‘Well, if you want me to come over so you can take a shot at satisfying Haines, I think I’ll have to decline.’
‘Girl, right now you could lie on the floor and put a gun to your own head and I don’t think I could reach over to pull the trigger.’
‘Haines did a good job, then.’
‘Well, Jerry Mason and Santos did, which amounts to the same thing. But as Rina observed rather tartly, I’m still alive, so . . .’
Karen laughed. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I need to think on this one, but I will sort it. Oh, and one more thing, you can tell your new policeman friend that I did for Brig Morten. I expect they’ll have a suspect list a mile long and they’re bound to jump to the wrong conclusion, so just to keep things straight.’
‘Brig who?’
‘Ah, it’ll be on the news in the morning. Surprised it hasn’t been already, but I suppose they want to be sure of the proper identification. I did leave rather a mess.’
‘I’ll pass your message on,’ Stan said, feeling the moment was more than a little surreal. ‘You’ll be in touch, then? Once you’ve decided what to do?’
‘Maybe. Maybe I won’t have to. I’ve about finished here, I think.’
‘And you’re leaving for good, then?’
She laughed again. ‘Tell Rina not to worry. I’m not planning on sticking around. Brig Morten was the last thing on my list. Haines has complicated things a bit, of course, but I’m not planning on expending too much energy in that direction. I really don’t have time. Clean break and all that. Time to be someone else now.’
The phone went dead and when Stan dialled 1471 he was unsurprised to find the number was withheld. What did Karen have in mind? he wondered. He settled down to sleep, more than satisfied that she would keep her word and deal with it, and trying not to think too much about how.
THIRTY-FIVE
Stan’s call to Mac had been made first thing in the morning on Wednesday, Rina having provided his mobile number. He arrived post-breakfast, accepting tea and toast as compensation for having missed the full English, and joined Stan and Rina in the large living room.
Stan, he thought, still looked like hell.
‘Karen phoned me last night,’ Stan said. ‘She said not to worry about Haines, she’d sort it, and also that she’d killed someone called Brig Morten, just so you know.’
Mac almost choked on his tea. ‘She said what?’
‘Um, up north somewhere. Big fella, it was on the news this morning. Looks like she shot him.’
Mac stared at him. He had seen the news, noted the murder investigation, thought little more about it. ‘She said she did it? Did she say why? Do you believe her?’
‘I don’t see why not. Karen seemed to be quite sanguine about it. In fact she sounded positively cheerful. And I didn’t feel it was appropriate to ask for an explanation.’
‘Right,’ Mac said. ‘And what else did she say?’
‘Not a great deal. She said she was leaving. That this Brig Morten was the last thing on her list, until Haines complicated things, but she was planning on going away. For good, she said.’
‘Which would be a relief to a great many of us,’ Rina said tartly. ‘Mac, I spoke to the solicitor on Monday. As far as I can tell the trust is all set up legitimately. I don’t want to guess where the money came from, but the solicitors are satisfied that it is in fact a legacy.’ She explained briefly what she had been told and showed the paperwork to Mac.
‘How has she swung this?’
‘I’ve no idea, but on the Canadian side they employed a forensic accountant to check things out and the money comes up clean. I’ve agreed to be executor and signed the papers.’
‘Rina, you did what? You realize that could make you an accessory?’
‘Mac, it all checks out. There is no evidence to say that Karen Munroe is really Karen Parker. There is apparently no evidence that this money she has put in trust is profit from crime. I won’t deprive George of the future she has secured for him.’
‘Rina.’ Mac gave up and closed his eyes. ‘What if it all crashes around his ears? Or yours?’
‘Then we face that problem if it arises. I think there are more immediate issues and concerns, don’t you? And Mac, I’m not planning on telling you any more about this. I know you disapprove, I’ve noted that. You’ll pardon me if I do what I feel is the right thing here.’
‘I have to look into this. You know that?’
