‘Yes, it’s him,’ Langton said confidently as he turned and looked at Deans.
‘Go go go!’ Deans shouted down his mike.
Langton’s attention was suddenly drawn to another screen to the right of Deans.
The ear-piercing boom of an exploding thunder flash made the FBI boat rock and at the same time a smoke bomb ignited between Fitzpatrick and the villa. But Langton was focused on what he could see on the other screen, where the young boy was at the villa’s patio doors and opening them. Langton instinctively knew he was going out to greet his father. No one else in the control room had noticed as their attention was fixed on the main screen and Fitzpatrick. Like a man possessed, Langton ran from the control room, onto the deck and jumped down onto the jetty. The SWAT team were already in front of him and darkness turned to day as floodlights from the FBI boat lit up the garden. He could see Fitzpatrick on the grass verge; he was frozen to the spot. The cloud from the smoke bomb was being carried by the breeze towards the dealer and towered over him like an enormous foaming wave. SWAT team agents were screaming, ‘Armed FBI, get down on the ground!’
‘THE BOY’S IN THE LINE OF FIRE!’ Langton screamed at the top of his voice, running as fast as he could.
Fitzpatrick suddenly pulled a gun from his rear pocket, but before he could even raise it the sound of rapid gunfire filled the air. Langton could only watch as the power of the bullets physically lifted Fitzpatrick off the ground and sprays of blood spurted from the entry wounds glistening in the floodlights.
Everyone stopped in their tracks, as smoke covered most of the area where Fitzpatrick lay, apart from his feet, which weren’t moving. Warily, the SWAT agents inched forward, their guns trained on the dealer, but Langton knew he was dead. Concerned only for the safety of the son, he sped past the agents. On reaching Fitzpatrick’s body he could see through the smoke that the young boy was motionless and partially lying over the top of his father. Langton turned and looked back towards the jetty, where the two Mexican men had been apprehended and Deans was walking towards him.
‘You were so fucking interested in Fitzpatrick you didn’t see the boy. He’s dead because of your trigger happy attitude!’ Langton shouted.
‘We have a job to do, Langton,’ Deans roared, striding forward. ‘Fitzpatrick endangered the boy’s life when he pulled a gun and you nearly compromised the whole operation.’
On hearing the sound of someone sobbing, Langton turned and found that the boy, covered in blood, was now kneeling on the grass. He had thought at first that the boy had been shot but he could see there were no holes in his white T-shirt and slowly it dawned on him it was Fitzpatrick’s blood.
The boy stared at Langton, terrified, wiping the tears from his eyes.
‘Langton? You’re Langton?’ he said. Gone was the American accent, his high-pitched voice was impeccably English.
Langton nodded, putting out his hand to help the boy up. The boy raised his right hand and pointed his father’s gun at Langton’s chest, his voice turning into a shriek.
‘You did this to my father, you killed him like you did my mother!’
Langton looked at the boy and realized that his eyes had changed from terror to total hatred. He braced himself, waiting for the bullet to enter his body.
‘Put the gun down, son,’ Deans said. Langton could see that all the SWAT team had their weapons pointed at the boy. The boy ignored them and with a trembling hand kept the gun aimed at Langton.
‘Don’t force my men to shoot you, son. Just put the gun down,’ Deans said coldly.
Langton stepped closer to the boy to block off their line of fire and shouted at Deans to get his men to back off. He presumed that if the boy was going to shoot him, he would have done it by now, but more than anything he didn’t want to see an innocent child killed for his father’s sins.
‘What’s your name?’ Langton asked as he slowly knelt down in front of him.
Deans, clearly furious at Langton’s actions but unwilling to exacerbate the situation, ushered his men to step back and lower their weapons. The boy’s lower lip trembled, his whole body shaking as Langton asked him again.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Jonathan.’
‘Listen to me, Jonathan: I swear to you that I didn’t kill your mother.’
The boy was shaking even harder, trying unsuccessfully to control himself, but still dangerous because as terrified as he was he still held the gun in his hand.
