by Ashley Dyer
Garvey spoke in a low voice as the other man walked away: “David has taken Adela’s death quite hard.”
Ruth nodded, keeping her eyes on the engineer’s retreating back.
Returning to Adela’s reason for wanting a firearm, she asked Garvey for a copy of the registration documents, and he showed her to his office, a small, cluttered cubbyhole with brick walls painted cream and covered with photographs of firearms, shooting competitions, and social events.
“There you go,” he said, stapling the sheets together and handing them to her. “The 1911 Low Mill LBP is modified from an Iver Johnson pistol, which is itself based on a 1911 Colt.”
Ruth looked at him like she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and he pointed out an image on a wall chart. It was the same make and model of gun that squatted like a malevolent toad in a box in her mother’s wardrobe, at home. But the legal version had an extension barrel and grip added.
“As you can see on the form, Adela’s reason for keeping a gun was target shooting.” He tapped the page at the appropriate box.
Ruth scanned the form. “So it says. But working for the police, you get to know the meaning of box ticking.”
He frowned. “You really think she was being threatened?”
“Just making an observation,” she said. Mr. Garvey had helpfully printed Adela Faraday’s membership form along with her firearms certificate, and glancing down to the signature, Ruth noticed that Adela joined the club seven months ago. Which was exactly how long it had been since she had shut up her house and moved anonymously to an apartment in the city center.
By the time Ruth returned to the bar to have a private chat with the barman he’d gone. One of the waitresses said he wasn’t feeling well, had to get off home.
She hurried out to the car park and spotted him carrying a rifle case and sports bag. He saw her as he opened the car boot, and for a second she thought he’d bolt, but instead he flung the sports bag inside, laid the rifle next to it, and stood there like a man waiting to be arrested.
“Adela’s form says she needed a pistol for target shooting.”
He stared at her, his eyes dull, shoulders hunched, his arms folded defensively across his chest.
“So?”
“I half expected to see ‘pest control’ on there.”
It may have been the light from the spots overhead, but for a second she thought she saw twin points of hard white light in his eyes.
He looked down. “Why would that be? Adela lived in a nice apartment in an exclusive development.”
“Good question,” Ruth said, thinking he knew damn well she was talking about the kind of pest that walked on two legs and couldn’t take no for an answer. And it occurred to her that David must be one of the very few people who knew that Adela had moved into her riverside apartment.
“Here’s another one for you,” she added. “Why would Adela use the club’s firearms when she had her own pistol?”
He considered her and after a moment turned to the open boot of his car. “Look at this—” He took out the rifle case and, opening it, drew out not a rifle, but a pistol. The freakishly long barrel at the business end and long, weighted rod at the butt end seemed even more incongruous in reality than in the photographs.
“These things will just about fit in a rifle case,” he said.
“Isn’t that kind of the point?” she said. “To make it harder to wander about with a deadly weapon stuffed in your waistband?”
“If you follow the rules,” he said. “But criminals aren’t great respecters of the rules, are they? Your average scumbag criminal can get hold of a fully automatic pistol as easy as popping down to Tesco for a pint of milk. Decent, law-abiding citizens get this . . . abomination.” He stared in disgust at the chimera in his hands.
“I don’t like guns,” Ruth said, thinking it was time to bring this down a notch. “But I take your point: that’s an ugly-arsed piece of kit.”
That startled a laugh from him. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just . . . the bastard who did this to Adela is still out there.”
“She must have been a remarkable woman,” Ruth said.
He seemed offended. “What would you know?”
She looked at him for a long moment. She was sure he wanted to help, but if he did, he could leave himself open to prosecution, and Ruth knew how that felt. If she wanted an honest answer from him, she needed to give him something to hold over her.
“I’m going to tell you something that could put me in real trouble.” She took a breath. “This isn’t my case.”
His eyes flicked to hers, confusion and curiosity in them.
“Then why are you . . . ?”
“Just trying to help a friend,” she said. “He’s in a mess. He was in a . . . relationship with Adela.”
David gripped the weapon tightly, his eyes flashing. “If you know something. If he did this—” He broke off, his eyes red, his face chalky under the bright white spotlights.
“He was shot with the same caliber of weapon Adela was.”
The barman stared at her, and she waited for him to make the connection. When he did, his eyes widened.
“My God—it’s that policeman, isn’t it?”
She said nothing, but the shock and disbelief in his face convinced her that this man had nothing to do with shooting Greg Carver.
“Does it surprise you that she was seeing someone else?”
“No,” he said, still working through what she’d told him. “Adela wasn’t—she didn’t have exclusive relationships.” He paused. “D’you think whoever shot her came after your friend?”
Ruth raised one shoulder, let it drop. “I’m just asking questions,” she said. “Because whoever shot Adela and Greg Carver needs to be found and punished.”
Though he didn’t speak, his eyes burned, and she thought the time was right to say, “So—can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
His eyes hooded, but he gave a wary nod.
