by Rebecca Tope
Don’t argue, a voice insisted in Phil’s ear. ‘Have I?’ he said.
The gun came closer, unwavering in its aim. How much noise would it make, he wondered? Would nobody hear it, his body lying undiscovered until Thea came back to find it in a glistening red pool, covered with flies? A long time seemed to pass, all thoughts suspended as both men waited for the promised moment.
A sound attracted their attention, at the top of the drive. The sound of a car engine being turned off, and a car door slamming. Was somebody walking down to Hector’s Nook? Giles Pritchett turned to look and Phil cursed his defective back which prevented him from launching himself valiantly from the lounger and knocking the gun to the ground. Cursed it, and secretly gave thanks for it, at the same time. Heroics only looked good if they succeeded. Giles could easily pull the trigger at the slightest hint of movement.
Nobody appeared, after a full minute, and Phil abandoned hope of rescue. It was probably a sightseer come to gawp at the fallen tree where the remains had been found. He tried to guess what time it was from the height of the sun, and estimated it to be around ten o’clock.
Already he was minimally less afraid of the gun, the small black hole of its muzzle growing almost familiar. The received wisdom was that the longer an attacker delayed in pulling the trigger, the less likely he was to do it. The necessary adrenalin and bloodlust dissipated quickly, making it harder for the fatal act to be accomplished. His own imagination would start to operate, images of the man before him flopping lifelessly to the ground, the blood and screams gaining reality minute by minute. Only a true psychopath, who relished these aspects of murder, would remain intent on his plan.
Giles did not seem to Phil like a psychopath. He was angry and frustrated, irrational too – but there was no cold glint of malicious insanity in his eyes. He seemed young and lost, but Phil suspected that was more in his own mind, knowing how Giles’s parents had worried about his disappearance.
He wanted to ask a hundred questions. Where have you been? What do you know about the murdered man? How have I thwarted you? Why have you caused your poor mother such anguish? But none of them was possible. He wanted Giles to see him as a fellow human being, just another man, and certainly not as a policeman. ‘We can talk about it,’ he offered. ‘If you’d only put the gun down.’
‘I came to kill you,’ he repeated as if trying to convince himself. ‘When I saw your girlfriend leave, I knew you’d be here alone. And I knew the snake hadn’t done what I’d wanted. You deserve to be killed, you know. Janey says so.’
‘Janey? Does she know you’re here?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be stupid.’
‘Sorry,’ muttered Phil. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t need to.’
Phil met the man’s eyes, which were shadowed now by the willows, a halo of sunlight behind him. He could not read their expression clearly, but he thought he saw a softening, a desire to squat down on the grass and just explain everything. He thought he saw signs that he would not be shot after all, that the danger was all but past.
And then, behind Giles, he saw movement. A figure in black had stepped out from the hedge bordering the drive and was pointing a long-barrelled gun at Giles Pritchett’s back. Before he could stop himself, Phil shouted, ‘No!’
Pritchett spun round, waving his own gun wildly. Then a crack! rang out and the tall man jackknifed violently, his legs and shoulders shooting forwards, his midriff bending back. The bullet had hit him somewhere in the abdomen, causing him an agony that Phil knew he was never going to want to think about. There were screams and shouts.
People appeared then, scuttling over the garden like alien creatures, their faces pale and intent. Sonia Gladwin materialised and headed directly for Phil. He stared helplessly at her, marooned at the same twenty-five degrees he had been in from the start. ‘What have you done?’ he demanded. ‘Is he dead?’
‘He would have killed you.’
‘No,’ said Phil, with conviction. ‘No, he wouldn’t. How on earth did you get an armed response here so quickly?’
‘He was seen an hour ago with the gun.’
Pritchett was being attended to, there on Miss Deacon’s lawn, before medics came rattling down the drive to collect him. People spoke into phones and radios, and Phil half-expected a helicopter to join the action before long.
‘Poor chap,’ said Phil. ‘What have you done to him?’
‘What do you expect?’ Gladwin spoke angrily. ‘What else could we have done?’
