by Mike Ripley
‘I don’t know how he did,’ the old man said reasonably. ‘Perhaps Simon was careless …’
‘What?’ I shouted.
‘About Estelle’s trust fund. We’d had to use it to finance the original property deals. Simon said we could replace the money after we had sold …’
‘How much of it?’ I said loudly. ‘How much of it did you use?’
‘All of it,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I thought that was what this was all about.’
Estelle and I eyeballed each other. ‘I think you’re right,’ I said.
‘You didn’t have to come, you know,’ she said in my ear as I bounced Armstrong over the grass. ‘But I’m glad you did. He wouldn’t have told me – admitted it – if you hadn’t threatened to destroy his toys back there. I’ll pay for any damage.’
‘What with?’ I asked nastily.
‘Oh, I’ll get it out of him, don’t worry.’
We hit the driveway and I swung towards the road. It was getting dark and I put the lights on more to check them than because I needed them. Everything seemed to be in working order. Montgomery could have done with a few like Armstrong at Alamein.
She had demanded to come with me as soon as I had turned on my heel towards Armstrong. I had flipped her the key to the handcuffs and she had released the old boy, who had opened his arms to her. She had told him to go to the Lodge and wait for her. She would be back soon; to stay and look after him.
He took it like a sentence.
‘Will he be all right?’
‘He’s tough as old boots,’ she said. ‘In fact, he’s probably on to the insurance company right now.’ She paused. ‘Seriously, he’s probably phoning Simon Buck right now.’
‘I’m banking on it,’ I said.
‘You are?’
‘Yes, so the bastard can run before the gypsies move into his neighbourhood.’
We raced through the village until I saw the hedge surrounding Old Mill Cottage and I killed the lights and drifted to a stop. I found the mobile phone and dialled Bobby, hoping he had the volume control turned down if he was anywhere near the house. There was no connection; he had turned his off.
‘Damn! What’s he playing at?’ I said aloud.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Stella. ‘Let’s just go up to the front door and confront the bastard.’
‘There are other people involved,’ I said, gritting my teeth to keep my temper. ‘Buck is a lawyer. You think he’ll go down for this one alone? He’ll drag your father into it for sure. Think you’ll see any of your trust fund after that?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said quietly.
‘Well, neither had I until just now. But I’m more worried about Carrick’s father, who might just be on his way here to do something stupid. And Buck isn’t worth it.’
‘So what? So you want us to warn Buck? Then what happens?’
‘I don’t know,’ I snapped. ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.’
In fact, I was way behind, because Carrick Lee was already there.
Stella followed me through the gap in the hedge and held my hand as we stumbled across the garden, me hoping that Bobby was where we had been to see Mrs Buck’s command performance.
I was aware that lights were on all over the house, but I was concentrating on making my eyes accept the gloom of the shrubbery until I was sure I could see the rose bushes Bobby and I had hidden behind.
There was no sign of Bobby, but Veronica was there, facedown on the ground. Kneeling next to her, with one knee in the small of her back, was Carrick’s father. His left hand pressed down on the back of Veronica’s head. His right hand held a sawn-off shotgun.
‘Shit,’ breathed Stella a half-second before I could.
He took his hand away from Veronica’s head and used it to wave us closer, indicating that we should keep low. Veronica looked up at us. Her glasses were at an angle across her face, but I think she recognised us.
‘Do as he says,’ I whispered, pulling Stella along with me.
‘Mr Lee, it’s okay,’ I said softly. ‘She’s with me.’
He eased off Veronica, and pointed the gun at the ground. ‘I’ve sent Bobby to the car,’ he said to me, but his eyes wandered to Stella, who had knelt to help Veronica up. ‘You’d best go yourselves.’
‘He’s going to shoot him,’ Veronica said breathlessly. ‘He’s just waiting for him to come out.’
‘Mr Lee,’ I pleaded, ‘you don’t know for sure …’
‘You tell me he didn’t do it.’
‘Whether he did or not, don’t you do this. You want to go to prison?’
‘Last thing I want. No Romany …’
‘Look.’ Veronica had straightened her glasses and was staring at the house.
It was the same view Bobby and I had had, through the French windows, only this time, with the room lights spilling out, it had an even more bizarre theatrical quality.
Buck was on one side of the room yelling. His wife was on the other. You didn’t need a volume control to know they were yelling at each other, and for punctuation, Caroline Buck was throwing anything that came to hand. A cushion, an ashtray, a CD. Not at Buck, just throwing at random.
‘What’s happened?’ I sank to my knees between Lee and the women. His shotgun had no butt, just a home-carved pistol grip. I wished I didn’t notice things like that.
‘Buck came home about ten minutes ago,’ Veronica said, almost enthusiastically now she had an audience. ‘They started to fight then but he got a phone call, and then things really hotted up. He’s trying to pack his bags, and I think she’s trying to stop him.’
As if to demonstrate her point, Buck suddenly charged across the room. pushing his wife out of the way. He was almost at the top of the stairs before his wife had completed a somersault over an armchair and landed on the floor.
We couldn’t see her for a minute, then she appeared from behind a chair, crawling on all fours, round and round, aimless.
