‘Understandable, Jack. I also like the symbolic act of making the whole affair a closed book, if you want an analogy. Shutting the boot marks the end of it, as far as you’re concerned.’
‘If only.’
‘Well, ignoring for the moment the question of the car’s ownership, there’s absolutely no need for you to be involved. The body was discovered here, in Wales, and so the investigation will be in the hands of the North Wales police. That koala sounds like a genuine link to the Australian, Clontarf, so I’ll pass the information to your friend DI Romero in Gibraltar. If this Charlie Wise is in Spain, then getting news of his daughter’s death to him is up to the Spanish police. As for the suspected jewel thief, Karl Creeny, well, nothing has changed. The hunt for him began in Liverpool and was being led by your other police friends, Mike Haggard and Willie Vine. Then that girl Pru took her photographs, and no doubt when Creeny discovered what had happened he quickly went to ground.’
‘Good for him, but it still leaves us exposed. Sian in particular.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘What if the people who are almost certainly responsible for Pru’s murder don’t consider our involvement in the affair at an end?’
‘Rickman? His bully boys? Why shouldn’t they?’
‘We told you a good story, but the story was incomplete.’
‘Dammit,’ Morgan said, ‘why am I not surprised?’
It was Sian who answered. She was now stretched out on the Chesterfield, and had been quiet for a while.
‘Without going into details, I can tell you that one bit we left out of our story was that we were threatened,’ she said. ‘Also, if Clontarf murdered Pru Wise, he’s likely to be here, not in Gibraltar. And there must be a reason for the body being dumped here, on Jack’s property.’
‘That being?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was a lull in the conversation. It was late. The police constable had taken the Land Rover away because I had offered to drive Alun Morgan the short distance to his home on the outskirts of Bethesda. The rain had ceased. Outside, all was quiet. Inside that hot living room, three weary people were gathering their thoughts, trying to make sense out of the bizarre.
I dropped into a chair, kicked off my shoes.
‘No more questions, Alun?’
‘Not just now.’
‘Then it’s a lecture?’
‘And not before time.’
‘Something you’ve been thinking about?’
‘Well, not recently. It’s more a reawakening, if you like, of past concerns that have come bubbling to the surface with your return.’
‘Okay, then let me guess. You’re our friend, Alun, but we have a professional connection too, and that’s crime investigation.’
‘Professional on my side, yes. On yours, it’s strictly amateur.’
‘But is that the problem?’
‘It’s been a concern. For a long time. After all, we first met when Gwynfryn Pritchard came rattling across your bridge in his Land Rover with the belief that his wife had not drowned, but had been murdered – and that was some years ago. Ever since then I’ve believed that you treat such investigations in a cavalier manner. And I’ve worked out why that is.’
‘Cavalier it may be, but we get results,’ Sian said.
‘You go in blind, hoping for the best, and more by good luck than anything else.’
‘We solve the crime. Is that what you’ve worked out? We’re blasé because we know luck’s on our side?’
‘You’re two misfits.’
Sian raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’m not sure if that’s an insult, or a compliment. I quite like not conforming. Anyway, I think I see what he’s getting at.’
‘Army barmy,’ I said. ‘That’s what he’s saying.’
‘Army conditioned,’ Morgan corrected. ‘Weren’t you both very young when you enlisted?’
‘I was fifteen,’ I said. ‘Sian—’
‘Seventeen.’
‘And, all right, neither of you stayed in for the full twenty-two years, but in my opinion you served long enough to make your return to civvy street feel like stepping onto the surface of Mars.’
‘Mm. There’s a lot of truth in that,’ I said.
‘Look at it this way,’ Morgan said. ‘Someone in their forties or fifties gets picked up by a giant hand and, without any training, is dropped into army life. How would they cope?’
‘With great difficulty,’ Sian said. ‘Or not at all.’