‘Left him to me,’ muttered Phil, knowing he was talking nonsense. Hadn’t he realised, from those first moments, what danger Pritchett had placed himself in? Hadn’t much of his fear been for the other man, and not himself, throughout the encounter? Didn’t everybody know, by now, that they couldn’t mess with the police and firearms with impunity? For heaven’s sake, even a man carrying a chair leg was blasted out of existence, just in case he was dangerous.
And Thea. What was Thea going to say?
Phil was still in the garden two hours later, when Thea returned. So were a dozen personnel with cameras, specimen bags, tape measures, notebooks. Most of them wore white jumpsuits and face masks. She came running down the drive, having been unable to get her car past those belonging to the investigators. Hepzie lolloped after her, tail held horizontal behind her.
‘Are you all right?’ Thea cried, hurling herself at Phil. ‘Nobody would tell me anything, except there’d been a shooting incident. Why didn’t you phone me?’
‘I wanted to keep you out of it for as long as I could,’ he said, pulling her to him. He was sitting on a more upright chair, in one corner of the garden, watching the proceedings. He would have to produce a detailed report of what happened, answer a thousand questions, and eventually appear in court. The automatic attention of the Independent Police Complaints Commission would mean a prolonged and distracting investigation into every detail of what had taken place.
‘And yes, I’m fine,’ he assured her, when she asked again.
‘So – who was shot? Where did the gun come from? You haven’t got one, have you?’ she demanded, eyes wide.
‘No, of course I haven’t. We can go inside and I’ll explain it all. It’s a miserable business, I warn you.’.
When she finally had the whole story straight, she was every bit as outraged as he’d expected. ‘That poor man! What if he dies? They’ll have murdered him. God, it makes me sick.’
‘There wasn’t really any choice,’ Phil insisted. ‘What else could they do?’
‘Not have been here in the first place,’ she said mulishly. Phil raised one eyebrow at that piece of nonsense. Thea lifted her chin in defiance, but changed tack to less confrontational ground. ‘Who told them about Giles being here? Have they said?’
‘Not yet. But if he was marching down here with a gun in his hand, he must have looked as if he meant business. Anyone would have called the police.’
‘But how could they get here so quickly? I thought it took ages to mobilise an armed response.’
‘It takes twenty or thirty minutes. We think Giles must have been here watching me while I slept. He didn’t want to kill me until I woke up.’ He laughed ruefully. ‘He didn’t really want to kill me at all. He just wanted me to understand how angry he was. He wanted to frighten me and possibly make me apologise. He was just coming to the point when it happened. And it was my fault,’ he added with a shudder. ‘I shouted out and distracted him. That gave them their chance. They couldn’t shoot while he had the gun trained on me. It might all have been defused if I hadn’t been such a fool.’
‘They’ll think you did it deliberately to help them,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he agreed sadly.
They sat in the hot living room, closing the curtains against the relentless sun. Finally DS Gladwin came in, having left the scene some time earlier, and now returned. ‘We need to interview you formally,’ she said. ‘And Mr Pritchett Senior wants to speak to you,
not surprisingly.’
‘How’s Giles?’ Thea asked.
Gladwin sighed. Her narrow face was drawn and pale. ‘Still alive. His liver’s been damaged and his guts are in a mess. He won’t be right again, whatever happens. When will people realise…’ she burst out, and then stopped, seeing Thea’s expression. ‘There was no choice,’ she said firmly. ‘None at all.’
‘That’s what Phil says,’ Thea nodded. ‘Excuse me if I don’t entirely believe it.’
‘Would you go and see Janey?’ Phil suddenly asked Thea, the words erupting from an idea that he could scarcely grasp before it faded again, leaving him wondering at the odd deviation.
She stared at him in surprise. ‘What on earth for?’
‘I have a feeling Giles means quite a lot to her, and she’ll be needing some comforting, that’s all,’ he floundered. ‘I mean – she should know what’s happened.’ He recalled Giles saying Janey thought he, Phil, should be killed, and it forged a link between the two that he had not previously detected. ‘But be careful,’ he added. ‘She’s going to be very cross.’
