by Andy Maslen
“She said she thought I was right about Collier. That he was dirty. Oh, shit. He found out.”
“Must have done. So he brings her down here on some pretence, does Freddie, does Frankie, then stages the whole thing. You have to admit, babe, he is a murdering bastard.”
“Right, well I’m fucking unstaging it.”
Stella picked her way over to Freddie’s corpse and bent to retrieve the pistol. The fingers were stiff with rigor mortis. Muttering “Sorry, Freddie” under her breath, she pried them open one after another, wincing as the ligaments crackled and snapped. After a few minutes’ work, the pistol came free.
“A Glock. There’s a surprise,” Other Stella said. “Penny to a pound says it came from the Armoury at Paddington Green. Where your boyfriend works.”
Stella stood, sticking the gun into the back of her waistband.
“Danny’s not bent. He’s been feeding tips to Vicky Riley. Collier must’ve lifted it. Or taken one from the Exhibits Room.”
“So what now? You might want to think about cleaning this place up. Your fingerprints will be all over it.”
Stella frowned.
“No they won’t. Don’t you remember? Yiannis disappeared them for me.”
“Huh. Apparently not.” She held her hands out by her sides. “What can I say? Even alter egos make mistakes.”
Stella shook her head. Then she walked closer until she was just a few inches from Other Stella.
She poked her in the chest.
“You.”
Another poke, harder this time.
“Aren’t.”
A real stab.
“REAL!”
She shoved her hard with both hands and was gratified to see her vanish in the act of falling backwards onto Freddie’s bloodied lap.
Stella turned and left the sitting room, closing the door softly behind her. Without the presence of the murder weapon, the local police would have a big hole in their case. Yes, it looked like a murder-suicide – albeit a murder-suicide of the bloodiest and most unlikely kind – but the question would loom large in their investigation. Where’s the gun? Not my problem, Stella thought. Collier’s little stage play just got taken off before the first night.
Out of nowhere, her vision darkened and with a swirl of dizziness making her stagger, she sat heavily on the stairs. Head in hands, she waited for the sensation of falling to stop, breathing steadily in through her nose and out through her mouth. Finally she felt OK enough to open her eyes. As she did so, tears rolled free, tickling her cheeks on their way to drip from her jawline onto her jeans.
“Oh, Frankie. I’m sorry I got you caught up in this. You just wanted to chase the bad guys and instead you got caught between me and Pro Patria Mori. You too, Freddie. You did some pretty bad things but you were retired. I believe that. But don’t worry. I’ll put things right. I’ll make Collier remember you before I kill him.”
Heaving a great, shuddering sigh, she stood, turned and ascended the staircase. As Freddie’s guest, she had kept to the guest bedroom and the downstairs rooms of the house. As his avenger, she had no qualms about having a poke around.
“After all, it’s not as if I’m invading your privacy anymore, is it?”
Freddie’s bedroom, she knew, was at the end of the hall, overlooking the back garden. The door wasn’t locked, though she was half-expecting to twist the knob and find the door immoveable. The room beyond was large, but not breathtakingly so. Maybe twenty feet by fifteen. Super-king but not suite. Thick, white shag pile carpet that gave under her tread; rich, red velvet curtains that puddled on the floor; and, dominating the masculine space, a vast sleigh bed, its deep-brown wooden base curving at the foot and head to suggest to its occupant that he might be speeding across the snows behind a team of huskies. The sage-green bed linen was immaculate, neatly arranged as if by a soldier. Were you ever in the Army, Freddie? she thought incongruously.
She crossed the room and sat on the bed. The nightstand was as neat as the rest of the room. A couple of paperback editions of Agatha Christie novels, squared up. Very old school, very Freddie McTiernan, she thought. A brass-stemmed reading lamp with a green glass shade. A pair of reading glasses. She began opening the drawers of the night-stand one at a time. The top drawer contained socks, all black, folded. The middle, underpants, all white, rolled into stubby sausages. Definitely something military about all this. She pushed it home and pulled out the bottom drawer. And inhaled sharply.
