Gillian is pleased that McMaster will not be able to identify her, although that is the least of her concerns during the vital moments where her actions, or lack of, could determine his fate. She calls through the window: ‘Stay still. I’m getting help.’ She yanks out her phone and swipes 999.
‘What happened?’ McMaster groans.
‘Don’t know. I’m just passing by. I’ve called an ambulance.’
‘What happened?’
‘Just keep still and quiet until help arrives.’
A shrieking voice in the background: ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’
Gillian turns to see an elderly woman tottering along the driveway. ‘Mister Mac, mister Mac,’ she bellows. ‘Whatsa happen? Whatsa happen?’
‘You know him?’ Gillian asks.
‘Yes, mister Mac. He my neighbour. Whatsa happen?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve called an ambulance. I’ll wait for it on the road.’
Gillian rushes back to the road in time to see the horizon alive with flashing red and blue lights. She waves frantically, directing the approaching ambulance to the driveway entrance. As it rustles into the drive she lunges across the road, races to the lay-by, and climbs into her car. Still clutching the phone, she notes the time: 9.40 p.m. She calls Thornton.
‘When did this happen?’ he asks, in between mouthfuls of expletives.
Gillian imagines him watching television, beer in one hand, phone in the other. ‘Just now,’ she replies. ‘Very suspicious, but I can’t remain at the scene. I called the ambos; I think Mac’s in a bad way. He’s been well and truly set up. Someone dropped a tree across his drive. He had to stop. Another tree crashed on to his car, flattening the roof. Perfectly executed. Sorry, bad choice of words.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘No. Pretty bad though. No way of getting him out of the car without the jaws. I missed a clue by not getting the number of a van parked nearby, but at the time it meant nothing. Some guy dressed in all black rushed over from the location and decamped with haste.’
‘Okay. I’ll take over from here.’
XVII
I toss about my thoughts. Question my rationale for taking on Thornton’s operation. PI versus PI. ‘Give me everything you can,’ he instructed. Every moment spent in Gillian’s shadow rewards me with pages of valuable information.
Gillian makes a sly exit from the Knight’s Arms and scoots to a nearby Pay and Display. I cringe at the sight of her vehicle, a tacky baby blue end-of-season clearance or back line sale. Easy to follow though; no losing it amongst all the whites and silvers cramming our congested roads.
My second sense tells me she’ll be heading for the A44. I smile with recognition as she criss-crosses Worcester’s back streets. As usual, I am right. I’ve witnessed three cosy connections between Gillian and McMaster at the Knight’s Arms so it is not unreasonable for me to expect that she will pry further into his lifestyle.
I follow her into a lay-by off the A44, a neatly cut arc beneath narrow blotches of shade. The refuge is clear of wayside stoppers, save for a white rental van propped ten metres from an overflowing rubbish bin. I grab a shopping bag from the floor, fill it with discarded biscuit and chocolate wrappers and head for the bin. Gillian drops her head as I approach. She doesn’t fool me – her fixation on McMaster’s property is obvious. I press the bag into a small gap. I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last, to spring clean my car in a lay-by. I lock away the registration number and return to my car.
Gillian must have seen my car in her rear-view mirrors. Too bad her professionalism is so far below par that she didn’t realise she’d been followed from the Knight’s Arms. But that doesn’t concern me as much as my current predicament. Why has she chosen to watch the property from here when there are more advantageous positions?
When a deafening thud pierces the night’s silence, Gillian scurries to the roadside. She returns just as quick when an unknown person rushes across the road. I assume it is the van’s driver, because distance drivers habitually stop en route – in the most inappropriate places – for a toilet break. They don’t however, park in a lay-by and cross to the other side of the road to take a leak.
I face a threefold challenge: watch the anonymous figure; ogle Gillian; or check the source of the crash. I tail Gillian to the driveway. The spectacle floors me. I’ve seen similar devastation on news reports of typhoon-flattened communities. Here, compacted in a small area is similar destruction. Gillian takes control of the scene and renders help. I call emergency services – just in case Gillian does not share my presence of mind.
