Deadly Intent (Anna Travis Mysteries)

by Lynda La Plante

  Whether or not Fitzpatrick was still in the UK was doubtful, but the FBI were keen to continue their search for him, and placed him high up on their Most Wanted lists. The U.S. side were also still searching for the two henchmen.

  Anna and the team were to wind up the investigations by interviewing Doris Eatwell, to ascertain how much she was involved with protecting her son, Alexander Fitzpatrick, and allowing her premises to be used to hide the crates of Fentanyl. Due to her age, she was not to be held in custody, but she could face charges.

  When Anna went to see Cunningham to sort out the interview, she found her sitting with her head in her hands, crying.

  Cunningham took a tissue from a box on her desk and blew her nose. “I’ve had some bad news. I won’t be here for a few days.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My partner collapsed last night and is in hospital. They have found another tumor and…” She had to wipe her eyes before she could continue. “If you could hold the fort for me, until I have time to make other arrangements…DCS Langton is still overseeing the final stages but, until the trials, we are obviously required to see what loose ends we can iron out.”

  Anna felt that having not traced Fitzpatrick was more than just a loose end, but she didn’t think it was the time to bring it up.

  She returned to the incident room and joined Phil. “I suppose you’ve heard: Cunningham is not going to be around for a few days.”

  “Yeah, not that it’s that much of a loss. She’s been at half-mast since this inquiry started.”

  “The duty manager’s got the details. I’ll take the trip to Oxfordshire to interview Mrs. Eatwell; you keep on wrapping up here.” Anna also wanted to question Adrian Summers again to double-check a couple of things from his statement.

  As Anna was returning to her office, Gordon approached. “Damien Nolan: I don’t have a birth certificate registered, but I’ve got a marriage license—register office in Oxfordshire, dated 1984, to Honour—says his date of birth is eighteenth March, 1958, but there is nothing else. He has a passport—”

  “Then you have to have a birth certificate, don’t you?”

  “Well, I’ve not traced one yet.”

  “Never mind, we can have another attempt later. I want to get over to Brixton Prison and interview Adrian Summers; and then we’ll drive to Shipston on Stour to see Mrs. Eatwell.”

  Adrian looked dreadful. Eyes red-rimmed, unshaven; his face already had a prison pallor, even though he’d only been inside a few days. “My parents have been in to see me,” he said, almost in tears.

  “I just need to ask you a few more questions,” Anna said.

  “I don’t know anything else, I swear to you.”

  “It’s just that I am unsure about one small thing: the note we found in the Mitsubishi.” Anna waited, but Adrian just looked at her. “It had directions to the farm in Oxfordshire.”

  “Yeah, well—I didn’t know where it was.”

  “Who gave you the directions?”

  Adrian looked confused.

  Anna sighed. “We know you drove there; you have admitted taking the drugs to the farmhouse.”

  “Yes, I said that I did.”

  “So who gave you the directions?”

  “I think it was the man you call Alexander Fitzpatrick. I swear I didn’t know who he really was—I’ve said this.”

  “My problem is, the note is not in his handwriting.”

  “Then I dunno, I can’t remember.”

  Anna sighed. Gordon glanced at Anna; he couldn’t fathom out what was so important about the note. Anna tapped her foot with impatience. “Come on, Adrian! Did Fitzpatrick just hand this note to you?”

  Adrian scratched at his head. “Okay, I loaded up the jeep. As best as I can remember, Mr. Collingwood—”

  “You mean Fitzpatrick?”

  “Yeah, he was shutting up the tailgate and he was telling me to drive carefully, as the last thing he wanted was me to be pulled over for speeding—well, it’s obvious why. He gave me some money to fill up at a petrol station, which I did; it was the one midway down the M40.”

  “So he just passed the directions to you?”

  “No, he gave them to me before—he said the farmhouse was hard to find. I was to follow the directions and not miss the small lane, as it was badly lit around there.”

  “So he had this note with the directions for you?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Did you see who gave the note to Fitzpatrick?”