Filling the drawer as if it had been constructed specifically to hold them without any wasted space, were bundles of cash. Twenty-pound notes. Used, not new. But girdled with robins-egg-blue paper bands as if by a banker with an eye for colour. Resting dead-centre on the money was a flick-knife with a red-and-chrome handle.
“Fuck me, Freddie! What’s this? Petty cash?”
She stuck the knife in her back pocket then picked up a bundle of twenties, destroying the symmetry of the top layer, and flipped it over the edge of her thumb. No newspaper one layer down. No blanks. She lifted the cash to her nose and sniffed.
“Well, it smells like money.”
It did. It had the faintly cheesy whiff of banknotes that have been through many hands.
She placed it on the bed beside her and began emptying the drawer. When she had finished, forty bundles lay beside her in an uneven pyramid. Slitting the paper band of the topmost bundle she counted the notes. One hundred in all. OK, Stella, time for your best mental maths. Remember Miss Evans always gave you top marks for that at school. So, a hundred times twenty is two thousand. So two grand per bundle. Eighty grand in total.
She didn’t even have to ponder what to do. The money was dirty, no question. But then, she wasn’t exactly in the running for whiter-than-white cop of the year, either. A little extra cash might come in handy while she waited for Jason to sell her house in West Hampstead. She’d checked her bank balance in Westcliff-on-Sea while waiting for Vicky’s train to arrive and was gratified, if surprised, to see that her salary was still being paid in at the end of the month. But then, as she’d reasoned, she was still on the payroll, even if sectioned.
She returned to the front hallway and retrieved her daysack from the coat rack by the front door. Back in Freddie’s room, she took four bundles and stuck them in the bag then cinched the drawstring tight before clipping the straps shut. The rest she replaced in the drawer.
“I know what you should spend some of it on, babe.”
Stella didn’t bother looking round.
“What? A samurai sword? Knuckledusters? Rat poison”
“Oh, you! No. I think we need to get ourselves to the nearest branch of M&S. Because I don’t know about you, but I could do with a change of undies.”
True enough, Stella reflected. She’d left the rest of her clothes at St Mary’s, in the simple chest of drawers in her room.
Ignoring Other Stella, who this time had contented herself with a mere auditory presence between her ears, Stella rose from the bed and started searching the rest of the room. The other furniture consisted of a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, in wood that matched the sleigh bed. The wardrobe revealed nothing out of the ordinary, though Stella was surprised to find not one but two dinner suits, one with a plum velvet jacket, one a more traditional black with watered silk lapels.
She moved across to the chest of drawers: two full-width surmounted by a smaller pair. Braces, belts and varicoloured handkerchiefs occupied the left-hand top drawer. The right held photograph albums. Stella lifted the cover of the topmost album. A grinning Freddie, arm around a stunningly attractive woman who, from his description, had to be Mary. The caption: Camber Sands, July 1975. She took it out and flipped through the rest of the leaves, but it was a simple family album like those she’d seen in dozens of houses and flats she’d searched. The others charted more episodes in the McTiernan family’s existence. Nothing more exciting than a blurred polaroid taken at a funfair: two long-haired girls, faces blurry as they shot past the photographer
clinging to the safety rail of a rollercoaster car, their mouths open wide in delight, or fear, or, most likely, a potent combination of the two. The middle drawer held a selection of sweaters, for golf, Stella decided, judging from the colours and preponderance of Argyll patterns.
“So far, so boring,” she murmured, before pushing the drawer closed and opening its downstairs neighbour. “Bingo!” she exclaimed.
The drawer contained several box files, ring binders and thick notebooks secured with fat, red rubber bands. She picked up the box files and dumped them on the bed, returned for the folders, then the notebooks.
On opening the lid of the first box file, she let out a low whistle. The document directly under the spring clip was a photocopy of an evidence list from Regina v Wilks in the matter of an armed robbery of a branch of the National Westminster Bank.
“The case Collier framed Freddie for,” she whispered.
