‘You’re joking!’
‘I wish I were. Apparently they were still acting on the tip-off that sparked all the problems at that hotel.’
‘The Mondiale.’
‘So they’ve had these people shacked up with the – the Harveys? – watching your place night and day all the time I’ve been here. Not when I wasn’t, though. Any road up,’ he continued, his lapse into Black Country lingo showing how serious he was, ‘one bright spark notices that there are one or two rats visiting a heap of rubbish in next-door’s back garden and thinks it can’t be very nice for the old dears to have rats as neighbours—’
‘At last! Half the road’s been petitioning the council to do something about that lot!’
‘Quite. Well, now something has been done. They call in a rat-catcher or rodent operator or whatever: a shortish roundish man I rather took to on sight—’
‘You’ve met him?’
‘No, I was looking out of the window. Anyway, this van pulls up opposite, so I have a look. And there’s this funny little guy looking like an extra from Wind in the Willows toddling all business-like round to the back of the Harveys’ neighbours’ house. And next thing I know he’s scuttling hell for leather round to the Harveys’ front door, yelling for an ambulance. So out pour half a dozen very tall young men – you should’ve seen Ratty’s face! – all ready to practise their first aid. But, my dear Watson, they were too late, as the subsequent departure of the apparently sick man in a body bag demonstrated.’
‘Hang on – all these histrionics are confusing me. The police smell a rat. See one. And the rat-catcher finds – a human body? Is that right?’
‘Absolutely. And –’ by now his eyes, which had been gleaming throughout, were positively glittering – ‘and guess who the body belongs to?’
I shook my head. He swept the wine bottle from the table, and returned it to the fridge. Then he fished out a bottle of Moet.
‘The body is – Malpass’s!’ He prised out the cork. ‘There! So I’m a free man! I don’t need to be nannied any more! I can go anywhere I want! I can go – home!’
Chapter Twenty-Five
The following day, I had a reflective journey to work. It would have been pointless to rail at Stephenson and her team for their incompetence, but I wanted to scream with frustration. If I was supposed to be alert and on my toes all the time, why shouldn’t other people? How on earth could the police have let Malpass squat under their very eyes? No wonder he’d been able to keep an eye on our activities! All things considered it was fortunate that morning that no one changed lanes selfishly or tried to overtake: he might have found a latter-day Boadicea kicking in his lights.
Perhaps Richard sensed my tension: when I went to report the latest development he produced coffee and chocolate biscuits without even asking. He spoke idly about the roads, a leak in the biology lab ceiling – and then we heard screams.
We nearly collided in the doorway, but I was out first, banging at the lift button. When nothing happened, I yelled, ‘Call Security! Then use the lift. I’m on my way down.’
A security guard soon joined me outside. It didn’t take long to see what was happening; a group of yobs had found a patch of relatively virgin snow and also found someone to roll in it. The girl was white and shaking by the time the man had collared one of the ring-leaders, and burst into tears as I helped her to her feet.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘Course it bloody hurts! It’s bloody freezing me – me you-know-what.’
‘What have they done to you?’
She didn’t answer for a moment, more concerned with the arrival of two patrol cars and a panda. Thank goodness for Security. ‘I don’t want them men to know. It’s – it’s women’s business, like.’
I scraped some snow from the back of her neck. As far as I could see down her coat her sweatshirt was wet. I undid her collar: the front was soaking too.
‘Did they put snow up your legs?’
She nodded.
‘I’ll make sure there’s a WPC,’ I said. ‘They’re really good – I promise.’
And then she gripped my wrist. ‘They won’t want it to go to court, will they?’
‘They’ve got the bloke that did it. They’ll soon get his mates.’
‘Ah, but there’s others where they came from. And the Bill won’t be here every day I come this way, will they?’ She was shaking again.
At last the police were with us, and I looked for someone sympathetic. I found an avuncular man, who might have had daughters the woman’s age.
‘Assault,’ I said. ‘And I’d reckon it was indecent.’