  “Mr. Nolan wrote them out for him.”

  “Damien Nolan?”

  “Yes, he lives at the farmhouse with Honour, his wife.”

  “So you saw Mr. Nolan?”

  “Not really. He drove up and they talked for a bit, then Mr. Nolan scribbled the directions and handed them to—”

  “Where did this take place?” she interrupted.

  “It was on the boat. It was the day we drove to Gatwick, but in the morning, quite early. Like I said, he didn’t come aboard, he just drove down the jetty and they met and he handed over the directions.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said.

  Gordon glanced at her; she was packing her notebook away. She then stood up and asked for the prison officer to open the interview-room door.

  “Is that it?” Adrian asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Summers, that is all I came here for.”

  As Anna unlocked her Mini, she couldn’t help but smile. She had known all along the note was of importance, even though Langton had dismissed it.

  “Go on, Gordon, ask me,” she said as she reversed out.

  “Well, I can’t quite fathom out the importance of whether or not Damien Nolan wrote the note. We know that he did, because it’s his handwriting, right?”

  “Because, Gordon, Mr. Nolan has walked with no charges. He claims he knew nothing, saw nothing, and heard nothing, like the proverbial monkeys—but he has lied. He claims not to know Alexander Fitzpatrick. He claims the note could have been written at any time; he also claimed that he couldn’t even recall writing it! We now know he was not only in London, but also knew of the boat anchored at Chelsea harbor. He passed the note on the day Fitzpatrick and Adrian Summers picked up the drugs from Gatwick Airport.” Anna glanced at Gordon. “Do you understand now?”

  Gordon looked blank.

  Anna slapped the steering wheel with the flat of her hand. “Mr. Nolan is in this entire setup, Gordon! Until now, we never had any proof of just how involved he was. He must have known exactly what was being picked up, and known that they were going to store the drugs at his farmhouse.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Anna said nothing as she drove through Brixton toward the M40.

  “Shouldn’t we relay this back to the incident room?” Gordon asked.

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  Gordon made no reply; he found it hard to get a handle on what Anna was intending to do, and he also found her attitude egotistical, to say the least. But the conversation was halted, as she put on Radio 4, and continued to drive.

  Anna parked in the small lay-by at the side of Mrs. Eatwell’s cottage in Oxfordshire. There was a Ford Fiesta parked up, with a police logo, and ribbons flapping around the garage from the scene of crime search. When Anna knocked, the door was opened by the family liaison officer assigned to Mrs. Eatwell, who was under house arrest. Wendy Hall was a pleasant rotund officer, who immediately asked if they would like coffee, and ushered them into the kitchen.

  “Where is Mrs. Eatwell?”

  “She’s resting. She doesn’t really come down but for her breakfast, and then stays up in her room, reading the papers.”

  “How is she holding up?”

  Wendy laughed. “She’s a feisty old lady, but half the time I don’t really think she is aware of how serious her situation is. I’ve tried to explain to her that she will be charged with allowing her premises to store the drugs.”

  Anna sat at the table as coffee brewed. “She
’s also going to be charged with perverting the course of justice, and allowing her son to stay here, because she was obviously aware of exactly what he was up to.”

  “She won’t hear a word said against him,” Wendy said as she fetched cups and opened a biscuit tin.

  “Has Damien Nolan been here?”

  “He came by last night, brought sausages and some ham and vegetables. She adores him; gets all flirtatious when he’s around her. I have to say, he is very charming and seems to genuinely care for her. He told her that Honour was in Holloway, but that he would be able to look out for her.”

  Anna sipped the piping-hot coffee—she really needed it—while Gordon tucked into the chocolate creams. Wendy sat down with them and, like Gordon, wolfed down biscuits. She told them how she was working on a shift with another officer, as Mrs. Eatwell was not to be left alone. She said that most evenings they had supper together. Damien had joined them the previous evening; they had even opened a bottle of wine.

