The Boleses were not on the premises so we had a very late lunch and then found somewhere to stay in the north of the town, a little thatched pub at the foot of the Downs. When we returned, the tide had gone out, leaving miles of sand, in the direction of which I enthusiastically towed the man in my life.
‘Shall I go and buy you a bucket and spade?’ Patrick enquired heavily.
‘Don’t be such an old fogey,’ I chided and we duly went for a walk on the damp, rippled sand, Patrick in a world of his own. He had not yet phoned Brinkley and I had an idea that he was drafting what he would say together with brewing up some kind of hideous and spectacular revenge on Hicks.
It was a little before six when we got back to the hotel. Patrick spoke to Mrs Boles courtesy of the receptionist’s phone – they were in their room – explaining the reason for our presence and inviting them to join us in the bar for a drink and a chat.
‘Not at all pleased, but she said they’d come down,’ he reported.
I immediately came to the conclusion, when they came into view and over to where we were seated by the window in the practically deserted lounge bar, that Mandy was the stronger of the two and it was possible that without her Boles would have refused to see us. His nervous state was manifest even though Patrick, who had made sure beforehand that he knew what the man looked like, had got to his feet with a welcoming smile and waved them over.
‘It’s a day off for us,’ Patrick began, having introduced me to them as his wife and asked what they would like to drink. ‘So nothing official and for goodness’ sake don’t call me sir,’ he added to Boles.
‘But you are here on business really,’ Mandy said to me when Patrick had gone over to the bar. ‘And I have to say I rather resent being hounded when we’re on holiday.’
‘They’re not hounding us,’ Boles said to her quietly. ‘If SOCA was doing that, I’d have been recalled to Woodhill.’ He was in his mid-forties, I supposed, and was of medium height, a little overweight and had brown, thinning hair and brown eyes. Not a remarkable face, not a man to stand out in a crowd. He turned to me. ‘Is this about the Giddings case?’
‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘But I’ll leave the questions to Patrick, he’s the one who’s had his head in all the files. It’s not about anything you might or might not have done, though,’ I hastened to assure him.
The man did not look any less tense and miserable.
My point was immediately repeated by Patrick when he returned with a tray. ‘I don’t want you to think we’re checking up on you, because we aren’t. SOCA’s been called in to investigate the death of two police officers at Woodhill following the murder of an MP. I’m sure you know who these people are, or rather, were.’
‘He can’t talk about it,’ Mandy interposed quickly. ‘Anything but that. Please. He’d rather he was in trouble, and that’s the truth.’
Patrick took an appreciative draught from his beer and placed the tankard back on the table. ‘Have you received threats?’ he enquired of Boles in an undertone.
Boles shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’
‘Sure?’ Patrick whispered.
‘No. It’s just that I was there … when the DCI …’ He broke off, realized his hands were shaking and put them out of sight beneath the table.
‘Please leave him alone,’ Amanda pleaded. ‘I’m terrified he’ll have some kind of breakdown.’
‘Nightmares?’ Patrick asked, still addressing the DS, his voice a mere breath now. ‘Flashbacks?’
‘He’s going to resign,’ Amanda declared. ‘He can’t live with it.’
‘That won’t make the horrors go away.’ Patrick told her. ‘And it’ll be a huge waste of a valuable officer – another valuable officer.’ Attention back on her husband, he continued, ‘If Derek Harmsworth’s death wasn’t an accident and he was killed by the same hand that murdered DI Gray and their deaths were as a result of investigations they were undertaking …’ He too broke off, with a shrug and a regretful smile. Then he said, ‘Didn’t you question the circumstances? A car going off a bridge in exactly the same place as another vehicle had two days previously?’
‘Yes, I did but—’
Wisely or not, Patrick butted in with, ‘But everyone expressed sadness and said life’s a real bitch sometimes but he was getting on a bit and perhaps prone to senior moments and a second’s inattention when you’re driving …’ An eyebrow quirked.
‘Yes,’ Boles said in a choked voice.