The rest of the boxed-up documents also related to the case. Copies of witness depositions, phone records, bank statements, the trial judge’s instructions to the juries, transcripts of the defence and prosecution opening and closing statements.
She’d just picked up one of the notebooks when something made her stop. A noise from outside. Crunching. Like – Oh shit! – tyres on gravel. She froze. Not a delivery. They’d have had to buzz the intercom. Who then? A cleaner? A gardener? She decided to brazen it out.
She headed for the door across the wide expanse of carpet. So soft, so fluffy, so not soaked in the blood of her dead colleague and the man she’d become fond of despite his violent criminal past. She closed the door behind her and went downstairs. Dumping the daysack out of sight behind an antique writing desk, she approached the front door, ready to turn away whichever of Freddie’s domestics had arrived to keep the house and garden looking smart.
She decided not to wait until they put their key in the lock. Take the initiative! Maintain control! Ask questions! Make proposals! The old training mantras jostled in her mind for prominence. They all sounded good.
Taking a deep breath and pasting a smile on her face that she hoped would look genuine, she grasped the inside handle and pulled the heavy, iron-studded wooden door inwards.
To find herself face-to-face with Marilyn Wilks née McTiernan.
34
Beauty Spot
Collier drove to Leeds without stopping. Arriving in the city centre at just after 6.00 a.m., he bought a large black coffee and a bacon roll in a cafe and spent thirty minutes with his phone tracing Simon Halpern. He didn’t even need to use official databases. Google provided everything he needed.
“Simon Halpern, Leeds entrepreneur” led directly to the website of the man’s holding company. Work address, check. He also found the announcement of his marriage. The key phrase leapt out at him as if printed in extra-large red capitals:
… the marriage of Mr Simon Anthony Halpern of 231 Roundhay Park Lane, Leeds to Miss Emily Marie Temple of The Old Rectory, 97 Wakefield Road, Halifax …
And a local press announcement in the Leeds Evening News informing all who were interested that the happy couple would be living at Mr Halpern’s architect-designed house in Roundhay Park Lane, one of the most desirable addresses in Leeds, if not the whole of West Yorkshire.
Collier drove to Roundhay Park Lane, arriving at a little after seven. He parked in a side street, climbed out into a warm summer’s morning, and walked along until he was opposite 231. The house was white and built in a modernist style: lots of horizontal surfaces, white smooth-rendered walls and brushed steel window frames. Through the steel-barred gates, Collier could see a scarlet Porsche convertible and a metallic grey Ferrari.
Twenty yards to his right stood a bus shelter. Collier ambled along the road and planted himself on one of the hard, red plastic seats and settled in to wait. After five minutes, he was joined by an old man towing a scruffy black-and-white terrier on a bright-green lead.
“Lovely day,” the old man said.
“Beautiful.”
“Holiday?”
“Business.”
“Looking after the pennies, are you lad? I thought you lot all had company cars.”
Collier smiled.
“Research. I’m in urban transport planning.”
“Oh, aye? Time and motion, is it? Well you could plan a few more buses round here. That wouldn’t go amiss.”
Collier laughed.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
At that point, the gates at 231 swung inwards. Collier stood. The Porsche nosed out, a blonde at the wheel. She looked left and right, then eased the low-slung car across the pavement and out into the early morning traffic. Collier stood.
“Time’s up, I’m afraid.”
He walked towards the white house at an unhurried yet long-paced stride and slipped between the closing gates, listening to them clang shut behind him as he approached the front door. He stretched out an arm, pleased to see that his finger was as steady as a rock, and rang the doorbell.
The man who opened the door was instantly recognisable. He’d lightened his hair and had his teeth capped, or veneered, and he sported a year-round tan, but the face was the same face that had stared across the crowded courtroom at him and Lynne while his QC pleaded and wheedled and hectored until the jury returned a verdict of involuntary manslaughter.
“Can I help you?” he asked. In his right hand he held a half-eaten piece of toast.
“Simon Halpern?”
“Yes.”
