She had to wait a further quarter of an hour before she heard heavy footfalls outside in the corridor and the DCI and another plain-clothes officer came in and took two of the chairs opposite her.
‘Right, Miss O’Donnell,’ Baker said. ‘I am interviewing you under caution on suspicion of aiding and abetting a fugitive, namely Constance Flanagan, who has failed to surrender to her bail. Do you know where she is?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Kate said.
‘Did you know where she was earlier in the day?’ Baker snapped. Kate wriggled to get more comfortable in the unforgiving chair.
‘I saw her earlier with her son coming away from the fairground,’ she said. ‘She said she was due to see you later and I went with her to her solicitor’s office. But—’
‘But what, Miss O’Donnell?’
‘One of your officers told me that Janet Driscoll had been hurt. That was when Connie panicked.’
‘What do you mean, panicked?’ Baker barked. ‘She could still have come in to surrender to her bail. Whatever had happened to Miss Driscoll, she was only a stone’s throw away from the police station. Why didn’t she come?’
‘She was scared,’ Kate said. ‘Terrified, actually. What do you expect? You’d completely failed to find her boy. In the end she found him herself and I suppose she was afraid you’d whip him away again to put him into care, like you did Sally and Liam. She might have come in with Janet Driscoll but she wasn’t going to come on her own. And I was no substitute for her solicitor. Neither of us thought you would let me in with her, anyway.’
‘So you encouraged her to abscond?’
‘I didn’t encourage her, Inspector. She made up her own mind. She’s not a child.’
‘You’re not telling me you didn’t have some influence on what she did?’ Baker sneered. ‘She’s an ignorant little gyppo. You know that as well as I do. If you couldn’t persuade her, you should have got some help from my officers. There were enough of them around. I hold you responsible. You’ve got in my way ever since you came to Essex. I told you to go home and stay home. Now you’re in a barrel-load of trouble, facing charges yourself, and don’t think for a moment I won’t give your boyfriend’s DCI chapter and verse.’
‘This is nothing to do with my boyfriend,’ Kate said angrily, though she knew she was spitting into the wind. ‘He doesn’t know I came to Southend today. There’s no reason why he should. I was the one who met Connie Flanagan in the first place, when I came to take pictures, and I was the one who wanted to make sure she was safe. I was worried about her.’
‘So where is she now?’ Baker snapped. ‘Is she safe now? Because if she’s on her own in the town with the boy I can tell you she’s taking a hell of a chance with those two maniacs on the loose. There have been two murders already and I wouldn’t give much for Janet Driscoll’s chances of surviving.’ Kate looked at him, appalled.
‘So where is Connie Flanagan?’ Baker shouted, leaning across the table towards Kate, red-faced and spitting in fury. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate said very quietly. ‘Her aunt, Delia Dexter, picked her up in her car and drove off. She said she would take me with her but then changed her mind. That’s all I can tell you.’
‘Her aunt!’ Baker exploded again. ‘You may believe these families look after each other, but most of the time they’re at each other’s throats. I tell you, we’ll be lucky to see Connie Flanagan again. And that, Miss O’Donnell, is down to you. How do you know Delia Dexter isn’t hand in glove with her husband? Why on earth did you think she was the right person to help Mrs Flanagan? I’ve always thought she probably knew what was going on right from the beginning but, just like with her brother, I could never get enough evidence to pin her down.’
‘She divorced him years ago when he was in jail,’ Kate said, although she knew that could mean nothing at all. ‘She says she’s not seen him since he came out of jail and doesn’t want to. I think she’s as scared of him as everyone else seems to be.’
‘And she didn’t give you any indication of where she planned to take them?’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘She offered to take us all to Benfleet station so we could get a train to London. I’d thought of somewhere Connie and Luke could stay for a while. But she must have had a plan of her own, and it didn’t include me. I don’t think she drove off towards Benfleet, though. She drove off past the pier.’
‘What sort of a car was it?’
