Hill went white.
‘You did it!’ he said. ‘You’ve had it in for me from the start, you bloody bastard.’
‘You’re taking it far too personally,’ Beresford told him. ‘I feel about you what I imagine you felt about Maggie Thorpe – I wouldn’t go out of my way to harm you, but if you do fall headfirst into the shit, I’m not particularly bothered.’
Jesus Christ, he thought, that sounds just like something Meadows could have said!
When Beresford arrived at the Drum and Monkey, he found Meadows gazing at the wall, as if there was a message on it that only she could read.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ he said.
‘I have to go away,’ Meadows told him. ‘I shouldn’t be gone for more than twenty-four hours, but I’ll need you to cover for me while I’m not here.’
‘And what does that mean, exactly – you’ll need me to cover for you?’ Beresford wondered.
‘It means you’ll have to lie for me,’ Meadows said. ‘It means you’ll have to say I’m in such-and-such a place, working on the investigation, when, in fact, you won’t know where the hell I am.’
‘So you won’t tell me where you’re going?’
‘I don’t know where I’m going.’
‘You’re asking me to put blind trust in you,’ Beresford said.
‘That’s right, I am,’ Meadows agreed. ‘If we can’t trust each other, then this team’s nothing. If we can’t trust each other, then DCI Wellbeloved’s won, and we’ve all lost.’
‘At least tell me your disappearance will be connected with the case,’ Beresford pleaded.
‘It might well be connected with the case – I don’t know yet – but it’s definitely connected with the boss,’ Meadows said.
‘And you won’t give me any details?’
‘If I did, you’d feel obliged to stop me. You wouldn’t like doing it – in fact, I think you’d hate yourself for doing it – but you’d do it anyway.’
‘You’re being – what’s the word – enigmatic.’
‘That’s right, I am.’
Beresford thought about it. If the request had come from anyone else, he would have turned it down flat, he thought.
But the simple fact was that Kate Meadows was not like anyone else – she was a force of nature that, just coincidentally, happened to hold the rank of detective sergeant.
‘You’ve got twenty-four hours with me acting as your cover,’ he said. ‘After that, you’re on your own.’
‘You’re a real sweetheart, Colin,’ Meadows said. She grinned. ‘What I meant to say was, thank you very much for being so considerate, Detective Inspector Beresford.’
‘You’re most welcome, Detective Sergeant Meadows,’ Beresford said worriedly.
At noon, the Seeds of Mutual Destruction played the last number of their set, and the RockStately Festival was officially over. Though a hard core of the Seeds fans stayed seated, hoping – against all odds – that there would be yet another encore, the majority of the audience bowed to the inevitable, and headed quickly for the exits.
The most seasoned fans had packed up their tents before the day’s music began, and they were the first on the shuttle buses which would take them to Whitebridge railway station. The rest of the campers pulled up tent pegs, released guy ropes, and began to roll up their tents, wondering, as they did so, how such a big tent had ever fitted into such a small tent bag.
By a quarter past one, there was not a single tent left standing, and the roads in all directions were jammed with traffic.
It had not been Woodstock, the fans agreed, but then – if you stripped away all the hype – maybe even Woodstock hadn’t been Woodstock, and, all-in-all, it had certainly been a festival to remember.
It had taken Paniatowski almost her entire reserve of moral strength to come back to Stamford Hall, but she had done it, and now she stood on the roof, binoculars held up to her eyes, watching the Devil’s Disciples pull out.
Three of them were her rapists, she thought, and three more – maybe the same three – had beaten the crap out of the countess. And perhaps, when she had finished reviewing the surveillance tapes, she would discover that one of them was also a murderer.
If one of them was the killer, she realized now she had had time to think about it, then her attempts to cover up her rape were probably doomed to failure, because once she had arrested one of the Devil’s Disciples, any number of other dirty little secrets about others would come floating to the top of the slime pit which was their existence, and the rape was likely to be amongst them.
So in solving the case, she would be dooming herself.
And for what!
To solve the murder of a gutter press journalist who was probably guilty of damaging any number of lives with the stories he had tracked down and published.
So wouldn’t it be better, after all, to ignore any evidence which pointed to one of the Devil’s Disciples – to let that one Disciple get away with the killing, just as she was prepared to let the other three get away with raping her?
The Devil’s Disciples had ridden in single file down the narrow country lanes, but once they had hit a main road they switched to two abreast.
‘The animals went in two-by-two,’ the woman in the side road, who was watching their progress, thought whimsically.
She was sitting astride a 1000cc Yamaha that had been kept in mothballs since she’d left the Midlands, but which had started like a dream the first time she’d kicked it up. It would, she reckoned, easily keep pace with any of the bikes the Devil’s Disciples were riding, but her aim was not to race them, but to follow them and find out where they camped for the night.
‘And once I know that,’ she told herself, ‘the fun can really begin.’
