The briefing reached the point at which Patrick had been suspended and four pairs of eyes fastened on him.
‘Well, frankly,’ Brinkley said, ‘I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t got into hot water.’
‘Would you be less or more disappointed if I now walked out?’ Patrick enquired. ‘My question after that is how much longer is this pettifogging charade going to continue?’
‘Patrick,’ Carrick said earnestly, ‘I agree. It’s gone on for too long and personally I want to apologize. But you must have realized that everyone on the scheme has been tried and tested – in your case to see how you behaved when placed under stress and treated with less deference that you were used to in the army.’
He had risked getting into trouble for saying this and I waited for Judd to explode. I was looking in the wrong direction.
‘Was that the sole reason for my request for a search warrant being refused?’ Patrick asked in a dead kind of tone.
Judd nodded slowly.
‘You don’t seem to have hoisted in exactly the kind of people we’ve been dealing with,’ Patrick told him. ‘I’ll jump through hoops in role-play sessions until the end of the world but had I known you’d extend silly-bugger tactics into the real job I’d never have agreed to take part. And, for the record, I was not used to being shown much deference except when actually in uniform and junior ranks were required to salute. I suggest you research your subject next time. You could have even come along to the dinner where all the senior officers serve everyone else if the bloody government hadn’t binned the regiment.’ He added a couple more sentences which I will not repeat, grabbed my hand and we left the room.
Outside in the long corridor I finally succeeded in slowing the pace at which he was going and then brought him to a halt. He was breathing hard and then turned, unseeing, tears of anger in his eyes.
On tiptoe, I kissed his cheek. ‘I’m really sorry. This is all my fault – I’ve wrecked it for you. I kept telling you to do things by the book and then went off and did exactly the opposite.’
Brinkley was hurrying to catch up with us. ‘That man Judd has handled everything appalling badly,’ he said. ‘Look, Patrick, I really do need you. The Met are giving me a small branch of my own. I want you for a department of it. Undercover stuff, just your line of business. You’d practically be your own boss.’ He chuckled in a phoney kind of way. ‘Sort of a branch of a branch.’
‘That sounds more like a bloody twig to me,’ Patrick said. ‘No, sorry, John. I’ll fill in the questionnaire and post it off to you.’
‘But, man, you’re not even at the end of your probationary period!’
‘No, but you’re at the end of mine.’
We left him standing open-mouthed, trying to think of something to say.
‘They’ll make James a scapegoat,’ I said when we were driving away.
‘They might try. I have every intention of writing a letter to the bod who contacted me in the first place and copying it to quite a few other people.’ Patrick glanced at me quickly. ‘Are you feeling bad?’
‘About the job? Yes, I’ve just said so – for your sake.’
‘No, you, yourself.’
‘I could do with the rest of the day in bed.’
‘Then home, eh?’
‘Heaven.’
I had my rest, sleeping for most of the time, and when I finally decided it was time I showed my face downstairs at just after eight the following morning I found everyone having breakfast. Tea and loving kindness flowed, followed by bacon and eggs, and I soon felt almost restored to normal.
‘Lorna Church rang,’ Patrick said. ‘She’d tried to get hold of me at the nick but was told I wasn’t there so tried here. She was worried because she’d forgotten to tell me something. Apparently Janet Manley had given her a small porcelain bowl as a present when they were invited up for drinks one night. Janet said it had been in her family for a long time but I reckon it had been one of those the gang grabbed along with the ingots and she’d kept it in that box.’
‘And that’s how the tea got in there,’ I said. ‘I had wondered if there were a few more ingots on the loose. Will she be allowed to keep it?’
‘I’ve no intention of telling her or anyone else it might be stolen property. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned it’s all purely academic now.’
‘You’ve really decided to give up?’ Elspeth said.
‘I’ve not given up,’ Patrick told her. ‘Just decided I can’t work the way the law does.’
Could not stomach working for the plumped-up and fragrant Brinkley either, I had already surmised. Ironically, Carrick had been perfectly correct in his original judgement.
‘We must contact James,’ I said.
‘I already have. As we’d suspected, he’s been under huge pressure to act unfriendly – the powers that be thought he might carry me in the job and give an undeserved glowing report. It was the reason he didn’t initially want to have anything to do with it. I got the impression that after we left he virtually told Judd and Norman to sod off back to HQ and let him and Bromsgrove get on with the work in hand. It looks as though Bromsgrove might stay though, he’d asked for a move to Bath as he lives in Oldfield Park.’
John looked up from the crossword. ‘Vernon Latimer’s resigned from the PCC,’ he said. ‘He told me he found your questioning of him quite unwarranted. The fellow seemed to think I’d set you on him in future if he put a foot wrong.’
Had he actually written that letter to the bishop complaining that John was no longer fit enough for the job, I wondered, then received a less than sympathetic reply? We would probably never know.