  “She spends hours looking over her photo albums: she’s had quite a life. Two marriages, both with very handsome men and both younger than she was. Her first husband divorced her over an affair with an army officer, the second died about five years ago of cancer. As you can see, the cottage has been renovated within an inch of its life; all mod cons and central heating.”

  Wendy chatted on as Anna finished her coffee, then asked if she could see some of the photo albums. Gordon helped himself to a fresh cup and more chocolate biscuits as Wendy brought in four leather-covered albums.

  “Is Damien related to her, do you think?”

  “Mr. Nolan? She has never mentioned it if he is. She doesn’t really talk much about recent events, or her son; she closes off if you bring up his name. She mostly talks about the past: she was a real beauty with flame-red hair, and quite a snazzy dresser. From what I’ve gathered, Honour took great care of her; she didn’t appear to want for anything.”

  Anna listened, turning over the pages of the album. Mrs. Eatwell had indeed been a very attractive young woman. There were shots of her by various cars and on holidays with a young boy, smiling and waving into the camera. A couple of pages were filled with photographs of a man whose face had been scratched out, and others of a good-looking man holding a tennis racket. Wendy said that it was her late husband, Henry Eatwell.

  Anna began to flick through the pages until there were more recent photographs: Damien standing smiling with his arms around Mrs. Eatwell, Damien in a Panama hat, drinking on a balcony somewhere; many of Damien and Honour together, some with a small white terrier, others with Mrs. Eatwell in a group. There were also numerous photographs of Alexander Fitzpatrick as a young child and teenager; even one when he was wearing a mortar-board and gown. Like his mother, Alexander had been very good-looking in his youth; there were many photographs of him in various poses with cricket whites, tennis shorts, always smiling and laughing. There were a few of Julia Brandon, one with a baby in her arms and another with a toddler, but there seemed to be no recent pictures of Alexander.

  Anna closed the album. “I need to talk to Mrs. Eatwell, Wendy, so if you could ask her to come in when she is ready.”

  Wendy agreed and walked out. Anna sat, tapping the photo albums, as Gordon took their dirty cups to the sink.

  He looked out of the window into the garden. It had a massive willow tree, taking up almost all of the lawn. As they were at the back of the house, they couldn’t see the garage where the drugs had been stashed. The garden was reasonably well maintained; there was a child’s swing hooked over a branch of the tree and a few large plastic toys. “Looks like her grandchildren might have visited.”

  Anna texted the duty manager to see if they had gained a DNA result from the children. She wanted to know if Damien was the father of one of them, if not both.

  Phil turned to Langton and said that he had tried to contact Anna, but received no reply. He was able to confirm that she and Gordon had visited Adrian Summers in Brixton Prison. Langton asked why the interview had taken place, but Phil couldn’t confirm what the reason was; just that Anna had specifically asked for it to be arranged.

  “She was going to interview Mrs. Eatwell after seeing Adrian Summers, so maybe she’s there by now and has turned off her mobile.”

  Langton frowned and asked if they had the liaison officer’s number; they should double-check if Anna was in Oxfordshire. He also wanted it confirmed that Damien Nolan was still in Oxfordshire.

  “He was released,” Phil said as he dialed.

  “Yes, I know. But that doesn’t mean to say I’ve finished with him.”

  Phil was put through to Wendy. He passed over the phone.

  Langton had a quiet conversation with her, and asked her to make sure Anna called him when she was through. “Yeah, she’s with Mrs. Eatwell,” he muttered, and then took himself off to use Cunningham’s office.

  Once inside, Langton took off his overcoat and chucked it over a chair, then he sat at the desk and opened the file with Alexander Fitzpatrick’s name on the front. Inside was a record of all the data they had acquired on him. He proceeded to check all the various sightings and suppositions that had been accumulated. Anna Travis’s name popped up over and over again: she had doggedly persisted with the possibility that he was their man from the earliest stages of the inquiry. Langton closed the first file, and began to read the second, which dealt with Honour and Damien Nolan.