PART THREE
Aftermath
9th–10th August
FIFTEEN
9th August – afternoon
If only Charlie Woodend was still around, Paniatowski thought miserably, as she wandered through the ornamental gardens of Stamford Hall, trying to decide whether or not to return to the surveillance control room.
If he’d been there, he’d have found some way to foil George Baxter’s plan to destroy her. If he’d been there, he would have offered his wise guidance on the dilemma she was struggling with at that very moment.
And suddenly – almost unbidden – her old mentor was inside her head, talking to her.
‘On the one hand, Monika,’ this imaginary Woodend said, ‘we’ve got a woman who’s triumphed over all her disadvantages and has done some real good in the world. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ the equally imaginary Monika Paniatowski answered dubiously.
‘On the other hand, we’ve got a grubby little journalist who’s spent his whole working life trying to drag other people down into the same gutter he inhabits. Am I correct?’
‘I don’t know, Charlie,’ the imaginary Paniatowski answered, glad that he was there to take all the decisions.
‘And what I’m expected to do,’ this wise and wonderful Woodend continued, ‘is to destroy the former just to get some – probably unmerited – justice for the latter. Well, I won’t do it – I’m going to bury the case.’
Would he actually have said that? Would he have let her off the hook so easily?
Probably not.
It didn’t really matter anyway, did it? Because Charlie wasn’t around and she was – so any decision that was made was going to have to be made by her.
But somewhere at the back of her mind, the decision had already been taken, she realized – because if she didn’t do all she possibly could to solve this murder, she wasn’t the woman she thought she was.
And if she wasn’t the woman she thought she was, then what was the point of her remaining a chief inspector?
‘Well, if it is the Devil’s Disciples who are responsible – and I solve the case I wasn’t even assigned to – that will at least be one in the eye for George Bloody Baxte
r,’ she said aloud.
Which was some consolation, when you thought about it – though, to be honest, not a hell of a lot!
Something seemed to have changed in the surveillance control room since the last time she had visited it, Paniatowski thought, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what that something was.
And then it hit her with the force of a house brick!
Where there had previously been a stack of video tapes, there was only an empty work surface.
She checked the cupboards under the monitors, and they were completely empty, too. She opened all the video machines, and discovered there were no tapes in them, either.
The tapes had all been removed – and there was only one person who could have done that.
She rushed down the stairs, then around the side of the Hall to where her car was parked. She gunned the engine, and sent loose chippings flying in all directions as she pulled away. She had no idea why Edward Bell had taken the tapes, but her instinct told her it was important to find out as soon as possible.
Edward Bell’s wife came running out of the Lodge the moment Paniatowski had brought her MGA to a screeching halt in front of it.
‘Thank God you’re here, Monika,’ Rosie Bell gasped. ‘I don’t know what to do! I don’t know how to handle him!’
‘Calm down, Rosie,’ Paniatowski said, getting out of the car and placing her hands firmly on Rosie Bell’s shoulders. ‘You need to take a few deep breaths and calm down. Do you understand?’
Rosie nodded, and did as she’d been instructed.
‘Now tell me what the problem is,’ Paniatowski said.
‘When … when Edward came home at lunchtime, he had a big sack with him. I asked him what was in it, and he told me to mind my own business.’ Rosie’s upper lip quivered. ‘He’s never talked to me like that before in all the time we’ve been married. He’s always been so considerate.’
‘He’s been under a lot of strain recently,’ Paniatowski said. ‘What happened next?’
‘He said he didn’t want any lunch. He went straight into his study, and he took the sack with him.’
Yes, he would have taken it with him, Paniatowski thought – because that sack contained the surveillance video tapes.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘He keeps a bottle of whisky in the study. It’s a very special bottle of old malt that the earl gave him. He has one small glass of it every Christmas. Otherwise he never touches it. I think the bottle was about three-quarters full before he went in there, but I’ve just been in myself, and it’s sitting on his desk – completely empty.’
‘Is he in his study now?’
‘No, I’d never have gone in if he’d still been there. I’d have been too frightened to.’
‘So where is he?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Haven’t you any idea at all?’
‘When he left the house again, he had the sack with him, and he was heading towards the orchard.’
The orchard!
‘Then that’s where I’ll start looking,’ Paniatowski said.
‘I don’t think you should go alone,’ Rosie cautioned. ‘I think you should take some other bobbies with you.’
‘And why would I need to do that?’
Rosie hesitated, as if she was not sure who she needed to protect or how to go about protecting them.
‘I just think it might be better,’ she said evasively.
‘What makes us different from the beasts of the field is that we know when we’ve done wrong, and – if we’re any kind of men at all – we’re willing and ready to take the consequences,’ Edward Bell had said, only a couple of days earlier. ‘I’d like to think that if I’d been George Baxter, I’d have picked up a shotgun, gone into the orchard, and blown my own bloody head off.’
‘It wasn’t just the sack he was carrying, was it?’ Paniatowski asked. ‘He took his shotgun as well.’
‘Yes,’ Rosie admitted tearfully. ‘Yes, he … he did. That’s why I think you should …’
But she was talking to empty air, because Paniatowski was already sprinting towards the orchard.