She glanced at the carbine, which he now held in one hand, the barrel in line with the seam of his trouser leg. “Can an ‘abomination’ like that one be converted back to something that looks like a regular pistol?”
Every muscle in his neck tensed and she had to tell herself that no self-respecting gun club member would ever carry a loaded gun in the boot of his car. Even so, she held his gaze, because she was half afraid that another glance at the weapon might make him think of using it. Perhaps he realized what she was thinking, because he turned away and shoved the weapon back into its case, then set it carefully in the boot well. As he straightened up, she heard the bones and sinews in his back and shoulders crackle with released tension. Then she saw a puff of vapor as he let his breath go with a gasp.
“You’re asking me, hypothetically—as an engineer—if a 1911 rimfire carbine could be converted to a standard, 1911 rimfire Colt?” he said.
“Hypothetically.”
He gave a tight nod. “It’s not easy—” He coughed. “Wouldn’t be easy, I mean. But, yes. It’s absolutely—hypothetically—possible.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He held her gaze, a frightened look on his face. “Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
“Of course.”
“If an engineer did demodify her pistol, do you think he put it in the hands of the murdering scum who shot Adela?”
“I didn’t say that. Look, David, the inquiry team hasn’t even located the gun, yet,” she said, truthfully, adding less honestly, “There’s no way of knowing if Adela was shot with her own weapon.”
He seemed relieved to hear it.
“Even so,” he said. “I wish I could take it back. I wish I’d never . . .” He seemed stricken.
“This man she needed protecting from—did she give you a name?” she asked.
“Chris,” he said.
“No surname?”
He shook his head.
“An ex-boyfriend, someone she worked with?”
>
“She wouldn’t say—I only know this much because she let it slip one night. We’d been drinking, and . . .” He shrugged.
“Did she say why she was afraid of him?”
“Only that he was harassing her.”
Which would explain why Adela had sold her nice house in the suburbs and secretly moved herself to one of her investment properties. “Did she report this harassment to the police?”
Another shake of the head. “She said she could handle it.”
Chapter 43
Day 11
Ruth fell into bed just after midnight and dreamed of her father. He hadn’t been around much after her fifteenth birthday, and most of her memories of that time were of stormy exchanges and violent outbursts, but tonight, he was in a mellow mood. He cracked some silly joke, and she laughed. He watched her, a look of affection on his face.
“I do love you,” he said. “Never doubt that.”
Then Dad was gone, and Ruth was anxious because the lock on the front door was faulty. She went downstairs to investigate noises coming from her sitting room and found Harry Rollinson playing Hitman on her Xbox, which seemed odd, because she didn’t own the game. His thumbs twitched at the console, and on-screen, the hitman snapped an adversary’s neck. Rollinson looked up and smiled.
“One split second,” he said. “Your life changes forever.”
She woke with a start, and lay awake, her mind churning over her interview with the man. One split second, he’d said. You know how it is. Thinking about it again, there had been a definite emphasis on “you.” He could mean “you know because you’re police,” but the dead look in his eye made her think otherwise: there was a deeper message in what he’d said.
She went to the front bedroom and opened the wardrobe. Under a stack of shoeboxes was a blue leatherette scrapbook, the kind with self-adhesive pages and plastic protectors to hold papers in place. Ruth shone a torchlight over each shoebox as she lifted it out, checking for fingermarks or signs of disturbance. She hadn’t moved them in months, and a fine patina of dust confirmed that neither had anyone else.
She knelt on the floor with the album clasped on her knees, building the courage to open it. After five minutes, she took a breath and turned the cover. It opened with a faint crack, and a whiff of age. The first eight pages held the usual stuff: family snaps; swimming certificates; a photo of Ruth and her brother, kitted out for an aikido competition. After that, the content got darker: newspaper cuttings and condolence cards; a pressed flower from a funeral wreath; Dad’s note: “I do love you. Never doubt that.”
She checked every page. Nothing was missing.
After a while, she closed the scrapbook and replaced it, carefully loading the boxes on top of it.
She didn’t recognize Rollinson, and she never forgot a face. But he recognized her—she was sure of it.
Ruth arrived at the hospital just after seven a.m. as the nurses were in the process of doling out medications, and care staff were giving out breakfast. She sneaked in as a trolley of breakfast trays was wheeled through the door, and the nurse gave her a scolding look.
“What happened to his chaperone?” Ruth asked.
The nurse rolled her eyes. “Maybe the powers that be saw sense and decided it was a waste of time.”
Ruth thought it was more likely that DCI Parsons had pulled in so many additional bodies to review the Thorn Killer victims that Jansen didn’t have anyone to spare.
Carver was in bed. It was still dark, but Ruth knew they got most of the patients up and out of bed by six thirty. Carver looked gray and weak, and she felt a stab of concern. He lifted a hand to wave her in and let it drop to the bedsheets as if the effort was almost beyond his limits.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look terrible.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Seriously, Greg, we can do this another time.”
“Don’t you dare leave,” he said, struggling to get up. “You’ve got news—you’re glowing with it. I want to hear it.”