‘And Knightly called you all together and said there’d be a collection for the widow and he was sure everyone would be very generous but meantime, chaps, the workload’s worse than ever and even though he’d asked for extra personnel everyone should get on with it. Am I right?’
‘I – I really did intend to speak to him,’ Boles stuttered miserably after nodding. ‘But he’s never had much time for me and sort of steamrollers people he feels like that about out of his way. I knew Inspector Gray didn’t believe the DCI’s death was an accident, so I suppose I decided to leave it up to him. We were both well aware that the boss didn’t drink spirits and questioned why he was on that road in the early hours of the morning. I should have grabbed Knightly when I had the chance and told him what I thought I’d seen. But I didn’t, and then my tooth really flared up and I had to go into hospital. I – I feel so terribly guilty now.’
It seemed that he might burst into tears.
‘I’m here to help you,’ Patrick said, still speaking very quietly. ‘Please try and relax. Enjoy your pint and we’ll talk again in a minute.’
Mandy sat there hating us both, not realizing that her husband had begun to turn a mental and emotional corner.
‘What you thought you saw …’ Patrick continued a short while later after fetching small dishes of olives and nuts from the bar. ‘Did you mention whatever it was to Gray?’
The DS had not really recovered his composure. ‘No, because he had a habit of getting in a real lather about things. He was very upset and I thought that if I wasn’t careful he’d be in real trouble, as he was getting ready to accuse Knightly of sweeping Harmsworth’s death under the carpet. But he still hit the roof, the papers got to hear of it and he was carpeted. I was really anxious that if I added more fuel to the flames, kind of thing, with something I wasn’t at all sure about, he’d end up by being the subject of an investigation and chucked out.’
Patrick frowned. ‘Is there any suspicion in your mind, any gut feeling, that somewhere out there is a man, or men, who Harmsworth, and even Gray for that matter, were getting too close to in connection with the Giddings murder?’
After considering for a moment or two Boles said, ‘No, not really. We weren’t close to anyone. We hadn’t pulled in any suspects for further questioning – in truth the trail had gone a bit cold. I don’t think this is anything to do with Giddings at all. But that’s only my opinion, of course.’
‘Are you ready to tell me what you saw?’
Boles swallowed hard and stared down at his hands, which were tightly clasped in his lap. Then he shook his head mutely, closing his eyes.
‘Please leave him alone,’ Mandy begged.
‘If you don’t talk out the nightmares, they try to destroy you,’ Patrick said. ‘And if this all comes to a court case, would you be able to testify against any bastard who might have killed your boss?’
There was a long silence broken by Boles, the tears squeezing from beneath his still-closed eyelids, whispering, ‘He – he wasn’t quite dead when I got to him. The ambulance was right behind me. There was … a lot of blood … and I shall never forget the horrible way the car was sort of folded around him … as though it was devouring him. But, God knows how, he saw me and moved an arm and pointed to the side of his neck, making a sort of jabbing movement with one finger. Then he went limp … died right in front of my eyes.’ After another long pause he continued, ‘I think he was trying to tell me that he’d been stabbed.’ His eyes flew open. ‘You’ve no idea what
I feel like … filth, that’s what I am. For pushing all this to the back of my mind. I’ve betrayed him!’
Patrick extended his right hand and Boles, bewildered, took it, only to have it clasped by another and shaken warmly.
‘That’s hardly true,’ he was informed gently, ‘because you’ve just told me and I’ve been on this job for only slightly more than a week. Nothing’s lost and telling Knightly would have probably got you nowhere. Thank you. Come, man, and have dinner with us and over coffee you might recollect a bit more.’
He did: that it was Harmsworth’s left arm he had seen and that his watch was missing.
‘Oh, they said it must have got lost in the crash,’ said Vera Harmsworth. ‘You know, the strap broke or something like that. I didn’t worry about it – I mean, it wasn’t valuable.’ She added sadly, ‘Not that I wouldn’t have liked to have it.’