And then I registered two more facts. There was no sign of Richard; and a paramedic unit was hurtling through the car park. I started to run. I remembered all too clearly his shortness of breath, his grey face. Not Richard, not a heart attack. Please, God.
‘Is he OK? He’s a friend of mine!’
But they were too busy to bother with me.
No one spoke to anyone that day without asking for news of him. At last, I couldn’t bear the official silence any longer, and I phoned the Principal.
‘Forgive me, Sophie, but I must tell you I think you are over-reacting.’
‘Mr Worrall, there are some two hundred and fifty people in this college who respect and care for Richard. We all of us need to know.’
‘I will ask Personnel to phone the hospital and put a notice on the Staff board.’
‘I think I can manage that myself, thank you very much.’
Casualty were happy to tell me that Mr Jeffreys hadn’t had a coronary incident, but was under observation for gallstones. I could visit him later if I wanted.
I wanted.
When I saw him from the ward door, his face unguarded, Richard was wan and miserable. He wheeled to face me as soon as he heard my voice: it was difficult to work out his reaction. But I found myself shaking hands with him and leaving my hand in his long enough for it to become a clasp. Then the conversation turned to prosaic matters: keys, burglar alarms, pyjamas. I’d drop a suitcase before heading off to the meeting of the Midshire Symphony Orchestra’s Friendly Society, of which I was a trustee: why did it have to be this evening?
Andy obviously couldn’t wait to leave. Although the police had told him to stay put until all the i’s had been dotted, his bag stood ready-packed by the front door. Of the man himself there was no sign. I picked up some books, my Discman and a variety of CDs to keep Richard entertained. I’d just locked the house when I remembered I’d still got Chris’s little spray in my bag: I fished it out. Might as well put it back now. But I was cutting it fine if I wanted to pick up Richard’s stuff, so I slipped it in my pocket. I’d better ignore the message on my answering machine, too. I’d phone whoever it was when I got back: the meeting shouldn’t finish very late.
Richard’s house seemed gloomier than I remembered it. Sheila had taken all her house-plants and a lot of books, and it no longer seemed inhabited. I gathered his clothes, uneasy at rifling through other people’s drawers, albeit by invitation. His socks seemed pathetically small for such a solid man. I could find nothing better than a Tesco’s carrier to put them in.
I resumed my journey. Nowhere to park, of course: it’s all very well having these mega-hospitals, but the planners never seem to remember the elementary principle that people have to get there and that public transport has never quite recovered from being de-regulated. Another car and I circled endlessly until a Mini sidled out of a child-sized space. Since my rival was a big Vauxhall and I was in my little Renault, there was no contest. But he stayed in the aisle, as if he hoped I’d change my mind.
The curtains round Richard’s bed were closed. I assumed tact in the face of bedpans was in order and hovered a little way off.
‘He’s been taken bad,’ said a voice; it belonged to the occupant of the bed I was hovering near. ‘Your dad’s been taken real bad. Oxygen.’
‘Oxygen?’
‘Giving him oxygen. Look.’ He nodded downw
ards.
There were a lot of feet by Richard’s bed. I sat hard on his neighbour’s chair. ‘How bad? Heart?’
‘You’ll have to speak up, me duck.’
‘Heart?’
‘No! Me bronicals.’
‘That man – is it his heart?’ I had spoken loud enough to wake the dead and a head popped out from the curtains, which were then pushed aside a couple of feet. A spotty male face peered at me. ‘Richard says, if you’re Sophie, tell her he’s all right. Asthma.’
‘Is that all?’ I was on my feet and through the curtain.
‘Been neglecting myself a bit,’ Richard said, pulling down an oxygen mask. ‘I’m fine,’ he insisted, although he palpably wasn’t.
‘Obviously,’ I nodded. ‘Never do things by half, do you, Richard? A master of bathos, to boot. Two heart attacks in one day and neither’s genuine.’
He started to chuckle.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t fall and break a couple of bones while you were about it. No, you’re not supposed to laugh – go on, have a bit more air. I’ll hang on until you can tell me how you want them to run William Murdock in your absence.’