On seeing her speak to an elderly woman, I race back to my car. And that’s when it hits me that I am embroiled in hell of a lot more than a spot of ‘observing’. I call Thornton. Engaged. I wait. As one able to spot a penny coin from twenty paces, I see a white clump shining like a lone star where the white van had been parked. A glove. A workman’s glove; right hand, soft leather palm with hardened fingertips, a smear of grease across the palm and a moist patch on the rear of the wrist – a sign of someone having wiped their brow during hard work. Specks of sawdust cling to its moist canvas webbing. Not having the official resources I once had, I place the glove in a Glad sandwich bag; my version of the police evidence bag. Watts Happening? Investigations might not be ‘high-tech’ but it is highly adaptable.
Again I swipe Thornton’s number.
‘What now?’
‘Excuse me?’ I say with rising inflection. ‘It’s Olivia. I wouldn’t call unless it was important.’
‘Sorry Liv. Had bad news. Think I can guess what you’re calling about. You’re on Trotter’s arse, I take it?’
‘Yes. And I have a situation for you.’
‘She’s already phoned. You know where you are?’
‘Not exactly. Close to Pershore?’
‘That’s McMaster’s property you’re on to. Mac’s stranded in his car. Why the fuck would someone do that to one of our own?’
‘No idea. Yet. Seems strange that your super investigator just happens to be watching McMaster’s home at the exact time he’s taken out.’ I could think of a thousand other reasons, but I’m certainly not going to get off-side with Thornton. ‘Emergency services have arrived. I’ll hang around. Trotter’s gone, but there’s a woman here who seems to know Mac. Not his wife, from what I can gather. I’ll head back and see what I can find out.’
‘It’ll be a crime scene now. Trees don’t just fall across driveways onto cars.’
‘Okay. I’ll make myself scarce.’
But I don’t. I race back and approach the distressed woman who is standing alongside the driveway. She’s been swept aside by paramedics and emergency service workers who flap around the wrecked vehicle. I hand her my card and ask, in my most sensitive voice: ‘You recognise the man in the car?’
‘Mister Mac. He my neighbour. I live over there.’ The woman indicates the farmhouse with the illuminated front porch.
‘Mr McMaster? The policeman?’
‘Yes. That’s him. Mister Phil.’
‘You know what happened here?
‘No. I hear the crash and then nothing. Then I remember I hear the same noise this afternoon so I wonder what it is. I think maybe something’s fall on mister Mac’s house; the roof or something, so I’m come outside and have a look but I see nothing. I think what if something happens and he’s in trouble so I walk here. I hope he be all right.’
‘The noise you heard earlier. Do you remember what time?’
‘Yes. I’m always make the cup of tea after Coronation Street, so I know it’s minutes after two o’clock. I hear the chainsaw; I know chainsaws because my Giuseppe always makes the firewood. It’s not mean nothing to me because people always make the firewood – soon there be no trees left.’
‘Could you identify the worker’s truck, anything like that?’
; ‘No. I’m not looking for anything.’
I feel sorry for her, jittering and shaking as her neighbour is extricated from the flattened vehicle. ‘Let me walk you home. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’
A mobile crane, splattered with signwriting of a nearby commercial hire company, lowers its boom and unwinds cables which jockeys sling around the tree atop McMaster’s car. A nurse feeds an intravenous drip through the shattered passenger window.
‘I musta see if mister Mac good.’
‘I’ll let you know. I’ll find out what hospital he’s going to.’ I take the woman’s arm and guide her across the paddock. In retrospect, we should have walked around the fence line where it is brighter. That would have spared me the effort of propping her up each time she fell into a rut or tripped over clod of dirt.
A black Audi squats in her driveway – I can’t imagine this frail woman behind its wheel. She breaks from my grip. ‘Angelo, it’s mister Mac, he’s a been hurt.’
The male stands like a sentry in the doorway. ‘Mama, I’ve told you not to worry about the neighbours. We take care of ourselves.’ His eyes bore into me as he asks his mother: ‘And who’s your friend?’