‘Good,’ Elspeth said. ‘I never liked him.’
‘His wife’s left him,’ John went on. ‘And he’s having to sell up – leaving the district by all accounts.’ His gaze rested briefly on Patrick and me. ‘You two do make waves, you know.’
‘I want to know if you really must rush home,’ Elspeth said to us, hands clasped at her bosom.
‘Why?’ Patrick asked.
‘I’d love a few days on Sark. You know, we stay with our old friends the Framleys who used to live at the grange next door. They’ve a massive garden and a while ago decided to sell part of it to someone to build a house. Your father and I used some of our savings to buy the plot – I have to say they let us have it very cheaply – and it seems such a lovely thing to do at such a miserable time of the year to go over there and talk about plans and architects—’ She broke off, eyes shining, hugging herself.
‘Do go,’ I said. ‘Go for as long as you like. Patrick and I can take it in turns to house-sit.’
‘There’s the dog too, but only for a week or so.’
‘Which dog?’ Patrick said.
‘Whisky. The RSPCA phoned and asked, as you’d expressed an interest in him, whether we’d have him here for a short while. In fact, they sent an inspector round to make sure the place was suitable.’ In response to our blank looks she went on, ‘Sorry, I must have forgotten to tell you but it only happened the day before yesterday. Vera Stonelake is going to live with one of her daughters and wants to take the dog with her. It’s hers, after all. The daughter’s got to have the garden fenced or something first. I was told Vera’s a lot better since being looked after in the nursing home and with her daughter’s help is contacting her solicitor to check up on her will. Isn’t that good news?’
‘Wonderful,’ Patrick said warmly.
It was not until a fortnight later to the day that Patrick and I would be at home together and when he came in the front door he had a smile on his lips.
‘Remember the blue car?’ he said.
‘The one I saw in the garage that disappeared?’
‘Yup. You were right, it almost certainly had been booby-trapped when you found it. Traffic police became suspicious yesterday about a vehicle that had been parked in a side road for a while, and even more so when they saw liquid of some kind dripping from it that seemed to have
killed all the grass nearby on a verge. They ended up calling in the bomb squad. It was acid. It wasn’t actually set to go off but was a crude device that would have squirted anyone who opened up the car unless something was disconnected first.’
‘William Kadović?’
‘A bit of an inventor, he himself bragged. He’d done it with us in mind. Yes, I spoke to Carrick, went to the nick, in fact. After apologizing all over again he told me he has a good case against them and they’re tacking that charge on for good luck.’ He looked around. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘They should have just come down the drive and be waiting outside for you.’
‘Can’t they come in?’
‘No, because the present we’ve bought you is too big to go through the door.’
The present, Katie’s hand on his velvet nose in the hope it would prevent him whinnying, had been secreted in one of Lydtor’s hidden lanes by the excited children a few minutes previously, Matthew holding Vicky. Justin was part way up a tree with strict instructions to watch the road and report when Patrick turned into the drive. For this reason I had asked him to ring me when he left Exeter so I could roughly calculate the time of his arrival.
George was dark bay in colour and had been described as a medium-weight hunter in the advertisement but was, I had been pleased to see on inspecting him, on the light side of that and at sixteen hands was ideal for Patrick’s height. With slight trepidation I had ridden him out on Dartmoor myself the previous day. The words ‘hunter’ and ‘wide-open spaces’ can add up to make an explosive equine handful. But George was a perfect gentleman and had cantered off steadily when asked. However, he had at the moment a very light person on the other end of his lead rope and had towed Katie over to Patrick’s car where he was busily scratching his chin on the radio aerial.
‘That’s George,’ I said. ‘He came well recommended by knowledgeable friends.’
‘That’s a very good horse,’ Patrick murmured. ‘Wow.’
‘I got a pretty massive advance from the States for the screenplay,’ I said. ‘Go on, we tacked him up for you.’
Mounted, he said, ‘I still don’t have a job.’
‘No, but the vegetable garden needs digging, the apple trees will have to be pruned and a length of gutter has fallen off the cottage. Oh, and the woodstove chimney of the barn needs sweeping.’
‘I quite like the idea of being a kept man,’ he said as he rode away, jeans, leather jacket, ordinary shoes and all.
This ambition was thwarted a few days later when a letter arrived from John Brinkley when he humbly proposed a new offer; would Lieutenant Colonel Gillard consider a position that would involve his being called upon to help the Metropolitan Police as an independent adviser on cases of ‘great sensitivity’ where his expertise could be utilized to the greatest advantage?
‘He hasn’t mentioned you,’ Patrick commented.
‘As always,’ I said. ‘Two for the price of one.’
‘Do we consider?’
‘When they’ve given us a few more details?’
‘That’s a good idea – play for time to give us a chance to think about it.’
‘And you could go and ask George.’
Patrick went riding.
Sending rescued chickens in all directions in the drive.
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