The whole aura thing was disconcerting. Logic and science told her that this was some kind of neurological anomaly, but she couldn’t help glancing at her reflection in the darkened window. She saw only her deceptively calm face staring back at her.
“It’s the Thorn Killer, isn’t it?” he said, his voice weak and querulous. “What do you know?” He struggled to get up. “Tell me.”
“Will you calm down?” She pushed him gently back onto the pillows. “I’m here to ask a question, that’s all.”
Ruth felt bad about not filling him in, but the link between the victims was still tenuous at best, and Greg Carver had literally nearly killed himself over the Thorn Killer; she was not about to encourage him to rekindle his obsession with the case. Adela Faraday was another matter, she told herself; she needed to know what Carver knew.
He stared at her, his eyes huge as if, improbably, he’d lost weight since the night before.
“Ask the question,” he said.
“The handgun. Do you remember seeing it before the night you were shot?”
He frowned. “Give me a minute.” He closed his eyes, but a second later he sat up, gasping, a sweat sheening his face.
“Greg?” She poured a tumbler of water and held it to his lips. He took a sip, then another. “You really do look terrible,” she said. “We can do this later—when you’re feeling better.”
He shook his head, resting back on the pillows. “No. I’m okay. I tried a cognitive interview with the psychologist yesterday, that’s all. I’m a bit wrung out.”
“You can say that again.” She paused, then couldn’t help asking, “I take it you didn’t remember anything useful?”
“There was something . . .” He stared past her for a few moments. “It doesn’t make sense, but I needed to warn you.”
“About . . . ?”
He struggled, gave up in frustration. “I don’t know—something.”
“You couldn’t vague that up a bit for me, could you?”
The anxious look he gave her made her regret her flippancy.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. I tried, but . . .” He wiped his face with an unsteady hand.
She hated seeing him so debilitated. “Hey, I got the message; I’ll be on the alert,” she said. “If anything else comes back to you, you can ring me, okay?”
He took a few breaths and said calmly enough, “You were about to tell me about the gun.”
“Okay, but don’t freak out,” she said. “It’s Adela’s.”
He didn’t answer straightaway, then: “How sure are you?”
“Certain sure,” she said. “The serial number’s a match.”
“A ma—” His eyes bugged. “Tell me you didn’t search the PNC.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Greg. Adela joined a shooting club. And what’s even more interesting is a guy there thinks she was having trouble with an ex.”
“How does Jansen not know this?” Carver said.
“Adela was hiding out in an empty apartment for months,” Ruth said. “The concierge didn’t even know she was living there full-time.” She tilted her head. “Actually, when you think about it—all those nights she spent in hotels around the city—she wasn’t.”
“I told you, I only saw her half a dozen times.” He sounded defensive.
“That may be, but you weren’t the only one,” she said drily. “There was Councillor Hill, the other unknown male on her burner phone—and I’d be willing to bet she was bonking at least two of the men at the club.”
He looked a little shocked.
“Don’t take it too badly, Greg,” she said. “It seems she didn’t let anyone too close.”
“Or she did, and that’s why she had to hide out for months,” Carver countered.
“That’s the theory I’m working on,” she said, relieved to see some color had returned to his face.
“I saw they’d arrested Hill.”
“To be fair, Jansen did give him the option of
coming in for a friendly chat. He declined—so much for taking responsibility and coming forward with information. But he was abroad with his family over Christmas and New Year, so he’s in the clear.”
“Then, what’s your theory?”
“Adela’s friend at the shooting club gave me a name—Chris—but that’s all he knew.”
“It’s not much to go on.”
“We already know that Adela walked out of a high-paid job and went freelance last June, which suggests a work romance that went bad. The fact that she quit work, sold her house, and moved into one of her rental properties around the same time is practically a smoking gun.”
He winced, and she apologized.
“If Adela did make a complaint to police, Jansen’s team would know about it, and they’d have brought this ‘Chris’ in for questioning at the very least. But as far as I know, the only two they’ve questioned so far are you and the leader of the council.”
He nodded. “She didn’t make a complaint.”
“That’s my guess. The trouble is, I can’t take this to Jansen’s team without having to answer a lot of awkward questions. So . . . I’ll just have to go and ask some of my own.”
“That’s not a good idea, Ruth,” Carver said. “You could end up having to answer a hell of a lot more questions further down the line.”
“Which is why God invented LinkedIn,” she said, with a smile. “Adela’s profile is comprehensive—although she only allowed people to get in touch via InMail—to keep her clingy ex at arm’s length, I suppose. Her work history says her last job was at the Liverpool office of LC&K Assets—a London-based asset management company. I checked out their website and found this fine, grinning, lounge lizard of a man on the ‘Meet the Team’ page.”
She handed Carver her mobile phone and he read the name beneath the photograph. “Chris Barrington . . .”
Ruth could see him searching his memory, struggling to recall the face.
“You don’t recognize him.”
“I don’t think so.” He stared at the phone screen. “I’m sorry, I wish I could be more help.”