I answer for her. ‘Hi. I’m Olivia. I helped your mother home from next door. You been here all the time?’
‘What’s it to you? You’ve done your good deed, you can leave now.’
‘Fine with me. I just thought it would have been nice of you to help your mother through the dark.’ I guess that he has been there only a short while, my assumption supported by the Audi’s cooling motor pinging contraction ticks into the night.
‘Thanks for your concern. You can see she’s okay now so there’s no need to take up any more of your time. Bye.’
Arrogant bastard.
I return to the hive of activity in McMaster’s driveway. The entrance is taped off. Doesn’t deter me. I squeeze between the fence’s wire strands straight into an astute constable in charge of fluttering yellow tape. From my bag I display an emergency card: “Watts Insurance Services”, and ask: ‘Which hospital is Mr McMaster being transferred to?’
She consults a paramedic: ‘Worcester General.’
XVIII
I navigate the waiting rooms and corridors of Worcester General, expecting to see a throng of family and police appended to McMaster’s bedside. While four colleagues crowd the small ward, Gillian fusses around the nurses’ station, pleading for a private minute with McMaster. My curiosity piques. What is her interest? Here is a supposedly professional person engaged in a professional capacity, seeking to grace the bedside of the very person she is paid to shadow. Talk about conflict of interest. The thought bubbles through me like a concoction frothing in a mad scientist’s test tube: Could she be trying to dispose of McMaster? With further thought, I wonder if she might be double-dealing. But for what purpose? She’s failed the first hit, but now fronts up to finish him off? I could so easily be right, but then again, I am prone to spearing off on outlandish tangents. I switch back to reality – report the conduct of Gillian Trotter.
On seeing two suited gentlemen swish through a curtain, I am drawn to the private suite of the critically injured McMaster. The harsh reality of police service hits me. I’ve seen my share of road accident victims: the worst where a crumpled car wrapped itself around the victim like joint of pork re-packed in burnished tin foil; I’ve seen motorcyclists’ limbs splayed in more configurations than I once twisted with my stepfather’s pipe cleaners; and I’ve seen the zombiefied walks of the wounded who clamber from a vehicle, displaced of presence, of location, and of their own identity.
McMaster’s legs hang from ceiling-suspended stirrups – perhaps scavenged from the maternity ward, and a shoulder is swathed in heavy gauze bandage. An adjacent machine pulses and beeps. Wires snake into a bank of monitors flashing and buzzing like a Las Vegas gambling den. That does not surpass the shock of seeing Gillian’s hand clasped around the patient. I am sure she has moulded a relationship far beyond her charter.
I now have the strongest possible motive to ransack her home to obtain proof that the relationship is more than undercover subterfuge. For balance, I will also view the McMaster mansion.
Ashton Hill sits in silence. A slice of silver moon pierces the misty darkness and soaks into the slate roof. The driveway is bordered by the two felled trees, pushed aside to free the thoroughfare and facilitate further evidential examination. I note both trees had been sabotaged, thereby excluding any possibility that McMaster had succumbed to horrific storm damage. The neat slices and woodchip particles dotted around the stumps are prime evidence of chainsaw use.
Ribbons of police tape lay twisted and curled, and glass fragments sparkle like diamonds in a clique of gossip-mongering footballers’ wives. I assume McMaster’s car is now imprisoned within a police compound awaiting forensic analysis. It will yield no clues. A person so meticulous in their efforts to eliminate another takes great care to leave not one smidgen of evidence. Investigators will return at first light to scan the surrounds. They will locate the most seemingly inconsequential piece of incriminating evidence that will propel the investigation into full momentum.