It was the following morning and we had called on her straight after arriving back in Woodhill. She seemed a bit overwhelmed by Patrick’s presence, forcing him to continue with the softly-softly approach. Truly, I was beginning to fear for Colin Hicks’s personal safety when everything finally got unbottled.
‘Can you remember the make?’ Patrick asked her.
Mrs Harmsworth gave us the coffee she had made and sat down. ‘I can remember everything about it, as I bought it for him, years ago. I got it from an RAC motoring magazine – it had the logo on it – and had an alarm. That was my little joke, really, as Derek kept sleeping through the alarm clock. Yes, I can see it now – it was silver-coloured, had a blue face and an expanding bracelet kind of strap. Very chunky-looking and robust. You had to wind it up, though – it was in the days before battery ones.’
‘So it must have been quite old,’ I said.
‘Gosh, yes, it was at least twenty years ago that I got it for him.’
Patrick said, ‘Mrs Harmsworth, would you have any objection if I requested an exhumation and second post mortem on your husband?’
She went pale. ‘On what grounds?’
‘There’s evidence, very tenuous, I’m afraid, that another agency might have been at work in the circumstances of his death.’
‘You mean there’s really something to point towards it not having been an accident?’
‘There is, but, as I said, the evidence is very flimsy and I’m really sticking my neck out. I only wish I had something better to go on.’
‘I personally would have no objection, because, as this lady’s probably told you, I’ve had a suspicion right from the start that something wasn’t right. But I can imagine my son and daughter being distressed by the prospect of an exhumation order. Still, it’s not up to them, is it? They decided to go and live in far-away countries and cut themselves off. They both flew home the day after the funeral, you know, and didn’t even ask if I needed help with anything. Yes, please go ahead.’
‘There will be paperwork for you to sign if I’m successful,’ Patrick informed her. He took the list of cases and names we had found in the allotment shed from his document case. ‘While I’m here, I’d be very grateful if you’d cast your gaze over this. All I’d like to know is if your husband ever mentioned any of these cases to you or the people involved with them.’
Dubiously she took it from him. ‘This looks like John Gray’s handwriting.’
‘It is.’
‘He did mention to me that he was digging around in the past, quietly, not officially, so I wasn’t to say a word to anyone.’
‘Was Erin Melrose in the know?’ I asked in offhand fashion.
‘Yes, I think he said he’d given her a copy of a list of names or something – perhaps it was this.’
Patrick looked at me and his eyes blazed.
‘No, sorry, none of this means anything to me,’ Mrs Harmsworth was saying, shaking her head. ‘As I said the other day, Derek didn’t really talk about his work, as he knew I didn’t like the awful details, and if he did say anything I didn’t retain it unless it was something funny that had happened to him.’ She smiled broadly, the first time I had seen her do so. ‘Like the occasion years ago when Derek was only a sergeant and they were chasing someone across a factory roof. The man stopped and danced about, taunting and swearing at them – he was a horrible character, apparently – only to slip and go right through a skylight. I know it’s not really funny, because he was quite badly injured, but Derek and his colleagues thought it a real hoot. Being a policeman is a terrible tough life when you think about it.’
We had just left Mrs Harmsworth when Patrick’s mobile rang and it was Michael Greenway, his boss in SOCA, asking him to make himself available for a briefing at eleven thirty. Relating this message to me afterwards, Patrick’s face was sober: had Hicks sent the photo off after all?
This question was immediately answered when Greenway threw the offending item down on the table between us – we had met him at an hotel for a late coffee as he was ‘just passing through’ – and sat back staring at Patrick in not-amused fashion.
‘You know all about me,’ Patrick reminded him quietly. ‘That’s phoney.’
‘I’m aware that it’s a put-up job,’ Greenway replied. ‘What I really want to know is why police resources are being squandered on such crap.’
Patrick told him about Hicks’s apparent role as Brinkley’s hit man and, as he spoke, Greenway’s anger grew.