‘There you are then. You were a couple of squaddies, and a giant hand picked you up and deposited you on those mean streets out there. And before too long, there you are, strutting in that cavalier manner after hardened criminals as if you’re God’s gift because that’s the way soldiers think of themselves—’
His mobile phone interrupted him. The ring tone was a sea shanty, and I wondered at the detective’s choice. If we were misfits, what life was it this earnest Welshman was yearning after?
Morgan had picked up his jacket, walked away from the seating around the coffee table and was facing the wall covered with packed bookshelves as he took the call. He paced, spoke little, listened intently then closed the call with a curt ‘Thank you’ and stood for a moment in silence before returning to his chair.
‘Good news?’ Sian asked.
‘The usual answer to that is, “it all depends”.’
‘On whose side you’re on,’ I said.
‘Exactly. That call was from PC Ellis. I asked you which route you took getting here so that he could begin sorting information from CCTV cameras along the way.’
‘Wouldn’t that take weeks?’ Sian said.
‘If all the cameras were checked it would take some time, yes. But there was no need for that. Your Audi Quattro was picked up by the camera on the A55 near the marble church at Bodelwyddan. That same camera also picked up the blue Vauxhall Astra. It was one hour ahead of you. The driver had blonde hair. Almost certainly a woman.’
‘Was it now?’ I said softly.
‘Has to be Françoise Rickman,’ Sian said. ‘She was the one who threatened Pru.’
‘And now she’s over here with Clontarf.’ I nodded. ‘I remember you saying he was the more dangerous of those two men.’
‘Well, at least we have a genuine name to play around with,’ Alun said. ‘I’ll inform everyone concerned; the woman’s name will be flagged at ports and airports and we might just get lucky.’ He hesitated. ‘I can see how you come to all these conclusions, you’re both very credible. But are they genuine, or are you trying to pull the wool over my eyes?’
‘I don’t like that look,’ I said, ‘and I don’t like the tone. What’s up, Alun?’
‘You came along in your rally car an hour after the Astra. The camera was quite clear. Excellent picture.’ Morgan paused. ‘You were alone in the car, Jack.’
‘Rubbish. Sian was with me.’
‘You were driving,’ Morgan said, ‘no doubt about that. But the passenger seat in that Audi Quattro was empty. Empty, I suggest, because Sian was one hour ahead of you driving the Vauxhall Astra we already know is registered in her name.’
Eleven
‘Don’t leave town.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what Alun Morgan said. It was a condition he made for unlocking my shackles and opening the cell door.’
‘You, or both of us? Not to leave town, I mean?’
‘I’m the one who’s suspected of driving that Astra; they couldn’t see me in your car because I was lying down.’
‘Listening to a proposal of marriage.’
She smiled fleetingly. ‘Yes, well, you’re not under suspicion because you were recorded on camera. Although, as you’re my known associate, you’re not completely in the clear. But that’s all. They’ve got nothing against you.’
‘Nor you. Nothing concrete anyway, or they wouldn’t have let you go.’
‘Ah, well now, that’s where the plot thickens.’
/>
It was noon on the day following the discovery of Prudence Wise’s body. Because Alun Morgan was a friend he had reluctantly – at risk to his career prospects, the ageing detective inspector had suggested, tongue in cheek – allowed Sian to spend the night at Bryn Aur. However, a telephone call soon after breakfast had invited her to the police station – Alun Morgan’s front room – to make a statement and hear the strength of the evidence against her, and she had driven down the A5 in her Mitsubishi Shogun.
I had watched her go then crossed the yard, opened up the workshops and spent the morning familiarizing myself with all that I had left behind when we moved to Gibraltar. The whole toy soldier business known as Magna Carta had been in the capable hands of Calum Wick. Although Wick painted toy soldiers for me in his first-floor flat overlooking the River Mersey in Liverpool’s Grassendale area – and was involved in dodgy business interests with our mutual scally friend Stan Jones – for the past twelve months he had spent at least half of each week in North Wales.
And couldn’t be faulted, I’d decided after an hour or so inspecting new castings, checking clipboards hung on hooks from shelves where ranks of soldiers, ordered by regular business customers in the States, stood ready for painting, and looking with feelings of intense pride at glossy soldiers tissue-wrapped in red boxes ready for dispatch.