Kate looked blank. ‘Only two doors, so they had to clamber into the back. Once Connie and Luke were in they couldn’t easily get out.’
‘Colour?’
Kate gazed at the frustrated DCI and shrugged helplessly. ‘Dark. Black, maybe, or dark blue.’
‘And I don’t suppose you’ve any idea of the make?’
‘It wasn’t a Mini or a red Capri,’ she said. ‘I don’t know much about cars. We never had one at home.’
‘So we’ll have to see if she’s a registered owner, and that can take for ever. And ask my officers to watch out for a dark-coloured car with two women and a boy in it. Wonderful!’
Baker sat looking at her for a long time before speaking again.
‘I think you are the most infuriating young woman I have ever met,’ he said. ‘Right, I want a full statement from you. You’ll have to wait until one of my officers is free to take it. And that could be a very long time.’
SEVENTEEN
Harry Barnard got home expecting to find Kate surrounded by shopping bags after her trip to Oxford Street. Instead he found the flat chilly and deserted, no sign of a shopping spree in sight, and the dirty breakfast dishes still in the kitchen sink. He flung his hat on to the sofa but kept his coat on as he suddenly felt very cold and slightly sick. Kate had not left any message he could see, and it struck him with complete certainty that she had done something impulsive that she knew he would not approve of and which might quite possibly compromise him as well.
He took a couple of deep breaths and made himself calm down and work logically through all the bases. He rang the Ken Fellows Agency, but there was no reply. Presumably all her colleagues had already gone home, and he guessed she would not have confided in them anyway. Next, trying to sound casual to hide the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm him, he rang Kate’s friend Tess Farrell in Shepherds Bush to ask if she had seen her on-off flatmate.
‘Of course I haven’t seen her, I’ve only just got in from school,’ Tess said, not sounding particularly friendly. ‘Anyway, I thought she was back with you.’
‘It was just a long shot,’ Barnard said, his stomach tightening. ‘She had the day off work and I expected her to be here when I got home.’
‘It seems to me you expect far too much,’ Tess said. ‘But she’s certainly not here and there’s no sign that she has been. I thought you were looking after her, but obviously not.’
There was, Barnard thought, no answer to that and he heard Tess slam the phone down. He slumped in his favourite chair and spun round a couple of times, hugging his camel coat around himself although he knew that, while it might ward off the cold, it would not fend off the panic that was beginning to overwhelm him.
He guessed that Kate had gone back to Essex. She had become obsessed with the Flanagan woman and had obviously gone looking for her regardless of the fact that both the police and probably a couple of ruthless murderers wanted to find her too. He still bitterly regretted agreeing to drive Connie Flanagan to Clacton with her children. If it had not been for that mistake, neither Kate nor he would have got involved with the Essex police. And now DCI Jack Baker would be furious to discover that he might be involved again, even if at a distance, and would certainly carry out his threat to report Barnard to DCI Jackson if he hadn’t already done so. But he had no choice but to contact him. If Kate was missing on his manor, then Baker had to know and had to help find her.
Barnard got to his feet reluctantly, sending the chair spinning, and picked up the phone to call Southend nick. Before
he could dial, the doorbell began to ring persistently and he reluctantly put the receiver down. The urgency of the bell told him to expect the worst. But it was Ray Robertson who stood outside in the lobby and immediately pushed past him into the living room – a big man, looking smaller now he had abandoned his fishing gear, though puffed up by his obvious fury.
‘Did you shop me?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Did you grass me up to save your own skin? Because someone bloody did, and if it wasn’t you I can’t imagine who it was.’
‘Sit down, Ray, and have a drink,’ Barnard said quietly, heading for his cocktail cabinet to avoid the clear possibility that Ray was about to hit him. He noticed that his hands were not quite steady as he poured two glasses of whisky and handed one to Robertson, who downed it in one.