Hoping to skip ahead of the police, I scratch around and walk the driveway’s length, gravel crunching and crackling like breakfast cereal beneath my feet. I take in the property’s awe-inspiring silhouetted presence. Sepia photos of the 1900s spring to mind: gardeners tending roses and clipping hedges into formal, geometric patterns bordered by strips of box hedge alongside weedless white-stoned paths; maids in ill-fitting shoes struggling with cane baskets of crisp laundry while others glow with perspiration in the huge scullery; and a footman preparing a hansom carriage for his lord. I imagine the imposing structure once being the main topic of the parish church’s women’s auxiliary. In a past life I might have been a historian, delving through archives, tracing property ownership of Lords and Earls, and of the Industrial Revolutionists who made their fortunes off the back of sheep, iron and steel fabrication, while exploiting the super-human efforts of lowly-paid child workers sweating out product from dark, noisy factories.
Back to the present, and reasoning from my own selfish perspective, the good thing with older properties is that no matter how well they’re maintained and restored, they are comparatively easy to breach. I don’t include those that boast huge steel cross-bars barricading doors like a fortress, and plunge bolts that sink deep into the earth or upwards into stone lintels. I refer to owners of the less structurally sound who believe that fitting two or three locks will double, or triple, their security. Wrong. Such over-security is effective only when activated from inside – it’s when the doors are locked from the exterior that the property becomes most vulnerable. Their owners think because they’re surrounded by acreage, no one will risk exposure trying to access the home. Wrong again.
Owners sympathetic to the period do not interfere with original fittings – to avoid compromising authenticity. So, they don’t fit deadlocks or window locks. McMaster’s back door proves my theory – secured only by a flimsy latch. I pull my knife from its ankle strap and probe between the door and the architrave. Seven seconds’ later I’m inside, fighting the stench of stale tobacco.
I believe most mansion owners pretentious. The homes feature upwards of ten to twenty rooms, with only four or five seeing regular occupation. The remainder honour the owner’s crowing lifestyle, buttressed by tax-deductible mortgages.
I dart into the first doorway. A study. Small enough to preserve the aroma of leather and furniture polish, but large enough to display a whisky collection, framed photos of police graduations and functions, and copies of media releases headlining McMaster for a succession of high-profile arrests. The yellowing pages are ten years’ old. I train my torch’s narrow beam to a neat Cherrywood desk. I rifle its drawers, three of each descending beneath one another at each end of the desk, and find departmental notebooks, personal
stationery, stamps, and a small tablet computer. There is no laptop in the room so I assume there’s one stashed elsewhere. Or might it now be a kaleidoscope of blacks and greys decorating the back seat of his car?
I take the tablet. It looks well-travelled; buffed edges scream trauma of slipping into and out of McMaster’s multi-purpose briefcase. I switch it on. Password protected. Predictable. I don’t have a lot of info on McMaster (although I do have means of obtaining it) so my attempts to login are futile. I suspect it might be his MET service number, which I will find on nearby documents. A flick through manila folders shatters my presumption.
I shamefully admit that some of my investigative skills parallel television criminology. That’s why I look for a safe behind wall hangings, paintings and the framed certificates. It might also explain why I find nothing – McMaster doesn’t watch the same programs.
But as the torch light waltzes from wall to wall, it settles on a window sill. I probe further, thinking that I’ve chanced upon a piece of shoddy restoration, but soon find that the whole sill, a huge block of granite or bluestone, is not fixed to the surrounding masonry. Why wouldn’t a tradesman squeeze out a few beads of that silicone stuff we women are supposed to know nothing about? I tap the slab. A wooden thud replies. It is a brilliant piece of restoration – moulded fibreglass with a stone texture. Perhaps it’s not really part of the restoration. I remove the sill, which I could not have done had it been genuine granite, and set it on the floor. After reeling to the musty pong of an old drainpipe, I throw in the torch beam. It spots a small strong-box. I reach into the cavity with the same tenacity I once employed when leaning over my neighbour’s fence – as a six-year-old – to wrest tomatoes from their tall plants. The box is not locked. No need, I guess, when it is so well hidden. I remove two Berretta 92 series revolvers. Leave three boxes of ammunition. A smaller box, also unlocked, contains bundles of £٢٠ and £٥٠ notes. More than £20,000. I assume the hoard is not the constabulary’s Christmas bonus.
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