Then I sat down at a bench and started on work that had become urgent after my twelve months away: the creation of a new line of figures which I would sculpt from scratch, using various spare legs, arms, heads and weapons and the essential epoxy resin that could be moulded and left to harden like stone.
Later in the morning I went back to the house and prepared ham sandwiches, thick with mustard, and a large flask of coffee. I was back in the workshop with lunch ready on one of the benches when the Shogun roared at speed over the bridge and up the slope and rocked to a halt beneath the big oak tree.
‘Have a sandwich,’ I said.
‘Actually, I was expecting a warm, welcoming kiss.’
‘Prisoners recently released find that sex after a long period of celibacy can be—’
‘Exhilarating?’
‘Exhausting. And be careful how you eat the sandwich; too much rich food when you’ve been used to a prison diet can—’
‘Shut up.’
‘I’ve also heard that, for those held in isolation, socializing can be a considerable problem—’
‘Jack!’
I grinned. ‘All right, then tell me why they let you go.’
‘Because they found that there was good reason to be interested in not two cars, but three.’
Sian took a bite out of a sandwich, grimaced as the mustard started a fire in her mouth, and reached for the flask.
‘Careful, that’s also hot.’
‘But wet.’
‘Yes. You know, I’d thought about another car,’ I said. ‘The blonde who dumped the Astra had to make a getaway, and it’s a long walk from Bryn Aur to civilization.’ I watched her splash coffee into a mug, and pushed mine over for a refill. ‘But how did the police home in on one particular car, and connect it to the crime?’
‘CCTV cameras again. They looked at a few more. They came up with pictures of the Astra at several locations on its way through Wales. Each time it was caught, there was a silver Audi close behind.’
‘That’s not enough to raise suspicions, surely? In bad weather, at night, cars will often stay close so that those following the unlucky leader can relax.’
‘Number plates lead to the owners, as we discovered to my cost, and this Audi is owned by a well-known Liverpool villain who’s been in and out of jail since his teens. Also,’ Sian said through a mouthful of ham sandwich, ‘there were two men in the following Audi. Those cameras are good. Alun’s men were able to tell that the passenger had fair hair, and was wearing a hat with a wide brim. Which confirms what that horrible little koala had already told us.’
I nodded. ‘Which brings us to poor Pru. On the face of it, her murder seems pointless. But that’s because we think like law-abiding citizens. In the world where men like Rickman and Creeny operate, if Charlie’s gone into hiding with the diamonds then an excellent way of bringing him to the surface would be to kill his daughter.’
‘Well,’ Sian said, ‘in my opinion it was Karl Creeny who came up with the idea of doing that – drawing Charlie out by killing his daughter. And I’m sure it will work.’
‘And now we come to the bit that doesn’t make sense.’
‘Why here?’
‘Exactly. Why dump Pru’s body here? And why go through that elaborate procedure of registering a car in your name, which is what they must have done?’
‘That’s bad enough, but what’s really creepy is that someone must have been watching us ever since we stepped off the plane. Otherwise how could they possibly arrange for the body to be dumped here just an hour before we arrived?’
‘I’m not so much concerned about the how, as the why. It was dumped here and we’re being targeted – but for what reason? What can they possibly have against us? They were upset by our half-hour chat with Pru Wise? They didn’t like our handing her laptop over to Luis Romero? I think that’s nonsense. And if it was neither of those things then I have to go back a bit further for the reason – and that brings me to my mother’s accident.’
Sian looked startled. She was standing up, brushing crumbs from her jeans. She stopped, stared at me, then leaned against the bench with her coffee.
‘Yes, but, hang on a minute, I know Eleanor’s your mother but surely we’re now talking about unrelated crimes. The attack on Eleanor has nothing to do with us. Surely that’s somebody choosing a horrible way to get at poor old Reg. Or am I being monumentally stupid?’
My empty mug was on the bench. I used my finger in the handle to rotate it on the worn timber. I stared into space, lost in thought.
