for the first time or from a new perspective. He was actually very attractive, I decided, and it was mainly the eyes that did it: grey irises flecked with gold, a darker band encircling them. His black wavy hair tinged with grey could do with a trim but then again it always turned me on when it curled down on the back of his neck like that.
They appeared to be waiting for me to say something. Oh, yes, how did I feel. ‘I don’t know,’ I heard my voice say.
Carrick was still not well but soldiering on in the way Scots do and right now was gazing at me in a direct sort of way. ‘Why were you walking along the main road, Ingrid?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Can’t you remember?’ Patrick enquired, alarm in his tone.
‘I can’t remember being anywhere near the main road.’
‘You were hit by a car.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t.’
‘There are four witnesses,’ said James. ‘A couple in the vehicle that hit you and a mother and daughter in another car coming from the opposite direction.’
‘Was anyone else hurt?’ I asked, dreading his reply and now aware of the dressings on my head and chin. My mouth felt strange, my head fit to burst.
‘No, nothing really serious. The man’s wife has a minor whiplash injury where he braked hard to try to avoid you – you really have him to thank, he really only bumped you over – and naturally they’re shaken up. Ingrid, there are no street lights along that road and you were walking along the middle of it wearing dark clothing. That’s just asking to be knocked down.’
Patrick said, ‘You phoned me, said you were following up a lead and I needn’t bother myself with it, but rang off before I could suggest you came home first as we were about to eat. Do you remember doing that?’
‘How long have I been here?’ I asked. Yes, I did have a vague recollection of doing that, it was part of the blur of events in my mind. Some of this had to be real, the rest perhaps just a lurid dream I had had after the car hit me.
‘About twelve hours.’
I now saw that my left arm was in a sling.
‘Do you remember phoning me?’ Patrick repeated.
They were both furious and had lost patience with me and had not even told me how bad were my injuries.
‘Go away,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘I don’t know what I remember. I don’t even know if this is real or not.’ The things that were swilling around in my mind were preposterous. Marjorie Brandon, a different woman altogether to the one I had met, had hit me? They had a thug of an accomplice, probably their son, by the name of Teddy? I had found the gold? I had been hit by a car after walking along the main road in the dark? The last was the only thing of which I had no recollection at all.
‘Brandon’s made an official complaint,’ Carrick said, getting to his feet. ‘In writing, this time. Do you remember going to his place and bawling him out, accusing him of the murders, of leading a life of crime and just about anything else you could think of?’
‘Oh, yes, I can remember that bit,’ I said.
‘I thought I told you to apologize to him.’
‘Go away,’ I said, knowing tears were trickling down my face. ‘I’ll talk to you again when you’re off those bloody pills.’
The DCI went, shaking his head sadly at Patrick on the way out.
‘If you loved me—’ I began.
‘I do,’ he interrupted, pulling his chair up closer. ‘Nothing’s going to change that.’
‘But I took the gun, broke into the locked garage, confronted Brandon …’ My head hurt so much I felt sick. I had to stop talking for a moment.
‘It was still in your pocket and would have taken a bit of explaining away if I hadn’t been issued with a permit. Brinkley arranged for me to have it.’
‘Why?’ At least no one had made off with it.
‘You and I are still on several terrorist organizations’ hit-lists. Ingrid—’
‘I know, you’ve been given the boot and it’s all my fault.’
‘No, I haven’t. But your position’s a bit iffy now. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Go away,’ I said.
‘I was going to suggest I take you home, to Devon, when your wrist’s been put in plaster.’
‘I’ve broken it?’
‘Yes, they’re waiting until the swelling goes down.’
‘What else have I done to myself?’
‘Hasn’t anyone told you?’
‘Patrick, I’ve only just woken up.’
He smiled to himself in infuriating male fashion. ‘Not quite. You’ve been telling the doctors and nurses you found a big bag of gold. Other than the wrist you’re only very badly bruised. And you’ve two super black eyes.’
‘I think I did find the gold, actually.’
‘What, the ingots? Where?’
‘In the river.’
‘But—’
‘I can’t remember what I did with it afterwards.’