  Someone rapped on the door and Phil put his head in. “Gov, the results of the DNA test on Julia Brandon’s children: the firstborn, can’t get enough for a positive, but the second little girl is Damien Nolan’s child.”

  “Has Travis called in yet?”

  “Nope, but I just texted her the results, as she wanted it confirmed.”

  “Thanks, Phil. Can you see if the governor of Brixton will okay a phone call to Adrian Summers?”

  “Sure. He’s popular today.”

  Langton grunted as he returned to reading the file. Yet again he noted just how often DI Travis’s name cropped up; she was really hands-on throughout the inquiry. It was mainly down to her that they had forged ahead to the final conclusions. The fact that, after their extensive investigation, they still did not have Alexander Fitzpatrick banged up was a real bone of contention with Langton. It was like rubbing salt into a wound; the fact that he had been a witness to the man’s audacity when he impersonated a Fraud Squad officer made Langton really smart.

  He leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to place himself in Fitzpatrick’s position. Did he by now have another false passport? Had he somehow arranged to get out of the UK? Or was he still hiding out? If he was, who could possibly give him shelter? The more Langton tried to think where Fitzpatrick could go, the more he came to a grinding halt.

  Langton physically jumped as the desk phone rang, and he snatched it up. Phil had got Adrian Summers’s permission to take the call and he was being brought to the phone. It was a matter of minutes before Langton spoke to him, querying what had been discussed with DI Travis. He replaced the receiver, now privy to the fact that, according to Summers, Damien Nolan had written the directions to the farmhouse. Langton buzzed into the interview room to ask Phil to bring him the statements from Damien Nolan. He then checked the time, and his face twisted with annoyance. Travis had received this information at nine-fifteen that morning; it was now after three. Once again, he felt that Travis was acting as she had done in the past—without team input—but, at that precise moment, he was not sure of the relevance. However, after rereading Damien Nolan’s statements, Langton knew full well.

  Nolan denied passing any note; his lawyer had said that the directions to the farmhouse could have been written at any time. Nolan had also denied being the father of Julia Brandon’s youngest child. Nolan had implicated his wife as being part of the drug scam by his refusal to answer any question with regard to Honour; all he had responded was “no comment.”

  Langton rapped the edge of his desk with his knuckles; he then place
d a call to his contact. The undercover officer was able to verify that the suspect was in residence, and showed no signs of moving out. Langton, without any confirmation to the team, had retained twenty-four-hour surveillance on Damien Nolan. He was now concerned that his plan of waiting might be jeopardized by Anna Travis. It never occurred to him that, like his protégée, he too had acted unprofessionally by not consulting the team. Like Anna, he had suspected Nolan of being implicated; unlike her, he had not placed the note as a priority.

  Mrs. Eatwell was wearing a pale oyster twinset with a pearl necklace. She had a tweed skirt and velvet slippers and, for her age, was remarkably sprightly; only her hands were an indication, as they were very arthritic. She was sitting in a wing-backed chair close to the fire, and spoke to Wendy as if she was her personal maid, asking for a cup of green tea. Anna recalled the first time she had met her: how she had explained about the table and D’Anton’s visit, and how she had given directions to the farmhouse farther along the lane. Anna now suspected that she must have phoned Honour to expect visitors—the police. Just how much she knew, Anna was determined to find out.

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” Anna began.

  “I don’t really have an option, do I?”

  “Not really.”

  “I don’t see that I can be of any help. I really have nothing else to add to my previous statements. I have been questioned over and over again…”

  “I know that, Mrs. Eatwell, and you have denied being aware of the drugs discovered in your garage, but you have admitted caring for your son—so you were, at all times, fully aware that he was a wanted criminal.”

  “He is my son: what was I supposed to do?”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Mrs. Eatwell explained that Alex, as she called him, first visited her over eighteen months ago. She said that she had had no contact with him for many years, and was surprised when he called in to see her. She hardly recognized him, though he had provided for her since her husband died.