‘That’s no problem,’ said Thea. ‘We can be cross together.’
‘Hang on,’ interrupted Gladwin. ‘Is this something I ought to know about? I’m not sure you can just dash off and splurge restricted information to anybody you like.’
Thea bristled and opened her mouth to challenge the concept of restricted information.
Phil headed her off. ‘It’s OK,’ he told Gladwin. ‘You haven’t missed anything important. Anyway, it’ll all be in my report, including the bit about the snake.’ Gladwin’s nervous glance around the room confirmed his suspicion that she was afraid of the creatures, despite her efforts to pass off her earlier reaction as outrage at the exotic pet trade. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’s safely in her cage again now.’ He looked at Thea. ‘Did you get that padlock?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll go out now and attach it.’
‘Try not to let any of those bods outside see what you’re doing. The snake might complicate things if you do.’
She gave him a wide-eyed look, checking the implications of what he had said, remembering the events that had begun their day far too soon. ‘They wouldn’t take her away, would they?’ she asked.
Phil shrugged. ‘I doubt it, but you never know.’
‘Because it might have been Giles who—?’ She glanced at Gladwin.
Phil nodded. ‘Yes, it was him. He said so in no uncertain terms. He hoped Shasti would kill me.’
‘What a mad thing to do.’
‘So is sneaking down here and pointing a gun at me,’ said Phil forcefully. ‘I never did find out what exactly I’m meant to have done to upset him.’
‘I think I know the answer to that,’ offered Gladwin, calmly. ‘You gave his parents renewed hope of finding him.’
‘But how—?’ Phil’s mind began to whirr. ‘Oh – Stephen was at Janey’s on Wednesday. And Janey’s close to Giles. She must have told him everything she’d gleaned about us. But that still doesn’t really explain anything,’ he finished with a sigh.
‘Too soon for explanations, mate,’ said Gladwin. ‘All I can hope is that Giles P. confesses to killing the man under the tree, and makes as good a recovery as possible.’
‘Only to be sent down for ten years or more,’ said Phil dryly.
‘How could it have been him, though?’ Thea spoke quietly. ‘If it was five years ago, he’d only have been fifteen. That doesn’t sound very likely to me.’
‘Plenty of fifteen-year-olds have killed people,’ sighed Gladwin. ‘But I admit it looks just a bit too tidy. I really just want to get this case off my desk. I can’t pretend I’m enjoying it. It’s all whispers and mirrors. I really don’t like this business about saints and martyrs. It seems as if everyone we’ve spoken to’s been involved in it in some way. Have you ever heard of St Melor?’
Thea and Phil both shook their heads.
‘Well, you have now. And you’d probably be interested to know that his uncle cut off his right hand and left foot.’
Thea and Phil both stared blankly at her.
‘Oh – did I forget to tell you? Our skeleton was missing just those pieces. And yes, we have questioned Mrs Holmes about it.’
Phil blinked at her. ‘You said a few of the smaller bones had gone. Nothing about a hand and foot.’
She smiled unapologetically. ‘So I’m telling you now, OK?’
‘But that changes everything,’ Phil realised. ‘How did you find out about St Thingy anyway?’
‘I’d like to pretend it was clever Googling, but in fact we did it the old-fashioned way and trawled through those saints books that Miss Holmes has in her library. January 3rd is his feast day. A British martyr, fifth century. A monk had the poor bloke’s head cut off as well, just for good measure. It’s more of a fable, really, according to the Baring-Gould chap. Quite a good story, for all that.’
‘You think they enacted it on this unidentified bloke and got carried away? What does Janey say about it?’
‘She’s acting dumb – can’t properly remember anything that happened five years ago, and says she was in and out of mental hospitals with depression. We checked that, and she actually only had two periods as an inmate, both of a few weeks. But she insists she’s sure they never did re-enact St Melor. That woman’s got more than her share of problems, I must say. I spent two hours with her yesterday and was practically ready to take her home with me at the end of it, poor cow.’
‘The one thing she doesn’t need is a new home,’ said Thea. ‘That house is a palace. And you can see she loves it.’