‘My father said you did, you were chasing her and caused the car crash that killed her. She died because of you.’
Langton knew that the truth was very different; yes, someone had tampered with the brakes on the car, but, although never proved, it was thought to have been Fitzpatrick, so he could take his son from her.
Keeping his voice steady he held the boy’s attention. ‘It was men who were looking for your father, they were drug dealers who he owed money to, and they rammed your mother’s car off the road.’
‘That’s a lie, my father wasn’t a drug dealer!’ Jonathan shrieked, and the gun waved from side to side.
Langton raised his voice, firmly and steadily, maintaining direct eye contact with the boy.
‘Look around you, Jonathan; all this wealth, the boats and planes, continually moving from place to place.’
Langton paused and he could see that Jonathan’s gun hand was now beginning to drop a little as he was thinking about what Langton was saying. ‘Look over there, to the boat your father came in – that’s cocaine and a drug called fentanyl the FBI are unloading.’
Jonathan’s eyes were welling up with tears as he lowered the gun another couple of inches. Langton realized his words were getting through to the boy, but suspected he had known the truth all along.
‘Come on, Jonathan, you must have seen boxes of fentanyl before?’
‘It’s medicine he sold,’ Jonathan said, raising the gun upwards, pointing it directly at Langton.
‘Okay, it’s medicine, but did you ever see him with any doctors or visiting hospitals?’ Langton asked, now inching closer to the frightened, confused boy.
‘My father was a good man.’
‘I know that, Jonathan, and he always wanted what was best for you. He loved you and your mother very much. They both want you to be the best at whatever you choose to do.’
Suddenly Jonathan’s head slumped forward and he dropped the gun to the ground as sobs shook his body and he wept uncontrollably. Langton picked up the gun, threw it behind him and then embraced the boy as if he were his own son, squeezing him tightly and stroking his head to comfort him.
Finally, Deans edged forward, picked up the gun and whispered to Langton, ‘What on earth do you think you were doing. My men—’
Langton cut him off abruptly: ‘I’m doing my fucking job. Policing is about saving life, not taking it!’ He got to his feet and stood to one side as the boy was taken from him, catching someone muttering ‘asshole’ under their breath. Maybe he had sounded like one to the rest of the team, but watching as the boy threw a pitiful look towards the blood-soaked figure of his father, his attention was brutally brought back to the reason he was there. It was finally over and he could return to London with the case closed. He couldn’t resist one last look at the dead man who had made such a fool of him. In death, Fitzpatrick’s chiselled face remained unmarked, his blank eyes wide open, and whether the smirk on his face was out of fear or surprise, it would be remembered for a very, very long time.
After a hot relaxing bath, Anna slept for a couple of hours. When she woke, the cabin was in near darkness, lit only by the flames of the log fire. The shadows from the flames had a seductive quality, accompanied by the sound of crackling wood. She got out of bed, still feeling snug and cosy, as the cabin was toasty warm. From the indoor balcony, she could look below into the living area but Don was not there. Glancing out of the window, she saw him walking up from the river’s edge, rod in one hand and a large freshly caught fish in the other.
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br /> Unobtrusively, Anna stepped back, as she wanted to watch him going about his business. As he put the fish in the sink she could see that he had already peeled some potatoes and greens, which were in pots on the stove. But before he could attend to them his mobile rang.
‘Hi, Carl, what can I do for you?’ Blane asked quietly.
Anna started to tiptoe back towards the bedroom, trying not to eavesdrop on the conversation.
‘I arranged for her to speak with the Andersons, but I wasn’t aware she met Jack,’ she overheard him say, and instantly knew the call was about her.
‘I know she has no lawful powers over here. She’s very experienced and I simply asked her to look over the case file,’ he continued calmly and politely.
‘Look, Carl, I think Jack may have been exaggerating a little bit, Anna is not an aggressive person and—’
It became evident that Don was having difficulty in conveying his point of view to Carl, whoever he was.