Collier pushed him hard in the sternum, sticking out a foot and tripping him at the same time. Halpern flew backwards, ending up sprawled on the parquet flooring of the hallway. Collier stepped smartly across the threshold, slamming the door behind him.
“What the fuck!” the man cried out.
“Hello Crispin,” Collier said in a low voice.
“Who? My name’s Halpern. Simon Halpern.”
Collier took a step forward and kicked him hard in the centre of his right thigh, bringing forth a cry of pain.
“No. Your name is Crispin Radstock. On Friday, March 7, 2003, you stabbed my son for his wallet. He died in hospital a week later. You escaped justice then. But now your time’s up.”
Radstock’s eyes were wide. He held his hands out palms towards Collier.
“Wait! Just, wait, OK? Please. I did my time. I paid for what I did. I’m sorry about your son. I was high. I was—”
Collier pulled the knife from his jacket pocket. Nothing from the Exhibits Room this time. He’d brought it from home. A deep-bellied cook’s knife with a brass-riveted handle. The sort of weapon used in hundreds of attacks, including murders, every year, up and down the UK. No need for anything flashy like the stupid Samurai swords the gangbangers in London were so fond of.
“Get up.”
Radstock pushed himself away on his elbows then scrambled to his feet. His eyes were gratifyingly glued to the blade.
“What are you going to do? I have money now. A shitload of money. I could pay you. Compensation. I mean, you know, name your figure.”
Fighting down the urge to stab the arrogant young man in the face, Collier spoke.
“I have a better idea. Let’s go for a ride.”
Walking stiffly beside Collier, partly because of the bruised thigh and partly because of the knife, which Collier kept tight against his side, Radstock reached the driver’s door of the car and unlocked it.
“In,” Collier said.
Radstock opened the door.
“Keys.”
“What?”
“Give me the keys.”
Radstock handed them over. Collier locked the doors then ran round to the passenger side, unlocked them again and climbed in beside Radstock, who had frozen into immobility.
“What are you going to do to me?” Radstock asked, his lower lip trembling.
“I’m going to show you some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK. Head for Nidderdale. A place called Greygarth.”
“Why?�
��
“Because I want you to. Now get this fucking car moving.”
Radstock twisted the key and pushed the starter button. The engine started with a raspy bark.
They drove the one-hour journey in silence. Collier warned Radstock right at the start to stick to the speed limit. He could smell the rank tang of fear emanating from Radstock’s skin. Good. I want you to get the full experience.
The final three miles of the journey took place along a narrow lane that was little more than a track. Eventually, it ended in a small turnaround marked with a brown sign displaying a white fan. A beauty spot.
“End of the road, Crispin,” Collier said. He reached across and turned off the engine, keeping hold of the key. “Out.”
The temperature outside the air-conditioned interior was comparatively warm, despite the altitude. Before setting out for Leeds, Collier had checked the elevation. Two hundred and fifty-seven metres above sea-level. He gestured with the knife.
“Through the gate. And don’t try to run.”
Radstock fumbled with the latch for the gate before getting it open.
“Where are you taking me? What are we going to look at? Is it his grave? Is that what this is all about?”
“It’s not his grave. And his name was Theo, by the way. But yes, it is what this is all about. Head for that tree.”
Collier had identified the tree from a tourist photo he’d clicked on from Google maps. Wind had shaped it into a sideways-leaning smear of dark green against a bright blue sky. Beyond lay the whole of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
Reaching the tree, Radstock stopped. He walked on a few paces to a bare rock ledge and peered over. Then he turned back to Collier.
“Please,” he said, holding his hands out in front of him like a supplicant.
Collier closed the gap between them to a foot or so.
“No. Jump.”
He watched as a shudder passed right the way through Radstock’s body.
“What?”
“Jump, Crispin. You have a chance this way. You might break a few bones, maybe even your pelvis. But it’s a warm day and a popular hiking spot. A walker might hear your cries and call mountain rescue. You could escape from this with just a plaster cast and a few bruises.”