‘Watch, he’s coming back,’ Veronica said.
I took my eyes away from the giant TV screen that was the Buck house and glanced down at Lee and the gun.
‘Don’t even think it,’ he whispered, and I flashed my eyes back to the house.
Buck came down the stairs two at a time. He was carrying a big leather shoulder bag, and as his wife stopped her crawling and reached up for him, he swung it at her. She jerked backwards and fell out of our sight again. Buck didn’t break his stride but continued out of the room.
Buck’s wife clawed herself upright using the back of a chair. She was screaming, but we couldn’t hear her. But Buck did. He ran into the room, the bag over his shoulder this time. As he did so, he undid the belt of his trousers and pulled it loose. He hit her two, maybe three times, almost without stopping. Then he was through the room and pounding upstairs again.
I felt Veronica stiffen next to me on the damp grass.
‘Why don’t we leave now?’ she said. ‘Me, you and Stella, that is.’
Not for the first time, but for new reasons, I was lost for words at her.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Stella. ‘Give me that phone.’
I stared at her then, but before Carrick Lee could think of a reason to shoot me, I handed it over.
‘They don’t have a phone upstairs,’ Stella was saying as she worked the mobile. ‘They never had. He kept them downstairs ... It’s ringing.’ We all looked towards the house. ‘Pick up, Caroline, come on, pick up.’
We saw Mrs Buck stand up from behind the furniture line. She was a sad, battered puppet framed in the theatre of those windows.
We saw Buck appear at the top of the stairs, shouting. Caroline Buck picked up the phone in the living room.
‘Hello?’ said Stella nervously. ‘Can I speak to Simon, please?’
We c
ould see only her shoulder; the phone must have been behind the hallway door, and she had her back to us, so we couldn’t see her face.
‘It’s Estelle, Caroline, Estelle Rudgard. I expect Simon’s told you by now ... That we’re going away together ... I’m sorry, Caroline, but I’m also glad it’s out in the open now … The deceit was bad for us too ... Now we have my trust fund, we can go away and we won’t be a bother to you, Caroline … Caroline? … Can I …?’
She closed the phone and I wished there was more light so I could see her face. But then again I didn’t.
‘She hung up,’ said Stella.
We knew. We could see.
Simon Buck had gone back into a bedroom. His wife had put the phone down and walked like an automaton across the room and out towards the kitchen or another room we couldn’t see.
Then Buck had emerged, coming down the stairs, zipping up a long windcheater. He was shouting again, questions, as if expecting an answer.
‘You were brilliant,’ Veronica squeaked, grabbing Stella’s arm. ‘She’s left him.’
But she was back.
As Buck entered the living room from the hallway, his wife came in from the other side. He didn’t look up, just concentrated on the zip of his jacket, his bag over his shoulder.
‘You won’t need that,’ I said to Carrick Lee, pointing at his gun.
Caroline Buck had one of her own. That was a shotgun too, full size.
When Buck was halfway across the room, and still hadn’t seen her, she fired a single shot.
Even through the windows and out in the garden, we heard it quite clearly.
We ran for the gap in the hedge.
Veronica stumbled once and almost lost her glasses. Carrick Lee unloaded his sawn-off and hid it inside his jacket as he ran.
I found the gap and pushed Veronica through. Then, as Stella brushed by me, I grabbed her by the shoulder.
‘Tell me you didn’t know that was going to happen,’ I hissed in her face.
‘I didn’t. Honest. I knew she’d get mad, but I didn’t even know they had a gun.’
I had to believe her. There wasn’t time to argue.
I certainly believed that she hadn’t expected the second shot that came across the lawn from the house.
I don’t think any of us had expected that.
Chapter Twenty
‘Walk, don’t run,’ said Carrick Lee, and then proceeded to walk off up the road, fumbling with a mobile phone, the twin of the one Stella was still clutching.
I hustled the women in the opposite direction, to where I had left Armstrong, and we piled in, none of us wanting to be the first to speak.
By the time I had Armstrong turned full circle, the headlights of Lee’s Discovery were coming down the road. He slowed behind me and flashed his lights but made no effort to pass me. I pulled away and he followed us back through the village.
We saw two or three cars, mostly people coming home from work, turning into driveways. No pedestrians. No sirens.
I turned into the driveway of Sandpit Lodge and stopped, and the Discovery pulled up behind me.
‘Give me the phone,’ I said to Stella, and she handed it over without a word. ‘And stay here. Both of you.’
‘Why? It is man’s talk or something?’ Veronica snapped chopsily.
‘What you don’t know, the police can’t extract forcibly,’ I said as I climbed out.
Carrick Lee got out of the Discovery’s passenger side. Bobby Lee waved to me from behind the steering wheel.
‘I didn’t think he was old enough to drive,’ I said to his father. He had buttoned up his poacher’s jacket. I couldn’t tell if the sawn-off was still in there.
‘If he can reach the pedals, he can drive,’ said Lee.
‘Yeah, ‘course.’ I shuffled my feet.
‘Best not hang about,’ he said, his hands in his pockets. ‘I need to know where he is.’