The Vauxhall was packed in the aisle when I got back, but there was no sign of the driver. At least he hadn’t blocked me in, though a couple of other drivers were hanging round cursing.
Moseley next. And although there were plenty of opportunites for anyone to overtake, the car that had followed me from the car park stuck with me all the way to Aberlene’s, where the meeting was to be held. I half-expected the driver to stop and make some derogatory, chauvinistic comment about my driving, but he went straight past.
Shrugging, I rang Aberlene’s doorbell. The next three hours were dedicated to finding new trustees for the Friendly Society. The most recent nominations hadn’t been the most felicitous choices: they were awaiting trial for fraud, though happily not, as it happened, against us.
The meeting over, I’d got as far as the traffic lights in Moseley when I realised I was being tailed again. Some of Chris’s mates in Traffic, no doubt. Well, good for them. This time I’d really irritate them by doing a precise twenty-nine miles an hour. There was a satisfactory tailback by the time I’d reached the Russell Road Island.
Everyone else had overtaken me by Edgbaston Cricket Ground, but the tail remained where it was. By now I was really peeved. I stabbed into third, and felt the car surge. The Montego behind me surged too: in fact, he gained on me. I floored the throttle.
He couldn’t be going to overtake here! Not here, where the road was narrow – there wasn’t even a pavement – and twisting along the high wall of the golf course boundary.
He was.
OK. I could handle him. I braked hard, so hard I thought for a moment he might ram me.
But he didn’t ram. He cut in front of me so sharply I had to brake to a standstill, to the accompaniment of a nasty scraping noise from my nearside. Then he accelerated hard away. What the hell—? I got out to look at the damage, taking the torch I keep in the glovebox, but I was shaking so much the circle of light jiggled and danced. And then the spread of light got bigger. A car, approaching fast, my side of the road. Heading fast for my car. My legs.
And nowhere to run except that solid wall.
I was on the Renault’s bonnet before I knew it, scrabbling desperately on what had been immaculate paint. Could I risk looking back? Yes, it was the Montego. He’d been round the island. All I had to throw was my torch as the driver lunged out of the door: pity it wasn’t bigger and heavier. Big as his baseball bat.
On the roof now, teetering and slipping. I grabbed at the wall, and heaved. Out of training. My arms and shoulders screamed.
The area was wooded: no fairways just here. While the lying snow gave me light, it covered roots and hollows. If I didn’t break my leg first he might break his. I could hear if not see the Club House – someone must be having mammoth shindig. Perhaps they’d save me some booze. Perhaps they’d save me full-stop.
He was closer. Very close. Heavy breaths.
As I ran and swerved something banged repeatedly against my hip. I closed my hand on it briefly: Chris’s spray. But the brief reassurance cost me concentration. My right ankle twisted and I was down, crashing hard on my arm and shoulder. He was nearly on me! I rolled, like they do in the movies, and grabbed at the spray. Holding it as if it were a gun with a huge recoil I waited until I could see his eyes. And let rip.
Why hadn’t I noticed the balaclava? OK, he was choking nicely, but once he got the balaclava off perhaps he’d strip off the irritant too. And it was only a small aerosol …
No point in hanging around. Get to the noise, to the people. My arm was too weak to give me proper leverage, but I was up again, trying to hold it with the left hand while I ran. Yes! People behind big windows. The door? I’d never been to the place, I wasn’t the golf club type, I’d no idea how to get in.
And he was moving again.
A terrace. A terrace, with empty glasses on the steps. No one there now. No one, except him and me. I banged the window: they waved back. All as happy as newts.
A door. And then he was on me. No baseball bat, but he’d seen the glasses. A pint beer glass, the sort with a handle – he smashed the side off against the wall. A little shield for him, with a good grip. Nothing for me to throw. Nothing to hide behind.
A scream. And another. Mine. I could scream till he got my throat. Kick my shoe off. Watch it break the window. All those men in dinner jackets. All old, all frail, but enough. Not to catch him. But to make him turn tail.