Bell was in the centre of the orchard, holding a shotgun in his hands, with the barrel pressed tightly against his chin. The missing surveillance tapes were piled up in an untidy mound beside him.
Paniatowski sniffed the air. She could smell sweet and calming apple blossom, but overlying it was the stink of petrol.
‘Don’t come any closer, Chief Inspector!’ Bell shouted, when he saw her walking towards him.
She brought herself to an immediate halt. ‘Is this all right?’
‘You’re fine where you are – but no further.’
‘What’s this about, Edward?’ Paniatowski asked.
‘I have failed my master,’ Bell said. ‘I know that means nothing to you – you have no master – but it cuts me to the quick.’
He was very drunk, Paniatowski realized.
‘Even if you have failed the earl – and I don’t believe for a moment that you have – I’m sure he’ll forgive you,’ she said.
‘There can be no forgiveness – because I can’t forgive myself,’ Bell said. ‘He wanted to create something beautiful with the RockStately Festival – and I destroyed it.’
‘That’s a foolish thing to say.’
‘Is it? Then let me ask you this – when people look back on the festival, what is it they’ll remember? Will it be peace and love? Or will it be murder?’
‘Why don’t you put the gun down on the ground, Edward?’ Paniatowski suggested.
‘You think I killed Terry Lewis, don’t you?’ Bell demanded. ‘You think that’s why the surveillance tapes are here.’
‘No, of course I don’t think you killed him,’ Paniatowski replied.
And she didn’t. It would have taken a brilliant actor to seem as innocent as Bell had, and, for all his education, he was nothing but a plain and simple man.
‘I didn’t kill him – but he’s dead because of me,’ Bell said.
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Paniatowski said quietly.
‘Then you’re a fool – and you know nothing.’
‘Put down the gun, Edward,’ Paniatowski urged. ‘Think of your wife and children. They love you.’
‘They love me now – but will they still love me when they find out what I’ve done?’
‘Of course they will,’ Paniatowski said. ‘Love doesn’t end just because you’ve made a mistake.’
And she was thinking – but what mistake has he made?
Because if she knew that – if she could work it out in the next few moments – she might just be able to persuade him to put down the shotgun.
‘To think it should end like this,’ Bell said bitterly. ‘The shame of it! The humiliation! What kind of man am I if I can throw away three hundred years of faithful service as if it was nothing?’
She could see his finger tightening on the trigger of the shotgun.
‘Please, Edward!’ she begged.
Bell reached into his pocket, took out a lighter, and flicked it open. In the shade of the apple trees, the flame burned much more brightly than it would have done if exposed to full sunlight.
Bell gazed at the flame for a moment – as if he had never seen such a wondrous thing before – then seemed to lose interest and threw the lighter, almost carelessly, on to the pile of surveillance tapes. He waited for the first few tapes to start burning, then squeezed the trigger of his gun.
His jaw disintegrated, and a fountain of blood and brains spurted out of the top of his head. He staggered backwards – a corpse doing an impression of a man who was still alive – then crumpled to the ground.
There was nothing she could do for him now, but she might still be able to save a few of the tapes, Paniatowski thought, rushing towards the small bonfire.
If she had taken time to consider what to do next, she might have looked around for something she could smother the flames with. But there w
as no time for considering – not with the fire taking hold so quickly – and she reached into the conflagration, avoiding the flames as best she could, and pulled three of the tapes from it. She grabbed another three – and then two more – before accepting that that was all she was going to be able to save.
She looked down at her hands – at the black plastic which had melted on to them – and realized just how much pain she was in.
SIXTEEN
9th August – evening
The woods that Badger had chosen for the Devil’s Disciples’ overnight camp had a country road running along their northern boundary and a small river at their southern end.
The trees in the woods were mainly silver birches, though there were a few elms and oaks, transported there as seeds by winds which had suddenly lost interest in them. The ground cover consisted mainly of snowdrops in the early spring and bluebells towards the end of it. Squirrels inhabited some of the trees, and a variety of birds built their nests in others. It was, in the opinion of most of the people who picnicked there in the summer months, nature at its best.
The Devil’s Disciple orthodoxy despised nature in all its forms, and Badger had selected this particular site because the trees provided defensive cover, and the river meant that there was one side, at least, from which an attack was unlikely to come.
Not that an attack of any kind was very likely. The gang which claimed this particular part of Staffordshire as its home patch was called the Razors, but its reputation did not live up to its fearsome name, and if it had any sense, it would pretend not to notice that the Devil’s Disciples were crossing its territory. Even so, a good commander does not take unnecessary risks, and Badger – who considered himself to be just that – had taken the precaution of posting a couple of sentries.
From in front of his tent, he surveyed the rest of the camp. The other Devil’s Disciples’ tents had been spread around – for defensive reasons again – but, as usual, a large fire had been built in the centre of the camp as darkness fell, and in its flickering light Badger could see gang members playing cards, drinking or getting high.
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