‘Then you too must do what you think is right. Karen’s solicitors have instigated major investigations of their own and come up with nothing. I’m sure you will get the same result.’
Mac got up and prepared to leave. ‘Rina, I don’t like you being involved in this.’
‘Mac, I’ve been involved since we first met. Since I first made friends with young George. I can’t not be involved.’
Andy spent time comparing the wire grid he had found to the marks on the bone. Miriam had explained how to match the scale of the photograph to actual size and how to print and then overlay the fragment of mesh. There could be no doubt, Andy realized. It was a match. Much as he looked and retraced and sought to analyse the evidence away, it wouldn’t go. The pattern on the wire mesh exactly matched the criss-cross tracing on the bone.
Andy’s suspicions had crystallized, and he did not like the conclusion he had reached. He didn’t want to know. He felt the need to seek some advice, some reassurance even, so he went to the little café on the promenade and brought a caffeine- and vanilla-laced offering back to Frank Baker.
Sergeant Baker accepted it with due grace. ‘What’s on your mind, boy?’
‘I think those bones belong to Kath Eebry,’ Andy said. ‘Frank, I don’t know what to do.’
Frank sipped his coffee and studied his young understudy thoughtfully. ‘Sit yourself down and tell me about it,’ he said. ‘What evidence do we have?’
What indeed? Andy sighed. ‘It’s all circumstantial,’ he said. ‘It’s little things and it’s feelings and it’s . . . Oh, I don’t know. Look, let me run it by you and tell me what you think.’
As coherently as he could, Andy explained his reasoning and presented his meagre evidence. The mesh that may have left the marks on the bones. The mystery of Kath Eebry’s disappearance and Ted’s sudden insistence that she had left to be with another man. The awkwardness he sensed in the older man that he could not explain.
He listed it all and was shocked and somewhat relieved at how flimsy it all sounded.
Frank listened. ‘Drink your coffee, boy. Now let’s have a think about this, shall we.’
Andy sat in silence while Frank thought. ‘Well?’ he said at last.
‘I think you may be right,’ Frank said. ‘I think you have little enough to make a case – not enough for the CPS to take it forward is my guess. No, now don’t think you’re off the hook,’ he added as Andy began to look visibly relieved. ‘What you have to think next is what you plan to do.’
‘That’s just it,’ Andy said miserably. ‘I don’t know what to do. This is Ted Eebry. I’ve known him almost all my life. I played in his garden, I ate beans on toast at his table, I’m friends with his daughters.’
‘So you should hand what you have over to someone else and take yourself off the case. Personal involvement, Andy, that’s not permitted, you know.’
Andy nodded. ‘But if I do that, then someone else will have to go and talk to Ted. Someone else will . . . Unless you think there really isn’t enough evidence?’
Frank Baker patted him on the arm. ‘Andy, the rules are there for a reason. They’re there to protect people from pain like this. Look, lad, you’ve done a good job. You shouldn’t, by rights, have been left with the burden of this. Bring your notes up to date and I’ll see the boss takes it over.’
Andy nodded. ‘I might have it completely wrong,’ he said. ‘I might have listened to too much gossip.’
‘Or you might just have made use of local knowledge. Andy, there’s often a very fine lin
e between the two.’
Andy nodded, knowing that Frank Baker was right. But that it didn’t help. He’d started this and he’d have to see it through.
THIRTY-SIX
They would be leaving within the hour and Jerry knew he would have to take this opportunity or it would be gone. Once back on board the ironically named Spirit of Unity he would have no chance. Santos had been watching him more closely, Jerry was sure of that, and Tomas had taken to appearing suddenly whenever Jerry chanced to be alone.
Jerry packed and brought his bags down, together with his camera bag and backpack. He dumped them on the trolley with the rest, ensuring that the camera bag was strapped to one of the heavier bits of luggage as he always did.