Gladwin waved this away impatiently. ‘Whatever. The thing is we’re just going round in stupid circles, no closer to finding out who the dead guy is, what exactly happened to him, how long he was under the tree. The forensics are a shambles, as well. Bits of sawdust and chips from the chainsaw are all over everything, plus footmarks from the man who operated it. And now this shooting, which is going to put everything on hold while it’s investigated.’ She glared aggressively at Phil. ‘And you with your back,’ she finished.
Phil laughed at that. ‘Yes, me with my back,’ he agreed. ‘It all comes down to that, when you think about it. It’s been getting me into every sort of trouble all week. But I’ll tell you something – when you’re nose-to-nose with a pistol, a bad back fades into insignificance. I hardly gave it a thought the whole time Giles was here, except to realise it would stop me performing any heroics.’
‘I don’t want to go and see Janey,’ Thea said after a pause. ‘Not on my own, anyway. I don’t want to be an unpaid spy for the police, and I can’t begin to understand what she knows or thinks about what’s been going on. What would I say to her? I’m not her friend – I only met her a few days ago. She’s got Fiona and presumably plenty of other people. And what if she’s got a gun as well as Giles? Most people seem to have guns these days, just like in America.’
‘Hardly,’ said Gladwin tightly.
Phil recognised the same fed-up Thea of breakfast time. Events since then had done nothing at all to cheer her up – although he was satisfied that she was genuinely appalled at the idea that he, Phil, might have been shot. She had unconsciously touched and stroked him repeatedly, as if assuring herself he was still alive and available to her, even when reproaching him.
He had a growing sense of events receding from his control. He would be leaving Temple Guiting soon, returning to his flat where his back might take another few weeks to recover. Although in principle the dismembered victim of a decade-old murder would be accorded the same attention and urgency as any other murder case, it was inevitably not going to arouse the same degree of high-level activity that more recent and more emotive cases would. Although, he reminded himself, if the media got hold of the details of the severed hand and foot, that could change. It would conjure echoes of the mutilated black child found in London, and painstakingly traced to a gruesome African cult that did unspeakable things
to youngsters. There would be plenty of scope for imaginative pathology to create theories around this latest set of remains. With Gladwin’s discovery of the highly pertinent St Melor, there was still a clear line of enquiry to pursue.
‘Are there no likely missing persons to try and match him up with?’ Phil said. ‘What’s happening with the DNA?’
‘Results due later today. Meanwhile, we’ve got a little list, but they’re not very promising. There are really only two who could possibly fit the bill.’ Gladwin produced her electronic notebook again. ‘A bloke called Thomas Hitchins, from Painswick. Went missing nine years ago, with no warning. But there’s a note in the file that says his daughter hinted that she knew he wasn’t dead. The interviewing officer had a strong feeling he’d gone off with a new woman and was secretly keeping the girl posted. We’re trying to find her now, and ask whether she’s heard from him. Plus, he was fifty-nine, and that’s on the old side for our chap. The other one’s more of a goer. Cedric Collins, thirty-eight, heavily in debt, usually drunk. Lived with his parents and just never came home one night. His mother insisted he must be dead, because there’s no way in the world he’d have done such a thing to her.’ She smiled tightly. ‘But the reality is, it could have been any of a hundred drug addicts or illegals, scooped off the street in Gloucester or Bristol and never really missed. Certainly not reported. It’s needle-in-a-haystack territory, this. If you wanted a body to play with, and weren’t too squeamish about it, it’s as easy now as it was in Victorian times. Easier, if anything, because the numbers are so much greater now. Scary, but true.’
‘You can presumably eliminate these two, anyway, with DNA?’ Thea said.
‘Collins, yes. His mother’s still got his hairbrushes and stuff, more or less untouched. But Hitchins has been wiped off the face of the earth. His wife married again the moment the five years was up and she could get a divorce without his consent, and moved away.’ Gladwin seemed disheartened and weary. ‘Besides, now we’ve got this business with Pritchett to distract us, the whole thing’s going to be a lot more difficult.’