‘You and your dolly bird were the only people who knew where I was,’ Robertson said only slightly more calmly. ‘I only got away by the skin of my teeth because the landlord tipped me off. He remembered me from all those years ago when I used to try and get an illegal pint or two out of him. I reckon he was sorry for us when we were kids, stuck out on the farm with that bastard Green. Anyway, he was sympathetic enough to tell me to move on sharpish. I reckon I was only minutes ahead of the police, though that was enough. But what I want to know is who told the police I was there?’
‘Well, it wasn’t me,’ Barnard said, sitting down again in his chair and pushing his coat back. ‘I’ve got enough on my plate. I think my dolly bird, as you call her, went back to Essex today and seems to have disappeared. She’s got herself involved in stuff down there that she should never have gone near.’
‘Never mind her,’ Robertson said. ‘Are you telling me you never told anyone where I was holed up?’
‘I didn’t,’ Barnard said again. ‘Which isn’t to say I didn’t come close, on the grounds of self-preservation. But by the time I got to see him, the DCI had been told by the Hertfordshire police that you might be in Lower Radford. Someone had noticed your picture in the Express and thought they’d seen you fishing. Jackson asked them to check it out, which they must have done by now. But when I left the nick there was no sign they’d found you, so I guessed you must have got away in time. I’d have been told in no uncertain terms if they’d arrested you.’
‘I got away by the skin of my bloody teeth,’ Robertson said, holding out his glass to Barnard for a refill, which he drank more slowly.
‘So if push’d come to shove with Jackson, you’d have told him where I was?’ he asked eventually, his eyes hard. Barnard shrugged.
‘Ray, we go back a long way, but this is a murder at your gym we’re talking about. And another one, possibly related, down in Essex. I’m not going to risk my job and maybe end up in jail to cover for you. You should talk to Jackson. If you’ve really got an alibi for Rod Miller’s killing, tell him and put yourself in the clear. If you haven’t, you’re on your own and I can’t help you.’
‘So you would have told him?’ Robertson put his glass down on the coffee table with rather more force than was needed.
‘I’d have told him this morning. But as it turned out I didn’t have to, he already knew.’
‘Very convenient, Harry,’ Robertson snapped.
‘Isn’t it more likely the landlord tipped off the Hertfordshire police?’ Barnard suggested. ‘I saw him with his nose in the Express when Kate and I arrived.’
‘I told you, he was OK with it. He seemed to think we were old mates. God knows why.’
‘And you don’t think he’ll mention the fact that Kate and I tracked you down?’
‘If he covered for me, I dare say he’ll cover for you too,’ Robertson sneered. ‘You’re right, your play-it-by-the-book DCI would have had you in a cell by now if he’d found out you’d been there. I reckon you’re safe enough.’
‘But you’re not,’ Barnard said flatly. ‘Jackson will want to know whether you’ve contacted me again after your phone calls. I’ll have to tell him in the morning. Why are you here, anyway? If they think you might have come back to London, the Yard will no doubt check me out as well. You’re definitely not safe here.’
‘Well, if the cops in Essex are bright enough to report back to the Met before morning, I dare say the Yard will check you out. But I have to say I’m not very impressed by the plods out in the sticks. And the Met’s not covering itself in glory either. What I don’t understand is why they’re obsessed with fitting me up for Rod’s death. It can’t just be coincidence that all this business started when Dexter and Barrett got out. You think we’ve got evil bastards in London, but Essex has got them too. I remember them from when I did a bit of courting down there. It’s obvious to anyone with half an eye that the killing had something to do with the robberies in Southend. Why the hell aren’t they going after those two? And if they reckon they had help, it was much more likely to be someone on the fairground than me. They’re all as thick as thieves, those gyppos. I should know. I married one of them. More fool me.’
Robertson glanced around the room until his eyes lighted on the phone.