He could see Santos watching him, Tomas standing on the other side of the lobby studying them both. Jerry turned and went back to the bank of lifts at the rear of the lobby. He could feel Santos’s eyes upon him as he pressed the call button for his floor. He stepped inside, praying Santos wouldn’t follow, or if he did that the doors would close before he reached them. The doors slid closed and Jerry breathed deeply. He caught sight of himself in the pink toned mirror of the lift interior: close-cut hair, hard, grey eyes. Tired. He looked appallingly tired. He should have taken the opportunity when in France to simply melt away, and he would have done had it not been for Louise.
After the divorce she had gone away. Jerry hadn’t known where. He’d risked a call to her parents, but they wouldn’t even speak with him, never mind provide a forwarding address. But Haines had known, as Haines always did, and now, at last, Jerry did too; months of careful, fearful searching through Haines’s files had finally provided him with that last, essential element. And that was the missing piece of his plan. Not that there was much of a plan; Jerry was now just riding his luck.
On the third floor the lift halted and a couple got in. Jerry seized his chance and got out. Moments later he was on the back stairs, heading down and praying that his luck would hold and Santos not anticipate what he had done. The stairs led to the kitchens and the utility areas at the rear of the hotel. Jerry knew that much, but beyond that he would have to guess. He slowed his pace on the final flight, listening, risking a glance over the rail and down to the passageway below. So far as he could see there was no one there. Almost not daring to breathe, he rushed down the last steps and paused.
Sounds from his right told him the kitchens were that way. To be avoided if possible. A door to the left declared itself to be the laundry room, another proved to be just a store cupboard. So right it would have to be.
Cautiously, he started along the corridor, listening for anything that didn’t sound like the crash of pots and pans. How long had he been gone? Santos would have seen the couple come down. Would it dawn on him that the lift had not risen to the fifth floor before it returned?
Of course it bloody would. Jerry would have noticed so it was certain Santos would.
This was beyond caution, Jerry thought. This was beyond going back, too.
He could see the door to the kitchen further along the passageway, and through that the door that led to the dining room and from there to the bar and the lobby and the front of the hotel. Surely there had to be another way, or did he have to risk the kitchen? And then he saw it: a little recess he’d taken for a door to another store cupboard, but which he saw now was an emergency exit.
Would it set off an alarm?
Almost certainly, Jerry thought, but he’d have to risk it. Glancing back towards the stairs he thought he heard a sound, a tiny scrape as though metal caught against the banister.
Jerry knew he couldn’t wait. He made a leap for the recessed door and pushed the bar, praying it wasn’t the kind with the magnetic lock that released only if the fire alarm sounded.
It gave beneath his hands, the door flew open and Jerry ran, suddenly aware that there had been someone on the stairs and that it had been Santos and that now he was giving chase; instinct told Jerry that Tomas would not be far behind.
Jerry ran out from behind the hotel and into the busy street lined with shops and cafés. Would they risk shooting at him? Jerry jinked right and left between the shoppers, Santos in hot pursuit. Where was Tomas? He’d be somewhere close, Jerry knew that. He knew how Haines’s people operated. He’d been one of them for long enough, hadn’t he?
Abruptly, he changed direction, striking out across the busy road, until he spotted Tomas, running parallel and now on the opposite pavement and heading him off.
‘Shit.’ Jerry’s lungs burned. He was fit and fast but fear and adrenalin tightened his airways and made his limbs feel like lead. He spun around and headed back the way he had come, catching Santos off guard but only for a split second. They were both on his heels now and Jerry could hear the shouts and yells of shoppers who found themselves in the way.
And then he spotted his chance, only a slim chance but it was there. A man had pulled up at the side of the road to let his passenger out. He seemed unaware of the panic on the street.
Jerry launched himself at the car, tugging at the door. The man turned in panic, yelped in fear that was nothing compared to the terror Jerry was now feeling.
‘Out. Get the fuck out.’
The man fumbled with his seat belt and Jerry could almost feel Santos’s breath on his back. He pulled the man out of the car and on to the road. The shoppers had seen him now and someone shouted in protest. The passenger was screaming on the pavement. A police officer ran from the opposite side of the road and Santos swerved away as he spotted him.