‘I seem to have been left in the dark with regard to your issues with the commander,’ he said when Patrick had finished speaking.
Patrick said, ‘I can only apologize and say in mitigation that until two days ago I wasn’t aware that I had any issues with Brinkley.’
Greenway’s manner did not change. ‘I don’t like it when my staff have excess baggage.’
Except for a curt nod, he had so far ignored me. The author was frankly finding this flawlessly dressed individual fascinating, tucking away on her own personal hard drive his massive height – at least six feet five – broad build and mane of sandy-coloured hair. A somewhat battered, albeit good-looking, countenance suggested time spent on the rugby field. He was, I guessed, between forty and fifty years of age.
There was nothing Patrick could really say in response to this comment and duly remained silent, just politely waiting for the other to proceed.
‘I’m in rather a hurry, so a verbal report will do,’ Greenway said, finally.
Without referring to any notes Patrick said, ‘The brief you gave me was to discover whether there were any connections between the Giddings case and the death of DI John Gray. Well, as you know the only obvious similarities are the manner of their deaths and the fact that Gray was involved with the Giddings inquiry. Post-mortem findings have thrown up a couple of interesting points in that Giddings was dealt with in much more surgical fashion, if that’s the correct description, while Gray was merely butchered. It appears that the weapons were probably different. That alone casts doubt on the murderer being one and the same person. Tentatively, I think Gray’s was a copycat killing for reasons unknown or because Gray was close to the perpetrator of another, serious, crime. Gray might even have questioned Giddings’s killer without knowing how close he was.’
‘Other than the latter, why Gray, for God’s sake?’
‘Quite. Other than being somewhat impulsive and hot-headed the man appears to have been blameless in both his public and private life, although there might be things that no one knows about. So until anything else comes to light it might have to be tackled from the point of view of revenge on the part of someone he shoved in the slammer – or helped to. And if you were about to ask me if I think any more police personnel might be at risk, the answer has to be yes, possibly.’
‘Evidence?’ Greenway snapped.
‘Nothing concrete. But you could authorize a request for the exhumation of DCI Derek Harmsworth and then I might have some.’
Greenway’s face screwed up into a ball of incredulity. ‘Harmsworth? But he drove himself off a bridge.’
Patrick s
hook his head. ‘No. His car went through a hole in a bridge on a quiet road that had been made by a heavy lorry two days before. In my view that’s too much of a coincidence and his vehicle was too lightweight to have done the same thing if it had hit somewhere else nearby. It would have merely bounced off, admittedly doing serious damage to everything. The railings are designed like that. Harmsworth’s body reeked of whisky, he didn’t drink spirits, he always rang his wife if there was a change of plan, and he hadn’t. Besides which—’
Greenway butted in with, ‘It’s got to be dead in the water. Leave it.’
‘May I finish what I was going to say?’ Patrick requested.
‘If you think it’s important.’
Patrick told him what Boles had said and Greenway became annoyed again.
‘So why didn’t this pin-brained sergeant open his mouth before?’
Patrick shrugged, Gallic-style. ‘Naturally timid? Hospitalized recently after half his face became infected with a huge abscess? Bullied by higher authority? Post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his boss dying horribly right in front of his eyes? Take your pick – they’re all true.’
Six
‘What about Harmsworth’s family?’ Greenway asked, looking a little sheepish. ‘What are their views?’
‘His wife’s never thought his death an accident.’
This appeared to remind Greenway that there were three of us. Turning to me, he said, ‘What do you think about this?’
‘It was Ingrid who pointed me in Harmsworth’s direction,’ Patrick informed him before indicating that the stage was mine.
I said, ‘I’d like to mention something else first and that is that you both seem to be forgetting that Hicks’s shabby little scam involved DS Erin Melrose as well. Her career could so easily have been ruined.’
Greenway had another look at the photo. ‘Is that who it’s supposed to be? God, I thought it was made to look as though Patrick had hauled a hooker off the street. Thank you, Ingrid. I shall bear that in mind.’
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