The pig actually smiled again, patting my arm. ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry about anything.’
‘Go away.’
‘OK. I’ll come back later.’
‘Don’t bother. Just ask Elspeth if she’d mind bringing me some clean clothes.’
By the door he paused. ‘Did you find anything in the locked garage?’
‘What locked garage?’
‘You just said you broke into the locked garage.’
But it had gone, I had no memory of it.
I must have slept, for when I next woke up the late-afternoon sun was shining across the bed. The sun. When had I last seen the sun? How wonderful. I moved the hand not in the sling and from which someone had removed the drip attachment while I slept into the bright light and could feel the warmth. It was a part of emerging from my bad, dark dream.
The events in my mind were much more in focus now, at least, everything but walking along the main road. This was not to say that most of it could still be a dream and I was merely recollecting it more clearly. What I needed was proof. The main problem with obtaining that was the men who would have to go and find it for me, were the same ones who thought me deluded, suffering from amnesia, or whatever, after being hit by the car. The infernal imagination had survived unscathed, however, and now presented me with a neat little scenario of white-coated experts discussing with James and Patrick what was wrong with me, utilizing all the very latest psycho-babble, the whole boiling lot’s heads going up and down like nodding donkeys.
I tried to get my thoughts in order but I ached and throbbed all over. It seemed logical, that until proved otherwise, I should regard everything I could remember as having actually taken place, no matter how bizarre it might appear. One problem was the dreamlike quality of my memories, the colours over-bright, lurid, the people stagey, almost grotesque caricatures of themselves. Not to worry, I would ignore that as well and put the phenomenon down to medical reasons.
Elspeth arrived, took one look at me and embraced me like swans’ down.
‘It’s that bad?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t dared look in a mirror.’
‘You’re not badly hurt, that’s all that matters and the rest will mend. There’s no one around – do you need me to come with you to the loo, or anything? I’ve brought your sponge bag and dressing gown.’
A quarter of an hour later, having washed myself, one-handed, as well as I could, including the areas that actually appeared to be going black and blue as I watched – I had thought for a moment that the mirror was faulty – I was far more comfortably back in bed.
‘He’s completely at sea,’ Elspeth said, smoothing the covers. ‘Patrick, I mean. He simply doesn’t know what to make of this.’
‘It’s because I have a reputation for a vivid imagination,’ I said. ‘Even I can’t separate fact from fiction
right now.’
‘You could relate it all to me and I could write it down. Would that help?’
‘I could try but it won’t make any difference. Patrick, and more importantly James Carrick, still won’t believe it. In his eyes the Brandons are OAPs and that’s that.’
‘All this happened to you because you called on the Brandons? How incredible!’
‘I’ve no real evidence to back it up. Only the gold, if I really did find it.’
Her eyes glowed.
‘Only I can’t remember what I did with it,’ I added.
Elspeth rummaged in her bag for pen and paper. Then she paused. ‘What a dreadful woman you must think I am!’ she cried. ‘I haven’t even asked you if you want anything to eat or drink.’
‘Tea,’ I pleaded. ‘And something sweet to give me energy. I must have missed all the mealtimes.’
She went away, muttering about neglectful husbands and absent NHS staff.
My arms ached as though I had been weight-training with far too heavy weights. Come to think of it they had ached like this when I had entered the mill, crossed the hall and rung the …
There was a box of tissues on the bedside table and I snatched one and cried a little into it. I was starting to remember. My arms ached from hauling the gold out of the river in the old kit bag, I could feel the rough, sodden canvas under my fingers even now. I looked down at my hands. Two of my nails were broken from picking at the knots in the tight nylon rope. After succeeding in opening the bag to discover the ingots bundled up in bubble-wrap I had dropped the undone end of the rope back in the river and rolled another stone over the hammered-in end of the metal spike to make everything look just the same as when I had found it. Then what?
Just a blank until I had returned to the mill.
Returned? Where had I been? Where had I gone, no doubt hugging the bag to myself as it was much too heavy to carry one-handed?
Elspeth came back with the tea and a large iced bun with a cherry on top.
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