Jerry slammed the door shut and gunned the engine, taking off in first and redlining before he managed to shift the gears. The driver had been shorter and the seat too close to the wheel and pedals for Jerry’s long legs. Jerry hurtled down the road, narrowly avoiding the line of cars stopping at the lights. Behind him was mayhem. This was not the discreet exit Jerry had been hoping for. He wondered just how many of the crowd would have captured events on their mobile phones, and how many CCTV pictures there would be of his dramatic escape.
You’ve done it now, Jerry. Boy have you done it now.
At the end of the road he went with the flow and turned left. No way was he going to be able to use this as a getaway car. But he had to get away from the bloody CCTV cameras before he could do anything more. First chance he got, he swung the car down a side road and then into another, finally pulling into the drive of a semi-detached house. He got out and looked back down the road. No one there, just the slow flow of normal traffic and a single dog walker.
Jerry crossed the road, knowing that time was very much against him. He began to walk, looking for a way to get off the street. He cut down a passageway between a house and a shop, found it led only to a back garden, but at least he was off the road and out of sight. He paused to take stock. He needed a car, but first he needed to put more distance between himself and the hotel. Closing his eyes, he visualized the route he had just taken, working out where he was in relation to Haines and the rest. The sound of a police siren jolted him back to the here and now. He listened as it became louder and then faded again, obviously heading towards the chaos he had created on the main road. A moment later he heard a second siren, then a third.
At least, Jerry thought, that might make Haines think twice about sending out his men. Santos and Tomas, like Jerry, would have been seen, could be identified. Haines would recall them and keep them close. With luck . . .
Cautiously, Jerry left the shelter of the little alleyway, checking no one saw him as he stepped back on to the street and walked away.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Today it was Karen who was waiting when George and Ursula got out of school. George was dumbfounded.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Well, hello to you too, little brother. Don’t worry, I won’t be stopping, I just need you to get this to Mac. Bit of luck and it’ll sort out Haines and a bit more besides.’ She held out a large Manila envelope.
‘What
is it?’ George demanded.
‘Just some papers. It won’t bite. Just take it to Mac for me.’
It was Ursula who reached out and took it from her. ‘Are you leaving for good now?’
Karen smiled at her, but unusually for Karen it was a genuine smile with no sense of threat in it. ‘I’m leaving, yes.’
‘For good?’ George sounded uncertain now. ‘Will I see you again?’
‘Maybe. One day. I’ll send postcards. George, you’ll be OK. Oh, and Rina should be in touch soon, she’s got some news for you that I hope will make everything a bit easier.’
‘What news?’
‘Oh, she’ll explain. Goodbye, kiddo. I love you, don’t forget that.’
George nodded. His fists were clenched and his face white beneath the freckles. He watched as his sister turned and walked away. Watched until he was certain she would not look back. His shoulders sagged and he tried hard not to cry.
Ursula reached out and took his hand. ‘Come on,’ she said ‘or we’ll be keeping the minibus waiting again.’
Kendall had managed to supply an officer to look out for George between school and bus. He wasn’t convinced there was a need, but Mac had pricked his conscience. When Karen had approached, DC Colin Brady had watched, wondering if he should intervene. He didn’t know who the dark-haired young woman was, only that the kids seemed to know her and the boy seemed upset.
He watched the handover of the envelope with interest, wondering what it meant, and then took pictures of all three participants with his mobile phone and sent them to Kendall. Finally he began to tail the two teenagers to the bus stop.
The woman’s voice was soft and educated. Something made him notice that. What he noticed more was the something she had pressed against his back.
‘And you are?’ Karen said.
‘DC Brady. I’m DC Brady.’
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I’m watching George Parker. Keeping an eye.’ Brady could hear the shake in his voice and he was ashamed of it. What the hell was she going to do?
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