And rich enough to offer me a choice of malts while we waited for the police.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Malpass was in police custody – that was the good news. We were in Rose Road Police Station to hear it.
‘Though whether he’ll be fit to plead is another matter,’ Stephenson said, leaning back in Chris’s chair. ‘You’ve got some odd friends, Mr Rivers.’
‘Why? What I can’t understand is why, for God’s sake.’
‘He’s not saying much that makes sense, to be absolutely honest. I thought it might be good if you enlightened us.’
‘Does the victim usually have to explain the reason for the attack?’ Andy asked. His voice was so quiet and reasonable it was obvious he was trying not to hit her.
‘I mean, if you could give us some idea of the line our questioning should take.’
‘I’ve been over this God knows how many times. He was a cousin of a woman I married, who left me for another man. She had a drug habit and died. Though we were no longer together I started my anti-drugs work. Then I suppose the Third World stuff got more important.’
‘Has he said anything about wanting to kill Andy?’
She’d have withered me, had not long practice at dealing scathing looks inured me to those from other people. ‘His solicitor would scarcely encourage such revelations. He babbles about just desserts. He’s using a biblical turn of phrase at the moment.’
‘Pride goeth before a fall and an haughty spirit before something or other,’ I suggested.
‘Exactly.’
‘My question about killing Andy wasn’t as stupid as it may have sounded,’ I said. ‘You see, if Malpass knew Andy’s routine, he’d know he never went on to a gantry or anywhere dangerous. If Andy had taken that concoction during a performance, all – all! – he’d have had was some visual disturbances and problems with his hearing. He’d have staggered round, as if he were drunk. He’d have looked a complete fool.’ Not like the body spread-eagled on the stage.
‘Quite.’
‘Perhaps he just wanted to grab the headlines with news that I was on drugs again, so I’d lose credibility. Death by a thousand media cuts! But then he did seem to want to kill me – all those flowers and wreaths, for God’s sake. And he seemed quite keen to finish Sophie off last night.’
Shuddering, I huddled into my sweater. It wasn’t often I took a sickie, but I’d have taken one today – if I hadn�
�t been helping the police, as it were, with their enquiries.
‘Perhaps things just snowballed,’ Ian put in. ‘Oh. Bad choice of word, that.’
We smiled, thinly.
‘Whatever his motivation, we shall have to wait – shit, sorry, sir!’ Stephenson was on her feet.
‘It’s OK – it’s your case, Diane. Stay where you are.’ Chris took a visitor’s chair, out of my line of vision.
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘how Malpass managed to be resurrected. You see, the last I knew was that his body had been found in the house opposite mine and was carted off to the morgue. If I’d known he was up and about again, I’d have been –’
‘Scared shitless?’ Andy suggested.
‘I was about to say, more circumspect. But you’re right, too. Seriously, shouldn’t I have been warned?’
‘Please keep calm,’ Stephenson said.
‘I think losing one’s temper is a reasonable response to nearly losing one’s life,’ I said, cold and controlled as I was in the classroom. ‘Don’t you?’
‘My officers tried to warn you—’
‘Warn? Let’s get this straight. You believe Malpass is dead. You find on formal identification that it isn’t Malpass – do you know who it is yet, by the way? – because he’s got the wrong colour hair and is five inches taller. You fail to notify me that the man who’s been tailing my cousin and me is still alive and well. Smacks of negligence to me.’
‘I understand,’ said Chris, making me jump, ‘that you were not at your desk at William Murdock and had not notified your line manager where you were. A message was left on your answering machine. Officers were warned to keep a watch on you. We followed you as far as the hospital, but—’
‘My line manager knew perfectly well where I was. I was at his bedside, in a ward at hospital. No, you people have put me at considerable risk, and I’m very far from happy.’
The room became icy with tension: there was a terrible silence. Andy stared stony-faced at the floor; Ian, his mouth a thin line of disapproval, stared at a point six inches over my head. Whatever Chris was doing, he wouldn’t be beaming encouragement: at least, not at me.
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