‘Telling the Academy Director will benefit no one, Carl, me included. Leave it with me. I will deal with the matter, okay?’ Blane said, and there was a short pause.
‘Thank you, and I promise it won’t happen again.’ He sighed as he finished the call, and shook his head. Then he proceeded to gut the fish.
Anna wondered if it was Jack Brennan’s father on the phone or a senior FBI agent who was chastizing Blane. She waited twenty minutes before getting dressed into tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, worrying all the while that she had let Blane down. As she went downstairs to join him she contemplated asking him what the call was about, but dreaded him thinking that she had been listening in. In the event she decided it was best to say nothing and wait to see if he raised the subject during the evening.
Blane gave Anna a big smile as he greeted her and asked if she had slept well, with no obvious annoyance in his tone.
‘That bed is so comfortable, I feel much better and my headache is gone. Now, can I please help with something?’ Anna stepped in closer.
‘Just relax, sit by the fireplace. I hope you don’t mind seafood again. I’m going to oven-bake a freshly hooked striper. Anna giggled as she said a ‘stripper’ was fine. Realizing what had amused her, Blane explained that the fish was a striped bass.
All the while they waited the half hour or so before dinner was ready Blane never mentioned the phone call from ‘Carl’ or anything about the Mandy Anderson case. Anna was still concerned about the car accident but he reassured her she really had nothing to worry about except maybe a few harsh words from Dewar. Anna insisted that she would pay for the damage to both cars and once the Mustang was repaired she would call Dewar and explain what had happened.
Blane served the striper with vegetables and a sauce made from roasted garlic, lemon pepper, sweet basil, lime juice and butter. Anna thought it tasted delicious and complimented him on his cooking, even as she was desperate to talk about Mandy Anderson, and hoping to find out more about the phone call he had received.
‘I think I may have found a new bit of evidence today,’ Anna eventually said.
Blane swallowed his mouthful of food and wiped his mouth on his napkin. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘I met a girl called Julie Collins – she was with Mandy just before she left the mall.’
‘Yeah, they were best friends. She’s turned out to be a bit of a madam, total opposite of Mandy. So what did she have to say for herself ?’ he asked and took a sip of wine.
Anna repeated her conversation with Julie, mentioning the birthday card and the possibility that Mandy had bought a camera key ring. Blane shook his head, put his knife and fork down and sat back in his chair.
‘Why on earth did Julie withhold this vital information in her original statement?’
‘In fairness she was never specifically asked what happened before she and Mandy parted company.’
Anna could see that he was upset by the missed opportunity.
‘Have you spoken with Peter and Sally Anderson about Mandy going to the mall to buy a birthday present for someone?’ he asked.
‘No, but I think if Mandy had told her parents about it, they would have mentioned it by now.’
‘I agree, but it would still be worth asking the Andersons and checking Mandy’s diary for any entries that refer to birthdays.’
‘I’ve got her diary and already looked through it,’ Anna told him. ‘The only birthday reminders are for family and girlfriends – her mother and father’s were months away and there’s definitely nothing for May or June.’ She paused for some wine. ‘I’ve also left a message for Father O’Reilly at the church. I’d really like to speak to him about the old choir practice records to see if they match up with the diary, but he hasn’t got back to me yet.’
Anna was keen to raise her conversation with Jack Brennan, but hesitated; it didn’t immediately add anything to the investigation but she was desperate to know who ‘Carl’ was. She decided to broach the subject from a different angle.
‘I also met a Jack Brennan at the church – he was very pleasant.’
‘He’s a nice lad, suffers from ADHD,’ Blane observed. ‘When he was younger, the other kids bullied him and made him the butt of their jokes, but they just tend to leave him alone now. He spends all his spare time at the church, doing odd jobs and playing the piano. Did he say anything useful about Mandy?’
‘Nothing useful, but he clearly liked her and missed her not being in the choir.’
‘Mandy was one of the few that actually made the effort to be nice and talk to him, so he probably misses her a lot. Some of the kids, Julie Collins being one of them, even went as far as saying he had something to do with her disappearance. He was interviewed but he was with his father all day.’