‘Well, Reg is certainly a wheeler dealer,’ I said at last. ‘The money involved in his little … ventures … is surely not chicken feed, and I’m quite sure he’s capable of dodgy tactics. If he’s trodden on someone’s toes, it’s reasonable to believe they’d hit back in a way that issues a severe warning.’
‘And yet,’ Sian said, ‘it still leaves a big question unanswered. A blonde woman pushed your mother down the steps by the American War Memorial on Line Wall Road. A blonde woman drove a blue Vauxhall Astra into North Wales. The same woman? Or not?’
‘If we rule out my pet hate of coincidence, then yes, it has to be. And in that case, however far-fetched it may sound, then everything must be connected. But how? Eleanor was pushed. Then Charlie Wise steals Creeny’s diamonds. Sian, I think I’m going bonkers, because the timing of those events makes any link impossible.’
Twelve
‘Some of the whys are easily explained, laddie,’ Calum said, a Scotsman in Wales deliberately exaggerating the brogue. ‘The body was deposited on your territory so that when Charlie and his wife hear about it, and surface, they’ll come here. When they do, the hunters will be close behind. That means you and Sian are in danger.’
‘It’s been a week since Pru was murdered,’ I said. ‘So far, not a sausage.’
Wick chuckled. ‘Very well put, but can you not see? They’re making you wait. Cranking up the nerves. Softening you up so that when the blow comes you’ll offer little more than a whimper of protest before capitulating.’
‘I could put up with an indefinite wait if we knew what was going on, where Sian and I fit in.’
‘Or your mother’s broken leg, if it comes to that. From what you’ve told me the sequence of those events makes any connection wildly improbable.’
‘So we wait for the blow to fall, and at that point realization will dawn on us,’ I said, and tossed a warding file noisily onto the bench. ‘Small consolation, wouldn’t you say, if we’re drawing our last, dying breath?’
Wick was still smiling, taking none of it too seriously. His teeth were a sparkling white in the depths of his sal
t-and-pepper beard. The light was reflected from his glasses so that his dark eyes were hidden.
His Mercedes was parked under the oak. He’d driven from Liverpool then straight through the nearest car wash and the Merc was black and gleaming in the autumn sun. And he was right about jangling nerves. After seven days of puzzling over an insoluble problem while waiting for the roof to fall in, I’d cracked, and in the evening had rested my weary head on Sian’s bosom. Not for the first time, but definitely for a different reason. She’d patted my head without sympathy, and told me to snap out of it. Or summon some male company.
Calum had arrived as we were finishing breakfast, and dumped his overnight bag in the spare bedroom. We’d shared a cup of coffee with Sian before she tootled off in the Shogun, heading for the nearest gymnasium with Nautilus machines, then crossed the yard to the workshop. Now Calum was at one bench, working on unfinished toy soldier castings, using snips and a sharp knife to cut bits of unwanted metal from glittering Black Watch Highlanders. I was at another, putting the finishing touches to an original of a 95th Rifleman I had sculpted from scratch. It was almost ready for the next process. The original would be encased in fast-setting silicone rubber, and from the resulting mould a hard metal master figure would be cast.
‘This fellow, Creeny,’ Calum said, squinting across at me through his stained John Lennon specs. ‘Stan the Van did some digging in the gutters. That man moved to Liverpool from Scotland; he’s a Glaswegian of the very worst kind. Bemoans the passing of the cut-throat razor. Frequently used one himself when he was, as it were, carving out an underworld empire.’
‘So the threats to alter Pru’s face were delivered by Françoise Rickman, but came from Creeny.’
‘Of course. He’d masterminded a robbery, sneaked into Gib and was suddenly exposed by that wee slip of a girl.’
‘Then got blind-sided. Charlie Wise nipped in, stole the diamonds and vanished in several puffs of smoke from a Kalashnikov’s muzzle.’
I looked towards the window, at the oak moving gently in the mild breeze, and said softly, ‘I wonder where Creeny is now, if he’s made it back to the UK, if he’s mustered his troops.’
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