‘What I really want right now is your phone. I’m not planning a long visit. Don’t you worry your head, Flash. I’m aiming to be well out of the country soon, but there are a few loose ends to tie up first. Obviously I couldn’t go back to the Delilah or the gym, so I thought my old mate Harry Barnard might help – but clearly I was wrong. The first thing I need is a car. I dumped the one I had in a back street in Tottenham and came in on the Tube, just in case someone in that bloody village remembered the make and number. I’d borrow your motor but it would stand out like a sore thumb, so you just sit there quietly while I sort something out.’ Barnard flung himself back in his chair knowing that Robertson was inexorably involving him in his escape plans and there was nothing he could do about it.
Robertson’s couple of calls produced the promise of a car within ten minutes. Not for the first time, Barnard wondered at Robertson’s apparently limitless network of contacts. But why on this occasion he was using them so cautiously? It made no sense unless he had something serious to hide, something as serious as murder.
‘So now where?’ he asked when Robertson finally hung up.
‘A quick trip to see my sister-in-law to sort out some unfinished business,’ he said.
‘Your sister-in-law?’
‘Don’t you remember Loretta had a sister? You came to my wedding, didn’t you?’
‘It’s all a long time ago,’ Barnard said. ‘Did I tell you I bumped into your ex-wife in Oxford Street? She was looking well. And she was looking for you.’
Robertson laughed. ‘I bloody hope not,’ he said.
‘DCI Jackson wants words with her. He said so this morning. Wanted me to track her down, but I can’t say I’ve had any luck. But they came from Essex, didn’t they, those two girls?’
‘What of it?’ Robertson snapped. ‘Anyway, it’s her sister I’ve got some business with. Won’t take long.’ He stared silently at Barnard for a long time before getting to his feet.
‘So now we know exactly where we are, don’t we, Flash?’ he said. ‘Arrest me, why don’t you? It would earn you brownie points, and your DCI Jackson will no doubt want to know why you didn’t. Perhaps I need some other way to keep you out of my hair for a bit?’
As Robertson turned towards the door, Barnard followed him, eager by now to lock it behind him. What he didn’t expect was the former boxer’s quick spin round and the lightning upper cut that knocked him backwards, so he caught his head on the corner of the coffee table as he went down. Before he lost consciousness, Barnard heard Robertson’s departing curse and the front door slam.
Kate O’Donnell guessed that DCI Jack Baker had deliberately kept her at the police station well into the evening before sending an officer to take down her statement, check it carefully and then get her to laboriously sign each page before allowing her to go. Once outside she glanced around the now quiet streets, found a phone box and dialled Harry Barnard’s flat. She was surprised whe
n there was no answer. She retrieved her coins and glanced at her watch. It was already gone eleven. She still had her return train ticket in her purse, but was not sure what time the last train to London was likely to leave or whether it might already have gone. She had never intended her visit to Southend to last so long. The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that DCI Baker had deliberately kept her hanging about until there was no way of getting home apart from persuading Barnard to come from London to collect her. But Barnard was not answering his phone.
She made her way to the station but, as she expected, found it closed for the night. She sat for a moment on a bench outside and counted the money in her purse. It might, she calculated, just about run to a night in a bed and breakfast but she doubted whether anyone would take in a lone woman without luggage as late as this. Landladies were notorious for thinking the worst. She spotted another phone box on the other side of the road, but there was still no reply from Barnard’s flat. Surely, she thought with a flash of anger, he must have realized by now that she was missing? Surely he must have worked out that she might have come to Southend again and made some inquiries at the police station? But maybe he wouldn’t do that for fear of annoying the Southend police even more than they were annoyed already. Maybe this time her interference really had gone over the top and fractured their precarious hold on their relationship. Maybe Harry Barnard had just abandoned her.
She counted her coins again and dialled her own place in Shepherd’s Bush. The phone rang for a long time before the sleepy voice of Tess Farrell replied.
‘Kate,’ she said. ‘Where are you? I was having an early night.’
‘I’m stuck in Southend. I missed the last train back and I can’t get hold of Harry to ask him to come and pick me up.’
‘He called me earlier to ask if you’d been round here,’ Tess said. ‘I probably gave him a bit of a flea in his ear, la. Sorry – he was worried, I suppose.’
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