‘Why would they do something like that?’ a shocked Anna asked, realizing she had not yet read Jack’s interview in the case file.
‘Spitefulness and because they see him as the oddball. I can never understand how some kids can be so cruel and narrow-minded. More wine?’ he asked, holding up the bottle.
Anna smiled and nodded, hiding the fact that she was vexed that her ploy to try to discover who ‘Carl’ was hadn’t worked so far. She decided to keep the topic of conversation on Jack Brennan.
‘I noticed Jack had a horrible-looking rash and blisters on his arms and hands. It must have been causing him pain when he played the piano but he never complained.’
‘Really, did he tell you how it happened?’
She nodded. ‘He’d been pulling out some Jimson weed and forgot to wear gloves, said his dad was upset with him.’
‘I’m not surprised – if there’s anyone who knows about every dangerous plant out there it’s his dad.’
Anna asked him if Jack’s dad was a botanist and Blane told her that he was the Chief Park Ranger for the County and had coordinated all the woodland searches for Mandy Anderson. He added that Jimson weed was very prevalent in Virginia and could be a lot more dangerous than just causing a rash.
‘It’s a member of the Solanaceae plant family and contains atropine, which makes you very ill, causes hallucinations and can even kill you.’
‘What’s Solanaka . . . ?’ Anna star ted to ask, but gave up trying to pronounce the unfamiliar word. He grinned and apologized for being too technical.
‘It comes from the Latin word solanum, meaning “nightshade”.’
‘What, like deadly nightshade?’
‘Yes, but the strange thing is it’s also used for medicinal purposes, such as an analgesic during surgery.’
‘So how come you know so much about plants?’ she wondered, playing with the stem of her wine glass.
Blane modestly claimed his knowledge was limited, and came from a poisoning case he’d dealt with, in which a care worker in an old people’s home collected berries from a nightshade plant, crushed them and put them into the food. It was not enough to kill the residents but made them very ill and then she would give them another drug to counteract the atropine.
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nbsp; ‘Some saw her as their saviour, changed their wills and left her everything. Once the will was changed that was it and she didn’t bother with the antidote. She was something else, but we got her in the end.’
‘How did you catch her?’ Anna asked.
‘A suspicious relative, plus the sudden high mortality rate in the home. Once arrested, she delighted in telling us how she had the power to control life and death.’
Anna had been so mesmerized by what he was telling her that she hadn’t realized that the conversation had slowly weaved away from the subject of Jack Brennan, and now it was too late – they had finished their meal.
She offered to help with the washing-up but Don was having none of it, telling her to go and relax by the fire and put on some music if she wanted. She wandered over to the rack of CDs and looked through them, impressed by the wide range but not really sure what to put on. She smiled as she noticed the name of one of the artists.
‘I didn’t take you for a Barry Manilow fan,’ she said.
‘That’s my adopted mom’s, she’s mad about him.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Anna said, and they both laughed.
‘Go ahead, put it on. I fancy a bit of nostalgia,’ Blane said.
Anna put the disc in the player and the first track opened with a slow, rolling piano intro that she recognized right away as the tune that Jack Brennan had been playing as she left the church. Reaching for the CD cover she saw that the song was called ‘Mandy’. It was rather eerie as she listened closely to the words of the opening verse, but she told herself she was just being silly. Then came the chorus and the references to Mandy, who came and gave without taking; he sent her away but still needed her today.
Anna, settling herself on the sofa, wondered if she was just imagining things but remembered Jack telling her ‘it will never be the same again without her’. Something made her suspect that the song was more than a fond memory to the young man. She glanced over at Don, who was still washing up, wanting to tell him about the song but anxious he’d think she was just imagining things, as he seemed to have a soft spot for Jack. She was equally keen to examine Jack’s original statement now that she knew that it might be vital, and so made an excuse to Don that her headache had returned and she didn’t feel so good, so she thought she’d lie down. She felt bad as Don blamed himself, fearing it was his cooking or the wine that had made her feel unwell.
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