‘In the cellar of 23 Lennard Street, Islington. You’ll need drills and digging gear and a coroner. Sorry, there was no easy way to put it.’
He nodded his head sadly.
‘Do you know what happened?’
‘No, not for sure. Carrick somehow found out that Buck had been helping Stella’s old man to fiddle her trust fund. He got him alone in the house and ... who knows? Fight or accident? There’s no way of knowing now. There were no witnesses. Buck trashed the house, and I guess he had plans to have it demolished. I don’t know if he’d have got away with it.’
‘Oh, he wouldn’t have done that.’
‘Would you really have done him?’ I had to ask.
‘Not in front of his wife.’ He snorted slightly. ‘Funny that, as it turned out. She’s a hard bitch, that one.’
But he was looking at Stella in the back of the cab, not thinking about Mrs Buck.
‘That other one, the plump one …’
‘Veronica.’
‘Yes, well, she’s got guts, that one. She went for me like a tiger.’
‘She would. Not a brain in her head. Look, Mr Lee, I don’t know what you want to do now, but we’re out of it if we can be.’
‘That’s fair,’ he said reasonably. ‘You’ve done your bit.’
‘I’ve done very little. I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t know the how or the when or …’
‘Oh, I’m pretty sure of the “when”,’ he said.
‘On his grandmothers birthday?’ I guessed.
‘Yeah. She knew. She could probably tell you to the exact minute.’
‘I believe you,’ I said, and I did.
‘She said I could trust you.’
‘But I never met her, never even saw her.’
‘She saw you.’
I didn’t know whether that was supposed to spook me or not.
‘Then I wouldn’t want to upset her by saying anything she might disapprove of,’ I said carefully, ‘would I? Assuming I had ever met her, or indeed knew who we were talking about in the first place.’
‘I’m glad we understand each other,’ he said, to my great relief. ‘If anything has to be done, I’ll do the right thing.’
‘That’s fine by me.’
‘And them?’ He gestured towards Armstrong.
‘They’ll see reason. Trust me.’
‘I don’t,’ he said, and reached inside his coat.
I was half a second from hitting the ground when I saw what he was holding in his hand. It was a cheque. And he was offering it to me.
I was shaking as I took it and read it. The payee line was blank but it was dated and signed and drawn on an account called ‘Lee & Sons Business A/C No 2’ from a bank in Leicester. The cheque was made out for £500.
‘There’ll be another in six months if you keep everyone quiet and happy. What’s the matter?’
‘I didn’t expect this,’ I said without a word of a lie.
‘What did you expect? Gold sovereigns? Gypsy silver?’
‘No, nothing like that. I just didn’t ... I don’t think I’ve earned it.’
‘You haven’t. Yet.’
I held out my hand and he shook it.
‘You’ve got a deal, Mr Lee.’ I kept on shaking his hand. As long as I was holding it he couldn’t reach for his gun. ‘But you’ve got to tell me that you’ve finished with this business. And tell me now.’
‘I’m done, as long as you tell me that her father had nothing to do with the death of my son.’
I squared up to him.
‘And if I said he had, what could you do to him that’s worse than what she’s going to do now she’s back home?’
He gave my hand an extra shake.
I drove Armstrong up to the Lodge. There were lights on everywhere but no cars, no police. The doors to the Classic Car Museum were closed.
‘I’d better go in alone,’ said Stella.
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ asked Veronica when I didn’t.
‘I can handle him. Now. Don’t worry, he loves me really.’
‘He’s waiting for you,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said without looking.
I had been watching the door. It had opened, and silhouetted there was Sir Drummond, the light from the hallway playing around his domed head like a halo.
‘You’ll ring? Keep in touch?’ Veronica pleading.
‘Tomorrow. Bet on it. Thanks for everything.’
Stella grabbed her and kissed her on the cheek. I couldn’t see, but I felt Veronica blushing.
Stella put a hand on the door handle.
‘Estelle?’
We all heard him; a lonely cry in the dark.
‘I’m coming, Daddy!’ she yelled.
She was out of Armstrong and closing the door when she froze and then pushed her head back inside.
‘Why did you need two pairs of handcuffs?’ she asked me.
I just looked at her.
‘See you around, kid.’
We had done only about three miles on the motorway back to town when Veronica asked me to pull over so she could throw up. I breathed a sigh of relief, as anyone who had ever driven a cab would, that at least she asked first.
I gave her a few minutes of privacy to stagger around the hard shoulder, bent double. Even with the traffic thundering by, I could hear her retching. Then I turned off Armstrong’s engine and went to find her.
She was sitting on the grass, halfway up the embankment, her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. I sat down next to her, and for a while we watched the cars hiss by Armstrong on their way to London.
‘I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ she said, taking off her glasses and trying to drag a tissue from the pocket of her jeans so she could wipe her mouth. ‘I never dreamed I would see anything like that. Ever.’
‘You’ve got to try and forget it,’ I said, thinking, as she was, of the way Simon Buck had been thrown backwards across the room by the blast from his wife’s shotgun. The way the blood had spattered the inside of the French windows as if some mad artist was flicking paint from a brush. ‘You will, in time.’